If you missed part one of our Comic Book Collections Holiday Gift Guide earlier this month, no worries – you can find it right here!
Part one had a great list of fantastic comic book compilations, all at affordable prices.
Today, we’re kicking it up a notch or two to more mid-priced compilations. You know, the bigger, thicker, hardcovers. We’ve got selections for superhero enthusiast, as well as fantasy and spy story lovers….from mainstream books to indie favourites.
Let’s waste no time – you’ve got shopping to do!
Batman: Damned
DC Comics
In 2018, DC Comics announced their new Black Labe publishing imprint – a place to tell more sophisticated, darker stories, outside of “normal” continuity tales featuring their cast of superheroes.
The three-issue, oversized, Batman: Dammed series was the first under this banner.
If it sound like Black Label was begot of the now defunctVertigo Comics, you wouldn’t be far from the truth. To that end, DC put together the comic book Hall of Fame duo in writer Brian Azzarello and illustrator Lee Bermejo, who so famously worked on the Joker graphic novel a number of years ago. The publisher gave them their number one selling character, Batman, as well as one of Vertigo Comics founding creations, John Constantine. Here’s a story of supernatural horror and detective fiction. Ghosts loom large, as does identity…and of course, the Joker is omnipresent.
You can find the hardcover of the wonderfully vivid and truly frightening Batman: Dammed at better comic book shops and bookstores or via Amazon, for around $20.
House Of X/Power Of X
Marvel Comics
The truth is: I haven’t read this series yet. But I’m excited to!
Earlier this year, Marvel Comics tapped writer Jonathan Hickman on the shoulder, giving him the go-ahead to reboot their entire world of mutant superheroes and villains. A big undertaking, to be sure.
If anyone, Hickman was the man that could do it. He was the one responsible for revamping the Avengers earlier this past decade with one of the most sense-shattering long-form tales that has ever been published in comic book form. Much of that story was adapted into the Avengers series of movies that billions of people have loved.
This website’s Editor-In-Chief, Andy Burns can attest to House of X/Power of X. He’s been reading the monthly stories and has been loving them. I trust Andy, and I trust Hickman.
House of X/Power of X, the compilation of everything that has come thus far (and there’s still so much more to come!) has got to be required reading for any superhero comic book fan in your life!
You can find the 448-page hardcover of House of X/Power of at better comic book shops and bookstores of via Amazon for around $42
The Green Lantern Vol. 1: Intergalactic Lawman
DC Comics
Superstar writer Grant Morrison on an intergalactic series featuring the emerald space-cop?
Superstar artist Liam Sharp, fresh off of one of the best Wonder Woman storylines in recent memory, along for the ring slinging ride?
Yeah, I’m there! And you should be, too!
The Green Lantern, a new 12-issue monthly series featuring GL Hal Jordan began publication late in 2018. It was billed as a space-cop procedural, where each issue was a standalone tale (pretty niche for comic books these days), but with an overarching backdrop of evil galactic supremacy that must be foiled (ah! There it is!).
What The Green Lantern is, is truly a phenomenal, and truly psychedelic story, of what it’s like to fight crime in space with a badge. You’ve never read anything like it…and it was so good, DC Comics gave Green Lantern a second season of twelve issues, about to published in early 2020.
The Green Lantern Vol. 1: Intergalactic Lawmanis the hardcover compilation of the first six issues of the series. If you have someone in your life that loves science fiction, superheroes, cops and robbers…and Green lantern, this is the series for them!
You can find the 178-page hardcover of The Green Lantern Vol. 1: Intergalactic Lawman at better comic book shops and bookstores or via Amazon for about $15.
Books of Magic: 30thAnniversary Deluxe Edition
DC Comics
You want fairies and magic and wondrous locales? I’d say move over, Happy Potter, expect that Timothy Hunter and the Books of Magic came first!
That’s magic, isn’t it? That more than one person can share an idea, taken from that collective creative ether, and come up with two different versions of the same base idea.
Timothy Hunter has the inherent ability to become the world’s greatest magic-user. Here, in The Books of Magic, he’s smack dab in the center of the DC Universe, sharing adventures with the publishers more…magical folk. The original four-issue mini series, written by Neil Gaiman and illustrated by the luminous talents of John Bolton, Scott Hampton, Charles Vess and Paul Johnson, tales the adolescent hunter through the dark, mysterious and entirely magical corners of DC Comics publishing lore.
Guided by John Constantine, Tim can become the greatest force of magical good – or the world’s most evil warlock.
The Books of Magic: 30thAnniversary Deluxe Edition comes with plenty of extras like never before seen preliminary texts and sketches form the creators. It’s a wonderful gift for those that love magic and art and the stories that bind them.
You can find the 208-page Books of Magic: 30thAnniversary Deluxe Edition hardcover compilation at better comic book shops and bookstores or via Amazon for about $26.
Mind MGMT Omnibus Part 1, 2,3
Dark Horse Comics
Aw, yeah! Mind MGMT, one of this writer’s favourite comic book series of all time, is now compiled in an omnibus format – perfect for binge reading in front of the fire this holiday season!
There are three of them, collecting the complete forty+ issue series – all at affordable prices. So, you can either gift a loved one Mind MGMT in one volume to set them off on a path of skies and espionage and superpowers, or grab them the entire set. Believe me, they won’t leave their reading chair until the books are read…and probably re-read!
There’s a lot going on in Mind MGMT where you’ll find plenty of subtext and between-the-panel sort of storytelling. Writer and artists Matt Kindt really pushed the envelope of what the comic book medium can be used for as a storytelling mechanism. You need to check it out, if not for the riveting story, than for the artistry behind the storytelling.
You can find the Mind MGMT Omnibus at better comic book shops and bookstores or via Amazon at a fantastic price of about $13 a pop.
Check back with us later this week when we look at premium priced comic book compilations and graphic novels – all fit to be gifted to a friend or loved one this holiday season!
