Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Doctor Strange; Black Widow; Predator; Nancy; Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, nearly the entire run of the collected Doctor Strange gets a discount, as does the Black Widow and Marvel’s recent work with Predator. Plus, Nancy and Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

(Disclosure: If you buy something we link to on our site, we may earn a commission.)

In case you’re having troubles with the new UIX (a LOT of people have been):

The Doctor Will See You Now

Doctor Strange in Strange Tales  Doctor Strange by Englehart  The Death of Doctor Strange

The  Marvel Doctor Strange Sale runs through Monday, 6/9.

And it’s most of the Doctor Strange material that’s been collected in book form. Alas, the Masterworks are not in this sale, though the “primary” 70s/80s series is very nearly all available here.

  • Strange Tales – This is a cluttered series page, but its the original Lee/Ditko run, but it breaks down to  Epic Edition 1.
  • Doctor Strange ’68-’69 – Epic Edition 2 catches the rest of the original Strange Tales and most of the first solo series (Some next level Gene Colan art in the solo run.)
  • Doctor Strange ’74-’87 – The Epics pick up with the tale end of the ’68 series, catch the Marvel Premiere issues (enter: Englehart & Brunner) and then into the regular series, then you’ll need “regular” collections for the Stern/Smith run.
  • Strange Tales ’87-’88 – The rest of the Peter B. Gillis run from Strange Tales with art by Chris Warner, Kevin Nowlan, Terry Shoemaker and Richard Case.
  • Doctor Strange ’88-’96 – Probably best known for the Roy & Dann Thomas run with Butch Guice and Geoff Isherwood as notable artists.
  • Doctor Strange ’15-’18 – Initially Jason Aaron/Chris Bachalo with Donny Cates tagging in towards the end. (The omnibuses here are the better buy)
  • Doctor Strange and the Sorcerers Supreme ’16-’17 – Robbie Thompson / Javier Rodriguez
  • Doctor Strange ’18-’19 – The Mark Waid / Jesus Saiz / Barry Kitson era with Strange in space.
  • Doctor Strange, Surgeon Supreme (’19) – the very much under-rated and too short Mark Waid / Kev Walker run. Walker knocks it out of the park here.
  • Doctor Strange: Fall Sunrise – Tradd Moore
  • Jed McKay’s saga, which needs to be read in order
    • The Death of Doctor Strange – Jed MacKay / Lee Garbett; No, really… he actually dies and it’s clever
    • Strange – Jed MacKay / Marcelo Ferreira; With Stephen dead, Clea assumes the mantle of Sorceress Supreme… and she’s feeling a little tetchy
    • Doctor Strange (’23-’24) – Jed MacKay / Pasqual Ferry; How can a dead man not be dead? The answer is complicated…

What’s good?  The original Lee/Ditko run is great and you can get that in the first Epic Collection. Things pick up again when Englehart and Brunner show up towards the end of the Marvel Premiere run and the whole ’74-’87 run is solid, though we have a particular soft spot for the Roger Stern / Marshall Rogers / Paul Smith material towards the end.  Yes, Doctor Strange had A list creators most of the time.  That’s your core.

The Jed MacKay sequence is very good and Marvel’s best death and rebirth sequence in quite some time, but you really need to start with The Death of Doctor Strange. We seldom give a big thumbs up to this kind of arc, but sometimes the needle gets threaded.

Another personal favorite is Doctor Strange: The Oath by a pre-Saga Brian K. Vaughan and Marcos Martin. They’ve both moved on to bigger things, but a long run by those two would have been a real highlight.

Something under the radar?  The final Waid/Walker run is also a lot more under the radar than it should be.

Apex Predation

Predator versus Wolverine  Predator vs Black Panther  Predator: The Last Hunt

The Marvel Predator Sale runs through Monday, 6/9.

Yes, Marvel has Predator comics. One of them even knocked our socks off:

Predator Vs. Wolverine by Ben Percy / Ken Lashley / Greg Land / Andrea Di Vito is everything the title sounds like… except it’s good. Such a pleasant surprise and excellence of execution counts! Over the decades, a Predator with a grudge periodically returns to stalk Wolverine. Things eventually come to a head. All hunter and prey, all the time. Recommended.

Predator Vs. Black Panther by Ben Percy / Chris Allen / Sean Damien Hill; A Predator visits Wakanda looking for some Vibranium. Body count ensues. This is in our “to read” pile.

And then there’s the Ed Brisson series, for Predators without superheroes:

Beware the Bite

Black Widow - Welcome to the Game  Black Widow by Mark Waid and Chris Samnee  Black Widow

The Marvel Black Widow sale runs through Monday, 6/16.

Let’s walk through the highlights.

There are two Black Widow Epic Collections that collect what were largely guest or co-starring spots (with a couple notable exceptions) through the early 80s.

Black Widow: Marvel Team-Up takes place mostly between those two Epic Collections, strangely enough. It’s primarily Spidey team-ups, including a 4-part Spidey / Black Widow / Nick Fury / Master of Kung Fu serial by Chris Claremont and Sal Buscema.

Marvel Knights Black Widow by Grayson & Rucka: The Complete Collection – the end of the 90s saw Yelana enter the Widow’s world. It’s a trilogy of mini-series from Devin Grayson / Greg Rucka / J.G Jones / Scott Hampton / Igor Kordey,

Flash forward to 2004 and the highlight of a series of miniseries was a pair written by Richard K. Morgan with an art rotation of Bill Sienkiewicz, Sean Phillips and Goran Parlov. Conveniently collected in a single volume. (We hold this sequence in high regard.)

