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The Complete Guide to DC Comics Omnibus Releases in 2024

As 2024 concludes, it is time to reflect on the last 12 months of collected omnibus editions published by DC Comics. Unlike the continuous flow of new releases and reprints of omnibus coming from Marvel Comics, DC Comics was still lagging far behind during the year’s first half. But after almost two years of slow releases, things are picking up.

DC Comics launched new collections, the popular DC Compact Comics and its version of the Epic Collection, DC Finest. And of course, the publication of new omnibuses became a lot more regular, with some welcome reprints added to the schedule.

Nevertheless, new comic books are still hitting the shelves every week and you may have missed something during the last 12 months (if you didn’t follow our page–updated once a month!–dedicated to the release schedule of DC Omnibuses). That’s why it’s time to take a look back with a complete listing of all the omnibuses published (or republished) in 2024 by DC Comics.

Also, you can find most of these in the reading orders dedicated to their main superheroes.

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Captain Atom Reading Order (Nathaniel Adam)

Created by Joe Gill and Steve Ditko in 1960, Captain Atom first appeared in Space Adventures #33 published by Charlton Comics, a publishing company later acquired by DC Comics. Back then, the character was named Allen Adam, a technician who was trapped in a rocket that exploded. He should have died but instead became a superpowered atomic hero. His series continued for a few years (until December 1967). Back then, he had a red and yellow outfit and pretty generic powers.

In 1983, DC Comics acquired Charlton Comics’ action heroes and asked Alan Moore to do something with them. That’s how Captain Atom became Doctor Manhattan in Watchmen. Moore’s take on the characters was not what DC’s editors had in mind for them and the British writer had to rewrite some of them to create his own version while the publisher introduced Charlton’s super-heroes (like Blue Beetle) in its Post-Crisis universe. During the Crisis on Infinite Earths, it was established that they were on Earth-4. After that, they found their way into the main continuity.

Captain Atom was then reinvented as Nathaniel Christopher Adam, a United States Air Force officer and Vietnam War veteran. Framed and condemned for a crime he didn’t commit, his only option to survive was to join the military experiment called ‘Project: Captain Atom‘ during which he was placed in an alien craft positioned next to an atomic bomb. The goal was to test the resistance of the ship, but the result was ultimately the creation of a superhero. During the explosion, Nathaniel was disintegrated, but he mysteriously reappeared 18 years later, now bonded with the alien metal that has the ability to tap into the “Quantum Field”. Captain Atom can absorb energy to a certain point (beyond that, he jumps in time).

In 1986, as Captain Atom just reappeared, the military forced him to work for them. He eventually joined the Justice League and later became the leader of Justice League Europe. Through the years, he joined other teams, fought his enemy through times, and became a villain before returning to normal.

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Jessica Cruz Reading Order, member of the Green Lantern Corps

The Green Lantern Corps has at least 7,200 members! It would be easy to be just one among many, living in the shadows of brighter stars like Hal Jordan or Kyle Rayner. Despite initially being forced to accept the famous ring and join the Corps, Jessica Cruz quickly made a name for herself with DC Comics readers.

For her co-creator Geoff Johns, Jessica Cruz is all “about fear.” In a Comic Book Resources interview, he explained that her character was about “a lot of emotional fears and someone dealing with crippling anxiety, depression, and worry. That was a totally different type of fear to tackle.” Jessica Cruz embodied this, starting with the ring as a curse—from Earth-3’s Power Ring—and eventually overcoming her own fears and personal struggles to earn a Green Lantern ring. Johns felt it was “a compelling story and a very different one than the other Lanterns.”

Jessica Cruz wasn’t the most willing member of the Green Lantern Corps, but she has left her mark, becoming an inspiration to readers facing anxiety. Like many DC superheroes and fellow ring-bearers, her journey is full of challenges, obstacles, and the determination to face her fears.
 
Discover now our Jessica Cruz reading order, guiding you through the essential comics and story arcs featuring the first female human Green Lantern!

