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#401-414, Batman Annual #11, and Detective Comics #571- #568-581.
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
I'm unsafe at any speed.
Gradually approaching the finish line for both the Spectre and the Horror DC Finest volumes. The horror comics from this era are notable in that they tend to devote several pages to the hosts, with them sometimes interacting with the characters in the stories. (The Toth-created Witching Hour witches are my favorites in this category, with Cain being my second-favorite host. Does anyone like Abel?)
With the Spectre, I've finished the Fleischer/Aparo stories in Adventure Comics, and man...there sure seem to be a lot of Watergate references in this run. Every other issue, it seems, someone's comparing their own robbery to the break-in at the Watergate Hotel, or something similar.
Aside from a Batman team-up in Brave & the Bold, are these stories meant to be set in the DC Universe? In one story, a reporter, Earl Crawford, begins investigating the Spectre... and he looks so much like Clark Kent that Corrigan teases him, calling him "Clark Kent, mild-mannered reporter." Which sounds like Corrigan knows him as a character in Superman cartoons and comic books, not as an actual person in the world. And the resemblance is so strong that it makes me wonder if the character was originally written to be Kent, but editorial decided it'd be better to keep Superman out of the book, even in his secret ID...and they changed dialogue (and maybe the art in the scene with his editor) rather than changing the art on the whole story.
Later, Crawford returns in the 3-part Spectre/Dr. Thirteen story in Ghosts -- and he doesn't look a thing like Clark Kent. So whatever the original idea for the character was, five or six years later, DC had thought better of it. (He does have one more almost-contemporary appearance in Wrath of the Spectre #4, written during the original run but drawn for the reprint series in 1988; I haven't re-read that yet, but will if I can dig it out of my boxes.
Here's Earl as he intially appeared. Aside from the pipe, that's Kent!
Oh, and the gangsters he's reading about are the Grandinetti gang, obviously named after DC artist Jerry Grandinetti.
I'm not an Abel fan, either. I wasn't that crazy about Cain, TBH. The witches were the best.
I imagine the Watergate references are because America was shocked by Watergate. Now we have White House corruption on a daily basis, so it's hard to imagine how Watergate impacted the zeitgeist.
Definitely! It also seems to me to be a signal that the Spectre was aiming for an older audience than most of the DC hero features.
Gradually approaching the finish line for both the Spectre and the Horror DC Finest volumes. The horror comics from this era are notable in that they tend to devote several pages to the hosts, with them sometimes interacting with the characters in the stories. (The Toth-created Witching Hour witches are my favorites in this category, with Cain being my second-favorite host. Does anyone like Abel?)
Being that I went cold turkey on comics for ten years, I first “met” the hosts when I discovered and caught up with Sandman.
I've finished the DC Finest: Spectre volume, which wraps up with a two-parter in All-Star Squadron featuring the Spectre. Jumping right into it cold, it's a bracing reminder of how wordy Roy Thomas's scripts were -- partially a function of how many characters he has to serve in every scene (and pretty much every panel). Now that I've read it, I'd have left this story out, in favor of the Spectre's DC Comics Presents appearance that was skipped (and almost certainly slated for a future volume of Team-Ups) If any single hero is the star of this two-parter, it's Dr. Fate, despite a cover appearances for the Spectre on both issues. Spec its brainwashed by Kulak throughout here, so even though we get to see him fight the entire JSA, it's kind of a disappointing end to the book.
I also read Wrath of the Spectre #4, with the Fleisher/Aparo stories drawn in 1988 (now inked by Mike DeCarlo, definitely not an improvement over Aparo's 70s work). It's good to see Earl and Gwen again, but it still leaves the story cycle unfinished... just unfinished at a different point. They'll probably show up in a future volume (the next consecutive book should cover the first half of the late 80s series), but they're not great by any means.
I've already dug into DC Finest: Batman: Red Rain a little, but now it'll be moving up into one of the main slots as I also wrap up Horror!
I edited the dates of the upcoming DC Finests to reflect the actual solicitation dates. (The most current list is on p41.)
