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
You would think that they could all of Green Lantern/Green Arrow plus the Flash backups in one volume.
That is, in fact, something I would buy. As I said in my conversation with Jeff, one of the things that will induce me to buy stuff I already have is if it's material from multiple titles all collected in one place, where it's a lot easier to read than pulling out multiple longboxes. The Adams/O'Neil/Giordano material that continues from Green Lantern #89 to Flash #217 is a perfect example of that. These are stories that belong in a coherent, linear collection. (In fact, I'm convinced that the backups in Flash #217-219 were originally intended to be Green Lantern #90.)
I have the Green Lantern/Green Arrow stories in approximately five million formats already, including the original comic books. But I don't have the Green Lantern backups from Flash reprinted anywhere in my collection. I need to have them, and I need to have them together with Green Lantern!
I also have all the Jack Kirby Fourth World material in multiple formats. I think it will be interesting to those who weren't around in those days to see now the four books played out together in a monthly fashion, but I'm not going to buy them again just to re-experience that.
Most of these books are just runs of titles I read when they first came out, and don't feel any need to read again. I like re-reading Silver Age stuff because of the nostalgia factor, but I don't have much nostalgia for the '80s and '90s. But if you do, or if this is first exposure, that's awesome! I'll likely participate in whatever discussion you have.
I'm a little baffled by Robin and Team-Ups. Most DC Finest are snapshots in time, usually related titles across three or four consecutive months. But Robin and Team-Ups seem like they belong in some other reprint line, as they jump all over. I'm interested in finding out exactly what they contiain, but it's unlikely I'll buy them. I'd rather have the snapshots.
As usual, it looks like the only material I'm really excited about is the material I've never read before. In this case it's the Sgt. Rock volume.
But I can see where others would be excited by this lineup!
Both the 1983 reprint series and the 2000 collection end with the Green Lantern/Green Arrow backups from The Flash #217-219 and I first read them in DC Special Blue Ribbon Digest #16 (D'81) but I'm pretty sure that the Cap'n means the Green Lantern solo stories from The Flash which were only reprinted in the black & white Showcase Presents Green Lantern Volume 5 (2011) except for the one from #226 which was drawn by Neal Adams so that one was included in future collections!
Continuing my reading, I thought I'd talk a bit about the Legend of Wonder Woman DC Finest volume. The stories are largely by Dan Mishkin and Don Heck, and they're a good team -- it's clear action, with a good sense of adventure, but also brighter matieral than post-Crisis comics would give us. But one of the things that's particularly standing out to me are the subplots! But with the military setting, there's also plenty of scenes of people in uniform and business suits, and Heck does a good job with that.
In the past few issues I've read -- all with 16-page stories, so there's not a lot of room to spare -- there are side plots of General Darnell testifying to a congressional subcomittee that wants to shut their intelligence agency down; Etta Candy is being followed by a mysterious stranger; Diana has been trying to tell Steve her secret ID, but he told Wonder Woman he prefers not to know; there's an adoptive Amazon, Sophia, who has uncovered secrets the queen has been keeping from Diana, including Steve's death(s); and there's a gremlin still at large that only Steve can see. Plus, we're getting hints of a budding romantic rivalry, as Col. Keith Griggs is treating Diana Prince more like an equal partner, and not someone who needs rescuing, in an adventure they're having together, and Diana finds it a refreshing change.
All this while Wonder Woman fights airplane-stealing gremlins from space, Circe, and a mad Aztec trixter god! They packed a LOT into these pages!
I'm seeing news of some DC Omnibus volumes in the works that somewhat overlap with the DC Finest books. Not just the stuff that's been reprinted ad infinitum, such as Golden Age Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, but some things that are more idiosyncratic. We've seen it already with the Suicide Squad omnibus being released close to when the first DC Finest Suicide Squad volume, and the upcoming DC Finest: Superman: Time and Time Again being pulled pretty much entirely from the recent Triangle Era omnibus, but I see a Bronze Age Robin omni, a Bronze Age Joker omni, and a Bronze Age Jack Kirby omni (featuring the Demon) all being reprinted around when their corresponding DC Finest volumes will become available. DC definitely seems to be looking at these lines as two different markets.
