Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Vertigo vs. Creepy and Eerie

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, it’s the dueling pianos of Vertigo vs. Creepy and Eerie.

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 Non-Cliffhanger View of Vertigo

Doom Patrol  Jonah Hex: Shadows West  Sandman Mystery Theater

The  DC Vertigo Sale runs through Tuesday, 2/24.

Now that everyone’s over Wednesday shock of DC actually having a sale, let’s look at the sale’s intent and some countermeasures.

Sales where the first volumes *only* are on sale should be viewed as samplers designed to get the customer to buy the rest of the series (often at full price). There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s pretty common in the greater publishing community, but this is NOT what people are used to from the DC and the grumbling is acute.

So, let’s go through the sale and pick out some good volumes that work as stand-alone books. There really are a chunk of these.

Jonah Hex: Shadows West is something of a value buy. It’s listed at 387 pages, though it’s really 13 issues collecting the complete series of mini-series by master horror novelist Joe R. Lansdale and Tim (Grimjack/Scout) Truman. Hex confronts demons and monsters in a Weird Western / action-horror collection.

Doom Patrol Vol. 1: Crawling From the Wreckage by Grant Morrison & Richard Case is essentially the first arc of Morrison’s run and an issue that pauses before the second arc. Oh, Mister Nobody is up to something, but we wouldn’t call it a cliffhanger, per se.

Sandman Mystery Theater – Matt Wagner / Steven T. Seagle / Guy Davis; We’re not in love with the $9.99 price point, but we do love this series. There are actually two volumes at that price, for which you get 12 issues and roughly 300 pages of comics, so it’s not horrible by that measure. These are the pulpy adventures of Wesley Dodds, the golden age Sandman.

Saga of the Swamp Thing: Book One – Alan Moore / Stephen Bissette / John Totleben; The American Gothic saga hasn’t begun yet, so these are short tales beginning with the legendary “Anatomy Lesson” and ending with an encounter with Etrigan. As classic as it gets.

Swamp Thing: The Bronze Age Vol. 1 – Len Wein / Bernie Wrightson / Nestor Redondo; While not on the Deals page, this one’s price dropped to that $9.99 price point. Sure enough, ~13 issues plus the original short story gives you about 300 pages of comics for $9.99 and the pattern emerges. This is classic, original Swamp Thing run by Wein and Wrightson. It’s very good stuff. While Wrightson stuck with horror, Wein did more superhero work after starting out with Swamp Thing and Phantom Stranger, so not everyone remembers how good he was with the dark and magical tales.

Top 10 – Alan Moore / Gene Ha / Zander Cannon – This is Alan Moore’s delightful excursion into the Hill Street Blues style of police procedural… but with superheroes as the law. Good stuff. America’s Best/Wildstorm is now Vertigo… or maybe Alan Moore is just Vertigo, full stop. At any rate this is another $9.99 / 12 issues offering and it’s good stuff.

Trillium – Probably our favorite Jeff Lemire work. Two people on a journey across time and space to find each other before the universe can end, notable for a particularly effective parallel narrative structure. The single issues were released as flipbooks to heighten that parallel structure.

  • Black Orchid – Early Neil Gaiman although Dave McKean might be stealing the show in this tale of botanical rebirth
  • Cinderella: Fables are Forever – Chris Roberson & Shawn McManus in this Fables-universe tale of Cinderella as a spy (Why is the actual first Cinderella series, From Fabletown With Love, not on sale? You’d need to ask whoever at DC makes this lists.)
  • Daytripper – Fabio Moon & Gabriel Ba
  • Flex Mentallo – Grant Morrison / Frank Quitely; A delightfully odd/surreal tale that starts out as parody of the old Charles Atlas ads. And an early Morrison/Quitely pairing. They work well together.
  • Get Jiro – Anthony Bourdain / Joel Rose / Langdon Foss; Yes, that Anthony Bourdain spinning a tale of a sort of gangland war between chefs
  • Global Frequency – Warren Ellis applies a science fiction layer to the Mission: Impossible format (or perhaps ’83 TV show Masquerade, if you want a deep cut) with rotating artists
  • Joe the Barbarian – Grant Morrison / Sean Murphy; This one always reminded us of the film, Jacob’s Ladder. We’re not sure $9.99 for 8 issues is such a great deal, though…
  • Kill Your Boyfriend/Vimanarama Deluxe – Grant Morrison / Philip Bond / Matt Brooker; Collecting a pair shorter Morrison one-offs
  • Orbiter – Warren Ellis / Colleen Doran; An OGN about shenanigans revolving around a missing space shuttle
  • Strange Adventures – The Tom King / Mitch Gerads / Doc Shaner Black label deconstruction of Adam Strange (darker than you’d ever think they’d go), although we’re not wild about the $9.99 price tag
  • Sweet Tooth – Jeff Lemire; As seen on Netflix.
  • The Wake – Scott Snyder / Sean Murphy; Very Bad Things are happening at a secret underwater oil rig… and then things get considerably worse. We would like to point out this is $4.99 for 10 issues in marked contrast to some of the other pricing

Unannounced Sales

Creepy   Eerie

As usual, we’re not sure when these sales are ending, but here’s what we’re seeing:

Dark Horse is thematically matching DC this week with a Creepy / Eerie sale. Oh, wait… they’re discounting more than just volumes ones, too.

