Tag: Black Hammer

Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Black Friday Sales, Part 2: DC’s “Black Friday Sale” w/ Batman, Birds of Prey and John Stewart; Plus, The Black Hammer

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Black Friday sales are early this year. In Part 2, DC offers up its “Black Friday Sale” with plenty of Batman. Dark Horse plays along with theme by extending The Black Hammer sale.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

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

Important Black Friday Administrative Notes:

This week, the Black Friday sales are out a week before Black Friday. (Everyone’s doing it!) There were some problems with the sale prices that were posted the morning of Tuesday, 11/19. If you bought something off the Deals page On Tuesday, double check and make sure the price isn’t a little lower right now. All the new sales were removed from the deals page Tuesday evening and reposted a few hours later. The new prices should be correct.

We also covered all of this year’s new entries in the Marvel Omnibus Sale in the previous post.

I See a Red Friday and I Want It Painted Black

Batman '89  Green Lantern War Journal  World's Finest

The DC Black Friday Sale runs through Monday, 11/25.

“But… if the Black Friday Sale is this week, what’s happening next week?” You ask.

We’ll all find out together.

As for this week, there’s no real theme (and the Deals page display is as jumbled as it gets), so here are a few things that caught our eye:

  • Batman Vol. 1: Failsafe – Chip Zdarsky / Jorge Jiménez; The start of the Zdarksy run for $2.99
  • Batman ’89 – Sam Hamm / Joe Quinones; The writer of the Tim Burton Batman films returns with what he had planned for Harvey Dent
  • Batman: The Adventures Continue – Alan Burnett / Paul Dini / Ty Templeton; A continuation of the ’90s animated series by people qualified to do so. Good stuff
  • Batman: Killing Time – Tom King / David Marquez; A noir caper as The Penguin, Riddler and Catwoman try to double cross each other while Batman keeps getting closer
  • Batman: Reptilian – Garth Ennis / Liam Sharp; Guess who’s running amok in the Gotham sewers? $1.99
  • Birds of Prey – Kelly Thompson / Leonardo Romero; The new series has Black Canary recruiting some heavy hitters for a raid on Paradise Island; Alternates between suspense and quirky
  • Crisis on Multiple Earths Book 3 – There’s more Justice League on sale, but this one gets you three of the better Justice Society team-ups, featuring the influential return of Darkseid, a Secret Society of Supervillains encounter and the All-Star Squadron team-up
  • Detective Comics Vol. 1: Gotham Nocturne: Overture – Ram V / Rafael Albuquerque; We’re enjoying this slow burn, gothic horror take on Batman a lot
  • Danger Street – Tom King / Jorge Fornés; Decidedly odd series tying together all the characters from the ’70s First Issue Special series. You already know if this is for you or not, based on that and the creators
  • Death: The High Cost of Living – Neil Gaiman / Chris Bachalo; Dream’s sister gets a spin-off miniseries
  • Gotham City: Year One – Tom King / Phil Hestor; A superior and dark noir private eye tale leading up to Gotham’s decline as Slam Bradley searches for a kidnapped baby with the last name of Wayne
  • Green Arrow (’23) – Josh Williamson /  Sean Izaakse; The current series, emphasizing a “Green Arrow Family,” similar to the “Flash Family” of recent years
  • Green Lantern: War Journal – Phillip Kennedy Johnson / Montos; John Stewart finds himself the target of a particularly horrific extra-dimensional incursion
  • World’s Finest – Mark Waid / Dan Mora; The early adventures of the Batman/Superman pairing; Lots of fun (with occasional patches of darkness) and a must-read if you enjoy Silver Age mythos

The Marvel “Maybe” Sales

Amazing Spider-Man  Deadpool  X-Men '97

The trend continues. New releases at lower than expected price points and discounted pre-orders. Is this the new normal? We’re not sure, but let’s run them down.

Dropping This Week

Pre-Order for Next Week

Unannounced Sales

Black Hammer Omnibus  The Art of Daniel Clowes  Dramacon

Dark Horse still has the world of Black Hammer on sale this week.

This would be — we think it’s OK to call it a superhero universe at this point — the indie superhero saga by Jeff Lemire, Dean Ormston and friends. There are a couple branches to how this saga unfurls.

