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Collected Edition Mapping

Marvel series still awaiting an omnibus from the Masterworks Era (1961 – 1980)

May 5, 2017 by krisis

This is the final post in our series time-traveling backwards through Marvel’s era of comic books to see what books would make fantastic omnibuses, and this is a big one – it’s what I’m calling “The Masterworks Era.”

After this post, you should have more than enough ammo to fill out your 2017 Most Wanted Marvel Omnibus Secret Ballot, which is due by Sunday at midnight! I’ve suggested over a hundred possible votes!

What exactly is “The Masterworks Era,” aside from something I just made up? It refers to the period of comcis that Marvel has covered with their deluxe, standard-size hardcover Marvel Masterworks reprint line. The Silver Age portion of the line begins with Fantastic Four #1 in 1961.

The end is a little fuzzier. The Silver Age is understood to end in 1970-71, but with a handful of exceptions Marvel has already pushed past that point with every line of Masterworks collections. In fact, their newest two Masterworks lines are The Spectacular Spider-Man (1976), Spider-Woman (1978), and The Savage She-Hulk (1980)! 

Yes, that’s right – Masterworks now cover comics that began in the 1980s! That’s like when the oldies station of my youth started playing Madonna songs. Plus, the farthest outlier, Uncanny X-Men, has reached all the way up to issue #188 in 1984.

When it comes to classic Omnibuses, until this year Marvel followed a specific formula almost every time – one omnibus contained three Masterworks volumes. We’re now seeing them deviate from that formula with Amazing Spider-Man, Daredevil,  and Thor, all of which contained more than the customary three volumes.

To figure out what comics are due for potential omnibuses to feature in this post, I had to first figure out both what has been covered by Masterworks volumes and what has been skipped! That’s not really a part of this discussion, but if you’re interested, I’ve shown my work.