Creepy was the first one and is available in both archive  format and “Creepy Presents” volumes spotlighting individual artists (Alex Toth, Bernie Wrightson, Richard Corben, Steve Ditko).

Eerie was the companion series. By halfway through it’s run, it had evolved into something a little different with multi-part stories and characters who returned, the breakout character being The Rook (a time traveler with some western elements baked in). It’s also available in archive format and “Eerie Presents” for collecting individual features (El Cid and Hunter).

Also on sale:

And have a look at the $5 and under page.

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: DC Returns With a Vertigo Sale

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, DC actually had a (Vertigo) 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):

Look Who’s Back

100 Bullets   Doom Patrol  DMZ

The  DC Vertigo Sale runs through Tuesday, 2/24.

Well, well, well… look who has returned. It’s a DC sale. Vertigo sales in January are not an unusual thing, historically speaking, but this is a bit of a surprise. Particularly, dropping mid-week. And this time it’s running for roughly a month. None of this Black Friday 4-day nonsense.

The inevitable caveat: they’re discounting Volume 1’s, not entire series like they used to.

Still, everybody’s been clamoring for DC (especially since the normal December sale was AWOL), so we’re dropping the broad strokes immediately and when our normal installment arrives at the end of the week, we’ll focus on what makes a little more sense as a solo purchase (i.e. avoiding the dreaded “to be continued”).

The nickel highlight tour of Vertigo titles:

