Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: DC has *a new* $1.99 Graphic Novel Sale

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, DC offers up a new slate of $1.99/$2.99 collected editions. We could get used to this.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

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

Isn’t this interesting? DC has another week of much better than usual discounts, so they get a solo post today and we’ll be back for the rest of the week at the usual time.

The question you might be asking yourself: “Will DC have even better discounts next week or did they wisely decide to unleash the good prices while everyone else was waiting for the week of the 20th?”

We won’t have an answer to that until next week, but we’re awfully curious.

The Hit Parade

The DC’s Greatest Hits Sale runs through Monday, 12/19.

There’s a little bit of everything here and a few items, like Far Sector and the George Perez Wonder Woman run, hanging on from previous recent sales.

First a piece of real good advice. This sale is monster to get to the end of. We lost track of how many times we had to click for more books. It you want to examine something, right click it and open it in a new window so you don’t lose your place and have to manually reload everything from the top!

So let’s break this into highlights by price points. Here’s what caught our eye in terms of story and pricing:

$2.99 “Deluxe” Editions

These are great values – they generally contain the equivalent or 2 “regular” collected editions (10-12 issue worth), so you’re paying an effective $1.50 per collected edition. That’s about as cheap as it gets with DC!

  • 100 Bullets – Brian Azzarello / Eduardo Risso
  • Batman: Shadow of the Bat Alan Grant/Norm Breyfogle/Tim Sale/Bret Blevins
  • DMZ – Brian Wood and Riccardo Burchielli
  • FablesBill Willingham / Mark Buckingham
  • The Flash by Geoff Johns – with Scott Kollins as the lead artist; scroll to the bottom of the page for this, but a couple Flash by Mark Waid volumes are also $2.99
  • JLA – Initially by Grant Morrison and Howard Porter
  • New Gods – Jack Kirby’s classic saga + the ’84 wrap-up from the reprints + The Hunger Dogs OGN

$1.99 Collected Editions

  • Batman (’16-current) – All but the end of the Tom King run, then $2.99
  • Detective Comics (’16-current) – The James Tynion IV & Peter J. Tomasi runs are mostly $1.99, and then $2.99
  • Ex-Machina – Brian K. Vaughan and Tony Harris; “Deluxe” double volumes – usually 10 issues worth – cheap!
  • Green Arrow (’88-’98) – Best known as the Mike Grell era with Ed Hannigan, Dan Jurgens and Rick Hoberg illustrating the Grell run
  • Green Lantern: Sector 2814 (’60-’86) – at the bottom of the page, the Len Wein/Dave Gibbons run into the Steve Englehard/Joe Staton run
  • Green Lantern (’05-’11) – The Geoff Johns run, a GL highlight
  • The Nice House on the Lake – James Tynion IV / Alvaro Martinez Bueno
  • Shazam!: The Monster Society of Evil – by Jeff Smith
  • Superman: Emperor Joker – Joe Kelly/Jeph Loeb/Doug Mahnke/Ed McGuinness
  • Superman: Phantom Zone – Steve Gerber / Gene Colan / Rick Veitch
  • Superman: The Man of Steel  – The John Byrne era, also with Marv Wolfman, Jerry Ordway, Ron Frenz and some Roger Stern
  • Superman Vs. Mongul – Len Wein/Jim Starlin are behind the early DC Comics Presents appearances of Mongul, plus the classic Alan Moore/Dave Gibbons “For the Man Who Has Everything”
  • Y- The Last Man – Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra; this version is actually the “Deluxe” double volumes for $1.99, so extra cheap!

A little pricier at $4.99, but of potential interest this week, First Issue Special is what Tom King’s Danger Street is based on. This is sort of the ’70s version of Showcase. The only “hit” to come out of it was Mike Grell’s Warlord, which one was of DC’s best sellers into the early 80s. The Martin Pasko/Walt Simonson Doctor Fate issue is a classic. Kirby’s Manhunter and Atlas issues are also worth your time. A mixed bag, but an interesting mixed bag.

What’s the pick of the litter? When all the prices are this good, it really depends on your tastes.  If you emphasize page count vs. price, New Gods might just get the crown. ~420 pages of great comics whose influence is hard to overstate for a mere $2.99. For the uninitiated, this is Jack Kirby’s epic of superhero-esque gods on the planets of New Genesis and Apokolips. Orion is the lead hero, Darkseid is the big bad and Mister Miracle was actually a companion book, not the main title. This is where Darkseid comes from.

Ex-Machina is pre-Saga Brian K. Vaughan and post-Starman Tony Harris telling the tale of the mayor of NYC and his unsuccessful efforts to stay retired from superheroing. A more adult take on superheroes set against a backdrop of politics long before the Kingpin or Luke Cage was mayor. $1.99/volume for the double volumes? Yes, please.

For “traditional” DC capes hijinx, we’ll give the JLA run a slight nod over Flash. As JLA moves forward, the page counts get a little higher than Flash. Particularly the Waid/Hitch volume. The Flash also doesn’t wear a cape, so there’s that, too. And for bonus points, the first volume of JLA is $1.99. Cheap. Really, both of those are fine, iconic runs. Pun intended.

There’s a LOT to look at with this sale. 1300+ items, so if you like the DC cannon, it’s probably worthwhile to carve some time out to browse this before the weekend passes.

New Gods by Jack Kirby   Ex Machina   JLA

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: DC Breaks Out $1.99 Collected Editions / $0.99 Single Issues

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, DC opens up with some grown up discounts: $1.99 collected edition and $0.99 single issues rule the day.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

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

DC’s Stealth Holiday Sale

The DC Recent Hits Sale runs through Monday, 12/12.

$1.99 recent collected editions? Yes, this got our attention and we’re popping in mid-week to point this out to you. We applaud DC for bringing the cheap this week.

First, let’s just run through a list of some of the $1.99 collections that made us raise an eyebrow. This is NOT a complete list of the selections and not all of the material is that recent… just most of it.

