A while back, DC announced a new line of reprints, called DC Finest, that packages about 500 pages of comics from various eras into a $40 softcover. From all appearances, it looks to be an attempt to mimic Marvel's successful Epic Collections line, in which complete runs of their books are reprinted in similar paperbacks, but often out of order. So you might get Fantastic Four volume 3 (The Coming of Galactus) before volume 1 (the early stuff), but the volumes have all been mapped out, and gaps get filled in as time goes on.
DC announced a bunch of collections, ranging from the Golden Age (All-Star Comics, Superman) to the 2000s (Wonder Woman), with plenty in between. In October's solicitations, they've finally nailed down the contents for most of the announced books. Here's what's been announced so far.
DC FINEST: WONDER WOMAN: ORIGINS & OMENS
ON SALE 10/8/24
DC Finest: Wonder Woman: Origins & Omens collects these Wonder Woman issues from October 2007 to 2009: Wonder Woman (vol. 3) #14-35, Outsiders: Five of a Kind – Wonder Woman/Grace #1, and The Brave and the Bold #7.
DC FINEST: SUPERMAN: THE FIRST SUPERHERO
ON SALE 11/5/24
The First Superhero covers Summer 1938 to Fall 1940 and reprints classic stories from Action Comics #1-25, Superman #1-5, and New York World’s Fair #1.
DC FINEST: BATMAN: BATMAN: YEAR ONE & TWO
$39.99 US | 592 pages | 6 5/8″ x 10 3/16″ | Softcover | ISBN: 978-1-77952-835-3
ON SALE 11/5/24
Collects Batman #404-414, Batman Annual #11, and Detective Comics #571-581.
DC FINEST: CATWOMAN: LIFE LINES
ON SALE 12/17/24
Collects Catwoman (vol. 1) #1-4, Catwoman (vol. 2) #1-12, Catwoman Annual #1, Batman/Catwoman: Defiant #1, and stories from Action Comics Weekly #611-614 and Showcase ’93 #1-4.
DC FINEST: JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA: THE BRIDGE BETWEEN EARTHS
ON SALE 11/19/24
Collects Justice League of America #45-72 from July 1966 to June 1969.
DC FINEST: GREEN LANTERN: THE DEFEAT OF GREEN LANTERN
ON SALE 12/3/24
Featuring works from revered comics writers and artists such as John Broome, Gardner Fox, and Gil Kane, this volume collects classic stories from Green Lantern #19-39, The Flash #143, and The Brave and the Bold #59.
DC FINEST: EVENTS: ZERO HOUR PART ONE
ON SALE 12/10/24
This first of two collections features Superman #93, The Flash #94, L.E.G.I.O.N. #70, Green Lantern #55, Super-man: The Man of Steel #37, Team Titans #24, The Darkstars #24, Valor #23, Batman #511, Batman: Shadow of the Bat #31, Detective Comics #678, Legionnaires #18, Hawkman #13, Showcase ‘94 #8-9, Steel #8, Superboy #8, Outsiders #11, and Zero Hour: Crisis in Time #3-4.
DC FINEST: LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES: ZAP GOES THE LEGION
ON SALE 12/10/24
This first collection starring the greatest heroes of the 30th century features stories pulled from the pages of Action Comics #378-387 and #389-392, Adventure Comics #374-380 and #403, and Superboy #172-173, #176, #183-184, #188, #190-191, #193, #195, and #197-203.
DC FINEST: THE FLASH: THE HUMAN THUNDERBOLT
ON SALE 11/26/24
Collects Showcase #4, #8, and #13-14, and The Flash #105-123.
DC FINEST: JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA: FOR AMERICA AND DEMOCRACY
ON SALE 12/3/24
Collects All-Star Comics #3-12.
DC has also announced three more for January, although the exact contents aren’t announced yet:
DC Finest: Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters – 21st of January, 2025
The most iconic stories starring Green Arrow! (From the cover, it looks like it’s the start of the Grell run, starting with The Longbow Hunters miniseries.)
DC Finest: Supergirl: The Girl of Steel – 14th of January, 2025
The earliest stories starring Supergirl! (Looks like Supergirl, from the beginning.)
DC Finest: Aquaman: The King of Atlantis – 7th of January, 2025
The earliest stories starring the King of the Seas: Aquaman! (Silver Age Aquaman, with Jack Miller, Robert Bernstein, and Ramona Fradon listed as creators.)
So for the purposes of discussion... which ones of these interest you the most? And looking forward, where would you go for the second volumes of these titles?
Replies
Doctor Fate was in all or most of Flash #305-313. He was indeed a guest in #305's team-up between Jay and Barry, and then Martin Pasko wrote solo stories for him in #306-309, later joined by and Steve Gerber in #310-313.
Yep! I loved those stories. Those I'd already accounted for in my map, aside from the guest appearance in 305. With the guest appearances, I guess it'd be worth distinguishing whether they were cameos or full guest-starring roles, to see if they should be included.
