I am interested in getting one of those Superhero Collections available with a good price? I've read about Omnibus, Spiderman Ultimate Collection, and the likes? What title would you suggest as the best ones to start with, one with very good prices of course. And would you also suggest best retailers to get these collections? Thanks!

What kind of stories/characters do you like?

I am partial to well known superheroes, like the famous DC and Marvel characters. Not really sure about types of characters/stories.

You could start with Batman: The Greatest Stories Ever Told 1 or 2. Inexpensive cross-section of stories from different eras.

The Omnibus volumes get pretty expensive so, if you like classic comics you can't go wrong with either Marvel's "Essential" series or DC's "Showcase Presents". They both reprint 25 issues or so of classic comics in black and white.

Whatever you end up with, enjoy!

Thanks. But don't really like the black n white or the comic not printed in good paper, that's why I'm looking at those Omnis. Bought some Ultimate Spiderman and looks good. Hoping there's a sale on good Omnis. Might be buying Icons of Jim Lee and Rough Justice of Alex Ross too, as they look like very good printed materials for around 300 pages, though these are not really the comic stories I would want to read. So still looking out for these.

The Marvel Masterworks line reprints the original stories, except unlike the Essentials line, they are in color and have better quality paper. One volume of Masterworks only collects about 10 comics though (half of what an Essentials volume collects). The hardcover Masterworks are quite expensive, but Marvel recently started releasing them in softcover as well.

I think we're reluctant to recommend stuff that's expensive without knowing much about your preferences so it helped to list what you've bought. I'd second the mention of the paperback Masterworks. The Omnibuses are generally solid though you should know that some of them like the Fourth World stuff (might not be your cup of tea anyway) come on lower-quality paper. I don't have a problem with it myself but others do.

Right now only looking for known superheroes, as wanted to read some origins series and also best series collection on these, like Superman, Batman, Thor, etc.. Info on Masterworks is very helpful, thanks. So you have Masterworks w 10 comics, and Omnibus with 20 or so? What other series should I be looking for that collects series and how many comics/series would you estimate? Which ones would you recommend as best for the price/quantity ratio? Also, aside from Amazon, BN, what other sites do you recommend for checking out these collections? Thanks!

I have always liked http://www.mycomicshop.com/. They have been around since the 70s, and were known as Lone Star Comics before the internet era. I have bought literally thousands of single issues from them, but they have trade collections as well. Another good comic store that has been around for ages is Mile High Comics, but I have found they are generally more expensive than Lone Star so I haven't bought as much from them.

This is the best Superman story in decades, collected in one, amazing hard-cover tome:



This is also a pretty fantastic looking stand-alone story of The Justice League.



Neither are cheap, but they are still worth every penny.

The biggest Omnibuses go 30+ issues so you can do the math on what's the best value. That will take you well beyond the origin story of course.

Masterworks would definitely be the way to go for reasonably priced origin stories though there are also compilations of multiple origin stories out there (way back when I was young, these were collected in awesome paperbacks called Origins of Marvel Comics, Bring On the Bad Guys, etc.--there are probably newer versions now). I can't think of a DC equivalent to Masterworks: their Archive series is HC only and Chronicles is cheap paper.

If you want some good stories that aren't necessarily origins, try Batman The Killing Joke and Justice League The New Frontier (available in paperback and the gorgeous but spendy Absolute Edition).

Bought The Killing Joke per your recommendation. New Frontier is quite expensive so I'll pass on that for now. Got Alex Ross Rough Justice as well. Thanks.

If you happen to have an iPad and can get over not having physical books, I'd highly recommend the OOP GitCorp DVD collections. I bought up Hulk, Iron Man, Avengers, Fantastic Four, Silver Surfer, Captain America, Spider-Man and X-men a couple years back. I treated myself to an iPad this past Christmas and they look absolutely beautiful on it. Some of the collections go for a decent chunk now, but they include every issue in a series from #1 up to wherever it was at in 2006.

One big problem with those GitCorp DVDs is that they only collect the "main" title. For example, in the 80s/90s there were no less than five Spider-man titles. Amazing Spider-man, Spectacular Spider-man, Web of Spider-man, Peter Parker: Spider-man, and Spider-man Unlimited. The GitCorp DVD only collects
Amazing and ignores all the others. This is extremely problematic starting in the late 80s when all the titles starting crossing over story arcs often. For example, part 1 of Kraven's Last Hunt would be in Amazing, then part 2 in Spectacular, part 3 in Web, etc. So with the GitCorp DVD you are only getting a fraction of the story.