Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: $1.99 Batman; Civil War; Ms. Marvel; Avatar: The Last Airbender

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, DC has a massive Batman sale. Marvel slashes prices on Civil War and Ms. Marvel. Plus, Avatar: The Last Airbender.

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):

Did Somebody Say $1.99 Batman?

The DC Batman Anniversary Sale runs through Monday, 3/31.

And this is to say most, not quite all, of the Batman material is discounted. Some, not all of it, is even at $1.99 (cheap).

Let’s break down some of the highlights by series/volume.

Batman Special Batman: The War of Jokes and Riddles  Batman '89

Prefer the 90s Event era where the Batman family of books crossed over?  Most of those collections are $1.99 – $2.99. Here’s a cheat sheet for that (we have a soft spot for No Man’s Land):

If you’re curious about the original Jeph Loeb / Jim Lee Hush, it’s $2.99

As always, our highest recommendation for Tales of the Batman: Steve Englehart. All of Englehart’s Batman in one volume. Mostly Marshall Rogers art with a side of Walt Simonson. Great stuff.

Also of note, we think this is the first time: Detective Comics Vol. 4: Gotham Nocturne Intermezzo: Batman, Outlaw has been discounted. That would be the penultimate installment of Ram V’s epic, horror-tinged Bat-saga we’ve been enjoying. This time with art by Jason Shawn Alexander and Liam Sharp.

Plenty more here and worth a weekend browse.

A Polite Disagreement Among Capes

Civil War  Civil War: Front Line V. 1  Civil War: Wolverine

The Marvel Civil War Sale runs through Monday, 3/31.

One of these days, Marvel is going to quit leaving money on the table and give Civil War the treatment it gives something like Hickman’s Avengers saga or Aaron’s Thor saga: an edition (or series of additions) that integrate the main parts in reading order. After all these years, it’s still piecemeal.

So here’s our take on it:

Civil War the main mini-series by Mark Millar and Steve McNiven – is the action movie version of the story.

Civil War: Front Line – written by Paul Jenkins with art by Ramon Bachs, Steve Lieber and Lee Weeks – is about WHY the Civil War is happening as Ben Urich tries to get to the bottom of things. This title is much more of the Event’s actual plot and motivations than the more famous flagship series and Marvel really need to have a collection that integrates the two.

There are obviously a lot of tie-in books here. You can dip in where you feel like, but Civil War: Wolverine by Marc Guggenheim and Humberto Ramos is a little more relevant than most and has Logan (hellbent on vengeance) tracking down the people responsible for the Stamford incident.

Yes, there is a lot more to the story than the main Millar/McNiven book, it’s just not really emphasized.

Kamala Sale

Ms. Marvel  Ms. Marvel: The New Mutant

The  Ms. Marvel Sale runs through Monday 3/31.

Thank goodness they’re not calling this “The Marvel Ms. Marvel Sale!” This would be Ms. Marvel as in Kamala Khan, not the current Captain Marvel, Carol Danvers. Is there a movie coming out? Hmm…  Let’s break this down by volume, since there have been relaunches.

  • Ms. Marvel ’14-15 – The original run with G. Willow Wilson and Adrian Alphona as the primary artist
  • Ms. Marvel ’15-’19 – How silly is this relaunch? The collected edition number doesn’t even reset! It’s still Wilson and Alphona, although the artist rotate a bit as it goes on.
  • Magnificent Ms. Marvel ’91-’21 – Relaunched after Wilson’s departure, this is written by Saladin Ahmed with Minkyu Jung and Joey Vazquez as the lead artists
  • Ms. Marvel: Beyond the Limit – The recent mini-series by Samira Ahmed and Andrés Genolet.
  • Ms. Marvel: The New Mutant – Iman Vellani / Sabir Pirzada / Carlos Gomez; Yes, that’s right, the actress who plays Ms. Marvel is co-writing this with the show’s supervising producer

Recommendations? We thought Ms. Marvel was at its best early in the run, before it got too integrated into the Marvel universe, but that’s just us.  Definitely start with Wilson’s run, though.  It made quite the mainstream splash.

Unannounced Sales

Avatar: The Last Airbender The Innkeeper Chronicles: Clean Sweep  When Sharks Attack With Kindness

The Marvel “Maybe” Sales

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

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 – The Punisher; The Flash; Jessica Jones; The Witcher

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, DC has all their Flash collections at a discount. Marvel slashes prices on The Punisher and Jessica Jones. Plus, The Witcher and Rube Goldberg.

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):

Crime and Punisher-ment

Punisher: Circle of Blood   Punisher: The Resurrection of Ma Gnucci  Punisher

The Marvel Punisher Sale runs through Monday, 3/31.

Gosh, you’d think Frank Castle was on streaming or something…

First, the “general audience” Punisher:

  • The Punisher ’87-’95 – Note that the first Epic Collection here collects the ’86 Steven Grant/Mike Zeck Circle of Blood mini-series that kicked off the Punisher’s rise to prominence. Yes, Whilce Portacio drew Punisher before X-Men
  • Punisher War Journal ’88-’95 – This volume is notable for the Carl Potts / Jim Lee work. Yes, Jim Lee drew Punisher War Journal before X-Men.
  • Punisher War Zone ’92-’95 – Yes, Frank Castle was holding down three titles/month in the early ’90s! Collected here are a pair of Chuck Dixon tales with John Buscema and Joe Kubert as the respective artists.
  • Punisher War Journal ’06-’09 – Probably best known for Matt Fraction and Ariel Olivetti
  • Punisher ’00 – Garth Ennis / Steve Dillon; Collects the immortal “Welcome Back, Frank”
  • Punisher: The Resurrection of Ma Gnucci (Punisher War Zone) ’08-’09 – Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon team for a sequel to Welcome Back, Frank
  • Punisher ’09-’10 – The Rick Remender run, for which the third volume is Franken-Castle
  • The Punisher ’11-’12 – The Greg Rucka / Marco Checchetto (now more associated with Daredevil) run
  • The Punisher ’14-15 – Nathan Edmondson / Mitch Gerads. Yes, Mitch Gerards as in Mister Miracle and Sheriff of Babylon
  • The Punisher ’16-18 – Starts out with Becky Cloonan / Steve Dillon
  • The Punisher ’18-’19 – Matthew Rosenberg / Szymon Kudranski
  • Punisher ’22-’23 – Jason Aaron / Jesus Saiz / Paul Azaceta
  • Punisher War Journal ’22-’23 – Torunn GrØnbekk / Djibril Morissette-Phan

What’s good? Actually, we like the original Marvel Super Action magazine version by Archie Goodwin and Tony DeZuniga, but that’s not on the menu.

Our favorite run of the above is probably the Ennis/Dillon “Welcome Back, Frank.” We also were pretty fond of the Rucka / Checchetto run when it was coming out. It’s also worth going back and seeing where all the fuss started with the Grant/Zeck mini and the Baron/Janson/Portacio ongoing.

Then there’s the Max line. “Mature Readers” Punisher, if you will.

Punisher Max: The Complete Collection is the ’04-’09 run that’s most associated with Garth Ennis returning to the character (with art by Darick Robertson, Leandro Fernendez, Doug Braithwaite and Goran Parlov, among others). This is Ennis doing the serious Punisher, as opposed to the hilarity of Welcome Back, Frank. Mike Benson, Victor Gischler and Jason Aaron pop up at the end of the run.

Then you’ve got PunisherMax, the ’09-’12 relaunch by Jason Aaron/Steve Dillon, where Frank mixes it up with The Kingpin and Bullseye.

You Said You Had a Jones?

Alias  The Pulse  Jessica Jones

The Marvel Jessica Jones Sale runs through Monday,  3/24.

Hmm… Daredevil, Punisher and Jessica Jones sales at the same time? Might there be a pattern?

Here’s what we’re looking at:

  • Alias ’01 – ’03-Brian Bendis / Michael Gaydos
  • The Pulse ’04 – ’05 – Brian Bendis / Michael Gaydos / Mark Bagley; Jessica gets a job at the Daily Bugle
  • Jessica Jones ’16 – ’17 – Brian Bendis / Michael Gaydos; Netflix = series revival by the original creators
  • The Defenders ’17 – ’18 – Brian Bendis / David Marquez; Daredevil, Iron First, Luke Cage and Jessica Jones… Netflix influences reach far
  • Jessica Jones ’18 – Kelly Thompson / Mattia de Iulis; Collections of the digital original comics

Alias is the original and very dark. The Pulse is a more mainstream superhero title, if a little quirky. Jessica Jones is back to basics. Yes, Bendis was in charge of the character when he was at Marvel.

The Fastest Trench Coat Alive

The Flash: The Silver Age  The Flash   The Flash

The DC Flash Sale runs through Monday, 3/24.