There’s a lot of quality there. Quality on the cheap! Much of this we’ve spoken of before.  We especially like those Hellblazer books (both versions listed) and The Human Target. This run of The Human Target is an out of continuity Black Label book where Chance is investigating his own poisoning and the suspects are the Bwa Ha Ha era Justice League International. It manages to be hardboiled AND Bwa Ha Ha on alternating pages, which is not easy to pull off!

And if you’ve never encountered Kirby’s  OMAC, it’s something of a science fiction social satire. One of the more unusual things Kirby did.

John Constantine, Hellblazer   OMAC   The Human Target

At slightly higher price points, our eyebrow went up for:

That’s a nice set of books. The one we haven’t really mentioned before, largely because the price point is usually on the high side, is Hard Time. One of Gerber’s lessor known and later works, this is an odd one even by Gerber’s standards. A prank goes wrong. Some students die and a teenager is quickly made an example of and sentenced to 50 years hard time. Except the teen has super powers… or perhaps some sort of super entity living in him. Prison drama. Teen hero. Incarceration politics. Yes, it goes to some dark places.

Hard Time   Far Sector   Wonder Woman by George Perez

And then there were the $0.99 single issues.  Like… a lot of them. And a few larger format comics reduced to $1.99.  Note: these are recent issues, so you may need to scroll down a bit to get to where the discounts start.  Here are some highlights, since these are all the way at the bottom of the sale:

This is definitely a sale that’s worth taking some time to scroll through, as annoying at the current Amazon UIX may be. Plenty more on sale than we highlighted and these are the best prices we’ve seen from DC in some time. (And we’re curious if they can actually top this in a couple weeks.)

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: DC’s Black Friday Sale = Lots of Batman and Recent $0.99 Single Issues

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, it’sDC’s Black Friday Sale! Better than normal discounts on collected editions – yes, lots of Batman – plus a lot of recent $0.99 single issues.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

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

Surprise! DC’s Black Friday Sale dropped while we were writing up Marvel’s (annual Black Friday) Epic Collection Sale – which you should absolutely have a look at – and we’ve been getting prodded to annotate DC’s, too.  So… DC today and then we’ll get back with the rest of the Black Friday sales on Black Friday… since sales are definitely starting to drop.

I See a Sale and I Want It Painted Black…

The DC Black Friday Sale runs through Monday, 11/28.

This sale is a mix of some more recent material and some classic material… and some of the prices are good. But let’s hit some highlights and then try to run down the single issue options, since those are buried at the bottom of the sale and most people don’t have kind of patience it takes to click that far down.

’80s Batman

Gosh, you think a DC Sale will have a lot of Batman?  Duh.

For 80s Batman, a primo deal is V. 1-6 of Batman: The Dark Detective (click and scroll down a little, you’ll see them). That’s the 80s Detective Comics run starting with Mike W. Barr / Alan Davis and continuing through the Alan Grant / Norm Breyfogle run. V. 3 includes the sequence by Batman screenwriter Sam Hamm and Denys Cowan. A really nice run for $3.99/$4.99 a pop.

Speaking of Sam Hamm, his Batman ’89 is the Two-Face story he would have done for the Tim Burton/Michael Keaton era Batman films, had the franchise not moved over to Joel Schumacher. Joe Quinones does the art. It’s on our “to read list,” but we haven’t gotten there yet, HOWEVER we would like to point out this was an August release and that awfully fast for DC to put the discounts on it. ($3.99)

For whatever reason, we don’t usually see the first volume of Batman and the Outsiders on sale. More often, it’s just V. 2 & 3 – which aren’t on sale this time, so go figure. This is #1-13 of the Mike W. Barr / Jim Aparo series, so if you’ve been curious, this is not a bad time to stick a toe in.

Batman: The Dark Knight Detective   Batman '89   Batman and the Outsiders

Current Batman

We think this is the first time the Josh Williamson run of Batman has been on sale (again, an August release for $3.99). You’ll also find the James Tynion 4.0 run at this link for $2.99/$3.99 if you scroll down a bit.

We’ve always loved the continuation of the animated series, but we love Batman: The Adventures Continue V.2 (Alan Burnett/Paul Dini/Rich Burchett/Ty Templeton) even more for $2.99! The Court of Owls enters the animated universe!

Is that a new volume of the Tom Taylor / Bruno Redondo Nightwing? Why yes, we think this is the first time V. 2 has been on sale and we know it’s a popular series with .cheap readers.

Batman: Abyss   Batman: The Adventures Continue   Nightwing

Recently On Sale

Not new, but not really that old, either. At least we’ve seen them on sale before.

Far Sector by N.K. Jemisin and Jamal Campbell was a jaw-dropping debut for Jemisin (who’s won just about every major Science Fiction/Fantasy prose award that comes to mind). A new Green Lantern with an experimental ring is off in a far corner of the galaxy and finds herself in the middle of a murder investigation on a world where murder hasn’t happened in centuries. Superior world building! 12 issues worth for $3.99

Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen: Who Killed Jimmy Olsen? by Matt Fraction and Steve Lieber is an utter delight. One of the funniest comics DC has ever produced. Again, $3.99 for a 12-issue series is as good as it gets with DC.

The Nice House On the Lake by James Tynion IV and Alvaro Martinez Bueno is a creepy SF/Horror genre bender (and more than a bit of a hit). A group of people are summoned to an isolated vacation home, only to witness the end of the world beginning outside their safe hideout. The mutual friend who invited them there… well, they have some questions about him. $2.99?!? Yeah, you can get it on the cheap right now.

Rorschach by Tom King and Jorge Fornés is a really odd creature. Set in the Watchman world, after the end of the book, it’s more about the mythology that has sprung up around Rorschach. It’s a mystery about political killings and muses about ideology and identity. It’s something of a unique book. While we were nervous picking up ANY non-Moore/Gibbons Watchmen title, we really enjoyed this one.

