In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel continues their recent trend of dropping a bundle of discounts toward the top of the month.
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 Spider a Day Keeps Doc Ock Away
Marvel’s Amazing Spider-Man Sale runs through Monday, 1/26.
There’s a lot of ground to cover here, so let’s break it down by series.
- Amazing Spider-Man (1963-98) – The original run before Marvel became quite so obsessed with rebooting titles.
- Amazing Spider-Man (1998 – 2013) – This run starts out with the controversial J. Michael Straczynski/John Romita, Jr./Mike Deodato, Jr. run, then goes into the excellent Brand New Day era with rotating creative teams and segues into the beginning of the Dan Slott era. (Slott’s written a LOT of Spidey.)
- Amazing Spider-Man (2014 – 15) – Peter’s back in control and the Slott era continues.
- Amazing Spider-Man(2015-2018) – It’s a relaunch. (Hey, Spidey’s been relaunched a lot less than Captain Marvel!) This is the end run of the Slott era, culminating in the Red Goblin affair. The “Worldwide Collection” omnibuses are the better buy.
- Amazing Spider-Man (2018 – 22) – The Nick Spenser era is here, PLUS the 4 volumes of Spider-Man Beyond with Ben Reilly stepping in that take place prior to the next series (and set up portions of it)
- Amazing Spider-Man (2022 – 25) – The recent Zeb Wells / John Romita, Jr. / Ed McGuinness run. (And then Joe Kelly at the end.)
Recommendations? Well, first off Amazing Spider-Man doesn’t really have very many BAD periods until the excesses of the Clone Saga (which some would argue are highlights). Oh, some runs are definitely better than others, but there aren’t huge swaths of duds.
You can definitely pick your poison between the $5.99 Masterworks and $6.99 – $8.99 Epic Collections for the original run. The Epics are typically much larger collections for only a buck more, but it depends on which format you started buying and which era you’re interested in. Some stretches are only in Masterworks, some are only in Epic.
Of possible interest, but NOT included in the link for the V.1 of Amazing is the Kraven’s Last Hunt Epic Collection, so we’ll call that one out directly. You get the J.M. DeMatteis/Mike Zeck classic, plus the issues of Amazing around it, plus Spider-Man Vs. Wolverine for about the price of just getting the regular Kraven collection.
And yes, we did enjoy the recently completed Zeb Wells / (mostly) John Romita, Jr. series. It’s a little more somber than we were expecting from Wells, but it largely a good ride. And this is a series that plays the long game resolving subplots. Not everyone agrees with that, but so be it.
Avengers Assemble
The Marvel Avengers Sale runs through Monday, 1/26
And this as pretty much everything.
Let’s start about by breaking down the major series/titles on sale:
The Jonathan Hickman era
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…
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
While not necessarily as complex as the Hickman era, there are a few different ways to read it:
Enter Jed MacKay
And that brings us to the current Jed MacKay / C.F. Villa Avengers run.
West Coast Avengers
It’s close enough to it’s own franchise, let’s give it a sub-category. (I mean even DC moved to the West Coast. It’s a thing.)
Let’s run down the highlights of the rest of it:
We’re partial to the original Englehart / Milgrim West Cost Avengers. There’s a case to be made for the Byrne run, but that one is a lightning rod for strong opinions.
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. Avengers Forever, which runs somewhat in parallel with this run, is a great stand-alone adventure.
We also thought the Dan Slott Mighty Avengers run was a fun slice of “traditional” Avengers in the middle of the Bendis “New Avengers” era.
The real under the radar one here is the Gerry Duggan Savage Avengers run. If you’ve had an itch for some classic Defenders, this (of all things) might scratch it. It’s offbeat, fun and the sequence where Conan humiliates/shames Doctor Doom while having dinner with him has to be experienced to be believed.
Let’s face it, there have been a lot of good Avengers runs.
Does Whatever An Iron Can…
The Marvel Iron Man Sale runs through Monday, 1/26
This would be one of those sales where most of the hero’s run is on sale, so we’re going to follow our usual protocol and start out by breaking out the primary titles and volumes. Iron Man isn’t as goofy to follow as, say, Spider-Gwen… but there are “quirks.” Oddly, this time out, titles with a word other than “Invincible” in front of “Iron Man” are omitted. (Infamous, International, etc.) Intentional or the new digital guy is from a film background and unfamiliar with the catalog? We’re not sure.
