Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: A Big Spider-Man Sale, Trouble With DC’s Sale Prices (Again) and a Secret Vault Sale

The big Comixology (at Amazon) Sale of the moment is on Amazing Spider-Man. As in practically all of it. So we try to make that a little easier to navigate. Plus a warning about Amazon screwing up the latest DC sale (again) and an unannounced Vault sale.

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

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

Catches Discounts Just Like Flies

Marvel’s Spider-Man Legacy Sale runs through Sunday, 4/17.

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 (2015-208) – 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.
  • Amazing Spider-Man (2018 – 22) – This is the volume that wrapping up right now. It starts with the Nick Spenser run and then ends with the “Beyond” storyline.

And there are a few more Slott era omnibus editions floating around.  There are too many editions of this material and nobody seems to be particularly paying attention to how this is being displayed for the prospective readers.  We’re getting used to it. <sigh>

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, here.

You can definitely pick your poison between the $5.99 Masterworks and $6.99 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.

Inexplicably 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.

Amazing Spider-Man - Kraven's Last Hunt   Spider-Man Brand New Day

Not Conan

We’ve got an unannounced sale for you.  The first collected edition of Barbarbic from Vault Comics by Mike Moreci and Nathan Gooden is on sale for a mere $1.99. (Cheap.)  A barbarian with a bloodthirsty axe is cursed by witches to do good… so you know it probably isn’t going to end well. We haven’t read it, but it seemed to be doing pretty well on what’s left of the Direct Market sales charts and it’s hard to beat that price. We are 100% unsure how much longer that price is going to hold, BTW.

Barbaric

Beware the DC Sale

So DC has a sale right now, but we want you to be wary of it.  As we type this Tuesday evening, they don’t have the right prices up.  Let’s give some examples:

DC Prices

$13.98? $9.32? History says these are not the REAL sale prices. Sometime – maybe Wednesday, maybe Thursday – the real prices will pop up and they’ll likely be something closer to the $5.99 you see on that Wonder Woman volume. (Wonder Woman was already on sale, so that price _might_ change, too.)  Now, if Batman: The Adventures Continue drops down to, say, $4.99… jump on that. It’s a wonderful comic.  We’ll probably revisit this sale on Friday and see if it’s normalized.

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Moon Knight and a Deep Dive into Dark Horse Horror

This week in Comixology (at Amazon) sales, we try to explain Moon Knight comics to the uninitiated – it’s complicated – and then we take a deep dive into that big Dark Horse horror sale that Amazon has no idea how to display with any semblance of organization!

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

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

By the Light of Moon

Marvel’s Moon Knight sale runs through Sunday, 5/1.

First things first, you need to understand that Moon Knight is sort of Marvel’s version of Hawkman, in terms of there being wildly varying takes on the character. Having seen the first episode of the TV show… that sort of looked like yet another take on the character and we’re not sure if any of the comics will really reflect that version… we’ll know more after a couple episodes.

So, Moon Knight starts out in Werewolf by Night, has some guest appearances, a solo run as backup in Hulk magazine (non-code and its bloody for the time period) and starts his own solo comic.  The team most associated with the original Moon Knight is Doug Moench and Bill Sienkiewicz. (Moench and Don Perlin being co-creators back in Werewolf by Night.) In the beginning, Moon Knight was considered Marvel’s Batman. More accurately (that fan-driven tagline lacks nuance), Moon Knight was drawing from Batman’s pulp magazine influences. One of those influences was The Shadow, a proto-superhero of sorts who adopted multiple identities to further his goals… including assuming the identity of a millionaire.

In the beginning, much like the Shadow, ex-mercenary Marc Spector adopted the identity of Steven Grant, millionaire (much like The Shadow’s Lamont Cranston) and Jake Lockley, cab driver. There was no disassociated identity disorder in the beginning. The identities were tools and perhaps there was a bit of drama with method actors having trouble getting out of character.  (It’s also worth noting Denny O’Neil was the editor on the Moon Knight solo series and had written The Shadow at DC a few years earlier.) There was occasionally a supernatural element lurking in the background, but there was a certain degree of plausible deniability about what was happening and to what extent spooky things were really magical.

The original run is in the Epic Collections. In typical Amazon fashion, they screwed up the listings, so let’s fix that:

V. 1, “Bad Moon Rising,” is all the original guest appearances, the Hulk Magazine appearances and the first 4 issues of the ongoing series.

V.2 -3 contain the rest of the original run. Now – fair warning. Moench eventually leaves for DC to write Batman after issue #33 and the series ends with 38. It’s not same without him.

  Moon Knight Epic Collection

And after Marvel must have realized they were having trouble replacing Moench, they decided to tweak the character with the next series, Moon Knight: Fist of Khonshu, which… does not appear to have been reprinted. Possibly because we don’t personally know anyone who liked it. But it played up the mystical elements and Marc Spector’s resurrections.

There were a few attempts to continue the series. Nothing really took and the West Coast Avengers appearances could be the most notable for the middle section of Moon Knight’s history. Much of this solo period isn’t reprinted.

And things got to the point where Brian Bendis and Alex Maleev did a 12 part series where Moon Knight is delusional and so mentally ill as to be barely functional. If you’ve never read the character before, it’s a fairly entertaining comic. We interpreted it as frequently playing for laughs. If you liked the Moench character… oof. And this series pretty much broke the character and Marvel’s been trying to “fix” him ever since.

Seems like every series since has been attempting to establish a new status quo for the character, picking up pieces from the previous incarnation.

If you want something close to the TV show (and again, we’re working with only having seen the first episode here), we think your best bet might be the excellent Jeff Lemire / Greg Smallwood series where Marc Spector is confronting his many identities and his… unusual relationship with the Egyptian deity, Khonshu.