The main Black Hammer series is here and that’s where you should start the journey. But, as with many long running titles, there are a few different editions to it and this is what we think the cheapest (if messy to sort) way to read the series is.

There are currently 7 volumes under the main series + a collection of specials + 2 volumes of “Visions” with guest creators playing in the Black Hammer standbox.

So what you want to do to cheap out is go to the omnibus page first.

Black Hammer Omnibus V.1 is basically the same thing as the first Library edition. That gets you the first two “regular” volumes (issues 1-13) + the Annual.

Black Hammer Library Edition V. 2 gets you the equivalent of “regular” volumes 3 &4 (“Age of Doom”) plus the Streets of Spiral material not in the Ominbus.

Then you can pick up again with V.5 of the regular editions.

Then you’ve got the World of Black Hammer collections, which are solo tales about the various heroes and villains like Barbalien and Sherlock Frankenstein.

And finally, there’s Black Hammer / Justice League: Hammer of Justice, the Lemire / Michael Walsh team up between… well, that’s in the title, isn’t it? This one offers savings in the single issue format.

Also on sale, Dark Horse’s comics adaptations of BioWare’s Dragon Age line of video games:

Also on sale (and branded as “Black Friday” sales, though we’re not sure if that’s out of mere convenience or not):

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Still on Sale

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales – Star Wars; More $1.99 DC Collections; Old Man Logan; Department of Truth; Black Hammer

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel discounts Star Wars Epic Collections and Old Man Logan. DC has comics that have been adapted for TV and film as low as $1.99. Plus, The Black Hammer and Dragon Age.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

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

[Note: we looked at the X-Men/Krakoa and Thunderbolts sales earlier in the week.
Also, by popular nagging demand, we are at @comicscheap.bsky.social]

We Will Control the Vertigo Vertical

Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters  New Teen Titans  DC: The New Frontier

The DC on TV Sale runs through Monday, 11/18.

Once again, we find ourselves in the midst of holiday pricing. Yes, we’re sad, too. There’s more to the sale (500+ books), but we’re going to focus on some good options at the rock bottom $1.99 and $2.99 price points.

$1.99

  • Deathstroke ’16 – ’20 – Christopher Priest / Carlo Pagulayan / Larry Hama / Diogenes Neves; Very under appreciated character piece. Highly recommended.
  • Doctor Fate – Paul Levitz / Sonny Liew; Superior reimagining of the character that leans into Egyptian mythology. Would that all reinventions of a classic character work this well…
  • Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters – Mike Grell relaunches Green Arrow without the trick arrows as more of a thriller.
  • Green Arrow (’88 – ’98) – Mike Grell / Ed Hannigan / Dan Jurgens / Rick Hoberg; Grell’s regular series follow up to The Longbow Hunters
  • Harley Quinn (’13-’16) – Amanda Connor / Jimmy Palmiotti / Chad Hardin; A slapstick / absurdist take on Harley
    • Harley Quinn (’16-’20) – Amanda Connor / Jimmy Palmiotti / Chad Hardin / John Timms; For all intents and purposes, it’s the same series at the ’13 iteration through V.5
  • Harley Quinn: Breaking Glass – Mariko Tamaki / Steve Pugh; OGN
  • Hawkworld – Tim Truman / Enrique Alcatena; The first post-crisis reimagining of Hawkman, emphasizing the science fiction elements of the Silver Age version
  • Justice Society of America (’07-’11) – Geoff Johns / Dale Eaglesham; Bill Willingham / Jesus Merino; Mixed pricing w/ $2.99; Includes an Alex Ross follow-up to Kingdom Come
  • The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen – Alan Moore / Kevin O’Neill; Ignore that ridiculous movie. Moore & O’Neill raid Victorian literature to assemble a supergroup of Alan Quartermain (King Solomon’s Mine), Mina Harker (Dracula), Captain Nemo  (Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea), Edward Hyde (Doctor Jeckyll and Mister Hyde) and Hawley Griffin (The Invisible Man) as they do a spot of work for the government. Literate and witty. And no bloody Tom Sawyer.

