Jerome Opeña

Jonathan Hickman's Avengers Vol. 1 launches his massive, interlocking Avengers/New Avengers run — one of the most ambitious sustained narratives in Marvel history, building across four years toward Secret Wars. This first volume establishes the Avengers as a planetary defense system responding to universal-scale incursion threats, while simultaneously in New Avengers the Illuminati discover that parallel Earths are colliding and destroying each other, a phenomenon called incursions that will eventually consume the entire multiverse.

Uncanny X-Force by Rick Remender Omnibus — Wolverine's secret black-ops X-team targets threats before they happen. Archangel as Apocalypse's heir, the Age of Apocalypse revisited, the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Dark, central Marvel. Rick Remender's Uncanny X-Force ran for 35 issues (#1-35 plus point issues collected here) and is widely considered one of the greatest X-Men runs ever published. Wolverine, Archangel, Psylocke, Deadpool and Fantomex operate in secret to kill threats before they arise. The Dark Angel Saga (issues #8-18) is a masterclass in long-form superhero comics — Warren Worthington III fully becomes Apocalypse, and the X-Force must decide whether to kill their friend. Jerome Opeña's art is career-defining.