A decade later, the team of Mark Waid & Chris Samnee (a known quantity) did their own Black Widow run. Predictably, another highlight. (Also conveniently collected in a single volume.)

Shortly after that, the Eisner winning Black Widow run of Kelly Thompson and Elena Casagrande kicked off. Yes, we enjoyed this run, too… and were kind of thinking there might be a follow up, but we haven’t seen one yet. One of these days?

Unannounced Sales

Gris Grimly's Frankenstein  Star Trek: Year Four - The Enterprise Experiment  A Thief Among the Trees: An Ember in the Ashes

Additionally, it looks like most of the Thor, Hulk, Spider-Man Team-Up and Spidey/Deadpool material from recent weeks is still on sale. The Under $5 Page has the lower priced volumes. Go back a couple columns for the links to find the Epic Collections.

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Spider-Girl, Black Hammer, Monstress

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel applies a discount to Spider-Girl’s catalog. Plus, Barbaric, The Black Hammer, Monstress and Terminal Hero.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

(Disclosure: If you buy something we link to on our site, we may earn a commission.)

In case you’re having troubles with the new UIX (a LOT of people have been):

It’s 8PM, Do You Know Where Your Spider-Daughter Is?

Spider-Girl  Spider-Girl  Spectacular Spider-Girl

The Marvel Spider-Girl Sale runs through Monday, 6/2.

This would be the adventures of MayDay Parker, Peter Parker’s daughter in an alternate timeline. Tom DeFalco and (primarily) Ron Frenz had a roughly 12 year run on the character across the obligatory relaunches, which is a much longer run that most creators manage.

Unannounced Sales

Black Hammer Omnibus  Monstress  Terminal Hero: The Death And Life Of Rory Fletcher

As usual, we’re not 100% sure how long this discounts will stick around.

Dark Horse has the world of Black Hammer on sale this week, which probably needs a walk-through.

This would be — we think it’s OK to call it a superhero universe at this point — the indie superhero saga by Jeff Lemire, Dean Ormston and friends. There are a couple branches to how this saga unfurls.

The main Black Hammer series is here and that’s where you should start the journey. But, as with many long running titles, there are a few different editions to it and this is what we think the cheapest (if messy to sort) way to read the series is.

There are currently 7 volumes under the main series + a collection of specials + 2 volumes of “Visions” with guest creators playing in the Black Hammer standbox.

So what you want to do to cheap out is go to the omnibus page first.

The Omnibus and Library Editions are essentially the same thing with a different binding in print. If you stick with the Omnibus version, then you can pick up again with V.5 of the regular editions. Since there are three Library Editions, you’d pick up with V.8 of the regular editions.

Then you’ve got the World of Black Hammer collections, which are solo tales about the various heroes and villains like Barbalien and Sherlock Frankenstein.

Also on sale:

Additionally, it looks like most of the Thor, Hulk, Spider-Man Team-Up, Captain Marvel and Thunderbolts material from recent weeks is still on sale. The Under $5 Page has the lower priced volumes. Go back a couple columns for the links to find the Epic Collections.

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Spider-Man Team-Up; Scarlet Witch and The Vision; Titan’s MCM London Sale; Monkey Vs. Robot

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Spider-Man teams up with all sorts of people. Marvel drops a discount on the Scarlet Witch and the Vision. Titan has a convention sale. Plus, Elfquest, Monkey Vs. Robot and The Dark Crystal.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

(Disclosure: If you buy something we link to on our site, we may earn a commission.)

In case you’re having troubles with the new UIX (a LOT of people have been):

Spider-Friends

Marvel Team-Up  Spider-Man / Deadpool  Uncanny Spider-Man

The Marvel Spider-Man Crossovers and Team-Ups Sale runs through Monday, 5/26.

What’s this? A collection of various Spidey team-up titles and a few Events he appeared in.

What’s interesting?

Which Witch?

Vision and the Scarlet Witch   Avengers West Coast  The Vision

The Marvel Scarlet Witch and Vision Sale runs through Monday, 5/26.

Hey, they’re a couple again… at least for this sale.

First: Wanda-centric comics:

The value buy here is Vision & The Scarlet Witch: The Saga of Wanda and Vision. It’s a sort of faux-Epic Edition, clocking in at 467 pages and including the wedding of Wanda and Vision from Giant-Size Avengers #4, the ’82 Bill Mantlo/Rick Leonardi mini-series and the ’85 Steve Englehart/Richard Howell 12-parter.

Avengers West Coast Epic Collection: Vision Quest has Wanda’s original heel-turn in John Byrne’s run that was an influence on the TV show. (It also has the end of the Englehart run and that counts for something, too.) This apparently replaces House of M in this sale for Wanda heel-turns?

The current Steve Orlando / Sarah Pichelli / Lorenzo Tammetta / Jacopo Camagni run got a relaunch (yes, we’re shocked a Marvel book relaunched with minimal to no changes), so it’s listed in two places:

Yes, a relaunch so deeply meaningful, they didn’t bother restarting the numbering for the collected editions. One run, as far as we’re concerned.

Over the Vision side of the aisle, there is a CLASSIC tome you should read if you have any interest in the character:

Vision: The Complete Series – Tom King / Gabriel Hernandez Walta. After his split with Wanda, The Vision moves to the suburbs with a synthezoid wife and two synthezoid kids in tow? What could go wrong? Plenty, as his new world slowly unravels. Probably the best early King book.

Avengers Epic Collection: Behold… The Vision – starts out with the classic two-part debut of The Vision (ending in “Evan an Android Can Cry). This volume is essentially the middle third of the Roy Thomas run. John Buscema / Barry Windsor Smith / Gene Colan / Sal Buscema are. Plenty of Ultron and the debuts of the Squadron Sinister and Invaders towards the end.

