Written by Matheus
Filmmaker by day, Wishlistmaker by night. Kamala Khan’s unofficial PR team since 2014.
Darwyn Cooke Reading Order: How to Explore the Best of a Modern Comics Legend
If there's any consensus on the comic world is this: Darwyn Cooke had an untouchable career. His legendary artistry was taken away too soon, but what he left is enough to forever cement his place among the greatest.
Who is he and why is he so legendary?
Darwyn Cooke's art style is what you can call retro modern comics - an ode to times passed. Times of smooth lines, moral clarity (the good guys vs. the bad guys), and, in short, sequential art being thought of, well, as sequential art (What a holy plot twist, Batman!) You can hear the POWS and BANGS screaming to you to flip the page.
In those characters' eyes, though, Cooke's stories were always soulful - set in that mystical environment we all know, where comic books might as well be called jazz.
He was a designer and he brought that to his comics. His previous work includes years as a storyboard artist for DCAU (DC Animated Universe). This means, shows like Batman/Superman Adventures and Batman Beyond - including the iconic opening that sold the show to an entire generation. When he jumped into comics, he got Eisner and Harvey to spare.
In what order should I read Darwyn Cooke’s DC books?
Most of his work came in minisseries, not on-going. So you can jump-in wherever you want.
This Darwyn Cooke reading order will help you find some of his best works. These include: Batman: Ego, Catwoman: Selina’s Big Score, DC: The New Frontier, The Spirit, and the Parker series. Additionally, this reading order will also try to translate a bit of his music into words.
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What should I start with Darwyn Cooke's DC Comics?
Batman: Ego (2000)
What a debut!
When Matt Reeves showed his movie The Batman, he emphasized this graphic novel as a key inspiration.
This is a graphic novel focused on Batman's identity and deep exploration of the duality of his mission statement. This is a clear reading of the character.
It might even compete with Batman: Year One for this honor. This is especially true for modern Batman interpretations. A work that put into pages a bible that Grant Morrison, Scott Snyder and Tom King would delight themselves in their run.
It all begins with a crime and a suicide. Buster Snibbs could be a tug in the background of any Batman old comics. He works for the Joker and gives his location away leading the hero to a win.
The story continues when Snibbs, afraid of revenge, worries that Batman and the Gotham police can't stop the Joker. To protect his family from the Joker's anger, he kills them all. And then commits suicide.
When Bruce can't stop that, he spirals.
And the only way out of it is a debate. A debate between Bruce Wayne and Batman.
In this abstraction, Cooke will bring you into a Lewis Carroll fantasy horror, which turns the central internal pitch of the ageless character into pictures. Comics!
You can find it in the Batman: Ego and Other Tails Deluxe Edition HC. It is also in the Graphic Ink: The DC Comics Art of Darwyn Cooke HC, along with a few other stories. Or you can go for the maximum deluxe format in the 2026 released Batman by Darwyn Cooke: Absolute Edition HC.
Selina’s Big Score (2002)
Heist movie perfection. Cooke then later would synthesize Selina Kyle's Catwoman persona into a picturesque book. This one feels so clever and agile, it basically bleeds colour into the real world.
Catwoman is a mix of a Bond girl and Bond himself. She serves as a model for Cooke’s later Parker adaptations, though they have different moral views. It utilizes the tropes of the heist genre like the gathering of the crew, the intricate planning, the ticking clock, and the inevitable betrayal. Cooke perfected these with a cinematic pacing.
This graphic novel is a prequel and a great sample of Ed Brubaker's Catwoman of East End. Basically a modern noir with elements of Julia Roberts. Cooke was responsible for the first arc and also for the iconic and newsworthy redesign of the Catwoman suit.
Cooke's goes for simplistic lines without ever losing any of the sexyness forever glued to the character perception - one that Michelle Pfeiffer and Tim Burton made a worldwide selling point. I would argue that it elevates Selina's movements and makes everything a bit more jazzy (and who doesn't love jazzy stuff!)
You can find it in the Catwoman of East End Omnibus HC, which includes the complete run.
Also available is the more affordable Catwoman: Trail of the Catwoman – DC Compact Comics Edition TP.
Additionally, you can get Batman by Darwyn Cooke: Absolute Edition HC. This edition collects everything and adds Ego in the great Absolute format.
DC: The New Frontier (2004)
"If you're gonna read just one DC comic, read this."
"No, if you're gonna read just one superhero comic, read this."
"No, if you're gonna read just one comic…" - you get my gist.
My absolute (and a bunch of others) favorite comic of all-time. So good it makes me tear-uped a bit writing this.
This is as ambitious an epic as anything gets. The comic is a homage to both Golden and Silver Age comics, and in bridging the gap between them. It acts as a magnum opus on the figure of the American hero, unraveling it to the most scenic romantic paintings of blue skies and the inevitable scary angles of their worst impulses.
A masterpiece dressed as a love letter, rewriting itself into a bible guide for anyone interacting with the media one way or another. If it wasn't for the I.P. plastering the cover, it would and should be talked about in the same breath as Watchmen.
It chronicles the DC universe in real time. Going for the Justice Society, Wonder Woman and Superman ascension in the 1930s, to the gruesome reality check of the war. The comics are a juxtaposition to American ideals becoming dreams. These mighty dreams themselves having to understand the horrors in order to be anything at all.
It covers every important event in American history. It challenges the publisher's heroes to see if they survive or thrive through them. The beautiful thing is the way it blends with publishing history. When Silver Age characters like Barry Allen's Flash and Hal Jordan's Green Lantern appear, it feels like the world needs a new dream.
