So, the first thing is, yes, I get that the DCU is intimidating. Most of what I know about it is second-hand osmosis information I gleaned from being friends with geeks (well, until reasonably recently that is) and even I feel kind of intimidated at times and am like, "am I supposed to know who this is? Um?"
So the best thing I can suggest doing on this front is just jumping in. I can rec you stuff that's fairly standalone, but I find the best approach to have - at least for me - is not to worry about the decades of continuity, etc., because it's just insane and also, it's constantly being rebooted either partially or completely and it's just an exercise in frustration. I wrote a bit recently about my interactions with the DCU and I mostly view it as like, a mythic cycle and a pantheon of deities about which we tell stories - usually reinventions of the same damn stories.
With that in mind, I recommend Greg Rucka's run on Wonder Woman Volume 2 195 - 226, and Gail Simone's run on Wonder Woman Volume 3 14 - 44. Both tell fairly self-contained stories that I think are enjoyable even if you know not a lot about the DCU as long as you're willing to occasionally go, "okay, that's probably a reference for fans," or, "okay, I'm not sure who this is, but I guess I'm finding out!" It's what I did and it worked out pretty well for me. Occasionally I searched a character out on wiki if I was really curious. That works quite well, though I recommend using regular wikipedia if it has an entry rather than the official DCU wiki because the regular wikipedia will be geared more towards people who don't know that much about the DCU, while the DC wiki is geared towards fans and will give you exhaustive and confusing breakdowns of every version of the character in every parallel dimension or pocket universe or aborted timeline and just...lots of stuff you don't need.
The other thing I'd say is, try to view the Simone run as a thematic and partially literal continuation of Rucka's run, but don't sweat that they do not match entirely. This is because in between the two runs there's a big time jump, a giant DCU crossover event which reshuffled the nature of reality, AND issues 1 - 13 of Wonder Woman Vol. 3 which aren't really that spectacularly great to read, but do contain some more plot. You could read those if you wanted, though it's not necessary - Simone's first story feels like a first story.
As I said, both runs work quite well in isolation, but if you try to connect the two, then you become aware of the missing pieces. My suggestion is to read one or the other (I actually read Simone, then went back and read Rucka even though it's chronologically earlier and it worked fine for me), if you like it, read the author's run you didn't read, then if you're curious, fill in the blanks in the middle! :p
And...that's probably done the opposite of allay your fears about jumping into the DCU.
If that does sound too intimidating, the ENTIRE DCU is being relaunched in September. It's not entirely a reboot as the characters aren't going back to their origin stories and certain key events from their histories are likely to be kept around, but it is a conscious effort to start again at Issue #1 and tell a story that doesn't need you to know what came before.
I don't know if Wonder Woman will be any good (because honestly, right now it isn't, but it's being given to a new person to write), but, um, it's certainly an unintimidating place to start?
Let me know if you want a list of the graphic novels the issues have been collected in or suggestions on where to get hold of them or somesuch.
no subject
So, the first thing is, yes, I get that the DCU is intimidating. Most of what I know about it is second-hand osmosis information I gleaned from being friends with geeks (well, until reasonably recently that is) and even I feel kind of intimidated at times and am like, "am I supposed to know who this is? Um?"
So the best thing I can suggest doing on this front is just jumping in. I can rec you stuff that's fairly standalone, but I find the best approach to have - at least for me - is not to worry about the decades of continuity, etc., because it's just insane and also, it's constantly being rebooted either partially or completely and it's just an exercise in frustration. I wrote a bit recently about my interactions with the DCU and I mostly view it as like, a mythic cycle and a pantheon of deities about which we tell stories - usually reinventions of the same damn stories.
With that in mind, I recommend Greg Rucka's run on Wonder Woman Volume 2 195 - 226, and Gail Simone's run on Wonder Woman Volume 3 14 - 44. Both tell fairly self-contained stories that I think are enjoyable even if you know not a lot about the DCU as long as you're willing to occasionally go, "okay, that's probably a reference for fans," or, "okay, I'm not sure who this is, but I guess I'm finding out!" It's what I did and it worked out pretty well for me. Occasionally I searched a character out on wiki if I was really curious. That works quite well, though I recommend using regular wikipedia if it has an entry rather than the official DCU wiki because the regular wikipedia will be geared more towards people who don't know that much about the DCU, while the DC wiki is geared towards fans and will give you exhaustive and confusing breakdowns of every version of the character in every parallel dimension or pocket universe or aborted timeline and just...lots of stuff you don't need.
The other thing I'd say is, try to view the Simone run as a thematic and partially literal continuation of Rucka's run, but don't sweat that they do not match entirely. This is because in between the two runs there's a big time jump, a giant DCU crossover event which reshuffled the nature of reality, AND issues 1 - 13 of Wonder Woman Vol. 3 which aren't really that spectacularly great to read, but do contain some more plot. You could read those if you wanted, though it's not necessary - Simone's first story feels like a first story.
As I said, both runs work quite well in isolation, but if you try to connect the two, then you become aware of the missing pieces. My suggestion is to read one or the other (I actually read Simone, then went back and read Rucka even though it's chronologically earlier and it worked fine for me), if you like it, read the author's run you didn't read, then if you're curious, fill in the blanks in the middle! :p
And...that's probably done the opposite of allay your fears about jumping into the DCU.
If that does sound too intimidating, the ENTIRE DCU is being relaunched in September. It's not entirely a reboot as the characters aren't going back to their origin stories and certain key events from their histories are likely to be kept around, but it is a conscious effort to start again at Issue #1 and tell a story that doesn't need you to know what came before.
I don't know if Wonder Woman will be any good (because honestly, right now it isn't, but it's being given to a new person to write), but, um, it's certainly an unintimidating place to start?
Let me know if you want a list of the graphic novels the issues have been collected in or suggestions on where to get hold of them or somesuch.