This week at ComicsPRO, an industry conference for comics retailers, DC Comics had a great deal of news to announce.  The piece that caught my attention the most, however, was the launching of a comprehensive line of thick trade paperbacks called DC Finest, similar to Marvel’s Epic Collections.

I have long been a fan of Marvel’s Epics, and have collected them since their inception in 2013 (yes, I know, but it is possible to like comics other than Superman!).  They look great on a shelf, they save us from shelling out big money for back issues, and allow fans to scratch the completist itch of having an entire line of comics collected in one place.  It also allows less popular issues a place to be collected by piggybacking 20 plus comics on top of a major storyline (in other words, 5-10 issues before and after Daredevil: Born Again, or X-Men: The Dark Phoenix Saga in one book).  There’s also plenty of extras in these books too, like house ads, sketches, interviews from the creative teams and much more.  It is a gift for the fans to be able to have everything you love in one place, and this option for many is preferable to oversize hardcovers of everything. 

These books clearly sell, given that Marvel began by released 1-2 Epics a month, and now release about that many each week, so the follow-up question was naturally, When is DC going to release theirs?  Comics are very much a copycat industry with many, many creators going back and forth from the Big 2 throughout their careers, so it definitely made sense on paper.

It was only a matter of time… and that time is now!

There isn’t much to report on yet with this line, other than they start being released in November of this year, and will look great with uniform trade dress, that is unless DC decides to change it somewhere down the line.  Please don’t.

We also know that one of the first books released will be Superman Vol.1, “The Coming of Superman,” and will collect stories from 1938-1940.  I will probably cave and buy this book, even though I think I have Action Comics #1 in about ten different places at this point.  Nevertheless, I am here for it!  There is so much potential for collecting large swaths of Superman stories that have never been reprinted, and I am brimming with excitement at the possibilities.  The Triangle Era, in particular, has been longing to be collected in comprehensive fashion after several near misses over the years.  Some time ago, a hardcover series of “Superman: The Man of Tomorrow,” with cover art by Jerry Ordway, was solicited on Amazon, and then subsequently never released.  The “Superman: Exile and Other Stories” hardcover omnibus was then published, collecting all the Superman stories immediately following the departure of John Byrne through Exile, which seemingly suggested that other omnibuses of the era would be forthcoming, though nothing did.  The John Byrne era itself has been reprinted in several places over the years as well, but often sloppily and never comprehensively (the three “World of” miniseries, in particular, have been glaring omissions).

Hopefully, this will remedy all of that.  I am sure future announcements will provide us with more details, and give us a clearer picture of what we can expect.  For now, we’ll just have to live with the anticipation.

And that’s not a bad thing!