It’s like a Marvel Legacy Sale at DC. Let’s start out with a breakdown by series:

  • The Flash ’59 – ’85 – The original run, with a big gap between ’66 and ’79
  • The Flash ’87 – ’09 – Wally West’s original run
  • Flash & Green Lantern: The Brave & The Bold ’99 – ’00 – Mark Waid / Tom Peyer / Barry Kitson; Tales of Barry Allen & Hal Jordan teaming up early in their careers
  • Flash: The Fastest Man Alive ’06 – ’07 – Danny Bilson / Paul Demeo / Mark Waid / Ken Lashley; Bart Allen takes up the mantle of Flash
  • The Flash: Rebirth ’09 – ’10 – Geoff Johns / Ethan Van Sciver; Barry Allen returns
  • Flashpoint ’11 – Geoff Johns / Andy Kubert; Flash breaks the timeline
  • The Flash ’11 – ’16 – Francis Manapul & Brian Buccellato, then Robert Venditti / Van Jensen / Brett Booth
  • The Flash ’16 – ’23 – Josh Williamson / Carmine Di Giandomenico / Howard Porter / Scott Kolins; then Jeremy Adams / Will Conrad
  • Jay Garrick: The Flash – ’23 – Jeremy Adams / Diego Olortegui
  • The Flash ’23 – present – Si Spurrier / Mike Deodato / Ramon Perez; Cosmic horrors haunt the Speed Force

What’s good? Depends what you’re looking for that early ’59-’66 run is considered a classic of the Silver Age. We’re pretty happy with the current Spurrier run. Josh Williamson‘s run has plenty of fans.

We’d probably direct you to the original Wally West run, though, and some specific runs, all of which have favorable pricing at the moment.

  • The Flash: Savage Velocity – The first 18 issues includes the Mike Baron / Jackson Guice run and the beginning of William Messner-Loebs/Greg LaRocque run. Wally West takes over, plus Chunk, Kilg%re, Vandal Savage and Kapitalist Kouriers
  • The Mark Waid era – 8 omnibi starting here. “The Return of Barry Allen” is the most famous arc (Book 2). The Speed Force debuts in Book 3. Mike Wieringo is probably the artist most associated with this era, but Greg LaRocuqe, Salvador Larocca, Oscar Jimenez and Paul Ryan were also part of it
  • The Grant Morrison / Mark Millar / Paul Ryan run – yes, Morrison & Millar used to write together. That would past tense.
  • The Geoff Johns era – Six omnibi starting here. (OK, the first 5 are his original Wally West run and the sixth is Reborn and the Barry Allen material that followed.) The Wally West run is drawn by Scott Kolins and Howard Porter. This is what Johns was doing right before he broke big with Green Lantern. If you like the Flash Rouges Gallery, this run is all about the Rogues.

The Bite

Vampirella  Vampirella: Year One Sacred Six

The Dynamite Christopher Priest Vampirella Sale runs through Monday, 3/31.

Christopher Priest has been on Vampirella for around 6 years now, which is quite a run in the current comics scene. Glancing at his bibliography, he may have written more comics in the Vampirella family than the Black Panther family. If not, he’ll probably pass T’Challa and company by the end of the year?

Unannounced Sales

The Art of Rube Goldberg  Witcher

The Marvel “Maybe” Sales

Ultimate Spider-Man  Phoenix  X-Force

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: Spider-Man; Elektra; Hellboy; Red Sonja

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel has discounts on pretty much the full run(s) of Amazing Spider-Man, plus Elektra. Dynamite slashes prices on Red Sonja crossovers. While Hellboy is blowing up on Hulu, that should be on sale, too… right?

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

Amazing Spider-Man  Amazing Spider-Man  Amazing Spider-Man - Kraven's Last Hunt

Marvel’s Spider-Man Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 3/24.

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.)
  • Superior Spider-Man – Possibly the high point of the Dan Slott era – Doc Ock takes over Peter’s body and life. Surprise, it’s not part of the sale this week (so maybe look for a Superior Spidey sale next week? See: the Elektra sale below this listing)
  • 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-Present) – The current Zeb Wells / John Romita, Jr. / Ed McGuinness run.

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 Epic Collections for the original run (although a few Epic’s run a little higher). 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, since there’s a sequel mini-series out, 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.

A Daredevil Omission Explained

Daredevil & Elektra  Elektra Assassin  Elektra

Marvel Elektra & Kingpin Sale runs through Monday, 3/17.

Remember last week when we were scratching our head about why someone would leave out Daredevil & Elektra from the Daredevil Sale, since it’s the final act of the Zdarsky run?

They were saving it for this week’s sale, but it’s only on sale this week (the DD sale is through the end of the month), so if you want to see how the Zdarsky / Checchetto era ends while it’s discounted, you want to do that now.

Past that, this is really more of an Elektra sale. Elektra highlights over the years:

  • Elektra: Assassin  (’86)– Frank Miller / Bill Sienkiewicz; Originally published under the Epic imprint (to keep it FAR away from the comics code), this is a wild, over-the-top tale of Elektra and a rogue SHIELD agent trying to stop a conspiracy by The Beast (the demon worshipped by the ninjas of The Hand, not the X-Man) from capturing the US presidency through demonic possession. Widely considered a classic and Sienkiewicz gets to really cut loose.
  • Elektra (’96 – ’98) – Peter Milligan / Larry Hama / Mike Deodato, Jr.
  • Elektra (’01 – ’04) – Greg Rucka / Chuck Austen (drawing, not writing) / Joe Bennett / Carlo Pagulayan / Carlos Meglia / Greg Horn

Crossing Over

Red Sonja / Tarzan  Mars Attacks Red Sonja Red Sonja & Vampirella Meet Betty & Veronica.jpg

The Dynamite Red Sonja X-Over Sale runs through Thursday, 3/20.

This would be Red Sonja crossing over with other characters, some obvious and some less intuitive. Some highlights in order of increasingly raised eyebrow:

Unannounced Sales

Hellboy  The Hobbit  The Secret History of Wonder Woman

The Marvel “Maybe” Sales

X-Men  Ultimate Spider-Man  Phoenix

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: Daredevil; Wonder Woman; It’s Jeff; Superman; Black Widow; Grendel; Green Hornet

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel has discounts on Daredevil, Jeff the Landshark, the Women of Marvel and some recent hits. DC also has some recent titles like Wonder Woman, Flash and Superman. Dynamite cuts prices on The Green Hornet. Dark Horse has a Grendel Sale.

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):

Current Events

The Flash  Superman  Wonder Woman

The DC Epic eBooks 2025 Sale runs through Monday, 3/17.

We know what you’re thinking: “wasn’t Epic a Marvel imprint and one of Marvel’s reprint formats?” And you’re right, but here we are! A lot of more recent volumes in this sale… including several that we think are getting their first discounting (or at least having been discounted until recently):

Of this set, we’d draw particular attention to Tom King and Daniel Sampere on Wonder Woman. It’s a dark and political tale about misinformation and there is a sequence in Vol. 2 juxtaposing imagery of a ’50s housewife with the villain quoting scripture that is quite possibly the absolute darkest thing DC has done in-continuity. (Black Label, maybe not.) A series to watch. Oh, and the sequence at the end is an Absolute Power tie-in that could have been labelled better.

Some slightly older things of interest:

The whole sale is worth a browse with a few more $1.99/$2.99 titles hiding in plain sight.

Hornhead

Daredevil  Daredevil Epic Collection  Daredevil by Zdarsky

The Marvel Daredevil Sale runs through Monday, 3/31.

Let’s break this down by series. Like X-Men, Daredevil has had fewer relaunches than some titles.

  • Daredevil ’64-’98 – The original run.
  • Daredevil ’98-11 – The Marvel Knights relaunch. Kevin Smith / Brian Bendis / Ed Brubaker
    • For the Bendis and Brubaker runs, you want the Omnibus section and scroll down for their respective “Ultimate Collections”
  • Daredevil ’11-15 – This was really two volumes with an arbitrary relaunch in the middle, but the excellent run by Mark Waid / Chris Samnee / Paolo Rivera / Javier Rodriguez is a better buy in this 5 volume set that collects both volumes and treats it like the single run it was.
  • Daredevil ’15-’18 – The Charles Soule era with Ron Garney as the main artist.
  • Daredevil ’19-’21 – Chip Zdarsky’s breakout title as a writer. Marco Checcetto is the primary artist.
  • Daredevil: Woman Without Fear ’22 – Zdarsky / Rafael de Latorre; Sort of a bridge title during the Devil’s Reign event, but part of the ongoing plot. Note: this is included in the final DD omnibus for the ’19-’21 run.
  • Daredevil ’22-’23 – Also known as Daredevil & Elektra. The final act to the Zdarsky/Checcetto era; This doesn’t look like it’s actually on sale, which would be silly — it’s the ending to the story.
  • Daredevil ‘23-present – Saladin Ahmed / Aaron Kuder; Picking up after the Zdarsky finale is effectively a “born again” scenario… bit more literally than with Miller.

What’s good here? Honestly, with the exception of the “Shadowlands” Event at the end of the Marvel Knights run, DD has been consistently good to great since Frank Miller showed up. You don’t hear us saying that about every title! We will say that Gene Colan’s return to DD (with Joe Kelly writing) seems to be under the radar these days.  But starting with Miller, just pick a run (Miller / O’Neil / Nocenti / Chichester / Kessel / Kelly / Smith / Bendis / Brubaker / Waid / Soule / Zdarsky / Ahmed) and dig in. Also, you should probably count Bendis and Brubaker as one long run, which is worth it.

Selective Service

Immortal Hulk  Predator versus Wolverine  Ultimate Spider-Man

“Deals on Select Marvel Collections” – no clue how long this one is lasting, but it’s worth checking out.

