Nightwing: Year One 20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition

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.

Dick Grayson, presumed dead after Forever Evil, becomes a secret agent working for Spyral, a shadowy intelligence organisation targeting superheroes. Tom King and Tim Seeley write Grayson with the wit and physical grace that defines the character, while Mikel Janín provides some of the most visually inventive pages in DC publishing of the era. A complete genre switch for a character who had always been a superhero, proving that Dick Grayson works in any narrative One of DC's most creative series of the 2010s.

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: Knightfall Omnibus Vol. 1 begins the Bane saga by turning Gotham into a gauntlet. Arkham's inmates are loose, Batman is forced through fight after fight, and Bane waits for exhaustion to do what brute strength alone cannot: make the Dark Knight break.

No Man's Land is the year DC declared Gotham dead. After the earthquake of Cataclysm, the United States government evacuates the city, dynamites the bridges and leaves whoever stays behind to divide the ruins into territories. The premise strips Batman of everything except the city itself: no infrastructure, no law, and gang leaders marking blocks with spray paint. It is also where Cassandra Cain becomes Batgirl. Volume 1 is the opening third of the crossover, in reading order across every Bat-title, which is the only way it works.

Road to No Man's Land is the run-up to DC's biggest Batman event of the nineties. A cataclysmic earthquake levels Gotham, and these are the months in which the city falls apart before Washington writes it off entirely. This is the volume most readers skip and then need: No Man's Land makes far more sense when you have watched Bane escape, Azrael struggle for legitimacy and Gotham's infrastructure fail one system at a time. Chuck Dixon coordinates a dozen titles into a single collapse, and the omnibus finally puts the whole crossover in reading order instead of scattered across four series.

Batman: Knightfall Omnibus Vol. 2 collects Knightquest, the middle movement of the saga where Jean-Paul Valley takes over as Batman. Gotham gets a more violent Dark Knight, while Scarecrow, the Joker, Gunhawk and others test what happens when the symbol is worn without Bruce Wayne's restraint.

Batman and Spawn crossed over twice in 1994, once from each publisher, with Frank Miller and Doug Moench writing and Todd McFarlane and Klaus Janson drawing. The 1994 books are a document of the moment Image was outselling DC and the two companies had to negotiate as equals. The 2022 one-shot is the reason to buy it now: McFarlane and Capullo, the two definitive Spawn and Batman artists, on the same book for the first time.

Grant Morrison and Mark Millar wrote The Flash together in the late nineties, immediately after Mark Waid, with Wally West already established as the fastest man alive. The Human Race is the standout: an alien gambler challenges the Flash to a race across the universe with Earth as the stake, and Morrison writes it as pure high concept. The Black Flash, death itself, running to catch up, is the other lasting idea, and DC has used it ever since.

Batgirl: Year One Deluxe Edition collects Scott Beatty and Chuck Dixon's retelling of how Barbara Gordon talked her way into the cape, drawn by Marcos Martin in one of the most admired art jobs of its decade. It is light, fast and genuinely joyful, which is rare for a Bat-family origin.

Batman: Knightfall, collected complete as a pack of 3 oversized omnibus volumes and cheaper than buying them one by one. Batman: Knightfall Omnibus Vol. 1 begins the Bane saga by turning Gotham into a gauntlet. Arkham's inmates are loose, Batman is forced through fight after fight, and Bane waits for exhaustion to do what brute strength alone cannot: make the Dark Knight break. Batman: Knightfall Omnibus Vol. 2 collects Knightquest, the middle movement of the saga where Jean-Paul Valley takes over as Batman. Gotham gets a more violent Dark Knight, while Scarecrow, the Joker, Gunhawk and others test what happens when the symbol is worn without Bruce Wayne's restraint. Batman: Knightfall Omnibus Vol. 3 closes the saga with KnightsEnd, as Bruce Wayne retrains with Lady Shiva and moves to reclaim the Batman mantle. Jean-Paul Valley's new Batman keeps escalating, while Robin and Nightwing help watch the damage caused by a symbol losing its moral centre.