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Batman: The Intercompany Crossovers, From Alien to Spider-Man, Hellboy, TMNT, Spawn, Dredd, and more

With the DC Versus Marvel Omnibus coming out, we are reminded that comic intercompany crossovers, when heroes from different publishing houses meet, are a popular yet rare occurrence. Maybe not that rare as it is a profitable endeavor after all. In fact, DC’s own Batman has met a lot of heroes from other comic book universes, he even catches criminals on a monthly basis with Scooby-Doo‘s Mystery Team nowadays!

Some of the Dark Knight’s adventures side by side or even against other non-regular DC Comics characters have become the stuff of legend when others have been forgotten. One thing most of them (not all) have in common though, is that they are totally out-of-continuity stories. But some are quite interesting to discover for curious fans who want to know how Batman would fare against Aliens and/or a Predator, or what would look like a team-up with Tarzan, Spider-Man, Danger Girl, or Spawn.

Yes, some of those intercompany crossovers seem to be (and are) oddities. Here is our guide to those crazy and unpredictable comic book meetings.

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Green Lantern: The Emotional Spectrum Explained

When Alan Scott, the first Green Lantern, made his debut in All-American Comics #16 (1940), created by Bill Finger and Martin Nodell, his powers came from a mystical green flame contained within a lantern, which he used to craft a ring. This power ring was magical. Those who followed were not.

With the Silver Age came test pilot Hal Jordan who became the official new Green Lantern in John Broome and Gil Kane’s comics Showcase #22 (1959). Like Alan, Hal got a ring, but this one was given to him by Abin Sur, a Green Lantern who crash-landed on Earth. This alien was a member of the Green Lantern Corps, an intergalactic police force created by the Guardians of the Universe, immortal beings who watched over the cosmos from the planet Oa.

This new Power Ring was powered by the Central Power Battery that was installed on Oa by the Guardians of the Universe, immortal beings who watched over the cosmos. Each ring is charged by a personal lantern-shaped Power Battery–which is connected to the Central Power Battery—and allows those who, like Hal Jordan, were chosen to were one, to tap into the emotional spectrum, specifically the green light of willpower.

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The Shadow Comics: The Comic Book History of a Pulp Hero

Created for the magazine publishers Street & Smith, the character of The Shadow started in 1930 on the Detective Story Hour radio show as a mysterious host before moving to print the following year. He would stay on the air for a few years, but this original incarnation would be forgotten and replaced by the one created by writer Walter B. Gibson (under the pen name of Maxwell Grant).

Gibson was tasked to write stories about “The Shadow” and, inspired by classic literary works and the French character Judex, he composed a character that would eventually become the prototype of the American Superhero. Through the years, The Shadow prospered in the pulps, on the radio, and even got a comic strip in the early 1940s.

The Shadow was a former World War I aviator named Kent Allard who faked his death and became a crime-fighter. Upon returning to the United States, he adopted several different identities to aid him in his war on crime. The most famous one is Lamont Cranston, a wealthy socialite who went abroad and Allard stole his identity, impersonating him to gain access to the rich and powerful of the world.

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Jonah Hex Reading Order, DC Comics’ Western Hero

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Introduced for the first time in 1972 in the comics All-Star Western #10, Jonah Hex is a creation by writer John Albano and artist Tony DeZuniga. A bad-tempered brutal bounty hunter, Hex emerged at a time when the Western genre was deconstructed and the character contributed to that with his two-face. Looking at him from one side, he looked like the handsome cowboy, but from the other side, with half of his face disfigured, he was a terrifying killer.

The comics introduced him like this: “He was a hero for some, a villain to others… and wherever he rode people spoke his name in whispers. He had no friends, this Jonah Hex, but he did have two companions: one was death itself… the other, the acrid smell of gunsmoke…” Enough said!

