Marvel Collected Editions

[Johndoe4sho]

Yeah, I'm super happy for the Punisher Fans, but if they give Frank an omni for a guest star role before Daredevil gets a new omni then there is no justice.

Yes. Couldn't agree more, I want them to just reprint that damn Omnibus Companion.

[Tony]

I feel like Daredevil should get a silver age omnibus. Those early books had amazing art even if the stories were weaker than FF or Thor.

[Tony]

Punisher omnibus I'd like to see would be mini plus issues of the ongoing.

[titansupes]

yes. Couldn't agree more, i want them to just reprint that damn omnibus companion.

qft.......

[bragadosha]

They sell all their books at cover. Btw, I stopped by on Sunday and IC was gone.

Oh heck. Thanks for the info, though!

[Dougtron]

So how fast do Omnibuses generally sell out? I'm thinking of picking up the Onslaught and Annihilation Conquest Omnibuses since it'll end up being cheaper than tracking down the OOP TPB's. I've never bought any Omnibus editions before but it seems like they tend to sell through and go OOP pretty often.

[bragadosha]

So how fast do Omnibuses generally sell out? I'm thinking of picking up the Onslaught and Annihilation Conquest Omnibuses since it'll end up being cheaper than tracking down the OOP TPB's. I've never bought any Omnibus editions before but it seems like they tend to sell through and go OOP pretty often.

Based on how fast the Annihilation omni sold out, I'm jumping on Annihilation Conquest as soon as it comes out. If you buy it from Instocktrades the first week it's out, it'll be 50% off!
And as to how fast omni's sell out: it depends. If it's a great story like Uncanny X-Force or Astonishing X-Men, it's likely to go fast. I haven't read Annihilation Conquest stories before, but I've heard it's great, so it's possible it'll sell fast. On the other hand, there's a reason you can still find Avengers: The Crossing so easily; it's awful (my opinion only). My strategy is to buy the omni I want the week it comes out. Far less stress.

[Brewman]

@Dougtron Yes the best bet is to buy early wait and pay is truth with majority of omni/ohcs. Conquest will likely go quick, onslaught could go either way, a lot of people seem to consider it a garbage story, on the other hand it is xmen which tend to appreciate over the long haul ie AOA. Sell through also has a lot to do with print run size which has apparently been shrinking based on how fast these last few hot releases have been selling through. Be forewarned ohc/omni collecting has a tendency to become addicting, it's like Lay's chips bet you can't have just one.

[Firshizzle]

Anyone get the Battleworld box set? It looks beautiful but the actual books are trash... Seems steep for something I probably won't read.

[TheYoungWolf]

is inhumans by jenkins any good? i've never read any inhumans books. is that a good place to start? usually not into anything pre 2k but i figured with the movie coming soon i should probably check it out

[legion_quest]

is inhumans by jenkins any good? i've never read any inhumans books. is that a good place to start? usually not into anything pre 2k but i figured with the movie coming soon i should probably check it out

I find the story a bit hit and miss, some things work, some dont. The art, however, is beautiful

[Raffi Ol D'Arcy]

Yes. Couldn't agree more, I want them to just reprint that damn Omnibus Companion.

You, me and almost everyone else.

[Raffi Ol D'Arcy]

is inhumans by jenkins any good? i've never read any inhumans books. is that a good place to start? usually not into anything pre 2k but i figured with the movie coming soon i should probably check it out

If you can get the OHC for cheap, like I did, I'd jump on it. It's been remaindered and there are still quite a few copies out there. Once the movie hits, it will probably be worth more than you bought it for. They've now also released it in TPB and that's the format they will keep reprinting it in, so if you prefer OHCs now is the time.