Swamp Thing by Ram V and Mike Perkins. This is the current run and we haven’t seen V.2 on sale before. The set up here finds Levi Kamei as the new Swamp Thing/Avatar of the Green. He’s not entirely sure what’s happened to him, but it might involve a corporation and it might involve his family. Interesting setup that has some echoes to The Anatomy Lesson as V. 2 nears its conclusion. Worth at look when it’s a rock bottom $2.99/volume.

Far Sector   Jimmy Olsen   Nice House on the Lake   Rorschach   Swamp Thing

Older Material At Good Prices

A couple ~20 issue/$5.99 volumes that are at a better price than we recall seeing lately:

Kamandi Jack Kirby’s take on Planet of the Apes, although that’s a reductionist description. Many, many years after The Great Disaster, the last boy on Earth navigates a strange wasteland of warring kingdoms of bipedal, talking evolved animals, where most humans are little more than livestock. An incredibly fun adventure book.

The Flash: Savage Velocity – this is the launch of the Wally West Flash era, post-Crisis. It contains the entire Mike Baron/Jackson Guice/Mike Collins run and the beginning of the William Messner-Loebs/Greg LaRocque run. (Yes, run is a pun.) Chunk! Red Trinity/Kapitalist Kouriers! Vandal Savage! Velocity 9!

Kamandi   The Flash

$0.99 Single Issues

This is going to be a little goofy for links, since you’re going to need to scroll down to the more recent issues on any of these pages, but you’ll get a good idea what’s out there. These are all fairly current issues… in the case of Batman,  January ’22 through August ’22.

 

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Ultimate Spider-Man; DC’s Golden and Silver Ages; Marvel Villains; Resident Alien

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel lowers prices on Ultimate Spider-Man and their villains; DC slashes the Golden and Silver Ages; Dark Horse discounts Resident Alien.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

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

The Eensy Weensy Bendis Sale

The Marvel Ultimate Spider-Man Sale runs through Monday, 11/21.

Yes, this essentially one very long Bendis-written run, broken up across two people wearing Spidey’s mask. And for the most part, its a very good run. This sale is easily broken into three parts:

  • Ultimate Spider-Man – essentially, the Peter Parker years. Mark Bagley is artist for most of the run. Skip the omnibus (too expensive for V.1-3 of these larger collections), get the regular editions.
  • Ultimate Comics Spider-Man – with art by Bagley, Pichelli, David Lafuente and Chris Samnee. It’s a relaunch, continuing the Parker years to the <spoilers>
  • Ultimate Comics Spider-Man: Death of Spider-Man Fallout – with art by Bagley and Sara Pichelli. This is the transition to Miles Morales.

Ultimate Spider-Man   Ultimate Comics Spider-Man   Ultimate Comics Spider-Man: Death of Spider-Man Fallout

The Naughty List

The Marvel Villains Sale runs through Monday, 11/21.

This is a potpourri mix of villain-centric titles, but it’s really a decent mix if you sift through it and there are a few things we definitely recommend, the top three of which are:

Doctor Doom by Christopher Cantwell and Salvador Larroca.  A fun and out of left field adventure that finds Doom framed for an at of international terrorism, deposed from the throne of Latveria, on the run and seeking revenge while engaging in an oddly bickering relationship with Kang the Conqueror.  Good comics!

M.O.D.O.K.: Head Games by Patton Oswalt, Jordan Blum and Scott Hepburn was another unexpected delight. You might be expect a farce with Oswald and Blum involved and it is a farce… sometimes. Other times it’s a fairly serious plot and flows between the two moods fluidly. M.O.D.O.K. is concerned he might be losing his mind. He’s seeing things. Like a wife and little M.O.D.O.K.s. And he’s trying to figure out what’s gone wrong and how to fix it, which will lead to encounters with Iron Man, Gwenpool and his maker.

And even further up the farce scale is Superior Foes of Spider-Man by Nick Spencer and Steve Lieber. Boomerang has got the gang back together and he’s looking for a big score. things go off the rails in the most entertaining ways…

(If you’re looking for something a bit more serious and enjoy 70s Marvel, you could a lot worse than Super-Villain Team-Up, which is essentially Doctor Doom and Namor butting heads for the bulk of the run.)

Doctor Doom   M.O.D.O.K.: Head Games   Superior Foes of Spider-Man

DC’s Other Metals

The DC Golden Age and Silver Age Sale runs through Monday, 11/21.

And by “Golden Age and Silver Age,” they really mean the reprints with that in the title. In general, these tend to be high page count volumes. They vary a little from volume to volume, but it’s usually good bang for your buck, particularly the lower priced editions.

There’s also a selection of $0.99 single issues mostly corresponding to the collected editions, but usually extending a little past what’s in the book versions. If you go to the single issues listing, you’ll see not everything is on sale, just sections.

So let’s break this down by title:

What’s good here? We’ve always thought Doom Patrol was one of DC’s stronger Silver Age offerings, and its hard to undersell the deep weirdness of the original Wonder Woman comics… but let’s talk about the some of those ’40s single issues, which have a slight different appeal. There’s that Alfred Bester Green Lantern.  Past that Detective Comics and Sensation Comics were originally anthologies, so if you dip into the single issues, there are other features in them. Depending on the exact issue, Detective will have The Crimson Avenger, Slam Bradley, The Boy Commandos (some of it by Simon & Kirby) and Airwave. Sensation will have Mr. Terrific, Wildcat, Black Pirate and Gay Ghost. You need to check the individual issues, because lineups swap and some of them only reprint the Batman or Wonder Woman lead.

Green Lantern   Detective   Sensation Comics

Let’s See That Passport

The Dark Horse Resident Alien Sale runs through Monday, 11/28.

This would be the Peter Hogan / Steve Parkhouse series about a stranded alien hiding out as a small-town doctor. It’s better known as a TV series on Syfy.

At $4.99, the Resident Alien Omnibus V.1 is a good deal. It collects the first three “regular” collected edition. Speaking of which, while they’re not yet in an omnibus, V.4-6 of the “regular” collections are also on sale for $4.99 to underscore that the omnibus is a good deal.  Single issues are $0.99.

