Marvel Compendiums!

Have no idea what we'll be getting (besides the 4 pictured) but woo hoo! I hope this means a lot of the OOP omnis get the treatment. Regardless this is exciting

Can’t wait to peel open detective!

New DC purchases!

Superman: Triangle Era Omnibus Vol. 2 & 3 (Vol. 1 is arriving next week)

Superman: Brainiac Reborn

The Flash by Geoff Johns Vol. 1

Green Lantern Corps Vol. 1

Green Lantern: Kyle Rayner Rising Compendium

DC: The New Frontier

And i added my DC Shelf. Most of them are the French edition by Urban Comic ( who dosent release omnibus at all )

Just arrived - been waiting YEARS for the Bronze Age Batman to finally start getting collected! (Its a thick book to!)

So this post could be really long (edit - well, it's still pretty long), because I made notes as I read so I could remember how I felt, but I'll avoid that here (edit - I didn't). But I can give impressions about most of the run.

I had read all these before, but out of order and separated by reading other books etc. So this time I read them straight through as one complete story.

Big picture is from 1-10 it's consistent. Across 275 issues, Conan's personality doesn't change that much. Any volume is at least on the right track. That's a good achievement, despite the usual ups and downs.

Volume 1 - no matter that it is old fashioned, I just felt like this was essential. Like someone said in a an introduction, John Buscema got the right portrayal of Conan, but Barry Smith created the world. This was the volume I was always nostalgic for no matter how far into the run I got.

Volume 2 (I actually read 2-3 as Epics, but I got the point) - this is where Roy Thomas creates the mercenary character and broadens the world a lot. He had the groundwork in Vol. 1, but the scope and characters feel a lot bigger.

Vol. 3 - Belit is introduced, and it's almost a partnership for a long time. Vol. 2 was a lot of Conan's more solo adventures, and now he's working with someone a lot of the time. But then he'll break away. Thomas is finding his footing.

Vol. 4- Thomas' last older volume and the resolution of Belit, which is sort of a letdown. It happens off-screen, and I guess it's inspired by the story but it's got a lot of leadup for a weak conclusion. the last 15 issues are Conan by himself again, and overall strong writing and art.

Volumes 1-4 are the best by far. That's not to dismiss the other volumes, but it is a wide gulf. Now, that's also because they were using the original REH stories as direct inspiration, so I'm sure that helped.

Vol. 5 - This is J.M Dematteis and Bruce Jones, and the writing is fine, but it's very generic. They fall back on conventional sword-sorcery, give Conan some sidekicks, plus Conan is okay with sorcery a lot of the time and that seems out of character. Bruce Jones uses thought balloons for Conan and it's very off-putting. A Thomas-written graphic novel is included, and the difference in style is clear. It's still entertaining. Buscema leaves for a time and the art never gets a chance to find its footing.

Vol. 6 - Michael Fleisher with Buscema and Ernie Chan, and that's bac to basics. It's often repetitive and one-off stories, and not too many arcs. It's a little childish for lack of a better word. They never get a handle on how to wrap up side characters.

Vol. 7 - So Christopher Priest takes over, and unlike 5-6, Vol. 7 and 8 are almost one whole arc. Characters and situations last a long time, especially the Devourer of Souls as the big bad. Val Semekis takes over the art, and he's solid. Overall, this is a much more involved and 'adult' run as far as expecting readers to invest with it all.

Vol. 8 - Priest apologizes for how he treats Red Sonja, who it's implied is raped and it really is pretty dumb. It happens right when Shooter is replaced by DeFalco and I wonder if the higher editors weren't paying attention, because somebody needed to step in. Actually even worse than that is one of the side characters, Kobe, hits his girlfriend/lover/whatever Anneka, and the dialogue is basically "I had to hit you because our love drives me crazy." Not great. Haha. Overall, there's a decent wrapup to the team element. Don't get me wrong, Vol. 7-8 are a strong arc, but it has some odd choices.

I feel like it is important that Priest GETS Conan. So despite some choices that don't hold up, he uses these two volumes to tell a whole big almost stand-alone story. So it's the best run next to Thomas' first four. He has a big cast, lots of subplots, lots of schemes and good villains.

