DC Comics · Hardcover · 2025 Edition

The Golden Age
Omnibus Vol. 1

The collection that reprints Action Comics No. 1 — together with nearly three years of early Superman stories by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.

The collection

What the volume contains

Superman stories, not complete anthologies

Superman: The Golden Age Omnibus Vol. 1 is DC’s official hardcover that places the 1938 Superman debut in the context of the first years. DC does not reprint complete Action Comics issues here (Zatara, Tex Thomson and the other features are omitted), but the cover reprint and Superman story from each issue.

The book collects Superman tales from Action Comics Nos. 1–31 (1938–1941), the first solo issues Superman Nos. 1–7 (from Summer 1939) and New York World’s Fair Comics Nos. 1–2 (1939/1940). Foreword and afterword are by Jim Steranko; the series cover is by Darwyn Cooke.

Action Comics No. 1 in the omnibus

From the debut issue (on sale April 18, 1938, cover-dated June) the volume takes the iconic cover (Superman lifting the car), the short origin page and the roughly thirteen-page story “Superman, Champion of the Oppressed!”. If you want the complete 64-page newsstand pamphlet as an object, choose a facsimile or the single-issue reprint.

Key issues in this volume

Beside No. 1 are the stories that complete the mythos: Superman No. 1 (the Kents, the name Krypton), Action Comics No. 13 (the Ultra-Humanite) and No. 23 with the debut of Lex Luthor. For the historical frame of the first issue, see the history of the first issue.

Read the blog post → · All reprints of No. 1 →

Buyer’s guide

Which printing — and for what?

The contents have been the same since 2013. What changes is ISBN and price: first edition 2013 (ISBN 978-1-4012-4189-6, originally $75), 2019 reprint (ISBN 978-1-77950-100-4) and the current 2025 Edition (ISBN 978-1-79950-166-4, $125). If you want to read it, take the 2025 printing; older used copies are often cheaper — check spine and binding on a book of nearly 800 pages.

The omnibus answers: how did Superman begin, and what happened in the next thirty issues? The 1938 original is a historic object (collector value). Facsimiles and the single-issue reprint recreate the comic as a comic. Anyone who wants both — the debut issue in hand and the first years in sequence — pairs a reprint with the omnibus.

Later milestones such as Brainiac and Supergirl sit outside Vol. 1; for those see the issues overview and later volumes in the series. A shorter take is in the blog post on the omnibus.