Resident Alien

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Batman and The Joker, Black Panther, Venom, World War Hulk and Eight Billion Genies

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, DC cuts prices on Batman, The Joker and the 90s, Marvel discounts Black Panther, Venom and World War Hulk, and Image goes a little more recent with their sale.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

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

Bat-Sale

DC’s Batman and The Joker Recent Hits Sale runs through Monday, 11/7

What does recent mean? On the Collected Edition side of things, it means Tom King’s Batman run through James Tynion, IV’s run  (you can save a little on King’s run with the Deluxe Editions, which are double volumes.), plus the Joker War Saga collection. If you prefer the single issues ($1.79 each), you can get most of the way through the Josh Williamson era.

Speaking of single issues, there two title a bit more current:

For this era, we have a soft spot for the Tom King / Mikel Janin War of Jokes and Riddles.

Batman   Joker War Saga   Batman: The War of Jokes and Riddles

Children of the 90s

The DC 90s Rewind Sale runs through Monday, 11/28.

Here’s a 90s book that had a bit of a following, but has perhaps faded from the fan consciousness a bit: Gotham By Gaslight. Brian Augustyn and Mike Mignola but a Victorian era Batman on the trial of Jack the Ripper and then “Master of the Future,” the sequel, does a Jules Verne / Master of the World riff with Eduardo Barreto tagging in for Mignola.

While the prices bounce around a little, $2.99 volumes of the original run of Hellblazer are always a good deal.

The Flash by Mark Waid can certainly be characterized as a quintessential 90s DC run. The first 4 omnibus-sized volumes are $5.99. (Volume 2 being the one with the famous “Return of Barry Allen” storyline.) If your memory is hazy, Greg Larocque is the initial art on the run with Mike Wieringo starting in Volume 3.

Batman: Gotham by Gaslight   Hellblazer   Flash by Mark Waid

Wakanda Month

The Marvel Monthly Black Panther Sale runs through Monday, 11/28.

As much as we love the Don McGregor / Billy Graham, we’d say wait and see if there’s a better Masterworks sale as the holidays hit. Unless you’re burning to see the original run (and it’s good).

The first big Black Panther revival is the  Christopher Priest run. (Which cycled through a ton of artists.) Originally a Marvel Knights book, it’s actually an expansion on the old Jungle Action run with a few new characters added and it’s very, very good.

The next big run is the Reginald Hudlin era. (Again, lots of artists here, starting out with John Romita, Jr.) Time was, this run was probably best known for T’Challa marrying Storm, but now it’s probably better known for introducing Shuri into the mythos.

Then comes the Ta-Nehisi Coates era, which starts out with Brian Stelfreeze and Chris Sprouse on art. We would be remiss if we didn’t point out the first two volumes here are a cheap $2.99

Black Panther by Priest   Black Panther by Reginald Hudlin   Black Panther by Ta-Nehisi Coates

This Means War

Marvel’s World War Hulk Sale runs through Monday, 11/7.

Yes, this is absolutely a highlight of the Hulk cannon (along with Planet Hulk that proceeded it). And what you need is the Greg Pak / John Romita, Jr. collection.

Take on the side series as interest dictates, they’re optional.

World War Hulk

You Were Expecting… Johnny Cash?

The Marvel Venom: King in Black Sale runs through Monday, 11/7.

The Event the sale is named after is sort of the finale to the Donny Cates/Ryan Stegman/Iban Coello run on the book. We like the middle portion where The Maker (aka Ultimate Universe Reed Richards) is scheming.

The current series is an Al Ewing/Ram V/Bryan Hitch collaboration which bounces between cosmic horror and more grounded incidents on Earth.

And for something more different than you might expect, we were surprised how enjoyable the old Rick Remender / Tony Moore / Tom Fowler run with Flash Thompson becoming the symbiote’s host.

Venom by Cates   Venom   Venom by Remender

No, Not That Kind of Hit

The Image Recent Hits Sale runs through Sunday, 11/20.

There are some collected editions here, but let’s have a look at some current buzz books that are still in single issues only:

Starhenge is Liam Sharp’s Arthurian space fantasy epic. Technically, this is the first act, but 4 of the 6 issues of it are here for $0.99 each. Sharp is really pushing the artistic envelope with this one and it looks more like a European album (with a little extra Sienkiewicz influence) than a run of the mill US comic. The art just feels big. (Amazon’s thumbnail previews don’t do it justice.)

Eight Billion Genies by Charles Soule and Ryan Browne (the team from the highly enjoyable Curse Words) really blew up at launch and we don’t think it was solely because speculators swooned over the media rights auction. In this one, every person on Earth gets their own genie. What could possibly go wrong? It might make one want to hide out in a bar…

Public Domain is Chip Zdarsky’s satire of the business side of comics. And he’s actually illustrating this one. We’ll even give you his description to set the tone properly: “a WILD ALTERNATE WORLD where comic book creators aren’t properly acknowledged or compensated for their creations!! Crazy, I know!!” No sarcasm in this comic… nope, none at all.

  Eight Billion Genies   Public Domain

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Comixology Sales: Darth Vader, Gotham Knights (and Batman); Daredevil; Image’s Fall Sale

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Darth Vader, Daredevil and MAYBE Namor get the discounts at Marvel, DC unleashes the Bat-Family with “Gotham Knights” and Image opens a seasonal sale.

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):

Sith-Tober

There’s supposed to be a Darth Vader sale right now, but the link to the overall sale isn’t posted yet for whatever reason. Our understanding is that it’s supposed to be running through Thursday, 11/3. Maybe it will be by the time you see this? Lucky you, we can see the sale prices and have a couple recommendations:

We still haven’t read a Darth Vader comic to top the Kieron Gillen / Salvador Larroca run.  It’s slow clap territory, especially the scene at the end of the opening arc when Vader figures out he’s been lied to.  This series picks up right after A New Hope and follows Vader as he goes rogue, looking for that rebel pilot who blew up the Death Star.  Note: You also need to get the Vader Down collection, which is the cross-over between the Darth Vader comic and the Star Wars comic.  Key plot points there. Did we mention these volumes are $2.99/$3.99?  Good prices for superior material.