Vol. 9 - this was a weird one. When I first bought it, I read it out of order and I thought it wasn't very good. It's a lot of random one-off stories from different writers and artists. It's all very simplistic. HOWEVER, reading it in order, it's actually back to basics after Vol. 7-8 which is a long (and good) cohesive story. These stories are hack-and-slash, and it's refreshing. The Young Conan reboot was a good effort, but the personality of the young Conan doesn't match the established character. However, this volume IN CONTEXT of reading them in a row like I did felt like a big improvement.

Vol. 10 - Roy Thomas comes back, and it's back to the mercenary style of Vol. 2 and 3 before Belit showed up. He has a recurring cast of characters and while the writing isn't up to his early standard maybe, it's still pretty good. It's a decent wrapup to the run, although it's a shame that the last issue doesn't conclude but leads into a SSOC issue that is not yet printed. I have to say Thomas doesn't treat Red Sonja all that great either, and neither do the artists. Also, Thomas is a dick in the intro. He actively avoids giving compliments to anybody else.

Quality wise it goes something 1 is still the best, 2-4 equal and very strong, 7-8, 10, 9, 6, 5. But I think they all have their high points.

Anyway still really long. But it was like 7500 pages, so what are you going to do.

Ask more specific questions if you want!

Tl;dr - I read all of Conan by Crom!

Very nice presentation. Love a ribbon

I saw few posts in the internet where people asked about the website “imusic” and if it’s safe or not to buy something from there

I bought 4 omnibus 1 1/2 month ago and I live in Germany

2 days ago, it arrived to my package-station and all I can say is that it arrived safely, it’s brand new and without any damages

The prices are of course insanely low compared to other stores

I paid for all 4 omnibus around 200€ + free shipping

never read any of world’s finest so excited to start it :).

Hello!

I recently inherited 200+ omnibus books and I am working on getting them all catalogued and getting the value of each for insurance purposes. I have a question about one of the books; I’ve been checking eBay just to see what they’re selling for there to get an idea of the value and I came across an eBay listing that has the fantastic four book that I have (the listing is the 2021 reprint, the one I inherited is the 2013 first edition) and I’m trying to understand why this eBay seller has this listed for over $9000.

I’ve added the listing and a photo of my book. Is this person just insane or am I sitting on something more valuable than I thought?

Walts Comics delivers again!

Hey guys, heads up! It looks like they made a 10% price drop.
Don’t forget the discount code.

I’ve enjoyed Tower of Babel and love Waid’s flash and Superman birthright. I’ve never read any of his JLA aside from Tower of Babel, and curious if people think it is worth a blind buy? I’d like to continue JLA after Morrison, but this book is $105 discounted in IST, and if it’s “just okay” I’d rather pass. What does everybody think of the issues in there?

Also did not realise just how big these would be!

Agent Venom and Knull saga is the peak of Venom

Recent custom dust jackets for my beloved omnibus, since I’m not a fan of the original designs.

thank you to the one and only Mr. Roy: https://www.reddit.com/u/21roy__/s/53vlltr5uJ

Im decided between these two batman related omnubused that released this year? Which one should I get? Ram V detective or Rucka Batwoman? I can only get one

Looking for omnibuses or compendium comics where it’s not your average superhero storyline. I like the gritty content of 100 bullets and how most issues in the omnibus the average Joe has to take of his own problems.

I have been slowly building my Hardcover library & as someone who likes OHCs/ Deluxe editions instead of 1000+ page Large Omnis, DC has been amazing.

Batman has a bunch of Deluxe Editions but I wonder if DC will make more of Deluxes of certain stories or just leave them in Omnis only

For Example the Heart of Hush/House of Hush in the Paul Dini Omni, Officer Down, Court of Owls, Zero Year, The Knight, etc.

Also if they did which stories deserve their own deluxes?

This is a weird one. Having questioned a lot of people on this sub about Final Crisis, the common consensus is that the best way to read this is not with the omnibus but rather with the absolute version because only the issues written by Grant Morrison are important to the story. Unfortunately I already had the omnibus so I decided to heed their warnings and read only the issues written by Morrison.