  • 100 Bullets – Classic revenge/crime/spies mashup by Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso
  • American Vampire – The comic that first put Scott Snyder on the map as a new breed of Vampire emerges in the West and clashes with what came before. Rafael Albuquerque is the artist and Stephen King lends a hand at launch.
  • American Carnage – Bryan Edward Hill / Leandro Fernandez; Late stage vertigo crime thriller about an FBI agent infiltrating a white supremacist group
  • The American Way: Those Above and Those Below – John Ridley / George Jeanty; Just your average superhero alternate history tale written by an Oscar winner. Sequel to the Wildstorm series that isn’t collected/on sale.
  • Animal Man – Relatively early Grant Morrison with Chas Truog
  • Black Orchid – Early Neil Gaiman although Dave McKean might be stealing the show in this tale of botanical rebirth
  • Cinderella: Fables are Forever – Chris Roberson & Shawn McManus in this Fables-universe tale of Cinderella as a spy (Why is the actual first Cinderella series, From Fabletown With Love, not on sale? You’d need to ask whoever at DC makes this lists.)
  • Clean Room – Gail Simone & Jon Davis-Hunt craft a horror tale
  • Daytripper – Fabio Moon & Gabriel Ba
  • Dead Boy Detectives – Toby Litt & Mark Buckingham. Young ghosts solve crimes. A Netflix series.
  • Doom Patrol ’89 – The Grant Morrison / Richard Case run. Legendary and adapted for television. Perhaps one day they’ll adapt the rest of the run. 
  • DMZ – Brian Wood / Riccardo Burcchielli; As the US is in the middle of a civil war, a reporter becomes trapped in the no man’s land that is NYC and navigates of landscape of warlords and political intrigue from both sides.  Doesn’t get hype anymore, but a solid series that hasn’t exactly gotten stale.
  • Ex Machina – Brian K. Vaughan (Saga) / Tony Harris (Starman); Originally Wildstorm, now Vertigo, this political thriller/powers genre bender finds a world’s only superhero being elected mayor of NYC. (Long before Lucas Cage or even Wilson Fisk.)
    Fables   Preacher   Swamp Thing
  • Fables – Bill Willingham / Mark Buckingham
  • Fairest – An anthology series about the ladies of Fabletown (Fables)
  • Flex Mentallo – Grant Morrison / Frank Quitely; A delightfully odd/surreal tale that starts out as parody of the old Charles Atlas ads. And an early Morrison/Quitely pairing. They work well together.
  • Get Jiro – Anthony Bourdain / Joel Rose / Langdon Foss; Yes, that Anthony Bourdain spinning a tale of a sort of gangland war between chefs
  • Global Frequency – Warren Ellis applies a science fiction layer to the Mission: Impossible format (or perhaps ’83 TV show Masquerade, if you want a deep cut) with rotating artists
  • Hellblazer – in some respects, the Vertigo flagship title. It starts out with Jamie Delano and John Ridgeway and it’s good for a very long time
  • The Invisibles – Grant Morrison and a rotating cast of artists in a tale of a secret society of anarchists battling a conspiracy from the establishment
  • iZombie – Chris Roberson / Mike Allred; A zombie detective dramedy adapted for television
  • Jack of Fables – Primarily a Bill Willingham / Lilah Sturges / Tony Akins run, this is a Fables spin-off about that rascal Jack Horner
  • Jonah Hex: Shadows West – Weird Western adventures with Joe R. Lansdale and Tim Truman, both of whom are acquainted with such things
  • Lucifer – For some reason, we’re seeing the revival series and not the original Carey / Gross run. No idea why
  • Preacher – Garth Ennis / Steve Dillion; Another Vertigo TV adaption (you might be noticing a pattern), God has gone missing and Jesse Custer would like to have a word with him. Also, power abhors a vacuum.
  • Saga of the Swamp Thing – The classic Alan Moore years (he’s good, that one); plus the Mark Millar years.
  • Sandman Mystery Theater – Matt Wagner / Steven T. Seagle / Guy Davis; The Golden Age Sandman in a pulpy mystery series (but with a bit more character work than your average pulp). Highly recommended.
  • Sandman – By some chap named Gaiman. You may have heard of it.
    Scalped   Unwritten   Y the Last Man
  • Scalped – Jason Aaron / R.M. Guera – An FBI agent goes undercover (as himself) on the reservation he thought he’d escaped to investigate the reservation casino. Aaron starting out in the crime genre we wish he could do more of.
  • Sheriff of Babylon – Tom King / Mitch Gerads; A political thriller / murder mystery in occupied Baghdad
  • Strange Adventures – The Tom King / Mitch Gerads / Doc Shaner Black label deconstruction of Adam Strange (darker than you’d ever think they’d go), although we’re not wild about the $9.99 price tag
  • Sweet Tooth – Jeff Lemire; As seen on Netflix.
  • Top 10 – Alan Moore / Gene Ha / Zander Cannon – Another Wildstorm (OK, technically America’s Best Comics) series now dubbed “Vertigo,” this is Alan Moore’s delightful excursion into the Hill Street Blues style of police procedural… but with superheroes as the law. Good stuff.
  • Transmetropolitan  – Warren Ellis / Darrick Robertson;  A pastiche of Hunter S. Thompson wages a media war against corrupt politicians in the near future
  • Top 10 – Alan Moore / Gene Ha / Zander Cannon – Another Wildstorm (OK, technically America’s Best Comics) series now dubbed “Vertigo,” this is Alan Moore’s delightful excursion into the Hill Street Blues style of police procedural… but with superheroes as the law. Good stuff. While you don’t see it on the discount page, that slightly higher than we’d like price point is one they’re pushing on some of the sale titles.
  • Trillium – Probably our favorite Jeff Lemire work. Two people on a journey across time and space to find each other before the universe can end, notable for a particularly effective parallel narrative structure. The single issues were released as flipbooks to heighten that parallel structure.
  • The Unwritten – Mike (M.R.) Carey and Peter Gross reunite for the tale of a boy one whom a Harry Potter-esque series of books was based discovers he might actually be the literary character made flesh and the lines between fiction and reality are fluid.
    • The  final two volumes are listed separately. (And you wonder why the retailers want better metadata?) The last volume has a discount. <shrugs>
  • Y: The Last Man – Brian K. Vaughan (him again) and Pia Guerra in the tale of the last man alive after a mysterious incident kills everyone else on Earth with a Y chromosome. Well, except his monkey. You may have even seen the TV series.

Unannounced Sales

The Cartoon History of the Universe   FataleStink Eye: A Baby Blues Collection

As usual, we’re not sure when these sales are ending, but here’s what we’re seeing:

Also on sale:

And have a look at the $5 and under page.

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: More Unannounced Sales with Baby Blues and Cartoon History of the Universe

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, the unannounced sales lead the way with Cartoon History of the Universe and Baby Blues.

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):

Housekeeping: Marvel’s sales are set to expire on Monday evening, so it’s last call time for those.

Unannounced Sales

The Cartoon History of the Universe   FataleStink Eye: A Baby Blues Collection

As usual, we’re not sure when these sales are ending, but here’s what we’re seeing:

Also on sale:

Dark Horse’s Cyberpunk 2077 seems to be continuing, so we’ll leave it up from last week.

The first five collections can be found here  (although only 4 are discounted).

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:

And then Cyberpunk 2077: Kickdown seems to be floating around in the system without series affiliation.

And have a look at the $5 and under page.

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Unannounced Discounts Lead This Week

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, it’s an “unannounced” week with Cyberpunk 2077, Red Sonja, Delirium and Charlie’s Angels.

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):

Housekeeping: Last week’s Marvel sales continue, but the big news here is the return of the $5 and under page. Not everything you’ll find there is a bargain… but some of them are. That page returning this week is fitting as we’re firmly in unannounced territory at the moment.

