Marvel Announces "Epic Collection" Graphic Novel Format

Alwaysjammer

Although Marvel NOW! is still running at full speed, it doesn't mean Marvel Comics isn't still looking to the past. Marvel Senior Vice President of Sales David Gabriel has revealed the details behind the publisher's newest collected edition, the Epic Collection, during an interview with Collected Editions after the website found a listing to preorder the product on Amazon. According to Gabriel, the Epic Collection trade paperbacks will be "big, fat color collection[s] at the best price we can maintain." Thus far, there are listings for an "Iron Man" Epic Collection that collects "Iron Man" #158-177 and a "Thor" Epic Collection that includes "Thor" #383-400, giving the books a similar page count to Marvel's "Essential" black and white line. Gabriel also revealed the elevator pitch used in the sales materials.


This fall, Marvel launches the Epic Collections – a new way for fans to collect their favorite series!

Each super-sized volume in the Epic line presents a heaping helping of Marvel's greatest heroics in one handy, affordable and self-contained package. What's more, each Epic Collection TPB is also a piece of a grand puzzle: When all is said and done, the Epic volumes will fit seamlessly next to one another on readers' bookshelves, presenting a complete and unbroken run of each title!

So be sure to get in on the ground floor! Marvel's most storied titles — including Amazing Spider-Man, Avengers, Captain America, Fantastic Four, Iron Man and Thor — are going Epic, and there's no turning back!


"List price will range on these from $34.99 to $39.99 depending on a variety of things," Gabriel told Collected Editions. "The normal top of the line restoration that folks have come to enjoy from Marvel will be a part of this line -- as seen in recent oversized TPBs like 'Avengers: The Trial of Yellowjacket' or 'Incredible Hulk: Pardoned.'"

The first of Marvel's Epic Collections hit stores this fall.
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[Deleted User]

Those look awesome! Big, fat color volumes, probably on cheaper paper... and affordable!

Mr_Cosmic

At least they are in color!

Greg

This is cool, I'm definitely in for the Iron Man, Thor and Avengers volumes shown in the promo. Hopefully some classic Hulk isn't too far behind.

Chuck_Melville

I think I'll wait until I actually see one so I can judge the quality of the paper. Being in color isn't worth the price if the paper is the same quality as the Essentials.

dubbat138

I was hoping this was a collection of the old EPIC magazine. :'(

nweathington

dubbat138 said:

I was hoping this was a collection of the old EPIC magazine. :'(

Now that I would have bought. These? Not so much. Maybe the Avengers volume. I’ll probably just stick with the Essentials for the most part, but there may be volumes down the road I would consider buying in this format.

CaptShazam

I never bought any essentials so this is good for me. So will the Epic line be picking up where the Masterwork line left off and the Masterwork editions are done?

Greg

I think this is more in the line of collecting big runs of specific storylines or creative teams.

nweathington

Greg said:

I think this more in the line of collecting big runs of specific storylines or creative teams.

That’s the impression I get too. I'm sure the Masterworks line will continue as it is.

shroud68

Other than the Iron Man book none of those stories really have any historical or "epic" overtones. I love the Cosmic Spidey from Acts of Vengeance era but I would be hard pressed to say it needed its own collection. Still I love the notion of these runs and love the Luke McDonnel art on that Iron Man run.

Chuck_Melville

shroud68 said:

Other than the Iron Man book none of those stories really have any historical or "epic" overtones. I love the Cosmic Spidey from Acts of Vengeance era but I would be hard pressed to say it needed its own collection. Still I love the notion of these runs and love the Luke McDonnel art on that Iron Man run.

Yeah, the Iron Man volume is the one that really catches my attention as well. One of my favorite story arcs, written by Denny O'Neil.

Hex

This looks right up my alley. Marvel's choices for Essentials over the last few years has left me flat, so maybe some of the runs I have been patiently waiting for will show up in this new Epic line. Jim Steranko's Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. Anyone?

ctowner1

I'm a little unclear about what they mean about the volumes fitting seamlessly together. Is this kind of like DC's chronicles series, where they mix Detective & Batman in the order it came out, but rather than starting fro the begining they're going to skip around chronologically (ex. releasing volume 7, 3, 4, etc.)?