Things we are currently seeing and can vouch for:

  • The Death of Doctor Strange – Jed MacKay / Lee Garbett; The opening act of MacKay’s excellent run. Yes, Strange really does die
  • Immortal Hulk Vol. 1: Or Is He Both? – Al Ewing / Joe Bennett; One of the best Hulk runs as Al Ewing takes things in an unexpected horror direction
  • Infinity Gauntlet – Jim Starlin / George Perez / Ron Lim; Thanos has collected the Infinity Gems and harnessed them into a gauntlet. Bad things are about to happen
  • Predator Vs. Wolverine – Benjamin Percy / Marco Checchetto / Greg Land / Andrea Di Vito / Ken Lashley; This is exactly what it’s billed as: Wolverine and a Predator having a series of grudge match encounters over the decades… and it’s the best possible version of the setup. If the premise sounds remotely appealing, you should like the execution. We found it a very pleasant surprise
  • Savage Avengers Vol. 1: City Of Sickles – Gerry Duggan / Mike Deodato; The best way to describe this is Conan assembling a Defenders-style non-team of anti-heroes. More fun than than you’re expecting
  • Spider-Man: Kraven’s Last Hunt – J.M. DeMatteis / Mike Zeck; Kraven finally gets the drop on Spidey. One of the darkest Spider-Man tales and the best of the dark ones
  • Star Wars: Darth Vader Vol. 1: Vader – Kieron Gillen / Salvador Larroca; Opening act of a stellar run… and what a way to end the first volume (you’ll see)
  • Ultimate Spider-Man by Jonathan Hickman Vol. 1: Married With Children – Jonathan Hickman / Marco Checchetto; The excellent start to what seems to be Marvel’s most popular ongoing title

Ladies’ Night

Black Widow  Domino  Mystique

The Women of Marvel Sale runs through Monday, 3/10.

This is a deep, 320-item sale and worth some browsing. Do we have some highlights? Absolutely. Particularly where The Black Widow is concerned.

  • Black Widow: Welcome To The Game – Richard K. Morgan / Bill Sienkiewicz / Goran Parlov / Sean Phillips; This collects a pair of good miniseries written by the Altered Carbon author with some enviable artists
  • Black Widow (’16 – ’17) – Mark Waid / Chris Samnee; with that lineup, you already know if you want it or not
  • Black Widow (’20-’22) – Kelly Thompson / Elena Casagrande; All 15 issues of the Eisner-winning series in one volume
  • Captain Marvel (’19 – ’23); Kelly Thompson / Carmen Carnero / Lee Barbett; The Thompson era (which did not have a reboot in the middle!)
  • Domino (’18 – ’19) – Gail Simone / David Baldeon; Oh, look – Gail’s previous stop in the X-verse
  • Hawkeye (’16-’17) – Kelly Thompson / Leonardo Romero; Kate Bishop steps into the spotlight in this “Hawkguy” follow-up
  • Hellcat (’23) – Christopher Cantwell / Alex Lins; A horror / murder mystery as Patsy tries to figure out why her ex- keeps turning up
  • Mystique (’03-’05) – Brian K. Vaughan / Michael Ryan / Jorge Lucas / Manuel Garcia; Yes, that Vaughan guy. Mystique is pressganged into espionage work by Prof. X
  • Spider-Girl (’98-’06) – Tom DeFalco / Pat Olliffe / Ron Frenz; Mayday Parker takes over for her old man
  • X-Terminators – Leah Williams / Carlos Gomez; Hilarious and slightly off-color hijinks and violence occur when Jubilee and Boom-Boom attempt to celebrate Dazzler’s breakup and encounter vampires

Candygram…

West Coast Avengers  King Deadpool  It's Jeff

The Marvel Jeff the Landshark Sale runs through Monday, 3/10.

Jeff has gotten a wee bit more popular after his videogame adventures. To translate these offering into a semblance of order, we’re going to default to what Kelly Thompson says… ’cause she actually knows!

Ergo, the reading list becomes:

  • West Coast Avengers Vol. 2: City Of Evils – Kelly Thompson / Daniele di Nicuolo; Wherein we witness the secret origin of Jeff
  • King Deadpool – Kelly Thompson / Chris Bachalo / Gerardo Sandoval; Gwenpool gives Jeff to Deadpool
  • It’s Jeff – Kelly Thompson / Gurihiru; Collections of the “Infinity Comics” from Marvel Unlimited where Jeff’s popularity started growing
  • Venom War: It’s Jeff – Kelly Thompson / Gurihiru; Jeff crosses over with the Venom War Event

From the Batman Influences File

Green Hornet Omnibus  Green Hornet Year One  Green Hornet

The Dynamite Green Hornet Miss Fury Sale runs through Monday, 3/10.

We welcome Dynamite back to the land of cheap. It’s been awhile. The Green Hornet, technically a Lone Ranger spin-off (although that was established much further into the show), was popular on the radio in the mid-’30s as one of the first wave of superheroes and an influence on the caped crusader. So yes, we’ve read a little Hornet over the years and have some pointers.

The Dynamite Hornet stories start out with an adaption of Kevin Smith’s unproduced screenplay by Phil Hester and Jonathan Lau is a legacy tale of Britt Reid, Jr. taking up the mantle of the Hornet. The first omnibus collects the Smith tale and this version runs for awhile after it.

Green Hornet: Year One has Matt Wagner (Grendel / Mage) and Aaron Campbell (Hellblazer) doing a proper ’30s origin story for the Hornet.

The ’13 Green Hornet series by Mark Waid / Daniel Indro / Ronilson Freire is a favorite here at the Tower of Cheap. The Hornet starts buying his own hype and ends up in over his head with an increasingly guilty conscience. The two volumes form one story.

Green Hornet: Reign Of The Demon by David Liss / Kewber Baal is a pulpy adventure as a rival masked crime lord arrives in Chicago.

Unannounced Sales

Grendel  Door to Door by Night  Murder Book

The Marvel “Maybe” Sales

The Spectacular Spider-Men  NYX X-Men

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: Han Solo/Star Wars; Young Avengers; Batman: Hush; Kodansha Linewide Manga Sale

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel has discounts on Han Solo/Star Wars. DC slashes prices on “essential” titles like New Frontier, Watchmen and a whole bunch of Batman. Kodansha has a linewide sale and… is that Dune?

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):

No Oils Are Included With This Sale

The DC Essentials Sale runs through Monday, 3/3.

There’s an inherent self-back-pat to such lists, but there’s a lot of quality in this sale and plenty of $1.99/$2.99 price points, too.

A few things we found particularly interesting:

  • Batman (’11-’16) – yes, this would be the Scott Snyder/Greg Capullo run for $1.99/volume
  • Batman (’16 – present)  – The Tom King run through the Josh Williamson run, mostly $1.99/volume
  • Batman: The Complete Hush – Jeph Loeb / Jim Lee; If you need a refresher before the sequel…
  • Batman: The Dark Knight Returns – Frank Miller; Miller’s post-modern, dystopian take on an aging Batman ushered in the grim ‘n’ gritty era
  • Batman: Year One – Frank Miller / David Mazzucchelli; Miller’s take on Bruce Wayne’s transition to the cowl
  • Detective Comics (’16 – present) – Call us crazy, but we preferred James Tynion IV’s earlier Detective run to his Batman run, especially when it’s $1.99/volume
  • DC: The New Frontier – Darwyn Cooke’s love letter to the dawn of the Silver Age as the paths of heroes converge to form the Justice League; 500 pages for $2.99 is a good deal, too
  • Final Crisis – Grant Morrison / J.G. Jones / Doug Mahnke / Carlos Pacheco; Includes the necessary tie-ins (to think that Superman Beyond was undersold as part of the main story when it came out…)
  • Kingdom Come – Mark Waid / Alex Ross; A commentary on the grim ‘n’ gritty era (right in the middle of it) as a new generation of heroes lose their way
  • Saga of the Swamp Thing – Alan Moore / Stephen Bissette / John Totleben / Stan Woch; Alan Moore announces his US presence with a classic horror run you could argue is the beginnings of Vertigo
  • Watchmen – Alan Moore / Dave Gibbon; The classic Hugo winner – $2.99
  • Wonder Woman: Dead Earth – Daniel Warren Johnson with a more recent “essential” tome. A Black Label tale finds Wonder Woman awakened in a dystopian hellscape and trying to figure out what happened. It’s Metal.

Han Shot First

Han Solo at Stars' End  Star Wars  Star Wars

The Marvel Han Solo Sale runs through Monday, 3/3.

This sales leans heavily (but not exclusively) on the original Marvel run and the collections that originated at Dark Horse.

The original Marvel run and some of the DH Rebellion collections are near the bottom of this link. Let’s break out the original Marvel volumes:

You’ll find the titular Dark Horse Star Wars here, along with the newspaper strip. Speaking of the strip, prior to Al Williamson tagging in as artist, Archie Goodwin and Alfredo Alcala adapted Han Solo at Stars’ End, which seems appropriate this week.

Did Anybody Card These Heroes?

Young Avengers  Young Avengers  Avengers: The Children's Crusade

The Marvel Young Avengers Sale runs through Monday, 3/3.

We can sum this sale up succinctly. You’re looking at two inclusive volumes:

The creator names are even in the title(s)!

