Peter J. Tomasi

The second Green Lantern Corps omnibus covers Blackest Night and its aftermath from the Corps' point of view, away from Earth and from Hal Jordan. The Corps takes the worst of Blackest Night, their own dead rise, and they are the ones who buried them, and this volume carries the emotional weight the main event could not. Kyle Rayner's arc in particular is the best material the character has ever had, and it is largely absent from the Green Lantern omnibus editions.

Batman: Detective Comics: The New 52, collected as a pack of 2 oversized omnibus volumes and cheaper than buying them one by one. Batman: Detective Comics: The New 52 Omnibus Vol. 1 starts the New 52 Detective Comics era with a sharper, more violent Gotham and a Batman pushed through crime, spectacle and body-horror shocks. Tony Daniel and James Tynion IV make the book feel immediate, glossy and aggressive in a way that matches the relaunch mood. The second Detective Comics New 52 omnibus covers Gotham's most unstable stretch of the era, with the city cycling through hallucination, corruption and a replacement Batman. Gothtopia is the standout: a Gotham where everyone is happy and Batman is the only one who notices something is wrong. Layman's run is far better regarded now than it was on release, and having the Gordon material here connects Detective to the end of Snyder's Batman run.

Green Lantern Corps by Peter J. Tomasi and Patrick Gleason, collected as a pack of 2 oversized omnibus volumes and cheaper than buying them one by one. Peter J. Tomasi and Patrick Gleason wrote Green Lantern Corps as a workplace book: the Corps as an interstellar police force with shifts, politics and casualties. Tomasi and Gleason are the reason the Corps works as an ensemble rather than as Hal Jordan's supporting cast: Guy Gardner and Kyle Rayner get genuine arcs, and the alien Lanterns are written as people with jobs. It runs alongside the Johns material and covers the parts his book had no room for. The second Green Lantern Corps omnibus covers Blackest Night and its aftermath from the Corps' point of view, away from Earth and from Hal Jordan. The Corps takes the worst of Blackest Night, their own dead rise, and they are the ones who buried them, and this volume carries the emotional weight the main event could not. Kyle Rayner's arc in particular is the best material the character has ever had, and it is largely absent from the Green Lantern omnibus editions.

Super Sons pairs Damian Wayne and Jon Kent, Batman's son and Superman's, as a superhero double act built entirely on mutual irritation. Peter Tomasi writes the dynamic as two kids who cannot stand each other and are stuck together, which is funnier and more genuine than the friendship the premise suggests. It is also one of the few DC books that works for a ten-year-old and an adult without condescending to either.

Batman: The Arkham Saga Omnibus collects the comics surrounding the Arkham games, where Gotham is filtered through the continuity, villains and brutal atmosphere of Rocksteady's universe. The appeal is not a standard Batman run but a game-continuity shelf piece: Joker, Harley, the rogues and Arkham's institutional nightmare expanding around the versions many readers met through the games. It belongs with Batman, but its identity is specifically Arkham-world storytelling.

Peter J. Tomasi wrote Detective Comics through the late 2010s, focusing on the detective side of the character and on the people Batman puts at risk by knowing them. The opening case is a murder at the Gotham Aquarium staged to recreate the Waynes' killing, down to the playbill and the pearls, and the run keeps that register: someone hunting the people closest to Batman, and Batman unable to work out who without exposing them further. Mahnke's Gotham is genuinely unpleasant to look at, which is the correct choice here.

Following DC Rebirth in 2016, Tomasi and Gleason write a father Superman: not a loner or a Clark Kent in crisis, but a man who has to teach his son Jonathan Kent what it means to have powers. The most emotionally accessible Superman of the last decade and an answer to anyone who ever wondered how to tell a story about the character that isn't a fight.

Peter J. Tomasi and Patrick Gleason wrote Batman and Robin for the whole New 52 era, and their subject was simple: a father and a son who do not know how to talk to each other. This is the run where Damian Wayne dies and where his death actually lands, because Tomasi had spent thirty issues making the relationship work first. Requiem, the near-silent issue that follows, is one of the best single Batman comics of the decade. Gleason draws Damian better than anyone before or since.

Blackest Night was DC's 2009 crossover and the payoff of five years of Green Lantern build-up: black rings fall from the sky and the dead return as Black Lanterns. The premise is unusually cruel for a company crossover: the Black Lanterns keep the memories of the people they were, and they use them. It is also the tenth-anniversary edition, gathering the whole event and its tie-in chapters in one volume for the first time, which is the only way the scale reads correctly.

Peter J. Tomasi and Patrick Gleason wrote Green Lantern Corps as a workplace book: the Corps as an interstellar police force with shifts, politics and casualties. Tomasi and Gleason are the reason the Corps works as an ensemble rather than as Hal Jordan's supporting cast: Guy Gardner and Kyle Rayner get genuine arcs, and the alien Lanterns are written as people with jobs. It runs alongside the Johns material and covers the parts his book had no room for.

The third and final Johns omnibus covers Brightest Day, the New 52 relaunch and the arrival of Simon Baz, closing a run that had reshaped the franchise entirely. The last act is Johns' most ambitious: Sinestro wearing a green ring, Hal Jordan stripped of his, and the Guardians deciding the Corps was a mistake all along. The New 52 issues are also unusual in that they ignore the reboot almost entirely, which lets Johns finish the story he started in 2004 on his own terms.

The second Detective Comics New 52 omnibus covers Gotham's most unstable stretch of the era, with the city cycling through hallucination, corruption and a replacement Batman. Gothtopia is the standout: a Gotham where everyone is happy and Batman is the only one who notices something is wrong. Layman's run is far better regarded now than it was on release, and having the Gordon material here connects Detective to the end of Snyder's Batman run.

Brightest Day Omnibus collects the year-long series that followed Blackest Night, in which twelve heroes and villains return from the dead and none of them know why. Geoff Johns and Peter J. Tomasi use it to rebuild Aquaman, Firestorm, Hawkman and Martian Manhunter at once, and it contains the Aquaman material that led directly into the New 52 relaunch.