The second best Vader series we’ve read is the Charles Soule / Giuseppe Camuncoli run. It might be the favorite series at the Lucasfilm offices, seeing as how they gave Soule a promotion. This run really hits second gear in V.2 when the librarian of the Jedi Temple turns up.

Vader   Vader Down   Vader Series 2

Sub-Prices

Namor, the Sub-Mariner is another sale that’s supposed to be running, but isn’t posted. Our understanding is it’s supposed to be running through Monday, 10/31. Maybe it will also be up by the time you see this?  Right now we’re not seeing the discounts on this material, but keep an eye out for it. It’s not in the system on Friday evening like it’s supposed to be.

We did enjoy King In Black: Namor (which has very little to do with King in Black) by Kurt Busiek and Benjamen Dewey, for instance… should the discounts materialize.

King In Black: Namor

Marvel Dares You

The Marvel Daredevil: Born Again and Other Tales Sale runs through Monday, 10/31.

Clearly, since it’s being filmed, Daredevil: Born Again is the flagship title of this sale. This is the landmark Frank Miller / David Mazzucchelli tale of the Kingpin discovering Daredevil’s secret identity and tearing down his world, brick by brick. A classic tale that has earned its reputation.

Daredevil: Parts of a Hole written by David Mack and drawn by Joe Quesada & Jimmy Palmiotti (remember that team… it’s been a minute) is the arc that introduces Echo and we find it interesting that this should be in a born again sale. Foreshadowing?

Daredevil: End of Days is the biggest oddity of this sale, but it’s also a series we enjoyed. At the time, Marvel was doing a lot of “the last <insert character here>” stories and this one brings back Brian Bendis, David Mack, Alex Maleev, Klaus Jansen and Bill Sienkiewicz assemble for what starts as the tale of Ben Urich trying to solve the mystery of Daredevil’s final words… and then heads off in unexpected places. It serves as nice “20 years later” sort of endcap to the Bendis/Brubaker era of Daredevil and is something that’s semi-off the radar.

Daredevil: Born Again   Daredevil: Parts of a Hole   Daredevil: End of Days

But Can You Download a Patch?

The DC Gotham Knights Sale runs through Monday, 11/7.

We’d have probably put the Tynion Detective run in here for “Gotham Knights,” but what do we know?

The “Batman-proper” offering here is  the Scott Snyder / Greg Capullo run that kicked off the New 52 era by introducing the Court of Owls. We suspect you’ve heard of it and it’s _mostly_ $4.99/$5.99 per volume. HOWEVER, there are a couple volumes not properly discounted as we type this, so keep an eye on the price. (Perhaps that will fix itself, since DC discounts used to really lag earlier in the year.)

For Nightwing, we’re in the apparent majority opinion that you want to be looking at the Tom Taylor/Bruno Redondo Nightwing.  There were single issues of this at the bottom of the sale page, but they weren’t discounted when we looked at them. Again… this might change. It’s deja vu.

And for an old school selection, the Chuck Dixon / Tom Lyle / Tom Grummet Robin run from the 90s (which is to say, Tim Drake), definitely has a following. Amazon is weird and breaks it up into three listings/links: V. 1, V.2, and V.3-5.

Batman: The Court of Owls   Nightwing   Robin: Reborn

We All Fall Down

The Image Fall Sale runs through Sunday, 11/13.

700+ items makes for a deep list, but there are a few things here we’re more inclined to point out.

For instance, God Country by Donny Cates and Geoff Shaw. While that duo is probably best known for Thanos Wins, we think God Country is the better book. Frankly, we don’t think Cates has topped it, period. The elevator pitch isn’t quite so unique – a magic sword cures an old man’s dementia and gives him the vigor of youth to fight off the invading demons. But the meditation on losing one’s mind and character work? Top notch and elevates everything. We weren’t ready for it.

The Black Monday Murders by Jonathan Hickman and Tomm Coker is a murder mystery. A murder mystery amongst secret and elite cults where financial institutions and banking cartels wield black magic behind the scenes to control the world and get one up on rival sects. Oh, there’s a touch of satire, but it’s mostly played straight. Excellent series and we’re looking forward to the final volume which ought to be popping back on the schedule soon. Hickman’s said he’s done with the scripts and Image is waiting for Coker to have the art in the can before soliciting, so… soon?

Seven to Eternity by Rick Remender and Jerome Opeña is fantasy quest about a man who goes on a quest to save his family and depose his father’s old enemy, the king.  Except this one inverts some tropes and goes to some very dark places as devil’s bargains are struck. It’s also a real showcase for Opeña. It’s hard to praise the art enough.

God Country   The Black Monday Murders   Seven to Eternity

 

 

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Wolverine, Suicide Squad, DC Villains and Red Sonja

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel slaps some discounts on Wolverine, DC’s villains are on sale (with lots of Batman) and Red Sonja chops her prices.

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):

Born to be Bad

The DC Villains Sale runs through Monday, 10/17

The sale page is laid out a little oddly. Batman family titles first, then everything else… including more Batman. (You may have gotten the impression that Batman is popular. We can confirm that.)

Naturally, this is going to make you think of Suicide Squad. Two things you might want to look at:

Azrael V. 1: Fallen Angel While Denny O’Neil is more strongly associated with Batman and The Question, he wrote a 100 issue run of Azrael. By far, his longest run on a title. This collection has the Batman: Sword of Azrael mini-series, with Joe Quesada inked by Kevin Nowlan on the art. Then you get the first seven issues of that ongoing series with art by Barry Kitson. Remember, Azrael started out as a villain!