Moon Knight

And actually, we’re enjoying the current Moon Knight series by Jed Mackay and Alessandro Cappuccio, which finds Specter alternately billing himself as Mr. Knight and Moon Knight, going to therapy, operating a “Night Mission” to fulfill his obligations as a priest of Khonshu (albeit something of a renegade priest) while mixing it up with vampires, a rival priest and a madman initiating a conspiracy against him. We’re six issues in and it’s one of the better takes on the character in a while.

Moon Knight

Horror <> Hodor

The Dark Horse Horror Sale runs though Monday, 4/4.

This is one of those very large sales that the Amazon UIX is ill-equipped to handle, in terms of easy browsing, so we’ll flip through it so you don’t have to.

  • The Hellboy Omnibus series at $6.99 a pop is a helluva good deal (pun intended). Mike Mignola’s iconic horror adventure series is a classic and you should already be aware of it.
  • The E.C. Archives are also (mostly) $6.99 each. An all-star lineup of talent that inspired the comics code! For the unfamiliar, these were most famous as prestige horror comics in the early 1950s, as well as the beginning of Mad. There’s some well known war material, too. Harvey Kurtzman, Wally Wood, Al Williamson, Jack Davis, Al Feldstein… even a little Ray Bradbury, if memory serves.
  • Witchfinder Omnibus (both of them) – another Mignola verse historical horror series, with John Arcudi, Chris Robeson and Ben Stenbeck, among others.
  • Falconspeare – A recent (January ’22) Mike Mignola / Warwick Johnson-Caldwell Victorian murder mystery… about the disappearance of a vampire hunter. New enough we haven’t had a chance to read it yet.
  • Baltimore Omnibus – In a world where the vampires ran wild at the end of WWI, Lord Baltimore pursues a vendetta against them.  We read the set a few months back and enjoyed it. Mignola/Christopher Golden writing, Ben Stenbeck leads the art roster.
  • Creepy Archives – The ’60s/’70s horror magazine from Warren.
  • Eerie Archives – Also from the old Warren files, Creepy’s companion magazine
  • Grendel Omnibus – The collected Grendel, going back to the ’80s by Matt Wagner and friends. Hmmm… is there a TV show coming?
  • Grendel: Devil’s Odyssey – Matt Wagner’s latest Grendel series, released in January, ’22.
  • B.P.R.D is NOT centrally listed, so we’ll put it all under this heading. These are the adventures of Hellboy’s colleagues at the BPRD and it’s one long saga. It’s also really good. We revisited it a couple years back and it holds up. You _do_ need to read it in this order, though:
  • Abe Sapien Omnibuses – They actually have done quite a bit of Abe solo material.
  • The Seeds – An excellent science fiction tale by Ann Nocenti and David Aja that mashes up themes of eco-disaster, alien invasions and forbidden love.
  • Harrow County Omnibus – The long running Cullen Bunn / Tyler Crook backwoods witchcraft series.
  • Beasts of Burden – The neighborhood dogs (and a cat) battle the forces of darkness. Critically acclaimed series by Even Dorkin, Jill Thompson and Benjamin Dewey.
  • Lobster Johnson – We do love The Lobster, Mignola’s homage to ’30s pulp heroes with a rotating cast of co-creators. This is an odd series of mini-series, that run from silly to horror to thriller. The omnibus will finally come out… next week in HC, so these are “regular” collections.
  • Kabuki Omnibus – A nearly forgotten buzz book of the 90s by David Mack, as an assassin in Japan reassess her lot in life amidst conspiracies. Is the Sony TV adaption still happening? We haven’t heard anything about that lately.  An influential comic.
  • She Could  Fly– Before Marvel snagged him, Christopher Cantwell was working on this super powered series from Dark Horse with Martin Marazzo. We’ve been meaning to give it a look and have heard good things.

If you want to just browse the collected editions, your least bad option (Amazon doesn’t give you a good, sorted option) might be to sort the price from high to low.  The 99-cent issues will then start on page 38 (or did for us).

There’s a LOT more in there, but those were the highlights we noticed. In general, the omnibus editions are, by far, your best bang for the buck.

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Immortal Hulk, X-Men, Captain Marvel and Outcast

This week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales include, the wonder that is Immortal Hulk, X-Men Legacy, Captain Marvel (so many relaunches to keep track of) and a possible late addition to the Image Omnibus sale.

But first, we should probably talk about Amazon’s inability to get their sale prices right on the first iteration of a sale. This seems like it’s mostly a DC thing, but sale prices are dropping TWICE on some comics. The first time when the sale first appears and the second time a day or two after the sales are posted. It’s strange and the best advice we can give is that if the price doesn’t end in .99 or .49, it’s likely there’s an update that hasn’t happened yet.

We can’t tell if this is deliberate or a technical error, and if it’s a technical error, whether the problem is on the Amazon side or the DC side.  Regardless of why, this is really inconvenient. While Amazon (and even Comixology) have always had the odd title that lagged behind the rest of the sale, this has gotten ridiculous.

On a related note, we can’t really tell if all of the Dark Horse titles on the Deals page are really on sale.  You don’t sill the digital list price vs. sale price listed on those, just

Sold by: Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Price set by seller.

That’s not the most helpful thing in the world.

Now, if you go into the sale listings, *some* of the comics will have the “best price in 30 days” banner. Those are probably one sale. The rest? We’re just not sure.  We like things like Hellboy and Joe Kubert’s Tarzan, but we’re not sure those are great sale prices for everything listed.

Speaking of digital list price vs. sale price, if an individual book is enrolled in Comixology Unlimited, you need to be logged out of Unlimited to be able to see the original list price.  Yes, this is yet another inconvenience after Amazon’s attempted absorption of the Comixology site.