Unannounced Sales

Cyberpunk 2077: Kickdown  Delirium's Party: A Little Endless Storybook  Red Sonja: Vulture's Circle

As usual, we’re not sure when these sales are ending, but here’s what we’re seeing:

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 five collections can be found here  (although only 4 are discounted).

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:

And then Cyberpunk 2077: Kickdown seems to be floating around in the system without series affiliation.

Also on sale:

And have a look at the $5 and under page.

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Spider-Man, Avengers, Iron Man, X-Force, Rogue

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel continues their recent trend of dropping a bundle of discounts toward the top of the month.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

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

A Spider a Day Keeps Doc Ock Away

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

Marvel’s Amazing Spider-Man Sale runs through Monday, 1/26.

There’s a lot of ground to cover here, so let’s break it down by series.

  • Amazing Spider-Man (1963-98) – The original run before Marvel became quite so obsessed with rebooting titles.
  • Amazing Spider-Man (1998 – 2013) – This run starts out with the controversial J. Michael Straczynski/John Romita, Jr./Mike Deodato, Jr. run, then goes into the excellent Brand New Day era with rotating creative teams and segues into the beginning of the Dan Slott era. (Slott’s written a LOT of Spidey.)
  • Amazing Spider-Man (2014 – 15) – Peter’s back in control and the Slott era continues.
  • Amazing Spider-Man(2015-2018) – It’s a relaunch. (Hey, Spidey’s been relaunched a lot less than Captain Marvel!) This is the end run of the Slott era, culminating in the Red Goblin affair. The “Worldwide Collection” omnibuses are the better buy.
  • Amazing Spider-Man (2018 – 22) – The Nick Spenser era is here, PLUS the 4 volumes of Spider-Man Beyond with Ben Reilly stepping in that take place prior to the next series (and set up portions of it)
  • Amazing Spider-Man (2022 – 25) – The recent Zeb Wells / John Romita, Jr. / Ed McGuinness run. (And then Joe Kelly at the end.)

Recommendations?  Well, first off Amazing Spider-Man doesn’t really have very many BAD periods until the excesses of the Clone Saga (which some would argue are highlights). Oh, some runs are definitely better than others, but there aren’t huge swaths of duds.

You can definitely pick your poison between the $5.99 Masterworks and $6.99 – $8.99 Epic Collections for the original run. The Epics are typically much larger collections for only a buck more, but it depends on which format you started buying and which era you’re interested in. Some stretches are only in Masterworks, some are only in Epic.

Of possible interest, but NOT included in the link for the V.1 of Amazing is the Kraven’s Last Hunt Epic Collection, so we’ll call that one out directly. You get the J.M. DeMatteis/Mike Zeck classic, plus the issues of Amazing around it, plus Spider-Man Vs. Wolverine for about the price of just getting the regular Kraven collection.

And yes, we did enjoy the recently completed Zeb Wells / (mostly) John Romita, Jr. series. It’s a little more somber than we were expecting from Wells, but it largely a good ride. And this is a series that plays the long game resolving subplots. Not everyone agrees with that, but so be it.

Avengers Assemble

Avengers Assemble

The Marvel Avengers Sale runs through Monday, 1/26

And this as pretty much everything.

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

The Jonathan Hickman era

Avengers by Jonathan Hickman

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

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

And all this funnels into Secret Wars, the true endgame of Hickman’s Avengers run… which, of course, is not included in the sale…

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

The Jason Aaron era

Avengers

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

Enter Jed MacKay

Avengers

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

West Coast Avengers

Avengers West Coast

It’s close enough to it’s own franchise, let’s give it a sub-category. (I mean even DC moved to the West Coast. It’s a thing.)

Let’s run down the highlights of the rest of it:

We’re partial to the original Englehart / Milgrim West Cost Avengers. There’s a case to be made for the Byrne run, but that one is a lightning rod for strong opinions.

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

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

We’re also major fans of the Kurt Busiek / George Perez run that begins here. A second golden age that stands up with the best runs.  Avengers Forever, which runs somewhat in parallel with this run, is a great stand-alone adventure.

We also thought the Dan Slott Mighty Avengers run was a fun slice of “traditional” Avengers in the middle of the Bendis “New Avengers” era.

The real under the radar one here is the Gerry Duggan Savage Avengers run. If you’ve had an itch for some classic Defenders, this (of all things) might scratch it. It’s offbeat, fun and the sequence where Conan humiliates/shames Doctor Doom while having dinner with him has to be experienced to be believed.

