Dale Eaglesham

Batman: No Man's Land Omnibus Vol. 1 begins the Gotham earthquake aftermath: the city is cut off, abandoned by the government and divided into territories. Batman, Oracle, Nightwing, Robin and the new Batgirl fight to keep order in a Gotham where law has collapsed street by street.

Secret Six by Gail Simone Omnibus Vol. 1 collects one of DC's most beloved cult runs — a book about villains that has more heart than most hero comics. Born from Villains United, the Six are a rotating band of C- and D-list rogues who take the jobs no one else will and, against the odds, become a family: Catman, Deadshot, Ragdoll, Scandal Savage, Bane and more. Gail Simone balances brutal action, dark comedy and real emotional stakes, and the run is famous for turning Catman from a punchline into a genuine badass. Art by Dale Eaglesham, Nicola Scott and Jim Calafiore.

JSA by Geoff Johns Omnibus Vol. 3 closes out the original series and opens the acclaimed 2007 relaunch, Justice Society of America. It gathers the "Lightning Saga" JLA/JSA crossover and the celebrated "Thy Kingdom Come" — the epic where the Superman of Kingdom Come crosses into the main DC Universe. Dale Eaglesham becomes the signature artist of the relaunch, under iconic Alex Ross covers, in the run that broke Stargirl out as a marquee character. The definitive Johns JSA reaches its high point.

Jonathan Hickman's Fantastic Four run established his Marvel career's defining mode — massive, architecturally complex narratives with years-long payoffs, introduced through the Council of Reeds (alternate universe versions of Reed Richards who had solved every problem and abandoned their families) and the War of Four Cities that pitted the Kree, the Inhumans, the High Evolutionary's creations, and the Kree's counter-faction against each other simultaneously. This is Hickman operating at maximum ambition before the Avengers work that followed.

Batman: No Man's Land Omnibus Vol. 2 closes Gotham's abandoned-city saga as the Bat-family keeps fighting through a broken city. Robin, Nightwing, Batgirl, Scarecrow and the wider Gotham conflict carry the event toward its final stretch.

Avengers by Jonathan Hickman Omnibus Vol. 2 is the collapse half of Hickman's Marvel architecture. Infinity, the Illuminati and Time Runs Out turn the Avengers from Earth's greatest team into people making impossible choices while parallel universes die around them. It is the direct road toward Secret Wars: cosmic scale, moral compromise and long-form science-fiction plotting inside Marvel.