Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand
Today I’m back on Near Mint Condition for a second week in a row with my friend The Uncanny Omar! This time, we’re talking about Marvel’s entire release slate of omnibus titles for the first half of 2027 – from January to June.
Hear me talk about every upcoming Marvel omnibus I’ve written about over the past few months, as summarized in my Marvel 2027 Omnibus Announcements summary this weekend… plus, one new reprint announced after we thought all of the announcements were through!
We’re seeing even more omnibus announcements roll out from DC Comics in anticipation of their 2027 January to June catalog arriving at the end of this week. Their second omnibus announcement for 2027 shows off DC’s renewed commitment to finishing omnibus lines, as this book pulls us within a single collected edition of completing a famous Vertigo title that only had its most famous run collected for a long time: Animal Man by Jamie Delano and Steve Pugh Omnibus!
When his ongoing series began in 1988, Animal Man was a deeply obscure Silver Age DC hero with just a handful of appearances to his name. That included being a member of a group literally called “The Forgotten Heroes” who popped up in Superman to remind him (and readers) that they still existed.
Animal Man (1988) launched before Vertigo was an imprint at DC comics. However, Vertigo energy had already been established by the long-running Swamp Thing and was being echoed in other titles launching that year – which included both The Sandman (1988) and Hellblazer (1988)!
The launch of Animal Man (1988) was helmed by Grant Morrison and… the rest is history. Morrison echoed a touch of Alan Moore’s deconstruction from Miracleman, blending it with social commentary on the environment and the natural world and building up to the most famous self-insert in all of comics.
And then the run kept running! by Peter Milligan and then Tom Veitch & Steve Dillon penned the next two years of the title, from Animal Man (1988) #27-50, which we received in omnibus just a few months ago. Now, we’re getting the next sequential book in that omnibus line with the Animal Man by Jamie Delano and Steve Pugh Omnibus. [Read more…] about DC Omnibus Announcement: Animal Man by Jamie Delano and Steve Pugh Omnibus
Now we know what the first DC Finest volume of 2027 will be, and it’s a big surprise… because we also had an announcement of this same material in an omnibus just last week! That’s right, DC Comics are keeping up their trend of releasing some of the most hotly-demanded material in both oversize hardcover omnibus and paperback DC Finest during the same quarter with the announcement of: DC Finest Batgirl – Silent Knight.
DC Finest Batgirl: Silent Knight was the #4 most-wanted DC Finest volume era in the Most-Wanted DC Finest Poll… and, of course, the #1 Tigereyes DC Most-Wanted Omnibus for two years running.
When fans saw the contents of DC Finest Batgirl: Nobody Dies Tonight, we had some questions. That book begins with Batgirl (2000) #7. Why start a DC Finest for a character on the second arc of her first comic… when DC Finest volumes are typically 500-640 pages long?!
In the year since that volume was released, we intrepid mappers have figured some things out – which were exactly confirmed by the contents of this book and the companion omnibus. Essentially, the true first arc of Cassandra Cain are her origins in the Batman Event “No Man’s Land.” Once we calculated those issues as part of the DC Finest mapping, everything made perfect sense.
Also in that same period, DC figured something out, too: Cassandra Cain is in high demand! Despite DC Finest Batgirl – Nobody Dies Tonight coming out as the 2025 Tigereyes Most-Wanted DC Omnibus Poll was happening, that was the year that Cass’s omnibus took the #1 spot. And, in the year between its release and this year’s Tigereyes poll, that first volume sold out and went back to a second printing.
Meanwhile, Cass topped the Tigereyes poll again. Plus, she nabbed two of the Top 10 spots in the first ever Most-Wanted DC Finest Poll just two months ago – one for this volume, and one for a volume to follow Nobody Dies Tonight.
Based on all of that, it’s no surprise that DC put this volume on the schedule at the very top of 2027. [Read more…] about DC Comics Announcement: DC Finest Batgirl – Silent Knight
It’s the week leading up to the release of the new DC Comics collected editions catalog, and you know what that means: new book announcements! I won’t be covering every new DC collected edition announcement, but I will be devoting a post to every new DC Omnibus and DC Finest paperback. And, our first new DC Finest is a major coup – it’s a new line, a new genre line, and something that just missed the on-air results of the DC Finest Most-Wanted Poll! The first DC Finest announcement for 2027 is: DC Finest Romance – Escape From Loneliness!
Even though DC Finest Romance – Escape From Loneliness picks up five different DC romance comics midway through their runs, it is effectively “Volume 1” of this DC Finest genre line. That is because this book picks up after DC purchased two other Romance comics from Prize Comics – Young Love and Young Romance.
Though Prize sold off its romance line to DC in 1963, the prior issues are not DC Comics. It’s unclear on if DC has the right to reprint them, and they might not have access to archival copies.
As a result, many of us are speculating the line begins here so that the subsequent volume can pick up the Prize books.
DC Finest Romance – Escape From Loneliness is solicited for release in January 2027. It will collect:
Falling in Love (1955) #58-61, Girls’ Romances (1950) #91-94, Girls’ Love Stories (1949) #94-97, Heart Throbs (1957) #83-85, and Secret Hearts (1949) #86-89 – all of which contain multiple stories per issue.
This line could be running for many volumes. The final issues of these series were Falling in Love (1955) #143 in 1973, Girls’ Romances (1950) #159 in 1971, Girls’ Love Stories (1949) #180 in 1973, Heart Throbs (1957) #138 in 1978, and Secret Hearts (1949) #152 in 1971. Plus, Young Love (1960) runs from #39-126 and Young Romance (1947) runs from #125-208.
[Read more…] about DC Comics Announcement: DC Finest Romance – Escape From Loneliness
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