Avengers: Absolute Vision – Book One and Book Two – Roger Stern / Al Milgrom / Bob Hall; contain a long arc (that mostly executes in the second volume) where the Vision goes slightly mad and tries to take over the world’s computers.

Con Adjacent

A Call To Cthulhu  Death Sentence: London  Killtopia

The Titan Comics MCM London 2025 Sale runs through Friday, 5/30.

MCM London is a British comic convention. (We’ll let you guess which city it’s in.) No, no Conan in this one, but what we do have is:

Unannounced Sales

As usual, we’re not 100% sure how long this discounts will stick around.

Additionally, it looks like most of the Star Wars, Thor and Thunderbolts material from recent weeks is still on sale. The Under $5 Page has the lower priced volumes. Go back a couple columns for the links to find the Epic Collections.

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Hulk; Spider-Verse; Fangs; Nat Turner

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, lots of Hulk. The Spider-Verse and the Venomverse. Plus Fangs, Kyle Baker’s Nat Turner and Grant Morrison’s New X-Men.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

(Disclosure: If you buy something we link to on our site, we may earn a commission.)

In case you’re having troubles with the new UIX (a LOT of people have been):

DC Housekeeping

Halfway through May and no new DC sales. One “not quite sale” at the end of April. That’s all there’s been since March. All appearances are that DC has changed their digital strategy and do not wish to offer proper discounts. It doesn’t look like the handful of seemingly random items in the Under $5 Page have been updated… not that we were expecting an update. We’d love to be wrong, but this looks like it’s anything but a short term absence. Perhaps in a couple months if they don’t like their monthly totals, otherwise the question will be whether they return for the holidays the way Image does in the early Fall?

Hulk Is Cheapest There Is

Planet Hulk  Immortal Hulk  Incredible Hulk

The Marvel Hulk Sale runs through Monday, 5/26.

And what we have here is basically a Hulk Legacy sale, although this is another of those Marvel sales that omits both the Masterworks and the Epic Collections, which really takes a lot of the first series off the discount table.

Let’s run down the various titles.

  • Incredible Hulk (1962 – 1999) The original run and then the long running series that picked up a few years later.
  • Tales to Astonish (1964-68) In between the two Hulk solo runs above, Hulk was splitting Tales to Astonish with Ant-Man/Giant Man and then Namor. A lot of the foundational work was really in this run, with Stan Lee/Steve Ditko responsible for a lot of it. Included for the sake of completeness, for you shall find no discounts here
  • Incredible Hulk (1999-2007) – Best known for the Bruce Jones / Lee Weeks/ Mike Deodato run towards the beginning and the Greg Pak / multi-artist “Planet Hulk” and “World War Hulk” epics at the end… though World War Hulk is at this different link.
  • Hulk (2008-13) This is the Red Hulk run (and the title changes to that after awhile). It starts out with the better known Jeph Loeb/Ed Mc Guiness run and then Jeff Parker takes over with Gabriel Hardman, Dave Eaglesham and Patrick Zircher in the artist rotation.
  • Incredible Hulk by Jason Aaron (2011-12) – Lots of artists rotating through here, Marc Silvestri, Steve Dillon and Carlos Pacheco among them
  • Indestructible Hulk (2012 – 14) – Mark Waid’s the writer with an artist rotation including Leinil Francis Yu, Matteo Scalera and Walt Simonson draws the Thor team-up.
  • Hulk by Waid and Duggan (2014-15) – That would be Mark Waid and Gerry Duggan with Duggan doing the bulk of the run. Mark Bagley is the main artist here.
  • Immortal Hulk (2018-21) – Al Ewing’s masterpiece as the Hulk slides over towards horror and find a green door that leads to Hell.
  • Hulk (2021-23) – The Donny Cates / Ryan Ottley run
  • The Incredible Hulk (2023 – present) – Phillip Kennedy Johnson / Nic Klein

For the main series, you can’t go wrong with the Peter David years and the Bill Mantlo era seems to have gained fans over the years.

The sequence from Planet Hulk to World War Hulk is highly enjoyable.

Let’s be real – Immortal Hulk is a masterpiece. Highly recommended with an approach almost like Gerber’s Man-Thing or Moore’s Swamp Thing.

We’re really enjoying the current run, too. It’s a return to horror, like the Immortal Hulk run, but it feels a bit more like the Bruce Jones run. Banner is on the run, but this time the conspiracy pursuing him is supernatural in nature. Nic Klein is doing ridiculously good work on this title, too.

Two Verses

Spider-Verse  Spider-Man Vol. 1: End Of The Spider-Verse  Venomverse

The Marvel Spider-Verse/Venom-Verse Sale runs through Monday, 5/19.

Spider-Verse is basically a celebration of the Spider-Man cast expanding with a lot of Spidey-related characters and then throwing in some Spidey-equivalents from different dimensions. Miles Morales being the most important one, important enough to be ported into the main “616” universe when the Ultimate line was shuttered.

Spider-Verse was the original Spider-Man family event in the comics that formalized much of this. You’re best off getting the omnibus edition that has the entire thing and all the crossovers, else it gets complicated figuring out reading order between the various series-specific collections.  There are a ton of creators working on this, as you might expect, but this is effectively a Dan Slott as show-runner affair. (Which means, yes, Christos Gage is not far behind.)

Edge of the Spider-Verse sets up the eventual sequel.

Spider-Man Vol. 1: End Of The Spider-Verse – Dan Slott / Mark Bagley; is the sequel which claims to end everything as Morlun returns.