- Tales of Suspense – Iron Man debuted here in what was a split book with Captain America for most of the run.
- Iron Man ’68-’96 – The original solo run in the era before constant relaunch gimmicks
OK, sit tight. The ’98 -’04 run is collected in VERY odd ways and poorly cataloged for browsing. The truly excellent Kurt Busiek/Sean Chen/Patrick Zircher run lasts from 1-25. We can’t find 15-25 collected? (That entire run should be!) You can catch 1-14 in cheap omnibus form here. (No idea why the Mike Grell omnibus isn’t on sale.) You can catch Joe Quesada’s scripting run (26-32) and the Avengers: Disassembled tie-in late in this run in single volumes here. (But get the omnibus version for Busiek.)
So what’s good? We haven’t read ALL the Iron Man out there, but we’ve read a lot of them.
In our opinion Iron Man starts hitting it’s stride when Archie Goodwin arrives toward the end of the Tales of Suspense run and then is pure gold through issue 28 of the ’68 Iron Man series. Artists for this run include Gene Colan and George Tuska.
The next “all-star” run is #116-157 of the original Iron Man, that’s the David Michelinie / John Romita, Jr. / Bob Layton run that’s most famous for the “Demon in a Bottle” alcoholism arc, but there’s more to the run than just that arc. The Denny O’Neil / Luke McDonnell run that follows is solid (make sure you get a collection that includes #200!!!), then Michelinie & Layton return for #215-250 with a few artists, including Mark Bright and Jackson Guice… with Layton even switching to penciller, instead of his usual inking post, for parts of it. This second run is most famous for “Armor Wars” (originally known as Stark Wars). If you want a slightly bigger chunk for the same price, try Iron Man Masterworks V. 13. (Their first run goes through Masterworks V. 15.)
When Heroes Return hits, Kurt Busiek and Sean Chen are pop in for the excellent 1998 run, of which only 1-14 are currently collected.
The ’08 – ’12 run by Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca is particularly good. You know how modern Marvel titles can get sidetracked by Events? Fraction and Larroca lean into it and produce a lengthy and self-contained arc with Tony Stark on the run and attempting to overwrite his brain to keep everyone’s secrets out of the hands of Norman Osborn. Yes, an honest to goodness great Event tie-in arc. It’s a rare thing.
We were quite happy with the Christopher Cantwell/Cafu run. Tony Stark chases Korvac into outer space and meditates on the nature of godhood, good intentions and addictions. Lots of character work and action.
You’ve got your choice of Epic or Masterworks here, but the more recent Masterworks can get up to $9.99.
Forced Entry
The Marvel X-Force Sale runs through Monday, 1/26.
Yes, the mutant black ops team, as originally established by Cable (and morphing out of New Mutants). There absolutely have a been a few incarnations and relaunches over the years. Let’s start out with an overview of that:
- X-Force ’91-’02 – Originally Rob Liefeld & Fabian Nicieza with Greg Capullo tagging in early on. The first edition, if you will.
- Counter-X: X-Force – From the period when Warren Ellis was showrunning some of the X-titles, by Ian Edgington & Jorge Lucas
- Uncanny-Force ’10-’12 – Rick Remender and rotating roster of Raphael Albuquerque, Esad Ribic, Jerome Opena, Billy Tan and Phil Noto
- Uncanny X-Force ’13-’14 – Sam Humphries / Ron Garney / Dalibor Talajic
- Deadpool vs. X-Force ’14 – Duane Swierczynski / Pepe Laraz
- X-Force ’19-’24 – Ben Percy / Joshua Cassara / Robert Gill
- X-Force ’24-’25 – Geoffrey Thorne / Marcus To
What’s good? Our top pick is the Remender Uncanny-Force. Black ops and a wide ranging, but complete story unit when taken as a whole. We’re also fans of the Ben Percy / Krakoa era X-Force and recent Geoffrey Thorne / Marcus To X-Force. If you want something off-beat, start here for the Milligan/Allred run, which is a satire.
You Were Expecting Moulin?
The Marvel Rogue Sale runs through Monday, 1/26.
Quite a lot of random X-titles here, but let’s look at the highlights:
And from the current incarnation:
Unannounced Sales
It seems Dark Horse’s holiday sale is still with us, but we wouldn’t expect it to last very far into next week.
Still on Sale