$2.99

  • DC Meets Looney Tunes – You’re getting this for the SHOCKINGLY GOOD Batman Vs. Elmer Fudd by Tom King and Lee Weeks. Weeks cannot be praised enough for pulling this off with such style.
  • New Teen Titans (’80-’88) – Marv Wolfman / George Perez / Eduardo Barreto; Did this classic run save DC in the early ’80s? Quite possibly.
  • Preacher – Garth Ennis / Steve Dillon; God’s gone missing and Jesse Custer would like to have a word with him; Double volumes
  • Saga of the Swamp Thing (’82-’96) – Alan Moore’s legendary run and, for most practical purposes, the birthing of the Vertigo imprint
  • Sandman – Neil Gaiman and a rotating cast of artists
  • Y: The Last Man – Brian K. Vaughan / Pia Guerra; Double volumes for $2.99 as the last living man on Earth searches for his girlfriend as the rest of the world searches for him

$3.99 (and we still recommend it)

  • Batwoman by Greg Rucka and J.H. Williams – You can figure out the creators yourself; Contains the full and excellent run from Detective Comics
  • DC: The New Frontier – Darwyn Cooke’s stone cold masterpiece about the dawn of the Silver Age
  • Doom Patrol: The Silver Age – Arnold Drake / Bruno Premiani; Essentially DC’s answer to the original X-Men, though it seems like they were developed simultaneously. More pathos than most DC’s from the period and good stuff.
  • Doom Patrol (’87-’95) – Grant Morrison / Richard Case; The legendary run in three double volumes
  • Flash (’87 – ’09) – Geoff Johns/Scott Kolins; The original Johns run was where he started to get noticed
  • Flash (’16 – ’20) – Josh Williamson / Carmine di Giandomenico / Howard Porter; Mixed pricing with some scattered $1.99/$2.99

Sing Along With Nick

The Marvel Star Wars Epic Collections Sale runs through Monday, 11/18.

The headline here should probably be that the current Marvel run is starting to get Epic Editions.

Star Wars Epic Collection

Star Wars Modern Era Epic Collection: Skywalker Strikes collects the first 14 issues of the Jason Aaron / John Cassaday (RIP) run, plus the Vader Down crossover issues.

You might be asking “where’s the Vader Epic Collection?” A fine question, too. The answer is the first one is coming out at the end of the month.

Agent of Empire   Dark Empire   Star Wars Newspaper Strip

As for the Epic Collections of the original Marvel run and the Dark Horse material, there really aren’t title-specific links here, which is super annoying.

These Epic Collections are _all_ in this link.

A few things we’ll call out as particularly good.

The original Marvel Star Wars, #49-69, the under appreciated, post-Empire period with Walt Simonson and/or David Michelinie.  Most of it is in this DH Omnibus.

John Ostrander’s “Agent of Empire” is collected in this Epic. Think “what if James Bond spied for the Empire.” It’s fun.

Tom Veitch and Cam Kennedy reinvigorated the franchise in the 90s when they did Dark Empire. That and Dark Empire II are collected in this Epic.

Also fun, the Ostrander/Jan Duursema “Legacy” series, wherein the down and out last heir to the Skywalker legacy finds himself embroiled with a resurgent Sith Empire. 4 volumes, starting here.

And finally, there’s nothing quite like Archie Goodwin and Al Williamson on the Star Wars newspaper strip. Yes, that’s Russ Manning who comes first. 2 volumes starting here.

And finally a list of Epics we don’t think were on sale the last time these prices rolled around:

Wolverine… and the Sea?

Wolerine: Old Man Logan   Wolverine: Old Man Logan

The Marvel Old Logan and the Wasteland Sale runs through Monday, 11/18.

Yes, the Old Man Logan storyline has spawn a series of miniseries set in “The Wasteland” setting from the original.

That’s what the real spread is here with the rest of the sale being side attractions you may or may not be into.  The original storyline of a cranky, aged (“Old Man”) version of Wolverine living in a dystopic future came off as a sort of Elseworlds tale and is fairly well regarded as a standalone tale.

It was popular enough that the “Old Man Logan” version of the character was contrived to appear in the present (his past… before the disaster that spawned a dystopia) in the period when Wolverine was supposed to be “dead.” It even lasted 50 issues. We’d say give the Jeff Lemire issues a look if it sounds interesting, particularly the Lemire/Sorrentino issues. This was one of their pre-Image collaborations and it’s much more entertaining than the editorial premise sounds.

