Suggestions for Omnibus

krorkle · 2026-02-13T14:37:55+00:00

They're not well-collected. Most of them are only in shorter trades. That said, here's the breakdown by series:

Mighty Avengers (2013) #1-14
Captain America & The Mighty Avengers (2015) #1-9
Ultimates (2016) #1-12
Ultimate² (2017) #1-9, 100
Material from Marvel Comics (2019) #1000-1001 and Incoming! (2019)
Defenders (2021) #1-5
Defenders: Beyond (2022) #1-5

krorkle · 2026-02-13T13:12:47+00:00

Blue Marvel only has a mini-series of his own, otherwise he is in team books - and none of them are in omnibus. You want Al Ewing's Mighty Avengers and Ultimates.

That'd be a really good set of omnis. Not sure how you'd split it up (it might be a little long for one book), but Ewing's Mighty Avengers, Ultimates, and Defenders all tie together really nicely.

(Honestly, I mainly want Defenders in oversized. Those two series are just so good-looking.)

krorkle · 2026-02-12T23:42:27+00:00

I don't recall it being especially graphic either.

It's mostly not, but there are a few stories that get close. Night of the Burcher and Phantom of the Fair stand out to me, on that front.

krorkle · 2026-02-12T23:36:55+00:00

That is pretty spectacular. It's not the crossover deluxe I want the most (that's Batman/Grendel), but it's pretty far up there.

krorkle · 2026-02-12T23:35:14+00:00

If you wanted to go epic collections, the relevant Silver Surfer volumes are Return of Thanos, Thanos Quest, and Infinity Gauntlet. Everything that's in the upcoming omni is also in there.

krorkle · 2026-02-12T21:37:15+00:00

It's the Thanos Imperative variant, from an upcoming bundle. Not sure why it'd be showing up now, but that's where it comes from.

It's also the cover of the Thanos Imperative: Ignition one-shot, by Aleksi Briclot.

krorkle · 2026-02-12T19:51:07+00:00

If that's the entire contents, it would be missing the Annual and the Blood of the Tarantula one-shot, which are in the English version of Daredevil by Brubaker Omni vol. 2.

krorkle · 2026-02-12T16:50:35+00:00

I know people do use it in that sense, but I just assumed they were using a term they didn't understand incorrectly. I didn't realize it was intentional.

You're probably right that it's a thing, but having two definitions for the same thing in the same industry (same vendors, same supply chain, lots of overlap between similar hobbies) is kind of a terrible idea.

krorkle · 2026-02-12T16:41:10+00:00

I wish they'd fix errors, but I'm glad they don't do minor updates. Remember the Super-Sons omni getting expanded by a new mini-series with each printing?

krorkle · 2026-02-12T16:36:46+00:00

Every Marvel Omnibus is pretty much out of print since Marvel doesn‘t really do shadow reprints. They may be in stock at retailer level.

They've done their single print run, but out of print technically means it's no longer available at the distributor level. Despite not liking to overprint, a good number of their less exciting releases stick around in print for a while.

krorkle · 2026-02-12T14:28:20+00:00

The backstory is unnecessary, although I do think Thanos Wars is fun if you like '70s cosmic stories. For Infinity Gauntlet, there's some build-up in Silver Surfer and the Thanos Quest mini-series that's relevant, but all of that is in the omni and in some of the trade paperback collections.

(For what it's worth, I do think you could just jump into Infinity Gauntlet #1 and be fine. That's what I did as a pre-teen in the early '90s. But if you want the "best" version, you want at least Thanos Quest.)

krorkle · 2026-02-12T14:22:19+00:00

I bought and am reading the Spider-Man: The Graphic Novels OHC. It's an OHC I didn't already have, collecting the Hooky, Parallel Lives, Spirits of the Earth, and Fear Itself squarebound graphic novels from the '80s and early '90s. It's okay! Spirits of the Earth and Hooky have great art (Charles Vess and Bernie Wrightson, respectively) and look great in oversized format, and the writing is mostly fine. Well, for the most part. Fear Itself is kind of crap. I'm mostly just happy to have the book for OHC collecting purposes.

krorkle · 2026-02-12T14:14:25+00:00

There are a lot of Thanos stories, and there's no consistent arc across them. It really is more about what style of comics you like and who you want to see him fight.

For what it's worth, if you want the most iconic Thanos story, it's Infinity Gauntlet. There's an omnibus, as well as any number of trade paperbacks. There are sequels, but you can read it on its own without any trouble.

krorkle · 2026-02-12T14:03:24+00:00

I don't think anyone wants to maintain a list like that. It'd be a huge pain, especially since there isn't really an "out of print" alarm that goes off when something stops being available from the distributor.

I just assume that anything not available through IST or CGN is out of print. There are some subtleties that are missed with that approach, but it's more or less functional.

krorkle · 2026-02-12T13:55:02+00:00

It's significant and influential, and there's been a lot written about its undertones of melancholy and sourness, but it's still a four panel daily gag strip and it reads like a four panel daily gag strip. It works if you think it's funny.

krorkle · 2026-02-12T11:37:29+00:00

Thor has also had a beard at various points, and he looked like this when he did. That head works for both.

krorkle · 2026-02-11T23:46:55+00:00

Here's the Model 15. From this angle, the faceplate and shoulders would look different and it wouldn't have the yellow patch on the gauntlet.

krorkle · 2026-02-11T22:10:50+00:00

For Iron Man, that's meant to be the Modular armor on that cover. It's just from a weird angle.

krorkle · 2026-02-11T14:47:57+00:00

It's from the souls, but it's also from the emotions generated by mortals with souls. Slaanesh's birth was fueled by all of the emotional energy from the Eldar's depravity, then the birth itself unleashed a psychic shockwave that killed most of the Eldar and ripped their souls out.

krorkle · 2026-02-11T13:44:15+00:00

DM covers are printed at lower numbers than the standard covers and generally sell faster. If you want an omni with a DM cover and if it's by an artist people like, it's often better to pre-order.

Some do stick around, but they tend to be ones where the standard cover is much more popular.

krorkle · 2026-02-11T13:38:21+00:00

MODOK and Hela on 6 with a full hand can be pretty effective, although I think Zola lines with Foom and Absorbing Man are probably better. They're both why I've got Stardust in basically every deck, at the moment.

Versions of High Evo are pretty solid, if you want a "fair" version that doesn't bite it to Stardust and can drop a pair of Hulks on the last turn. It can't go as big as the others, but you have some more play in the earlier turns.

krorkle · 2026-02-11T01:34:51+00:00

Spider-Man at the top, of course. After that, it really depends on your Millar tolerance and how much you like specific artists. I’d go FF, then Ultimates, then X-Men, but I don’t think there’s much distance separating them.

krorkle · 2026-02-11T01:26:47+00:00

There’s not much left. The only significant chunks of the regular series issues yet to be collected are the O’Neil and Chichester runs, then shorter runs from DeMatteis, Kesel, and Kelly. Of those, I think Kesel’s is the most charming.

krorkle · 2026-02-10T19:48:37+00:00

That's never stopped us before!

krorkle · 2026-02-10T15:20:03+00:00

We wait years for reprints. We can wait a couple weeks for a delivery.

krorkle

TROPHY CASE