Seriously, though: the Heinberg/Cheung original series was a buzz book that seem to come out of nowhere when it dropped. Hulking and Wiccan have gone on to get pretty fully integrated into the Marvel Universe.

Something that’s not in the sale, but would be of interest if you want to go down the Young Avengers rabbit hole: Avengers: The Children’s Crusade, which we would consider V.2 for Heinberg/Cheung and more fully addresses the Wiccan/Scarlet Witch relationship.

Kodansha Unlimited?

Attack on Titan  That Time I got Reincarnated as a Slime Witch Hat Atelier

The Kodansha Linewide Sale runs through Monday, 3/10.

If you like manga, you probably want to browse this 4000+ item monster of a sale.

A few titles we see mentioned a bit:

Our favorite of the line is still Attack on Titan. That series opens up into a much deeper story than you’d ever suspect in the first volume. Horror? Political thriller? Yes.

Unannounced Sales

Dune  Legend of Korra

The Marvel “Maybe” Sales

Incredible Hulk  Venom  The Spectacular Spider-Men

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: Captain America; DC Team-Ups

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel has discounts on Captain America (Steve Rogers, this time). DC slashes prices on their team-ups (Justice League, Titans, World’s Finest and the like).

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):

Let’s Fight and Then Team Up!

Batman / Dylan Dog  World's Finest  Titans: Beast World

The DC Team-Ups Sale runs through Monday,  2/24.

Team-ups and team books this week. Some of the prices are lower than usual, too. A few things that caught our eye:

  • Batman/Dylan Dog – Roberto Recchioni / Gigi Cavenago / Werther Dell’Edera; Likely DC’s most under-rated title of ’24. Batman and the Italian comics “nightmare detective” (think a good-natured, scatterbrained Constantine with Groucho Marx for a sidekick) team up to track down the Joker… and the goofy thing works so much better than you’d ever suspect!
  • Batman/Superman: World’s Finest – Mark Waid / Dan Mora; Pretty much our favorite DC series right now, chronicling the early pairings of Clark and Bruce… and sneaking a Kingdom Come prequel into the mix, too
  • Doom Patrol (’64-’68) – Arnold Drake / Bruno Premiani; It’s interesting to look at the original Doom Patrol run and contrast it with the original X-Men. They launched at the same time with Doom Patrol wrapping up perhaps a year and a half earlier. Similar themes that took slightly different paths
  • Doom Patrol (’87-’95) – Grant Morrison / Richard Case; $2.99 double volumes of this delightfully off-kilter run with The Brotherhood of Dada and Danny the Street. We’d consider this Morrison’s breakout title
  • Justice League of America (’87 – ’96) – Keith Giffen / J.M. DeMatteis / Kevin Maguire / Bart Sears; Good prices on the early Bwa Ha Ha JLA / JLI / JLE
  • Justice Society of America (2022-) Vol. 1: The New Golden Age – Geoff Johns / Mikel Janin; On sale just in time for V.2’s much delayed arrival
  • New Teen Titans (’80 – ’88) – Marv Wolfman / George Perez; One of DC’s shining lights in the pre-Crisis ’80s as the Titans reform and a new cast forms around Robin/Nightwing, Wonder Girl and Kid Flash
  • Outsiders Vol. 1: Planet of the Bat – Collin Kelly / Jackson Lanzing / Robert Carey; We think this is the first time it’s discounted
  •  Titans: Beast World – Tom Taylor / Clayton Henry / Travis Moore; Changeling gets a little out of control stopping the attack of the Necrostar… but who’s pulling the strings? (Besides Dr. Hate?) The ’23 crossover Event that’s setting up the next one
  • World’s Finest (’12 – ’15) – Paul Levitz / George Perez / Kevin Maguire; Something that was largely overlooked during the New 52 relaunch and you’ll likely know if you’re interested by the creators. Power Girl and Huntress from Earth-2 land on the New 52 version of Earth. Parallel tracks show how they got here and what they’re now doing.

Super Soldier Sale

Captain America: Secret Empire  Captain America Heroes Return  Captain America

The Marvel Captain America Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 2/24.

There’s a lot of material to cover here, so we’ll go with the usual format and start by breaking out the major series involved. Note: we’re again seeing the Masterworks and Epic Collections removed from a legacy sale, so you’re going to need to scroll down more on the first link to see the sale books.

  • Captain America ’68-’96 – The original Silver/Bronze Age solo series.
  • Captain America ’98-’02 – The second Mark Waid / Ron Garney run with some Andy Kubert and Lee Weeks art, too. Smaller volumes here, plus the underrated Dan Jurgens run that followed.
  • Captain America ’02-’04 – The Marvel Knights era
  • Captain America ’04-’11 – The main Winter Soldier/Death of Captain America Ed Brubaker run with Steve Epting, Michael Lark, Mike Perkins and Butch Guice in the artistic rotation. Note: you can pick up chunks of it cheaper in these omnibuses
  • Captain America: Reborn – The actual end to the “Death of Captain America” sequence by Ed Brubaker, Bryan Hitch and Butch Guice
  • Captain America ’11-’12 – Brubaker sticks around for a relaunch, post-Death/Reborn
  • Captain America ’12-’14 is the Rick Remender run with John Romita, Jr, Carlos Pacheco, Pascal Alixe and Nic Klein in the artistic rotation.
  • All-New Captain America ’14-’15 – Sam Wilson picks up the shield by Rick Remender and Stuart Immonen
  • Captain America: Sam Wilson ’15-17 – Nick Spencer with Daniel Acuna as the primary artist. The seeds of “Secret Empire,” which was a long game, start here. Note: There’s a Complete Collection omnibus set of the Sam Wilson material that’s a bit cheaper.
  • Captain America: Steve Rogers ’16-’17 – The main runup to Secret Empire by Nick Spencer with Jesus Saiz and Javier Pina as the primary artists.
  • While not on sale, you can’t talk about the Spencer era without mentioning Secret Empire, the controversial “Hydra Cap” arc that Spencer’s entire run builds towards.
  • Captain America ’17-’18 – AKA Captain America by Mark Waid and Chris Samnee (and Leonardo Romero)
  • Captain America ‘18-’21 – The Ta-Nehisi Coates run with art by Leinil Francis Yu, Adam Kubert, Jason Masters and Leonard Kirk. Save a couple bucks with the 2 omnibuses.
  • Captain America: Symbol of Truth ’22-’23 – Tochi Onyebuchi and R. B. Silva on the Sam Wilson Captain America
  • Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty ’22-’23 – Collin Kelly, Jackson Lanzing and Carmen Carnero on the Steve Rogers Captain America
  • Captain America: Cold War (’23) – Endcap collections as the Symbol of Truth and Sentinel of Liberty stories collide in a crossover.

Things we recommend:

From the first run, there are two collections of the legendary Steve Englehart / Sal Buscema / Frank Robbins run from the early ’70s: Captain America and The Falcon: Secret Empire and Captain America and The Falcon: Nomad. In the first, Cap tracks a conspiracy/coup attempt to the highest levels of government. In the second, a disillusioned Steve Rogers sets down the shield and attempts to take some time off… you can guess how successful he is at that.

Captain America: War And Remembrance: War & Remembrance is the all-too short Roger Stern / John Byrne pairing on the title, which includes the famous Captain America for president issue and the return of Baron Blood (from The Invaders).

Captain America: The Captain by Mark Gruenwald / Kieron Dwyer is the arc where the government takes the shield away from Steve Rogers and gives it to former Super-Patriot and future US Agent, John Walker.

Captain America: Operation Rebirth ends this series with the first Mark Waid / Ron Garney arc before Cap is handed over to Image in Heroes Reborn.

Click here for the second Waid/Garney that resumed as soon as the Image experiment ended.

And then follow the Ed Brubaker-marked links above for an excellent extended arc that plays the long game and was the basis for the Winter Soldier film.

Unannounced Sales

Cyberpunk 2077  Eltingville Club The Hunger and the Dusk

Looks like there’s an unannounced sale on Dark Horse’s Cyberpunk 2077. A video game adaptation with an interesting award to its credit.

The first four collections can be found here.

After which, the property went to the album format Dark Horse sometimes uses for titles with a higher bookstore profile, which are listed with the single issues:

Or save a little with the Cyberpunk 2077 Library Edition Volume 1, which collects 3 volumes.

Big City Dreams was the 2023 Hugo Award winner for Best Graphic Story or Comic. And there you have it.

The Dark Horse works (some of them technically Slave Labor material from back in the day) of Evan Dorkin are also on sale:

Also on sale:

The Marvel “Maybe” Sales

X-Men: Heir of Apocalypse  Incredible Hulk  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: Captain America; Red Hulk; Green Lantern; Power Man and Iron Fist

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel has discounts on Captain America, Red Hulk, Power Man and Iron Fist. DC slashed prices on the Green Lantern Corps. Dark Horse offers deals on Cyberpunk 2077 and the work of Evan Dorkin.

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 Says Romance Like a Red Hulk Movie

Red Hulk Scorched Earth  Fall of the Hulks - Red Hulk  U.S.Avengers

The Marvel Red Hulk sale runs through Monday 2/24.

Only two titles (and an Event extension mini) in this sale. The main one by far is the ’08 – ’13 Hulk series. 17 years after the series launched, we’ll risk the spoiler of the opening arc and say this is where Thunderbolt Ross becomes the Red Hulk.