And much like you can’t get a child a gift and not expect their sibling to demand one, Venom has his own spin on this:

  • Venomverse – Cullen Bunn / Iban Coello; Enter the venomized heroes
  • Death Of The Venomverse – Cullen Bunn / Gerardo Sandoval; The Carnage symbiote travels the multiverse to kill all Venoms
  • Venomverse Reborn – Anthology of various Venoms across the multiverse

Unannounced Sales

New X-Men  Fangs  Nat Turner

As usual, we’re not 100% sure how long this discounts will stick around.

Additionally, it looks like most of the Star Wars and Thor material from recent weeks is still on sale. The Under $5 Page has the lower priced volumes. Go back a couple columns for the links to find the Epic Collections.

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales – A Pulitzer Prize Winning OGN; Captain Marvel; The Oatmeal

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, we see a deep discount on this year’s Pulitzer Prize winning graphic novel… not an everyday occurrence. Plus, Captain Marvel and The Oatmeal.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

(Disclosure: If you buy something we link to on our site, we may earn a commission.)

In case you’re having troubles with the new UIX (a LOT of people have been):

DC Housekeeping

The topic of DC’s departure from the deals page has been a very pointed topic of conversation in our circles for roughly 6 weeks. Yes, they technically had a Superman sale a couple weeks ago, but it was a decidedly weak offering and we have yet to meet someone familiar with that “sale” who wasn’t irate about the attempt to pass off a $17.99 digital edition of All-Star Superman as a bargain. DC may have created some integrity questions with that stunt.

As we type this, DC has failed to have a formal sale in May and we have not been able to locate any unannounced sales outside of some very random volumes in the $5 & Under section (which may be old listings and/or oversights on DC’s part) and we’ve been seeing those Superman discounts, such as they were, revert back to digital list price. We’re willing to give it one more week before declaring DC has sworn off discounts, but this is now the longest stretch we’ve seen DC abstain and it’s not looking good. They might not want our business.

Not A Big Red Cheese?

Captain Marvel  Captain Marvel  Captain Marvel

The Captain Marvel Sale runs through Monday, 5/12.

This would be the Carol Danvers sale (as opposed to the Mar-Vell sale).

OK… brace yourselves… this one has a ton of relaunches:

We think that’s the overly complicated chronology, anyway. For recommendations, we’re not really experts on this set of books, but we’re inclined to say go with the Thompson run. Kelly Sue DeConnick has a very dedicated fanbase, so maybe browse the sample pages there and see if that catches your fancy, too?

DC Buried Discounts

Batman: Streets of Gotham  Hitman  Justice League: Last Ride

From the $5 & Under section: we’re not sure if these prices are soon to change or not.

Unannounced Sales

Feeding Ghosts: A Graphic Memoir  How to Tell If Your Cat Is Plotting to Kill You (The Oatmeal Book 2)

As usual, we’re not 100% sure how long this discounts will stick around.

The Marvel “Maybe” Sales

Phases of the Moon Knight

The trend continues. New releases at lower than expected price points and discounted pre-orders. Is this the new normal? We’re not sure, but let’s run them down.

Dropping This Week

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: The May the Fourth Star Wars Sale(s); Thor; Godzilla; Wool

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, it’s May the Fourth with Star Wars getting discounts at both Marvel and Dark Horse. Marvel also slashes prices on nearly the full run of Thor and unannounced sales ranging from Godzilla to Superman: Son of Kal-El.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

(Disclosure: If you buy something we link to on our site, we may earn a commission.)

In case you’re having troubles with the new UIX (a LOT of people have been):

Nothing But Star Wars

Star Wars  Darth Vader Star Wars: The High Republic

The Marvel Star Wars May the 4th Sale runs through Monday, 5/12.

First, let’s run through the highlights. These are mostly the current Marvel Star Wars titles, not the Dark Horse or original Marvel runs.

Recommendations? For whatever reason, Darth Vader seems to bring out the best in Marvel. Those first two series with Gillen and Soule, especially. Is it a coincidence Lucasfilm hired Charles Soule as a creative consultant?

Your under the radar title is Kanan. A very solid series from one the Star Wars Rebels producers and we no longer have to introduce Pepe Larraz, do we?

Sturm und Hammer?

Thor - The Wrath of Odin  Thor by Walt Simonson  Thor Road to War of the Realms

Marvel’s Thor Sale runs  through Monday, 5/12.

Pretty much the full Thor line, with the caveat that the Marvel Masterworks volumes are not on sale, which is to say, Epic Collections are your friend.

As per our custom, here’s the breakdown by series/volume:

  • Journey Into Mystery ’52-’66 – The earliest Thor stories from Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
  • The Mighty Thor ’66-’96 – From Lee & Kirby until the relaunches started
  • The Mighty Thor ’96-’04 – The Heroes return Dan Jurgens era, initially with John Romita, Jr.
  • Thor ’07-’11 – Starts with J. Michael Straczynski & Olivier Coipel, ends with Matt Fraction & Pasqual Ferry. Gillen in the middle.
  • The Mighty Thor ’11-’12 – Fraction gets a relaunch with Coipel, Ferry and early Pepe Larraz
  • The Jason Aaron era ’12-’19 – It’s a LOT easer to look at the omnibuses across all the relaunches here
  • Thor ’20 to ’23 – The Donny Cates run with Nic Klein as the primary artist; Torunn GrØnbekk tags in towards the end while Cates was recovering from his accident (and filled in well, we might add).
  • Immortal Thor (’23 – current) – Al Ewing / Martin Coccolo;

If your point of reference for Thor is the last film, you want the Jason Aaron era. The God Butcher is the first arc. If you go with that set of omnibuses, Jane Foster picks up the hammer in V.2. We don’t think that starting with the first Jane Foster issues (and slimmer volumes) is a great jumping on point. It’s a saga and you’ll get a lot more out of it if you start at the beginning of Aaron’s run.

