FOC 9-28-2026: Superman, Godzilla, TMNT & More

This week's Final Order Cutoff (FOC) for September 28, 2026 is apparently what happens when publishers collectively decide that nobody has enough large books in their house. We’ve got an Absolute Edition of Alan Moore’s Superman, a massive Marvel event omnibus, Mirage-era TMNT, and the beginning of IDW’s new interconnected Godzilla universe. Subtle, this week is not.

The headline book is Absolute Superman by Alan Moore, which gives some of the most celebrated Superman stories ever published the full oversized Absolute treatment. Moore’s Superman work isn’t a particularly long run, but that’s almost beside the point. Stories like Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?, For the Man Who Has Everything, and DC Comics Presents #85 have spent decades punching considerably above their page count.

Putting those stories into an oversized, remastered edition makes this less of a “catch up on some old Superman comics” release and more of a permanent-library version. If you already own these stories in another format, congratulations: publishing has once again found a way to sell you comics you technically already have. And, annoyingly, it has a pretty good argument.

The other major shelf commitment comes from Marvel with the One World Under Doom Omnibus. Rather than simply collecting the core event, this is the sprawling version — Doctor Doom takes control of the world, the Marvel Universe reacts, and the omnibus gathers the larger story across the event and its surrounding titles. If your preferred way to read a crossover is “give me all of it and let me sort out the consequences later,” this is very much your book.

Then there’s Godzilla, where IDW is doing something considerably more ambitious than another standalone monster story. The new Kai-Sei Era books establish a connected Godzilla comics universe, with the opening arcs being collected in manga-style trade paperbacks. That makes these particularly interesting as entry points: instead of needing a working knowledge of decades of continuity, you can get in near the beginning and watch the kaiju-related property damage accumulate naturally.

The manga-style presentation also makes a lot of sense for Godzilla. Giant monsters, black-and-white artwork, compact editions, interconnected stories — nobody exactly had to force these pieces together. For readers curious about the Kai-Sei Era but reluctant to start chasing individual issues, these collections are probably the cleanest place to begin.

TMNT collectors, meanwhile, get another substantial piece of franchise history with Tales of the TMNT: The Mirage Years Omnibus. The Mirage material remains ground zero for understanding how wonderfully strange the Turtles could get before they became a global licensing machine, and Tales gave creators room to explore characters and corners of that universe beyond the main series.

That makes this one less about nostalgia for pizza and catchphrases and more about the weirder indie-comics DNA that made TMNT possible in the first place. Which, considering where the franchise eventually went, remains one of the funniest success stories in comics. Two guys make a black-and-white parody comic about mutant turtles. Forty-plus years later, we're discussing which archival omnibus belongs on your bookshelf.

There’s a pretty clear theme running through this FOC: definitive editions and new beginnings. The Alan Moore Superman material represents established classics getting premium treatment. Mirage TMNT is preservation and archival collecting. One World Under Doom packages a sprawling modern event for readers who want the whole thing together. And Godzilla’s Kai-Sei Era is trying to get you in at the beginning of something new.

That also makes this a week where format matters almost as much as story. An Absolute Edition is a very different purchase from a manga-style paperback. An omnibus is a commitment — financially, physically, and occasionally ergonomically. None of this is a complaint. We sell comics. Large books containing unreasonable amounts of comics are sort of the dream.

Short version: Superman collectors get Alan Moore in Absolute format, Marvel readers get Doom taking over both the world and a substantial amount of shelf space, Godzilla launches a connected universe in an extremely appropriate manga-style format, and Mirage-era TMNT continues its march toward being comprehensively collected in books heavy enough to qualify as home-defense equipment.

Pre-order before FOC on September 28, 2026 to make sure your copies are included in our initial orders. Especially if you’re after the oversized and omnibus editions. “I’ll grab it later” has historically been responsible for a surprising amount of expensive eBay browsing.