Doom Patrol by Keith Giffen and Matthew Clark Omnibus

Rachel Pollack followed Grant Morrison on Doom Patrol in 1993 and pushed the book somewhere DC had never gone, with a transgender lead and stories about bodies, identity and shame. Pollack was the first openly transgender writer at a major American publisher, and Coagula, a trans woman with powers gained from a sex worker, is the first trans superhero in mainstream comics. The run was largely dismissed at the time and has been reassessed completely since; this is its first collected edition.

Doom Patrol: The Silver Age Omnibus collects the original run by Arnold Drake and Bruno Premiani, in which a group of accident survivors nobody wants are assembled by a man in a wheelchair, months before the X-Men did the same thing. It also ends with the team dying, which nobody did in 1968.

A superhero built out of a bodybuilding advert investigates the end of the world while a rock star overdoses in a phone box and narrates his own childhood. Morrison and Quitely made their first book together an argument that superhero comics are worth defending, and it is still the strangest thing either of them has done.

Grant Morrison took over Doom Patrol in 1989, a cancelled team book about disfigured heroes, and turned it into the strangest thing DC has ever published under its own name. This is the run that launched Morrison's career: the Brotherhood of Dada, Danny the Street, Flex Mentallo and Crazy Jane, whose sixty-four personalities each have a different power. It is surrealism played completely straight, and it is also the direct origin of Vertigo as an imprint.

John Byrne relaunched Doom Patrol in 2004 with a full reboot, wiping the continuity Grant Morrison and Rachel Pollack had built and starting from the original team. The JLA issues are where Byrne reintroduces the team, and the reboot itself is a genuine curiosity: DC let a creator delete two celebrated runs and then quietly restored them a few years later. Byrne's version plays the concept straight as science fiction, which is the version the character had before 1989.

Doom Patrol by Gerard Way and Nick Derington: The Deluxe Edition collects the Young Animal relaunch, which opened with a sentient gyro and got stranger from there. Way writes the Doom Patrol as absurdist comedy with real feeling underneath, and Nick Derington's clean, poppy artwork makes the strangeness readable.

Legion of Super-Heroes: Five Years Later, collected as a pack of 2 oversized omnibus volumes and cheaper than buying them one by one. The Legion always assumed the 30th century was a utopia. Five Years Later opens with the utopia gone, the team disbanded and the survivors older, poorer and compromised. Giffen and the Bierbaums rebuilt the series as dense political science fiction and split the fanbase permanently. The second half of the Five Years Later run takes the Legion through the Terra Mosaic and into the reboot that ended it. The Bierbaums keep writing after Giffen leaves, Stuart Immonen arrives as an artist nobody had heard of, and the series finishes by rewriting its own continuity out of existence.

Justice League International was the 1987 relaunch that made the League funny: Batman and Green Lantern stuck with Booster Gold, Blue Beetle and a UN charter. Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis and Kevin Maguire made a comedy that still takes the threats seriously, and Maguire's facial expressions are the reason the jokes land. The Blue Beetle and Booster Gold friendship created here has outlived every subsequent reboot, which is unusual for anything that started as a punchline.

Justice League International Omnibus Vol. 2 focuses on the Giffen and DeMatteis era, with the Justice League shaped by global superhero politics, office comedy, awkward friendship and danger that cuts through the jokes. The appeal is not only continuity; it is watching a specific DC period find its tone, cast and visual rhythm.

The Legion always assumed the 30th century was a utopia. Five Years Later opens with the utopia gone, the team disbanded and the survivors older, poorer and compromised. Giffen and the Bierbaums rebuilt the series as dense political science fiction and split the fanbase permanently.

Justice League International, collected as a pack of 3 oversized omnibus volumes and cheaper than buying them one by one. Justice League International is the 1987 relaunch that rebuilt the League after Crisis on Infinite Earths with the most unlikely roster DC has ever assembled. Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis and Kevin Maguire wrote it as workplace comedy and it works because the threats stay real. Maguire's facial acting is the reason the jokes land at all, and Batman as the exasperated adult in the room is one of the best uses of the character DC has managed. Justice League International Omnibus Vol. 2 focuses on the Giffen and DeMatteis era, with the Justice League shaped by global superhero politics, office comedy, awkward friendship and danger that cuts through the jokes. The appeal is not only continuity; it is watching a specific DC period find its tone, cast and visual rhythm. Justice League International was the 1987 relaunch that made the League funny: Batman and Green Lantern stuck with Booster Gold, Blue Beetle and a UN charter. Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis and Kevin Maguire made a comedy that still takes the threats seriously, and Maguire's facial expressions are the reason the jokes land. The Blue Beetle and Booster Gold friendship created here has outlived every subsequent reboot, which is unusual for anything that started as a punchline.

Justice League International is the 1987 relaunch that rebuilt the League after Crisis on Infinite Earths with the most unlikely roster DC has ever assembled. Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis and Kevin Maguire wrote it as workplace comedy and it works because the threats stay real. Maguire's facial acting is the reason the jokes land at all, and Batman as the exasperated adult in the room is one of the best uses of the character DC has managed.

A bold, dystopian fiction-fueled reinvention of Scooby-Doo! The entire Scooby Apocalypse saga comes together in this thrilling collection that reimagines the beloved Mystery Inc. gang in a monster-ridden dystopia. Follow Fred, Velma, Daphne, Shaggy, and a genetically modified Scooby-Doo as they navigate a post-apocalyptic wasteland filled with zombies, monstrous creatures, and shocking betrayals.