Discussions Are Epic Collections the best way to collect legends comics

My main focus has always been the new canon, but iv'e saved up some money and want to start getting into legends. The only epic collections i have are The Rebellion volumes one and two and throughly enjoyed it. So are epic collections the way to go or are omnibuses better.

 

You can get the original TPBs on Amazon for ultra cheap, last time I checked. The condition won't always be amazing, but the paper isn't one molecule thick and it won't have the stupid "Legends" banner. I got the TFU comic for $0.01 plus shipping. No joke.

 

If you don't need to physically collect them, Marvel Unlimited could be a good option for you. To my knowledge, it has every issue of the older Marvel series and from the Dark Horse era.

 

For the physical versions, Dark Horse's Omnibus series collect most of the great stories, nice and chronologically. They're out of print, but weren't to expensive. Last year I found the X-Wing ones in 3 volumes for $10 per vol., in a local comic book store.

 

As stated by AV-6R7, you can find individual series via Marvel Unlimited digitally. If you want physical copies, the Epic Collections are a good option for some series, but not so much for others. For example, if you want to get Legacy or KOTOR, the Epic Collections are fine, as the voulmes that have those series have them alone. If however, you want to get just Dark Times by buying the Epic Collections, you'll need to get three volumes that have other, not related series besides Dark Times. So, in case of the latter, getting the original Dark Horse Omnibus is better.

The Epic Collections are collecting stories chronologically. So, if you would be interested in collecting comics set between episodes 3 and 4 the Empire Epic Collections are the best bet as you'll get all Dark Horse comics set in that era conveniently sorted in those volumes.

In summary: if you don't care about physical copies, go for Marvel Unlimited; if you want physical copies of specific series, try and find the original Dark Horse Omnibuses (a handful of Epic Collections will do the job for a couple of series too, but not all); if you want to collect all comic series set in a single time period (i.e. no specific series in mind) then go for the Epic Collections.

 

I think the issue with the old and wonderful Dark Horse omnibuses is that they are now very hard to find and very expensive online. Marvel's Epic Collections are much easier to come by and the quickest way to collect the Legends comics. I'm still hunting for the handful of trades I don't have under DH so I don't have interest in the Epic Collections line. You may be able to find some of the omnibuses in a LCS for cheap but that shouldn't be a common thing at this point.

 

it depends.

 

Epic may or may not be a misnomer

 

The Epic Collections for the Newstrip comics (of which only Volume 1 has come out so far) is pretty cool, because it actually collects the three newstrip comic stories that weren't ever put in TPBs by Dark Horse (Kashyyyk Depths, Planet of Kadril, and The Constancia Affair). These never-before-collected stories are presented in the original format, while the others are in the regular comic layout to which they were adapted when published first as "Classic Star Wars" and then again in TPBs.

That said, IDW has also been putting out collections of the original newstrip comics, in their original format. They're much more expensive, but comprehensive and really cool.

EDIT: The Epic books, where applicable, also include relevant stories from Star Wars Tales, which is a cool idea.