A list of titles that are eligible for Masterworks treatment

  • Marvel Spotlight (1971), an anthology series which branches to:
    • Red Wolf (1972) – This has never been reprinted in color, but does not have enough material for an omnibus.
    • Werewolf by Night (1972) – This has been reprinted in Omnibus, but could still be Masterworked
    • Ghost Rider (1973) – This has never been reprinted in color and is listed below!
    • Son of Satan (1975) – This received a TPB collection in 2016 and is too short to be an omnibus on its own.
    • Spider-Woman (1978) – This has begun to be Masterworked and could be an omnibus, but we need more MMW volumes first.
    • Moon Knight (1980)– Collected in color in Epic collections and could be an omnibus; it is listed below
    • Plus, the Deathlok MMW line, Warriors Three stories in the Thor MMW line, and a Fury story in the Nick Fury MMW line
  • The Cat (1972) – Collected in the Women of Marvel Omnibus
  • Chamber of Chills (1972) – A horror anthology; this has never been reprinted fully in color.
  • Marvel Premiere (1972), an anthology series featuring:
    • Warlock (1972) – This has been fully Masterworked and could be an omnibus; it is listed below
    • Doctor Strange (1974) – This has begun to be Masterworked and could be an omnibus; it is listed below
    • Iron Fist (1975) – This has been fully Masterworked and could be an omnibus; it is listed below
    • Doctor Who – This is licensed material.
    • And shorter runs and one shots of Hercules, Satana, Legion of Monsters (Ghost Rider, Man-Thing, Morbius, Werewolf by Night), Liberty Legion, Woodgod, Monark Starstalker (before Star Wars!), Solomon Kane, 3-D Man, Weirdworld, Torpedo, Seeker 3000, Tigra, Paladin, Jack of Hearts, Man-Wolf, Ant-Man (Scott Lang), Falcon, Alice Cooper, Black Panther, Caleb Hammer, Wonder Man, Dominic Fortune, and Star-Lord
  • Night Nurse (1972), collected in the Women of Marvel Omnibus
  • Shanna, the She-Devil (1972), collected in the Women of Marvel Omnibus
  • Supernatural Thrillers (1972), a horror anthology; this has never been reprinted fully in color.
  • Tomb of Dracula (1972) and Dracula Lives (1973) – This has been reprinted in Omnibus, but could still be Masterworked
  • Frankenstein (1973) – Collected in color in TPB and is too brief for an omnibus
  • Vampire Tales (1973) – An anthology series featuring Blade and Morbius. This has been collected in TPB and could be Masterworked, but it’s too short to be an omnibus without including other material.
  • Haunt of Horror (1974), which included Satana stories
  • Master of Kung Fu (1974) and The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu (1974) – Collected in Omnibus but not Masterworked.
  • Man-Thing (1974 / 1979) – Collected in both an omnibus and a Complete Collection line, but not Masterworked.
  • The Invaders (1975) – Collected in a pair of Complete Collections, and previously in Classics; could still be Omnibused – listed below.
  • Marvel Chillers (1975), an anthology series featuring:
    • Modred the Mystic, not collected
    • Tigra, not collected
  • Marvel Presents (1975), an anthology series featuring:
    • Bloodstone, not collected
    • Guardians of the Galaxy, which has been collected in omnibus and could conceivably hit Masterworks
  • Super-Villain Team-Up (1975) – Collected in a single Complete Collection; too short for omnibus, but could appear in a Namor omnibus line.
  • Captain Britain (1976) – Collected entirely in a pair of OHCs; could still be Masterworked, but an omnibus would be redundant since there’s nothing left to add.
  • The Eternals (1976) – Collected in one of Marvel’s early omnibuses; could still be Masterworked
  • Howard the Duck (1976 / 1979) – Collected in both an omnibus and a Complete Collection line; could still be Masterworked
  • Nova (1976) – Collected completely in a paperback Classic line, but not omnibus or Masterworks – so it’s covered below!
  • Omega the Unknown (1976) – Too short to be an omnibus; has been collected in TPB, but could be Masterworked
  • What If? (1977) – Collected in a paperback Classics line, but not in omnibus – so it’s covered below!
  • Devil Dinosaur (1978) – Previously collected in omnibus, and recently in paperback; could be Masterworked!
  • Machine Man (1978) – Collected in a single TPB in 2016 and has previously appeared on the survey; however, without the rights to reprint 2001: A Space Odyssey material Marvel likely can’t expand this to an omnibus.
  • Amazing Adventures (1979), an anthology series which branches to:
    • Inhumans content in their MMW line; could be omnibused
    • Beast content in the X-Men MMW line; could be omnibused
    • Killraven, which has not been reprinted in color and could be omnibused
  • Marvel Spotlight (1979), an anthology series which branches to:
    • the final volume of the Captain Marvel MMW line
    • A handful of Dragon-Lord stories, uncollected
    • Star-Lord, collected variously with Guardians of the Galaxy (including in Omnibus)
    • Captain Universe, as a spin-off from Micronauts, collected in Captain Universe: Power Unimaginable; not enough material for ominbus

This list omits Western titles like Tex Dawson, Gunslinger (1973), Gun-Slinger (1973), and Gunhawks (1972) and licensed material Marvel can’t Masterwork, including Conan, Doc Savage, Godzilla, The Human Fly, John Carter, Kull, Micronauts, Planet of the Apes, Red Sonja (in her own title and in Marvel Feature (1975), Shogun Warriors, Star Trek, Tarzan, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and The Wizard of Oz (based on the film).

How am I defining “due” here? It’s any superhero universe series that the Masterworks line has skipped entirely or any Masterworks line with three or more un-omnibused volumes.

Any comic with a Masterworks line that’s in-progress with only one or two volumes is not included: Ka-Zar, Luke Cage, Marvel Team-Up, Marvel Two-in-One, Not Brand Echh Vol. 1, Rarities Vol. 1, Rawhide Kid, She-Hulk, Spectacular Spider-Man, Spider-Woman.

I also didn’t include the one-and-done Masterworks volumes Champions and Deathlok as potential omnibuses, since the omnibus would be the same as the Masterworks!

