Near Mint Condition announced another Marvel omnibus for April 2027, and it was book that left me cheering out loud… until I got into the details of how it will be collected. That doesn’t mean it sucks: the community is divided on how this material ought to be handled. So, let’s dig into the pros and the cons of the newest Marvel Omnibus Announcement: Marvel Comics Presents Omnibus Vol. 1.
What is Marvel Comics Presents? It was a long-running anthology title launched in 1988 that took an unusual approach – and that approach is what is causing controversy with omnibus collections.
Marvel’s existing Anthology title, Marvel Fanfare (1982), was a Direct Market title with high production values that featured an A-Story by major industry stars, and often a slightly more obscure B-Story. Some stories ran for 2-3 issues, but others were one-shots. Marvel also launched Solo Avengers (1987), which similarly featured a team-up A-Story (usually anchored by Hawkeye) with a shorter B-Story.
I’d say that was a relatively standard approach for both Marvel and DC to this point. We’d have to look back to Silver Age DC Comics to find anthology titles that regularly ran three or more serialized stories each month. That was not Marvel’s way of doing things from the Silver Age onward except for in their 70s magazines (like Vampire Tales (1973)).
Marvel Comics Presents (1988) [“MCP” for short] saw Marvel taking the DC Silver Age approach turned up to 11. It was a bi-weekly comic series with each issue featuring four eight-page stories. Each issue was usually fronted by a major mutant (often Wolverine) or Avenger, but the following three stories sometimes featured characters that could be much more obscure. And, most of those stories were multi-part series – with Black Panther kicking off with a 25-part story during the first year.
Of course, when you’re releasing 26 issues a year, a 25-part story isn’t so wild. It was basically a 10-issue series serialized across the entire year. Similar, many Wolverine stories ran from three to ten installments, meaning they were anywhere from a one-shot story to a four issue mini-series.
(Another fun element: every issue had a table of contents page with recaps of each story!) [Read more…] about Marvel Omnibus Announcement: Marvel Comics Presents Omnibus Vol. 1