[kodave]

Oh man, anyone remember me 100% calling this on this thread a couple weeks ago and getting reprimanded for being "too bold" in my prediction? Seems fortune favors me.

lol. There's a difference between saying "Punisher will be in Season 2" prior to any official announcements of any kind, and you know, what actually happened. But pat yourself on the back if it helps you sleep at night. Characters like Punisher, Elektra, and Bullseye are easily at the top of any Daredevil Netflix wishlist. You and thousands of other people "called it" across the internet. Some guy on reddit even fancasted Jon Bernthal weeks ago when the rest of the internet was still hanging on Thomas Jane's jock, so I guess that dude "beat" you, didn't he? IF they cast Elektra and Bullseye surely I'll have to shake the hands of all of your fellow geniuses that "called it" with them too. But there's a difference between wishing and guessing and you know, someone actually being cast in the role with an official announcement. I'm sure Jon Bernthal will just be "on the fringes" and possibly without a speaking role, right, because that was part of your prediction too? Fortune certainly does favor you.

But since Carnac the Magnificent here brought that up in response to another Omnibus prediction, I'll point out that original conversation trail goes back to a discussion about Ennis Max Omnis, which I'm sure will become an endlessly talked about topic from now until next spring when season two finally comes out. So why not break that down?

Part I

Ennis' Punisher Max was critically acclaimed. Ennis is a popular writer. And a big thing Ennis' Punisher Max had going for it was pretty good sales numbers for the Oversized HCs:

Born HC - January 2004 - N/A, but less than 1,247 direct market units
Vol. 1 HC - September 2005 - 1,874
Vol. 2 HC - February 2006 - 1,534
From First to Last HC - December 2006 - 2,209
Vol. 3 HC - May 2007 - 1,842
Vol. 4 HC - February 2008 - 1,738
Vol. 5 HC - June 2009 - 1,553
Vol. 6 HC (Non-Ennis) - June 2011 - 925
PunisherMax by Aaron Omnibus HC - June 2014 - 912

On the other hand, Marvel hasn't bothered to capitalize on that in any way shape or form. Volumes 1 and 2 were sold well, but they were so overprinted that they were remaindered off. Same with Volume 6, but that's not an Ennis book. People look at Volume 4 as a "white wale" rare book. And in terms of supply and demand, it is. But somewhere out there are a lot of Volume 4s people are sitting on. Volume 4 hit an unusual scarcity when it sold out thanks to the Amazon glitch several years ago.

On top of that, Punisher Max is a two volume Omnibus collection at a minimum. It could stretch to three volumes depending on how much non-Ennis stuff Marvel might want to collect. Multi-volume sets aren't Marvel's favorite to invest in because subsequent volumes sell less that the first volume. Marvel has certainly done numerous multi-volume Omnibuses, but I still don't think it helps Punisher Max's cause.

Furthermore, Punisher Max is "mature" content. While Omnis are generally aimed at adult collectors anyway, it's still not something Marvel could try to aim at minors in the crowd, especially under Disney's watch. Plus Punisher Max is, for the most part, stand alone. You can't sell the books based on interactions with the vast majority of the Marvel Universe or that the stories are even in the same Marvel Universe. At least what started in the Alias Max series essentially carried over into the 616. That's not the case for Punisher Max.

IF a Punisher Omnibus is coming, it'll likely be an Ennis MK/616 Punisher Omnibus reprint. That Omnibus is already formatted and ready to go if someone just hits the magical reprint button at the factory next door to Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. We have seen similar reprints recently, somewhat randomly to a certain extent, with Alias, Howard the Duck, and Miller Daredevil. All previously OOP Omnibuses that required minimal work from Marvel to re-print.

I still think it's VERY iffy that the Punisher Omnibus gets a reprint at all, which I'll elaborate on below.

[kodave]

Part 2


I think Marvel may have spoiled and/or mislead people with the way they originally released tie-in Omnibus material for films versus the current trend.