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

Does Whatever An Iron Can…

Iron Man: The Man Who Killed Tony Stark  Iron Man: Heroes Reborn  Iron Man: Big Iron

The Marvel Iron Man Sale runs through Monday, 1/26

This would be one of those sales where most of the hero’s run is on sale, so we’re going to follow our usual protocol and start out by breaking out the primary titles and volumes. Iron Man isn’t as goofy to follow as, say, Spider-Gwen… but there are “quirks.” Oddly, this time out, titles with a word other than “Invincible” in front of “Iron Man” are omitted. (Infamous, International, etc.) Intentional or the new digital guy is from a film background and unfamiliar with the catalog? We’re not sure.

  • Tales of Suspense – Iron Man debuted here in what was a split book with Captain America for most of the run.
  • Iron Man ’68-’96 – The original solo run in the era before constant relaunch gimmicks

OK, sit tight. The ’98 -’04 run is collected in VERY odd ways and poorly cataloged for browsing.  The truly excellent Kurt Busiek/Sean Chen/Patrick Zircher run lasts from 1-25. We can’t find 15-25 collected? (That entire run should be!)  You can catch 1-14  in cheap omnibus form here.  (No idea why the Mike Grell omnibus isn’t on sale.) You can catch Joe Quesada’s scripting run (26-32) and the Avengers: Disassembled tie-in late in this run in single volumes here. (But get the omnibus version for Busiek.)

  • Iron Man ’04-07 – Best known for launching with the “Extremis” storyline
  • Invincible Iron Man ’08-’12 – The excellent Matt Fraction / Salvador Larroca run. Save some money with the omnibus collecting the first 3 volumes.
  • Iron Man ’12-’14 – The Kieron Gillen run with Greg Land as initial artist
  • Invincible Iron Man ’15-’16 – Brian Bendis and David Marquez/Mike Deodato, Jr. start out with Tony Stark in the armor
  • Invincible Iron Man ’16-’18 – Brian Bendis and Stefano Caselli with Riri Williams/Ironheart filling Tony Stark’s shoes (yes, parallel substitute Iron Man runs)
  • Iron Man ’20-’22 – The Christopher Cantwell / Cafu run.
  • Invincible Iron Man ’22-’24 – Gerry Duggan / Juan Frigeri
  • Iron Man ’24-’25 – Spencer Ackerman / Julius Ohta

So what’s good?  We haven’t read ALL the Iron Man out there, but we’ve read a lot of them.

In our opinion Iron Man starts hitting it’s stride when Archie Goodwin arrives toward the end of the Tales of Suspense run and then is pure gold through issue 28 of the ’68 Iron Man series. Artists for this run include Gene Colan and George Tuska.

The next “all-star” run is #116-157 of the original Iron Man, that’s the David Michelinie / John Romita, Jr. / Bob Layton run that’s most famous for the “Demon in a Bottle” alcoholism arc, but there’s more to the run than just that arc.  The Denny O’Neil / Luke McDonnell run that follows is solid (make sure you get a collection that includes #200!!!), then Michelinie & Layton return for #215-250 with a few artists, including Mark Bright and Jackson Guice… with Layton even switching to penciller, instead of his usual inking post, for parts of it.  This second run is most famous for “Armor Wars” (originally known as Stark Wars). If you want a slightly bigger chunk for the same price, try Iron Man Masterworks V. 13. (Their first run goes through Masterworks V. 15.)

When Heroes Return hits, Kurt Busiek and Sean Chen are pop in for the excellent 1998 run, of which only 1-14 are currently collected.

The ’08 – ’12 run by Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca is particularly good. You know how modern Marvel titles can get sidetracked by Events? Fraction and Larroca lean into it and produce a lengthy and self-contained arc with Tony Stark on the run and attempting to overwrite his brain to keep everyone’s secrets out of the hands of Norman Osborn. Yes, an honest to goodness great Event tie-in arc. It’s a rare thing.

We were quite happy with the  Christopher Cantwell/Cafu run. Tony Stark chases Korvac into outer space and meditates on the nature of godhood, good intentions and addictions. Lots of character work and action.

You’ve got your choice of Epic or Masterworks here, but the more recent Masterworks can get up to $9.99.

Forced Entry

X-Force X-Force X-Force

The Marvel X-Force Sale runs through Monday, 1/26.

Yes, the mutant black ops team, as originally established by Cable (and morphing out of New Mutants). There absolutely have a been a few incarnations and relaunches over the years. Let’s start out with an overview of that:

  • X-Force ’91-’02 – Originally Rob Liefeld & Fabian Nicieza with Greg Capullo tagging in early on. The first edition, if you will.
    • Counter-X: X-Force – From the period when Warren Ellis was showrunning some of the X-titles, by Ian Edgington & Jorge Lucas
  • Uncanny-Force ’10-’12 – Rick Remender and rotating roster of Raphael Albuquerque, Esad Ribic, Jerome Opena, Billy Tan and Phil Noto
  • Uncanny X-Force ’13-’14 – Sam Humphries / Ron Garney / Dalibor Talajic
  • Deadpool vs. X-Force ’14 – Duane Swierczynski / Pepe Laraz
  • X-Force ’19-’24 – Ben Percy / Joshua Cassara / Robert Gill
  • X-Force ’24-’25 – Geoffrey Thorne / Marcus To

What’s good? Our top pick is the Remender Uncanny-Force. Black ops and a wide ranging, but complete story unit when taken as a whole. We’re also fans of the Ben Percy / Krakoa era X-Force  and recent Geoffrey Thorne / Marcus To X-Force.  If you want something off-beat, start here for the Milligan/Allred run, which is a satire.