We’re so old, we remember when Amazon actually cared about the customer experience. It’s just not clear how much the care about their comics customers, since we keep having all sorts of new hiccups.

Anyway, back to the Cheap.

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

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

The End of the Immortal

Marvel’s Immortal Hulk Sale runs through Thursday, 3/31.

Easily the sale of the week.

This is Al Ewing’s horror-tinged opus. The Hulk and other gamma-afflicted characters gather. It seems those dosed with gamma might not be able to die and it all seems tied to a mysterious green door that might lead to Hell. And there’s someone behind the door.

Now, there are two parallels sets of reprints here: the “regular” volumes (1-11) and the deluxe volumes (Book 1-4). The deluxe ones reprint 2 of the regular volumes, so you’d be waiting on V. 5. Otherwise, there’s not an appreciable price difference between formats.

Note: V. 11 collects various one-shots and is optional.  V.1-10 gets you the full story.

Other than that, just enjoy one of the best comics of the last decade.

Immortal Hulk

LoX?

Marvel’s X-Men Legacy Sale runs through Sunday, 3/27.

This would be the (largely) Mike Carey era of the X-Men: Legacy comic. You might know him from Lucifer and My Faith in Frankie or in his secret identity as M.R. Carey with The Girl With All the Gifts. Yes, he gets around a little.

It’s the X-Men, so there’s quite a few artists passing through – Scot Eaton, Khoi Pham and Clay Mann all figure prominently.

This picks up after Messiah Complex and runs into Avengers Vs. X-Men with Christos Gage penning the last couple volumes.

(The actual series page might be easier to navigate.)

X-Men Legacy

Not A Big Red Cheese?

The Captain Marvel: Earth’s Mightiest Hero Sale runs through Sunday, 3/27.

Hmmm… was somebody bending over backwards to riff on the original Captain Marvel being “The World’s Mightiest Mortal?” It does seem that way, doesn’t it?

OK… brace yourselves… this one has a ton of relaunches:

We think that’s the overly complicated chronology, anyway. For recommendations, we’re not really Captain Marvel experts, but we’re inclined to say go with the current Thompson run. Kelly Sue DeConnick has a very dedicated fanbase, so maybe browse the sample pages there and see if that catches your fancy, too?

Speaking of Complex Relaunches

The Wonder Woman sale was broken down in the last installment.

A Late Addition

That  Image Omnibus sale running through 3/31?

We’re not sure if this was a late addition to the sale or our eye skipped over it, but there’s an omnibus of the Robert Kirkman / Paul Azaceta series Outcast available. 48 issues for $27 is fractionally a lesser deal than the Spawn Omnibuses, but that’s about $3.38 per “normal” collection/ ~56 cents/issue.

We need to read the last volume, but this story that’s twist and subversion of demonic possession has been holding our interest.

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: A Big Wonder Woman Sale, plus… The Invaders

A mid-week look at Comixology (at Amazon) Sales. Why? Because there’s a very large Wonder Woman sale that takes quite a bit of effort to break down into digestible sections.  Plus, The Invaders are on sale, including a recent run that was largely ignored and is worth reading.

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

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

Golden Age Avengers

Marvel’s Invaders Sale runs through Thursday, 3/24.

This would be the WWII super team built around Captain America & Bucky, the original Human Torch & Toro and Namor, the Sub-Mariner. They invaded Europe and fought the likes of the Red Skull, Master Man, Warrior Woman, Baron Blood and U-Man.

Invaders Classics: The Complete Collection is the best pricing for the run and we’d put the first volume as slightly stronger than the second. V.1 is Roy Thomas and mostly Frank Robbins on art. Yes, Robbins on superhero comics is a divisive thing, but Invaders is where he fits best.  Don Glut joins in the writing fray in V. 2 and the art rotates a bit more, notably with Alan Kupperberg. The early sequence introducing Baron Blood is particularly good.

Invaders

The most recent Invaders flew under most radars, but it was a personal favorite here at the Tower of Cheap. Chip Zdarksy, Butch Guice and Carlos Magno. That book launches today, it gets a little more attention, but Zdarsky was not yet at his current profile level in ’19. This is a modern day tale of Cap, Winter Soldier and the original Torch trying to figure out what’s going on with aggressive military stances in Atlantis. Of course, there’s palace intrigue under the sea, but this also serves as a Sub-Mariner series, providing some explanations for different characterizations of Namor over the years and wrapping up some of his subplots across various titles. It’s a really solid comic and we were sad it ended.  This is one extended story, so you need to get both volumes.

Invaders

We also liked the Stern/Epting collection and Avengers/Invaders, but those are the top picks here.

It Makes You Wonder…

DC’s Wonder Woman and the Amazons Sale runs through Monday, 4/4.

This is another one of those extra hard to navigate, jumbled up sales. We’re going to do what we did with the Batman sale and break this down into the individual titles, so you can browse little easier.

  • Sensation Comics – these are the “Golden Age” archive editions and have the early issues of Wonder Woman in them, too.
    Sensation Comics (Single Issues) – If you prefer the Mr. Terrific and Wildcat backups be included, the single issues are $0.99. That might be the everyday price, too.
  • Wonder Woman (’42-’86) – The early issues are filed under Sensation Comics, so this listing is “Best of” collections and the collected “12 Labors” from the 70s.
    Wonder Woman (Single Issues) – The original run is not complete, but a lot of the single issues are available and most of them are $0.99. Again, looks like $0.99 is the everyday price, too.
  • Wonder Woman (’87 – ’06).  OK, this is odd. Amazon has TWO DIFFERENT collected edition pages for this run.  That’s… not real efficient.  At any rate, this is the series that starts out with George Perez, then Messner-Loebs/Deodato, John Byrne,  Phil Jimenez and finally the first Greg Rucka run. (With a few creators in between those entries.)

