By Harry Kassen — As anyone who’s read my last Get Hype article can tell you, I love two things in these. Cheating the format a little, and being a real egghead about it. So when I say that I’m very excited for The Omega Men Deluxe Edition, that probably makes perfect sense. It’s probably pretty clear that I’m a big fan of Tom King at this point, and this series with Barnaby Bagenda, Romulo Fajardo, Jr., and Pat Brosseau (and many others) may be the one I’m most excited to see get the hardcover treatment.

Tom King was launched to stardom by the 12-issue maxi-series The Vision, which has been collected and reissued several times over now. Another early King comic, The Sheriff of Babylon, got the deluxe hardcover treatment not too long after the second paperback was released. Mister Miracle, the hot book of 2018, got a hardcover edition almost immediately following the paperback’s release. The only outlier among King’s 12-issue runs at this point is Omega Men. Until now, that is.

Come April, Omega Men will have its very own deluxe hardcover. This is exciting news for those of us who are fans of King’s take on Kyle Rayner’s White Lantern and a reimagined version of DC’s spacefaring freedom fighters. This series, while cancelled initially, had enough support behind it to get DC to put out the remaining issues, so it’s clearly in demand. What makes this so exciting for me, though, is that this is the Tom King book that I think is going to be talked about years from now, and it’s finally getting an edition worthy of that status.

I don’t mean to say that it’s flat out the best one or that the others won’t be talked about, but this one, to me, feels like it has the most critical longevity of the bunch. Part of that, I think, comes from its “underdog” status. It didn’t garner as much critical and analytical attention as some of the other series at the time of its release, and it hasn’t really since. It gets mentioned in the same breath as the other, more talked about books, but it doesn’t seem to have generated that level of attention for itself. Given that, I think it has the potential to be “rediscovered” and reinterpreted more or less in perpetuity. There is no real, loud critical consensus, so it invites new understanding. And I think having it in hardcover will allow it the shelf life and market space to be found and discussed down the road. It’s the format that a book like this needs and deserves.

The Omega Men Deluxe Edition HC is due out April 22, 2020.

Harry Kassen is a college student and avid comic book reader. When he’s not doing schoolwork or reading comics, he’s probably sleeping. Catch his thoughts on comics, food, and other things on Twitter @leekassen.