Most of the reading orders I’ve seen online concentrate on arranging material in internal chronological order, fitting component media like puzzle pieces to fill in a complete narrative. These are a little different.
Don’t get me wrong there’s nothing wrong with a chronological reading order. For some stories, like comic crossover events, they can be vital for understanding the narrative. But I also find that this kind of reading order can miss part of the context of shared universe storytelling or flatten plot and character development by scrambling stories written across very different points in a creators career together. Because of this, I’ve become a big advocate of reading series in release order rather than trying to establish some kind of internal chronology.
When looking at work from a single author this lets you see that writers craft develop, as well as what elements of their work are interesting to them and get emphasized or diminished as time goes on. In works from multiple authors, especially in a shared universe, this approach lets you see the greater context of a setting as well as get a better sense of what the development of that setting felt like. In both cases it also helps to limit late arrival spoilers.
So in keeping with that the reading orders posted here are listed in Publication rather than chronological order. In the cases of stuff like novel or short story series that’s all you need to know, but in the case of comics I’ve generally grouped arcs or storylines together for the sake of sanity. Where possible I have listed where comic issues, short stories or other serialized works are collected.
Too Many Thoughts 