Page #1 – this is the main page

Page #2 – click here for V. 5 and 6 of Perez and V.2 of Messner-Loebs

If I were working at DC, I’d probably ask Amazon what’s up with this link structure.

Wonder Woman (Single Issues ’87-’06) – again, mostly $0.99 and that seems like the everyday price.

OK, that was kind of exhausting.  Recommendations? Sure. Go back to Sensation Comics (either version) and get a look at how strange and subversive the original comics by Moulton and Peters were. Lotsa bondage in a kids’ comic setting.

Go to the ’87 series and get some Perez. For a lot of people Wonder Woman started with Perez. The Rucka + multiple artists run at the end of that series is also excellent.

The return of Rucka with Nicola Scott and Liam Sharp is also excellent, but you can save a little money if you get that in the first two volumes here.

And a couple one-offs we can also recommend:

Wonder Woman: Dead Earth by Daniel Warren Johnson is a helluva fun ride. Diana awakens in post-apocalyptical hellscape, fighting off the monsters trying to eat the human survivors and trying to remember why and how long she was unconscious. Listen to metal while you read it!

Wonder Woman: The True Amazon is Jill Thompson’s award winning OGN and it is absolutely gorgeous to behold.

Wonder Woman: Dead Earth   Wonder Woman - True Amazon

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: X-Men, Iron Man, Heroes Reborn and DMZ

This week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales include: The Dawn of X segment of X-Men comics, Heroes Reborn (OK, for our purposes, Heroes Return), Iron Man and the DMZ, now as seen on TV.

Side comments about the nature of reprinting cross-over Events included at no extra charge!

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

X-Hijinks

Marvel’s X-Men: Dawn of X Sale runs through Thursday, 3/20.

To put this in the context of the Hickman era of X, you start out with the House of X / Powers of X mini’s, then you go into the “regular” X-Men family of titles. This post HoX/PoX era is what’s being called “Dawn of X” and it basically stops just before the X of Swords crossover Event.

Dawn of X is a series of trade paperbacks (or digital TPBs for our purposes) that collect the issues of the _entire_ X-Men line of books, to more properly approximate reading the line in release order. Oh, they’ll fudge the exact release order here and there for 2-parters, but you get the idea.

Essentially, particularly early on in the line, the ideas of the X-family floated between titles. Ben Percy’s Wolverine and X-Force cross-pollinated a fair amount, too. We’ve felt that you do get a more out of the X-line by reading it as a whole. It enhances the scope and the worldbuilding aspects. Oh, there’s a dud of an issue here and there, but on the whole, it’s a strong line. (We didn’t think the line was quite as uniformly strong post-X of Swords, but that’s for a different time.)

Marvel has been getting better about going back and collecting stories that bounced between titles (like Hickman’s Avengers saga) in the actual reading order, as opposed tpbs of the individual titles that you need to bounce between. In general, this is a good thing.

We wish we could get you this listed in numerical order, but Amazon’s sorting routines aren’t very good here… but we can give you the list in reverse order! <rolls eyes>

Dawn of X

We’ll Stick with the Return

Marvel’s Heroes Reborn Sale runs through Thursday, 3/24.

This is the 90s experiment when Marvel outsourced some of their titles to Image. Now, for our money, the gems here are from the “Heroes Return” period, when those title came back to Marvel:

Iron Man: Heroes Return – The Complete Collection V. 1 has Kurt Busiek, Roger Stern and Sean Chen as the primary creative team, re-establishing shell head back in the Marvel Universe. You get some Mandarin, there’s a side trip with Captain America and MODOK. This collects the first portion of one of our favorite Iron Man periods.

And speaking of high points, this sale also has Captain America: Heroes Return – The Complete Collection,  which is the Mark Waid/Ron Garney run resuming. (It had just started, and was abruptly halted, for Heroes Reborn.) A little Hydra, a lost shield… that MODOK tale from Iron Man is also reprinted here (a shared Annual). It’s a solid run.

Iron Man: Heroes Reborn   Captain America Heroes Return

We Forget… Is It Still 2020?

The last couple years really are a blur and this sale is confusing us!

The Marvel Iron Man 2020 and Other Stories Sale runs through Sunday, 3/20.

First off, the Heroes Return sale for Busiek/Chen Iron Man is by far the better deal, so ignore the shorter collections here.

Now here’s a comic we haven’t seen mentioned in quite a while: Iron Man: The Inevitable by Joe Casey and Frazier Irving. We liked that one when it was coming out. Stark tries to rehabilitate the Living Lazer, while Spymaster and the Ghost plot his downfall. Introspection, espionage and then some things blow up. We think the audience may have been expecting more slam-bang when it came out, but we recall this as a slower build up… and it likely benefits from a collected edition.

Iron Man: Iron Monger is the end of the Denny O’Neil/Luke McDonnell era… although McDonnell bows out a little early, so you get some Rich Buckler and Mark Bright starts his run with #200.  And #200 is a helluva ride. O’Neil runs Tony Stark through the ringer and this sees him dragging himself up from the gutters after an alcoholic relapse to deal with Obadiah Stane and his Iron Monger armor. That finale has proven very influential over the years!

Iron Man: The Inevitable   Iron Man: Iron Monger

Feudal Warlords of Manhattan

The Stream DC: DMZ Sale runs through Monday, 3/28.

