DC Heroes & Villains Collection – Extended!

As I've noted before on this 'ere blog, for the past few years I've been the editor of, and lead writer for (I write the introductions and a fair number of the bonus features), the DC Heroes & Villains Collection, a fortnightly DC Comics graphic novel partwork. Launched at the beginning of 2021 and building into 100 hardback volumes, the collection brings together the best of the modern DC Universe, from 1980, when Marv Woman and George Pérez's New Teen Titans revolutionised DC, to the Rebirth relaunch of 2016, incorporating everything from big blockbuster events like Crisis on Infinite Earths and Infinite Crisis to more obscure delights like Batman: Nocturna and the Night-Thief and DC Comics Presents: Cosmic Encounters, with plenty of previously uncollected comics and bespoke volumes unique to the collection. 

For a DC devotee like myself, one who's read and collected DC comics since childhood, getting to select and curate 100 volumes of comics, some of which I first read as a 12-year-old, write about them, and see them published in splendid hardback editions has been an absolute joy – something of a dream project in fact. Which is why it's an immense thrill to report that, with the publication of the collection's 100th issue imminent, the DC Heroes & Villains Collection has been extended for another 20 volumes!

Over the past few weeks I've been teasing the long-suffering members of the DC Heroes & Villains Collection Facebook group with info about the initial volumes to be released in the extension, and an announcement has just gone out to subscribers, as follows:

With the first 100 volumes of the DC Heroes & Villains Collection, the aim was to give readers a grounding in the modern DC Universe, from the advent of New Teen Titans in 1980 to the Rebirth relaunch of 2016.

Now, with this 20-volume extension, we get to go even broader and deeper, adding some of the best stories of the Bronze Age, Modern Age and recent years. First out of the blocks will be Brian Michael Bendis and Nick Derington's mind-bending thriller Batman: Universe, followed by Joshua Williamson, Jason Fabok and co.'s blockbuster throwdown Justice League vs. Suicide Squad.

After that, Joker: The Series collects the entirety of Denny O'Neil and co.'s '70s Joker run, including the 'lost' 10th issue and O'Neil and Adams' classic Joker-starring Batman #251. Plus, Batman: Ten Nights of the Beast brings together the first half of Jim Starlin and Jim Aparo's acclaimed '80s Batman run for the first time.

Looking further ahead, fans can expect stories starring Batman, the Joker, the Justice Society and the Justice League by James Tynion IV, Guillem March, Bernie Wrightson, James Robinson, Tom King, Bilquis Evely, Tom Taylor, Scott Snyder, Steve Englehart and many more!

If that wasn't enough, you'll receive a bumper-sized issue 111 with Batman: Under the Red Hood, at a staggering 400 pages long!

That last announcement will be news even to the Facebook group members, but given that I revealed to them that not just the first half but all of Starlin and Aparo's Batman run will be collected as part of the extension, including the notorious storyline that dominates the second half, the penny might drop as to the relationship between those volumes and this huge Batman: Under the Red Hood one. But as enticing a prospect as all that may be – at least, I hope so – to my mind the other volumes in the extension are just as exciting. And I'll be revealing a little more about some of them in my next post.

Blimey I Wrote a Book

Actually I wrote two books... and co-wrote another book... and wrote a bit of another book... and wrote an essay for another book... so I guess in total that adds up to, what, two-and-a-half books or something? All in the space of less than a year. Which, when added to all the writing I've done for the Marvel Fact Files and The Walking Dead: The Official Magazine and the stack of books and graphic novels I've edited over the past however many months – more on those below – might go some way towards explaining why there's been bugger all happening on Existential Ennui of late.

But anyway: the books wot I wrote. The two books written entirely by me will be published spring next year: Guardians of the Galaxy: The Ultimate Guide to the Cosmic Outlaws, and Guardians of the Galaxy Ultimate Sticker Collection (the attentive might be able to spot a common theme there). Doubtless I'll be banging on about those nearer the time. The book I co-wrote (and did a fair amount of editing on), alongside fellow authors Billy Wrecks and Danny Graydon, is out now:

The Mysterious World of Doctor Strange, published by DK – an official guide to Marvel Comics' Sorcerer Supreme (soon to be seen, in the form of Benedict Cumberbatch, in cinemas in Marvel's Doctor Strange movie). I got my copy the other day and it's a handsome thing: a hardback with gilt-edged pages, beautifully designed by Amazing15 and DK's Chris Gould, lavishly illustrated with panels and splash pages from across Doctor Strange's fifty-plus year comics career – and the writing's not bad either. It's aimed at kids, but I'll wager the more mature comics fan will find it diverting too (being one myself). Review here.

Also out now is the all-new edition of the DC Comics Encyclopaedia, which I wrote a bit of and did a fair bit of editing on. I haven't seen a finished copy of that one yet, but according to reports it's a great big beast of a book. Review here.

And out later in the year is Murder in the Closet, an anthology of essays examining queer themes in crime fiction that I contributed a piece on Patricia Highsmith to. I haven't seen a copy of that one either, but editor Curtis Evans has chosen some intriguing and sterling contributors (present company excepted, of course), so it should be a fascinating book.

Besides that little lot, I've edited a whole heap of other books and graphic novels over the past year or so:

Top to bottom in that towering pile are Pen and Ink by James Hobbs; Electri_city: The Dusseldorf School of Electronic Music by Rudi Esch; Who Are You? The Life and Death of Keith Moon by Jim McCarthy and Marc Olivent; 5-Minute Sketching: People by Pete Scully; 5-Minute Sketching: Architecture by Liz Steel; Essential Type by Tony Seddon; Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor Archives Vols 1–3; Independence Day: The Original Movie Adaptation; Elric Volume 3: The Dreaming City; and Battle Classics Volume 2. There's others besides, I'm sure, plus books and graphic novels I've proofread rather than edited, but I've either filed them away and forgotten what they are or they've not been published yet.

So that's what I've been up to. And who knows? Maybe at some point I'll find time to blog about some of the books I've bought as well...