At long last.

Ever since the DC Finest line began in 2024, I have been waiting patiently for the right moment…

… and I have finally bought my first Superman edition!! The inaugural addition to my collection in this series- which I fully expect to one day cover many years of Superman books- is named after the now classic “Time and Time Again,” and contains several wonderful stories from that time.

I’ve picked up many, many Marvel Epic trades over the last decade or so, and enjoy that format immensely in covering entire eras of a character’s publication history. These trades contain normally between 400-500 pages of comics (as opposed to a standard trade size of about 100-200 pages), but is not a clunky, oversize omnibus, either. These are much more functional to read and look great on a shelf as well. For years fans were clamoring for DC to follow suit with a similar line of their own, and they have finally done so.

I won’t be reviewing the stories inside this book, as I have done that before in many posts, but I will be going over the quality and curation of the trade paperback itself, and how it measures up to others like it.

Let’s get started!

Pros:

Man, does this thing look great! I love a well designed series of books that honors the material, is affordable and, perhaps most importantly for me, fits uniformly together as part of a cohesive whole on a bookshelf.

The front cover, back cover and spine all look fantastic, giving the viewer a snapshot of the stories collected and what years they’re from. The design works nicely for Superman and for any DC comic. I look forward to many more!

In addition to how it looks, the content is a perfect choice of stories to be collected together. Mapping this era can be tricky, especially with the many subplots of the Carlin Superman era and how often Superman appeared in other books. This material covers “Krisis of the Krimson Kryptonite,” “Time and Time Again” and the vastly underrated “Red Glass” stories, plus everything in between, including several iconic covers and Superman revealing his secret identity to Lois.

All of that is jammed into nearly 600 pages, which should collect the Triangle Era fairly swiftly!

Despite the size of the book, the price is also very affordable. At $39.99 cover it is a bargain when compared to current Marvel Epics, which in some case have reached $54.99, and with fewer pages!

There’s is a lot to like here, and I am pretty sure that I am in for the long haul with this line. I envision a shelf full of Superman DC Finest trades one day.

Cons:

Not all is perfect, however, as there is a bit of trouble in paradise.

In addition to their hefty page count, the Marvel Epics also have fantastic extras from the era they cover- house ads, introductions from previously released collections of the material, fan magazine articles, covers of reprinted issues, scans of trading cards and often much, much more.

This book has zero extras.

Zero.

I have the original trade paperbacks of both “Krisis” and “Time,” and both featured new covers by the artists and introductions by folks on the creative teams.

It would have been great to see those outputs included as extras, and the various other features released through the years (I have fond memories of ads for “Time and Time Again,” too). I can’t imagine it would cost DC anything to include that material, since they already own it, and it’s not as if they didn’t have enough room in the page count. Since this line of books is clearly modeled after the Epics, I don’t think it’s unfair to expect a similar quality.

And yet, it is something that has been part of DC’s track record with other collected editions as well, so here we are. Inclusion of any extras from the era collected would have made this series the final word on the material. As it stands I am going to be hanging on to older editions of the material too (and I could have really used the space!). Oh well.

Also, as far as I can see the pages look decent enough but were restored very little, if at all, so they are a bit blurry or murky in some spots. Nothing that would distract me from the reading experience, but it’s still something.

Conclusion:

I am very glad this line of books exists and look forward to seeing where it goes in the future. It’s unfortunately not perfect, but I’ll live! It’s still a wonderful format in which to collect a good deal of Superman’s long and storied history.

Looking forward to future volumes!

Capeage Meter: 7 of 10