X-Men: The Hidden Years Omnibus

The second Ultimate X-Men omnibus covers the post-Millar years, with Brian Michael Bendis, Brian K. Vaughan and Robert Kirkman each taking the book in turn. Vaughan's run is the strongest stretch of the series: the Hellfire Club, Ultimate Longshot and the arc where Xavier's methods stop looking defensible. Because the Ultimate universe has no reset button, decisions made here stay made — which gives the middle of the run more weight than most relaunched titles ever manage.

Way of X is Simon Spurrier's corner of Krakoa: the book that asked what a society with no death actually believes, and put Nightcrawler in charge of finding out. Resurrection makes murder meaningless, and Spurrier is the only writer who treated that as a moral crisis rather than a plot convenience. Nightcrawler drafting a mutant religion is the throughline, and X-Men Blue: Origins is here too — the issue that finally settled Nightcrawler's parentage after forty years.

In 1975 Giant-Size X-Men #1 replaced a cancelled book's cast with an international team, and a young Chris Claremont took over the writing. He stayed for sixteen years. This is the foundation of everything the X-Men have been since: the Dark Phoenix Saga begins here, Jean Grey becomes Phoenix, and the book shifts from a cancelled sixties title to Marvel's flagship. Claremont's habit of writing soap opera around the superheroics starts on page one of #94.

X-Men: The Messiah Trilogy Omnibus collects the complete Messiah Complex, Messiah War and Second Coming — Hope Summers, the first mutant born after M-Day, and the war for mutantkind's future. The complete Messiah Complex (2007), Messiah War (2009) and Second Coming (2010) collected in one volume — the trilogy that defined the post-Decimation X-Men. Hope Summers, the first mutant born after M-Day, is the key to mutantkind's survival. Cable takes her into the future to protect her. The X-Men and X-Force fight through time to bring her back. Second Coming ends with a death that reshapes the team forever. Over 1,An oversized volume of the highest-stakes X-Men storytelling of the 2000s.

Grant Morrison took over X-Men in 2001 and rebuilt it as science fiction about a species: the school opened to hundreds of students, mutants became a culture with fashion and drugs, and the costumes went black. Morrison's premise is that mutants are winning demographically and nobody has noticed, which reframes the whole franchise. Genosha's destruction in the first issue kills sixteen million people and the book never lets you forget it. Frank Quitely, Igor Kordey and Chris Bachalo draw it, and every X-Men run since has been either extending this or reacting against it.

House of M is the event where Wanda Maximoff rewrites reality into a world run by mutants, and then ends it with three words that cut the mutant population from millions to a few hundred. 'No more mutants' set the X-Men's status quo for the next decade, and the tie-ins are where the alternate world is actually explored — Spider-Man with Gwen Stacy alive, Wolverine remembering everything. Having Decimation: The Day After in the same volume closes the loop, since that is where the consequences begin.

PRH frames this volume around two major unions: an X-Men/Avengers team-up and the wedding of Jean Grey and Cyclops. It sits in the Blue & Gold era, where the mutant line mixes soap-opera emotion with wide Marvel Universe pressure. This is a very specific 1990s X-Men shelf: family, politics, Avengers crossover energy and the emotional centre of Scott and Jean all in one stretch before the line moves into its next major threat.

X-Men: Blue & Gold – Mutant Genesis Omnibus captures the explosive early-90s relaunch energy of the X-Men, with Chris Claremont and Jim Lee reshaping the team’s visual identity for a new era. It is bright, crowded, dramatic and built around the moment when mutant comics became the centre of Marvel’s pop force. Collectors come to this for the Jim Lee moment, but the volume also matters because it captures the X-Men becoming a pop-cultural machine: team design, roster energy and soap-opera tension all sharpened for maximum impact.

Roy Thomas and Howard Chaykin bring Luke Skywalker’s first adventure to comics in Marvel’s original adaptation of A New Hope. Luke, Leia, Han Solo and their allies confront Darth Vader and the Death Star, with scenes that never reached the screen. This 50th anniversary Deluxe Edition collects the six-part adaptation in an oversize hardcover.

Justice League of America: The Bronze Age, collected as a pack of 4 oversized omnibus volumes and cheaper than buying them one by one. Justice League of America: The Bronze Age Omnibus Vol. 1 opens a more textured era for the League, still heroic and direct but increasingly shaped by shifting casts, social unease and a DC universe learning to carry more continuity. Gardner Fox, Dennis O'Neil, Len Wein, Mike Friedrich and Dick Dillin bridge classic team adventure with a richer 1970s mood. The second Bronze Age Justice League omnibus covers the early 1970s, when the team left their secret New England cave for a satellite in orbit and the stories went cosmic. This is where the JLA/JSA team-ups settle into their yearly rhythm and the multiverse becomes a working part of DC's storytelling rather than an occasional gimmick. It is also the era that established the League as DC's legends rather than just its biggest team. The third Bronze Age omnibus covers the late seventies, when Gerry Conway took over the Justice League and gave it the longest continuous run of its classic era. Conway wrote the League for years and used the length: long-running subplots, a rotating roster and the arrival of Zatanna as a permanent member. The JLA/JSA crossovers in this stretch are also the most ambitious of the run, bringing in the Legion of Super-Heroes and the New Gods across multiple Earths. The fourth Bronze Age omnibus takes the Justice League into the early eighties, the last years before Crisis on Infinite Earths changed everything. The Leaf Candy mini comic is a genuine curiosity, a promotional giveaway that has never been collected anywhere else. The main run includes the New Gods crossover in #183-185, which is Gerry Conway writing Darkseid at full scale, and the Firestorm and Titans tie-ins that show DC's line starting to interconnect.

The third Amazing Spider-Man omnibus covers the transition from Stan Lee and John Romita Sr. to Gerry Conway, and the two issues that ended the Silver Age of the character. Issues #121-122 are here: the Green Goblin, Gwen Stacy and the George Washington Bridge. Nothing in superhero comics had done that before, and the industry treats it as the moment the genre stopped guaranteeing happy endings. The volume also contains the six-armed Spider-Man arc and the first appearances of Morbius and the Punisher.

Amazing Spider-Man Omnibus Vol. 5 continues Peter Parker's Bronze Age stretch after the first Clone Saga, with Gerry Conway, Roy Thomas and Ross Andru shaping a Spider-Man who feels older, more socially rooted and increasingly defined by relationships. Mary Jane, Aunt May, the Daily Bugle and a changing Marvel New York give the run its texture.

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 Daredevil omnibus covers the late sixties and early seventies, when Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway took over and the book moved Matt Murdock to San Francisco. This is the run where the Black Widow becomes a co-lead — the book was retitled Daredevil and the Black Widow for part of it — and where the character stops being a Spider-Man variant. The Iron Man crossover is also the first appearance of the Zodiac cartel, which Marvel used for decades afterwards.

The second Incredible Hulk omnibus covers Peter David's most celebrated stretch, when the Hulk's personalities merged and the book became a study of an integrated mind under pressure. The Pantheon arrives, Doc Samson integrates grey, green and Banner into one person, and issue #400 pays off the Leader's long campaign. David spends the rest of the volume testing whether the merger holds against the Abomination, the U-Foes and Freedom Force. It is the run's centre of gravity.

The fourth Bronze Age omnibus takes the Justice League into the early eighties, the last years before Crisis on Infinite Earths changed everything. The Leaf Candy mini comic is a genuine curiosity, a promotional giveaway that has never been collected anywhere else. The main run includes the New Gods crossover in #183-185, which is Gerry Conway writing Darkseid at full scale, and the Firestorm and Titans tie-ins that show DC's line starting to interconnect.