10 Marvel Comics That Deserve a Reprint

Marvel has had decades of top-tier comic releases under its belt, full of classics that readers, new and old, want to get their hands on. But with the format of the graphic novel, trade paperback, and omnibus being introduced fairly recently in the history of major comic publications, it’s often not easy to find copies of these tales.

Marvel has many classics collected and often reprinted in trades, facsimiles, omnibuses, or even the Epic Collection line. However, many major or fan-favorite stories haven’t been put back into print in years and have thus fallen to the wayside.

10 An Underrated Spider-Man Series Should Get A Reprint

A cult classic series among Spider-Man fans, Superior Foes initially got an omnibus only two years after release— a very controversial move with readers. Superior Foes was initially a series that spun off from the events of Superior Spider-Man. It was an ongoing series with plenty of tie-ins that wouldn’t get its first omnibus until a decade after its release. Meanwhile, Superior Foes, a series with only seventeen issues to its name, got one before its predecessor.

Despite this, the Superior Foes omnibus seems to have had a very low print run, going for extremely high prices on today’s aftermarket. The series has won its place in some fans’ hearts, likely due to its comedic look at some of Spider-Man’s lesser-known villains and its excellent art, thus seeming all too deserving of a modern reprinting.

9 Generation X Is A Cult-Classic

The 1990s saw a large boom of X-Men-related titles, as the franchise had peaked commercially during this era. Plenty of books spun off from the main titles Uncanny X-Men and X-Men, including Excalibur, X-Factor, X-Force, and notably, Generation X. The series was the ’90s equivalent to the idea of the New Mutants, focusing on the next generation of mutants-in-training.

However, Generation X was a team unique in comparison to its predecessors. The comic personified the ’90s, from its slick and edgy style to its counterculture themes and characters. The series deeply resonated with readers of its decade, with some of its leading characters, such as Monet St. Croix, returning with some prominence during the Krakoa era. While the series is slowly being collected for the first time through Epic Collections, the back half has never been collected and a few omnibuses would do the original series good.

8 Death of Jean DeWolff Is A Classic Story

Considered one of the darkest Spider-Man stories, The Death of Jean DeWolff and The Return of Sin-Eater are fan-favorite tales that show the darker side of Spider-Man’s world. Exploring the killing spree of a rogue cop and the impact such a thing would have on Spider-Man, his supporting cast, and New York City led to a foundational and majorly classic story in the wall-crawler’s history.

Unfortunately, the Sin-Eater saga has not seen print in years. It has had a few dedicated collections over the past few decades but has been remarkably difficult to find on its own since 2013. The story was only brought to the modern eye in the 2020 Road to Venom trade paperback, a comic advertised only as a collection of Venom-adjacent stories— one that has also been out of print since its debut.

After the boom and bust of the 1990s, Marvel truly experimented with its properties in the early 2000s. Creatives not typically associated with superheroes were brought on board to stimulate creative flow. Comics like X-Statix shook up existing formulas associated with the genre to a drastic extent and became a series with themes still relevant to this day.

X-Statix combined the idea of a typical hero team distorted through the lens of reality TV, a theme amplified by the magnificently simple— yet odd— art of Michael Allred. It allowed a reader to truly get to know several new characters before some died in horrible ways, an unfortunate reality of their fashionable careers. The series has been partly collected in recent Complete Collections from 2020-2021, but the omnibus containing everything has been long out of print. A third Complete Collection wrapping up the series also has yet to be announced.

6 She-Hulk’s Funniest Book Needs More Eyes On It

She-Hulk has always been one of Marvel’s most popular female heroes due to the lighthearted tone of her stories, which take place in a legal and down-to-earth setting. Jen Walters was created to claim legal ownership over a “She-Hulk” name and make her debut alongside her cousin in 1977’s The Incredible Hulk. However,the modern image of the character was truly shaped in the original Sensational She-Hulk run.

