Deathstroke: The New 52 Omnibus

Deathstroke: The Terminator is Slade Wilson before the modern antihero polish, moving through contracts, family damage and the hard-edged DC action of the early 1990s. Marv Wolfman and Steve Erwin make him dangerous because he is not just skilled; he is controlled, compromised and always carrying the cost of his own choices.

Christopher Priest wrote Deathstroke for fifty issues, treating Slade Wilson as a case study in how a man justifies being a contract killer to his own family. Priest structures it the way he structured Black Panther, out of sequence, with the reader always a step behind, and the subject is family rather than mercenary work. Slade's children are the real cast, and the run's best issues are arguments rather than fights. It is one of the strongest DC runs of its decade.

Deathstroke: The Terminator by Marv Wolfman Omnibus Vol. 2 continues the run by the character's co-creator, in which Slade Wilson gets his own series and turns out to work better as a lead than anyone expected of a Teen Titans villain.

Batman: Detective Comics: The New 52, collected as a pack of 2 oversized omnibus volumes and cheaper than buying them one by one. Batman: Detective Comics: The New 52 Omnibus Vol. 1 starts the New 52 Detective Comics era with a sharper, more violent Gotham and a Batman pushed through crime, spectacle and body-horror shocks. Tony Daniel and James Tynion IV make the book feel immediate, glossy and aggressive in a way that matches the relaunch mood. The second Detective Comics New 52 omnibus covers Gotham's most unstable stretch of the era, with the city cycling through hallucination, corruption and a replacement Batman. Gothtopia is the standout: a Gotham where everyone is happy and Batman is the only one who notices something is wrong. Layman's run is far better regarded now than it was on release, and having the Gordon material here connects Detective to the end of Snyder's Batman run.

Batman: Detective Comics: The New 52 Omnibus Vol. 1 starts the New 52 Detective Comics era with a sharper, more violent Gotham and a Batman pushed through crime, spectacle and body-horror shocks. Tony Daniel and James Tynion IV make the book feel immediate, glossy and aggressive in a way that matches the relaunch mood.