Chuck Dixon

Batman: Knightfall Omnibus Vol. 1 begins the Bane saga by turning Gotham into a gauntlet. Arkham's inmates are loose, Batman is forced through fight after fight, and Bane waits for exhaustion to do what brute strength alone cannot: make the Dark Knight break.

No Man's Land is the year DC declared Gotham dead. After the earthquake of Cataclysm, the United States government evacuates the city, dynamites the bridges and leaves whoever stays behind to divide the ruins into territories. The premise strips Batman of everything except the city itself: no infrastructure, no law, and gang leaders marking blocks with spray paint. It is also where Cassandra Cain becomes Batgirl. Volume 1 is the opening third of the crossover, in reading order across every Bat-title, which is the only way it works.

Road to No Man's Land is the run-up to DC's biggest Batman event of the nineties. A cataclysmic earthquake levels Gotham, and these are the months in which the city falls apart before Washington writes it off entirely. This is the volume most readers skip and then need: No Man's Land makes far more sense when you have watched Bane escape, Azrael struggle for legitimacy and Gotham's infrastructure fail one system at a time. Chuck Dixon coordinates a dozen titles into a single collapse, and the omnibus finally puts the whole crossover in reading order instead of scattered across four series.

Batman: Knightfall Omnibus Vol. 2 collects Knightquest, the middle movement of the saga where Jean-Paul Valley takes over as Batman. Gotham gets a more violent Dark Knight, while Scarecrow, the Joker, Gunhawk and others test what happens when the symbol is worn without Bruce Wayne's restraint.

Batman and Spawn crossed over twice in 1994, once from each publisher, with Frank Miller and Doug Moench writing and Todd McFarlane and Klaus Janson drawing. The 1994 books are a document of the moment Image was outselling DC and the two companies had to negotiate as equals. The 2022 one-shot is the reason to buy it now: McFarlane and Capullo, the two definitive Spawn and Batman artists, on the same book for the first time.

Grant Morrison and Mark Millar wrote The Flash together in the late nineties, immediately after Mark Waid, with Wally West already established as the fastest man alive. The Human Race is the standout: an alien gambler challenges the Flash to a race across the universe with Earth as the stake, and Morrison writes it as pure high concept. The Black Flash, death itself, running to catch up, is the other lasting idea, and DC has used it ever since.

Batman: Knightfall, collected complete as a pack of 3 oversized omnibus volumes and cheaper than buying them one by one. Batman: Knightfall Omnibus Vol. 1 begins the Bane saga by turning Gotham into a gauntlet. Arkham's inmates are loose, Batman is forced through fight after fight, and Bane waits for exhaustion to do what brute strength alone cannot: make the Dark Knight break. Batman: Knightfall Omnibus Vol. 2 collects Knightquest, the middle movement of the saga where Jean-Paul Valley takes over as Batman. Gotham gets a more violent Dark Knight, while Scarecrow, the Joker, Gunhawk and others test what happens when the symbol is worn without Bruce Wayne's restraint. Batman: Knightfall Omnibus Vol. 3 closes the saga with KnightsEnd, as Bruce Wayne retrains with Lady Shiva and moves to reclaim the Batman mantle. Jean-Paul Valley's new Batman keeps escalating, while Robin and Nightwing help watch the damage caused by a symbol losing its moral centre.

Batman: No Man's Land, collected as a pack of 3 oversized omnibus volumes and cheaper than buying them one by one. Road to No Man's Land is the run-up to DC's biggest Batman event of the nineties. A cataclysmic earthquake levels Gotham, and these are the months in which the city falls apart before Washington writes it off entirely. This is the volume most readers skip and then need: No Man's Land makes far more sense when you have watched Bane escape, Azrael struggle for legitimacy and Gotham's infrastructure fail one system at a time. Chuck Dixon coordinates a dozen titles into a single collapse, and the omnibus finally puts the whole crossover in reading order instead of scattered across four series. No Man's Land is the year DC declared Gotham dead. After the earthquake of Cataclysm, the United States government evacuates the city, dynamites the bridges and leaves whoever stays behind to divide the ruins into territories. The premise strips Batman of everything except the city itself: no infrastructure, no law, and gang leaders marking blocks with spray paint. It is also where Cassandra Cain becomes Batgirl. Volume 1 is the opening third of the crossover, in reading order across every Bat-title, which is the only way it works. The second act of No Man's Land, with Gotham still abandoned by the United States and divided into territories held by whoever can defend them. This is where the crossover stops being about survival and starts being about who gets to govern: the Penguin running an economy, Two-Face holding a courthouse, and Batman losing ground he cannot afford. Reading it in the omnibus order is the only way the parallel storylines make sense.

Bruce Wayne: Murderer and Fugitive is the year DC arrested Batman's alter ego for homicide and made the Bat-family investigate their own mentor. The interesting half is the second one: Bruce responds to the frame-up by deciding Bruce Wayne was always the disguise and refusing to go back, which forces everyone around him to argue that the man matters as much as the mask. It is the best use DC has made of the secret identity in decades.

Nightwing: Year One tells the story DC had left as a gap for twenty years: how Dick Grayson stopped being Robin and became something of his own. Chuck Dixon wrote Nightwing for a decade and this is his retrospective origin: Batman fires Dick, and the story is about a young man discovering that being cut loose is the best thing that could have happened. Scott McDaniel draws movement better than anyone who has handled the character since.

Knightsend is the third act of Knightfall: Bruce Wayne has recovered, Jean-Paul Valley is still wearing the cowl, and he has no intention of giving it back. Knightfall broke Batman and KnightQuest showed the replacement failing; this is the volume where the argument gets settled. The Lady Shiva training sequence is the best material Bruce gets in the whole crossover, and the final confrontation works because Azrael is not wrong about everything.

A new Batman’s deadly crusade against the criminals of Gotham City begins! Bruce Wayne, battle-broken and out of commission after his epic showdown with Gotham’s famous villain Bane, has appointed a new Dark Knight to keep the bad guys at bay. Jean-Paul Valley (a.k.a. Azrael) has assumed the role of the caped crusader, but without Bruce’s integrity as a calming influence, Jean-Paul is swiftly getting out of hand, alienating both Robin and Commissioner Gordon.

Chuck Dixon and Scott Beatty tell Dick Grayson's first year in the cape, and they do not pretend it went well. Robin's debut against the Mad Hatter, Mr. Freeze and Two-Face is a run of hard lessons about what Batman was really asking of a child, drawn by Javier Pulido in the clean retro line that made the book a classic.

Chuck Dixon arrives on the magazine and writes Conan as pure adventure serial, which is what he does better than almost anyone. Collects the tenth run of The Savage Sword of Conan, written by Chuck Dixon, Larry Yakata and Don Kraar with art by Gary Kwapisz, Andy Kubert and Val Mayerik.

Chuck Dixon arrives on the magazine and writes Conan as pure adventure serial, which is what he does better than almost anyone. Collects the tenth run of The Savage Sword of Conan, written by Chuck Dixon, Larry Yakata and Don Kraar with art by Gary Kwapisz, Andy Kubert and Val Mayerik.

The eleventh volume runs the magazine into its final years, with Dixon and Moench writing and Paul Gulacy turning up to draw some of the best looking Conan of the decade. Collects the eleventh run of The Savage Sword of Conan, written by Chuck Dixon, Doug Moench and Don Kraar with art by Gary Kwapisz and Paul Gulacy.