Flash by Geoff Johns Omnibus and more DC Summer 2011 collections

The Source blog has a short list of collections coming from DC Comics in summer 2011. These include Batman: Bruce Wayne -- The Road Home, Batman: Knight and Squire, Batman & Robin Vol. 3, Green Arrow, Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors, Brightest Day, and Superman and Wonder Woman respectively by J. Michael Straczynski.

Save the rest, however -- the big headline here is a Flash by Geoff Johns hardcover omnibus.

Flash and Bang
There's long been speculation that something like this might be in the offing, buffered by the fact that a good number of the collections of Johns's much-loved, much-acclaimed Flash run are out of print. At least, this suggests, they were out of print for a reason.

For those keeping score at home, the omnibus collects Flash #164-176, which is the Wonderland and Blood Will Run collections. Both the stories from Flash Secret Files #3 and Flash: Iron Heights were included in the latest printing of Blood Will Run; the Flash: Our Worlds at War special is previously uncollected.

I am thrilled that it looks like DC intends to go all the way through Geoff Johns's Flash run. If we're at about two collections per volume, however, that means we're probably looking at four volumes total for this omnibus series -- volume two collecting Rogues and Crossfire, volume three collecting Blitz and Ignition, and volume four collecting The Secret of Barry Allen and Rogue War.

And that's if and only if DC intends to collect only Johns's Wally West work. The series title is "Flash by Geoff Johns" -- whether at the end we'll start to see omnibus collections of Johns's Barry Allen series as well remains to be seen.

I really enjoyed Johns's Wally West run, so I'm thrilled as punch it's getting the hardcover treatment. I'd be just as happy to see a Flash by Mark Waid omnibus for that matter, too.

Hardcover Times
The one other thing to note in DC's release (aside from the fact that, right now, they have Azrael issues listed for Brightest Day) is that all of these, with the exception of a Green Lantern: Secret Origin reprint, are hardcovers.

If there was ever any doubt that the era of hardcover is upon us, note that Wonder Woman has gone back to hardcover, as has the new iteration of Green Arrow, and also the new series Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors; we saw in last week's 2011 advance solicitations that Birds of Prey is rolling over to hardcover, too.

I'd bet that with new Teen Titans writer J. T. Krul, we'll see hardcover over there as well. There's no escaping that hardcover is the new trade paperback -- just about every series I believe that DC can release in hardcover first, probably they will from now on. I like the durability of the hardcovers, to be sure, but the price -- oh, the price. And anyone choosing to "wait-for-the-paperback" is going to face a challenge now, as more and more of these books come out in hardcover first; that wait will just be longer.

My plan? As I've said before, the books I'm excited about I'll buy in hardcover, but I'm going to be more critical right now as to whether I'm "really excited" or just "kind of excited" about a book, and those "kind of" books are more likely to get the axe. That's where I've personally got to draw the line.

But ...
But, hey, Flash by Geoff Johns omnibus, eh? Exciting stuff, and I look forward to more of the same on the way.

Couple of links to other reactions:
* Speed Force: Flash Omnibus to Reprint Geoff Johns’ Wally West Run
* Robot 6: DC announces Geoff Johns Flash omnibus