Are you ready to travel back in time from 1980 to the beginning of Marvel’s Silver Age in 1961? Here we go! [Read more…] about Marvel series still awaiting an omnibus from the Masterworks Era (1961 – 1980)

Filed Under: comic books Tagged With: Amazing Spider-Man, Ant-Man, Avengers, Black Goliath, Black Panther, Captain America, Captain Marvel, Collected Edition Mapping, Collected Editions, Daredevil, Defenders, Doctor Strange, Fantastic Four, Ghost Rider, Giant Man, Human Torch, Incredible Hulk, Inhumans, Invaders, Iron Fist, Iron Man, Jungle Action, Killraven, Marvel Comics, Marvel Masterworks, Moon Knight, Most Wanted Marvel Omnibus, Ms. Marvel, Namor, Nick Fury, Nova, Spider-Man, Thor, Warlock, What If?, X-Men

10 Marvel runs from the 80s that ought to be omnibuses – 1981 to 1989

May 4, 2017 by krisis

It’s the penultimate stop in our trip backwards through time to find all of the Marvel runs most in need of Omnibus treatment.

Why? For fun. For accumulating rainy-day reading. And, to fuel our 2017 Most Wanted Marvel Omnibus Secret Ballot votes!

Marvel in the 1980s is really a tale of two different Marvels. The first half of the decade featured many continuing 70s series, a handful of limited series, and relatively few new ongoing titles – most of which were direct spinoffs of characters from other books.

However, after Secret Wars II in 1986 the line got a serious shake-up, with many titles outside of what I think of as “The Big 9” and their satellite books getting cancelled or rebooted, plus tons of new ongoing and limited series and a whole new line of comics with New Universe!

(“The Big 9” are all of the lines of books that made it from the Silver Age to 2005 while being published continuously, even if that meant being restarted along the way – , Avengers, Captain America, Daredevil, Iron Man, Fantastic Four, Hulk, Spider-Man, Thor, and X-Men. After 2005, Thor went on hiatus, and Fantastic Four has been on hiatus since 2015.)

(In a totally weird turn of events, we can now probably add Deadpool to that list of evergreen lines.)

Marvel released a lot of comics in the 1980s, so what should Marvel prioritize getting into omnibuses? I’ve already covered all of the X-Men runs from this period, and I’m not touching Spider-Man or Fantastic Four mapping at the moment. Plus, many key 80s runs are on the survey already, like Peter David’s Hulk, Iron Man by by Michelinie & Layton Ann Nocenti’s Daredevil – but that still leaves a ton of potential runs to cover! [Read more…] about 10 Marvel runs from the 80s that ought to be omnibuses – 1981 to 1989

Filed Under: comic books Tagged With: Captain America, Captain Marvel, Chuck Dixon, Cloak and Dagger, Collected Edition Mapping, Doug Moench, Hawkeye, Iron Fist, Jim Starlin, Luke Cage, Mark Gruenwald, Marshall Rogers, Moon Knight, Most Wanted Marvel Omnibus, New Defenders, Nick Fury, Power Man, Ron Frenz, Ron Lim, Silver Surfer, Steve Englehart, Terry Kavanagh, The Thing, Thor, Tom DeFalco

10 Marvel runs from the 90s you might have missed (and that ought to be omnibuses) – 1990 to 1997

May 3, 2017 by krisis

It’s our third installment of backwards time travel through Marvel runs that could easily fit into an omnibus volume to help inspire your votes on the Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibus Secret Ballot.

Today I’m taking a slightly different perspective than I did for 1998 to 2008 and 2008 to present. For those installments, I focused on runs I knew well or at least could recommend from context. However, when it comes to runs I’ve read, the 90s are pretty thoroughly covered over both by existing omnibuses and the current votes of the poll. Add to that how much of this period are covered by the end of runs from the 80s, that I’ve already mapped X-Men, and my temporary avoidance of exhaustively mapping Fantastic Four and Spider-Man, and the pickings wind up being pretty slim!

Thus, this list comes with a caveat – I’m not necessarily suggesting you run out and buy and read all of these runs right now. I mean, I own nearly all of them, and even having not read them cover to cover I can tell you that most of them are very 90s comic books.

However, they also represent under-collected material that’s relatively unknown to modern readers. While it might be more reasonable to see all of it covered with Epic Collections, I think it would be more expedient to see them collected in this format than to wait around for trade paperbacks.