You can save a little with the Epic Collection of the first 12 issues.

You might want to add Fall of the Hulks: Red Hulk and read it before you get to issue #18. It’s part of the larger “Fall of the Hulks” event that’s not totally collected in the Hulk series. This is by Jeff Parker and Carlos Rodrigues.

After Loeb leaves, Jeff Parker takes over writing and we actually prefer the Parker take on the character. The artists move around a little (it’s that era of Marvel) but Gabriel Hardman / Patrick Zircher / Dale Eaglesham is a pretty good rotation. (And you should have a look at Zircher’s Solomon Kane over in the recent Savage Sword of Conan.)

The other series in the sale is U.S.Avengers by  Al Ewing and Paco Medina, wherein Red Hulk joins up with Squirrel Girl and Sunspot.

Yes, There’s an Obvious Valentine’s Joke and We’re Not Making It

Captain America & the Falcon: Madbomb  Captain America & the Falcon by Christopher Priest  Captain America: Symbol of Truth

The Marvel Captain America: Sam Wilson Sale runs through Monday, 2/24

This would be Sam Wilson, the former Falcon, in the role as Cap. And really there are two halves to this sale. The Sam-as-Captain America side includes:

Then you’ve got the original series where Sam is merely the Falcon. We’d put the highlights of these offerings as:

  • Captain America: Secret Empire and Captain America: Nomad – These are the classic Steve Englehart / Sal Buscema arcs that most people have near or at the top of the Captain America cannon. You hear a bit of shouting about how this was one of the original “political” comics. It’s true – the subtext of Secret Empire is all about Nixon and Watergate, but filtered through more of a Hydra-type lens. Nomad can be read as Steve Rogers reacting to Watergate, but through the Marvel filter, which involves a certain Skull…
  • Captain America: Madbomb is the first big arc from Jack Kirby’s return to Captain America in the ’70s. Steve and Sam face down a conspiracy of billionaires trying to destabilize the country through bombs that makes people explode with rage and riot. Plus… “Killderby.” Another adventure with subtext that seems to remain relevant.
  • Captain America & The Falcon by Christopher Priest – The Complete Collection – Priest / Bart Sears / Joe Bennett; This is an under the radar run that has Steve and Sam chasing nested conspiracies involving a drug cartel, an “anti-Cap” who might be working for the Navy and MODOK.

Sweet Christmas!

Iron Fist  Power Man and Iron Fist  Immortal Iron Fist

The Marvel Luke Cage and Iron Fist Sale runs through Monday, 2/17.

Once upon a time there were two series: Luke Cage, Hero for Hire / Power Man and Iron Fist.

You can get the first 23 issues of Hero for Hire/Power Man in an Epic Collection.  There were several creators involved, including Archie Goodwin, Steve Englehart, Tony Isabella, George Tuska and Billy Graham. There’s a certain amount of camp to it, but the early tale of Doctor Doom trying to skip out on his bill is what we’d call a heart-warming favorite. The listing on Amazon then forks over to Power Man for the rest of the solo run.

Iron Fist had a shorter run and you can get the entire solo series (Marvel Premiere and Iron Fist) in an Epic Collection. The run is most associated with the team it finished with: an early pairing of Chris Claremont and John Byrne. You may have heard of them.

The two books then merged into the longer-running Power Man & Iron Fist. Now here’s something we don’t always say: this one’s in Epic Collections, but not Masterworks format. Claremont & Byrne left shortly thereafter, paving the way for Jo Duffy, who might be most associated with it. Among the creators working on it were Duffy, Denny O’Neil, (a very young) Kurt Busiek, Christopher Priest, Kerry Gammil, Denys Cowan, Greg Larocque and Mark Bright. A stronger lineup than you might have guessed and a comic that remembered to be goofy at times.

It was revived as Heroes for Hire by John Ostrander and Pasqual Ferry in ’97. We also have a soft spot for the David Walker / Sanford Greene Power Man & Iron Fist in ’16.

But the best of the bunch? The Immortal Iron Fist. People are most familiar with the first half of the series, with the celebrated team of Ed Brubaker/Matt Fraction/David Aja. We’re here to tell you that the back half by Duane Swierczynski/Travel Foreman is also pretty darn good. Plus, more Fat Cobra! Don’t sleep on the back half. Good value with those collected editions, too!

Seeing Green (Featuring a Few More $1.99 Volumes)

Green Lantern   Green Lantern by Geoff Johns   Green Lantern

The DC Green Lantern Corps Sale runs through Monday, 2/17.

Green Lantern’s been rebooted a LOT over the years (especially post-New 52), so let’s start out by listing the major titles involved here.

  • Green Lantern (’60-’86) – The original, although only certain stretches are collected.
  • Green Lantern Corps (’86-’88) – The original title changed to Corps to wrap up the Steve Englehart/Joe Staton era. We consider this the last stretch of the original series.
  • Green Lantern (’90 – ’04) – Only some of the Kyle Rayner material is collected from this era.
  • Green Lantern (’05 – ’11) – The Geoff Johns era (and one of the character’s best periods), but this is complicated to get the best deal. The omnibus editions  aren’t complete yet and are broken up into different sets than the single volumes though the single volumes are mostly cheaper.  You also should get Blackest Night to go with that volume of the series. There are all sorts of tie-ins for Blackest Night, but the omnibus of that does not seem to be offered in digital.
  • Green Lantern Corps Recharge (’05 – ’06) – Geoff Johns / Dave Gibbons / Patrick Gleason set up the GLC ongoing
  • Green Lantern Corps (’06-’11) – The companion book to Green Lantern, initially by Dave Gibbons / Patrick Gleason
  • Green Lantern (’11-’16) – New 52 relaunch. Starts out with Geoff Johns / Doug Mahnke, then Robert Venditti/Billy Tan start a long run.
  • Green Lantern: New Guardians (’11-’15)-The New 52 Kyle Raynor series
  • Green Lantern Corps (’11-’15) – The New 52 John Stewart / Guy Gardner / Kilowog series
  • Red Lanterns (’11-’15) – Yes, even the Red Lanterns had a New 52 book!
  • Sinestro (’14-’16) – Cullen Bunn / Dale Eaglesham / Brad Walker
  • Green Lantern/New Gods: Godhead (’14-’15) – Event crossing over with the entire GL line
  • Green Lantern Corps: Lost Army (’15) – Cullen Bunn / Jesus Saiz
  • Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps (’16-’18) – The DCU Rebirth relaunch, initially by Robert Venditti and Rafa Sandoval
  • Green Lanterns (’16-’18) – Rebirth title starring Simon Baz and Jessica Cruz
  • Green Lantern (’19) – Also known as “Season One” by Grant Morrison and Liam Sharp
  • Green Lantern: Season Two (’20-’21) – finishing the Morrison/Sharp storyline
  • Green Lantern (’21-’22) – More of a John Stewart / Jo Mullein / Teen Lantern series by Geoffrey Thorne and Tom Raney
  • Green Lantern: War Journal (’23 – current) – Jeremy Adams / Montos; John Stewart is stalked by a particularly horrific extradimensional incursion

So what’s good? As a consequence of there not being that much reprinted, what’s available of the  original run is pretty solid. The early Broome/Kane. O’Neil/Adams. Wein/Gibbons. Englehart/Staton. All good stuff.

The Geoff Johns era is particularly good. We’d put Sinestro Corps War as the best sequence, if we had to pick.

The Morrison / Sharp run is also interesting. It starts out as more of a police procedural in space and then progressively gets stranger, with Sharp embracing the fantastical elements and leaning into that with the art. But remember, the two seasons (One and Two) form a single story.

Unannounced Sales

Cyberpunk 2077  Eltingville Club The Hunger and the Dusk

Looks like there’s an unannounced sale on Dark Horse’s Cyberpunk 2077. A video game adaptation with an interesting award to its credit.

The first four collections can be found here.

After which, the property went to the album format Dark Horse sometimes uses for titles with a higher bookstore profile, which are listed with the single issues:

Or save a little with the Cyberpunk 2077 Library Edition Volume 1, which collects 3 volumes.

Big City Dreams was the 2023 Hugo Award winner for Best Graphic Story or Comic. And there you have it.

The Dark Horse works (some of them technically Slave Labor material from back in the day) of Evan Dorkin are also on sale:

Also on sale:

The Marvel “Maybe” Sales

Daredevil  The Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe X-Men: Heir of Apocalypse

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: Fantastic Four; Black Panther; Miles Morales; Doctor Doom; Black Lightning; Hard Case Crime

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel discounts the full run (mostly) of Fantastic Four, plus Black Panther, Miles Morales and Doctor Doom. DC offers a “Power” sale (Black Lightning, John Stewart and friends). Titan slashes prices on Hard Case Crime titles and Dark Horse has a manga sale.

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):

Four Play

Fantastic Four - The Coming of Galactus    Fantastic Four by Waid   Fantastic Four by Hickman

Marvel’s Fantastic Four Sale runs through Monday, 2/17.