Comparing the forecasted dates of release:
Jack Kirby Omnibus: June 30
DC Finest Demon: Feb 24
Bronze Age Robin Omnibus: April 21
DC Finest: Robin: June 16
Bronze Age Joker Omnibus: Feb 24
DC Finest: Joker: April 28
The Robin and Joker books come out about 2 months before their Finest counterparts. On the other hand, the Kirby omnibus is being released 4 months after the DC Finest: Demon volume.
This is likely brought on by some sort of departmental efficiency: These files are already being checked to go to the printers, so why not use them to reissue some of our out-of-print omnibuses as well?
Of the omnibuses I saw listed, most are fairly new material. The oldest new volume is The Batman Bronze Age Omnibus volume 1, something I'm astonished hasn't been printed before (as Bronze volumes of Brave & Bold, Robin, Batgirl have all been printed). The reasoning for holding off this long, I imagine, was that DC was making their Bronze Age Batman money from various iterations of the Neal Adams collections. And it's possible that with Adams now passed away, they're free to reiussue this with the original coloring.
Intresting. Thanks for posting. I'll have more to say about each one once they are actually solicited and become "real" to me.
Reading a bit further into DC Finest: The Legend of Wonder Woman, I feel like Mishkin and Heck's run is really underrated. It's not groundbreaking, but it's fast-paced, keeping a number of different plotlines in motion with every issue... and even working to tie off some plot threads from previous runs!
Case in point: As Dr. Cyber strikes, impersonating Diana Prince so that the government thinks she's a traitor, the god Eros also begins to look in on Diana, in love with her. It's eventually revealed that Eros is... Steve Trevor! Twice earlier in the comic, Steve Trevor died. Once, Aphrodite brought him back to life. We find out here that in order to do so, she merged the spirit of her son, Eros, with Trevor's. But then Steve died again. Eventually, he came back -- this time a new Steve was pulled from somewhere in the multiverse to crash on Paradise Island, and he's the current Steve. Hippolyta used Amazon super-science to wipe out Diana's memories of the old Steve (and maybe the world's memories, too). At any rate, there's eventually a big confrontation between Eros and Steve, and things eventually work out, with Steve now having all the memories of his previous lives as well, and Diana having her memories back too. She's mad at her mother, though, and won't be coming back to Paradise Island for a while.
It's pretty amazing all this housecleaning was done just six months before Wonder Woman's comic was cancelled to make way for the post-Crisis reboot... but I'm sure things were still in flux when these stories were created, and might have been intended to clean the slate a bit...but then someone lowered the boom and decided they'd prefer a whole new slate.
And here, on DC's site, is an article about the many deaths and lives of Steve Trevor.
That's possible since Wonder Woman's fate in Crisis on Infinite Earths is almost an afterthought, not getting a fraction of the attention that Supergirl and the Flash's "final" fates got. Not only did the Earth-Two Wonder Woman get a "happy ever after" but it was expanded on in Infinity, Inc.
Heck, even Superwoman (the Wonder Woman of Earth-Three) got a more memorable final moment.
Yeah, her fate was definitely up in the air... even through the release of her first issue, it seems. (Greg Potter was listed as the writer for that issue, but none of the rest, IIRC.)
Reading that article, it was interesting that Dr. Cyber was also involved in Steve's first death -- a nice bit of understated symmetry from Mishkin and Heck.
I got the JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA: THE RETURN last week and it is what it is. The interesting things to me are the "last" JLA/JSA team-up with Infinity Inc, a strange interpretation of Amazo and Batman returning to the team but ditching them soon after, claiming he had an ulterior motive for rejoining. (Actually he was on the rebound since breaking up with the Outsiders!)
Superman even says that he doesn't like Batman!
But the "big one" to me was Justice League of America Annual #3 where the Red Tornado becomes a Force of Nature. Later he is known as the Air Elemental and his more dangerous persona is what his Post-Crisis path was going to be.
It was also where we see Green Arrow get involved with the Crisis as he's barely in the main book!
I also ordered the BLUE BEETLE volume this week, mostly for historical context.
But next week is HAWKMAN! Very excited for that!
My next two are Blue Beetle and Science Fiction: Gorilla World. But I've also got the 70s Superman volume to read once I'm through with Superboy & Wonder Woman. I've already dipped into it a bit, and it's fun!
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