Don’t Feed the Sale-Naming Trolls

Department of Truth   The Fade Out  Sam and Twitch

The Un-be-leafable Image Comics Sale runs through Black Friday.

Do not encourage whoever’s naming these Image sales. Moving right along to the actual sales, this is another one with a mystery/horror bent to it. Lots of good stuff and it’s worth a browse. A few things we’ve read and are happy to recommend:

  • The Department of Truth – James Tynion IV / Martin Simmonds; Possibly our favorite Tynion series. There’s an X-Files-esque setup, but this series is about the power of belief and myth to shape reality, not an alien invasion
  • The Fade Out – Ed Brubaker / Sean Phillips; A Hollywood blacklist era noir thriller about the cover-up of a starlet’s murder from the ever-reliable team of Brubaker & Phillips
  • The Fix – Nick Spencer / Steve Lieber; A farce about two crooked cops and a much more reliable drug sniffing dog by the Superior Foes of Spider-Man team
  • Sam & Twitch – Brian Bendis / Angel Medina / Ashley Wood / Alex Maleev; Spawn’s detective companions investigate weird mysteries. The Bendis issues are a creepy delight
  • Stray Bullets – David Lapham; Lapham’s crime series was basically Criminal, but a decade earlier. A classic “if you know, you know” series

The Marvel “Maybe” Sales

Ghost Rider  Amazing Spider-Man

The trend continues. New releases at lower than expected price points and discounted pre-orders. Is this the new normal? We’re not sure, but let’s run them down.

Dropping This Week

Pre-Order for Next Week

Unannounced Sales

Black Hammer Omnibus  Dragon Age  The Hunger and the Dusk

Dark Horse has the world of Black Hammer on sale this week.

This would be — we think it’s OK to call it a superhero universe at this point — the indie superhero saga by Jeff Lemire, Dean Ormston and friends. There are a couple branches to how this saga unfurls.

The main Black Hammer series is here and that’s where you should start the journey. But, as with many long running titles, there are a few different editions to it and this is what we think the cheapest (if messy to sort) way to read the series is.

There are currently 7 volumes under the main series + a collection of specials + 2 volumes of “Visions” with guest creators playing in the Black Hammer standbox.

So what you want to do to cheap out is go to the omnibus page first.

Black Hammer Omnibus V.1 is basically the same thing as the first Library edition. That gets you the first two “regular” volumes (issues 1-13) + the Annual.

Black Hammer Library Edition V. 2 gets you the equivalent of “regular” volumes 3 &4 (“Age of Doom”) plus the Streets of Spiral material not in the Ominbus.

Then you can pick up again with V.5 of the regular editions.

Then you’ve got the World of Black Hammer collections, which are solo tales about the various heroes and villains like Barbalien and Sherlock Frankenstein.

And finally, there’s Black Hammer / Justice League: Hammer of Justice, the Lemire / Michael Walsh team up between… well, that’s in the title, isn’t it? This one offers savings in the single issue format.

Also on sale, Dark Horse’s comics adaptations of BioWare’s Dragon Age line of video games:

Also on sale:

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We don’t spam! Read more in our privacy policy

Still on Sale

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: “Marvels” with Captain Marvel and Ms. Marvel; Secret Wars; DC on TV; Jeff Lemire at DH

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Captain Marvel and Ms. Marvel get “Marvels” discounts… and Secret Wars, too.  DC drops prices on their TV properties. Plus, the Dark Horse work of Jeff Lemire.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

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

We Will Control The Horizontal

The DC on TV Sale runs through Monday, 11/13.

There’s just a little bit of difference between how many DC characters had been on TV in 2000 vs. today. This would’ve been a lot smaller sale then.  A few things that caught our eye… no matter how limited the screen time.

Let’s point out some of the more unusual items, here:

Superman Adventures has a really odd pedigree. Yes, it’s the animated Superman from Batman/Superman/Justice League era of animation, but the writers? Paul Dini from the animated world. Scott McCloud… at this point, it should probably be pointed out to readers under 30 that before Understanding Comics, McCloud was the writer/artist of a much loved indie comic titled Zot!, an Astro Boy-influenced quasi-superhero adventure comic. It doesn’t get mentioned as much these days, but this was McCloud playing with Superman. This was followed by a young Mark Millar. Again, intended for all-ages, but Millar on Superman before he was a big name.