Ready to dig deep into the extreme 1990s? [Read more…] about 10 Marvel runs from the 90s you might have missed (and that ought to be omnibuses) – 1990 to 1997

Filed Under: comic books Tagged With: Alpha Flight, Big Hero 6, Blade, Bob Budiansky, Christopher Priest, Collected Edition Mapping, Collected Editions, Conan, Danny Fingeroth, Darkhawk, Deathlok, Dwayne McDuffie, George Perez, Gregory Wright, Heroes For Hire, Iron Fist, J.M. DeMatteis, Ka-Zar, Luke Cage, Mark Waid, Marvel Comics, Most Wanted Marvel Omnibus, Ron Lim, Ron Marz, Silver Surfer, Sleepwalker, Steven Seagle, Venom

12 Must-Read Marvel Runs (that ought to be an omnibus) – 1998 to 2008

May 2, 2017 by krisis

As we continue our trip backwards down Marvel Memory Lane, I’m here to convince you to read – or, at least, covet – 12 more Marvel runs, this time from 1998 to 2008.

While my concurrent period of X-Men looked at 2001 to 2008, for the rest of the Marvel Universe 1998 was a better starting point. That’s because Marvel’s Avengers and Fantastic Four franchises relaunched new volumes in 1998, and Spider-Man and Daredevil were rebooted within the next year as well.

(That wound up being less relevant to this post than I planned, since I decided not to touch mapping Fantastic Four or Spider-Man in the style of my exhaustive X-Men mapping. I also won’t hit the titles that are just waiting for a sequel – namely Thor, Captain America, and Iron Man. See my Orphan Report for more on those. And, one of the best runs from this period – Christopher Priest’s Black Panther – is already in the survey results.)

I’ve read less of Marvel outside of X-Men, so I’m being a little choosier with these runs so I don’t lead you astray! That’s not only a choosiness in quality, but in self-containment. While Marvel’s Universe was a little more siloed from 1998 to 2005, once New Avengers arrived titles became increasingly intertwined and reliant on events to launch and intersect with them until we hit peak tie-in after Secret Invasion in 2008, with the entire Marvel Universe being affected by Dark Reign in one way or another.

These runs aren’t that – they’re comics you could sit down and enjoy today regardless of your foreknowledge about a certain plot or character. While some of them intersect event series, none of them rely on your reading the main event to enjoy their chapters.

If you want to see any of these runs released in all-in-one omnibus editions, perhaps you should include some of them on your Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibus Secret Ballot – votes are due this Sunday!

However, omnibuses are not your only hope! The majority of these runs are collected in hardcovers and trade paperbacks listed in Crushing Comics’s Guide to Collecting Marvel Comic Books, and the vast majority of the issues are available on Marvel Unlimited, a $10/month Netflix-for-Marvel-comics.

Of course, all potential collection mapping comes with a disclaimer: all of my suggestions are subjective and subject to improvement, or at least spirited debate. If you have a correction, alteration, or disagreement, there’s no need to be shy – I’d love to hear from you in the comments, below.

Let’s dig in!

[Read more…] about 12 Must-Read Marvel Runs (that ought to be an omnibus) – 1998 to 2008

Filed Under: comic books Tagged With: Black Panther, Black Widow, Brian Reed, Christos Gage, Collected Edition Mapping, Collected Editions, Colleen Wing, Dan Slott, Daredevil, Fred Van Lente, Greg Pak, Hercules, Heroes For Hire, Jason Aaron, Marvel Comics, Marvel Knights, Misty Knight, Moon Knight, Most Wanted Marvel Omnibus, Ms. Marvel, Reginald Hudlin, Young Avengers

8 Must-Read Marvel Runs (that ought to be an omnibus) from 2008 to 2012

May 1, 2017 by krisis

Today in my best-of-Marvel retrospective, we’re looking at ten mega-sized runs from Secret Invasion in 2008 to Avengers vs. X-Men in 2012 that really ought to be omnibuses.

