If Superman #8 and Action Comics #591 were my proper introduction to Superman in the comics then Who’s Who Update ’87 was my proper introduction to the DC Universe as a whole.

The first issue of this mini-series was on the stands right around the time I picked up the middle chapter of the storyline that (unbeknownst to me at the time) tried to explain how the Legion of Super-Heroes could still be inspired by Superboy and have had Superboy as a member when…you know…there wasn’t a Superboy anymore. With the exception of issue 2, which eluded me for years, I bought the entire series off the spinner rack at The Super Fresh (hi, Chris Franklin) and poured over each one, reading them again and again. I was eased into the DCU slowly and never felt confused or lost.

Actually, that’s not true. There was one point that I felt a bit lost. During the Watchmen entry is described Dr. Manhattan as someone that perceived time all at once and I have to admit that eleven-year-old me was a bit baffled by that. What does that even mean? Years later, around 1997, I finally read Watchmen and it made a lot more sense.

Other than that I was fine.

I’ll always love this series. And I’ll always appreciate that it was there for me. As I have banged on about again and again I was all on my own when I started reading comics. It allowed me to learn about the DCU in an easily digestible form and gave me a road map when I started buying back issues. A lot of my early choices were based on what I read in this series. This created some “problems” because the entries spoiled a lot of what I was reading, which gave me this weird sense of deja vu. I think this is why I don’t have a huge issues with spoilers in general because during the early part of my fan career I was hit with them again and again.

Seriously…spoilers don’t bug me.

Usually.

More to follow…