Batman: Death of the Family collections in 2013, DC One Million Omnibus, and more from ComicPro
As reported on Newsarama, DC Comics announced at the recent ComicPro meeting two collections of the "Death of the Family" crossover event, to be released later this year.As with DC's collections for the Batman crossover "Night of the Owls," DC will collect both the main story on its own, and then collect the tie-in issues all together. For "Night of the Owls," the main book is Batman Vol. 2: City of Owls and the tie-in book is Batman: Night of the Owls. For "Death," the two titles will be Batman: Death of the Family (probably Batman Vol. 3) and Joker: Death of the Family Companion.
Calling the tie-in book "companion" is a deviation (though keeping with books like Infinite Crisis Companion and others). That the companion book is labeled "Joker" and not "Batman" is an odd choice -- I can see positives and negatives for this -- and I wonder if DC will end up going the Batman: Alternate Title route before the books come out.
DC has said Batman: Death of the Family will be 176 pages, likely collecting at least Batman #13-17. Joker: Death of the Family Companion is reported at 387 pages; DC has added and subtracted various "Death of the Family" tie ins, but this should contain between two and three issues of titles like Batgirl, Batman and Robin, Catwoman, Detective Comics, Nightwing, Red Hood and the Outlaws, Suicide Squad, and Teen Titans.
DC also announced a DC One Million Omnibus, expected to collect all thirty-four DC One Million tie-in issues, plus the four issue miniseries by Grant Morrison and maybe the DC One Million 80-Page Giant, too.
After the Infinite Crisis Omnibus and the DC One Million Omnibus, it does lead one to wonder what other DC crossovers could be collected in full in omnibus format. Blackest Night is an obvious choice if it hadn't just received Absolute treatment. I'd love Armageddon 2001, War of the Gods, or Eclipso: The Darkness Within omnibuses, but I'm old-school that way. Fancy a Legends Omnibus anyone? Invasion!?
Still can't say I know much about Planetary, but the other collections news is a Planetary Omnibus, Vertigo Visions: Frank Quitely, and Children's Crusade, the one and only Vertigo crossover event that included the Dead Boy Detectives and characters from Black Orchid, Animal Man, Swamp Thing, and Doom Patrol (actually, that sounds pretty interesting).
So there you have it -- Death of the Family collected before the end of the year.
Glad to see DOTF trade news announced, after the generally posistive internet reaction, I can't wait to read it, but will wait to see if the DOTF companion is the only place DC are collecting the tie-ins, or if they will also be appearing in the trades for the individual titles - ala court of owls- before pre-ordering.
ReplyDeleteNot a million miles from your Blackest Night idea, i'd love to see a Green Lantern by Geoff Johns omnibus, starting with Rebirth up to the Sinistro War (maybe with a few important issues of GLC thrown in, if there were any?). Other than that, with his run coming to an end, a massive 'Batman by Grant Morrison' collection seems a safe bet now DC look focused on putting more omnibus editions out.
And yay on Children's Crusade being collected. But then I'm a whore for Gaiman.
I think Armageddon 2001 and Eclipso would be cool. I have fond memories of both, but am pretty sure that I didn't read all of the cross-overs involved (just of the series that I was collecting at the time).
ReplyDeleteI liked how DC used to do the "big Annual crossover" events back when I was young, although I guess in retrospect most of them "didn't matter". But hey, that's can be a good thing, right? If you don't care about Eclipso, then skip the Batman Annual, and keep reading the regular series, and it'll probably never be mentioned.
I didn't read Legends originally, but rather in the past few years, and I felt it was a pretty big let-down as a crossover (certainly as the followup to Crisis). The few tie-in issues I've read also felt kind of disjointed to me; like, I was reading the 80's Blue Beetle series, and one issue everything is fine, then the Legends crossover the public hates him, then the next issue it's back to normal.
I haven't read Invasion yet, but it's on my list (just, pretty far down, at least until I get on top of the New 52 stuff). What about Millennium? You didn't mention that one. That was with all the hidden Manhunters, right? Kind of like a DC Secret War? Again, haven't read it yet, so I don't know what it was like.
But yeah, I'm all for DC collecting those crossovers into big Omnibus editions. The tricky part is always in the reading order; I found, when reading DC One Million, than all the tie-ins got repetitive and took away from the main storyline that was going on. I felt like if you just read the core story (that is, the main mini plus the "essential" tie-ins), you'd get a better reading experience. But I wouldn't expect a single Omnibus book to have the "core" story first and then have all the tie-ins after.
Planetary Omnibus! Woohoo!! That's definitely made my day - best news I've heard this year so far!
ReplyDeleteI can see myself skipping a lot of ancillary tie-ins when I get to read the DC One Million Omnibus, but the inclusion of all of the relevant tie-ins featuring the JLA members' individual challenges will make for a much more satisfying read than the TPB and its recap pages filled with one-paragraph summations of entire issues.
ReplyDeleteAnd as a Morrison completist, I really hope they don't skip the Linear Men sequence from DC One Million #2 this time around. The two short stories he wrote for the 80-Page Giant should also be there.
The Planetary Omnibus is great news for those who missed out on the gorgeous Absolute volumes, but for those who already own them like I do, it would be a downgrade. I'll be all over the Promethea Omnibus, though.
I would like:
ReplyDelete*Our Worlds at War Omnibus (with every tie-in included)
*Bruce Wayne: Fugitive/Murderer Omnibus
*JSA Omnibus by Robinson, Goyer & Johns
*Batman: War Drums/Games Omnibus
*Superman: New Krypton Omnibus (containing all the main titles and tie ins)
* JLA Omnibus by Joe Kelly & Dough Mahnke
I think that's about it.
