In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, DC does a “Lanterns” sale. Marvel issues discounts on Spider-Man, Wolverine and Ghost Rider. Plus, Dark Horse manga.
Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?
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In case you’re having troubles with the new UIX (a LOT of people have been):
So Many Spiders…
Marvel’s Amazing Spider-Man Sale runs through Monday, 9/28.
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 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.) Now… this Amazon’s listings, so you knew something had to be messed
- Superior Spider-Man – Possibly the high point of the Dan Slott era – Doc Ock takes over Peter’s body and life. The Complete Collections are the way to go here.
- 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:
- Amazing Spider-Man (2022 – 25) – The Zeb Wells / John Romita, Jr. / Ed McGuinness run.
- Amazing Spider-Man (2025-present) – The current Joe Kelly / Pepe Larraz / John Romita, Jr. run.
Or if you prefer the Stan Lee / John Romita newspaper comic strip, that’s on sale, too.
Recommendations? Well, first off Amazing Spider-Man doesn’t really have very many BAD periods. 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.
We’d also recommend a look at the Brand New Day collections. It’s not a run that’s immediately talked about, but we found it entertaining and a much better set of creators was assembled than Marvel was necessarily given credit for: Mark Waid, Bob Gale (we wish he did more comics), Marc Guggenheim, Joe Kelly, Dan Slott, John Romita, Jr., Steve McNiven, Salvador Larroca, Phil Jimenez, Barry Kitson, Marcos Martin, Paolo Rivera, Lee Week and… others. I’m not sure there are “hidden” gems with Spidey, just runs that get discussed less.
Cheapest Night… Sort of
The DC Lanterns Sale runs through Monday, 9/14.
Not dropping the sale until after the third episode of the series? What’s up with that? All communication channels were apparently not aligned. That said, the Lanterns show on HBO is the real deal, three episodes in.
Let’s look at the highlights:
What’s good? That first Geoff Johns run is great through Blackest Night (and we might even think it peaks with the pre-Blackest Night art “Sinestro Corps War”)… but we have to talk about how that run is presented here. You may recall we occasionally don’t think whoever sets the sales for DC is particularly familiar with their catalog? This is one of those times. Blackest Night is not included in the sale, which is a major oversight. The sale also focuses on the “Deluxe Editions” and doesn’t include the regular volumes of that run. Guess what? The “Deluxe Editions” aren’t completed, so the end of the first Johns run isn’t actually on sale.
Those Green Lantern by Geoff Johns Deluxe Editions are also priced a bit higher than we’d like to see at $12.99@. That said, they’re double volumes, so you should be probably be evaluating them as $6.50 single volumes. Not a great discount off the ~$9.99 they like to charge for those when not on sale.
We’ve enjoyed what we’ve read of the current Green Lantern by Adams/Xermanico (although the Event crossovers issues could probably be skipped over).
We particularly liked Green Lantern War Journal and that’s your best bet if you’ve got a John Stewart itch to scratch.
The Cheapest at What He Does
The Marvel Wolverine Sale runs through Monday, 9/28.
You ever see Wolverine shell out for expensive beer? He understands cheap.
This is the sale on the “main” Wolverine titles we said would be coming. Let’s start out by listing the various titles involved. (Relaunches? At Marvel? <faints>) And yes, tons of stray X-Men titles on top of the proper Wolverine titles.
- Wolverine (’82) – Chris Claremont / Frank Miller / Paul Smith; The miniseries that kicked off the solo stories and an X-Men 2-parter that’s a sort of follow-up
- Wolverine (’88-’03) – The original ongoing solo title. Yes, it took six years after the mini… it was a different time – Epic Collections
- Wolverine (’03-’09) – Greg Rucka / Darick Robertson; Mark Millar / John Romita, Jr.; Jason Aaron/Ron Garney… among others
- Wolverine (’10-’12) – Jason Aaron / Renato Guedes / Ron Garney; “Wolverine Goes to Hell” was not a metaphor
- Wolverine: Savage Land (’14) – Frank Cho
- Old Man Logan (’16-’18) – Jeff Lemire / Andrea Sorrentino; While Logan is “dead,” his future dystopian self journeys to the present day. (And it’s actually pretty good, despite the wonky premise.)
- Return of Wolverine (’18-’19) – Charles Soule / Steve McNiven; “They always come back”
- Wolverine (’20-’24) – Ben Percy / Adam Kubert; The Krakoan era Logan. The first link is the “omnibus” page, here’s the individual collections page, which are discounted a little further into the series.
- Predator Vs. Wolverine – Benjamin Percy / Greg Land / Andrea Di Vito / Ken Lashley; Everything you could possibly want in a Predator vs. Wolverine comic — for real
- Wolverine (’24-present) – Saladin Ahmed / Martin Coccolo
- Wolverine: Revenge – Jonathan Hickman / Greg Capullo
So, what’s actually good that’s discounted this time out?