Past that, we’re all about the Walt Simonson Thor. It’s probably the most influential run since early days and it’s great. You’ll want the Thor Visionaries: Walter Simonson set that starts here. (The Thor by Walter Simonson version of the reprints seems to be missing the final volume, or at least the last few issues. *sigh* These things happen.)

We also like to go back to the original Lee/Kirby. Not too early. We’d say stay closer to where it changed from Journey Into Mystery to Thor. The first year of JIM was a little rough. The Wrath of Odin  Epic Collection is a good chunk of prime Lee/Kirby Thor and also features the first time Jane Foster was elevated to godhood, since it turns out to now be foreshadowing.

Something under the radar? Ignore this being marketed as a kid’s comic – Roger Langridge and Chris Samnee had a short run on Thor: The Mighty Avenger that was just a good Thor comic, full stop. And you might expect that from those two.

If you want to move in the opposite direction, Thor: Vikings is a seriously violent Marvel MAX title from Garth Ennis and Glenn Fabry that has Viking zombies invading Manhattan. (No, not Fleet Week. That’s different.)

We also have naught but love for the current Immortal Thor run.

Unannounced Sales

Star Wars: Tales from the Rancor Pit  Barbaric  Wool

First, the Dark Horse Star Wars section sticks around for May the Fourth.

And some more likely suspects:

The Marvel “Maybe” Sales

Fantastic Four Vs. Galactus  Kid Venom  Phases of the Moon Knight

The trend continues. New releases at lower than expected price points and discounted pre-orders. Is this the new normal? We’re not sure, but let’s run them down.

Dropping This Week

Dropping Next Week

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Thunderbolts; Alien; Star Wars; Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel has discounts on Thunderbolts and Aliens. Dark Horse drops the prices on their current Star Wars line, and we talk a little about Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

(Disclosure: If you buy something we link to on our site, we may earn a commission.)

In case you’re having troubles with the new UIX (a LOT of people have been):

Thunder. Thunder. Thunderca… Whoops, Wrong Series!

Thunderbolts  Winter Soldier  Taskmaster

The Marvel Thunderbolts Sale runs through Monday, 5/19.

Since the character mix in the film is a little different than the mix in the comics, we’re going to break this down by character…

The Thunderbolts have been through several iterations since they began in ’97, originally having been the Masters of Evil laying the groundwork for nefarious deeds. Judging by the previews, the film will be a little different from the comic.

Thunderbolts

The original series was written by Kurt Busiek and drawn by Mark Bagley. Eventually Fabian Nicieza tagged in as writer and Patrick Zircher became the lead artist a bit after that. Alas, these volumes jump around a bit after issue #50. The  omnibus editions are more complete, but aren’t on sale right now.

New Thunderbolts was the ’04-’06 relaunch, and yes, it’s included in the third omnibus of the original. Fabian Nicieza/Tom Grummett is the creative team, here.

This then turns back into (no adjective) Thunderbolts for ’06-’12, starting Nicieza/Grummett and then including runs by Warren Ellis / Mike Deodato and Jeff Parker/Kev Walker/Declan Shalvey

Thunderbolts relaunched for ’12-’14 with Daniel Way and then Charles Soule writing it. The artist rotation included Steve Dillon and Phil Noto.

Jim Zub and Jon Malin were behind the ’16-’17 Thunderbolts run.

’20 saw King in Black: Thunderbolts by Matthew Rosenberg/Gerry Duggan/Juan E. Ferreyra/Luke Ross.

’22 saw Thunderbolts: Back on Target by Jim Zub and Sean Izaakse.

The most recent volume in the sale is Thunderbolts: Worldstrike by Colin Kelly / Jackson Lanzing / Geraldo Borges.

With Thunderbolts, we feel pretty strongly you need to read the first sequence or two and get a flavor for the concept before jumping into the later evolutions.

Winter Soldier

The originating storyline runs in the 2004 series of Captain America by Ed Brubaker and a rotating squad of artists including Steve Epting, Michael Lark, Butch Guice and Mike Perkins. There are a couple omnibuses available, but this doesn’t really have a definitive larger collection like, say, the Hickman Avengers era. We’d probably point you to the Captain America Modern Era Epic Collection: The Winter Soldier volume. It’s a couple bucks more, but it gives you #1-19 straight through and that’s a very good run.

For solo series, the first choice is Winter Soldier by Ed Brubaker, which is Brubaker and Butch Guice in a spin-off.

Also of possible interest:

Taskmaster

    • Taskmaster: Anything You Can Do… – <all sorts of creators>; Taskmaster’s early villain appearances fighting the Avengers, Spidey, Daredevil, etc.
    • Taskmaster: The Rubicon Trigger – Jed MacKay / Alessandro Vitti; A very funny adventure finds Taskmaster blackmailed into doing a job for Nick Fury. Should he refuse, the Black Widow will likely hunt him down and kill him.

 U.S. Agent

    • Captain America Epic Collection: The Captain – Mark Gruenwald / Kieron Dwyer; The famous arc where former Super Patriot and soon-to-be U.S. Agent John Walker assumes the mantle of Captain America
    • U.S. Agent: American Zealot – Christopher Priest / Georges Jeanty; In something of a deadpan political satire, John Walker develops some issues with his handlers when sent to a small town threatened by a corporate entity… if only the optics matched reality. Smart, but you figured that with Priest involved.