So, first let’s break down the various FF titles/volumes on sale:

Yes, Fantastic Four has been relaunched less than other Marvel titles.  As to what’s good, the gold standard has always been the Stan Lee/Jack Kirby run. (And yes, we do think you can draw a straight line from Kirby’s Challengers of the Unknown at DC to Fantastic Four.) We’d say they start to hit their stride a few issues before Galactus shows up – V.3 of the Epic Collections (“The Coming of Galactus“) or V.4/5 of the Masterworks editions and you can ride a very fun train from there to the end of Lee/Kirby.

And at this point, we should talk about the “pick your poison” of Epic vs. Masterworks.  The Masterworks are built out straight into the Byrne era. We think the $6.99 Epic Collections are the best value here, though some of the newer ones are priced higher. The discounted Epics are now a little past the Lee/Kirby era, but stop with #191 and then pick up again after Byrne’s run. Pick the format that works for you and has the issues you’re looking for.

Speaking of Byrne’s run, that’s the next highpoint that everyone agrees on.  How to read Byrne? Well, there are 6 volumes of Masterworks on sale (V. 21-26) or you can hop on to Fantastic Four Visionaires: John Byrne. You’d need to cut over to the Visionaries run in the middle of  V. 7 to pick up where the discounted Masterworks leave off.  These comics really ought to be in an Epic Collections, but Marvel doesn’t seem in any hurry to roll the Visionaires up into a more economical package. (Or should we say, economical when it’s on sale?) We figure the run will at least need to finish up in Masterwork format first and V. 27 is scheduled for June ’25, so there you go.

Move ahead a bit and Walt Simonson had a stint that may be a little more notable for being an early appearance of the Time Variance Authority (which actually debuted in his Thor run). This is most easily grabbed across Epic Collections V.20 and V.21.

Fast forward a bit to the Heroes Reborn era and there is a LOT to love about the Mark Waid / Mike Wieringo run. They brought back the “explorer” vibe from Lee/Kirby era that isn’t always there and upped the sense of wonder. You’d want the four Ultimate Collection volumes that start here. The “regular” collections don’t go all the way to the end.

Dwayne McDuffie and Paul Pelletier jumped in for an arc with Black Panther and Storm briefly joining the team.

And then, of course, there’s the the Hickman era. A long storyline that laid the groundwork for his Avengers run and you can certainly argue that his Secret Wars endcap to that is a Fantastic Four / Doctor Doom story. The omnibus editions we highlighted above include his FF spin-off comic that frequently crossed over with Fantastic Four, much like the Avengers titles flowed together. That packaging will be a better experience.

T’Challa Forever

Black Panther Masterworks  Black Panther by Priest  Black Panther

The Marvel Black Panther Sale runs through Monday, 3/3.

  • The Don McGregor era (AKA, pre-Priest), where Don McGregor was primary author… with a notable Kirby interlude. The best way to navigate the multiple editions is:
  • The Chrisopher Priest era  – with art by Mark Texiera, M.D. Bright and Sal Velluto (among others)
  • The Reggie Hudlin era (yes, “House Party” / “Boomerang” Hudlin) – with art by John Romita, Jr., Scot Eaton and Denys Cowan (among others)
    • Separate from the regular series is the excellent Flags of Our Fathers by Hudlin and Denys Cowan, which features a WWII era tale of Captain America “visiting” Wakanda and meeting T’Challa’s grandfather, the Black Panther of that period.
  • The Ta-Nehisi Coates era (yes, from The Atlantic) – while the volumes are numbered consecutively, it’s split into two listing
    • Part one – with art by Brian Stelfreeze and Chris Sprouse (among others)
    • Part two – with art by Daniel Acuna and Kev Walker (among others)
  • The John Ridley era (Yes, Oscar-winner Ridley from 12 Years a Slave) – with art by Juann Cabal and German Peralta
  • The Eve Ewing era – with art by Chris Allen

That first McGregor / Graham run really is the foundational work for everything that comes and should be read first. As a major bonus, it’s great work and ahead of its time.

Priest’s extended run lives up to it’s reputation for excellence, so that’s your second must-read for exploring the Panther.

We like Hudlin’s run, too.

For something a little off the beaten path, Range Wars is something you get for the titular arc that’s the last two issues of the collection. John Ridley and German Peralta offer a particularly savage satire of colonialism.

There’s a bit more to sale, but the above is the core.

The Once and Future Ultimate Spidey

  Miles Morales: Spider-Man  Miles Morales

The Marvel Miles Morales Sale runs through Monday, 3/3.

Miles, of course, was the second Ultimate Spider-Man, but that world no longer exists and now there’s a new Ultimate Spider-Man and… we wouldn’t want to explain that to somebody walking in off the street.

For the first Brian Bendis/David Marquez/Sara Pichelli run, you’re probably best off with the Miles Morales: Ultimate Spider-Man Ultimate Collection set.

Then pop over to the  ’16-18 Bendis /Pichelli Spider-Man run.

And after that wraps, it’s time for Miles Morales by Saladin Ahmed and Javier Garron.

The current series is Miles Morales: Spider-Man by Cody Ziglar and Federico Vicentini. 

Victor Von Doom Bows Before No Man!

Doctor Doom  Avengers - The Private War of Doctor Doom  Doctor Strange & Doctor Doom: Triumph and Torment

The Marvel Doctor Doom Sale runs through Monday, 2/17.

The top dog here is the Doctor Doom series by Christopher Cantwell and Salvador Larroca. Its an instant classic well worth your time. Doom has been framed. For now he’s on the run, but his vengeance will be terrible. Featuring Kang in a highly amusing frenemy role.

Avengers: The Private War of Doctor Doom has a lot of creators with Gerry Conway, Steve Englehart and Jim Shooter as the primary writers and George Perez as the primary artist. This is a cross-over between Super Villain Team-Up (a better than you might think series that was basically Namor and Doom plotting against each other) and Avengers.

Doctor Strange & Doctor Doom: Triumph and Torment by Roger Stern and Mike Mignola has Strange and Doom invading Hell to free Doom’s mother from the clutches of Mephisto.

Also of possible interest – Iron Man: Doomquest collects a famous pair of David Michelinie / Bob Layton tales (w/John Romita, Jr. on the first) that have a time travelling Doom clashing with Iron Man.  Iron Man: Legacy of Doom is the lesser-known Michelinie/Layton/Ron Lim follow-up.

While we’re not sure we’d call it a Doom story, per se, Blood Hunt‘s ending certainly sets up the next big Doctor Doom story arc. This would be a Jed MacKay/Pepe Larraz tale. We’re thinking this is Blood Hunt‘s first time discounted?

Power Up

Black Lightning  Green Lantern War Journal  The Terrifics

The DC Power 2025 Sale runs through Monday, 2/10.

A few things we saw that caught our eye:

  • Black Lightning – Tony Isabella / Trevor Von Eeden; Then Denny O’Neil / Gerry Conway / Dick Dillon / Marshall Rogers; V.1 is the original solo series, V.2 is the backups that rounded out the ’70s.
  • Green Lantern: War Journal Vol. 1: Contagion – Phillip Kennedy Johnson / Montos; Particularly horrific extradimensional beings hunt John Stewart
  • Justice League by Christopher Priest – Priest / Pete Woods – An ode to toxic fandom
  • The Terrifics – Jeff Lemire / Gene Yang / Ivan Reis / Doc Shaner / Steven Segovia; Mister Terrific, Metamorpho, Plastic Man and Phantom Girl in a team book. Whatever made you think it’s offbeat? The only DC New Age of Heroes title to get traction.

Theft

Gun Honey  Ms. Tree  Tyler Cross

The Titan Hard Case Crime Comics Sale run through  Friday, 2/28.

Hard Case was originally a publisher of pulp-influenced crime novels that eventually came into Titan’s publishing orbit and added a line of comics, often written by well known crime novelists. Most of these titles come in two flavors: collected editions and $0.99 single issues. Watch the page count, but you’ll usually find the single issues are cheaper when available.

  • The Big Hoax – Carlos Trillo / Roberto Mandrafina
  • Breakneck – Duane Swierczynski / Simone Guglielmini
  • Frank Lee, After Alcatraz – David Hasteda / Ludovic Chesno
  • Gamma Draconis – Eldo Yoshimizu / Benoist Simmat
  • Gun Honey – Charles Ardai  / Ang Hor Kheng
  • The Millennium Trilogy – Sylvain Runberg / Stieg Larsson / Jose Homs  / Manolo Carot / José Homs / Belen Ortega; as in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
  • Ms. Tree – Max Allan Collins / Terry Beatty; Collins riffs on Mike Hammer decades before working on those novels. V. 1-2 are actually the Ms. Tree Quarterly issues from DC at the end of the run. The original run starts in V. 3. Beatty now works on the Rex Morgan, MD and Phantom comic strips
  • Normandy Gold – Megan Abbott / Alison Gaylin / Steve Scott
  • Peepland – Christa Faust / Gary Phillips / Andrea Camerini
  • The Prague Coup – Jean-Luc Fromental / Miles Hyman; Graham Greene is reimagined into a coup attempt
  • Quarry’s War – Max Allan Collins / Szymon Kudranski; The novels about the assassin, Quarry, go all the way back to ’76 and precedes Collins writing Dick Tracy
  • Ryuko – Eldo Yoshimizu
  • Tyler Cross – by Fabien Nury / Bruno

Ms. Tree is probably the most famous comic here. Max Allan Collins has all his bona fides from Dick Tracy to The Road to Perdition to getting named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America.