The original miniseries is generally regarded as a classic.
With the original series, you’re pretty good from the beginning through the end of the Larry Hama run (a bit after #100), though towards the end of that, the X-Events get annoying. We’re particularly fond of the Archie Goodwin / John Byrne arc from #17-23.
Wolverine: Old Man Logan [Marvel Premier Collection]– Mark Millar / Steve McNiven; Pardon the silliness of only a specific print format being discounted in digital, but this is pretty darn influential.
The Krakoan era, while it almost merged with X-Force (kind of like the triangle era Superman line), was quite enjoyable.
All-New Wolverine is the Tom Taylor / David Lopez / Juan Cabal / Leonard Kirk run on Laura Kinney as Wolverine while Logan was “dead.” It is delightful.
Shouldn’t Rodney Dangerfield Be in This?
The Marvel Back-to-School Sale runs through Monday, 9/28.
It’s another one of those big sales with several heroes/teams intermingled. Let’s try and decode the highlights:
Ultimate Spider-Man and Miles Morales
Ultimate Spider-Man – essentially, the Peter Parker years. Mark Bagley is artist for most of the run. Skip the omnibus (too expensive for V.1-3 of these larger collections), get the regular editions.
And seriously, Bendis and Bagley do a great job with it.
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.
Start with Ultimate Comics Spider-Man (’11-’13) by Brian Bendis / Sara Pichelli / David Marquez.
Followed by Miles Morales: Ultimate Spider-Man (’14-’15) by Bendis / Marquez.
Then pop over to the ’16-18 Bendis /Pichelli Spider-Man run.
You know what’s good and not talked about as much? Spider-Men: Worlds Collide -Brian Michael Bendis / Sara Pichelli / Mark Bagley. This collections the two Spider-Men mini-series where Miles and Peter team up.
And after that wraps, it’s time for Miles Morales by Saladin Ahmed and Javier Garron.
The most recent series is Miles Morales: Spider-Man by Cody Ziglar and Federico Vicentini.
Also of interest:
The Spectacular Spider-Men – Greg Weisman and Humberto Ramos bring more Miles / Peter team-ups
And since Miles is a player in the most recent incarnation of the Ultimate Universe:
Ms. Marvel
The current Ms. Marvel – Kamala Khan – would seem to be the Ms. Marvel in question:
- 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 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
And for whatever reason, we also have Carol Danvers as Ms. Marvel (she’s not in school):
- Ms. Marvel Masterworks – Gerry Conway / Chris Claremont / Jim Mooney / John Buscema / Sal Buscema; The ’70s debut series
- Ms. Marvel (’06 – 10) – Brian Reed / Robert de la Torre / Aaron Lopresti
Squirrel Girl
In the inimitable Marvel Way, this is one is a little goofy because of how many different editions of the same comics there are.
- Unbeatable Squirrel Girl series “2015A” and “2015B” by Ryan North and Erica Henderson. This is where everything starts and the original Squirrel Girl appearances are in the first volume. These are omnibus editions and take you up to #31 of the “2015B” series.
- To get the rest of the series, switch over to the single volumes and V.9 – 12 will take you from issue #32 to the end. Coincidentally, this is where Derek Charm pops in as artist.
That’s the easy way. Now, if you want the absolute cheapest way, you want to sub in these two alternate packaging volumes for V.2 and V.3 of those omnibuses above (i.e. #1-21 of “2015B”).
Don’t worry, they’ll inevitably add another layer of repackaging to further confuse the situation.
Young Avengers
Young Avengers by Allen Heinberg and Jim Cheung is a close second. Notable for introducing Hulking and Wiccan, also with Kate Bishop and Cassie Lang, this is a fun one. Doesn’t hurt that you can get the whole thing in one volume, either.
Another one that’s available in a single volume is the Kieron Gillen / Jamie McKelvie Young Avengers from ’13. Gillen & McKelvie? You already know if you’ll like it. (They add Kid Loki to the team, incidentally.)
The Best of the Rest
Shouldn’t He Be “In the Sky?”
The Marvel Ghost Rider Sale runs through Monday, 9/28.
That’s right, it’s Craig Ferguson’s favorite superhero.
As a bonus, the absurdity of Cosmic Ghost Rider:
Candygram…
The Marvel Jeff the Landshark Sale runs through Monday, 9/28.
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:
Unannounced Sales
As always, it isn’t clear when the unannounced sales will end.
Dark Horse is having a manga sale. Some titles we noticed:
Dark Horse has the Stranger Things line of graphic novels on sale, also in Omnibus editions
Also on sale
And have a look at the $5 and under page.
Still on Sale
