In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel opens the discount gates with Wolverine, Guardians of the Galaxy and a ton of recent first issues.
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):
Remember, DC’s got that sale with all the $1.99 collected editions still going. Meanwhile the indies seem to have slowed their sale announcements and are probably massing for the “official” holiday sale announcements…
Marvel’s Friend Finder
The Marvel Start a New Series Sale runs through Monday, 12/12.
And if you were wanting some Marvel single issue sales, there’s a bunch of them here.
The premise is that Marvel would like you to sample the discounted issues and maybe stick around for more issues, so these are all recent issues. Let’s break this into new titles (i.e., #1 is on sale) and continuing titles (the sale picks up partially into the series). Here are the highlights:
New
- Alien (Technically the second Alien series)
- All-Out Avengers
- Ant-Man
- Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty (The Steve Rogers series)
- Captain America: Symbol of Truth (The Sam Wilson series)
- Carnage
- Damage Control
- Daredevil
- Deadly Neighborhood Spider-Man
- Defenders Beyond
- Gambit
- Genis-Vell: Captain Marvel
- Ghost Rider
- Immortal X-Men
- Marauders
- Namor The Sub-Mariner: Conquered Shores
- Predator
- Punisher
- Savage Avengers
- Shang-Chi and the Ten Rings
- She-Hulk
- Spider-Man (clarification – this is the Dan Slott/Mark Bagley series)
- Strange Academy: Finals
- Thunderbolts
- Ultraman: The Mystery Of Ultraseven
- The Variants
- Wakanda
- X-Men Legends
- X-Men Red
- X-Terminators
Continuing (Standard disclaimer – you’ll probably need to scroll down a bit before the discounts kick in)
- Black Panther
- Captain Marvel
- Hulk
- Iron Man
- The Marvels
- Moon Knight
- New Mutants
- Thor
- Venom
- Wolverine
- X-Force
- X-Men
Gosh, seems like there are a lot more “new” titles than “continuing” ones, doesn’t it? And not all the X-Men family relaunches are listed here, either! Such is the nature of relaunches, but let’s talk about some of those new titles that we can recommend from personal experience.
Captain America: Symbol of Truth by Tochi Onyebuchi and R.B. Silva came out of nowhere and knocked our socks off. This is Sam Wilson as Cap and the series has Sam and the new Falcon on the trail of super soldier serum smugglers, which leads them to human traffickers, which leads them to Latveria, which leads them to Wakanda. A vaguely Ludlum-esque chase from one facet of the conspiracy to next. Bonus points: it can be difficult to fit goofy ‘ole Deadpool in an otherwise serious plot, but it’s pulled off very well here!
Defenders Beyond by Al Ewing and Javier Rodríguez is their second go-round with everyone’s favorite “non-team.” We’re two issues into this one and so far, a spell cast by Doctor Strange from beyond the grave has assembled a new group of heroes, some familiar, and a notable artifact from the the last series. The threat they’re confronting? The Beyonders. Including that Beyonder. Wild cosmic stuff that starts with the Celestials and the destruction of universes. Great art and writing.
Carnage by Ram V and Francesco Manna is a deeply weird relaunch with the atmosphere of a horror comic. The Carnage symbiote has become separate from Cletus Kasaday and is seeking a new host. Or hosts. Preferably with superpowers and the symbiote might just have a plan. The symbiote also has a sort of groupie in tow and is pursued by a detective who’s been… touched by Carnage. And that’s before the Dark Elves show up. When we said deeply weird, we weren’t joking. But Ram V does well when the going gets weird.
SNIKT!
The Wolverine: The Best There Is Sale runs through Thursday, 12/15.
Wolverine sales are goofy because these issues have been packaged in so many different ways.
If you want early Wolverine, the Wolverine Omnibus will get you, among other things, the first Hulk appearance, the first mini-series, the Kitty Pride & Wolverine mini-series, a couple Marvel Comics Presents serials and the first 10 issues of the ongoing Wolverine comic.
