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
Obviously this is a 1973-1981 compilation. Maybe they're already thinking about another volume!
Be that as it may, while it's great that they're reprinting all four issues of the "Who Killed Batman?" trial, the Joker is only the star of one of those issues!
The only other Joker appearances that I can recall is the Super Baseball story from DC Super-Stars #10 (D'76) where he was the Clown Prince Catcher and Justice League of America #136 (N'76) though that was the Earth-Two version.
And holy cow, more DC Finest books have just been found. Looks like they're up on Edelweiss, a bookseller site I don't have access to. I only have one date for these so far, for the Fourth World volume: June 23.
And here are the details I've seen on the Fourth World book.
OK, some more details, and one more individual cover. Plus, the Wonder Woman book I don't have an image of the cover on its own yet.
So Team-Ups has gone back, not forward, to the Super-Team Family days! The Gail Simone Wonder Woman wraps up without a need to get into the weird last-gasp-before-the-New-52 run! We get some prime Triangle Era Superman! And we start Sgt Rock from the beginning, in his own series, as opposed to being lumped in with War!
And some more images of the details. I think these will be the last, unless more are announced.
Some observations:
Post-Crisis Batman must really be selling well. If there's any line that can be said to be fast-tracked, it's that one. (Not really a surprise, of course.)
Of the solo characters without a second volume, the two who've been waiting the longest are now Aquaman and Harley Quinn. Of the groups, it's the Legion and the Titans.
Triangle-Era Superman seems like prime DC Finest territory, and I'd expect more of those once the omnibuses have been on the shelves for a while. (See also: Suicide Squad, which also has a recent omnibus out.)
Robin seems like a great character to chart his course via DC Finest, depending on where they draw the line at his appearances.
I'd take the page counts and other details with a slight grain of salt: the Batman: Blind Justice book says that it's reprinting only 3 issues of Detective Comics, which is clearly not the case.
Jonah Hex seems to be lumped in with Western (or at least, he'll have some stories in the first Western volume. But Sgt Rock is getting a DC Finest under his own name.
This is a LOT to process! But my thoughts:
Thanks for doing that legwork on those issues!
I think the Superman/Green Arrow teamup and that B&B teamup (also GA) will eventually go in a Green Arrow DC Finest -- this one is explicitly called Green Lantern, despite Ollie appearing in pretty much all of the stories. I also wouldn't be surprised if there are more GL/GA issues included -- the issues listed won't fit 601 pages. (Although there are a number of these listed at 601 pages, and I bet that's a dummy number in the page count field.)
I didn't even know about the Fourth World ties in Lois Lane! I'm guessing they involve Morgan Edge? I'll be skipping this volume, as I've got the 4-volume JK4W set that came out a decade or so back, but I'll be cracking that open to reread them soon.
I'd love to know what's in Team-Ups too! I'm very surprised they decided to go backwards instead of forwards with that title, but I'm glad they did. Given that the writeup also mentions "Hour of the Beast" (the Swamp Thing teamup in B&B 122) it looks like there's one volume of Team-Ups (including 18 B&B stories) between this volume and the previous one. I'd guess we might get the two early teamups and the Atom storyline. (Because lets get real... even if we do get an Atom volume in the next several years, it's a lot more likely to be Silver Age matierial than his 70s stories. And if we do get the 70s stories, they'll probably double-dip and include them there, too.)
Suicide Squad is a title I plan to pick up in omnibus format.
While writing Lois Lane, Robert Kanigher "borrowed" several concept and characters from the Fourth World, most notably, as you surmised, Morgan Edge as he also appeared in Superman.
There was #111 (Jl'71) which featured the Project, later Project Cadmus.
#115 (O'71) had the Black Racer and Inter-Gang.
#116 (N'71) had DeSaad, Happyland and Darkseid
#118 (Ja'72) explained the mystery of Morgan Edge with Mokkari & Simyan (and Darkseid)!
#119 (F'72) had Morgan Edge, Mokkari, Simyan and the Outsiders (Yango, Iron Mask, Vudu) in the Wild Area!
I can't help but be a bit disappointed because so much of this stuff has already been reprinted in ione archival format or another... in some cases multiple times.
I'll tell you another one I'd like to see though: the post-limited series Hawkworld and Hawkman series by Ostrander.
That'd be a good one! I think I read the limited series, but that was about it...and I'm always up for more Ostrander!
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