I'm digging the Planetary omnibus. And Xavico is spot-on with a JSA omnibus; I'm sort of amazed that we got one for Johns' Teen Titans before JSA.
ReplyDeleteHow twisted would it be if the DCOneM omnibus included All-Star Superman? I mean I know it won't, but it's funny to think about it.
I'm happy DC is a little smarter with calling the Death of the Family tie-ins as a companion book, as to not confuse people like DC did with the Night of the Owls event with Batman volume 2, where even now, people are still confused between the two. Smart on that one.
ReplyDeleteAnd as some one who collected all of the Death of the Family issues and tie-ins (and all of the Night of the Owls), I can tell you now its not worth getting. The material itself isn't bad, just that they all do so much better in their own collected trades. Why buy the Joker companion for 3 issues of Batgirl, then buy Batgirl volume 3 with the same issues? Same thing will apply with Red Hood, Teen Titans, and Nightwing.
So unlike Night of the Owls hardcover, I'm telling you now, ditch the Joker companion and just stick to Batman volume 3.
I'm buying the softcover versions of the JLA Deluxe volumes (Morrison's run), and it feels like there's a hole between vol.2 and 3.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to buy the DC One Million omnibus, but I wish they had released Grant's run in that format.
Hope the One Million omnibus has absolutely everything, and yeah, a Legends omnibus would rule.
ReplyDeleteI'm also glad they're collecting the DOTF tie-ins separately; it would be cool to have all 23 issues in one book but the continuity of the tie-ins and main series is literally incompatible.
I've been waiting for Children's Crusade to be collected basically forever, so that's good news.
ReplyDeleteI still want Crisis on Infinite Earth Companion Omnibus Volumes 1-3 (1 is Green Lantern, 2 is All-Star Squadron and Infinity Inc, and 3 is everything else.) But beyond that, Legends would be nice. (So would the Janus Directive, Road to No Man's Land, and yes, an Our Worlds at War collection that actually includes the JSA crossover book.)
I'm curious just how soon the Death of the Family collections make it out. I mean, obviously DC has to go print the things, but the big buzz about this story is right now. I'm sure that buzz will continue, but I wonder if there'd be a bigger sales spike if they released the collection like, next month instead of in December, perhaps. Or maybe I'm just eager to get my grubby paws on it.
ReplyDelete@Mark - Yeah, Millennium, too; I had some idea Legends and Invasion! were stronger than Millennium, but I wouldn't balk at collections of any of 'em.
@Xavico - You know I've been waiting for a JSA Omnibus, too. And a Batman: Murderer/Fugitive Omnibus would be cool, too -- I seem to recall they didn't collect all the parts of that, so it'd be an interesting read.
@Sadie - I'm with you that I felt there was a hole in the JLA collections without DC One Million; I guess this kinda-sorta fills it.
Speaking of DC One Million, know what I want? A Tom Peyer Hourman collection.
@Jeff - Ditto Janus Directive.
Someone tell me why they're excited for the Planetary and Children's Crusade collections.
No love for the Frank Quitely book?
I am REALLY excited for Children's Crusade. I know next to nothing about it, but a crossover event done during like the prime Vertigo years featuring characters from Sandman, Swamp Thing, etc, written by some of those top writers...Vertigo is like my favorite thing ever so this is just great, great news.
ReplyDeleteI love that DC One Million is getting an omnibus. I know it's pretty recent, but I wouldn't mind Flashpoint getting that treatment, too. Shouldn't Seven Soldiers be an omnibus? Doesn't that just make sense?
ReplyDeleteWell, Children's Crusade's bookends are literally the only work Gaiman has done for DC that has not yet been collected, so there's that. Secondly, the Books of Magic part of the story is the only part of Reiber's Books of Magic run that never got collected. So right there it completes two big, long-standing gaps in Vertigo trade coverage.
ReplyDeleteI'm looking forward to the Planetary Omnibus mainly for the reason Shagamu mentioned. I came late to the party with Planetary, so by the time I read it (as the digital omnibus) any print collections had been out of print for a while. For me, it's purely that this is my first chance to own this piece of greatness (for greatness it surely is) in a nice, collected print format.
ReplyDeleteGlad they are finally bringing One Million back in print, hopefully a Grant Morrison Doom Patrol omnibus isn't too far off...
ReplyDeleteWell, not many volumes of Books of Magic are in print right now, so don't know how this really helps. Just like I don't get how a 2nd collection of Hard Time helps when the first is so badly out of print.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Neil Gaiman did write a Green Lantern/Superman: Legend of the Green Flame, which has, to the best of my knowledge been uncollected. The first Neil Gaiman miscellanea was Vertigo based, so this one not included there made sense. The second was Batman based, which was a thin book and could have included this one just to round it off. I don't know how relevant it was but it's got Superman, Green Lantern and Gaiman on writes, so I want to read it.
I'm surprised nobody's suggested a Final Night omnibus. The main issues of that crossover were phenomenal, and many of the tie-ins took the forced crossover to really delve into what their characters would do if the world was ending. Of all the issues I've read, I can only think of one or two that didn't strongly resonate in one manner or the other (interestingly--to me, at least--those are the issues that tried their hardest to be relevant to the plot of the event miniseries, like the Legion issues).
ReplyDeleteYay Planetary! I missed out on the Absolutes and the first 3 trades are hard to find now. An omnibus is a great format for this title. It's a title that reads better in one whole edition, much like Sleeper.
ReplyDeleteHow much do you think a DotF TPB is gonna cost approximately?
ReplyDeleteRetail on the book is $30.
ReplyDelete