I’m still going through the newest DC Comics catalog solicitations — you’ll probably see a write-up of those here next week — but a couple books caught my eye and probably yours too — the Superman: Brainiac Reborn Omnibus and also DC Finest: Superman: Time and Again.

The Brainiac Reborn omnibus especially stood out to me because the cover is a riff on George Perez' cover to Action Comics #648, part two of the 1989 “Brainiac Trilogy” storyline by Roger Stern. That’s significant because “Brainiac Trilogy” is one of the stories that immediately follows the end of the Superman: The Exile and Other Stories Omnibus, in the big gap between the end of the Exile book and the start of the Superman: The Triangle Era Omnibus Vol. 1. Could Brainiac Reborn be the “Triangle Era Vol. 0” book we hoped for when the first Triangle Era Omnibus was announced?

Alas, it seems not, as the solicitation says the Brainiac omnibus contains “key issues from Action Comics, Superman, and Adventures of Superman between 1989 and 1996.” Not that solicitations have never been wrong, but the signs don’t look good, at least at the moment.

So what might the Brainiac Reborn omnibus collect? But of course, I looked it up for you.

1988

The listing says 1989–1996, but there’s a lot of Brainiac content in 1988, possibly not included because it’s collected elsewhere:

• Adventures of Superman #438 (John Byrne, Jerry Ordway) - First appearance of Milton Fine, “The Amazing Brainiac” (in the expanded Superman: Man of Steel Vol. 3 from 2021)
• Adventures of Superman #441 (John Byrne, Jerry Ordway) - Milton Fine subplot (in the expanded Superman: Man of Steel Vol. 4 from 2022)
• Adventures of Superman #445 (Jerry Ordway) - Superman vs. Milton Fine, now calling himself Brainiac (in Superman: The Exile & Other Stories Omnibus)
• Adventures of Superman #447 (Jerry Ordway) - Brainiac subplot (Exile)
• Superman #25 (Roger Stern, Kerry Gammill) - Superman vs. Brainiac and Luthor (Exile)

1989–1990

Additional Brainiac appearances collected in Exile:

• Superman #27
• Superman #28
• Adventures of Superman #451
• Adventures of Superman #454
• Adventures of Superman #456
• Superman #35
• Action Comics #646

And then we get into the “Triangle Vol. 0” gap (some of which is collected in compendiums like Adventures of Superman: George Perez or Superman vs. Brainiac)

• Action Comics #647–649 (Roger Stern, George Perez, Kerry Gammill) - The aforementioned “Brainiac Trilogy,” extending into 1990. Some other books published in the same months as these stories also included Brainiac material (demonstrating how the nascent Triangle Titles were already continuing with stories both in their own titles and across the various titles):
  • Superman #38–39
  • Adventures of Superman #462

1993

Now we get into material that’s in the Superman: Triangle Era Omnibus Vol. 2, which we talked about earlier this year. Specifically:

• Superman: Panic in the Sky – Action Comics #674–675, Superman: Man of Steel #9–10, Superman #65–66, and Adventures of Superman #488–489, in which Brainiac is the main antagonist.

1994–1995

The “Superman: Dead Again” storyline spans 1994 to 1995. I have a memory of there having been a “Dead Again” collection but I can’t verify it at the moment. Brainiac is heavily involved, picking up on his status from the end of “Panic in the Sky.” The Triangle Era omnibuses tend to collect about 12 issues of each Superman series, so “Dead Again” would appear in the Triangle Era Omnibus Vol. 4, if we get that far, and not the prospective third volume.

• Superman: Dead Again — Superman: The Man of Steel #38–40, Superman #94–96, Adventures of Superman #517–519, Action Comics #704–705

1996

Finally, “Identity Crisis” (no, not that one), a four-parter and, let’s be honest, an inventory story and/or the kind of thing used to give creative teams a break, though notably the writers here are Tom Peyer and Mark Waid, with some art by Curt Swan.

• Superman: Identity Crisis — Adventures of Superman #536, Action Comics #723, Superman: The Man of Steel #58, and Superman #114

Your results may vary, but in my estimation, this is a swing from the sublime to the mundane; “Panic in the Sky” is, for me, among the epitome of the Triangle Titles era; both “Dead Again” and “Identity Crisis” are relatively rough in both dialogue and art.

And I’m really unsure who this omnibus is for. Given DC’s spate of omnibuses by writer or by event lately, even in these very catalog solicitations — Titans by Tom Taylor, Batman by Chip Zdarsky Omnibus, Dark Crisis Omnibus — an omnibus that skips around like this seems very unusual.

Unless Brainiac factors heavily in the upcoming Supergirl move and I just don’t know it, I’m not sure anyone really wanted all of Brainiac’s 1990s appearances in one place. It’s especially a shame, too, if we imagine this takes up a printing spot that could have presumably been filled by our imagined “Triangle Era Vol. 0” omnibus instead.

There is also, as I mentioned at the top, the DC Finest: Superman: Time and Again book, collecting Superman #49–56, Starman #28, Adventures of Superman #472–479, and Action Comics #659–666. These, too, are excellent comics, the heyday of the Triangle Titles, and — spoilers? — spanning from Clark Kent proposing to Lois Lane through to Clark revealing to Lois his secret identity, plus time travel shenanigans and a trippy guest three-parter by James D. Hudnall.

But, equally, these are issues already collected in the Superman: The Triangle Era Omnibus Vol. 1 — essentially the first half of that omnibus. That is not a bad thing necessarily — I’m pleased these great issues are getting new life — but again, it’s frustrating that issues that haven’t been newly collected — “Day of the Krypton Man,” “Dark Knight Over Metropolis,” “Soul Search” — still aren’t seeing the light of day.

I’ll leave it there for now, with more to come once we know the exact contents of the Superman: Brainiac Reborn omnibus. Again, these are formative comics for me and I’m so glad they’re getting attention; I just continually can’t understand that gap between Exile and the Triangle Era Omnibus Vol. 1.