Here’s the link for the original Wolverine ongoing series. Yes, that’s a bit of an overlapping mess. There are those who prefer the Larry Hama run. For this sale, we’d probably point to a couple self-contained arcs: Wolverine Classic V. 3 is “The Gehenna Stone Affair” written by Peter David with art by John Buscema inked by Bill Sienkiewicz. It’s romp with Logan and Jessica Drew racing against vampires trying to retrieve an artifact. Wolverine Classic V.5 is “Spore” by Archie Goodwin and John Byrne with Klaus Jansen inks. Logan runs up against a sentient bio-weapon and… cocaine. Did you notice both of these have some unusual penciller/inker combos?
Here’s the link for the ’03-’09 version of Wolverine. The highlights here are the lower key Greg Rucka / Darick Robertson / Leandro Fernandez run and two Mark Millar runs.
Enemy of the State is Millar with John Romita, Jr. having Logan encounter an unholy alliance between The Hand and Hydra, which ends up with his getting brainwashed before extracting a bloody revenge. Also introduces Gorgan.
Old Man Logan by Millar and Steve McNiven is probably the most famous arc of this run. Movie-inspiring, even. In a dystopian possible future, an aging Logan is trying to mind his own business, but will anyone leave him alone? Nope. And a road trip ensues. This format has had more legs than anyone could have imagined when it was pitched!
After that, you might have a look at the current Benjamin Percy/Adam Kubert Wolverine (First two volumes are cheaper in omnibus form.)
Finally, don’t sleep on All-New Wolverine by Tom Taylor / David Lopez / Juan Cabal. Yes, it’s an X-23 book, but it’s really good.
Groot? Groot. Groot!
The Marvel Guardians of the Galaxy Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 12/19.
Wow, but this sale has become a sprawling thing with “legacy” even pulling in Adam Warlock… although Starlin’s Warlock is amazing, so there’s that. Let’s try to break down the highlights.
Original Guardians of the Galaxy
- Guardians of the Galaxy: Tomorrow’s Avengers – First volume is the original appearance through their Marvel Presents solo run; Second volume is 70s guest star appearances, particularly in Avengers.
- Guardians of the Galaxy (’90-’95) – Best known for the very fun Jim Valentino run (i.e. the first 3 volumes here)
- Guardians of the Galaxy 3000 – Dan Abnett / Gerardo Sandoval
New GoG (The DnA cast or movie version if you must)
- Guardians of the Galaxy by Abnett & Lanning Omnibus – written by Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning / art by Brad Walker, Paul Pelletier and others. This is where the “movie” team in the current timeline was formed. Also known as the “Annihilation” team.
- Guardians of the Galaxy by Brian Michael Bendis – Bendis and so. many. artists.
- All-New Guardians of the Galaxy (’17-’18) – Gerry Duggan / Aaron Kuder
- Guardians of the Galaxy by Donny Cates (’19) – Donny Cates/Geoff Shaw
- Guardians of the Galaxy by Al Ewing (’20- ’21) – Al Ewing / Juan Cabal
Solo titles
- Drax (’15-’16) – C.M. Punk (yes, that C.M. Punk) / Cullen Bunn / Scott Hepburn
- Legendary Star-Lord – Sam Humphries/Paco Medina
- Rocket Racoon: Guardian of the Keystone Quadrant – Bill Mantlo/Mike Mignola… yes, that Mike Mignola
- Rocket Racoon (’14-’15) – Skottie Young era
- Star-Lord: Guardian of the Galaxy – The original Marvel magazine appearances by Steve Englehart / Doug Moench / Chris Claremont / John Byrne / Carmine Infantino / Bill Sienkiewicz – very different from the movie version (we might say better), but helps you understand the Ewing run!
- Star-Lord: Grounded – Chip Zdarsky / Kris Anka
- Warlock by Jim Starlin: The Complete Collection – like the title says and it’s a classic
What’s good here? Well, we’ve always liked the original. Particularly the Steve Gerber bits. We also loved the recent Al Ewing / Juan Cabal run. And if you like the current incarnation, you should probably go back to the source with the DnA run.
Still On Sale
- The DC Recent Hits Sale runs through Monday, 12/12
- The Marvel Conan Sale runs through Thursday, 12/29
- The Marvel X-Men/Spider-Man: Crossovers and Events Sale runs through Monday, 1/2
- The Boom! James Tynion Sale! runs through Thursday, 12/15
- The Bone and RASL Sale runs through Monday, 12/19
- The Image Spawn Sale runs through Monday, 12/19
- The IDW G.I Joe & Transformers Graphic Novels Sale runs through Thursday, 12/22