And yes, that would be the old Vertigo series, DMZ by Brian Wood and Riccardo Burchielli. And it’s a good one. The premise? There’s been a militia uprising. The rebels have captured the coast and New Jersey. The US Army holds Long Island. Manhattan is a no-man’s land between the armies. A demilitarized zone, i.e. DMZ. A rookie photojournalist pulls an assignment in the DMZ, but things go pear-shaped and he finds himself stranded… but also with a unique opportunity as an embedded reporter, so he attempts to navigate a strange landscape of neighborhood-based warlords and the strange society that’s popped up around the Manhattanites who could get out… while both armies jockey for position in the shadows.

You can read a few volumes on Comixology Unlimited to test drive it, but if you’re buying, you want the larger deluxe editions for your lowest tab.

DMZ

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Comixology Sales – Batman, Avengers, Spawn, Thanos and Blacksad

This week in Comixology (at Amazon) Sales, we break down that big Batman sale by titles and maybe that makes it easier to parse. Marvel has deals on (almost) all things Avengers and their Cosmic wing of the universe, while we keep an eye on the Image Omnibuses.

We’re just wondering if, by the time you read this, whether the Defenders sale is still listed on the Deals page. As we type this, the sale is over, the listing is still up and the link doesn’t really go anywhere.  Amazon is trying to keep you on your toes!

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

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

The Sale That Flaps in the Knight

So let’s revisit the big Batman Sale that’s still running through Monday (3/14). We’ve been hearing a LOT about how hard it is to navigate… and that’s no lie. We also heard one of our old habits is a little more helpful with the new Amazon consumer unfriendly layout, so we’re just going to give you a list of the various Batman series out there. Pretty much everything older is on sale, including $0.99 cent singles, so maybe this would be a little easier to parse?

Browse around those links and they might be easier to sift through and digest than the formal sale listings.

Now to throw out a suggestion that’s deeper cut, we were always a fan of the Greg Rucka / Shawn Martinbrough / Rick Burkett run that’s been collected under the banner of “New Gotham.  Great run, and $4.99 for 300+ page volumes is good bang for your buck, too. Volume 1 and Volume 2.

Batman: New Gotham   Batman: New Gotham

Bargains Assemble

Marvel has an Avengers sale running through St. Paddy’s Day (3/17).

No single issues on this sale, but let’s take the same approach… although we apologize for how unorganized the series pages on Amazon are presented. It’s poor craftsmanship.

What we’d recommend overall is to head to the original Avengers run and pick off some of the Epic Editions for $6.99.

Another excellent option is to head over to the ’98-’04 Avengers run and look at the Avengers Assemble volumes by Kurt Busiek and George Perez, which is a wonderful thing.

You might be thinking about the Hickman era, but we’re going to throw up a caution light here. Because of how that run bounced between various titles, you’re much better off reading it in the Avengers by Jonathan Hickman: The Complete Collection format and that one’s not on sale right now.

However, if you’re looking to get your Jason Aaron/Ed McGuinness on, their Avengers is most definitely in the sale.

Oh, you’re going to make us pick and choose?  Fine.

Since the best chunk of Englehart’s Avengers isn’t in Epic format, we’ll go with The Final Threat for the original run Epic Collection. For $6.99, you get the very end of Englehart, a skirmish with Doctor Doom and Namor, the return of Wonder Man and the Bride of Ultron arc. Plus the finale of the original Thanos/Warlock saga. So your parade of creators also includes Gerry Conway, Jim Shooter, George Perez, John Byrne and Jim Starlin. That ain’t shabby.

Then maybe Avengers Forever, a truly epic Kang story by Kurt Busiek, Roger Stern and Carlos Pacheco. That was it’s own maxi-series and sometimes get overlooked for not being in the main title.  But it’s GOOD.

(Honorable mention to Under Seige – the Epic Collection version, from the delightful Roger Stern / John Buscema / Tom Palmer era.)

Avengers   Avengers Forever

Image Lays It On THICK

Image’s Omnibus Sale runs through Thursday, 3/31. Now, you need to keep an eye on these Image omnibus sales because a lot of the pricing is for HC deluxe editions and such things don’t matter in digital.  That said,  things that caught our eye:

Paper Girls The Complete Story by Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang, i.e. 30 issues for $19.99? That’s a good deal on the time travel caper and you get the whole story in one piece.

Would you like to read the first 100 issues of Spawn for less than $0.50/issue? Because now there are TWO volumes of Spawn Compendium for $23.99 each. 50 issues per volume. Get your Todd McFarlane on, your Greg Capullo on and yes… your Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore, too (in the first volume).  That’s about as good a per issue price as you see outside of the holidays.

If you were wondering, the Saga omnibus that was on sale a few weeks back is not currently on sale.

Paper Girls   Spawn Compendium

No… Cosmic Boy is a DC Character…

The Marvel Cosmic Heroes Sale runs through Sunday, 3/13.

So what’s Cosmic at Marvel?  Strangely, Jim Starlin-inspired material, but not Starlin, himself. No Captain Marvel or Infinity Gems.

Thanos Wins was the introduction of Donny Cates and Geoff Shaw to the Marvel universe. It was never clear to us just how cannon this arc was (then again, we never thought Old Man Logan would turn up in the current timeline), but it’s also an entertaining, disturbing and sometimes funny jaunt that finds Thanos confronting his victorious future at the end of time. And Cosmic Ghost Rider.

The real old school option here is Star-Lord: Guardian of the Galaxy, which collects the early Star-Lord tales. And when we say early, we mean starting with the old b&w Marvel magazines. We’ve got most of those and we like them. It’s a different Star-Lord than you see post-GoG movie, too… although Al Ewing has definitely been going back to basics. (Good on you, Al.) Who was working on these originals? Steve Englehart, Chris Claremont, Doug Moench, Timothy Zahn, Carmine Infantino, John Byrne… there was talent working on the character.

Thanos Wins   Star-Lord

And finally… you like hardboiled mysteries? If so, check out Blacksad. It’s anthropomorphic, but is is NOT funny animals. This PI comic is firmly in the Hammett/Chandler school and it is EXCELLENT.