I don't recall if I mentioned this before but I stopped buying new comics by mid-2020 and only got a handful of trades since them including my first (and only) omnibus. I wasn't thrilled by the format or weight!
I have a lot of Archives, Showcase Presents and the Golden/Silver Age collections but the Archives are 20-25 years old so we'll see about duplicate runs.
But all this has worn me down and I ordered the Aquaman, Supergirl and Legion volumes and will probably get more in the coming months. The Plastic Man and Peacemaker are the ones that got my attention!
Awesome! I'm feeling like my sweet spot with the DC Finest line will be runs from the 70s, 80s, and 90s -- either books I already have (but don't have collected, and am willing to sell), or books I didn't follow from that time. I have a lot of 60s and 40s collections already through the Archives, and I don't know how much stuff from the 2000s will grab me (although I TORE through the Wonder Woman volume!). Next up will be Aquaman and Green Arrow, which I'll order once the GA volume goes up on instocktrades.com (on Wednesday, I believe). I'll probably also order the Superman Triangle Era omnibus, as I'm closing in on the end of some other omnis I'm reading.
I have my eye on Peacemaker, Science Fiction, Team-Ups, and a few more in the coming months!
Just wrapped up the Batman: Year One and Two DC Finest volume. A few thoughts.
Batman: Year One is still an amazing story. It's pretty much Peak Batman, or at the very least Peak Noir Batman. Batman: Year Two could never be as good, but it got kneecapped when Alan Davis left after the first issue. McFarlane's art looks pretty great here, but the storytelling gets muddier, and some of the complexity of the story gets lost. And a lot of the emotion of the story gets lost, as McFarlane simply wasn't as good at conveying that as Davis was.
Other than Batman: Year One, the Mike W. Barr and Alan Davis Detective Comics stores are head and shoulders above everything else. There's so much zest in them. If Davis stuck around, I feel like Jason Todd would never have died.
On the other side, most of the Batman stories are written by Max Allen Collins, who brings a lot of the hard-boiled true-crime attitude of Ms. Tree to Batman. It's not that successful, IMO. (It's also in stark contrast to the silly, comic-booky names he tends to give side characters, like identical twins in Two-Face's gang called the Rorrim Twins -- mirror spelled backwards, wink.) I like a Batman who's more compassionate, and less (as Collins puts it in a later story) "Old Testament." To me, Collins's best story is the "Penguin goes straight" story in the Batman Annual; Norm Breyfogle's debut brought out the best in him.
Of course, even that was outshone by the Alan Moore/George Freeman Clayface story in the first part of the annual. Seeing a Moore story in this context -- rather than in a collection of Moore stories -- really emphasizes how special a writer he is. It's a gem.
There are some nice stories at the beginning before the long runs get rolling, too -- a Magpie story with art by Trevor Von Eeden, and a Penguin story drawn by Klaus Jansson. Both feel a little old-fashioned in the best of ways -- the last gasp of an earlier era of Batman.
Oh, and Batman 412 -- featuring the debut (and only? appearance of The Mime -- might be the comic with the greatest discrepancy of cover art to interiors. Check out this Kevin Nowlan cover, and then dig this sad mishmash of Dave Cockrum and Don Heck, which doesn't serve either artist well.
Just weighing in...
Batman: Year One is still an amazing story.
This is the story that introduced the term "year one" to the comic book lexicon. The mistake virtually every supposedly "year one" story has made since is to tell a story set during a hero's first year, whereas Batman: Year One detailed the entire first year.
McFarlane's art looks pretty great here...
McFarlane's art probably never looked better than here and on his Hulk run, both of which had editors who curtailed his more... "flamboyant" tendancies and forced him to utilize more traditional comic book storytelling methods.
Batman 412 -- featuring the debut (and only?) appearance of The Mime...
The only one I know of.
Apparently she had a cameo in the Lego Batman Movie, and the Batman/Scooby-Doo Mysteries, and maybe a couple of other side avenues like that. Nothing major, though.
As I wait for my next DC Finest volumes to arrive, I keep thinking of new potential collections. I like this one for Justice League, jumping ahead from their current Silver Age volume into an area that hasn't seen as much reprinting (but includes enough stories of interest to be marketable): JLA 159-182, starting shortly before Zatanna's induction into the League, carrying through Firestorm's induction, and stopping juuuust before George Perez starts pencilling the book. (A Perez-led volume of 183-206 would be a nice follow-up.) It's got a couple JLA/JSA teamups, two inductions, one member quitting (Green Arrow), and the Secret Society of Super-Villains story that wound up being pivotal in Identity Crisis decades later. What's not to like?
DC's April solicitations are out, and as usual, the collected editions are solicited a little earlier. I was worried last month that DC might have been slowing down its intial DC Finest launch plans since only two were solicited for May, but the expected third -- Batman: The Killing Joke (a no-brainer volume if there ever was one!) is now officially solicited for May 20. The schedule remains as we were originally told, with these four new ones (mostly second volumes!) in the works.