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jaydee74

They look cool. I will check them out when they come out.

chrisw

It's nice to see them collecting stuff from years that are often neglected. It often feels like they either draw from the early years or most recent, with the 70s-90s often ignored, unless there's a creator or storyline they can build a trade around.

nweathington

Hex said:

This looks right up my alley. Marvel's choices for Essentials over the last few years has left me flat, so maybe some of the runs I have been patiently waiting for will show up in this new Epic line. Jim Steranko's Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. Anyone?

That would be a good one, but I have the S.H.I.E.L.D. trades they produced in 2000.

jaydee74

The Thor trade looks intriguing to me and I always found that cosmic Spider-Man stuff to be very cool. I might get that just for the memories of reading it back in the day.

Chuck_Melville

dubbat138 said:

I was hoping this was a collection of the old EPIC magazine. :'(

That might have been interesting, but I have doubts it could be pulled off. All of the material there was creator owned, and they would have to renegotiate terms with each of them. It's not impossible, but it would depend on how many bridges were burned since Epic Illustrated first came out, and how irreparable they still are.

LibraryBoy

nweathington said:

Hex said:

This looks right up my alley. Marvel's choices for Essentials over the last few years has left me flat, so maybe some of the runs I have been patiently waiting for will show up in this new Epic line. Jim Steranko's Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. Anyone?

That would be a good one, but I have the S.H.I.E.L.D. trades they produced in 2000.

Me, too, but if the coloring was a little better on these than the original editions (particularly the Scorpio book), I might be tempted to upgrade.

nweathington

Chuck_Melville said:

dubbat138 said:

I was hoping this was a collection of the old EPIC magazine. :'(

That might have been interesting, but I have doubts it could be pulled off. All of the material there was creator owned, and they would have to renegotiate terms with each of them. It's not impossible, but it would depend on how many bridges were burned since Epic Illustrated first came out, and how irreparable they still are.

Not all the material was creator-owned. There was an 8-page Silver Surfer story in the first issue, and John Byrne’s multi-part “The Last Galactus Story” as well.

Yes, there would be a handful of hold-outs (I doubt they’d get Alan Moore’s approval to run the story he did with Rick Veitch), and there’d be some licensing issues (Robert E. Howard’s Almuric and Moorcock’s Elric), but I don’t think they’d have much problem getting approvals for most of the material. I would guess at least 75% of that material has never been reprinted, so I’m sure most of the creators wouldn’t mind getting a nominal fee off stories that would otherwise just be gathering dust. Of course, a lot of those creators (Archie Goodwin, Gene Day, and Vaughn Bodé just to name a few) are dead now, so they’d have to track down the executors of their estates.

Sadly, the biggest deterrent is that there probably just wouldn’t be enough interest—especially for the amount of work the legal department would have to put in. But to be honest, a lot of that material wasn’t all that great. A nice Best of Epic Illustrated volume (or two) would be outstanding though.

ctowner1

nweathington said:

Chuck_Melville said:

dubbat138 said:

I was hoping this was a collection of the old EPIC magazine. :'(

That might have been interesting, but I have doubts it could be pulled off. All of the material there was creator owned, and they would have to renegotiate terms with each of them. It's not impossible, but it would depend on how many bridges were burned since Epic Illustrated first came out, and how irreparable they still are.

Not all the material was creator-owned. There was an 8-page Silver Surfer story in the first issue, and John Byrne’s multi-part “The Last Galactus Story” as well.

Yes, there would be a handful of hold-outs (I doubt they’d get Alan Moore’s approval to run the story he did with Rick Veitch), and there’d be some licensing issues (Robert E. Howard’s Almuric and Moorcock’s Elric), but I don’t think they’d have much problem getting approvals for most of the material. I would guess at least 75% of that material has never been reprinted, so I’m sure most of the creators wouldn’t mind getting a nominal fee off stories that would otherwise just be gathering dust. Of course, a lot of those creators (Archie Goodwin, Gene Day, and Vaughn Bodé just to name a few) are dead now, so they’d have to track down the executors of their estates.