Blacksad

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Comixology Sales: Batman, Conan, GI Joe and where the new sale pages are

This week in Comixology Sales… can we still all it Comixology? Well, the logo’s still on the Amazon page. Anyway, we have a look at some discounts on Batman, Conan and GI Joe… plus some advice on navigating the new Amazon page.

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

We’re not sure how this whole “Comixology on Amazon” thing is going to go. We surely were not happy with the churlish and authoritarian forced updates to the app, so you’re not going to hear us complaining if you’re giving Amazon a “time out” over this — we sure did.

The format may get tweaked a little, but then again you’d expect that with the applecart getting upset. We’ll give it a try and see how it goes.

First things first, some navigational bits. We’ve been hearing a lot of complaints about the UIX, so here’s a cheat sheet for you.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

The new releases page is here. Bookmark it if you’ve been having trouble finding it.  You’re going to want to scroll down to the bottom of the page the see the real/full new releases. It’s similar, but perhaps a bit clunkier, than the old Comixology setup.  You can filter for major/mid-major publishers only.  Basically, the top list of filter options from the old version.

Since we know the Comixology folks read this – Comixology needs to consider AT MINIMUM adding an alphabetical sort to that new releases window. It isn’t clear what determines the order things are displayed in, but it comes off as haphazard and a lot more painful to use. You’re not doing your reputation any favors with the current state of things. We’d probably also add an option to display content in blocks by publisher… that might be overkill, but a lot of folks would use that.  (We’re so old, we remember when Amazon cared about customer opinions.)

The “Comics Deals” page is here. That’s the page for what’s on sale. Again, bookmark it if you’ve been having trouble finding it. We’re not sure about the rhythm of the updates yet – we were giving Amazon a time out. It isn’t clear the update pattern will exactly match the old Comixology site. Time will tell.  History suggests that ALL the sales may not turn up on the deals page and may start prior to showing up on the deals page, so… stay vigilant?

Something that made us laugh

Amazon/Comixology now has a “Graphic Novels” page. Maybe someone will come to their sense and fix this before you click, but right now we’re seeing X-Men #9, Saga #56, Batman #121 — which is to say, Comixology gets absorbed by Amazon and suddenly they can’t tell the difference between a single issue and a graphic novel.  Not inspiring much confidence there, sport!

So… anyway, what’s on sale right now that might be interesting?

Dark thoughts need a Dark Knight

There’s a Batman sale running through Monday, the 14th.

Yeah, it’s going to be a pain to click through 200+ pages, since Amazon doesn’t seem to have a grid display option for the complete sale, just their highlights.

What’s good?  $2.99 for Batman:Year One by Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli is a great value.

Call us crazy (you wouldn’t be the first), but we thought Batman: Universe by Brian Bendis and Nick Derington was a really fun ride. It’s a nice tour of the DCU, the snarkfest of Bruce’s and Alfred’s conversation is top notch and you don’t see the “fun” version of Batman that often. It’s just well done.

Batman: Shadow of the Bat V. 1 is the tail end of the Alan Grant / Norm Breyfogle era of Batman… and also comes with some Tim Sale art, which is never a bad thing. At $4.99, it’s the most cost effective entry in that era (which is well worth your time).

Batman: Year One   Batman Universe   Batman: Shadow of the Bat

The Cheap Barbarian

Marvel’s Conan Sale runs through Sunday, 3/6.

Conan, possibly because it’s a licensed property, doesn’t seem like it’s on sale as much as other titles, so it might be worth some attention if you’re barbarian friendly.

We’d put this in three buckets:

  1. The original Marvel run of Conan The Barbarian by Roy Thomas, Barry Windsor-Smith, John Buscema and friends. This is conveniently available in Epic Collections. It is a classic and one of the most popular titles of its time.
  2. The Dark Horse “Conan Chronicles“— also conveniently available in Epic Collections (some of the most recent material in Epic format, too?). We’re particularly fond of the early Kurt Busiek / Card Nord run.
  3. Savage Avengers by Gerry Duggan and Patrick Zircher (as the primary artist). OK, we had to be coaxed into this one, too. Conan, Venom, The Punisher, Elektra and Doctor Voodoo questing after Kulan Gath. “Savage Defenders” might be a more apt name for it, because it really reminded me of what you’d get if Conan was running the old “non-team,” instead of Nighthawk or Doctor Strange. Except more over the top and macho. A comic that’s entertaining, while not taking itself completely seriously… and you’ll know by the description if it’s for you.

Conan the Barbarian   Conan Chronicles   Savage Avengers

The Discount Egress

The IDW GI Joe Sale runs through Thursday, 3/24.

We bring this one up because the GI Joe license is going to be leaving IDW at the end of the year. Depending on the roll-out at the new publisher, that means some of the material might not be in digital for awhile. So if you’re interested in it, now is a good time to get current with that interest.

We’d say go with the Larry Hama run. (Which continues here.)

GI Joe

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Comixology Sales: Black Panther, Falcon and The Winter Soldier/Captain America, Hardware and Neil Gaiman

This week’s Comixology sales include the world of the Black Panther, Falcon & the Winter Soldier, Hardware and the world of Neil Gaiman.

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

This is going to be a shorter run-through of the sales than normal because of the upcoming absorption of Comixology into the Amazon website.  Comixology’s communications on this have not been particularly helpful.  What do we officially know?

Pre-orders will be honored for next week’s books, if you’re in the US. If you’re not in the US, readers are getting notified their subscriptions are cancelled and they’ll need to buy the new comics off Amazon. (Have a look on  Twitter.  People are NOT happy.)