Controversial artist John Byrne plotted and penciled with his unique sense of screwball humor, including a pattern of fourth wall breaks that would later carry into Deadpool. The series was a smash hit that ran for sixty concurrent issues, with new creators sometimes being brought in. Despite this, the series has not often seen print, with the Epic Collections for it collecting sporadic issues and the Byrne omnibus being out of print for several years.

5 2001: A Space Odyssey Is An Underrated Kirby Classic

Jack Kirby’s work with Marvel and DC’s cosmic corners is unmatched. The legendary creator ties his legacy to grand, galaxy-spanning epics. It made sense that Kirby, a creator far ahead of his time, was then selected to plot and pencil a comic adaptation of the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey.

The story was translated into comics by Marvel in two ways. The first was a more direct adaptation in a Treasury Edition comic, telling a very similar story as the film with more dialogue added from the novel and a first draft screenplay. This eventually led to Kirby expanding the ideas from the film into a ten-issue monthly series, which led to the creation of Machine Man. Kirby’s work on 2001: A Space Odyssey was divine in its own right and it’s a shame the comic hasn’t ever been collected— a consequence of complicated legal rights between Marvel and DC over who owns the rights to the adaptation.

4 Silver Surfer: Requiem Is A Solemn Beauty

J. Micheal Straczynski is a legendary creator, having notable involvement in classic television series such as The Twilight Zone and She-Ra and penning a beloved run of Amazing Spider-Man. Yet one of his best works is one of his lesser-known ones, the ethereal and contemplative tale that was Silver Surfer: Requiem.

Despite having only four issues, Requiem was a devastating and beautiful tale. It detailed the last days of Norrin Radd, the Silver Surfer, leading to his death. The Silver Surfer has always been an introspective character with plenty of thoughts on the nature of his and others’ existences, and Requiem played with that to its fullest extent. It was a deeply tragic epic regarding morality, love, war, and coming to terms with one’s death. With the Silver Surfer due to star in the MCU’s upcoming film TheFantastic Four: First Steps, reprinting this comic could introduce readers to the foundations of the character.

Marvel rejuvenated the comics industry at the start of the Silver Age, with the Fantastic Four as one of the era’s most iconic and influential teams. Under Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, Marvel’s first family brought a sort of emotional realism, cosmic wonder, and exciting adventure unseen in the comic industry.

With the highly anticipated upcoming Fantastic Four film for the MCU, making reprints of the Lee/Kirby era available seems like a top priority for Marvel. While a reprint of the first volume of the omnibus for the title is on its way in 2025, the remaining two tackling the duo’s time on the book have received no announcements, stuck in the limbo of expensive aftermarket prices— something that’s certainly strange for a series as profound as the one that started it all, seeing as Fantastic Four #1 is considered the first modern Marvel comic.

2 The Infinity Saga Needs To Be More Accessible

The basis for one of the MCU’s greatest successes, the Infinity Gauntlet and Infinity Wars two-parter, was the clear inspiration for the Infinity War and Endgame films, concluding the third phase of the MCU. Both stories were iconic, with the former casting a large and looming specter over the Marvel universe with its cosmic stakes and sheer scope.

With this in mind, while the base Infinity Gauntlet miniseries is widely available, the omnibuses that covered both halves of the iconic saga are decidedly not, with their last printings being in the 2019-2020 range. While the MCU has completed the story told around the Infinity Saga, readers still crave access to the classic for its epic story, holding up as a classic on its own merit even to this day.

1 Thunderbolts Would Be Perfect To Reprint Before The MCU Film

Kurt Busiek’s run on Thunderbolts started with a bang that immediately ensnared readers with a generational pitch—this new team of superheroes trying to fill the shoes of missing icons like the Avengers and Fantastic Four were secretly supervillains with hidden malicious plans.

The premise of Thunderbolts was unique and its success allowed Buseik to pen the series for 33 issues, with the art of Mark Bagley elevating its story and characters. Later iterations of the team would slowly drop the dual identity of the leads, instead opting to make them a lesser Suicide Squad— though the team briefly returning to its roots in the Dark Avengers era was a pleasant return to form. Regardless, the original series is hard to find today, with a reprint being a fantastic way of priming audiences for the upcoming film adaptation.