Marvel & DC Omnibus

Geoff Johns and James Robinson reintroduced Hawkman in 2002, a character whose continuity had become so tangled that DC had spent years avoiding him. The reincarnation premise is turned into a romance where only one person remembers the relationship, which is a genuinely uncomfortable idea and the run does not soften it. Johns also finally made Hawkman's continuity legible, which had defeated every writer for two decades.

Hitman by Garth Ennis and John McCrea Omnibus Vol. 1 collects one of DC's great hidden-gem runs. Tommy Monaghan is a Gulf War veteran turned contract killer in the Cauldron, a rough Irish corner of Gotham; a alien bite leaves him with X-ray vision and telepathy, and he sets himself up as the hitman who specializes in killing super-people. Ennis and McCrea, years before their creator-owned fame, blend savage dark comedy with genuine pathos and one of comics' great supporting casts, the regulars of Noonan's bar. Brutal, funny and unexpectedly moving.

The Books of Magic Omnibus Vol. 1 collects Neil Gaiman's original miniseries and the long-running series that followed it, in which a bespectacled London boy called Tim Hunter is told he could become the greatest magician of his age. John Ney Rieber and Peter Gross turned that premise into one of Vertigo's most sustained coming-of-age stories.

The Books of Magic Omnibus Vol. 2 continues Tim Hunter's story as the consequences of his choice catch up with him. John Ney Rieber and Peter Gross push the series further from fantasy adventure and closer to a study of a teenager carrying more power than judgement.

Books of Magic Omnibus Vol. 3 closes out Tim Hunter's Vertigo run, including the later Hunter: The Age of Magic material. It is the end of one of the imprint's longest continuous stories about growing up with power you did not ask for.

The Dead Boy Detectives Omnibus collects the adventures of Edwin Paine and Charles Rowland, two dead schoolboys who refused to move on and set up as detectives instead. Created by Neil Gaiman in Sandman, they became one of the most durable spin-offs of that universe, and later a Netflix series.

The Sandman: Overture Deluxe Edition collects the prequel Neil Gaiman wrote twenty-five years after the original series, explaining what left Morpheus weakened enough to be captured in Sandman #1. J.H. Williams III draws it, and the pages are among the most elaborate ever printed in a mainstream comic.

The Sandman: The Deluxe Edition Book Three collects the middle stretch of Neil Gaiman's series, including Brief Lives, in which Dream and his sister Delirium go looking for their missing brother and the consequences reshape the rest of the story.

The Sandman: The Deluxe Edition Book Four collects the run into The Kindly Ones, the longest and darkest arc of the series, in which everything Dream has done across seventy issues comes back for payment. Marc Hempel's stylised artwork divided readers and is now regarded as the right choice.

The Sandman: The Deluxe Edition Book Five closes the series with The Wake and the final stories, in which the Dreaming buries its king and the people whose lives he touched get their last word. It is one of the few long-form comics that ends exactly as well as it began.

The Nice House on the Lake: The Deluxe Edition collects James Tynion IV and Álvaro Martínez Bueno's horror series, in which ten friends are invited to a lakeside house by a man they have all known for years, and the world ends while they are inside. It won an Eisner and is one of DC Black Label's best-received books.

The story that made Vertigo. An occult order tries to capture Death and catches her brother instead, and when Dream of the Endless finally escapes after seventy years he has to rebuild a kingdom that fell apart without him. Book One is where Gaiman goes from writing a horror comic to writing the thing everyone else has been copying since.

Dream goes to Hell to free a woman he condemned there, and comes back to find that Lucifer has handed him the key to the whole place. Book Two contains Season of Mists and A Game of You, the point at which the series stops being about horror and starts being about responsibility and the cost of never changing your mind.

Mark Gruenwald's epic run continues with Steve Rogers back in the red-white-and-blue! With his familiar shield in hand, Steve battles alongside Nick Fury and takes on the Supreme Soviets! But his return to the mantle of Captain America may come to a swift end as he struggles to survive Mother Night's camp of hate - while transformed into a scrawny teenager!

The howling-mad Cap-Wolf and more of the Sentinel of Liberty’s most action-packed adventures! Captain America faces a threat like never before when Superia raises an army of female super villains — but even with the roguish gun-for-hire Paladin’s help, can Cap thwart Superia’s stratagem? Next, Cap comes face-to-face with his German counterpart, Hauptmann Deutschland.

While the world believes that Steve Rogers is dead, Captain America lives on! In this Omnibus collection of Marvel classics by Stan Lee, Gene Colan and John Romita Sr., Cap embarks upon some of his all-time greatest adventures! A body-swapping encounter with the Red Skull and his Cosmic Cube leads to the first appearance of the Falcon; M.

The early '70s were interesting times for America - and adventurous ones for Captain America! Featuring more than forty issues of Cap action, this oversized Omnibus collects writer Steve Englehart's and artist Sal Buscema's iconic run on the Star-Spangled Avenger! Cap battles enemies - and allies - including Doctor Faustus, S.

The early '70s were interesting times for America - and adventurous ones for Captain America! Featuring more than forty issues of Cap action, this oversized Omnibus collects writer Steve Englehart's and artist Sal Buscema's iconic run on the Star-Spangled Avenger! Cap battles enemies - and allies - including Doctor Faustus, S.

Includes Roger Stern and John Byrne’s complete run, a high watermark for Captain America storytelling! Pop culture might have gone from disco to punk to new wave during the four-year run of stories collected in this Omnibus extravaganza, but one man remained as red, white and blue as ever: Steve Rogers, Captain America!

Includes Roger Stern and John Byrne's complete run, a high-water mark for Captain America storytelling! Pop culture might have gone from disco to punk to new wave during the four-year run of stories collected in this Omnibus extravaganza, but one man remained as red, white and blue as ever: Steve Rogers, Captain America!

Jack Kirby created the Eternals in 1976, after returning from DC, as a bid to explain human mythology as the memory of alien visitors. Kirby wrote and drew the whole run and it was cancelled before he could finish. The Celestials — building-sized judges who arrive every few thousand years to decide whether humanity survives — are the enduring idea, and Marvel has used them ever since. It is Kirby's last great creation and it reads unlike anything else he did.

Harley Quinn's adventures in Coney Island continue in the second volume of the Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti run. Harley has established herself as Coney Island's unofficial protector, builds her own gang, and takes on threats ranging from local crime to cosmic weirdness. The series maintains the anarchic energy of the first volume while deepening the supporting cast and Harley's relationships. One of DC's most purely entertaining series of the 2010s, continuing the run that made Harley Quinn a star.

JSA by Geoff Johns Omnibus Vol. 3 closes out the original series and opens the acclaimed 2007 relaunch, Justice Society of America. It gathers the "Lightning Saga" JLA/JSA crossover and the celebrated "Thy Kingdom Come", the epic where the Superman of Kingdom Come crosses into the main DC Universe. Dale Eaglesham becomes the signature artist of the relaunch, under iconic Alex Ross covers, in the run that broke Stargirl out as a marquee character. The definitive Johns JSA reaches its high point.

Keith Giffen and Matthew Clark relaunched Doom Patrol in 2009, returning the team to superheroics without losing the strangeness the book is known for. Giffen had written the team before and knew the balance: Robotman gets the jokes, Negative Man gets the horror, and Rita Farr gets the dignity. The Metal Men back-up strip that ran with it is also here, and it is some of the most purely fun material DC published that year.