Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Batman; Vertigo; Creature Commandos; Carnage; Dark Horse Manga

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, DC has a Halloween sale with Batman, Vertigo and even the Creature Commandos. Marvel adds Carnage to the season’s sale rotation and Dark Horse has discounts on 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):

A Batman + Vertigo Sale For Halloween?

The DC Horror and Mystery Sale runs through Monday, 10/28.

You did hear that the return of the Vertigo imprint was announced at New York Comic Con, right? Chris Conroy will be heading up that and Black Label for DC editorial and it sounds like the right things are happening with more announcements imminent.

This sale is a little bit of Vertigo, a little more Batman than necessarily fits Halloween and some superhero things that fall somewhere in-between. We’ll run down the Halloween-specific highlights, but there’s a good deal more in what’s a relatively deep sale.

Batman: The Long Halloween – Jeph Loeb / Tim Sale; you knew this was going to be here
- Batman: Dark Victory – the Loeb / Sale sequel
- Batman: Haunted Knight – This collects the Halloween specials Loeb & Sale did prior to The Long Halloween, so it’s probably the most Halloween volume of the trio.
Detective Comics: Gotham Nocturn: Overture – Ram V / Rafael Albuquerque; As long as we’re on Batman, Ram V’s been doing a long form, slow burn, horror-tinged Batman run that we’re enjoying quite a bit. This is part 1.
- Batman: Detective Comics Vol. 2: Gotham Nocturne: Act I – Ram V / Ivan Reis; the second part
American Vampire – Scott Snyder / Rafael Albuquerque; A new strain of vampire appears and we follow him through history
- American Vampire 1976 – The sequel
Basketful of Heads – Joe Hill / Dave Stewart; From Hill’s short-lived imprint
The Books of Magic – Neil Gaiman / John Bolton / Charles Vess / Scott Hampton; pre-dating Harry Potter, the ultimate destiny of a boy destined to be a power wizard is debated by Constantine, The Phantom Stranger, Mister E and Doctor Occult
Creature Commandos – J.M. DeMatteis / Robert Kanigher / Fred Carrillo; The original Weird War stories that inspired the new cartoon
Creature Commandos Present: Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E. – Grant Morrison / Doug Mahnke & Jeff Lemire / Alberto Ponticelli
DCeased – Tom Taylor / Trevor Hairsine; The Anti-Life Equation gets loose and turns most of the population – including superheroes – into zombie-like creatures, while the survivors look for a way out. Shockingly good and there are more collections in the main link.
Deadman – Neal Adams / Paul Levitz / Len Wein / Jim Aparo / Jose Luis Garcia Lopez; The original run plus the 70s appearances (the very definition of a cult hero)
Death: The High Cost of Living – Neil Gaiman / Chris Bachalo / Mark Buckingham
The Demon ’72-’74 – Jack Kirby’s fantasy-action classic about a Demon bound to a mortal host throughout the ages
The Demon ’87 – Matt Wagner’s take on Kirby’s creation
Hellblazer – The legendary (and consistently good) Vertigo run for $3.99-$5.99/volume
- John Constantine: Hellblazer – Si Spurrier / Aaron Campbell / Matias Bergara; This recent Black Label series is right up there with the best of the Vertigo run – which is saying a LOT
I… Vampire – J.M. DeMatteis / Tom Sutton; The original run from House of Mystery
Lucifer – Mike Carey / Peter Gross; Sandman spin-off where Lucifer leaves Hell for Los Angeles… a bit different from the TV version
Justice League Dark ’18 – James Tynion IV / Alvaro Martinez Bueno; That’s right, before The Nice House on the Lake; Tynion & Bueno were doing the Justice League horror title
The Nice House on the Lake – James Tynion IV / Alvaro Martinez Bueno; A group of friends find themselves trapped in a vacation home at the end of the world; This link is the whole series in one volume
Night Force – Marv Wolfman / Gene Colan; Marv’s favorite work; The Tomb of Dracula team regroups for a series about a mansion with a portal through time and space, it’s mysterious resident and the agents he sends out on occult missions
Preacher – Garth Ennis / Steve Dillon; As seen on TV, God has gone missing and Jesse Custer would like a word with him. Double volumes for $3.99
Saga of the Swamp Thing – The Alan Moore / Steve Bissette / John Totleben / Stan Woch classic run (the Mark Millar / Phil Hester run is also listed here)
The Sandman – Neil Gaiman and a rotating cast of artists
The Spectre – John Ostrander / Tom Mandrake; under the radar classic as a dead man struggles with his existence and the spirit of wrath that’s tethered to him
Swamp Thing – Len Wein / Bernie Wrightson; The legendary original run by Wein & Wrightson through the pre-Moore ’80s revival.
The Unwritten – Mike Carey / Peter Gross; Yes, that’s M.R. Carey from The Girl With All the Gifts; The son of a novelist tries to figure out if he’s really the boy-wizard from his father’s books
Y: The Last Man – Brian K. Vaughan / Pia Guerra; A mysterious event leaves one man alive on Earth (and his monkey). He’s looking for his missing girlfriend and the “Daughters of the Amazon” are looking for him.

More Hot Symbiote Action

The Marvel Carnage Sale runs through Monday, 10/28.

If Venom has a sale (and movie), might as well have Carnage as a sequel sale, right?

This is an odd set compared with something like Fantastic Four, since Carnage has been a guest villain or mini-series dweller for part of the time, so here’s the highlights and short tour.

For early Carnage, your best best is probably Carnage Epic Collection: Born in Blood. That gets you the first Carnage tale from Amazing Spider-Man _and_ the Maximum Carnage arc. For more of those early villain and mini-series appearances, there are two more Epic Collections with their own series page.

Jump forward to 2015 and you’ll find what’s probably our favorite take on Carnage: Gerry Conway & Mike Perkins have a run that’s got a real 70s Marvel horror flavor to it. Carnage is seeking the Book of Darkhold and is pursued by Flash Thompson in his Toxin era, Man-Wolf and the Order of the Midnight sun.

Absolute Carnage was a big 2019 Event spinning out of Venom by Donny Cates and Ryan Stegman.

Carnage then relaunched in ’22 by Ram V and Francesco Manna. This one weaves in and out of serial killer thriller / fantasy (with a trip to Asgard) / and capes.

The third volume of this series is listed separately as Carnage Reigns with Alex Paknadel tagging in as writer.

The next series of Carnage follows that up with the team of Torunn GrØnbekk & Pere Perez.

The Marvel “Maybe” Sales

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