What you might not realize is that Charles Ardai, the head of Hard Case, is actually an Edgar and Shamus winner in his own right.

Unannounced Sales

Astro Boy Elfen Lied Path of the Assassin

Dark Horse has a wide selection of their manga titles on sale this week. Some titles we noticed:

Also on sale:

The Marvel “Maybe” Sales

The Ultimates  Daredevil  The Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe

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

  • Ultimates By Deniz Camp Vol. 1: Fix The World – Deniz Camp / Juan Frigeri; While not the cheapest thing listed, we’ve been pretty happy with this dark and twisted world builder. Doom and She-Hulk? Not necessarily what you were expecting. $12.99

Dropping Next Week

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Marvel Cosmic; DC’s Milestone Team; Spider-Woman; Resident Alien; Richard Corben

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel discounts their cosmic titles. DC cuts prices for the Milestone Team; Dark Horse highlights Resident Alien and Richard Corben.

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):

All McDuffie, All the Time

Justice League  Hardware  Lobo

The DC Team Milestone Sale runs through Monday, 2/3.

You may notice that there’s a lot of Dwayne McDuffie material on sale, which is always a good thing. Some McDuffie books we like:

The Justice League of America run (despite his issues with editorial): The Injustice League, Sanctuary, The Second Coming, and When Worlds Collide w/Ed Benes (and Alan Burnett).

We also think extremely highly of Hardware: The Man in the Machine w/ Denys Cowan and JJ Birch, which is pretty much how intellectual property worked in the tech industry in the early 90s.

Some interesting books by other people:

  • Batman: Second Chances – Max Allan Collins / Dave Cockrum; Jim Starlin / Jim Aparo; The Collins run and revamping of Jason Todd and the beginning of the Starlin/Aparo run
  • Deathstroke (’16) – Christopher Priest / Carlo Pagulayan / Diogenes Neves; A dark and psychological take… and definitely a lead who’s a villain, not an anti-hero
  • Lobo by Keith Giffen & Alan Grant Vol. 1 – Keith Giffen / Alan Grant / Simon Bisley; The over-top exploits of The Main Man from the early 90s.

If you haven’t had a look at the DC Start Here sale, that’s still running through Monday and has lots of bargains.

Cosmic Slop

The Marvel Cosmic Sale runs through Tuesday, 2/4.

This is, after a fashion, a convergence of smaller sales as we follow the thread of cosmic tales and characters through Marvel. The threads weave in and out, but for the sake of easy processing, let’s look at them this way:

The Marvel World of Jim Starlin
Warlock Rebirth of Thanos

Jim Starlin defined “cosmic” for Marvel in the 70s and then returned in the late 80s to revive it (and his signature villain, Thanos) in the run-up to The Infinity Gauntlet, after which things kinda blew up.

Starlin’s Captain Marvel is missing, but Warlock by Jim Starlin: The Complete Collection is available on the cheap. It’s highly recommended and a foundational work for a lot of what is to come.

The lack of Epic Collections hampers the availability of Starlin’s Silver Surfer run in this sale, but The Rebirth of Thanos w/ Ron Lim, which sets up The Infinity Gauntlet is included.

Silver Surfer

Silver Surfer: Parable Silver Surfer: Requiem Silver Surfer

Most of the “classic” Surfer runs are missing with the lack of Epics and Masterworks in the sale

Original Guardians of the Galaxy

Guardians of the Galaxy: Tomorrow's Avengers   Guardians of the Galaxy by Jim Valentino

No, not like the movies or spinning out of Annihilation (we’ll get to that in a bit), this was a super team in the future that occasionally returned to our present. They weren’t created by Steve Gerber, but he built them up in Defenders and then Marvel Presents before moving on.

Honestly, this is our preferred GoG. The originals are solid. The Valentino run is a trip (and seems like it must’ve been an influence on Bendis when he rebooted Legion of Super-Heroes). Very different from what came later, though.

Nova

Nova Classic   Nova by Abnett & Lanning

High school student Richard Rider becomes a centurion of the Nova Corps and tries to figure out his powers in the initial run. By the time DnA get ahold of the character, he’s a veteran and the road to Annihilation has begun.

  • Nova (1976-78) – The original Marv Wolfman/John Buscema/Sal Buscema/Carmine Infantino run
  • Nova (2007-10) – The Dan Abnett/Andy Lanning/Paul Pelletier/Kev Walker/Andrea di Vito era – the Complete Collection is the better deal.
  • Nova (2013-15) – Gerry Duggan / Paco Medina was probably the longest tenured creative team of this volume.
  • Nova: Resurrection (2015) – Jeff Loveness / Ramon Perez
  • Nova: The Human Rocket (2015-16) – Sean Ryan / Cory Smith / John Timms

What’s good here?  We’d go with the original run or the DnA run (complete with a space station carved out of a Celestial’s head – yes, the concept predates Avengers Mountain).

Annihilation

Annihilation

Annihilation was a crossover Event for Marvel’s fledging “cosmic” line in which Annihilus mounted a deadly invasion from the Negative Zone. It struck a nerve.

Annihilation is the first series of mini-series.

Annihilation: Conquest is the sequel as Ultron and the Phalanx make their move.  This leads into the formation of the new Guardians of the Galaxy.

Annihilation: Scourge is 2019 entry in the series.

New Guardians of the Galaxy (The DnA cast or movie version if you must)

Guardians of the Galaxy   Guardians of the Galaxy

We LOVED the final Ewing/Cabal series, which ends with “The Final Annihilation.” And if you liked Nova and the Annihilation Events, the DnA run is the continuation of that format. The ’23 version of GoG is indisputably the Kev Walker show.

Eensy Weensy

 Spider-Woman  Spider-Woman

The Marvel Spider-Woman Sale runs through Tuesday, 2/4

Last week, we noted a lack of Masterworks in the X-Men sale. This week, in the Cosmic sale. Guess what? Same deal with Spider-Woman, so the ’78-’83 original run is off the table. Is this going to be a trend for ’25? Time will tell.

Unannounced Sales

Resident Alien  Den  Stephen King's the Dark Tower

Resident Alien is a comic by Peter Hogan and Steve Parkhouse about a stranded alien posing as a doctor and solving murders. It got a little more famous when a TV adaptation hit and a lot more famous when the TV show moved over to Netflix. (And will now be moving over to the USA cable network.) We read the first omnibus a few months back and if your point of reference is the TV show, the comic is a little more mystery-oriented. It’s available in

Note: the 7th series is only available as a collected edition at this time.

We’re also seeing an assortment of Richard Corben’s Dark Horse publications on sale:

Also on sale:

The Marvel “Maybe” Sales

Hellverine: Resurrection  Jango Fett

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

  • Ultimates By Deniz Camp Vol. 1: Fix The World – Deniz Camp / Juan Frigeri; While not the cheapest thing listed, we’ve been pretty happy with this dark and twisted world builder. Doom and She-Hulk? Not necessarily what you were expecting. $12.99

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Uncanny X-Men, DC “Start Here,” Original Sin, Elfquest, Bendis at Dark Horse

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel discounts Uncanny X-Men and Original Sin. DC cuts pricing for their “start here” titles. Dark Horse has sales on Elfquest and Bendis.

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 Starting Line

All-Star Superman  Far Sector  Swamp Thing

The DC Start Here sale runs through Monday, 2/3.

Hello, more holiday prices and plenty of $1.99 books in the mix. It looks like this is largely, but not completely, a first volume in the series sale. Well, let’s be rebels and concentrate on good reads that are a little more self-contained, shall we? (But it’s worth your time to have a good browse through the actual sale. It’s quite long and the prices are good.)