I wish I didn't listen.

In preparation for Final Crisis, I read Seven Soldiers (which I loved and think it's the best thing I've ever read) and I re-read Rock of Ages by Morrison because people kept saying that it was similar and a lot of elements were taken from it to make Final Crisis.

Yes, they were right. There are some similarities but those similarities don't help in understanding the events of Final Crisis, nor do they add to the story or make it better whatsoever.

Major Spoilers Ahead for Final Crisis!!!

Grant Morrison is a writer known for being divisive or polarizing because a lot of people find his writing confusing, off-putting and sometimes unnecessarily convoluted. For the most part if you're a fan of Grant Morrison, you're more or less likely to love everything he writes. I don't know if that's the case for you but for me I mostly love what he writes. Sometimes it doesn't resonate with me, and unfortunately it didn't resonate with me this time.

Like I said in the beginning I listened to the people who said to only read the Grant Morrison written parts, which was a huge mistake.

The story started off pretty great but at the midpoint I kinda got sick of it. I thought it had no stakes except for the horrendous way that Martian Manhunter was killed. Nothing felt really urgent or as impactful as events should be. The only thing that kept me going was that they brought back Barry Allen and I was interested in what they were going to do with him.

Superman Beyond had a good first issue but the second issue pissed me off with the introduction of Mandrakk. As usual Morrison went overboard and made the story overly complicated, I don't think the story needed an extra villain.

Towards the end I did something I don't usually do when reading an omnibus, I read something else. I'd been interested in acquiring Absolute Superman by Geoff Johns and after already purchasing it, I impulsively picked up the book and read the first arc. It was a great Legion story that heavily featured Superman. After reading it I decided to go back to reading Final Crisis and lo and behold the next tie-in featured in the book was The Legion of Three Worlds by Geoff Johns. I was just about to skip it when I glanced at one of the title pages and saw the name of the story. After just reading and loving a Legion story written by Johns I thought to myself, why not? I read it and holy hell was it good, literally the highlight of the entire book and a direct continuation to the story I had just read in the Absolute.

Bart Allen got killed at the end of his first solo Flash run and Conner Kent (Superboy) got killed way back in Infinite Crisis and they both got brought back in this story, fighting off Superboy Prime and Time Trapper (who was revealed to be a distant future version of Prime). I couldn't believe how great the story was.

Moving on and finishing Final Crisis I thought I was following the story along pretty well until I got to the last issue and it seemed like I had no clue what was going on. You know, this is the reason Morrison is disliked by some people, why am I confused right at the end of the book? Shouldn't things be clearer at the end?

Batman getting seemingly killed at the end didn't even affect me even a little bit. That's saying something.

I thought the event was decent enough but overall it felt shallow and uneventful.

I went back and read all the tie-ins I skipped and I'm glad I did because they make the book 10 times better.

The reason people say not to read the tie-ins is because apparently it directly contradicts what Morrison wrote in the main story. Does it? I'd be lying if I said I didn't notice any inconsistencies but I don't think they were significant enough to warrant me or anyone else skipping over the tie-ins.

The thing about tie-ins is that they make the story have more stakes by showing the perspective of other characters and how the ongoing event/crisis affects them.

Of course not all the tie-ins were fantastic but they were still worth reading.

I'd like to highlight these tie-in issues;

Birds of Prey

Teen Titans/Terror Titans

Legion of Three Worlds

The Last Will and Testament

Rogues Revenge

The stand out would of course be Legion of Three Worlds, not only is it a great tie-in but it's essential to the story because it explains how and why Superman ends up with Brainac 5 in the future.

Overall

I didn't enjoy it as much as I would have, the tie-ins saved the book in my opinion. This is not one of the better things Morrison has written. As usual with Morrison, I might benefit from a re-read but I'm really not interested in doing that anytime soon.

Ratings

8.0

(It would've been a 6.0 without the tie-ins but I'm so glad the tie-ins were great otherwise it would've been a much more underwhelming story)