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Plus, more news on how DC will collect the Batman crossover "Night of the Monster Men," and a pre-Rebirth Batman/Superman collection with trade-exclusive content!
Let it snow and let's take a look.
• All Star Batman Vol. 1: My Own Worst Enemy HC
As many of you noticed in DC's earlier solicitations, the Rebirth "paperback first" rule does not seem to extend to crossover collections nor to "special" series, likely ones DC discerns readers would be willing to pay hardcover prices for. One such, not surprisingly, is Scott Snyder's All Star Batman, which sees its first collection of issues #1-5 in hardcover.
• Aquaman Vol. 2: Black Manta Rising TP
The second collection of Dan Abnett's Rebirth Aquaman series collects issues #7-15.
• Batman Vol. 2: I Am Suicide TP
The contents solicited for Batman Vol. 2: I Am Suicide are issues #9-15, whereas Vol. 1 collected issues #1-6. Yes, that means if these solicitations hold, the only place you can read the Batman issues of the "Night of the Monster Men" crossover is in the Night of the Monster Men hardcover itself. It looks, however, like the same is true for the second Detective Comics collection, and the first Nightwing collection simply skips those issues altogether within itself.
That Nightwing approach is controversial; what I'd really like is for each individual book to collect its own issues, since I'm buying the individual books anyway, and then I can just read across the trades as I like. But, my foremost concern is not feeling like I have to double-dip, so if all the "Monster Men" issues will be collected in their own trade and none of them will be collected in their individual series, that's better, at least. I simply don't want a situation, like Green Lantern: Godhead or Superman: Doomed, where one or two issues are isolated in a crossover trade and all the other issues are in individual books.
• Batgirl and the Birds of Prey Vol. 1: Who is Oracle? TP
Collects issues #1-6 and the Rebirth special.
• Green Arrow Vol. 2: Island of Scars TP
Collects issues #6-11.
• Green Lanterns Vol. 2: The Phantom Lantern TP
Collects issues #7-14.
• Justice League Vol. 2: Outbreak TP
Collects issues #6-11.
• Red Hood and the Outlaws Vol. 1: Dark Trinity TP
Collects issues #1-6 and the Rebirth special
• Superman -- Action Comics Vol. 2: Welcome to the Planet TP
Collects Action Comics #963-966.
• Superman Vol. 2: Trial of the Super Sons TP
Collects issues #7-13
• Batman: Legacy Vol. 1 TP
A new collection of the Batman: Legacy crossover has been on and off the schedule for a while, so it's good to see it finally, officially solicited. This is notably called "Volume 1," and the issues listed are a curious set of pre-"Legacy" stories -- Robin #31 (collected in the previous Legacy trade but I think about one page leads in to "Legacy"); Catwoman #33-35 (of which only #35-36 were collected in the previous Legacy trade, and #33-34 are lead-ins); Shadow of the Bat #53 and Batman #533 (both labeled "Legacy preludes"); and Detective Comics #697-700, of which the former two were generally unconnected issues between "Contagion" and "Legacy" (whereas this trade collects Detective "long" and Shadow and Batman "short," the recent new Contagion trade collected Shadow and Batman leading up to this point).
I would like to see the Bane of the Demon miniseries included, but otherwise DC is doing a bang-up job of collecting this era of Batman with few holes.
• Batman/Two-Face: Face the Face Deluxe Edition HC
Circa 2006, just after Infinite Crisis, when the "One Year Later" Batman story "Face the Face" came out, I'd have absolutely devoured a hardcover instead of the paperback. Now I'm pretty well beyond it, but a new deluxe edition is a curious artifact. Leaving aside that new publication of James Robinson's DC work is a good thing, artists here were JSA's Leonard Kirk and Don Kramer, two great artists who for whatever reason don't have the celebrity status of some others, and for their work to be reprinted in deluxe format is surely deserved.
My original review of Face the Face notes not so much the Two-Face story as Robinson's presentation of a "kinder, gentler" Batman in the wake of some of his War Games and Infinite Crisis antagonism; remember Face the Face in many respects bridged what came before to Grant Morrison's "hairy-chested love-god" era of Batman, which directly lead into Scott Snyder's New 52 version and the present day.