The Sentry

The Sentry is a character that is not always used well in the comics. We’d stick to the original Paul Jenkins / Jae Lee series and the Paul Jenkins / John Romita, Jr. sequel.

Not of this Earth

The Marvel Aliens & Predators Sale runs through Monday, 4/28.

Alien  Aliens: What If...?  Aliens

It’s probably best to divide this into the Marvel section and the Dark Horse section.

On the Marvel side of the fence, we are big fans of the Philip Kennedy Johnson Alien sequence (V.1 & 2 here; then V. 3 here — yeah, we know… comics publishers need to work on the meta data) with Salvador Larroca, followed by Julius Ohta; is essentially one winding tale of Weyland-Yutani Corporation conspiracies that starts out with hiding a few of those eggs that couldn’t possibly get out of control, moves on to interstellar pioneers and religion, then comes back to the living conditions of rogue androids. Effective slow burn storytelling.

Also on the Marvel side:

  • Declan Shalvey’s Alien run
    • V.1 w/ Andrea Broccardo
    • V.2 w/Danny Earls
  • Aliens: What If…? –Paul Reiser /Leon Reiser / Adam F. Goldberg / Hans Rodionoff / Brian Volk-Weiss / Guiu Vilanova – Yes, that Paul Reiser (and son, and friends) returns to explore what would happen if his Aliens villain, Carter Burke, had survived the film

From the original Dark Horse material:

A Note on This One

Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees

“Amazon Book Sale: Limited time savings of up to 75% on select titles” – unknown duration.

This extra-eclectic sale appears to be intact for the time being and we should probably talk about Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees by Patrick Horvath. That was on this week’s reading list and it’s a very unusual book that lives up to the hype.

The elevator pitch is “Richard Scarry’s Dexter.” Which is to say, it’s drawn in an extra cute style reminiscent of children’s book legend Richard Scarry. A little more detail and fully rendered, but very Scarry. It (mostly) takes place in a happy little town, like the Scarry books. Except one of the residents is a serial killer who is alarmed when another serial killer turns up in town and goes on a very messy and public spree.

Hovarth even manages to get pacing and narrative style that’s similar to those children’s books… until it’s time to whip out the blood and swearing. This is from the Mouse Guard school of “it looks like a kid’s book until you get a little further in.” Is it a parody? Perhaps. It’s embracing the tradition more than mocking it, so we’d probably go with ironic pastiche.

This one isn’t going to be for everyone, but if that setup sounds appealing, you’ll probably love this. Excellence of execution and all. And we do mean execution. We hereby affirm the hype.

The discount could be better, but we just don’t see many discounts coming out of IDW these days.

Unannounced Sales

Star Wars: Tales from the Rancor Pit   Brandon Sanderson's Dark One  You Are Home

First, a Dark Horse Star Wars section. (May the Fourth is coming.)

And some more likely suspects:

The Marvel “Maybe” Sales

Deadpool Team-Up  Fantastic Four Vs. Galactus  Kid Venom

The trend continues. New releases at lower than expected price points and discounted pre-orders. Is this the new normal? We’re not sure, but let’s run them down.

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Avengers, Ultimate Universe, Superior Spider-Man, Superman, Elfquest

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel has the Avengers, Superior Spider-Man and the Ultimate Universe in individual sales, and then a 700 item sale that’s a bit more random. DC has a Superman sale… sort of. Plus, Elfquest and Murder on the Orient Express.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

(Disclosure: If you buy something we link to on our site, we may earn a commission.)

In case you’re having troubles with the new UIX (a LOT of people have been):

DC is Back… Sort Of

Superman: Red Son  Superman: Warworld Rising  Superman

The DC Superman Day 2025 Sale runs through Monday, 4/28.

These are not the DC prices we’ve been seeing since December. This is more in line with the apparent new pricing system we discussed last week (in fact, we’re pretty sure at least some of these prices were in place last week). Newer volumes are mostly around $8.99. Older volumes are lower.

Things at favorable price points:

The (mostly Action Comics-based) Superman: Warworld saga by Phillip Kennedy Johnson / Daniel Sampere / Riccardo Federici from a few years back:

We enjoyed that arc, which is quite a bit darker than Superman normally goes.

  • Superman: Ending Battle – Geoff Johns / Joe Casey / Joe Kelly / Mike Schultz / Pasqual Ferry; The Manchester Black saga
  • Superman: Braniac – Geoff Johns / Gary Frank; The ’08 reset of Brainiac and Kandor
  • Superman: Red Son – Mark Millar / Dave Johnson / Killian Plunkett; An Elseworlds that posits “What If baby Kal-El’s rocket landed in the Soviet Union?”

The current series is here, but note the price. Pay attention to all the prices here, actually.

And a note on that All-Star Superman listing: $17.99? Just say no. That’s ridiculous. First off, it’s a great example of the fallacy of basing digital discounts off a hardcover print list price. Second off, we suspect this is part of a pricing experiment and they want to see how many people are paying ZERO attention when something appears in a sale listing. One might wonder how they would describe their customers if this is something they want to test?

If you really have a (J’onn) jones for All-Star Superman, get the $8.83 version. (Yes, that’s a weird price, but that’s what it shows up as for us.) Or get the “Compact” edition in print for $9.29. We’ve got your Truth, Justice and the Cheap Way right here.

Avengers Assemble

Avengers Assemble

The Marvel Avengers Sale runs through Monday, 4/28

And this as pretty much everything except the Masterworks editions. (Hey, don’t look at us… we think that’s a strange omission, too.)

