Amazing Spider-Man Omnibus Vol. 5

Beyond was the year Marvel took Spider-Man away from Peter Parker and handed the role to Ben Reilly, sponsored by a corporation with its own plans for the brand. The premise is corporate rather than heroic: Ben Reilly gets sponsorship, training and a target on his back, while whatever happened to Peter is kept off the page for months. Morbius, Kraven, the Queen Goblin and a returning Doctor Octopus keep the pressure on, and the collision between the two Spider-Men is what the whole year was built toward.

Ultimate Spider-Man Omnibus Vol. 1 begins Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley's modern Peter Parker from the ground up: high school pressure, first victories, brutal mistakes and the villains that make growing up as Spider-Man dangerous.

The second half of Straczynski's run takes Spider-Man through Civil War and ends with One More Day, the most argued-about Spider-Man story of the century. The Other, Civil War and Back in Black are all here, along with Peter unmasking publicly and then losing everything for it. One More Day is the ending Straczynski publicly disowned, and reading the run complete is the only way to judge whether the deal with Mephisto was earned. Historically, this volume matters more than most.

Amazing Spider-Man Omnibus Vol. 1 is the foundation of Peter Parker as a different kind of superhero: insecurity, guilt, jokes, money trouble and responsibility all arriving at once. Stan Lee and Steve Ditko introduce the origin, Aunt May, J. Jonah Jameson and the villains who shape Spider-Man's earliest mythology.

J. Michael Straczynski wrote Amazing Spider-Man for six years, opening with a stranger in Peter's kitchen who claims his powers are not an accident. Ezekiel and the totemic origin are the run's contested idea, but the volume's real strength is elsewhere: Peter teaching at his old school, Aunt May discovering the costume in a scene that ranks among the best pages in the character's history, and John Romita Jr. drawing the whole thing. The renumbering back to #500 happens here too.

Ultimate Spider-Man ran for over a decade without a reboot, and this third omnibus covers the years when Brian Michael Bendis let his teenage Peter Parker actually grow up. Mark Bagley finishes his record-breaking run here and Stuart Immonen takes over, and the book handles the transition better than most. This stretch contains the Clone Saga rewrite — Bendis fixing in twelve issues what took the main universe two years to ruin — and the Ultimate Knights arc. It also builds toward the death of Peter Parker.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day Omnibus Vol. 1 begins the controversial post-One More Day reset, returning Peter Parker to a single, struggling, unlucky status quo while Amazing Spider-Man shifts to rotating creative teams and rapid publication rhythm. It is messy history, but it is also the rebuild of modern Peter.

Superior Spider-Man is the year Doctor Octopus wore Peter Parker's body and ran his life, convinced he could do it better. Dan Slott wrote it after eight years of building toward exactly this. The premise works because Otto genuinely is better at parts of it: he finishes Peter's doctorate, upgrades the equipment and dismantles the rogues' gallery. What he cannot do is be a person people want around, and the run is about that gap closing. Amazing #700 is here, which is where the swap becomes permanent.

Roy Thomas and Howard Chaykin bring Luke Skywalker’s first adventure to comics in Marvel’s original adaptation of A New Hope. Luke, Leia, Han Solo and their allies confront Darth Vader and the Death Star, with scenes that never reached the screen. This 50th anniversary Deluxe Edition collects the six-part adaptation in an oversize hardcover.

Justice League of America: The Bronze Age, collected as a pack of 4 oversized omnibus volumes and cheaper than buying them one by one. Justice League of America: The Bronze Age Omnibus Vol. 1 opens a more textured era for the League, still heroic and direct but increasingly shaped by shifting casts, social unease and a DC universe learning to carry more continuity. Gardner Fox, Dennis O'Neil, Len Wein, Mike Friedrich and Dick Dillin bridge classic team adventure with a richer 1970s mood. The second Bronze Age Justice League omnibus covers the early 1970s, when the team left their secret New England cave for a satellite in orbit and the stories went cosmic. This is where the JLA/JSA team-ups settle into their yearly rhythm and the multiverse becomes a working part of DC's storytelling rather than an occasional gimmick. It is also the era that established the League as DC's legends rather than just its biggest team. The third Bronze Age omnibus covers the late seventies, when Gerry Conway took over the Justice League and gave it the longest continuous run of its classic era. Conway wrote the League for years and used the length: long-running subplots, a rotating roster and the arrival of Zatanna as a permanent member. The JLA/JSA crossovers in this stretch are also the most ambitious of the run, bringing in the Legion of Super-Heroes and the New Gods across multiple Earths. The fourth Bronze Age omnibus takes the Justice League into the early eighties, the last years before Crisis on Infinite Earths changed everything. The Leaf Candy mini comic is a genuine curiosity, a promotional giveaway that has never been collected anywhere else. The main run includes the New Gods crossover in #183-185, which is Gerry Conway writing Darkseid at full scale, and the Firestorm and Titans tie-ins that show DC's line starting to interconnect.

The third Amazing Spider-Man omnibus covers the transition from Stan Lee and John Romita Sr. to Gerry Conway, and the two issues that ended the Silver Age of the character. Issues #121-122 are here: the Green Goblin, Gwen Stacy and the George Washington Bridge. Nothing in superhero comics had done that before, and the industry treats it as the moment the genre stopped guaranteeing happy endings. The volume also contains the six-armed Spider-Man arc and the first appearances of Morbius and the Punisher.

The Hidden Years was John Byrne's attempt to fill the gap in X-Men history: the years between issue #66 in 1970 and Giant-Size X-Men in 1975, when the original title ran reprints and the team officially did nothing. Byrne writes and draws it in deliberate period style, using the original five X-Men and continuity he had to reverse-engineer from scattered guest appearances. It is a genuine curiosity: a modern comic pretending to be a lost one, made by someone who knew the era well enough to make the seams invisible.

The second Doctor Strange omnibus covers the character's first solo title, launched in 1968 after Strange Tales split into two books. This is where Strange gets an origin issue — #169 is still the definitive telling — and where Marvel tried to make him a costumed superhero, which failed commercially and was reversed. Marvel Feature #1 is also here: the first Defenders story, which gave the character somewhere to belong for the next decade.

The second Daredevil omnibus covers the late sixties and early seventies, when Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway took over and the book moved Matt Murdock to San Francisco. This is the run where the Black Widow becomes a co-lead — the book was retitled Daredevil and the Black Widow for part of it — and where the character stops being a Spider-Man variant. The Iron Man crossover is also the first appearance of the Zodiac cartel, which Marvel used for decades afterwards.

The second Incredible Hulk omnibus covers Peter David's most celebrated stretch, when the Hulk's personalities merged and the book became a study of an integrated mind under pressure. The Pantheon arrives, Doc Samson integrates grey, green and Banner into one person, and issue #400 pays off the Leader's long campaign. David spends the rest of the volume testing whether the merger holds against the Abomination, the U-Foes and Freedom Force. It is the run's centre of gravity.

The fourth Bronze Age omnibus takes the Justice League into the early eighties, the last years before Crisis on Infinite Earths changed everything. The Leaf Candy mini comic is a genuine curiosity, a promotional giveaway that has never been collected anywhere else. The main run includes the New Gods crossover in #183-185, which is Gerry Conway writing Darkseid at full scale, and the Firestorm and Titans tie-ins that show DC's line starting to interconnect.