Fantastic Four Vol. 1 June 2005 / Fantastic Four (Fox) July 2005
Uncanny X-Men Vol. 1 May 2006 / X-Men [3]: The Last Stand (Fox) June 2006
The Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 1 May 2007 / Spider-Man 3 (Sony) May 2007
Silver Surfer, Vol. 1 June 2007; Fantastic Four, Vol. 2 June 2007 / Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (Fox) June 2007
The Invincible Iron Man, Vol. 1 May 2008 / Iron Man (Marvel Studios) May 2008
The Incredible Hulk, Vol. 1 June 2008 / The Incredible Hulk (Marvel Studios) June 2008
Punisher by Garth Ennis November 2008 / Punisher: War Zone (Lionsgate) December 2008
Wolverine, Vol. 1 April 2009 / X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Fox) May 2009
The Invincible Iron Man, Vol. 2 May 2010 / Iron Man 2 (Marvel Studios) May 2010
The Mighty Thor, Vol. 1 January 2011 / Thor (Marvel Studios) May 2011
X-Men by Chris Claremont and Jim Lee, Vol. 1 April 2011 / X-Men: First Class (Fox) June 2011
Captain America by Jack Kirby February 2011 / Captain America: The First Avenger (Marvel Studios) July 2011
The Avengers, Vol. 1 February 2012 / The Avengers (Marvel Studios) May 2012
The Amazing Spider-Man, Vol. 2 January 2012; Untold Tales of Spider-Man March 2012; Ultimate Spider-Man June 2012 / The Amazing Spider-Man (Sony) July 2012
Iron Man by David Micheline, Bob Layton, and John Romita Jr. February 2013 / Iron-Man 3 (Marvel Studios) May 2013
Wolverine by Mark Millar July 2013; Wolverine by Claremont & Miller (Oversized Hardcover) June 2013 / The Wolverine (FOX) July 2013
The Mighty Thor, Vol. 2 August 2013 / Thor: The Dark World (Marvel Studios) November 2013
Golden Age Captain America February 2014; Captain America: Winter Soldier (Oversized HC) February 2014 / Captain America: The Winter Soldier (Marvel Studios) April 2014
Spider-Man by Roger Stern March 2014 / The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (Sony) May 2014
Uncanny X-Men, Vol. 2 April 2014; X-Men: Days of Future Past (Oversized Hardcover) March 2014 / X-Men: Days of Future Past (Fox) May 2014
Annihilation May 2014; Infinity Gauntlet July 2014; Howard the Duck Reprint October 2014 / Guardians of the Galaxy (Marvel Studios) August 2014
Daredevil by Frank Miller and Klaus Janson Reprint November 2013 / Daredevil (Netflix - Marvel Studios) April 2015
Avengers by Kurt Busiek and George Perez, Vol. 1 March 2015; The Avengers, Vol. 2 March 2015 / Avengers: Age of Ultron May 2015
Fantastic Four, Vol. 3 May 2015 / Fantastic Four Reboot (Fox) August 2015
Alias Omnibus Reprint October 2014 / Jessica Jones (Netflix - Marvel Studios) Fall/Winter 2015

On one hand, you can obviously make an argument that every Marvel related film has received a tie-in Omnibus of some kind from Fantastic Four in 2005 and onward except for the two Ghost Rider films and the up coming Ant-Man film.

Early on, you can see the timing seems to be pretty deliberate with those primarily Silver Age Omnibuses and the film release dates. The Ennis Punisher Omnibus is the one that sticks out as "not like the others," but the timing of release is still very close to the film.

The correlation gets less tight date-wise starting around 2011, as I've indicated with underlining. Surely the Thor, Captain America and Avengers - all Marvel Studios films - tie ins seem pretty deliberate, even if the release dates are starting to get further apart between the books and the films.

But is X-Men by Claremont and Lee really a tie in for X-Men: First Class? Content-wise it's almost the opposite of what the film was aiming for. It seems any tie-in would be based on the word X-Men and that's it. Or is the timing of the book just coincidence as Marvel is poised to release everything X-Men related in an oversized form? On the same note, is an Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 2 Omni released in January or the Untold Tales of Spider-Man from March really a tie-in for a July film? Iron Man by Micheline, et al. really a tie in for Iron Man 3? Those two seem less likely.

