This digital Elfquest thing has got me pondering reading order (I suspect my imminent exams also have something to do with my dwelling on these thoughts; the alternative is just to horrible to contemplate!), what is the best way to read through the entire story?

Elfquest has been published in several different series, some of them running concurrently, telling simultaneous stories, but with crossovers, which makes it hard to put one ahead of the other. There is also no guarantee that any given issue does not take place before the previous one, with the series like Hidden Years and the other flashbacks. And when they switched to anthology-publishing, I get the impression that chronology varied even more, though I haven’t read these myself yet, so I’m not sure (and this makes planning a reading order even harder, of course.)

How, then, to read it in an order which minimizes spoilers for future issues, but retains a certain chronology? I’ve pondered, studied timelines and mapped it out, and put together this list. Since I don’t know exactly the contents of all the series (and boy, is there a balancing act to reading time lines and avoiding spoilers as best you can!) so it might not be quite right, which is why I’m putting it up here to hopefully get comments from people more knowledgeable than I.

The first three series are easy enough, they’re a story alone, and only after these did the publications split into concurrent runs, so the list begins:

  • All of the original Elfquest.
  • All of Siege at Blue Mountain.
  • All of Kings of the Broken Wheel.

After this is where it gets tricky. Here’s what I have so far:

  • Hidden Years #1-3.
  • New Blood #11 and #12.
  • Hidden Years #8, then #5-7, #9 and #4.
  • All of Kahvi.
  • Hidden Years #9.5-22
  • New Blood #14-35.
  • All of Shards.
  • Hidden Years #23-29.
  • All of Blood of Ten Chiefs.
  • All of Two-Spear.

Two-Spear in particular, I am unsure of, it is possible it should come before Kahvi, in which case Blood of Ten Chiefs should probably follow it as well, to maintain the thematic link. If that is the case, both of them should go before Hidden Years entirely, along with the Wolfrider!-stories.

Which brings me to the next segment, where it really gets messy, since we’re now in the anthology years.

  • The Wolfrider!-stories found in Volume 2 #19, #21, #23, #25, #27, #29, #31 and #33.
  • The Dreamtime-stories found in Volume 2 #4-7, #9-13, #15, #16 and #18.
  • The Wild Hunt-stories found in Metamorphosis* and in Volume 2 #1-7, #10-12, #14, #15, #18, #20-30, #32 and #33.
  • The Fire-Eye-stories found in Metamorphosis and in Volume 2 #1-7, #9-14, #16, #17 an #19-22.
  • The Wavedancers issue, as well as the Wavedancers-stories found in Metamorphosis and in Volume 2 #1, #2, #5, #21, #23, #24, #27, #28, #30 and #31.
  • The Rogue’s Curse stories found in Metamorphosis and in Volume 2 #1, #3, #8-10, #12, #13, #15-17, #20, #22, #24-26 and #28-30.
  • All of The Rebels.
  • All of Jink.
  • The FutureQuest-stories found in Metamorphosis and in Volume 2 #10, #11, #13-15, #17, #19, #20 and #22.

And then finally all the Worldpool “what if?”-stories:

  • New Blood #1-10.
  • The Worldpool-stories in Volume 2 #2-4, #9-27 and #31.

And that’s the list. If anybody has comments, please share them! Now I need dinner.

* I have not been able to determine whether Metamorphosis and Volume 2 #1 is the same thing, or if Metamorphosis was a special. If you know, please tell me!