Marvel & DC Omnibus

The other Claremont. Everyone knows the sixteen years on Uncanny X-Men; this collects what he was writing everywhere else across four decades, including the first Captain Britain series and a stretch of Doctor Strange. It is the volume that shows the range behind the reputation.

Kirby's longest solo run: forty issues of a boy crossing a post-apocalyptic America ruled by intelligent animals, inventing a new civilisation every few pages. The most sustained showcase of his imagination working without a brake.

Before Watchmen Omnibus collects all ten prequel series DC published to Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen, in one oversized hardcover. Whatever you think of the idea, the talent assembled is extraordinary: Darwyn Cooke on Minutemen and Silk Spectre, Brian Azzarello and Lee Bermejo on Rorschach, J. Michael Straczynski on Dr. Manhattan, plus Amanda Conner, Adam Hughes, Joe Kubert and Jae Lee.

Seven Soldiers by Grant Morrison Omnibus collects the most structurally ambitious thing Morrison ever attempted at DC: seven separate four-issue miniseries about seven unconnected heroes, bookended by two specials, which together tell one story none of the protagonists ever realise they are in. Shining Knight, Zatanna, Klarion, Guardian, Mister Miracle, Bulleteer and Frankenstein.

Lucifer Omnibus Vol. 1 collects the first half of Mike Carey's Sandman spin-off, in which the retired Devil is offered a favour by Heaven and uses it to create a universe of his own, purely to prove he is not part of anyone else's plan. Free will treated as a war, with Peter Gross on art.

Lucifer Omnibus Vol. 2 collects the second half of Mike Carey's run, in which the created universe starts to fail, the war with Heaven becomes unavoidable, and Lucifer has to decide whether independence is worth what it costs everyone around him. It ends on one of the most satisfying final issues Vertigo ever published.

Sleeper Omnibus collects the complete Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips noir thriller, including its Point Blank prologue. Holden Carver is embedded inside a criminal organisation, and the only man who knows he is not really a traitor is in a coma. Every month the cover holds, the cover becomes more true.

The Invisibles Omnibus collects Grant Morrison's entire countercultural conspiracy epic in one volume: a cell of anarchist agents fighting a secret war against the forces that manufacture consensus reality. Magic, time travel, pop philosophy and 1990s paranoia, running for nearly sixty issues and reportedly a direct influence on The Matrix.

Y: The Last Man Omnibus collects all sixty issues of Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra's Eisner-winning series in one oversized hardcover. Every male mammal on Earth dies in the same instant except Yorick Brown and his monkey, and what follows is part road movie, part political thriller and mostly a study of how people rebuild.

100 Bullets Omnibus Vol. 1 collects the first fifty-eight issues of Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso's Eisner-winning crime series. A man called Agent Graves offers strangers an attaché case containing a gun, a hundred untraceable bullets and irrefutable proof of who ruined their life. What starts as an anthology of revenge turns into something much larger.

100 Bullets Omnibus Vol. 2 collects the second half of the series, where the Trust, the Minutemen and Agent Graves stop circling each other and the conspiracy resolves into open war. It also includes the full Brother Lono sequel. The ending is one of the most complete in crime comics.

Deadman Omnibus collects the run that made Neal Adams's reputation. Boston Brand is a trapeze artist murdered mid-performance, granted the power to possess the living until he finds his killer. Adams's photorealistic figures and broken panel layouts were unlike anything else DC published in 1968.

The Phantom Stranger Omnibus collects the 1970s run of DC's least explained character: a man who appears where something is wrong, helps, and leaves without ever saying who he is. Jim Aparo's moody artwork and a rotating cast of writers made it one of the definitive horror-adjacent books of the era.

Young Justice Omnibus Vol. 1 collects Peter David and Todd Nauck's run, in which Robin, Superboy and Impulse form a team with no adult supervision and considerably less competence than the Teen Titans. It is the funniest sustained superhero book DC published in the late nineties, and the direct source of the animated series.

Young Justice Omnibus Vol. 2 continues Peter David's run through its later, darker stretch, as the team gains members, loses its innocence and heads towards the events that would fold them into the Teen Titans. The comedy stays, but the stakes stop being theoretical.

Power Girl: New Beginnings and Old Friends Omnibus collects the Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray and Amanda Conner run, which took a character usually treated as a punchline and made her the lead of a genuinely funny superhero comic. Conner's comic timing is the reason it still gets recommended.

The Warlord by Mike Grell Omnibus Vol. 1 collects the sword-and-sorcery series Grell wrote and drew about a US Air Force pilot who falls through a polar opening into Skartaris, a hollow-earth world of dinosaurs and warring city-states. It was DC's answer to Conan and outlasted most of its imitators.

Rorschach by Tom King and Jorge Fornés Deluxe Edition collects the twelve-issue Black Label series set thirty-five years after Watchmen, in which an assassin dressed as Rorschach tries to kill a presidential candidate and a detective is left to work out why. King writes it as a cold procedural about how myths outlive the people who made them.

Watchmen: The Deluxe LCSD Edition collects Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons's complete twelve-issue series in the deluxe format, with sketches, bonus material and a new introduction by Gibbons. This Local Comic Shop Day edition is a limited printing and includes a digital code for the animated film, valid in the US only.

House of Mystery: The Bronze Age Omnibus Vol. 2 collects more of DC's great horror anthology, hosted by Cain and drawn by a roster that reads like a list of the best artists of the era. Short, sharp stories with twist endings, from the period when DC horror was at its peak.

Legion of Super-Heroes by Mark Waid and Barry Kitson Omnibus collects the relaunch that reframed the Legion as a youth movement: thousands of teenagers across the galaxy following an ideal, with the actual team as its public face. It is the most accessible entry point the Legion has ever had.

Strange Adventures: The Deluxe Edition collects Tom King, Mitch Gerads and Evan Shaner's series about Adam Strange, a war hero touring his own memoir while Mister Terrific investigates whether any of it is true. The two artists split the timelines, and the contrast is the whole argument.

Adam Strange: Between Two Worlds The Deluxe Edition collects the miniseries that rebuilt DC's pulp science-fiction hero, stranded on Earth after Rann vanishes and desperate to get back to a wife and daughter nobody believes exist.

House of Mystery: The Bronze Age Omnibus Vol. 1 collects the start of DC's great horror anthology after the Comics Code loosened, hosted by Cain and drawn by a roster including Bernie Wrightson, Neal Adams and Alex Toth. Short stories with twist endings, and some of the best art of the era.