Marvel & DC Omnibus

Gang War is the 2023 crossover in which New York's crime families go to war after Tombstone is shot, and every street-level hero in the city has to pick a side. The premise forces Spider-Man into a position he normally refuses: to stop the war he has to run a gang. Having the whole crossover in one volume matters because it is genuinely distributed — the Daredevil and She-Hulk chapters carry plot the main title depends on, which is exactly the material that goes missing in single-series collections.

This omnibus collects the crossover stories placing Deadpool within the orbit of X-Force — two of Marvel's most extreme 90s properties colliding in stories that use the mercenary's irreverence to comment on the grimly purposeful world Cable built around him. The contrast between Deadpool's chaos and X-Force's militant discipline produced some of the most entertaining comics of the era, with Fabian Nicieza's sharp dialogue ensuring the comedic potential was fully exploited.

Batman: The Golden Age Omnibus Vol. 7 follows a later Golden Age Batman period, shaped by crime plots, visual gags, elaborate traps and the confidence of characters already known inside their own world. The appeal is seeing this DC period collected as one reading path, with its own tone, cast and visual rhythm.

Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato wrote and drew The Flash for the New 52, and it is the best-looking superhero book DC published that decade. Manapul designs pages around motion: panel borders made of lightning, layouts that read as speed rather than depicting it. Buccellato's colour does half the storytelling. The plots are secondary to the craft, and that is fine, this is a book people buy to look at, and it rewards that completely.

Onslaught was the 1996 crossover built to clear the board: a psychic entity born from Xavier and Magneto that ends with the Avengers and Fantastic Four apparently dead. The reason to read it now is what it was for: Marvel needed to move its non-mutant heroes out of the way for Heroes Reborn, and Onslaught is the machinery that did it. It also pays off years of Xavier subplots — the villain is his own repressed capacity for violence, which is a better idea than the event's reputation suggests.

The first X-Factor omnibus by Peter David covers his original run on the government-sponsored team, the one that turned a book about mutant celebrities into a comedy about therapy. Issue #87 is the famous one: a full issue of the team in mandatory psychiatric evaluation, one character at a time, which is still cited as one of the best single issues Marvel has published. David writes Multiple Man, Strong Guy and Quicksilver as people with jobs and problems, and the run is much funnier than its premise suggests.

Justice League Dark was the New 52's answer to a simple problem: some threats cannot be punched, and the League has nobody who can handle them. Putting John Constantine on a team is inherently unstable, and the book knows it, he is there to betray them and everyone has accepted that. Zatanna, Deadman and Madame Xanadu get their best modern material, and the Trinity of Sin chapters are essential to the Trinity War crossover.

Jonathan Hickman's own X-Men title is the spine of the Krakoan era: the book where the nation's founders explain, issue by issue, what they have actually built. Hickman writes each issue as a self-contained argument rather than a chapter: a Summers family home on the moon, a trade negotiation, a Krakoan holiday. The Giant-Size one-shots are where the resurrection protocol's costs get examined, and Storm's in particular is the best single issue of the era.

Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning's Guardians of the Galaxy assembled the team the films are based on, out of characters Marvel had abandoned decades earlier. Star-Lord, Rocket Raccoon, Groot, Drax and Gamora as a dysfunctional unit is entirely this run's invention — none of them had worked together before. Abnett and Lanning write it as military science fiction with jokes, and it is the culmination of their whole cosmic Marvel project from Annihilation onward.

After the Clone Saga, Ben Reilly took over as Spider-Man for a year while Peter Parker retired. This omnibus collects that experiment from the start. The Scarlet Spider months are the interesting part: a Spider-Man with no marriage, no Aunt May and no history, written as someone genuinely starting over. It is also the material Marvel returned to in 2021 for the Beyond era, which makes this the origin volume for a story still running.

David Michelinie, Bob Layton and John Romita Jr. wrote and drew the Iron Man run that decided who Tony Stark is: a functioning alcoholic with a company to run. Demon in a Bottle is the story Marvel is still selling forty years later, and it works because Michelinie writes the drinking as boring and shameful rather than dramatic. Justin Hammer's introduction also gives Iron Man his first antagonist who cannot be punched — a rival businessman with better lawyers.

Wonder Woman by George Pérez Omnibus Vol. 3 follows the closing stretch of Pérez's Diana, shaped by myth, diplomacy, moral courage and battles that test what Diana believes rather than just what she can survive. The appeal is seeing this DC period collected as one reading path, with its own tone, cast and visual rhythm.