Also, DC is going back to second printings for 4 existing books so far: Green Arrow, Batgirl, and two Batman volumes (Year 1&2 and The Killing Joke). The second prints are scheduled to arrive in February through April.
The 1950s Superman volume has dropped off the schedule.
Are you freaking kidding me!? That's the one I was looking forward to the most!
I don't know if these have been discussed yet. From the DC March solicitations, two in April and one in May.
DC FINEST: THE JOKER: THE LAST HA HA
Art by NEAL ADAMS, IRV NOVICK, JIM APARO, and others
Cover by NEAL ADAMS
$39.99 US | 552 pages | 6 5/8" x 10 3/16" | Softcover | ISBN: 978-1-79951-025-3
ON SALE 4/28/26
After taking a cartoonish turn in the Silver Age, The Joker returned to his darker, more homicidal roots in the Bronze Age, staging capers that were twistedly humorous but still had lethal consequences.
This collection showcases the Clown Prince of Crime back in deadly form against his archnemesis, Batman, in classic tales by Dennis O’Neil, Neal Adams, Steve Englehart, Marshall Rogers, Terry Austin, and more. Collects stories published between December 1969 and September 1981 from Batman #251, #260, #286, #291-294, and #321; The Brave and the Bold #111, #118, #129-130, and #141; Detective Comics #475-476 and #504; The Joker #1-10; Justice League of America #77; and backup tales from Wonder Woman #280-283.
DC FINEST: BATMAN: A DEATH IN THE FAMILY
Art by JIM APARO, BERNIE WRIGHTSON, M.D. BRIGHT, and others
Cover by JIM APARO
$39.99 US | 640 pages | 6 5/8" x 10 3/16" | Softcover | ISBN: 978-1-79950-857-1
ON SALE 4/21/26
Two of the most controversial Batman stories—“The Cult” and “A Death in the Family”— are featured together for the first time in this DC Finest volume that showcases the Caped Crusader’s lowest moments of despair as he is pushed to his mental limits. Collects Batman #423-429, Batman Annual #12, Detective Comics #590-595, and Detective Comics Annual #1, plus the miniseries Batman: The Cult #1-4 illustrated by Bernie Wrightson.
DC FINEST: WONDER WOMAN: DAWN BEFORE DARKNESS
Art by NICOLA SCOTT, AARON LOPRESTI, and others
Cover by NICOLA SCOTT
$39.99 US | 456 pages | 6 5/8" x 10 3/16" | Softcover | ISBN: 978-1-79950-811-3
ON SALE 5/12/26
Award-winning writer Gail Simone’s critically lauded run on Wonder Woman concludes in this volume leading up to the series’ monumental 600th issue. Following the events of “Rise of the Olympian,” Diana must fight for her life and her birthright after she is ousted from the Amazons by Achilles in “Warkiller.” In “A Murder of Crows,” five mysterious kids with supernatural abilities seem intent on planting seeds of mistrust against Wonder Woman. And in “Wrath of the Silver Serpent,” Diana must defend Earth from an alien invasion led by someone with close family ties. Collects Wonder Woman (vol. 3) #36-44 and #600, Secret Six #10-14, Blackest Night: Wonder Woman #1-3, and a story from DCU Halloween Special ‘09 #1.
Thanks for posting those, Cap. I think we've mentioned them, but they haven't gotten a lot of attention yet.
That Joker one is really interesting to me. It'd be really interesting to have a similar volume for villains who might not have their own series, like Lex Luthor or the Penguin. Just one appearance after another, showing the character's evolution.
I wasn't sure there'd be enough material for that second Wonder Woman volume without getting into that last run before the New 52, where she changed her costime and -- well, I'm not sure what happened, because I didn't read it. Did she walk across the country like Superman did? But I'm glad we're getting the rest of the Simone run (plus some Rucka, etc) collected.
As for the Death in the Family book including The Cult, it made me wonder where The Dark Knight should be included... and chronologically, it would be in the most recent Batman: Red Skies volume. Which makes me think they're skipping it, since it sells so well on its own.
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