Then we hit the Wolverine film. The tie-in book is the Claremont & Miller oversized hardcover that the film used as some source material. So is Wolverine by Millar containing Old Man Logan and Enemy of the State really a tie-in? It's close enough in time to the movie that it probably is. Again we see the same issue with Cap 2. Sure there's that Golden Age Cap Omni, but the actual tie-in is just the oversized hardcover Brubaker begged Marvel to release.

Is Spider-Man by Roger Stern really the tie-in for Amazing Spider-Man 2? Or might it just be coincidental timing with them releasing a couple of months apart? Same with Uncanny X-Men Vol. 2, especially since the real tie-in material is the oversized hardcover that shares the same name as the film and is the actual source material: Days of Future Past.

It's more of the same with GOTG. The logical tie-in stuff would be DnA's run, or failing that, the original Guardians. Instead we see the Annihilation Omnibus and the Infinity Gauntlet Omnibus. Sure they share some characters with the film, and they all take place in cosmic space, but outside of that, the connection to the film is pretty loose. And surely Infinity Gauntlet would be a better tie-in for Infinity War than GOTG. The sudden Howard the Duck Omnibus reprint is the better case for a film tie in given Howard's popularity resurgence thanks to one post-credits scene.

Then we get down to the two recent Avengers Omnis - Are those really meant to tie into Age of Ultron? It's possible, especially since Avengers, Vol. 1 tied into the first Avengers film. Is the third Fantastic Four volume really meant to tie-in with the new reboot that Marvel wants nothing to do with? Probably not. May and August are a pretty good distance apart.

Overall, I think you can still say there is usually an Omnibus release that corresponds to the film in at least some tangential way, though the release dates between the two mediums are less tight these days and the tie-ins might only share the series or character name in common at best.

This tie-in business seems to fall apart for our Netflix series. The Miller Daredevil reprint is almost a year and a half separated from the actual Netflix show's release. It came out the same month that the overall Netflix deal was announced. Maybe people inside at Marvel knew that something was in the works with Netflix, but they still have to order these Omnibuses months in advance and couldn't know exactly when the deal would be finalized and announced. I think the timing is merely coincidental and it wasn't meant to tie into the Netflix series. The Alias Omnibus reprint is going to be roughly a year ahead of the actual Netflix show. That's definitely stretching the definition of printing something to serve as a media tie-in. We're presumably a year away from Luke Cage at this point, and there is zero Omnibus news on his front. We're probably a year and a half away from Iron Fist, and so far no Omnibus news for him either.

Marvel's actual tie-in for the Jessica Jones Netflix series is splitting the Omnibus into three TPBs and re-titling them "AKA Jessica Jones: Alias," which is unfortunate for Marvel because they seemed to have renamed the show from "AKA Jessica Jones" to just "Jessica Jones" at this point. And while there has been no word on any Luke Cage/Power Man or Iron Fist Omnibuses, there have been plenty of Power Man/Luke Cage and Iron Fist TPBs released or in the schedule to be released. Since they're just starting up the MMW related titles, an Omnibus featuring that material is still a long way off.

So as it relates to our new Punisher hype, I would go as far as to guess if Marvel is going to bother to tie-in any Punisher stand alone release to the Netflix Daredevil series, it will be "The Punisher by Garth Ennis: The Complete Collection" Vol. 1-3 TPBs, covering the MK/616 run/Omnibus content, like Marvel did once before and is doing again for Alias, like they're going to do for Howard the Duck, like they did for Immortal Iron Fist, like they did for DnA GOTG, and like they've done for many other series. TPBs are where the money is at. TPBs are easy sells for bookstores. Oversized hardcover collectors are a small niche that are costly for shops to cater toward.