You Were Expecting Moulin?

X-Men: Raid On Graymalkin  Mr. and Mrs. X  Rogue

The Marvel Rogue Sale runs through Monday, 1/26.

Quite a lot of random X-titles here, but let’s look at the highlights:

And from the current incarnation:

Unannounced Sales

The Art of Harvey Kurtzman  Money Shot

It seems Dark Horse’s holiday sale is still with us, but we wouldn’t expect it to last very far into next week.

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: More Unannounced Discounts

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, it’s a new year and the new discounts have gone unannounced.

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):

Housekeeping: A lot of people seem to be simmering about the lack of a DC holiday sale. We’re not sure what to say. Something could drop at any moment, but we have no idea how likely that is. It seems like there’s a lot of A/B testing going on with pricing in recent weeks.

Marvel’s new sales from last week are still active. Links below or look to last week’s post. The Dark Horse sale also seems to be active, so we’ll keep our list up for now.

But I Really Wanted a DC Sale

OK, OK… we hear you. In the last day we did notice a price drop.

Action Comics (’11-’16) Vol. 2: Bulletproof – Grant Morrison / Rags Morales for $7.99.

We’ve mentioned over the last few weeks that there’s seemed to be an awful lot of A/B price testing going on. We think $7.99 is one of the price points DC is testing for discounted books. At various spots, we’ve noticed a $7.99/$9.99/$11.99/$13.99 spread. Considering DC’s been sporting what they possibly internally refer to as an “everyday discount” of $9.99 on a lot of titles on Amazon, you might call that “upward pressure.” We could be mistaken and things could also change, because it’s been a constant state of flux since April. But when the next DC sale comes, don’t be totally shocked if you see more $7.99 pricing.

Unannounced Sales

The Art of Harvey Kurtzman  G.I. Joe A Real American Hero Compendium Book One

And Dark Horse’s continuing holiday sale, which seems like it will be going at least a little longer.

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Marvel and Dark Horse drop a pile of holiday discounts

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, it’s time for Marvel and Dark Horse Holiday sales. Plus, another volume of Calvin and Hobbes.

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):

Housekeeping: We would remind you that Marvel’s normal December 8-sale spread for the month is still active and annotated here. We’ve got another batch of Marvel sales that are a little over-weighted with single issues – $0.99/$1.49/$1.99 and up. (We’re probably going to ignore most of the single issues over $2.) These are lasting through the beginning of January, which means… after a few months, someone at Marvel seems to have realized they were having a gap week without a sale. We applaud the arrival of a clue.

You’re probably asking “where’s the DC holiday sale?” We wish we could tell you. As of this typing, we’re not seeing any significant movement with DC. It could just be late arriving (as it was for Black Friday). We would caution you not to get your hopes up too high for a $1.99 tpb sale. All things are possible, but DC seems to have been doing a lot of A/B testing on higher prices in recent months. Perhaps we’ll be back with DC in a day or two. We’ll see.

Cobwebs

Ultimate Spider-Man Omnibus Vol. 5  Amazing Spider-Man Modern Era Epic Collection: Big Time  Spider-Man/Deadpool Modern Era Epic Collection: Road Trip

The Marvel Spider-Man Sale runs through Sunday, 1/4.

Lots of $0.99 single issues here, but this is the sale with the most omnibuses in it.

And the $0.99 singles and more conventional collected editions:

Hulk Smash Mistletoe

Incredible Hulk Epic Collection: To Hunt The Hulk  Immortal Hulk  She-Hulk By Rainbow Rowell Omnibus

The Marvel Hulk Sale runs through Sunday, 1/4.

There are fewer titles here than you’d think. It’s mostly single issues. Here are the highlights:

Some Assembly Required

Young Avengers Modern Era Epic Collection: Dark Reign  U.S.Avengers  Avengers: War Across Time

The  Marvel Avenger Sale runs through Sunday, 1/4.

Another one WAY overweighted with single issues. Highlights:

Fore!

Fantastic Four - The Coming of Galactus  Fantastic Four Epic Collection: The Name is Doom  Fantastic Four

The Marvel Fantastic Four Sale runs through Sunday, 1/4.

Ah! Finally a decent selection of Masterworks (and a few Epics). You’ll see some upward drift on the pricing (verily, we are in a fiscal quarter of A/B testing), but the collected editions are going to be better buys than the $0.99 single issues in most cases.