The beauty here is the requests and denials, the cementing and deconstructing. Archetype and reality fighting and harmonizing in Cooke's “simple” lines.
if you ever get made fun of for reading superheros, here's your reclamation.
The story is available in a lot of formats, including the ultra-deluxe Absolute DC: The New Frontier HC, DC: The New Frontier TP and the affordable DC: The New Frontier – DC Compact Comics Edition TP.
Got a sip and want more DC Comics?
Try Superman: Kryptonite:
Darwyn Cooke attempts to do the same introspection he did with Batman. He does that by looking at the one aspect of the mythos that makes him flawed: Kryptonite.
It gives this simple plot device a literal voice. In the argument of what makes Superman supposedly weak, a flaw, Cooke finds Clark. He finds a mother and a father worried about their son being safe but too proud of his heroism to ever do a thing.
He finds a Lois Lane, full of love. She knows she may never get what she wants from that love. To do so, she would have to change it, erasing what she loved in the first place.
A son getting home broken and seeing his parents' faces. A boyfriend not being able to give what he knows she wants.
Kryptonite.
A son getting the strength of his parents and a boyfriend getting the courage from love.
Humanity.
The worst weakness and the greatest strength being put into question. There lies Clark Kent - Superman.
Try Before Watchmen: Minutemen (SERIOUSLY!):
Alan Moore would scream if he ever found himself in a comic shop blog. But the odds of that are greater than trying to touch Watchmen and getting something people will agree on.
The HBO Damon Lindelof show came close for some, like it did for me, but it was faaar from a consensus. So, as you can imagine, fans received this first DC project into the classic with hate and ferocity. For the most part, actually deserved.
If there has ever been anything to it, it’s here, and it’s done by Cooke.
The Minutemen - as figures in this particular universe - were always something worth exploring. Not that everything wasn’t already said in the original, but there was more.
And if the point of the publisher was doing more, then this is it. It gives an empathy that, for a large number of people, can feel lost in the original. And that is Cooke’s strength.
Figures like Silhouette and Hooded Justice gain a New Frontier level of appreciation in the midst of all the cynicism. And you misunderstand Cooke if you think that empathy strips the story of its complexity.
If there's any artistic merit to the whole Before Watchmen project, it's here. It's not a coincidence that I mentioned the TV show. I would bet Lindelof agrees here.
Try The Spirit:
Thanks to Cooke, we also got a brief revival of Will Eisner’s The Spirit.
In my research, I read a quote too good not to share. It said, that if Eisner is the comic version of what Orson Welles is to cinema, then The Spirit is his Citizen Kane.
Noir superhero bonanza with pals and gals and tough guys in hats. In the early 2000s, DC was responsible for bringing it back. And many other not-really-successful attempts would follow.
Cooke worked on a Batman/Spirit crossover to start and then on the first year of the project, both being the best things done with the character that were not produced by Eisner. If Cooke is described all the time with words like retro and hommage (by myself included), then of course he nails the art of revival.
In these issues, I also feel a good debate between artist and character alike. A perpetual display of paying respect while moving forward. The paradox of the comic industry, in a way. Cooke makes 'noir superhero bonanza with pals' with more class conscience, 'gals' with far more modern archetypes of behavior, and largely keeps the hats on the tough guys’ heads.
This one is collected in 2026 in the cool-looking Darwyn Cooke's The Complete Spirit Connoisseur Edition HC.
Cooke also wrote one-shots of characters like Jonah Hex and Green Lantern. You can explore that and other great issues in the Graphic Ink: The DC Comics Art of Darwyn Cooke HC (along with Batman: Ego).
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What is Parker and how do I read it?
In 2009, Darwyn Cooke embarked on what would become the final major phase of his career. A series of graphic novel adaptations of Donald Westlake’s Parker novels (written under the pseudonym Richard Stark). Published by IDW, these books - The Hunter, The Outfit, The Score, and Slayground - represent the best of Cooke’s visual storytelling, stripping his style down to its absolute hardest essentials.
Donald Westlake’s Parker novels are legends of crime fiction. Parker is a professional thief. A ruthless, efficient, and utterly devoid of sentiment one. Very far from any complex duality of any superhero deconstruction.
Parker is a sociopath who views the world through a lens of pure pragmatism. Cooke was drawn to this material because it offered a stark contrast to the altruism of his superhero work. It allowed him to explore the "dark side" of the mid-century era he loved.
Cooke corresponded with Westlake before the author’s death, securing his blessing for the adaptations. Westlake, notoriously protective of his work, was impressed by Cooke’s understanding of the character’s "blank" nature.
The Hunter adapts the first Parker novel, followed by The Outfit, The Score and ending with Slayground. If you want a graphic novel recommendation in the vein of Brubaker and Phillip's Criminal and Killed or Be Killed series, look no further.
Cooke’s adaptation is faithful to the tone but inventive with the medium. He utilizes silent sequences to depict Parker’s methodology.
For example, in the novel, Westlake might spend pages describing Parker forging a document or navigating a city. Cooke compresses this into a silent montage of panels, trusting the reader to follow the visual procedural.
In other, the page divides themselves between prose writing and illustrations, creating a truly surreal experience of storytelling with the best both mediums can offer. A masterclass in adaptation.
All the novels are collected separately, and also together in the Richard Stark's Parker: The Complete Collection TP. But you can also find them on the gorgeous Richard Stark's Parker: The Martini Edition HC deluxe format.