Sadly, the biggest deterrent is that there probably just wouldn’t be enough interest—especially for the amount of work the legal department would have to put in. But to be honest, a lot of that material wasn’t all that great. A nice Best of Epic Illustrated volume (or two) would be outstanding though.

There was definitely some great (and not so great!) material in those Epics. The few Young Cerebus pages that Dave Sim did were hilarious. Also, Jim Starln's Metamorphosis Odyseey/Dreadstar stuff - but that's been reprinted a few times now, IIRC.

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peedmyself

I can't imagine anyone wanting to collect DeFalco/Frenz era Thor to do anything that doesn't involve committing war crimes against captured enemy combatants. I don't remember that Spider-man story very fondly either.

Chuck_Melville

I notice that these have very high volume numbers -- volume 10, volume 16, etc. Are there already previous Epic books out in each of these titles, or are they continuing the numbering from the Masterworks books, or are they putting out a whole set of each title at the same time, or what?

nweathington

Chuck_Melville said:

I notice that these have very high volume numbers -- volume 10, volume 16, etc. Are there already previous Epic books out in each of these titles, or are they continuing the numbering from the Masterworks books, or are they putting out a whole set of each title at the same time, or what?

I noticed that too. The impression I get is that the numbering relates to the “grand puzzle.” That is to say, the volumes aren’t being printed in chronological order, but they are each numbered according to their chronological order. That way they can time the release of a storyline that may be more relevant to current continuity or that relates to the films. It sounds to me that they’ve already been mapped out not only as to what each volume will contain, but when each volume will be published.

Eric_C

I am so hype.*

*Pending Price

luke52

Marvel said they'd be between $34.99 and $39.99. Pretty reasonable. I'll pick up a few. Iron Man and The Avengers interest me from this first lot.

chrisw

nweathington said:

Chuck_Melville said:

I notice that these have very high volume numbers -- volume 10, volume 16, etc. Are there already previous Epic books out in each of these titles, or are they continuing the numbering from the Masterworks books, or are they putting out a whole set of each title at the same time, or what?

I noticed that too. The impression I get is that the numbering relates to the “grand puzzle.” That is to say, the volumes aren’t being printed in chronological order, but they are each numbered according to their chronological order. That way they can time the release of a storyline that may be more relevant to current continuity or that relates to the films. It sounds to me that they’ve already been mapped out not only as to what each volume will contain, but when each volume will be published.

One story I read on this said that Marvel indicated we may see older stories as early as next year. So, I guess they've mapped things out and know what would be included in volumes 1, 2, and so on, and we'll eventually see it all collected in this format. By doing it this way, at least we get some uncollected stories from the start, and perhaps readers won't lose interest before getting to that stuff.

Chuck_Melville

I just hope that these aren't intended to replace the Masterworks series, because, if so, I will be quite upset.

ctowner1

Chuck_Melville said:

I just hope that these aren't intended to replace the Masterworks series, because, if so, I will be quite upset.

It could be - I mean are they goign to have complete color reprints of the entire runs of their books twice? OTOH, perhaps these are on cheaper paper? As I mentioned above, this reminds me a bit of the DC Chronicles books - especially in the way they're weaving several different books of the same character into a single volume.

Interesting point by @chrisw about why they are doing it in the nonlinear order - I mean how many times can you release the first 10-20 issues of Spiderman? By hitting the later issues that haven't been collected, I'll bet they're thinking the collector mentality will induce longer time fans to doubel or triple dip on those earlier issues to complete their run of the Epic collection.

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Chuck_Melville

ctowner1 said:

Chuck_Melville said:

I just hope that these aren't intended to replace the Masterworks series, because, if so, I will be quite upset.

It could be - I mean are they goign to have complete color reprints of the entire runs of their books twice?

They already do, with the Masterworks volumes coming out in both hardcover and the later paper trades.

ctowner1 said:

OTOH, perhaps these are on cheaper paper?

Which is why I would be upset if these were replacing the Masterworks. I'm investing money in slowly acquiring the archival class hardcovers on good stock paper -- I don't want to suddenly have a shift to volumes with cheaper paper and poor reproduction values.