Avengers By Jonathan Hickman Omnibus Vol. 2

Jason Aaron's Avengers Forever is the cosmic-scale companion to his main Avengers run — a multiverse-spanning series bringing together Avengers variants from across the Marvel omniverse to battle the Multiversal Masters of Evil, a team of the most dangerous villains from different realities assembled by a version of Doom who conquered his entire universe. Aaron used the multiverse premise to comment on the Avengers concept itself, asking what the team means when its existence replicates across every possible reality.

Jason Aaron rebuilds Earth’s Mightiest Heroes around Captain America, Iron Man and Thor, then adds Black Panther, Captain Marvel, She-Hulk and Robbie Reyes. Celestials, vampires, the War of the Realms, Khonshu and the Phoenix Force turn the opening movement of his run into one escalating cosmic epic.

Jason Aaron rebuilds Earth’s Mightiest Heroes around Captain America, Iron Man and Thor, then adds Black Panther, Captain Marvel, She-Hulk and Robbie Reyes. Celestials, vampires, the War of the Realms, Khonshu and the Phoenix Force turn the opening movement of his run into one escalating cosmic epic.

Jonathan Hickman wrote Avengers and New Avengers as a single three-year story about two problems: a universe expanding beyond what heroes can protect, and a secret council willing to destroy worlds to save this one. The two titles are designed to be read alternating: Avengers is scale and optimism, New Avengers is the Illuminati quietly deciding who dies. Infinity is where they meet. It is the most structurally ambitious Avengers run ever published, and it builds directly to Secret Wars.

Secret Invasion is the Marvel event that made paranoia the plot. Brian Michael Bendis spent years seeding Skrull replacements across the Avengers titles before the full infiltration exploded into a line-wide crossover. The premise — any hero could be a Skrull — destabilized reader trust in every character simultaneously. Collects the core Secret Invasion #1–8 limited series, plus key tie-in issues from New Avengers, Mighty Avengers, and the Secret Invasion: Who Do You Trust? one-shot.

Avengers vs. X-Men Omnibus — the Phoenix Force returns to Earth and splits the Marvel universe. Captain America vs. Cyclops, the Phoenix Five transform the world, Hope Summers as the chosen one. The event that changed everything. Avengers vs. X-Men #0-12 plus AVX: VS #1-6 and AvX Consequences #1-5 collected in the complete omnibus. The Phoenix Force returns to Earth targeting Hope Summers — Captain America demands she be handed over, Cyclops refuses. Twelve issues of Marvel's biggest superhero war: the Avengers fighting the Phoenix Five (Cyclops, Emma, Namor, Colossus, Magik with Phoenix power). Ends with Cyclops in prison and the mutant population beginning to rise again. The event that launched the All-New Marvel NOW era.

Onslaught was the 1996 crossover built to clear the board: a psychic entity born from Xavier and Magneto that ends with the Avengers and Fantastic Four apparently dead. The reason to read it now is what it was for: Marvel needed to move its non-mutant heroes out of the way for Heroes Reborn, and Onslaught is the machinery that did it. It also pays off years of Xavier subplots — the villain is his own repressed capacity for violence, which is a better idea than the event's reputation suggests.

The Avengers launched in 1963 with a team assembled almost by accident: Iron Man, Thor, the Hulk, Ant-Man and the Wasp against Loki. This omnibus is the beginning of everything. These thirty issues contain the Hulk quitting, Captain America found frozen in the Atlantic, the first appearance of Kang the Conqueror, and Cap's Kooky Quartet — the moment Marvel replaced its entire roster with three reformed villains and made it work. Whatever the Avengers have become since, the shape of the team was decided here.

Jonathan Hickman wrote Avengers and New Avengers as a single three-year story about two problems: a universe expanding beyond what heroes can protect, and a secret council willing to destroy worlds to save this one. The two titles are designed to be read alternating: Avengers is scale and optimism, New Avengers is the Illuminati quietly deciding who dies. Infinity is where they meet. It is the most structurally ambitious Avengers run ever published, and it builds directly to Secret Wars.

Ultimate Marvel by Jonathan Hickman Omnibus collects his original 2010–2012 run on the first Ultimate Universe — not the 2024 relaunch, but the acclaimed earlier work that planted its seeds. Ultimate Comics Ultimates is geopolitical, high-concept superhero storytelling on a world scale: the rise of the hyper-accelerated posthuman "City," the collapse of nations, and the turn of Reed Richards toward the villain he will become — the Maker. With Ultimate Thor and Ultimate Comics Hawkeye alongside, drawn by Carlos Pacheco, Esad Ribić and more. The run that Hickman himself would later build the new Ultimate Universe from.

Dawn of X is the first year of Jonathan Hickman's mutant relaunch, in which the X-Men stop being a persecuted minority and become a sovereign nation on Krakoa with its own laws, economy and resurrection protocol. Reading the six launch titles in publication order is the point: Hickman designed them as one book with six threads, and the Krakoan state only makes sense when you see the drug trade, the intelligence service and the diplomacy at the same time. This is the most influential X-Men status quo since 1991.

Before Battleworld, there was the end of everything. Jonathan Hickman's New Avengers run introduced the concept of incursions — parallel Earths colliding and destroying each other — and built the philosophical and moral framework that made Secret Wars inevitable. This omnibus collects the prelude material that transforms the Illuminati into reluctant architects of extinction. Collects New Avengers #1–33 and Avengers #35–44, the core incursions storyline.

Jonathan Hickman's Secret Wars is the culmination of his entire five-year Marvel run — from SHIELD to Avengers to New Avengers — compressed into a single reality-ending event. When the multiverse collapses, Doctor Doom remakes existence in his own image. Battleworld is the result: a patchwork planet of Marvel's greatest alternate realities, ruled absolutely by a god named Doom. Collects the complete Secret Wars #1–9 main series (), plus key tie-ins.

The second year on Krakoa, where the nation stops being a promise and starts having institutions, enemies and internal factions willing to use them. Hellions and X-Factor are the reason to own this volume: one follows the mutants Krakoa cannot rehabilitate, the other the team that has to verify every death before a resurrection. Together they are where Hickman's utopia starts showing its costs, which is more interesting than the launch year.

Reign of X is the third year on Krakoa, when the nation's institutions are established and the stories move from founding to governing. S.W.O.R.D. is the arrival worth the price: Al Ewing turns Abigail Brand's agency into Krakoa's space programme and starts building the Arakko material that dominates the rest of the era. The Juggernaut miniseries is also here, and it is a genuinely good redemption story that nobody expected.

The second Hickman omnibus completes his Fantastic Four run, resolving the Council of Reeds, the Kree, the Inhumans and the future Franklin Richards was always going to become. Issue #605 is the standout: a single issue following Reed and his father across the whole span of their lives, which is the quietest thing in the run and the best. Hickman ties off every thread he planted, which almost no long-form superhero run manages, and #611 is a genuine ending rather than a handoff.