Suicide Squad   Suicide Squad Bad Blood x Azrael

Clawing For Deals

The Marvel Wolverine: Weapon X And Other Tales Sale runs through monday, 10/17.

This sale is mostly about the specials, miniseries and b-series over the years. Which is not to say there aren’t some interesting bits.

Weapon X by Barry Windsor-Smith shares the name of this sale and it earns the hype. This is the original origin of Wolverine, but after the Origin books, is now more the origin of his adamantium implants and torture under a shadowy government program.

Wolverine is the original solo adventure/mini-series by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller.  Logan heads to Japan and meets his love’s family. And then The Hand show up. Claws, ninjas, and hurt feels ensue, if you want to be reductive about it. It sets the tone for what’s to follow.

Loosely speaking, Kitty Pride & Wolverine was a sequel to the original Wolverine series. Kitty travels to Japan, only to run into ninjas and some folks from Logan’s path. Vengeance ensues. Chris Claremont returns with Al Milgrom

Wolverine: Weapon X   Wolverine  Kitty Pride & Wolverine

Seeing Red

The Dynamite Red Sonja Sale runs through Monday, 10/31.

Our favorite Red Sonja run is the Mark Russell/Bob Quinn run. On one level, it’s an adventure with Sonja trying to save a kingdom from a conquering monarch’s army. On another level, it’s a satire of the tropes involved with such stories… and honestly, you can read it from either angle, which is a little unusual, but enjoyable.

Killing Red Sonja is a Mark Russell / Bryce Ingman / Craig Rousseau series is a spin-off of the Russell/Quinn main series.

And for those comics from the old school perspective, the Roy Thomas/Frank Thorne 70s comics are collected in The Adventures of Red Sonjawith the Savage Sword of Conan material collected in The Further Adventures of Red Sonja.

Red Sonja   Killing Red Sonja  The Adventures of Red Sonja

Plus, all the Halloween sales we’ve talked about the last two installments are still running. (See below for quick links or hit the homepage and scroll down.)

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Comixology Sales (at Amazon): Breaking Down the Batman Day Sale

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, we make a special mid-week appearance to break down the Batman Day Sale.

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):

Bat-Day

The  Batman Day Sale runs through Monday, 9/26.

We understand some people were having trouble getting into the full sale, and we sure haven’t been able to get at it on the desktop version of the site. No worries, we found the link  for the full sale. Since there have been some complaints about that, we’re popping in a little earlier to get Batman sorted out and then we’ll be back at the usual time for everything else.

We’re not wild about there being zero sorting options (we’ll update the link if we find another), but it gets roughly alphabetical after a little scrolling. First the collected editions, then the single issues follow.

As is our custom, we’ll start out with the highlights by series, so you can sort through a bit more efficiently, but be warned – there are plenty of minor/stray volumes that didn’t make the highlights

Collected Editions

Single Issues (the ones that aren’t all in collected editions and the older ones are all $0.99/issue)

So what’s good here? It’s Batman, so you can pick your flavor across the decades and zero in on that. Now, preferences aside, a lot of the less recent collections are $3.99, which is pretty low for DC these days.

We’d recommend having a browse through Legends of the Dark Knight, particularly the single issuesmost of which haven’t been collected.  With a few notable exceptions where it crosses over with a line-wide event, these are all self-contained story arcs. Teams are assembled for the individual story and the quality is pretty high throughout.

We also like the Batman: The Caped Crusader and Batman: The Dark Knight Detective reprint series that collect the mid-80s Batman and Detective runs (and are getting into the 90s). We particularly like the Alan Grant/Norm Breyfogle run that bounces between those books, before ending in Shadow of the Bat. We’ve been reading that in the background for the last couple years and it’s a good time.

We also like $5.99 for the two volumes of the Greg Rucka / Shawn Martinbrough / Rich Burchett Batman: New GothamA good run with a unique look.

And for something odd and obscure?  Batman Special #1“The Player on the Other Side” wherein Mike W. Barr and Michael Golden (remember him?) introduce Batman’s opposite number, the original Wraith.

Batman - Prey   Batman: The Caped Crusader   Batman: The Dark Knight Detective

Batman: New Gotham   Batman Special

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: X-Men, Wolverine, Hawkeye and Batman

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel brings the mutants – Hickman era X-Men and Jason Aaron’s escapades with Wolverine. Plus Hawkeye and the DC “Hot 100” sale which has a lot of Batman to it.

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):

Let’s Put the X in Hickman

The Marvel X-Men From Dawn to Reign Sale runs until Thursday, 9/8.

And gosh golly, if that sale’s name isn’t an awful lot of contortion to avoid saying the Hickman showrunning era.  For those coming in late, Jonathan Hickman was a sort of creative director of the X-line for a very productive period. He wrote a few and gave guidance on the other titles. After the Inferno series, he moved on to other things when the rest of writers expressed interest in working with the current status quo a bit longer. Hickman had planned on moving on to the next phase of a longer story arc he’d mapped out, so… perhaps he’ll return to that at some point?

This is one of those sale pages where someone (it isn’t clear if it’s Marvel or Amazon) is trying to do us all a solid and separate out things, dividing things in to sections or tiers with scrolling carousels. We approve of the effort.

The first tier, “The Krakoa Era Begins Here,” is the spine of the era: the Hickman core, if you will.  You need to start with House of X / Powers of X, which establishes the new status quo.  You then continue into the Hickman-penned X-Men flagship title.  All the X-titles eventually flow into two events: first X of Swords (which is more of an Exaclibur story) and finally Inferno ends the era, at least in terms of Hickman’s writing and overall role.  So yeah, when they say “Krakoa Era,” they’re again dodging Hickman’s name and it kind of amuses us how awkward that is.  Hox/Pox is the beginning of the Krokoa era, sure enough. The rest? That’s stretching definitions.  So if you get everything listed in this tier you’ll get the “story of the universe” of the X-Men comics of that era. (Mind you, despite how comic book marketing works these days, “the story of the universe” is not the end-all/be-all of reading enjoying.)