The second New Mutants omnibus is the Bill Sienkiewicz era: the point where a teen superhero book turned into something closer to expressionist horror. The Demon Bear saga is here, and it is the most famous thing the title ever produced: collage, photo reference and paint replacing conventional superhero art while Danielle Moonstar fights something that has been hunting her family. Including Fallen Angels and Firestar rounds out the era properly.

The second Doctor Strange omnibus covers the character's first solo title, launched in 1968 after Strange Tales split into two books. This is where Strange gets an origin issue — #169 is still the definitive telling — and where Marvel tried to make him a costumed superhero, which failed commercially and was reversed. Marvel Feature #1 is also here: the first Defenders story, which gave the character somewhere to belong for the next decade.

The second Michelinie and Bagley omnibus covers the early nineties at full speed: Carnage arrives, Maximum Carnage builds, and Spider-Man's rogues' gallery gets its most violent addition. Issue #361 is Carnage's first full appearance and one of the most collected comics of the decade. Michelinie also writes the Round Robin arc and the Life Theft storyline in which Peter's parents apparently return — a plot that dominated the title for two years and is essential setup for the Clone Saga.

The second Claremont omnibus contains the story the X-Men have never escaped: Jean Grey's fall, her death on the moon, and the year that followed. The Dark Phoenix Saga and Days of Future Past are both here, which is unusual: two of the most adapted stories in comics, published within two years of each other. Phoenix: The Untold Story reprints the original ending Marvel rejected, with Claremont and Byrne explaining what they had planned, and it is the single most interesting extra in any X-Men omnibus.

After Secret Invasion, Norman Osborn was handed the keys to Marvel's security apparatus. Andy Diggle's Thunderbolts: Dark Reign documents what happened when a mass murderer ran the government's sanctioned superhero team — a study in institutional corruption dressed as a superhero comic. The Thunderbolts under Osborn became Marvel's most morally compromised cast of the era. Collects 1,An oversized volume of Thunderbolts during the Dark Reign period.

New Teen Titans Omnibus Vol. 4 follows the later Wolfman/Pérez Titans pressure cooker, shaped by cosmic danger, soap-opera pressure, bruised friendships and young heroes carrying consequences. The appeal is seeing this DC period collected as one reading path, with its own tone, cast and visual rhythm.

Kelly Sue DeConnick's Captain Marvel is the run that changed Carol Danvers from Ms. Marvel into Captain Marvel and built the character the films are based on. DeConnick writes Carol as a test pilot first and a superhero second, and the run's central idea — that she takes the name because a friend earned it and she intends to live up to it — is why the change stuck. The Carol Corps miniseries, set during Secret Wars, is the best thing in the volume.

The second Aaron omnibus completes the run: Jane Foster's tenure ends, Thor gets his hammer back, and the War of the Realms finally arrives after six years of build-up. Aaron plants the War of the Realms in his first year and pays it off in his last, which almost nobody at Marvel gets to do. King Thor is the ending: the last god at the end of the universe, closing the three-timeline structure he opened with. It is one of the few complete, self-contained superhero runs of the era.

Closing of the historic Claremont-Lee collaboration. After editorial differences over creative direction, Claremont left the X-Men after 16 years of uninterrupted writing — the longest continuous run on a superhero title in history. Jim Lee briefly took over the script before leaving to found Image Comics alongside Todd McFarlane and others. A moment of historic transition for Marvel and for American comics that changed the industry forever.

Age of Apocalypse replaced every X-Men title for four months in 1995 with an alternate timeline where Xavier died before founding the school and Apocalypse conquered North America. This is the companion volume: everything published around the original crossover, including the Blink miniseries that turned a background character into the lead of Exiles. If you already own the core Age of Apocalypse, this is the material that fills in how the timeline was built and how it kept coming back.

Gerry Duggan wrote the flagship X-Men title through the back half of the Krakoan era, with the team operating as Earth's public superhero squad rather than as a nation's army. Planet-Size X-Men is the issue where the mutants terraform Mars in an afternoon, and the two Hellfire Gala specials are where Krakoa's politics get settled in public. Duggan's run is the most accessible entry to the era: a fixed roster, self-contained arcs, and a clear reason for the team to exist.

The third Ultimate X-Men omnibus takes the series to its end, and the end here is literal: Ultimatum wipes out most of the Ultimate universe's cast in five issues. Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk is the reason to own this: Damon Lindelof's six-issue miniseries, notorious for taking three years to finish and for a first page that shows Wolverine torn in half. Ultimatum then closes the line, and Requiem is the funeral. It is a genuine ending, which superhero comics rarely offer.