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?
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I just got two more DC Finest volumes in the mail: Team-Ups: The Impossible Escape and Deadman: How Many Times Can a Guy Die? It might be a while before I get to them, as I've got two partially read books and one unread one in the queue ahead of them -- it's getting tough to keep up!
And yet, Team-Ups is getting me curious about the contents of the volume between The Impossible Escape and Chase to the End of Time. There's 10 issues of The Brave & the Bold between them -- issues 131 to 140 -- which would contribute about 180 pages or so. There are also several issues of Super-Team Family available -- issues 8 through 15. Yet in issues 8-10, the Challengers of the Unknown are the lead feature, and can't really be considered a team-up unless you count guest stars Gerald Ford and Henry Kissinger. From 11-15, we get proper multi-character team-ups -- mostly in the extended "Search for Jean Loring" storyline -- which would certainly be included. And they're long stories, running 30-34 pages, plus the covers. That brings in another 170 pages or so... bringing us to around 350 pages, all told. That's still a little light for a DC Finest... is there anything else from that era you guys can think of that might fit in?
I'm scrolling through Mike's Amazing World of Comics and I've found a couple candidates: DC Special #27 has Dinosaurs At Large -- teaming up Captain Comet with Hawkman and Tommy Tomorrow. That's another 35 pages (including the cover). I don't think the next issue, Earth-Shattering Disasters, would qualify, as that has heroes in separate stories, I believe.And 29 is the origin of the Justice Society, which, while it starts as a teamup of unrelated heroes, is indisputably a JSA story.
But DC Super-Stars has a couple of giant-size issues that could fit the bill. #15 is a teamup of Unknown Soldier and Sgt Rock (which might be slotted into war, but I think they might double-dip here). And #18 teams Deadman & Phantom Stranger. There's also a Batman/Deadman/Sgt. Rock story from DC Special Series #8. Another 35 pages.
There's also the Superman vs Wonder Woman story from the treasury edition -- that would certainly qualify as well! Adding a whopping 73 pages to the mix. As well as the Superman vs Shazam treasury, about the same size. Superman vs Muhammad Ali is also published during this time, but I think that's a stretch. But even if they only reprint the two all-superhero teamups, that might be why this volume was delayed: They just reprinted those tabloid editions as facsimiles, and didn't want to cannibalize sales.
And then, wrapping everything up, is the gigantic teamup of all the characters in the run of Showcase, from Showcase 100: "There Shall Come a Gathering!" Another 35 pages, and I think that's a great way to round out the volume.
And if my very rough math is right, all those odds and ends would add up to roughly 300 pages or so, I think. Add that to the 350 pages from the core of the book, and suddenly we've got a very chunky, and very interesting, book of team-ups!
They could include the Supergirl/Doom Patrol story seen in Superman Family because that was meant for Super Team Family #16.
And the search for Jean Loring crossed over into a couple of issues of Secret Society of Super-Villains and ended in Justice League of America #157.
Plus there was a Martian Manhunter serial that was in three issues of Adventure Comics and concluded in World's Finest where J'onn was paired with Supergirl, Hawkman, Hawkgirl and, of course, Superman and Batman.
There were some triple team ups in World's Finest that included the Atom and Gold from the Metal Men!
Awesome -- thanks, Philip! Of those, I think the Supergirl story is most likely...although who knows how they'll handle the other chapters of the Jean Loring story! I think they'll probably leave the World Finest triple teamups to an eventual World's Finest line.
Possibly but both the Deadman and Joker B&B appearces are in the TEAMUP volumes and their individual volumes.
Oh, definitely there's some overlap. (There's also an issue of Brave & Bold that appears in both the Demon and the latest Team Up book.) But it really seems like there's one volume left between the two existing Team Up volumes, and I think among the possibilities of stories to fill the page count, those would be a lesser priority than others. I could be wrong!
I've made my way through most of the DC Finest: Birth of the Demon volume, and I wanted to point out that there's a sequel to a story reprinted in DC Finest: Wrath of the Spectre. In Brave & Bold #75, Batman joined the Spectre for an adventure in Gotham's Chinatown, facing Shahn-Zi, a wratthful spirit of Chinese legend. Shahn-Zi returns 10 years later in Brave & Bold #137, when Batman bumps into Jason Blood during Lunar New Year celebrations. Both are written by Bob Haney (art by Ross Andru on the Spectre teamup, and John Calnan on the Demon story), and both are... yikes. But it was a cool experience to see the callback to the Spectre story and realize I'd just read it a few months ago!
I just got the DC FINEST: THE ORIGIN OF ROBIN and discovered that I have no recollection of his solo adventures from the early 70s. But this is what I immediately picked up on:
I was flipping through the Robin book at my comic shop, and it looks like something I'll want to pick up in the future -- probably one to reach back for when there's a gap in the schedule between books I want.
Your post sent me down a mental rabbit hole.
I had it drilled into me over years buying comics off the rack that if there was anything I was remotely interested in, to buy it NOW NOW NOW NOW! Because if you didn't, it would disappear for years and when you finally tracked down a copy, it was exorbitantly expensive. (Or simply more than I wanted to pay for, say, a random issue of Blackhawk.) To a degree that's still true of print, in that at some point DC Finest: Robin will go out of print, and suddenly be selling for $300.
But before that, it will be available at its original asking price from a variety of retailers, online and LCS. And there's digital at DCUI, where it will be available for, as far as we know, eternally.
But deep in my amygdala, I still experience NOW NOW NOW NOW. First learned, last forgot.
Yeah, that "now now now!" hits strong. It's especially helpful to me to know that a lot of things are available digitally, including some DC Finests at this point. So even if I can't own 'em, that doesn't mean I can't read 'em!
Digital has really helped me to break the habit of chasing down any series that I might be interested in. There's so much by DC and Marvel that I decide I can wait a few months to read, and be just as happy.
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