This week in Comixology sales finds Marvel opening some slightly different vaults, DC venturing to dark place, Dark Horse being media-friendly and the joy of Jazz Maynard.

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Darth Vader = Good Comics

Let’s start with the good stuff: the Marvel  Darth Vader Sale.  Darth Vader has been the best Star Wars title.  We’re mainly looking at two runs here: the all-caps EXCELLENT Kieron Gillen / Salvador Larroca run and the very good Charles Soule / Giuseppe Camuncoli run.

Two things to pay attention to:

1)Vader Down is the real V. 3 of the Gillen/Larroca run, you’ll need it.
2)We’d say the Soule/Camuncoli doesn’t really hit it’s stride until V.2 and the Jedi librarian.  Remember, you want the 6-issue original tpbs of this run, much cheaper than the 12 issue collections.

This sale runs through Sunday (1/10).

   

“The Original Writer” and Marvel Max Titles

Then you’ve got the Marvel Max sale that runs through Thursday (1/14).  Marvel Max being theoretically for grownups and usually is more violent (although you have your odd adult situations and a childbirth scene).

Let’s start off with Miracleman – Parental Advisory Edition. Yeah, there’s a childbirth scene in there.  Sense 8 wasn’t the first to have one of those, even if they were, perhaps, a bit more fixated on it.  The “Original Writer” in the credits is Alan Moore. He doesn’t have the best relations with Marvel.  Artists on this include Gary Leach, Alan Davis, John Ridgeway, Rick Veitch and John Totleben. It’s an early more post-modern deconstruction where Miracleman (originally Marvelman, a UK knock-off of Captain Marvel after it Fawcett lost the DC lawsuit and ceased publication) awakens after a time… away and all sorts of unpleasantness follows.  Hugely influential comic that was out of circulation for quite some time.

This sequence is followed by Miracleman by Gaiman & Buckingham, Vol 1.: The Golden Age. Yes, that would be Neil Gaiman and Mark Buckingham. One day, there might be another volume in this series. It’s been talked about for a very long time.

  

The Garth Ennis Punisher runs have always been a big part of Marvel Max.  You can still get his excellent and hilarious “Welcome Back Frank” sequence with Steve Dillon in this sale, but we’d point out the more serious Punisher run Ennis did with Leandro Fernandez, Darick Robertson, Doug Braithwaite and Goran Parlov, among others.  It’s a quality, hard as nails run that doesn’t always get the fanfare of the lighter version.  Punisher Max: The Complete Collection V. 1-4 covers the Ennis run.

A Trail of Infinity Events

The Infinity Gauntlet sale runs through Thursday (1/14). We say go back to the originals.  Avengers Vs. Thanos collects the original Captain Marvel and Warlock sequences by Jim Starlin, the father of this saga.  Infinity Gauntlet started the current cycle, written by Starlin with art by George Perez and Ron Lim.

If you’re looking at the Jonathan Hickman’s Avengers sequence – and it’s a true epic – know that you can’t do into it halfway.  It’s all or nothing.  Avengers, New Avengers, Infinity, Time Runs Out AND Secret Wars.  That’s one long, complex story.

   

DC Goes Dark

DC’s Darkest Hour Sale runs through Monday (1/11) and it’s a fairly small sale.  DCeased and the Dark Night: Metal titles.  It’s quick to browse, but we feel obliged to point out you can save a little money getting the DCeased and Dark Nights: Metal (the main book) as $0.99 single issues.

Import Goodness

The Magnetic Press New Year’s Linewide Sale runs through Monday (1/11) and it’s filled with some absolutely lovely European imports.  Seriously, browse some of those books.  Top flight art.  What we’d really like to draw your attention to here is Jazz Maynard by Raule and Roger Ibanez Ugena.  Formally, it’s about an ex-con getting dragged back into his old world, but this comic is more about how the story is told.  A noir-ish tale of a rogue, it reminded us of a modern setting for Corto Maltese and we’re not ones to invoke a Corto Maltese vibe lightly.

DH Transmedia Options

The  Dark Horse Screen to Comics Sale runs through Monday (1/11) and has a fair amount of comics to screen. It’s comics based on TV & movies AND comics that have been adapted.  Things like Osamu Tezuka’s Astro Boy manga.  (Note: the first bundle is really V.1 & 2 in the same package. $3.99 for 424 pages is good deal.)  Hellboy is one of Dark Horse’s flagship properties. Your best value there is the Omnibus editions, some of which have pretty generous page counts. Umbrella Academy is the current Dark Horse media adaption star over at Netflix.