Absolute Mister Miracle by Tom King and Mitch Gerads

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.

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.

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.