If the non-US folks are being told to go to Amazon to buy next week’s book, we strongly suspect the Comixology site is offline by Tuesday or Wednesday.

It would be nice if Comixology could actually put a date on their intentions, but ever since they first started teasing the changeover all the way back in September, they’ve been avoiding giving an actual date. Honestly, we didn’t post last week because we weren’t sure if the Comixology site would be up the next day. We’re pretty disappointed in the lack of communication at Amazon, up and down the tree.

So, a link to the Amazon version of the sale will follow the top level Comixology link. The Amazon links will be good longer than the Comixology ones will… at least that’s our understanding.

We’ll see what the landscape looks like next week.   The Amazon site has not been nearly as good at displaying what’s on sale as the Comixology site.

Paid For in Vibranium

The Marvel Black Panther and the World of Wakanda Sale runs through Sunday (2/27). (Amazon link)

The old Marvel Knights run, collected in omnibus form as Black Panther by Christopher Priest: The Complete Collection is our favorite of all the Panther runs.  High adventure and the comic relief of Everett Ross, befuddled diplomat. This run hits just about every note there is to hit. Much (but not all) of the film flows from here… even as the Priest run flows from the original Jungle Action run of Don McGregor and Billy Graham (also worth your time.)

Black Panther by Priest   Panther's Rage

Soldiering On

The Marvel Falcon and the Winter Soldier Sale runs through Thursday, 2/17

There’s a lot to like with this sale.  Love the Steve Englehart/Sal Buscema era of Captain America. We’ve always thought the Priest Captain America and the Falcon run was criminally under-rated.  But you know what? Madbomb is just too darn topical not to give it the nod today. Cap and the Falcon track down a conspiracy to topple the government using bombs that drive people crazy and cause riots.

A Cautionary Tale of the Tech Industry

The DC Black History Month Sale runs through Monday, 2/14. (Amazon Link)

Of all the original Milestone titles getting brought back right now, our favorite was Hardware. The opening arc by Dwayne McDuffie, Denys Cowan and J.J. Birch still rings true. Let’s face it, feeling trapped by an unscrupulous employer in the tech industry who lawyered up and wanting you to sign all sorts of paperwork is still a thing.

Always Check the Prices

The Dark Horse Neil Gaiman Sale runs through Monday, 2/14.

And we’re going to leave you on this note to illustrate how weird it can sometimes get swapping between the Comixology and Amazon versions of the sale.  We’re just going to list the prices we’re seeing and suggest if you want some Gaiman, you hit the Amazon version of the sale early.

The Neil Gaiman Library (any volume): Comixology – $12.49 / Amazon – $11.99
Snow, Glass, Apples: Comixology – $5.49 / Amazon – $4.99

Not everything is priced differently, but it’s always been goofy back and forth between the two sites.

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Comixology Sales: War of the Realms, West Coast Avengers, Tynion’s Early Batman and Critical Role

This week in Comixology sales, Marvel drops a discount on War of the Realms and West Coast Avengers, DC offers up samplers of the “Rebirth” era, Dark Horse spotlights Critical Role… and don’t forget that Saga sale is still in effect.

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

A little heads up here – as you may have heard, Comixology has been saying that their website will be absorbed into the Amazon website since… September?  The date of the switchover has been pushed back. A lot. But we’ve been hearing around the water cooler that it should be any day now and we’re honestly not sure whether or not it’s going to flip over between now and February 1st.  Maybe it will and maybe the changeover will get pushed back again.  If you get redirected to Amazon, that’s why we’ve been putting the Amazon links for the sales in.

This Means War

The Marvel War of the Realms Sale runs through Sunday, 1/30 (Amazon link)

Yes, the Thor Event.  What you get depends on how you want to read it.

For deep background, the Thor of the Realms anthology will give a selection of stories from Lee/Kirby, Walt Simonson and other. This falls under “classic material.”

Thor V.2: Road to War of the Realms by Jason Aaron and Mike Del Mundo is the lead-in to the actual event, so starting there would also be appropriate.

And then there’s finally War of the Realms, the actual Jason Aaron/Russell Dauterman Event mini-series wherein Malekith invades Midgard after conquering the rest of the ten realms.

You get through that and want more, there are plenty of spin-offs available.

Thor of the Realms   Thor Road to War of the Realms   War of the Realms

Turn Left (Coast)

The Marvel West Cost Avengers Sale runs through Sunday, 1/30. (Amazon link)

We can sum this one up very easily.  Much more easily than most sales. Get the Epic Collections.  “How the West Was Won” has the original Roger Stern/Bob Hall limited series and then jumps into the Steve Englehart/Al Milgrim ongoing series. The Epic’s take you through the beginning of the John Byrne run, so when you get to “Vision Quest,” get that and stop. (Unless you don’t like Byrne, in which case stop before that.) The next Epic Collection, “Darker Than Scarlet,” has been released, but is too recent to be on sale.  If we have learned one thing, it’s that it _will_ be on sale, so exercise a little patience there.

Avengers West Coast

X’d Out

The Marvel X-Force Legacy Sale runs through Thursday, 2/3. (Amazon link)

We have a clear favorite run of X-Force: The Rick Remender era. A dark era, to be sure, but the X-Force concept was supposed to be a little dark. The best way to pick that run up is to scroll down to the Omnibuses section and grab the two “X-Force by Rick Remender” volumes.

If you want something a LOT different, you can opt for the much loved (a little too popular to be “cult”) Peter Milligan/Mike Allred version, which is farcical take on the team.

X-Force   X-Force

When One Birth is Not Enough

The DC Rebirth eBook Sale runs through Monday, 1/31. (Amazon link)

This would be the deluxe editions of the Rebirth era DC titles, which contain the first two “normal” volumes of those titles.