May 20: Batman 2
June 3: Superman 2
June 10: Catwoman 2
June 17: Metamorpho
Here's the solicitation copy, with details of the issues being reprinted.
DC FINEST: BATMAN: THE KILLING JOKE AND OTHER STORIES
Written by ALAN MOORE, MIKE W. BARR, JIM STARLIN, and others
Art by BRIAN BOLLAND, JIM APARO, NORM BREYFOGLE, JERRY BINGHAM, and others Cover by BRIAN BOLLAND
$39.99 US | 608 pages | 6 5/8″ x 10 3/16″ | Softcover | ISBN: 978-1-79950-145-9
ON SALE 5/20/25
The Caped Crusader continues to battle crime in Gotham in the late 1980s, this time squaring off against villains such as Two-Face, the Ratcatcher, and KGBeast in Batman #413-422 and Detective Comics #580-589. This volume also contains two celebrated graphic novels—Batman: Son of the Demon #1 by Mike W. Barr and Jerry Bingham and Batman: The Killing Joke #1 by Alan Moore and Brian Bolland, the comics masterpiece that explored the complex dynamic between Batman and his archnemesis, The Joker.
DC FINEST: CATWOMAN: VENGEANCE AND VINDICATION
Written by CHUCK DIXON, ALAN GRANT, and others
Art by JIM BALENT and others
Cover by JIM BALENT
$39.99 US | 624 pages | 6 5/8″ x 10 3/16″ | Softcover | ISBN: 978-1-79950-175-6
ON SALE 6/10/25
Breakouts! Heists! Burglaries! Kidnappings! Catwoman must claw her way out of the deadliest capers and prove once more why she is best at what she does. Facing the likes of Batman, Gorilla Grodd, Robin, Catman, Nazis, princes, and more…she’s in for the adventures of a lifetime. Collects Catwoman #0, #13-32; Catwoman Annual #2; Batman: Shadow of the Bat #43-44; and a story from Showcase ’95 #4, including many never-before collected tales!
DC FINEST: METAMORPHO: THE ELEMENT MAN
Written by BOB HANEY and others
Art by RAMONA FRADON, SAL TRAPANI, and others
Cover by RAMONA FRADON
$39.99 US | 592 pages | 6 5/8″ x 10 3/16″ | Softcover | ISBN: 978-1-79950-184-8
ON SALE 6/17/25
Adventurer Rex Mason would do anything for the right price! When he’s hired by his girlfriend’s evil millionaire father to steal the legendary Orb of Ra, his life is forever changed! Transformed by the ancient Egyptian artifact, Rex is reborn as Metamorpho. He can now transform his body into hundreds of different substances and shapes, but he’s gotta figure out how to save his love life first…maybe if he becomes a superhero? Collects stories from Brave and the Bold #57-58, #66, #68, #101; Metamorpho #1-17; and Justice League of America #42.
DC FINEST: SUPERMAN: KRYPTONITE NEVERMORE
Written by DENNIS O’NEIL, LEO DORFMAN, and others
Art by CURT SWAN, MURPHY ANDERSON, and others
Cover by NEAL ADAMS
$39.99 US | 576 pages | 6 5/8″ x 10 3/16″ | Softcover | ISBN: 978-1-79950-165-7
ON SALE 6/3/25
One of the most beloved eras of Superman comics begins! In the Kryptonite Nevermore era, all of Earth’s kryptonite has been turned into iron, effectively rendering the Man of Steel truly invulnerable. But without any weaknesses to hold him back, can Superman be trusted to not succumb to his darker impulses? Featuring stories by comics legends Dennis O’Neil, Curt Swan, and Murphy Anderson, DC Finest: Kryptonite Nevermore marks the beginning of one of the greatest chapters in comics history. Collects Action Comics #393-406 and Superman #233-238, #240-246.
We've only got three more volumes, due in July, that aren't officially solicited. Hopefully we'll hear about more volumes soon!
DC FINEST: SUPERMAN: KRYPTONITE NEVERMORE
Put me down for "Kryptonite Nevermore." Back in 2009 I bought the HC DC Comics Classic Library edition, but it collected only Superman #233-237, 240-242, and the DC Finest edition goes beyond that. To be perfectly honest, I was a bit disappointed with the DC Comics Classic Library edition (by the story, not the art), but I think that was because the historical significance of issue #233 (which I had read before), overshadowed the rest of the story. (Walt Simonson did a single-issue, post-Crisis retelling of this storyline in 1992, which I preferred.) But that doesn't mean I'm not looking forward to the DC Finest edition. As I said, this collection goes beyond the previous one, and I have often lamented the death of '70s-era Superman in my collection. And who knows? Now that I have a better idea of what to expect, I may even enjoy the initial storyline more my second time through it.
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