Batman: Death of the Family collections in 2013, DC One Million Omnibus, and more from ComicPro

As reported on Newsarama, DC Comics announced at the recent ComicPro meeting two collections of the "Death of the Family" crossover event, to be released later this year.

As with DC's collections for the Batman crossover "Night of the Owls," DC will collect both the main story on its own, and then collect the tie-in issues all together. For "Night of the Owls," the main book is Batman Vol. 2: City of Owls and the tie-in book is Batman: Night of the Owls. For "Death," the two titles will be Batman: Death of the Family (probably Batman Vol. 3) and Joker: Death of the Family Companion.

Calling the tie-in book "companion" is a deviation (though keeping with books like Infinite Crisis Companion and others). That the companion book is labeled "Joker" and not "Batman" is an odd choice -- I can see positives and negatives for this -- and I wonder if DC will end up going the Batman: Alternate Title route before the books come out.

DC has said Batman: Death of the Family will be 176 pages, likely collecting at least Batman #13-17. Joker: Death of the Family Companion is reported at 387 pages; DC has added and subtracted various "Death of the Family" tie ins, but this should contain between two and three issues of titles like Batgirl, Batman and Robin, Catwoman, Detective Comics, Nightwing, Red Hood and the Outlaws, Suicide Squad, and Teen Titans.

DC also announced a DC One Million Omnibus, expected to collect all thirty-four DC One Million tie-in issues, plus the four issue miniseries by Grant Morrison and maybe the DC One Million 80-Page Giant, too.

After the Infinite Crisis Omnibus and the DC One Million Omnibus, it does lead one to wonder what other DC crossovers could be collected in full in omnibus format. Blackest Night is an obvious choice if it hadn't just received Absolute treatment. I'd love Armageddon 2001, War of the Gods, or Eclipso: The Darkness Within omnibuses, but I'm old-school that way. Fancy a Legends Omnibus anyone? Invasion!?

Still can't say I know much about Planetary, but the other collections news is a Planetary Omnibus, Vertigo Visions: Frank Quitely, and Children's Crusade, the one and only Vertigo crossover event that included the Dead Boy Detectives and characters from Black Orchid, Animal Man, Swamp Thing, and Doom Patrol (actually, that sounds pretty interesting).

So there you have it -- Death of the Family collected before the end of the year.