This sale is on the collections of the individual titles (as opposed to the Dawn of X and Reign of X collections), so that lends itself to chery-picking. Do we have opinions on this? Of course, and we ended up liking some of the titles on the periphery best.

Hellions by Zeb Wells and Stephen Segovia is a demented delight. A dark, snarky and occasionally violent series that finds Mr. Sinister pulling the strings on a wetworks squad of broken toys (Psylocke, Havoc, Nanny, Wildchild, etc) to clean up some of his… side projects.

Way of X by Si Spurrier and Bob Quinn is about Nightcrawler and Legion trying to head off the re-emergence of Onslaught, but Nightcrawler trying to reconcile his religion with Krakoa’s resurrection protocols and his efforts toward synthesizing a mutant religion really steals the scenes.

S.W.O.R.D. by Al Ewing and Valerio Schiti is the cosmic title of the bunch. The mutants have been proactive establishing a space station to house an agency to protect Earth against extraterrestrial threats… and that’s before they establish Arakko on Mars. Cosmic adventures and more than a little political intrigue & deception.

Hellions by Zeb Wells   Way of X   S.W.O.R.D.

You’re Not Yourself, Have a SNIKT!

The Marvel Wolverine by Jason Aaron Sale runs through Monday, 8/29.

This can pretty much be narrowed down to two titles:

Wolverine by Jason Aaron collects several titles, including the end of the ’03 Wolverine, Wolverine: Manifest Destiny, Wolverine: Weapon X, Spider-Man & Wolverine and the ’10 version of Wolverine.  And yes, towards the end of the run is when Aaron sends Wolverine to Hell. Lots of artists over the course of this work, including Adam Kubert, Ron Garney and Howard Chaykin.

Wolverine & The X-Men is the post-Schism run where Logan heads back to Westchester to run the Jean Grey School. Aaron writes, the artists most associated with this run are Nick Bradshaw and Chris Bachalo (with some early Pepe Larraz towards the end).

Wolverine by Jason Aaron   Wolverine and the X-Men

Hawkguy

The Marvel Hawkeye Sale runs through Thusday, 9/1.

When people think of Hawkeye, they usually start thinking about the iconic and quirky Matt Fraction / David Aja run. Lucky you, Marvel’s put the whole thing in one volume as Hawkeye by Fraction & Aja: The Saga of Barton and Bishop.

Hawkeye Epic Collection: The Avenging Archer is the old school option. This has the original Iron Man appearances, some Avengers, some Marvel Team-Up, the original solo mini-series and so forth.

If you’re in a Kate Bishop mood, you’re probably looking for the Hawkeye run by Kelly Thompson and Leonardo Romero.

Hawkeye   Hawkeye   Hawkeye

Is That a Radio Format?

The DC Hot 100 Sale runs through Monday, 8/29.

It’s somewhat random set of DC books on sale this week.  Predictably, there’s a lot of Batman in there.

You want something good from the last couple years?  We highly recommend Batman: The Adventures Continue by Alan Burnett, Paul Dini and Ty Templeton. It’s a continuation of The Animated Series and it’s first rate Batman. Highly recommended if you have a fondness for the cartoon.

If you want something a little older No Man’s Land was probably our favorite Batman Event of the 90s. The first volume (of the regular set, not “Road to,” even has some work by Bob Gale. We’re always happy when he does some comics! The premise is Gotham has been cut off from the mainland by an earthquake. Things have gone a little feudal and the various villains are setting themselves up as warlords in various neighborhood as Batman and friends try to keep things under control until the situation improves. If you’re thinking this sounds a bit like the DMZ series, you’re not imagining things… but No Man’s Land came out ~5 years earlier.

The most recent book in this sale is the Mattson Tomlin/Andrea Sorrentino Batman: The Imposter.

Batman: The Adventures Continue   Batman: No Man's Land   Batman: The Imposter

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: The Comic-Con Sales Arrive in Force: X-Men, House of M, Batman and Indies Galore

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, the Comic-Con sale arrive in force. Multiple indie sales. X-Men and House of M at Marvel. Another wide sampler from DC, too.

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 Comic-Con Run-Up Arrives in Force!

The “San Diego Graphic Novel Sales – Start Here” page is worth your time to look at.

How long does this grouping of sales last? No idea. They forgot to include dates. Figure it’s probably until the 25th (the Monday after SDCC)?  What particularly interesting is that the folks at… they’re still calling it the Comixology section for the moment… are continuing an attempt to make this a little more navigable by having more alphabetical carousels displaying covers on the various sales pages here.

This is a step in the right direction!

Anyway… lots of ground to cover, just with this section. Let’s hit some highlights… and remember, the Dark Horse sale listed on this page is something we covered last week.

From the “Recent Releases” category / carousel, we would draw your attention to Astro City Metrobook Vol. 1 by Kurt Busiek, Brent Anderson and Alex Ross. At $11.99, it’s at the higher end of price points we’ll recommend, but this is prime material from a LONG running series that’s relocating back to Image and you’re getting ~485 pages / ~19 issues for your troubles.  This is an examination of superhero genre – very much of the classic Silver Age concepts this early in the series. Busiek, Anderson and Ross are world building here and the viewpoint can switch from heroes to sidekicks to bystanders over the various series. Short version – it’s a distillation of everything good about superheroes and it can also be an excellent palette cleanser if Events are getting you down. Very highly recommended!

Astro City Metrobook

Omnibuses

The Omnibus link is something we heartily approve of.  It appears to be a gathering of omnibuses from the various sales currently running.  To quote the great Clay Davis, from the Wire: “sheeeeeeeeeeeee-” (you know the rest). That’s almost like something we’d do! And this is a place where flipping through the graphic carousels will save you a lot of time.

Highlights (we spoke of the joys of Hellboy-verse omnibuses last week):

Best buy: Saga Compendium One – the first 54 issues of the Brian K. Vaughan / Fiona Staples masterwork for a lousy $23.99.  Less than fifty cents per issues.  Cheap and a modern classic. You don’t get much better than that.