The Justice Society of America series on sale has something in it that flew under the radar at the time and is still under the radar. Alex Ross joins Johns & Eaglesham for a Kingdom Come prequel/sequel. DC never really gave it much push, but the Kingdom Come Superman shows up to battle Gog in the present. Look for the three volumes titled “Thy Kingdom Come.”

Batwoman by Greg Rucka and J.H. Williams III is the full Detective Comics run that preceded the solo series (which was after Rucka exited DC). Batwoman has had… drama… on TV and the big screen, but this initial foray from Rucka and Williams III is top shelf material.

Superman Adventures   Justice Society of America: Thy Kingdom Come   Batwoman

Marvel Movie Comics

The Marvel Captain Marvels Sale runs through Monday, 11/20.

Yes, there’s a moving coming out!

Yes, this is kind of a convoluted assortment of people with the same name, so give us a minute!

The first one, the Kree Captain Mar-Vell kinda gets short changed here:

The Kree/Skrull War is a classic Avengers tale, one of the first Events in a sense, and Mar-Vell figures prominently in it.

The Death of Captain Marvel is the end of the Jim Starlin era with the graphic novel of the same name and the battle with Nitro in the original series.

Then you had the Monica Rambeau Captain Marvel, sometimes called Photon. She was the next to take that name. This sale has two books with the same content, so we’ll pick Captain Marvel: Monica Rambeau. This is a collections of stories she features in.

Mar-Vell’s son, Genis, took up the name of Captain Marvel in the early aughts.

And then there’s Carol Danvers, the former/original Ms. Marvel who took up the name and is the current Captain. Also one of the most relaunched characters in all of Marveldom (which means they’re trying.)

The Carol Danvers Captain Marvel has been very writer-driven in the last decade.

Avengers: Kree/Skrull War   Captain Marvel   Captain Marvel

The Road to Palindromes

The Marvel Ms. Marvel Sale runs through Monday 11/20.

This would be Ms. Marvel as in Kamala Khan, not the current Captain Marvel, Carol Danvers. Is there a movie coming out? Hmm…  Let’s break this down by volume, since there have been relaunches.

  • Ms. Marvel ’14-15 – The original run with G. Willow Wilson and Adrian Alphona as the primary artist
  • Ms. Marvel ’15-’19 – How silly is this relaunch? The collected edition number doesn’t even reset! It’s still Wilson and Alphona, although the artist rotate a bit as it goes on.
  • Magnificent Ms. Marvel ’91-’21 – Relaunched after Wilson’s departure, this is written by Saladin Ahmed with Minkyu Jung and Joey Vazquez as the lead artists
  • Ms. Marvel: Beyond the Limit – The most recent mini-series by Samira Ahmed and Andrés Genolet.

Recommendations? We thought Ms. Marvel was at its best early in the run, before it got too integrated into the Marvel universe, but that’s just us.  Definitely start with Wilson’s run, though.  It made quite the mainstream splash.

Ms. Marvel

But Is It REALLY a Secret?

The  Marvel Secret Wars sale runs through Monday, 12/4.

We all know which one this is really about, but let’s go through the other ones first.

The original Secret Wars by Jim Shooter and Mike Zeck is a big ‘ole action comic.

Secret Wars II by Jim Shooter and Al Milgrom didn’t quite work. Except for Peter Parker having to explain “going to the bathroom” to The Beyonder. That was gold.

Beyond! by Dwayne McDuffie and Scott Kolins is an under-the-radar sequel where Spidey and a handful of others (unwillingly) return to Battleworld from the original series. Is it good? It’s McDuffie and Kolins, so you should already know the answer to that.

Secret War by Brian Bendis and Gabriele Dell’Otto has NOTHING to do with the above. Somebody had a cute idea with the name. It’s really about Nick Fury running a black op and fallout afterwards. If you like Bendis, you’ll like this.

Then there’s the Secret Wars (Event) that’s the endcap to the Jonathan Hickman Avengers run (and to an extent, his Fantastic Four run as well). When the timestream collapses… well, that would be telling, wouldn’t it? The main Secret Wars mini-series by Hickman and Esad Ribic is where you want to start with this and you can move on to the myriad of tie-in titles included in the sale if a character’s side-story catches your eye.

