Grayson: The Superspy Omnibus

Nightwing: Rebirth is Tim Seeley's run, which returned Dick Grayson to the costume after years as a spy and moved him to Blüdhaven to build a life outside Gotham. Seeley writes Dick as the one member of the Bat-family who is genuinely well-adjusted, which is a harder character to make interesting and he manages it. The Blüdhaven material gives him a city, a supporting cast and problems that are his own rather than Batman's leftovers, and it is the run every later Nightwing writer builds on.

Tom Taylor and Bruno Redondo's Nightwing won an Eisner and is the most acclaimed run the character has ever had, built on Dick Grayson inheriting a fortune and deciding to give it away. Redondo's art is the reason this run is famous: issue #87's single-shot chase drawn as one continuous panel, and layouts that keep finding new ways to show movement. Taylor writes Dick as relentlessly decent, which in a Bat-book is a genuinely radical choice. It reads perfectly well without the first volume.

Nightwing by Tom Taylor, collected complete as a pack of 2 oversized omnibus volumes and cheaper than buying them one by one. Nightwing by Tom Taylor and Bruno Redondo Omnibus Vol. 1 brings Dick Grayson back to Blüdhaven with Barbara Gordon close by, Heartless in the shadows and a run built around legacy, warmth and danger. Nightwing by Tom Taylor and Bruno Redondo Omnibus Vol. 2 completes the Eisner-winning modern run. Dick Grayson, having inherited a fortune from Alfred Pennyworth, keeps trying to fix Blüdhaven with it rather than just fighting its crime, alongside his three-legged rescue dog Haley and his fully-committed romance with Barbara Gordon. This volume brings the run to its conclusion, deepening the fight against crime boss Blockbuster and the masked killer Heartless. Warm, optimistic writing and Redondo's inventive, experimental page layouts made this the definitive modern Nightwing.

PRH presents this as Tom Taylor and Bruno Redondo's Nightwing run collected in omnibus format. The hook is Dick Grayson returning to his own city and identity, with the book balancing street-level heroics, found family and a new enemy built specifically for this era. This is a strong modern Nightwing shelf for readers who want Dick Grayson as the lead, not only as part of the Batman family. The tone is cleaner, more emotional and more hopeful than many Gotham-adjacent runs, without losing the danger around Blüdhaven.

Nightwing: Year One tells the story DC had left as a gap for twenty years: how Dick Grayson stopped being Robin and became something of his own. Chuck Dixon wrote Nightwing for a decade and this is his retrospective origin: Batman fires Dick, and the story is about a young man discovering that being cut loose is the best thing that could have happened. Scott McDaniel draws movement better than anyone who has handled the character since.

Nightwing: The Prince of Gotham Omnibus follows Dick Grayson through the New 52 period, where Haly's Circus, Gotham's secrets and Forever Evil push his public and private identities to breaking point. Kyle Higgins writes Nightwing as mobile, exposed and emotionally open in a way that separates him from Batman's shadow. The value is character clarity: this is Dick trying to own the symbol, the city connections and the cost of being seen.

Nightwing: The Rebirth Deluxe Edition Book 2 continues Tim Seeley's run, with Dick Grayson settled in Blüdhaven and finally allowed to be a hero in his own city rather than a satellite of Gotham. Seeley writes him as the most socially competent member of the Bat-family, and Javier Fernández draws him as an acrobat first.

Batman by Tom King, collected as a pack of 2 oversized omnibus volumes and cheaper than buying them one by one. Tom King's Batman ran for eighty-five issues and is the defining modern take on the character: a run about trauma, love and whether Bruce Wayne is allowed to be happy. This is the first half of the run, with David Finch and Mikel Janín on art, and it is where King establishes the pattern: superhero plots used as delivery mechanisms for emotional argument. I Am Suicide alone reframes how Batman talks about his own death drive. Volume 1 is the entry point, and the omnibus format is the only one that keeps the crossover chapters in place. The second half of Tom King's eighty-five issue Batman run, where the wedding arc collapses and the consequences take over the book. Volume 1 sets up the proposal; this is where King collects on it. Bane's plan turns out to be psychological rather than physical, Batman is taken apart by people who know exactly where the joints are, and the run's argument, that Bruce Wayne is not permitted happiness, is stated outright. The Flash crossover chapters are here in place.

Tom King's Batman ran for eighty-five issues and is the defining modern take on the character: a run about trauma, love and whether Bruce Wayne is allowed to be happy. This is the first half of the run, with David Finch and Mikel Janín on art, and it is where King establishes the pattern: superhero plots used as delivery mechanisms for emotional argument. I Am Suicide alone reframes how Batman talks about his own death drive. Volume 1 is the entry point, and the omnibus format is the only one that keeps the crossover chapters in place.

The second half of Tom King's eighty-five issue Batman run, where the wedding arc collapses and the consequences take over the book. Volume 1 sets up the proposal; this is where King collects on it. Bane's plan turns out to be psychological rather than physical, Batman is taken apart by people who know exactly where the joints are, and the run's argument, that Bruce Wayne is not permitted happiness, is stated outright. The Flash crossover chapters are here in place.

Tom King and Phil Hester go back to 1961 and tell Gotham's original sin without Batman in it. Private investigator Slam Bradley takes the kidnapping case of Helen Wayne, heir to the Wayne fortune, and what he finds is a city already rotten with police corruption and racial violence long before anyone put on a cape.

Superman: Up in the Sky: The Deluxe Edition collects Tom King and Andy Kubert's series about a single question: a girl has been taken somewhere across the galaxy, and Superman leaves Earth to find her even though the odds say he should not. Each chapter is a self-contained trial on the way.

Absolute Power Omnibus collects Mark Waid and Dan Mora's event and its tie-ins, in which Amanda Waller finally does what she has been building towards for years: strips every metahuman on Earth of their powers at once and leaves the heroes to fight back with nothing. Collected complete in a single oversized hardcover.

Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow The Deluxe Edition collects Tom King and Bilquis Evely's eight-issue western in space, told by a teenage girl named Ruthye who hires Supergirl to help her hunt her father's killer across the galaxy. Kara is not the narrator, and seeing her through someone else's eyes is exactly what makes the book work. Evely and colourist Mat Lopes produced some of the most beautiful pages DC has published this decade.

A girl hires Supergirl to help her hunt the man who killed her father, and the journey across eight worlds turns into an argument about whether revenge is worth what it takes. King and Evely wrote the Supergirl story the film was built on, and it is a western more than a superhero comic.