• Batman/Superman Vol. 6: Universe’s Finest HC
If you consider that the other Super-titles that this volume crosses over with saw/will see their collections by the end of December 2016, and this collection doesn't come out until March 2017, it's fairly late, and especially to be set prior to the events of DC Rebirth. That said, this collects issues #28-32 plus the never-published issues #33-34 and Annual #3 -- so, in-continuity trade-first stories -- and I am chomping at the bit to read these (and in Superman/Wonder Woman Vol. 5: A Savage End) and see what they are.
• Earth 2: Society Vol. 3: A Whole New World TP
The Earth 2: Society series ends with issue #22 (also solicited this month), so we can assume that this collection of issues #13-16 and the first Annual will be the second-to-last collection.
• Flash by Mark Waid Book Two TP
Collects issues #69-79, the Annual #6, Green Lantern #30-31 and #40, and a story from Justice League Quarterly #10. That is the "Gorilla Warfare" crossover with Green Lantern (issues #69-70 and the first two Lantern issues), a Dr. Alchemy story (timely), and then into "Return of Barry Allen." Issues #74-79 are previously collected (and one page each from issue #72-73), and the rest is new to collection, including Green Lantern #40. Annual #6 is a "Bloodlines" crossover that introduces the Argus character who'll show up again later;
• Justice League: Breakdowns TP
At some point this collection showed up online as Breakdowns Vol. 1, but the contents here show the full "Breakdowns" story from Justice League America and Justice League Europe, detailing the end of Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis's "Bwa-ha-ha" era. The end of this book leads right into the recently-published Superman and the Justice League collections; hopefully good pre-orders of this book might trigger more of the Justice League International collections of the beginning of this series (collections currently go up to America #35 and Europe #11, vs. this book's #52 and #29 respectively).
• Legionnaires Book One TP
Collects the beginning of the popular post-Zero Hour Legion reboot by Tom McCraw, Tom Peyer, and Mark Waid. Issues #0 and #62-65 of Legion of Super-Heroes and #0 and #19-22 of Legionnaires have already been collected, but #66-68 and #23-24 respectively are new to trade. Next volume could collect a crossover with Karl Kesel's Superboy and Underworld Unleashed tie-ins.
• Suicide Squad Most Wanted: El Diablo TP
• Suicide Squad Most Wanted: Killer Croc/Boomerang/Amanda Waller TP
Apparently after the Suicide Squad Most Wanted: Deadshot/Katana miniseries, this second mini moves to even more of an anthology series with a leading El Diablo story and then a backup story, first with Captain Boomerang, then Killer Croc, then Amanda Waller. So all told these two collections together collect all of the second Most Wanted series. (The latter collection is titled Suicide Squad: Secret File online.)
• Superman: The Man of Tomorrow Book One HC
It's here! The long-awaited first book to collect the Superman "Triangle Titles" era of the 1980s and 1990s, arguably the greatest modern era of Superman that saw Lois and Clark engaged and included the best-selling "Death of Superman" storyline. The first book has Adventures of Superman #445-450 and Superman #23-27, so picking up right where the John Byrne Superman: The Man of Steel Vol. 9 left off. These are previously uncollected stories leading into the (collected) Superman: Exile storyline, which see Superman dealing with a proto-Brainiac in the aftermath of his controversial actions in the "Supergirl Saga," plus an increasingly violent Gangbuster and an Invasion! crossover.
• Wonder Woman: Who is Wonder Woman? TP New Edition
Going along with the new printing of James Robinson's "One Year Later" Batman story is this new edition of Allan Heinberg and Terry Dodson's "One Year Later" Wonder Woman story. I called this at the time "Hush for Wonder Woman" since it involves a large swath of Diana's villains, as was en vogue at the time. Though this is the title that would ultimately lead to the much derided Amazons Attack, it came out the other side with Gail Simone's Wonder Woman run. The ways in which this story hearkened back to the Lynda Carter television series makes reprinting it now pretty sensible.
• Young Justice Book One TP
The second-best news after the Young Justice cartoon getting a third season is a new, hopefully complete and definitive, series of collections of Peter David's Young Justice comic. This first volume collects nothing that wasn't already in the JLA: World Without Grown-Ups and Young Justice: A League of Their Own collections, but the series is mostly uncollected from there so the next volume should get into new stuff.
One last time for 2016, what's on your buying list? What comics are you hoping to get as gifts this year?
Posted in: Collected Editions
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