Tom King

Batman by Tom King, collected as a pack of 2 oversized omnibus volumes and cheaper than buying them one by one. Tom King's Batman ran for eighty-five issues and is the defining modern take on the character: a run about trauma, love and whether Bruce Wayne is allowed to be happy. This is the first half of the run, with David Finch and Mikel Janín on art, and it is where King establishes the pattern: superhero plots used as delivery mechanisms for emotional argument. I Am Suicide alone reframes how Batman talks about his own death drive. Volume 1 is the entry point, and the omnibus format is the only one that keeps the crossover chapters in place. The second half of Tom King's eighty-five issue Batman run, where the wedding arc collapses and the consequences take over the book. Volume 1 sets up the proposal; this is where King collects on it. Bane's plan turns out to be psychological rather than physical, Batman is taken apart by people who know exactly where the joints are, and the run's argument, that Bruce Wayne is not permitted happiness, is stated outright. The Flash crossover chapters are here in place.

Dick Grayson, presumed dead after Forever Evil, becomes a secret agent working for Spyral, a shadowy intelligence organisation targeting superheroes. Tom King and Tim Seeley write Grayson with the wit and physical grace that defines the character, while Mikel Janín provides some of the most visually inventive pages in DC publishing of the era. A complete genre switch for a character who had always been a superhero, proving that Dick Grayson works in any narrative One of DC's most creative series of the 2010s.

Tom King's Batman ran for eighty-five issues and is the defining modern take on the character: a run about trauma, love and whether Bruce Wayne is allowed to be happy. This is the first half of the run, with David Finch and Mikel Janín on art, and it is where King establishes the pattern: superhero plots used as delivery mechanisms for emotional argument. I Am Suicide alone reframes how Batman talks about his own death drive. Volume 1 is the entry point, and the omnibus format is the only one that keeps the crossover chapters in place.

The second half of Tom King's eighty-five issue Batman run, where the wedding arc collapses and the consequences take over the book. Volume 1 sets up the proposal; this is where King collects on it. Bane's plan turns out to be psychological rather than physical, Batman is taken apart by people who know exactly where the joints are, and the run's argument, that Bruce Wayne is not permitted happiness, is stated outright. The Flash crossover chapters are here in place.

Tom King and Phil Hester go back to 1961 and tell Gotham's original sin without Batman in it. Private investigator Slam Bradley takes the kidnapping case of Helen Wayne, heir to the Wayne fortune, and what he finds is a city already rotten with police corruption and racial violence long before anyone put on a cape.

Superman: Up in the Sky: The Deluxe Edition collects Tom King and Andy Kubert's series about a single question: a girl has been taken somewhere across the galaxy, and Superman leaves Earth to find her even though the odds say he should not. Each chapter is a self-contained trial on the way.

Absolute Power Omnibus collects Mark Waid and Dan Mora's event and its tie-ins, in which Amanda Waller finally does what she has been building towards for years: strips every metahuman on Earth of their powers at once and leaves the heroes to fight back with nothing. Collected complete in a single oversized hardcover.

Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow The Deluxe Edition collects Tom King and Bilquis Evely's eight-issue western in space, told by a teenage girl named Ruthye who hires Supergirl to help her hunt her father's killer across the galaxy. Kara is not the narrator, and seeing her through someone else's eyes is exactly what makes the book work. Evely and colourist Mat Lopes produced some of the most beautiful pages DC has published this decade.

A girl hires Supergirl to help her hunt the man who killed her father, and the journey across eight worlds turns into an argument about whether revenge is worth what it takes. King and Evely wrote the Supergirl story the film was built on, and it is a western more than a superhero comic.

Rorschach by Tom King and Jorge Fornés Deluxe Edition collects the twelve-issue Black Label series set thirty-five years after Watchmen, in which an assassin dressed as Rorschach tries to kill a presidential candidate and a detective is left to work out why. King writes it as a cold procedural about how myths outlive the people who made them.

Strange Adventures: The Deluxe Edition collects Tom King, Mitch Gerads and Evan Shaner's series about Adam Strange, a war hero touring his own memoir while Mister Terrific investigates whether any of it is true. The two artists split the timelines, and the contrast is the whole argument.

Scott Free escaped Apokolips, escaped Granny Goodness and escaped every trap ever built for him, and then one day he tries to kill himself. King and Gerads use the nine panel grid to tell a story about depression, marriage and a war on New Genesis that may or may not be happening at all.

Christopher Chance makes a living impersonating the people who want to stay alive. He takes a bullet meant for Lex Luthor, gets twelve days to live, and spends them investigating his own murder with the entire Justice League International as suspects. King and Smallwood play it as a 1960s cocktail party with a countdown running.

A Green Lantern is taken hostage by a group DC calls terrorists and their side of the story turns out to be the one that holds up. King wrote The Omega Men straight out of the CIA and it shows: the book is about occupation, propaganda and what the word terrorist is doing in that sentence.