Welcome to Graphic Policy’s Rebirth Review where we take a look at the comics released under DC‘s Rebirth banner and try to work out just how accessible they are for new readers.

Each comic will receive a rating of Friendly or Unfriendly based on how easy it was for
new readers to pick them up; the ratings are based solely on the issues released in the post-Rebirth ongoing series, with more consideration given for the specific issue being read when it comes to the final rating than the series overall. You may notice that not every comic is covered week to week, and that’s because I have a memory like a sieve and sometimes forget to pick them up. If I have missed an issue, typically I won’t go looking for back issues to to catch up on events – this feature is all about accessibility for new readers, after all.

This week only saw two annuals released, so expect a much shorter post than normal.

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Batman Annual #1 The beauty of this annual is that for the most part the collection of stories within the comic are standalone, taking place at various different times over Bruce Wayne’s history as Batman, but always centered around the holidays. This makes it easily one of the most Friendly Batman comics released thus far, but whether it’ll allow you to ease your way into the other Bat-books is debatable. Still, it’s absolutely worth the price of admission.

Superman Annual #1 Is a little less accessible than the other annual released this week, but has a bit more of a direct connection to the regular series as it instead has Superman and Swamp Thing doing something that, honestly, is largely forgettable; the annual is a good one but far from integral to the story at large, which I feel is not the intention. This is technically a Friendly comic, but I don’t think it’s relevant for your enjoyment of the series.