Runner up: Paper Girls: The Complete Story – all 30 issues on the Brian K. Vaughan/Cliff Chiang time travel caper for $19.99. The TV version will be hitting Prime shortly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-1cyNm7iAU

And since the third volume in the series is coming out, Luther Arkwright contains The Adventures of Luther Arkwright and Heart of Empire, the first two series in Bryan Talbot’s legendary series about a dimension hopping, empire tumbling adventurer.  Another real winner!

Saga   Paper Girls  Luther Arkwright

Oni / Lion Forge

In regards to the  Oni Press and Lion Forge sales – we don’t really know any more about the situation over at Oni/Lion Forge than you’ve already read. We can’t discount the possibility that some of their titles could end up off the market for a little while. Possibly resurfacing at different publishers. If you’re interested in something and like the price, maybe pull the trigger in the next week or two. (We’ve always liked Kaijumax and Sixth Gun, though we’ve seen better prices for Sixth Gun.)

IDW and the bad link

The IDW SDCC Sale appears to have a bad link.  Only 25 items at that link and there’s a LOT more in the carousel on the main sale page, so scroll through that. And who knows, maybe Amazon will fix the link?

The original 30 Days of Night by Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith for $0.99? Absolutely worth a look if you’ve never tried it. (After all, one could argue it’s the book that “made” IDW.) The high concept? Vampires in Alaska, so far north that the sun will set for 30 days and they’ll have free reign.

It’s not clear if GI JOE is on sale or not (we suspect those are sale prices we’re seeing) and that’s another one that might not be at IDW much longer, so if you like the prices, think about stocking up.

30 Days of Night 

Image

And then there’s the  Image SDDC Graphic Novel Sale.

Seems like the final prices here might be a little higher than we’ve seen in the past? Definitely, we’re seeing the old problem of the Deluxe volumes being on sale. The Deluxe volumes are oversized for print, ergo a little more expensive than the single volumes and usually an inferior deal in digital when everything is based on the print price. After all, there is no hardcover in digital.  So be aware of that while browsing here.

That said, the Spawn Compendium is a similar deal to that giant Saga collection – for $23.99 each, you’ve got a couple 50 issue volumes available. If you want to read the first 100 issues of Spawn, you can get them for under $0.50/issue this way.

Spawn Compendium

Dynamite

The Dynamite SDCC Graphic Novel Sale

The first two volumes of Red Sonja by Mark Russell and Bob Quinn are $6.99. Yes, the same Mark Russell from Flintstones and Billionaire Island.  And it works. The main story is a “straight” adventure, but all around the edges satirical elements sink in… if you’re paying attention.  An unusual Red Sonja one, to be sure, but a good one.

Red Sonja

Let the X-Sales Begin…

Marvel’s Reign of X Sale runs through Thursday, 7/21.

Let’s back up a little here.  Reign of X is sort of the third Act of the Hickman-run X-Men era. Act one is House of X / Powers of X. Act two is Dawn of X, which is all the “regular” titles and culminates in the X of Swords Event. Reign of X picks up after X of Swords.

This is the format that collects the issues of the individual series in a preferred reading order. Not quite publication order (you’ll read a two-part in a single title back-to-back, here and there) but that’s the easiest way to think of it.  In general, we think this reading experience is a better way to read Hickman’s X-Saga and seeing the breadth of the world building unfurl is additive. That said, we found the quality of the line a little less consistent in Reign of X than Dawn of X.  (Which is to say, we’re not going to blame you if you skip the Children of the Atom bits.)

This link will show the volumes in order.

Reign of X

Not the Byrne “Generations”

The Marvel Generations of X Sale runs through Thursday, 7/21

This is a somewhat eclectic set of X-Men (and X-Men family) runs. You’re most likely to recognize Wolverine and the X-Men from Jason Aaron / Chris Bachalo / Nick Bradshaw and Generation X by Scott Lobdell and… Chris Bachalo again (at least on the main title in the collection).

Wolverine and the X-Men    Generation X

No More Mutants

Marvel’s House of M sale runs through Monday, 7/18.

This would be the Event Miniseries where Wanda snaps and rewrites reality… forming the basis for the WandaVision TV series.  Brian Bendis and Olivier Coipel are your creators. This is the sort of Event where we recommend getting the main series and then dipping your toe into the supporting collections in the sale at your own discretion.  A good chunk of the Marvel line shifted their storylines to participate in the Event, buy how relevant they were to the main storyline varied widely and a lot of it would firmly be considered side stories. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s not always presented as such.

House of M

DC’s SDCC Run-Up

The DC at SDCC  Ebooks Sale runs through Monday, 7/25.

What we have here is another 2K ebook drop, should you have time for an extended browse.

If you’re looking for a lower price point per eBook, Jonah Hex is good candidate, alternating between $4.99 and $5.99 volumes.  Dark western tales of the disfigured and tortured bounty hunter written by Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray. The artists rotate quite a bit on this one and a certain point, Palmiotti & Gray seemed to be playing a game of “which legend can we get to draw the next issue?”  That is NOT a bad thing.

For $5.99, here’s something that’s under a lot of radars. Not everyone remembers, but prior to the more famous Long Halloween, Jeph Loeb and the late Tim Sale started out with Batman Halloween specials.  And let us assure you, that first one came out of nowhere and punched everyone right between the eyes. Batman: Haunted Knight collects the specials that got the Loeb/Sale ball rolling.

And for a value buy, DC Universe By Len Wein. $9.99 gets you 23 stories – not necessarily 23 issues, because some of the DC titles had backups back then, but you get an interesting mix here: a run of Wein’s under-appreciated Phantom Stranger run with Jim Aparo. The JLA/JSA team-up that reintroduced the Seven Soldiers of Victory. The DC Comics Presents run with Jim Starlin that introduces Mongul.

Jonah Hex   Batman - Haunted Knight   DC Universe by Len Wein

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