A couple prime cuts of Lee/Kirby goodness at good prices?  Fantastic Four Epic Collection: The Coming Of Galactus and Fantastic Four Epic Collection: The Name Is Doom 

Topmost

The Ultimates  Ultimate Black Panther Ultimate Invasion

The Marvel Ultimate Sale runs through Sunday, 1/4.

That’s right. The current Ultimate Universe:

We’d say Ultimate Spider-Man is the heart of the line and The Ultimates is the world-building engine.

Unannounced Sales

Adventures of Luther Arkwright  Baltimore Omnibus 1  From the World of Minor Threats: Barfly

As always, we really don’t know how long these discounts will last.

First up, Dark Horse doesn’t quite have a line-wide sale… but it’s close. Here are things we noticed with better pricing:

Recommendations? Sure.

If you’ve never sampled Bryan Talbot’s Adventures of Luther Arkwright, this is a good time. It’s a dimension hopping, psychic spy tale with not a small amount of rebellion in it. It’s also VERY appropriate for a Michael Moorcock introduction, too. A classic of the field.

Minor Threats is popular when it pops up, so if that’s your jam, have a look for fresh volumes in the From the World of Minor Threats link.

The Mignola-verse is quite reliable (and much of it is discounted right now). Something a little under the radar, relative to Hellboy, that we enjoyed quite a bit was Baltimore.  At the end of World War I, the vampire hoards are unleashed and one Lord Henry Baltimore enters into a bitter feud with them. Two omnibuses make for a nice ride.

Also on sale:

It's a Magical World: A Calvin and Hobbes Collection

Two modern classics on the list – American Born Chinese and Saga

 

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sale: Unannounced Deals on Star Wars, Avatar the Last Airbender, Saga, Groo

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, it’s a batch of unannounced Dark Horse discounts, plus Saga.

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):

Housekeeping: The Marvel “holiday” sale is over, but their normal 8-sale spread for the month is still active and annotated here.

Unannounced Sales

Avatar: The Last Airbender Saga  Star Wars Hyperspace Stories

As always, we really don’t know how long these discounts will last.

Also on sale:

Two modern classics on the list – American Born Chinese and Saga

A DC Maybe Sale

Batman and Robin: Year One

Remember several months back when Marvel was experimenting with having a quasi-sale price on one or two new releases each week? Well, DC may be dipping a toe into that. It isn’t always worth noting and this week’s “big” example really isn’t the price we’d like to see it at, but we’ll throw it out there and let you judge: Batman & Robin: Year One (Mark Waid/Chris Samnee) is listed at $16.19. Yes, that’s a bizarre price, but we seen it on one other site, so it appears to be intentional? That’s against a $29.99 digital list (and paperback) price. Would we like to see something a good deal cheaper to call it a sale? Certainly, but it’s a 12-issue collection and ~$1.35/issue isn’t horrible for a new release. Your call. We’ve heard nothing but good things about it and it’s in our reading pile.

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sale: A Week of Unannounced Discounts

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, it’s a week of unannounced discounts.

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):

Housekeeping: The Marvel “holiday” sale is over, but their normal 8-sale spread for the month is still active and annotated here. The DH sales seem to be sticking around, so we’ll leave them up as this seems to be largely a week where the new sales are unlisted.

Unannounced Sales

Brandon Sanderson's Dark One  Elric  Lio's Astonishing Tales

As always, we really don’t know how long these discounts will last.

Dark Horse seems to be having a sale on their James Tynion IV titles:

Resident Alien is a comic by Peter Hogan and Steve Parkhose 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

Also on sale:

American Born Chinese is widely considered a modern classic, btw. We also trust you’re heard of Brandon Sanderson and Octavia Butler.

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Another 8 Marvel Sales, Plus Resident Alien and James Tynion IV

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, there are another 8 Marvel sales (besides the holiday sale). Plus, Resident Alien and Mr. Tynion.

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):

Housekeeping: We’re back on the usual schedule after needing three installments to process that fairly odd “Marvel Holiday Sale” that expires on Monday. Here are the links for that:

That Would Be Suuuuuuuper

Captain America  The Winter Soldier: The Bitter March  Black Widow

The Marvel Super Soldier Sale runs through Monday, 12/29.

Kind of a liberal definition of “super soldier,” relative to Cap, but who are we to question a discount?

It also seems to be mostly avoiding Epic Collections and Masterworks for the original Captain America run.

Captain America highlights

  • Selections from the original run that are discounted:
  • 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 ’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 (and the third one includes Reborn… but, of course, is not discounted)
  • 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 ‘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 ’23-’25 – J. Michael Straczynski / Jesus Saiz

What’s good here? Since the Englehart material isn’t discounted, Stern/Byrne, Gruenwald, the Waid runs and the Brubaker years are the highlights.

The Winter Soldier

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

Also of possible interest:

Black Widow

Let’s walk through the highlights.