Let’s start about by breaking down the major series/titles on sale:

The Jonathan Hickman era

Avengers by Jonathan Hickman

The Hickman era is a little complicated, because his Avengers and New Avengers titles run together, so the Avengers by Jonathan Hickman collections are what we’d recommend for a more natural reading experience. Those collect both titles, plus tie-ins… and this is something were reading order counts.

But, this being Marvel collections, it get more complicated. The Avengers/New Avengers material (whichever format you read it in) is just one segment of Hickman’s tale. The story is continued in Avengers: Time Runs Out, which is the real last arc of Avengers and New Avengers. (And it’s in the “by Hickman” omnibuses.)

And all this funnels into Secret Wars, the true endgame of Hickman’s Avengers run… which, of course, is not included in the sale… but it is in Doctor Doom sale, this week only. (Stranger and stranger.)

The Hickman era really is it’s own beast. A lot of comics talk about having an “epic scale.” This one’s scope is staggering and the sheer size of the scope means it gets better and better as things progress in a way few comics really do. So just know that the entire era is effectively one extended story and it’s a real “in for a penny, in for a pound” thing.

The Jason Aaron era

Avengers

While not necessarily as complex as the Hickman era, there are a few different ways to read it:

Enter Jed MacKay

Avengers

And that brings us to the current Jed MacKay / C.F. Villa Avengers run.

What’s at the top of the list for recommendations?

For the classic series, there are a lot of good runs. The first Roy Thomas/John Buscema run, particularly around the introduction of The Vision. The Kree-Skrull War. Steve Englehart’s Run. Jim Shooter’s run. Roger Stern’s run, particularly when the team of John Buscema and Tom Palmer return. There is a ton of good stuff to look at. When we factor in price point and page count (some of the newer Epic Collections are a little more expensive), we keep coming back to The Final Threat. Steve Englehart/ Gerry Conway / Jim Shooter / George Perez / John Byrne / John Buscema / Sal Buscema. You get the return of Wonder Man, “The Private War of Doctor Doom,” and “Bride of Ultron” for the major arcs. It’s a nice cross-section of creators and stories for $6.99.  But really, it’s hard to go wrong with the Kree-Skrull War through ~#200, and then pick it up again for Roger Stern, particularly Stern/John Buscema/Tom Palmer. Stick around for Walt Simonson.

We’re also major fans of the Kurt Busiek / George Perez run that begins here. A second golden age that stands up with the best runs.

Let’s face it, there have been a lot of good Avengers runs.

Ultimate… Ultimate?

Ultimates Ultimate Fantastic Four Ultimate Comics - The Ultimates

The  Marvel Ultimate Universe Sale runs through Monday 4/21.

Yes, it’s the greater original Ultimate Universe… just without Spidey and X-Men.

There a bit more to the sale, but that’s the bulk of the highlights. What’s good? The Millar/Hitch Ultimates are hugely influential (especially to the film world). Ultimate FF absolutely has it’s moments. Not everybody realizes that the Marvel Zombies debuted in V. 3 (omnibus version) and are not played for laughs.  Now, we don’t often issue “avoid” warnings around here, but there are a couple things here that we’ll advise against. The Orson Scott Card Ultimate Iron Man? Don’t bother. It’s awful. Ultimatum? Nope! That very nearly killed the line. There are MUCH better things to read in this imprint than those two.

Superiority Complex

Superior Spider-Man Superior Spider-Man Companion Superior Spider-Man

The Marvel Superior Spider-Man Sale runs through Monday, 4/21.

Yes, that would be the run when Doctor Octopus took over Peter Parker’s body. One of the greatest moments of “wait… this is actually good” in recent history. (Everyone we knew winced at the high concept, but the execution was on the money!)

The primary Superior Spider-Man series by Dan Slott and Ryan Stegman is best packaged in the 2-volume Complete collection, that also includes the “Dying Wish” arc that sets up the run.

Superior Spider-Man Companion gets you the first 12 issues of Superior Spider-Man Team-Up and some tie-in issues.

Superior Spider-Man (’18-’19) is the Christos Gage / Mike Hawthorne revival that returns Otto Octavious to his Spidey persona.

And for something a little different? The absolutely hilarious Superior Foes of Spider-Man by Nick Spencer & Steve Lieber. Boomerang tries to organize a gang of Spidey’s b-list foes and make a big score. Things… do not go as intended. Think an even more absurd Dortmunder novel with super villains and you won’t be far off.

A New Sale Page?

Fall of the House of X  G.O.D.S.  Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees

“Amazon Book Sale: Limited time savings of up to 75% on select titles” – unknown duration.

Don’t expect 75% off too many things here. Some of the discounts are decidedly slight… and yes, there are some odd price points.

Of particular interest:

Interesting, but the discount is slight… then again, you don’t see IDW discounted much, these days:

If you like single issues there are a ton of Ablaze titles, including their own take on Conan which have enjoyed from time to time.

Hidden *Marvel* Sales

Darth Vader  Miracleman Wolverine

You might miss the “Marvel Up To 60% Off Sale” because it looks like an ad.

A quick and dirty list of things we found in it. Yes, some of this feels like the May the Fourth Be With You sale is early. No clue how long it lasts, but it appears to have 702 items in it, so perhaps worth a browse over the weekend. Also, Miracleman gets a discount less often than other titles…

Unannounced Sales

Elfquest  Money Shot  Murder on the Orient Express

The Marvel “Maybe” Sales

Fantastic Four  Ultimate Black Panther  Deadpool Team-Up

The trend continues. New releases at lower than expected price points and discounted pre-orders. Is this the new normal? We’re not sure, but let’s run them down.