At a time when the Comic Code regulations started to loosen up, the violent Jonah Hex became popular in the pages of the Weird Western Tales comics (DeZuniga drew the character for years, but Albano only wrote the first ten adventures of Hex), and after a few years, he finally got his own book. The Crisis on Infinite Earths event put an end to his regular adventures and, since then, he has made multiple comebacks.

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Hellblazer John Constantine Reading Order, from the Swamp Thing to the Justice League Dark

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Created by Alan Moore, Steve Bissette, and John Totleben in 1984 in The Saga of Swamp Thing series, John Constantine is an arrogant foul-mouthed working-class occult detective and con man from London. Originally a supporting character, he continued to appear in the series before getting his own ongoing in 1988, Hellblazer.

As Alan Moore was too busy (or didn’t want to) do it, DC Comics recruited another British writer, Jamie Delano, to develop the Hellblazer comics in which John Constantine was faced with much horror, demons, and others in Great Britain. This quickly cemented him as the antihero of the DC universe. Not loved by many, he still found people to join him during his fight against vile creatures, and they are often the ones who have to pay the harsher price.

Known for his cynicism, his deadpan snarking, his ruthless cunning, and his constant chain-smoking, John Constantine wants to help save lives, but his technique can be deadly if it’s for the greater good. Being his friend can be as dangerous as being his enemy.

The long-running Hellblazer comic book series was part of the Vertigo line and lasted 300 issues. After that, John Constantine was made a little more respectable as he joined the other magic heroes of the DC main universe. He joined teams and helped save the world, the universe, and reality.

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Jeph Loeb/Tim Sale’s Batman Reading Order

Happy Halloween! No team in the Batman mythos is associated with this celebration more than Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale for their The Long Halloween story. Presented as a classic detective story, The Long Halloween is one of the most celebrated and influential Batman tales, featuring Tim Sale’s striking art, a good introduction to the world of Gotham, Batman’s Rogue Gallery, and an origin story for Two-Face.

For Loeb and Sale, it all started with Challengers of the Unknown (1991), their first creative collaboration that would lead to more iconic works. When editor Archie Goodwin asked artist Tim Sale in the early ’90s to work on another Legends of the Dark Knight arc after Blades (with James Robinson), Sale asked if Loeb—who was working in Hollywood at the time—could write it. This resulted in what is now known as The Haunted Knight, a collection of three Halloween-themed stories.

For Loeb, the plan was to stop there—he had another job. However, Archie Goodwin had other ideas. He asked Frank Miller about the gangsters featured in Year One, and Miller said he had no further plans for them, giving Goodwin free rein. As Loeb recalled, “Archie thought we should do something bigger with this group in mind, maybe something longer than the 80 pages of the first Halloween special. Maybe… a year.” (from The Long Halloween Deluxe Edition.)

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Darwyn Cooke’s Must-Read Comics: Exploring a Work Filled with Boldness and Hope

Graphic Ink: The DC Comics Art of Darwyn Cooke

Canadian Cartoonist from Toronto Darwyn Cooke (1962–2016) always dreamt of making comics for a living, but it was not economically viable for him for a long time. He instead worked as a magazine art director, graphic and product designer until finally going back to his first love during the 1990s. He answered an ad placed by Bruce Timm that led him to work as a storyboard artist on Warner Bros. Animation shows like The New Batman Adventures, Superman: The Animated Series, Batman Beyond (he created the opening sequence), and Men in Black: The Series (as a director).

Cooke’s pitch to Timm, a Batman story that got him a job in animation, was later discovered by DC Comics art director Mark Chiarello who hired the artist to make a graphic novel based on it. That became the 2000 graphic novel Batman: Ego. Cooke officially transitioned to the comics world.

Despite a short career in comics, Darwyn Cooke’s distinctive artistic style became highly influential as well as his stories. He found popular success with some of his now-considered classic series and gained industry recognition with his work, winning 13 Eisner Awards, 8 Harvey Awards, and 5 Joe Shuster Awards.

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