  • All-Star Superman – Grant Morrison / Frank Quitely; A love letter to the Silver Age Superman and something a certain Mr. Gunn has been recommending as a touchpoint
  • Batman: The Complete Hush – Jeph Loeb / Jim Lee; It’s not like they’re doing a sequel… or are they?
  • Batman: The Dark Knight Returns – Frank Miller; One of the books that launched post-modernism
  • Batman: Killing Time – Tom King / David Marquez; A noir heist caper with Gotham’s villains bickering over the loot as Batman’s pursuit gets closer
  • Batman: The Long Halloween – Jeph Loeb / Tim Sale; The classic tale of Batman hunting a murderer who slays on holidays
  • Batman: Tales of the Demon – Denny O’Neil / Neal Adams / Don Newton; The original Ra’s al Ghul tales, including the ’79-’80 return in Detective.
  • Tales of the Batman: Steve Englehart – Englehart / Marshall Rogers / Walter Simonson; All of Englehart’s Batman. If the original Detective run isn’t the best Batman run, it’s at least top 3. Highly recommended
  • Batman: Year One – Frank Miller / David Mazzucchelli; Miller’s take on Batman’s origin
  • Batwoman by Greg Rucka and J.H. Williams – Get their complete collaboration with this volume. Great run.
  • Camelot 3000 – Mike W. Barr / Brian Bolland; The Knights of Camelot return to fend off an alien invasion
  • Challengers of the Unknown by Jack Kirby – Dave Wood / Jack Kirby; Kirby’s ’58 hit for DC is a pretty much a dry run for the Fantastic Four, except the villains are the ones with powers
  • DC: The New Frontier – Darwyn Cooke’s masterpiece about the dawn of the Silver Age. All in one volume. 500 pages / $2.99 and a highest possible recommendation
  • The Demon by Jack Kirby – Kirby’s horror-adventure series about a man bound to a demon by Merlin
  • Dial H – China Mieville / Alberto Ponticelli / Mateus Santolouco; OK, Mieville has been the dean of “weird fiction” for quite some time, but now that he’s collaborated with Keanu on a BZRKR novel (quite good, btw), you might take interest in his take on Dial H for Hero. Mostly under the radar, but wonderfully bizarre
  • Far Sector – N.K. Jemisin / Jamal Campbell; A rookie Green Lantern with an experimental ring investigates a murder on a planet that hasn’t seen violence in 500 years. Excellent worldbuilding. Highly recommended
  • Final Crisis – Grant Morrison / J.G. Jones / Doug Mahnke / Carlos Pacheco; Darkseid takes over in this Event and this has the necessary tie-ins. 456 pages for $1.99
  • The Flash: Savage Velocity – Mike Baron / William Messner-Loebs / Jackson Guice / Mike Collins; The beginning of the Wally West Flash era with the full Baron run and beginning of Messner-Loeb’s tenure
  • The Forever People by Jack Kirby – Jack Kirby; A Fourth World collection
  • Gotham City: Year One – Tom King / Phil Hester; The story of how Gotham City got so bad as Slam Bradley involves the kidnapping of the Wayne baby
  • The Huntress- Origins – Paul Levitz / Joe Staton; The collected solo adventures of The Huntress, back when the character was the daughter of Batman and Catwoman.
  • Jonah Hex: Welcome To Paradise – John Albano / Michael Fleischer / Tony DeZuniga; Early (70s) stories we don’t always see at a discount
  • Jonah Hex: Shadows West – Joe R. Lansdale / Tim Truman; All three of the Lansdale/Truman series with a weird western/horror angle on Hex. Under the radar these days, but high octane weird. 387 pages
  • Kingdom Come – Mark Waid / Alex Ross; A dystopian confrontation between the old guard and new heroes… or a critique of the the grim’n’gritty era?
  • The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen – Alan Moore, Kevin O’Neill; Just pretend the godawful film doesn’t exist. Moore & O’Neill assemble a team of reluctant government operatives from ~1880s SF/F and Horror literature. And a bit more accurately than many of the media adaptions (particularly Nemo). Wonderful series with very funny and subversive advertisements (you’ll see)
  • Legion of Super-Heroes: The Great Darkness Saga – Paul Levitz / Keith Giffen; A 400+ page volume with arguably the greatest Legion tale… for $1.99, cheap
  • Manhunter by Archie Goodwin and Walter Simonson Deluxe Edition – Simply one of the best adventure comics of all time, as you might guess from Archie and Walt collaborating. Highest possible recommendation
  • Mister Miracle by Jack Kirby – Jack Kirby; Kirby’s Fourth World series about a son of New Genesis who was raised on Apokalypse and became the greatest escape artist across all those worlds
  • Mister Miracle (’17-’19) – Tom King / Mitch Gerads; The Eisner winning series where Scott Free tries to escape death itself
  • The Multiversity – Grant Morrison / Frank Quitely / Ivan Reis; A tale that hops across parallel Earths as Morrison goes wild with world-building. 450 pages
  • New Gods by Jack Kirby – Jack Kirby; The original tale of Darkseid and Peak Kirby. Highly recommended
  • Night Force (’82-83) – Marv Wolfman / Gene Colan; The Tomb of Dracula team reunites at DC for a horror book about a mansion that contains a portal through space and time and its mysterious owner. Marv told us this is his favorite of his work and we happily recommend it
  • OMAC : One Man Army Corps by Jack Kirby – Jack Kirby; Kirby’s adventure-satire about a corporate dystopian future has aged well and has more bite than you might expect
  • One-Star Squadron – Mark Russell / Steve Leiber; A pitch black satire of the gig economy as Red Tornado attempts to run a heroes for hire app
  • Ronin – Frank Miller; Something of an experimental comic at the time, this is Miller’s mashup of cyberpunk and samurai mixing reincarnation, demons and cyborgs
  • Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow – Tom King / Bilquis Evely; Another James Gunn favorite
  • Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen by Jack Kirby – Jack Kirby; A fourth world entrant, this is effectively Kirby’s Superman book. Also where Project Cadmus and the DNAliens come from. Don’t shun it because it’s ’70s Jimmy Olsen. It’s Kirby doing adventure
  • Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen: Who Killed Jimmy Olsen? – Matt Fraction / Steve Lieber; A comedy masterpiece. Jimmy wakes up hung over and freshly married in Gorilla City… and that’s before he has to figure out who’s trying to ice him. Tour de force
  • Superman: Red Son – Mark Millar / Dave Johnson Killian Plunkett; What If baby Kal-El’s rocket landed in the Soviet Union? (See what we did there?)
  • Superman Smashes the Klan – Gene Yang / Gurihiru;
  • Swamp Thing: The Bronze Age, Vol. 1 – Len Wein / Bernie Wrightson; The original run, which is universally considered a classic for good reason
  • Top 10 – Alan Moore / Gene Ha / Zander Cannon; Eisner-winning mixing of superheroes with a Hill Street Blues style police procedural; highly recommended
  • V for Vendetta – Alan Moore / David Lloyd; A tale of resistance in an authoritarian dystopia. And it seems it’s listed as an “eTextbook.” Such a world we live in
  • Watchmen – Alan Moore / Dave Gibbons – We assume you don’t need this one explained to you

X Marks the Price Tag

X-Men Epic Collection: The Sentinels Live  X-Men Epic Collection  X-Men: The Fate of the Phoenix

The Marvel Uncanny X-Men Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 2/4.

It’s a legacy sale, so it’s the Uncanny X-Men core… although this may shorter list than some of the legacy sales. For instance,  X-Men wasn’t part of Heroes Reborn, so no relaunch there.

As is our custom, let’s run through the key series included, first:

  • Uncanny X-Men ’63-’11 – The original X-Men, the “new” X-Men, Morrison… it’s a long run.
  • Uncanny X-Men  ’11-’12 – The original Kieron Gillen era
  • Uncanny X-Men ’13-’15 – The Brian Bendis / Chris Bachalo era (Battle of the Atom fits in with this run as a crossover)
  • Uncanny X-Men ’16-’17 – The Cullen Bunn / Greg Land / Ken  Lashley era
  • Uncanny X-Men ’18-’19 – The Mathew Rosenberg era

And you might be asking yourself, “aren’t there usually more than one X-Men title and don’t they cross over a lot?” Yes, that would be a potential issue… pun intended. Not so much with the Epic Collections as with the later series, and there are some Event collections in the sale, too.

If you’ve never tried the original X-Men, we’d say go with The Sentinels Live Epic Collection. It’s at the very tail end of the original run that the original X-Men run is at its best: a bit of Jim Steranko and then a Roy Thomas / Neal Adams sequence that ended all too quickly.

For the “new” X-Men, we’re cool with the theory that Giant-Sized X-Men #1 / Uncanny X-Men #94 through #200 is one big arc. That’s where we’d start if we were new. The Epic Collections that are discounted only take you to #153. (The next Epic with a discount only takes you to #198, which is short of the finish line!)

For an alternate jumping on point, perhaps the Ed Brubaker era, which is collected in three volumes starting with Rise and Fall of the Shi’ar Empire.

We thought the Bendis era was better than it’s reputation, but aware that it runs parallel with All-New X-Men, which isn’t in this sale.

If you were wondering, Grant Morrison is filed under New X-Men and not part of this sale.

Also be aware that X-Men: Reload is effectively the omnibus version of Uncanny X-Men: The New Age, where Chris Claremont returned to the book with Alan Davis.

Point of Origin

Original Sin   Original Sin: Hulk vs. Iron Man   Original Sin: Thor & Loki

The Marvel Original Sin Sale runs through Monday, 1/27.

This would be the Marvel Event by Jason Aaron and Mike Deodato where the Marvel heroes investigate the murder of The Watcher.

Original Sin is the core series.

Original Sin: Hulk Vs. Iron Man by Mark Waid, Kieron Gillen and Mark Bagley is really Original Sin 3.1-3.4

Original Sin: Thor & Loki: The Tenth Realm by Jason Aaron, Al Ewing, Simone Bianchi and Lee Garbett is really Original Sin 5.1 – 5.5

As with most Marvel Events, there are plenty of tie-ins and all manner ways to read them (that involve flipping between collections), but that’s the most central set.

Unannounced Sales

Elfquest  Nancy: A Comic Collection

Dark Horse is having an Elfquest sale.

The Complete Elfquest is the omnibus series that will take you all the way from the beginning through The Final Quest. It’s a very good value.

ElfQuest: Stargazer’s Hunt Complete Edition, illustrated by Sonny Strait, is Skywise’s adventure that follows The Final Quest.

Dark Horse has a big block of Brian Bendis titles on sale. Let’s hit the numbers first:

And also Masters of the Universe (otherwise known as He-Man)

Also on sale:

The Marvel “Maybe” Sales

Alien: Black White & Blood  Hellverine: Resurrection  Jango Fett

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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