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Something’s Going On With DC’s Prices

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, there seem to be some changes in DC’s digital pricing.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

(Disclosure: If you buy something we link to on our site, we may earn a commission.)

In case you’re having troubles with the new UIX (a LOT of people have been):

DC’s Unannounced Price Changes

Batman by Ed Brubaker  Green Lantern  Wonder Woman by Gail Simone

We’ve been hearing quite a bit from people wondering why DC hasn’t had a sale listed on the Deals page in a couple weeks. We’d been wondering that, too. Looking into it, it seems like DC may be changing their digital pricing structure on older collections (their backlist, if you prefer industry jargon). What we’re about to say is based on our observations on pricing on the afternoon of 4/11/25. These things do have a way of changing.

It appears that DC may be in the process of changing the list price for backlist “regular” collections to $9.99 across the board. What’s old enough to be considered backlist? It appears to be something like 6 or 7 months. Not all prices have changed, so this may still be working it’s way through the Amazon database. Some of the omnibus editions are also $9.99, some are higher.

If DC is in the middle of a price restructuring, it would not be unusual for them to pause sales until all the new prices have populated out. Which is not to say there aren’t some larger discounts floating around. We’re seeing lots of seemingly random $3.99-$6.99 price points across all sorts of titles… but not always full runs.

Let’s go on a quick tour, shall we?

That’s not an exhaustive trip through the DC backlist, just a few things we typed in and found lower prices. If there was a backlist volume you were interested in, now might not be a bad time to check on it. Hopefully this stabilizes soon and we get back to having a better idea what’s a sale and what a normal price. It’s also possible those $9.99 prices are someone’s idea of a sale. In the meantime, something’s going on, we’re just not 100% sure what it is.

Marvel

Marvel did not have a new sale this week. See below for the continuing ones.

(More) Unannounced Sales

Be Everything At Once  Mom's Cancer

The Marvel “Maybe” Sales

X-Factor  Fantastic Four  Ultimate Black Panther

The trend continues. New releases at lower than expected price points and discounted pre-orders. Is this the new normal? We’re not sure, but let’s run them down.

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Blood Hunt, Guardians of the Galaxy, Ms. Marvel, Groo

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel issues discounts for Blood Hunt, Guardians of the Galaxy and Ms. Marvel. Plus, Groo.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

(Disclosure: If you buy something we link to on our site, we may earn a commission.)

In case you’re having troubles with the new UIX (a LOT of people have been):

A Protein Drink

Blood Hunt  Tomb of Dracula  Greenberg the Vampire

The Marvel Blood Hunt Sale runs through Monday, 4/14.

Yes, that would be last year’s big Vampires take over Event. Indeed, there are all sorts of vampire titles in this sale if you want to have a browse.

For the actual event, we’d point you at:

There are more tie-ins, but that should get you the core. We’re a little puzzled they didn’t include Moon Knight, which was setting up elements of this for a LONG time, or the more recent Bryan Hill Blade series in the sale.

For the other vampire titles, the cream of the crop are:

Tomb of Dracula was one of the high water marks for horror titles in the ’70s and the longest running of the set that also included Man-Thing and Swamp Thing.

Greenberg falls into the category of “and now for something completely different…”

Groot? Groot Groot.

Guardians of the Galaxy: Tomorrow's Avengers   Guardians of the Galaxy Omnibus  Guardians of the Galaxy

The Marvel Guardians of the Galaxy Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 4/14.

Let’s break this into incarnations.

Original Guardians of the Galaxy

  • Guardians of the Galaxy: Tomorrow’s Avengers – First volume is the original appearance through their Marvel Presents solo run; Second volume is 70s guest star appearances, particularly in Avengers.
  • Guardians of the Galaxy (’90-’95) – Best known for the very fun Jim Valentino run (i.e. the first 3 volumes here); This is strangely not included in the sale, but we list it for the sake of completeness… and because we liked the Valentino run

New GoG (The DnA cast or movie version if you must)

What’s good here?  Well, we’ve always liked the original. Particularly the Steve Gerber bits. We also loved the recent Al Ewing / Juan Cabal run. And if you like the current incarnation, you should probably go back to the source with the DnA run. We’d also be remiss if we didn’t point out that Kev Walker did an amazing job on the art with the most recent run.

No Love for the Dinosaur?

Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur   Moon Girl: Endangered Species Moon Girl

The Marvel Moon Girl Sale runs though Monday, 4/7.

Oh, no! Devil Dinosaur got cancelled right out of the sale’s name!

This is a lower volume sale than others and simple to handle:

These larger page count editions of the Amy Reeder / Brandon Montclare / Natacha Bustos main series are the better buy.

Moon Girl: Endangered Species is a collection of team-up issues outside the main title.

Moon Girl And Devil Dinosaur: Menace On Wheels is the ’22-23 series from Jordan Ifueko & Alba Glez

Something in Parabellum?
Deadworld   The Realm    Jazz Age Chronicles

The Caliber Comics Library 50% off Spring Sale runs through Wednesday, 4/30.

There are a few titles here that were notable in the ’80s indie boom.

And plenty of Don Lomax war comics.

But if you want something a little more recent, Ageless might be of interest. It’s written by Torunn GrØnbekk, who’s been recently been writing Venom, with art by San Espina.

Unannounced Sales

Aristotle  Groo Snug

The Marvel “Maybe” Sales

Spider-Man: Black Suit & Blood  Venom War  X-Factor

The trend continues. New releases at lower than expected price points and discounted pre-orders. Is this the new normal? We’re not sure, but let’s run them down.

Dropping This Week

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