The creative star of Rebirth, as far as we’re concerned was the relaunch of Wonder Woman under Greg Rucka, Liam Sharp and Nicola Scott. A repositioning of Diana’s origins after the New 52 version (an excellent story, but perhaps better suited to the Elseworlds line), this one has Diana probing her origins and why Paradise Island has disappeared.

While the Tom King Batman was the sales star of Rebirth (and it’s here), we honestly like the James Tynion IV / Eddy Barrows Detective Comics run better. It’s really a sort of Batman Family title as Batman taps Batwoman to assemble Gotham’s vigilantes into more of a cohesive unit in the face of a mysterious force targeting the younger heroes.

We also thought the Dan Jurgens / Patrick Zircher / Tyler Kirkham Action Comics run was a lot more fun than it got credit for.  Let’s be brutally honest: DC hasn’t really been able to find a take on Superman to stick with since New 52 dropped.  This one was a throwback to the tone of late 80s through mid-90s Superman and worked well for what it was… until that ridiculous Jor-El plot got inserted into it towards the end of the run.

Wonder Woman   Detective Comics by Tynion   Action Comics

Game Night

The Dark Horse Critical Role & Vox Machina Sale runs through Monday, 2/7. (Amazon Link)

This would be the *cough* D&D-like comics exploring the backgrounds of the characters from the extremely popular podcast.  Does that make it the story within the story?  Um, maybe?

Critical Role: Vox Machina Origins combines the previous two volumes into a single edition.

Critical Role: The Mighty Nein Origins — Jester Lavorre chronicles the early years of Jester Lavorre… as if you couldn’t guess by the title…

Critical Role   Critical Role - Jester

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Comixology Sales: The Return of Saga, Silver Surfer, Peacemaker, Shockrockets and Silk

This week’s Comixology sales include the Silver Surfer and Silk from Marvel, Peacemaker from DC and Image celebrates the return of Saga with a “Sci-Fi” sale.

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

Surf’s Up

The Marvel Silver Surfer Sale runs through Sunday, 1/23. (Amazon link)

You really can’t go wrong with the original Stan Lee/John Buscema (with Jack Kirby at the end) run of Silver Surfer, which is collected across two Masterworks editions.

We’re also fond of the 80s Silver Surfer run. In classic Marvel fashion, it’s collected in a strange way.  That link will take you to the Epic Collections. The first one, “Freedom” is from the Steve Englehart/Marshall Rogers run, which is excellent.  Naturally the rest of that period isn’t collected. To get the beginning of the Jim Starlin/Ron Lim period that followed it, you need to jump over to Silver Surfer: The Rebirth of Thanos. Then you can jump back to the “Thanos Quest” Epic Collection, which takes you up to issue 50 and the end of the Starlin era that really laying the groundwork for Infinity Gauntlet.  Ron Marz jumps in for the next Epic Collection, “Infinity Gauntlet” and that’s more of a companion series to the mini-series/Event of the same name, so venture forward it you want, but know the next volume is largely a tie-in.  Also – the actual Thanos Quest mini-series is reprinted in both Rebirth of Thanos  and the “Thanos Quest” volume.  Great planning, Marvel collections dept.!

Silver Surfer Masterworks   Silver Surfer - Englehart   Rebirth of Thanos

It Bites

The Marvel Silk Sale runs through Sunday, 1/23.

Yes, this would be the adventures of Silk, the other person bitten by the radioactive spider that gave Peter Parker his powers. For this one, we might go for the Spider-Verse collection

Spider-Verse

Not Dempsey and Makepeace

The DC Peacemaker & Friend Sale runs through Monday, 1/24. (Amazon link)

A small number of random collections and issues here. (Only V.’s 1 and 4 of the Ostrander/McDonnell Suicide Squad?  Weird.)

What can we put a good word in for?  Suicide Squad: Bad Blood by Tom Taylor and Bruno Redondo is quality book with more double crosses than you can shake a mallet at.  Taylor and Redondo are starting to look like a long term pairing, too.

Vigilante by Marv Wolfman is the beginnings of the Adrian Chase version of the character and gives you an artistic lineup of George Perez/Keith Pollard/Chuck Patton/Ross Andru. (The volume ends before you get some Gil Kane and Trevor Von Eden.)

Suicide Squad Bad Blood   Vigilante

Saga Returns

The Image Sci-Fi Sale runs through Monday, 2/7. (Amazon link)

But let’s call this what it really, and what they’re leading with: the return of Saga. Yes, everyone’s favorite SF/F title by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staple is FINALLY returning after a ~3.5 year absence.  This one falls under the usual Image collection runs – Saga Compendium V. 1 is a fabulous deal. The entire first run (i.e. – all caught up in 1 volume) is $23.99 for 54 issues of material.  That’s less than 45 cents/issue and that’s stoopid cheap for what you’re getting.  The other omnibuses collecting ~3 “regular” volumes are more expensive than getting what Comixology calls the “Collected Editions,” so go Compendium or go individual volumes.

What else is back? Shockrockets. With Kurt Busiek’s return to Image, comes this collaboration with Stuart Immonen. A good entry in the sub-genre of military coming of age SF with salvaged alien tech being used to fight the invaders.  This was part of the short-lived gorilla comics imprint and we didn’t harbor many hopes of it returning.  Wrong.

The Manhattan Projects is also a fun ride. This Jonathan Hickman / Nick Pitarra has the Manhattan Project brain trust being brought together not just for the atomic bomb, but for a secret program of Mad Science. Space exploration, parallel dimensions and all manner of strangeness. Sometimes it’s silly and sometimes it borders on horror. All in all, quite a ride.  As with Saga, the individual collected editions are slightly less expensive than the “deluxe edition” omnibuses.

Saga   shockrockets   The Manhattan Projects

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