If you want to see any of them in that mega format, perhaps they ought to be your vote in the Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibus Secret Ballot – choices are due this Sunday!

However, even sans a mighty omnibus edition, all of Marvel’s modern runs are easily collected in hardcovers and trade paperbacks listed in Crushing Comics’s Guide to Collecting Marvel Comic Books, and 100% of the issues are available on Marvel Unlimited, a $10/month Netflix-for-Marvel-comics.

Whether you’re a new comics fan or a grizzled vet, read with this in mind: These potential mappings are just my own shot, and the may include errors, omissions, or choices that could be improved. That’s part of the fun, for me – it’s like playing “Fantasy Corrections Department”! If you see something fishy or have a vociferous disagreement, I’d love to know what that is via the comments, below.

Let’s begin! [Read more…] about 8 Must-Read Marvel Runs (that ought to be an omnibus) from 2008 to 2012

Filed Under: comic books Tagged With: Amazing Spider-Man, Avengers Academy, Brian Bendis, Christos Gage, Collected Edition Mapping, Collected Editions, Dan Slott, Daredevil, Dark Avengers, Dark Reign, Greg Rucka, Hulk, Jeff Parker, Jeph Loeb, Kieron Gillen, Loki, Marco Checchetto, Marvel Comics, Matt Fraction, Most Wanted Marvel Omnibus, Nick Spencer, Punisher, Rick Remender, Secret Avengers, Shadowland, Spider-Man, Thor, Warren Ellis

Oversize X-Men: A map of every existing omnibus, plus what’s missing (Part 4: 2008 to 2015)

April 27, 2017 by krisis

This is the end, my friends! The last in a series of four posts covering how Marvel could cover every X-Men comic book in omnibus volumes.

This post covers every X-Men series from Messiah Complex to the end of Marvel Now in an effort to give you maximum ideas for the The Most Wanted Marvel Omnibus Secret Ballot, where you vote for the comic runs you’d most like to see in an oversized format. Monday I covered all of X-Men from 1963 to 1991, Tuesday I reviewed 1991 to 2001, and yesterday I broke down 2001 to 2008.

  • X-Men: From Messiah Complex to AvX
    • Uncanny X-Men (1963) #487 – 544 & (2011) #1-20
    • Age of Apocalypse
    • Astonishing X-Men (2004) #25-68 & Annual 1
    • Cable, X-Force, & Uncanny X-Force
    • Captain Britain & MI:13
    • Magneto (2014)
    • Namor, The First Mutant (2010)
    • New Mutants (2009)
    • Wolverine (various)
    • X-23 (2010)
    • X-Factor by Peter David
    • X-Men, Vol. 3 (2010)
    • X-Men Legacy by Mike Carey (& Christos Gage)
    • X-Treme X-Men
  • X-Men in Marvel Now

With 21 more omnibuses from Messiah Complex to AvX and another 10 from Marvel Now, this edition brings our grand total of potential X-Men volumes to 113 possible omnibuses – which begs the question: How many of these could we possibly see in our lifetimes before books become completely obsolete and comics are downloaded directly into our brains?

At Marvel’s current rate of only a handful of X-Men omnibuses a year, it’s never going to happen.

Yet, with most Marvel omnibuses selling between 1,000 and 2,500 units in their first week, it makes me wonder how many of these books we could see if Marvel abandoned the outdated Direct Market model for determining their pre-order volume and sell-through.

Picture this – in October 2017 Marvel partners with Kickstarter plus one of the big online comic book sellers as a distributor to introduce the new “X-Men Omnibus Club: Year 1.” [Read more…] about Oversize X-Men: A map of every existing omnibus, plus what’s missing (Part 4: 2008 to 2015)

Filed Under: comic books Tagged With: Amazing X-Men, Cable, Collected Edition Mapping, Collected Editions, Gambit, Kieron Gillen, Marvel Comics, Marvel Now, Matt Fraction, Mike Carey, Most Wanted Marvel Omnibus, Namor, Nightcrawler, Peter David, Rogue, Schism, Uncanny X-Men, Wolverine, X-Factor, X-Force, X-Men, X-Men Legacy, X-Treme X-Men

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