Marvel & DC Omnibus

The third Silver Age volume runs the series into the late 1960s, where the impossible romances and the Wonder Family finally give way to the changes that would strip Diana of her powers entirely. Kanigher keeps writing it at full speed until the very end.

Diana has given up the identity, Donna Troy is wearing the costume, and the villains show up to take advantage of a Wonder Woman who is not the real one. Heinberg and the Dodsons wrote the relaunch that had to answer, in public, what the character is actually for.

Joshua Williamson wrote The Flash for six years, the longest run since Mark Waid, and this volume covers its conclusion. Issue #750 is the anniversary special that brings back every Flash at once, and the finale pays off the Forces cosmology Williamson spent years building, Speed, Strength, Sage and Still. Barry Allen's relationship with Wally West is the emotional spine, and the ending gives both of them somewhere to go.

The second Snyder and Tynion omnibus takes the Justice League run to its conclusion, through the Year of the Villain and the rise of the Batman Who Laughs. The Batman Who Laughs stops being a crossover villain here and becomes the character DC built a whole line around: a Bruce Wayne infected by the Joker who is smarter than either. Hell Arisen is where he wins, briefly and completely, and it leads directly into Dark Nights: Death Metal.

Green Lantern by Robert Venditti Omnibus Vol. 2 follows the Corps under cosmic leadership pressure, shaped by war-scale decisions, spectrum politics and the cost of carrying a ring when every choice echoes outward. The appeal is seeing this DC period collected as one reading path, with its own tone, cast and visual rhythm.

The Flash: The Rebirth Deluxe Edition Book 1 opens Joshua Williamson's run, in which a Speed Force storm gives half of Central City super-speed and Barry Allen has to work out who to train, who to stop and who is lying to him. Art by Carmine Di Giandomenico.

The Sandman ran for seventy-five issues between 1989 and 1996 and is the book that proved comics could be sold to people who did not read comics. This half contains Brief Lives, Worlds' End and The Kindly Ones, which is where the whole series turns out to have been a tragedy with a fixed ending all along. The Wake closes it. Gaiman planned the finish from early on and refused to continue past it, which is why the series holds together as a novel rather than a run.

Insomnia puts every hero on Earth to sleep at once and traps them inside their own worst nightmare. Knight Terrors is the rare crossover where the tie-ins are the point: each one takes a character apart using the thing they will not look at, and this omnibus collects the whole event in reading order.

Ditko created Spider-Man and Doctor Strange and then spent decades at DC building characters nobody asked him for: the Creeper, Shade the Changing Man, Hawk and Dove, Stalker. This omnibus collects all of it, and it is the strangest looking superhero work of its era.

Everything Kirby made at DC in the 1970s that was not the Fourth World, in one volume: Kamandi, OMAC, the Demon, Sandman, Kobra and the war stories. He was writing, drawing and editing all of it at once, at an age when most creators are repeating themselves.

Darkseid cannot beat Earth's heroes, so he sets out to make the public stop believing in them instead. Legends is the first event DC ran after Crisis on Infinite Earths, and the fallout created the Suicide Squad, the Justice League International and the Flash everyone knows today.

In 2011 DC cancelled its entire line and restarted fifty two titles from issue one on the same day. Ten years later this anniversary volume collects the first issues that mattered, which is the only honest way to look at a relaunch that produced both Snyder's Batman and a lot of things nobody finished.

Every character DC owned, one per page, drawn by the artist most associated with them. Who's Who was published monthly in the 1980s as a loose leaf encyclopedia and it is still the best single record of what the DC universe contained before Crisis rearranged it.

The second half of DC's illustrated directory, running through the rest of the alphabet and into the post Crisis updates. Same format, same idea: one character per page, drawn by whoever owned them, from the biggest names in the line to characters nobody has used since.

The Joker’s Bronze Age stories capture the character after camp has curdled back into danger. The smile is still theatrical, but the menace grows sharper, with creators like Dennis O’Neil, Martin Pasko, Irv Novick, Jim Aparo and José Luis García-López shaping a Joker who can be absurd, stylish and genuinely frightening in the same breath.

Green Arrow by Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino: The Deluxe Edition collects the run that rescued Green Arrow from the worst stretch of the New 52 and turned him into something closer to a myth. Lemire strips Oliver Queen of his money and his gadgets, sends him back to the island, and reveals an ancient conflict of totem clans behind the bow. Sorrentino's fractured page layouts are the reason people still talk about it.

Green Arrow: The Golden Age Omnibus Vol. 1 collects the character's earliest adventures from the 1940s, when Oliver Queen and Speedy were a straightforward Batman-and-Robin analogue with an arrow car and an arrow plane, and none of the politics that came later.

Aquaman by Geoff Johns Omnibus restores Arthur Curry as a king caught between ridicule, responsibility and the violent pull of Atlantis. Geoff Johns, Ivan Reis, Joe Prado and Paul Pelletier make the ocean feel royal, dangerous and political, turning Aquaman into a lead who has to prove himself on land and underwater.

Secret Six by Gail Simone Omnibus Vol. 1 collects one of DC's most beloved cult runs, a book about villains that has more heart than most hero comics. Born from Villains United, the Six are a rotating band of C- and D-list rogues who take the jobs no one else will and, against the odds, become a family: Catman, Deadshot, Ragdoll, Scandal Savage, Bane and more. Gail Simone balances brutal action, dark comedy and real emotional stakes, and the run is famous for turning Catman from a punchline into a genuine badass. Art by Dale Eaglesham, Nicola Scott and Jim Calafiore.

The New Teen Titans by Marv Wolfman and George Pérez was DC's best-selling book of the early eighties and the title that turned sidekicks into leads. The Brother Blood arc is where Wolfman commits to Raven's parentage and the demonic side of the book, and Pérez draws crowd scenes nobody else could stage. This run is also the direct source for every Teen Titans adaptation since, from the cartoon to the live-action series.

Justice League International Omnibus Vol. 2 focuses on the Giffen and DeMatteis era, with the Justice League shaped by global superhero politics, office comedy, awkward friendship and danger that cuts through the jokes. The appeal is not only continuity; it is watching a specific DC period find its tone, cast and visual rhythm.

Injustice: Gods Among Us Omnibus Vol. 2 collects the second half of Tom Taylor's prequel to the videogame, as Superman's Regime hardens into open dictatorship and Batman's insurgency runs out of people willing to die for it. The series is famous for making a premise that sounds ridiculous on paper genuinely devastating.

Justice League of America: The Silver Age Omnibus Vol. 1 focuses on the Silver Age birth of the League, with DC's major heroes shaped by team problems, impossible threats and the pleasure of seeing icons share one stage. The appeal is not only continuity; it is watching a specific DC period find its tone, cast and visual rhythm.

Jim Corrigan is a dead detective and the Spectre is what he came back as, and in the 1970s that meant murderers being turned into wood and fed through a bandsaw. Fleisher and Aparo wrote the most extreme superhero comics the Code ever allowed, and DC cancelled the run for it.