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

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

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

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

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

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

West Side Story

Avengers West Coast  Avengers West Coast  Vision and the Scarlet Witch

The Marvel West Coast Avengers Sale runs through Monday, 12/29.

Let’s start with the main one:

We’re partial to the original Englehart / Milgrim West Cost Avengers. There’s a case to be made for the Byrne run, but that one is a lightning rod for strong opinions. Roy & Dann Thomas follow and that run includes a big Ultron story.

The rest of the sale is a mix of the following:

Which is to say: two revivals, some Roger Stern era Avengers that ties in, Denny O’Neil’s excellent final Iron Man arc and the Vision & The Scarlet Witch series that co-launched with West Coast Avengers.

A Mister of Ill Portent

Sins of Sinister  Uncanny X-Men  Uncanny X-Men Masterworks Vol. 16

The Marvel Mister Sinister Sale runs through Monday, 12/29.

A villain sale.

  • X-Men: Cyclops & Phoenix – Past & Future – Scott Lobdell / Peter Milligan / Tom DeFalco / Gene Ha / John Paul Leon / Kyle Hotz; Contains the tale of Sinister’s origin
  • Uncanny X-Men Masterworks Vol. 16 – Chris Claremont /  Louise Simonson / Marc Silvestri / Walt Simonson / Arthur Adams / Rick Leonard; This volume has Sinister stepping out of the shadows for the Inferno event.
  • Uncanny X-Men by Kieron Gillen: The Complete Collection Vol. 1 – Kieron Gillen / Carlos Pacheco / Terry Dodson; Gillen starts doubling down on Sinister and his clones
  • Hellions by Zeb Wells – Zeb Wells / Stephen Segovia; A dark and sometimes hilarious piece of the Krakoa age where Sinister forms his own team of mutants
  • Sins Of Sinister – Kieron Gillen / Al Ewing / Simon Spurrier / Lucas Werneck / Paco Medina / Patch Zircher / Alessandro Vitti; Sinister’s scheme goes awry and he’s caught in an out of (his) control timeline in this superior X-Event

Plenty of mutant books to browse in the link.

We Skipped the TV Version

Inhumans.  Black Bolt   The Origin of the Inhumans

The  Marvel Inhumans Sale runs through Monday, 12/29.

Yeah, sign us up for the “The Inhumans shouldn’t replace the X-Men” party. And yes, Ms. Marvel should have been a mutant the entire time. Notarize it.

With Inhumans comics there is one volume that stands far above the rest: Inhumans by Paul Jenkins and Jae Lee, which was part of the old Marvel Knights imprint when it came out as a 12 issue maxi-series. That’s your gold standard.

For the #2 spot, perhaps the Black Bolt series by Saladin Ahmend and Christian Ward. It’s quite good and the first six issues? Extra special.

There’s nothing wrong with going back to the beginning. Inhumans: The Origin of the Inhumans is a collection of the early Stan Lee & Jack Kirby appearances from Fantastic Four and Thor. It’s also a thick 425 pages.

For something under the radar? Inhumans: Once and Future Kings by Priest and Phil Noto. Inhuman politics from the younger days of Black Bolt and Maximus… plus, Lockjaw comics.

There’s plenty more to browse, but outside of the above, we’ve tended to prefer the Inhumans with the FF.

That Was Cold

Iceman  Iceman  Iceman

The Marvel Iceman Sale runs through Monday,  12/29.

There actually have been some Iceman solo books:

Plenty of assorted X-Men volumes to check out on the sale page.

Fist of Fun

Iron Fist  Power Man and Iron Fist  Immortal Iron Fist

The Marvel Iron Fist Sale runs through Monday, 12/29.

Iron Fist originally had a short-ish run (by the standards of the day) 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. Claremont/Byrne is reliable and you know what you’re getting for the back half of that.

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!

Making Out

Ultimate Invasion  The UltimatesVenom

The  Marvel The Maker Sale runs through Monday, 12/29.

This would be the former Reed Richards of the original Ultimate universe, gone bad and adopting the identity of “The Maker.” The Maker Faire will never be the same. (IFYKYK)

The current arc starts with Ultimate Invasion by Jonathan Hickman & Bryan Hitch.

It then spills into the current Ultimate Universe:

Of slightly older vintage, but possible interest:

Hi, Dad

Star Wars: The Rise Of Kylo Ren  Star Wars: Legacy Of Vader - The Reign of Kylo

The Marvel Kylo Ren Sale runs through Monday, 12/29.

Unannounced Sales

Resident Alien  Let This One Be a Devil  American Born Chinese

As always, we really don’t know how long these will last.

Dark Horse seems to be having a sale on their James Tynion IV titles:

Resident Alien is a comic by Peter Hogan and Steve Parkhose 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

Also on sale:

American Born Chinese is widely considered a modern classic, btw.

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