Rorschach by Tom King and Jorge Fornés Deluxe Edition

Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons took a set of discarded Charlton characters in 1986 and used them to ask what costumed power would actually do to a country. The nine-panel grid, the recurring symbols and the symmetry of chapter five make the structure part of the argument, and the prose sections are not optional, they carry a third of the story. Watchmen is the book almost every deconstruction since is answering, and the deluxe format restores John Higgins' colour choices that cheap paper flattened.

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.

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.

Batman by Tom King, collected as a pack of 2 oversized omnibus volumes and cheaper than buying them one by one. Tom King's Batman ran for eighty-five issues and is the defining modern take on the character: a run about trauma, love and whether Bruce Wayne is allowed to be happy. This is the first half of the run, with David Finch and Mikel Janín on art, and it is where King establishes the pattern: superhero plots used as delivery mechanisms for emotional argument. I Am Suicide alone reframes how Batman talks about his own death drive. Volume 1 is the entry point, and the omnibus format is the only one that keeps the crossover chapters in place. The second half of Tom King's eighty-five issue Batman run, where the wedding arc collapses and the consequences take over the book. Volume 1 sets up the proposal; this is where King collects on it. Bane's plan turns out to be psychological rather than physical, Batman is taken apart by people who know exactly where the joints are, and the run's argument, that Bruce Wayne is not permitted happiness, is stated outright. The Flash crossover chapters are here in place.

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.

Tom King's Batman ran for eighty-five issues and is the defining modern take on the character: a run about trauma, love and whether Bruce Wayne is allowed to be happy. This is the first half of the run, with David Finch and Mikel Janín on art, and it is where King establishes the pattern: superhero plots used as delivery mechanisms for emotional argument. I Am Suicide alone reframes how Batman talks about his own death drive. Volume 1 is the entry point, and the omnibus format is the only one that keeps the crossover chapters in place.

The second half of Tom King's eighty-five issue Batman run, where the wedding arc collapses and the consequences take over the book. Volume 1 sets up the proposal; this is where King collects on it. Bane's plan turns out to be psychological rather than physical, Batman is taken apart by people who know exactly where the joints are, and the run's argument, that Bruce Wayne is not permitted happiness, is stated outright. The Flash crossover chapters are here in place.

Tom King and Phil Hester go back to 1961 and tell Gotham's original sin without Batman in it. Private investigator Slam Bradley takes the kidnapping case of Helen Wayne, heir to the Wayne fortune, and what he finds is a city already rotten with police corruption and racial violence long before anyone put on a cape.

Superman: Up in the Sky: The Deluxe Edition collects Tom King and Andy Kubert's series about a single question: a girl has been taken somewhere across the galaxy, and Superman leaves Earth to find her even though the odds say he should not. Each chapter is a self-contained trial on the way.

Absolute Power Omnibus collects Mark Waid and Dan Mora's event and its tie-ins, in which Amanda Waller finally does what she has been building towards for years: strips every metahuman on Earth of their powers at once and leaves the heroes to fight back with nothing. Collected complete in a single oversized hardcover.

Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow The Deluxe Edition collects Tom King and Bilquis Evely's eight-issue western in space, told by a teenage girl named Ruthye who hires Supergirl to help her hunt her father's killer across the galaxy. Kara is not the narrator, and seeing her through someone else's eyes is exactly what makes the book work. Evely and colourist Mat Lopes produced some of the most beautiful pages DC has published this decade.