Fantastic Four by John Byrne Omnibus Vol. 1

Background. John Byrne took over Fantastic Four with issue #232 in 1981 and ran it until #293 in 1986 — a five-year run that stands as the longest single-creator tenure since Kirby's departure and the most consistently celebrated. Byrne was simultaneously the writer and artist, giving the book a visual/narrative coherence it hadn't had since the Lee/Kirby collaboration. His first major arc introduced She-Hulk as the Thing's replacement when Ben Grimm temporarily chose to remain de-powered, and the book never lost momentum from there.

What's inside. This first Byrne Fantastic Four omnibus collects the opening of his run through the mid-period, covering She-Hulk's joining, the extended Galactus/Nova storylines, Reed Richards' trial before the Shi'ar for Galactus's crimes against sentient life, and the Thing's extended solo sabbatical. The Trial of Reed Richards is Byrne's most conceptually ambitious early arc — a space opera courtroom drama with Marvel's entire cosmic hierarchy as participants.

Why it's worth it. The Trial of Reed Richards alone justifies this omnibus — it's the most formally ambitious superhero comics courtroom story before She-Hulk's later legal adventures, and it uses the trial format to ask genuinely interesting ethical questions about what responsibility civilized beings have for the actions of forces of nature. Byrne at his 1980s peak is producing work that rewards close reading decades later.

Edition details. Hardcover omnibus. US edition published by Marvel Comics. ISBN 9781302946333.