Zero Hour - Which comics should I read?

[Bruce___Wayne]

I have put together the following list for the Zero Hour arc, however I'm collecting a lot at the moment and I'm on a tight budget, so my question is, which aren't tied in much/which ones aren't really relevant to the Zero Hour arc.

The issues I've collected so far this week are in green

Showcase 94 - #8
Showcase 94 - #9
Zero Hour: Crisis In Time 4
Batman 511
The Flash #94
Superboy #8
Superman: Man Of Steel 37
Zero Hour: Crisis In Time 3
Shadow Of The Bat 31
JLA #92
Superman #93
Zero Hour: Crisis In Time 2
Adventures of Superman #516
Detective Comics 678
Teen Titans #24
Zero Hour: Crisis In Time 1
Action Comics #703
Catwoman 14
Justice League International #68
Robin 10
Zero Hour: Crisis In Time 0
Batman 0
The Flash 0
Superboy 0
Superman: Man Of Steel 0
Shadow Of The Bat 0
JLA 0
Superman 0
Adventures of Superman 0
Legend Of The Dark Knight 0
Detective Comics 0
Catwoman 0
Robin 0

[Jeff Brady]

The miniseries is all you need. The 0 issues are just revised origins for each character. They are not part of the Zero Hour story. The other tie-ins just show how reality is breaking down for the individual characters.

[FanboyStranger]

Legion of Superheroes 60-61, Legionaires 17-18, and Valor 22-23 fill in the gaps as far as what was going on with the Legion, so the three founders walking into the entropy wave makes a bit more sense. Not essential, though.

Most of the "O" issues develop the new origin and/or new status quo of characters. Starman 0 is the best of those issues.

[Montressor]

I enjoyed the Legion stuff, being a huge Mon El fan, and at the time he was going through some trippy stuff revolving around Zero Hour. I was a HUGE fan of the 'Five Years Later' Legion, and the 0 issue threw me completely off--I thought it was a flashback retelling the origin, then we'd get right back to the Five Years Later stuff. I re-read the Legion Zero Hour issues leading up to 0 and actually called the DC offices--getting the Legion's editor at the time on the phone, name escapes me--and asked if this was a complete reboot of the series, which he confirmed. It was the birth of the Archie Legion. :(

[Bruce___Wayne]

Thanks for the replies, if the 0 issues aren't relevent to the story line i'll probably not get anymore of them.

However, what about the issues such as Shadow of the Bat 31 and Superman 93 etc, are they related to the storyline or did they just happen along side it?

Thanks for any help

[dupersuper]

Thanks for the replies, if the 0 issues aren't relevent to the story line i'll probably not get anymore of them.

However, what about the issues such as Shadow of the Bat 31 and Superman 93 etc, are they related to the storyline or did they just happen along side it?

Thanks for any help

The 0 issues are cool if you like Year 1 type stuff. Other than the aforementioned Legion books, none really tie in importantly to the mini: so that's all you need. The Superman books, Warrior, Green Lantern, (the 1st 2 issues of) Aquaman and Green Arrow fill you in on those characters nicely though, which Team Titans and Hawkman also touch on...and Flash of course tells you where the heck Flash went. You could read JLI to find out about Power Girls baby, but I've heard that story sucks. But yeah: none are needed.

[darima80]

Thanks for the replies, if the 0 issues aren't relevent to the story line i'll probably not get anymore of them.

However, what about the issues such as Shadow of the Bat 31 and Superman 93 etc, are they related to the storyline or did they just happen along side it?

Thanks for any help

I have all of them and can honestly say that you don't need any of the other issues since all they do is show you how the events of Zero Hour are affecting those characters. Like others mentioned, the "End of an Era" arc from LoSH, Legionnaires and Valor add a bit more to the story, but are not in any way essential.

That being said, if you'd like to have the books where the "displaced" heroes came into the timeline you can get:

Adventure of Superman #518 (Alpha Centurion)
Batman #511 (Batgirl)
Guy Gardner: Warrior #24 (follows Batgirl and Guy)
Justice League America #92, Justice League Task Force #16 and Justice League International #68 ("Return of the Hero" 1-3 which introduces Triumph as an original JL founder)

All the other books just happened alongside it and if I remember correctly something simultaneously happened in all the books for that particular week. Like for example, the week that Kyle Rayner sent Superman's message to all the super-heroes in "Zero Hour" the books that came out that week showed the title characters receiving that message. In addition, the books that came out the same week as Zero Hour #1 end the same way as that issue, with everything being consumed by the entropy wave and fading to white.

[StoopKidLivesOn]

Flash: Terminal Velocity shows the fallout of Flash 0.

[marshal99]

Thanks for the replies, if the 0 issues aren't relevent to the story line i'll probably not get anymore of them.

However, what about the issues such as Shadow of the Bat 31 and Superman 93 etc, are they related to the storyline or did they just happen along side it?

Thanks for any help

If you just want to read the main story , the zero hour mini series pretty much covers it - out of the tie-ins , Green Lantern 0 would be the one to get as that one happens directly after the mini series.

HOWEVER , the tie-ins are fun to read as most of them are one-off issues relating to the multiverse intercepting with the regular DCU so you'll get stuffs like post-crisis superboy meeting pre-crisis superboy (superboy 8) or robin III (Tim) meeting robin I (Dick) (Robin 10) or Superman meeting the batmen of different eras (man of steel 37) or the bumbling fat golden age alfred replacing the alfred that we know , superman meeting his kryptonian parents or batman discovering a reality where his parents lived and he died instead the night of the robbery etc. Mostly one-off issues.



Frank Miller Dark Knight meets the Neal Adams batman.


Joined by the Bob Kane Batman.

[stingo]

Zero Hour was a mixed bag for this fan. DC momentarily took away the Golden Age JSA from us fans (HMMM...Starting to notice a trend here!). HOWEVER...The best thing to come from this mini-series, in my humble opinion, was James Robinson's remarkable Starman series. Truly a pivotal moment in the development and evolution of the comic book.

[Mat001]

The two Showcase issues serve as a prelude to the main series. They were collected in the trade. Green Lantern #0 is the only one that serves as an epilogue to the main series. The Flash #94 shows you how Wally winds up where he is in issue #4.

However, what about the issues such as Shadow of the Bat 31 and Superman 93 etc, are they related to the storyline or did they just happen along side it?

The first week's worth of tie-ins take place during issue #4 and portions of those stories are replicated in the book. The rest of the tie-ins take place between panels of the main issue that was put out that week. Steel #8 takes place in week one, even though it came out in week three and did not carry the banner denoting it was a tie-in. All tie-ins for issue #1, end on a cliffhanger note, though Robin #14 is contradicted in "Zero Hour" #1. Then it goes "Zero Hour" #0 and then Green Lantern #0, which was the only one to not recap the origin as that was covered in GL #55.

[Montressor]

The Superboy and Superman issues posted above are by far my favorite Zero Hour tie-ins, along with anything Mon El related.