Ed Brubaker: Where to Start

Ed Brubaker holds a place apart: a writer of noir crime fiction who became one of Marvel's most influential writers, then returned to free creation with the artist Sean Phillips. The bibliography reads like two careers answering each other. On one side, superheroes treated as stories of espionage and betrayal; on the other, tales of criminals, detectives and ghosts, where no one really wins. The right entry point depends on which of the two faces draws you.

As always in this guide, only verified information (creators, issues, dates) is stated as fact; the analysis is our own, with no reproduction of protected pages or dialogue.

What ties very different series together

The same device recurs in almost all of the work: a past that refuses to stay buried. A soldier presumed dead returns as a killer, an undercover agent can no longer get out of a false identity, a thief is caught by a childhood debt. Brubaker builds plots with delayed revelations, with chapters that can be read alone but take on meaning later. This has a practical consequence: the series are read in order, and the first issues deliver only part of the story.

We do not retrace Brubaker's career in this article. There is no dedicated biographical page on the site; the writer page gathers the articles in which Brubaker appears, and our history of the Winter Soldier tells the story of the character's creation. Here, the only question is reading order.

Step 1: Captain America, January 2005

The fifth Captain America series starts with an issue 1 dated January 2005, written by Brubaker and drawn by Steve Epting. The first fourteen issues (2005 and 2006) form the foundation: a forgotten weapons project resurfaces, and an unknown assassin, the Winter Soldier, strikes from the shadows. The reader learns who he is at the end of an arc whose revelation is the engine.

This step comes first because it is the best known and the easiest to join: it requires no reading from before 2005 and breaks down into arcs. The run continues until the hero's death in issue 25 (2007), then the stories that follow; we refer you to our Winter Soldier reading guide for the exact sequence of arcs, and to our ranking for the spin-off series, including the 2012 solo series with Butch Guice (19 issues).

Who this step is for: readers of espionage thrillers, whether or not they know Captain America. The Captain America hub gathers the rest of the character's bibliography.

Step 2: Gotham Central, the Gotham police precinct

Published by DC from 2003 to 2006 in 40 issues, Gotham Central follows Gotham's police officers without ever putting Batman at the center. Brubaker writes in alternation with Greg Rucka, and Michael Lark draws. Renee Montoya and Crispus Allen are major figures. Gotham's great criminals are only threats seen from the street, not stars.

This read is ideal if you like investigation stories: each arc is a case. It also serves as a transition to pure crime fiction, since Lark will rejoin Brubaker on Daredevil. The episodes are read in order but with no heavy mythology to know: it is enough to know who Batman is.

Step 3: Sleeper, the undercover agent

With Sean Phillips, Brubaker launches Sleeper at WildStorm in 2003: twelve issues, then a second season of twelve more, 24 in all. Holden Carver, an agent of a secret organization, is undercover in the camp of a crime boss named Tao, and his only contact is in a coma. The hero can no longer prove which side he is on.

This series is the best example of the Brubaker-Phillips approach before their Image titles: the universe is superheroic, but the tone is that of a spy film. It suits anyone who wants to test this duo without committing to a long-haul series. The two seasons form a closed whole, which simplifies collecting.

Step 4: Criminal, crime fiction without costumes

Launched in 2006 under Marvel's Icon label, with Sean Phillips, Criminal follows thieves, cheats and crooked cops in a single city. The first arc, The Coward, features Leo Patterson, a cautious heist man who accepts a job he should have refused. Each arc can be read on its own, and the characters cross paths from one volume to the next.

It is the most accessible series for those who do not read superheroes: no prior knowledge, no continuity to master. It is also one of the easiest to collect in volumes, arc by arc. If you have only one title to try outside Marvel and DC, this is the one.

Step 5: Daredevil, 2006 to 2009

In the second Daredevil series, Brubaker takes over at issue 82 and writes through issue 119, with Michael Lark on art. Brubaker inherits a dark situation: Matt Murdock has had his public identity exposed and ends up in prison. The prison drama, the arc The Devil in Cell Block D, is one of the high points of the run, and issue 100 is a landmark.

This step comes after the crime stories because it brings the two sides together: a superhero treated as a noir novel. It is for readers ready to jump into a series partway through: it is better to read the last issues of the previous team first, or at least a summary of the situation. Our ranking of Daredevil runs places these years among the other teams, and the Daredevil hub gathers the character's articles.

Step 6: the Image Comics series

The last step is the darkest and the most free. Fatale (2012 to 2014, 24 issues) mixes crime fiction and horror around a woman whom men cannot resist. Velvet (starting in 2013, with Steve Epting, 15 issues) follows a secretary at a spy agency, Velvet Templeton, who goes back into service. Kill or Be Killed (2016 to 2018, 20 issues, with Sean Phillips) is the story of a student who believes he is charged with killing.

These series are all finished and depend on no shared universe. They do ask you to accept unlikable heroes and harsh endings, which explains why they are read after the rest. Each can be assembled in a few volumes, which lets you add them one at a time.

Detours to go further

Two other reads deserve a mention. The Catwoman series of 2002, launched with Darwyn Cooke, turns Selina Kyle into a street-level crime heroine; our run ranking places it at the top of the character's bibliography, and we do not redo the analysis here. Finally, The Immortal Iron Fist (2006 to 2009), written with Matt Fraction and drawn by David Aja, shifts its register toward martial arts and pulp.

For those who want to go back to the sources, Scene of the Crime (Vertigo, 1999), a four-issue miniseries drawn by Michael Lark, is Brubaker's first crime story at a major publisher: a San Francisco private detective, a disappearance, and already the taste for families who lie to each other. Point Blank (WildStorm, 2002), drawn by Colin Wilson, serves as a direct prologue to Sleeper; reading it first avoids entering the spy series through a side door. On the Marvel side, X-Men: Deadly Genesis (2006, six issues) opens the period in which Brubaker writes Uncanny X-Men, with the long saga of the Shi'ar empire: it is the cosmic and least noir side of the body of work, to keep for the end of the path. Finally, with Sean Phillips, the graphic novels of the Reckless series, launched in 2020, extend Criminal as complete albums, with no passage through single issues: a rare case for a collector, who will have only one format to follow here.

How to read: single issues or collected editions

For the Image Comics series, the collected volume is the natural format: each volume carries a complete arc, with its covers. For Captain America, Daredevil and Gotham Central, the choice is a real one. Arc-by-arc collections are enough for reading; omnibus volumes exist for those who prefer one book per period. Single issues are for the collector aiming at a specific issue, such as the first of the 2005 series.

The most useful thing is to set yourself a rule. Read in collections first, note the arcs that stayed with you, then look for single issues of only those. For the first issue of the 2005 Captain America, make sure you are comparing the 2005 series and not another series with the same title, because volumes are numbered separately. And always compare the asking price to the last completed sale price, not the price shown in a single listing.

Recap: the recommended order

• Step 1: Captain America (Marvel, since January 2005, with Steve Epting), the Winter Soldier run.
• Step 2: Gotham Central (DC, 2003 to 2006, 40 issues), the police procedural.
• Step 3: Sleeper (WildStorm, 2003, 24 issues), the infiltration.
• Step 4: Criminal (2006), crime fiction without costumes.
• Step 5: Daredevil (Marvel, issues 82 to 119), the superhero noir novel.
• Step 6: Fatale, Velvet and Kill or Be Killed (Image Comics), the darkest.

If you remember only one piece of advice: start with the 2005 Captain America run if you like superheroes, with Criminal if you avoid them. The rest follows from one or the other, and the blog offers other writer paths.

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