How The Unnamed Universe’s Timeline Develops

Do you feel a little lost reading Geoff Johns’ epic Geiger series of graphic novels? No wonder because the original comic plus its six follow-ups, including spinoffs, spans the time from 1776 to 2050, and the creator keeps adding to it.

If you then read the graphic novels in the order the creator released them, you’ll find yourself shunted forwards, then backward, then forwards in time. It doesn’t help to try to read them chronologically either, since you then have no context for the characters.

What’s an intrepid, die-hard fan of apocalyptic fiction to do? Read them in the order they came out after studying a backgrounder on the timeline.

The Timeline of the Full Story Arc

While the story starts with Geiger, introduced in “Geiger,” which spans the furthest in the future of the story. Here’s the chronology:

1776 – The Redcoat becomes immortal.

1864 – The Northerner starts his hunt.

1944 – The year man makes The Monster.

1972 – The robot Junkyard Joe goes online.

1997 – The American Widow X exacts her revenge.

2025 – Man first captures The First Ghost on film.

2030 – The Unknown War erupts.

2050 – Geiger walks across America.

So, how confusing does this become? If you’re just picking up Geiger or you thought of starting somewhere else in the series, you can help yourself by going in the order they’re written. If it is already too late and you started somewhere in the middle, which seems like it ought to qualify as close to the beginning, just make a proverbial U-turn and start with Geiger.

Building a Universal Timeline, One Graphic Novel at a Time

In the case of The Unnamed Universe, you need to know the end to understand the beginning and middle. That’s because the story arc encompasses the full events, which influence one another, as well as the full Universe’s struggles to create something new out of what was.

Reading in order lets you consider each character’s contribution to the development of the underlying issues of the characters and the choices each must make. More a work of literature than a comic, the former DC Comics head created an expansive universe that continues to grow as characters come to light.

To best understand the influence of each set of choices on The Unnamed Universe and how the confluence of choices affected the initial world’s destruction, read the comics in order of their release. You’ll discover another benefit to reading them in the intended order when the comic’s creator releases the next spinoffs in the overall story arc – The Redcoat and Junkyard Joe.

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