Secret Wars    Beyond!   Secret Wars

Le Mired in Discounts

The  Dark Horse 2023 Jeff Lemire Digital Sale runs through Monday, 11/27.

Why yes, Mr. Lemire has done more than just Black Hammer at Dark Horse… although he’s certainly done a lot of Black Hammer. Remember to keep an eye on prices with this one. Some of the time, $0.99 single issues will be cheaper than the collected edition.

What’s in this sale?

Black Hammer, naturally, with Dean Ormston. (Note: the Omnibus Editions are the better buy and the “regular” collected editions are a wash with single issues.) Then you’ve got your World of Black Hammer, Black Hammer / Justice League, and Black Hammer Reborn.

Then you’ve got Mazebook, which is Lemire wearing both writer and artist hats.

And, finally, Berserker Unbound with Mike Deodato, Jr. where an warrior from ancient times, hot on the trail of a wizard finds himself in the modern day. Urban fantasy ensues.

Black Hammer Omnibus   Mazebook   Berserker Unbound

Is that… print?!?

Finally, if you need some *gasp* print comics, we were passed a link to a “Get 3 For the Price of 2” sale. Most people would call that “Buy 2, Get 1 Free,” but it’s not the first thing we couldn’t explain. We’re not sure how long that link will be good for. On the left hand rail of the page, under “Departments,” click on “Superhero Comics & Graphic Novels.” There was a manga link there yesterday, but we’re not seeing it today, so what’s on sale might be fluid?

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Still on Sale

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Superman, Doctor Strange, New Mutants, Black Hammer

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Superman gets the discount spotlight from DC; Doctor Strange and New Mutants Sales return and Dark Horse offers up Black Hammer.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

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

A quick word before getting into this week’s sales. No, you’re not imagining things: The Marvel sales DID run towards the end of March. The current Doctor Strange sale added a handful of items that were missing from the last one, though. We have no clue what’s up with that. If you happened to look at the sales page Tuesday morning, you would have seen the Dark Horse Valentine’s Day Sale return, but that got swapped out for Black Hammer. We’re used to seeing the pricing take a couple days to get fixed, but this week was definitely odder than most.

Super-Sale

The DC Superman Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 5/1.

An All-Superman, all-the-time sale. Now, DC’s digital depth doesn’t really go as deep as Marvel, despite having been around longer, so it’s a little smaller than the Marvel Legacy sales. Everything before the John Byrne/Man of Steel era is a little spotty… but you know what? Byrne’s run ushered in a pretty entertaining period.

The slightly better buy for the early portion of that Byrne-initiated period is the larger Man of Steel collections. This is the post-Crisis relaunch spearheaded by John Byrne, but also with Marv Wolfman, Jerry Ordway, Roger Stern and Dan Jurgen showing up early on. Solid runs and we’re particularly fond of Ordway’s work.

After Byrne left, but still firmly in what we’d consider this period of Superman, there’s a good run by George Perez with Roger Stern and Kerry Gammill collected in The Adventures of Superman by George Perez.

Man of Steel   Adventures of Superman

Some more random recommendations? Sure.

One of the more unusual Superman titles from the Pre-Crisis era is Superman: Phantom Zone by Steve Gerber, Gene Colan and Tony DeZuniga. Yes, it’s about the Phantom Zone and Zod… but it veers into horror territory and gets pretty wild and metaphysical. We’d have loved to see more Superman from this team, but ’twas not to be. This also includes the (much later) wrap up story from DC Comics Presents by Gerber and Rick Veitch.

Emperor Joker was something that got some serious word of mouth in 2000, when it took over the Superman titles for a couple months. It’s a Jeph Loeb / Joe Kelly / J. M. DeMatties / Mark Schultz / Ed McGuinness / Doug Mahnke / Mike Miller / Kano tale of the Joker gaining the power to reshape the world in his image and reigning as Emperor. And no, it’s not an Elseworlds tale. A highlight of the early 00’s for Superman.

And for something more recent that was completely overlooked, there’s Batman/Superman: The Archive of Worlds.  This is a fun-forward romp by Gene Yang and Ivan Reis that has Superman and Batman hopping parallel world with classic cinema themes… to put it in a way to avoid spoilers. Silver age themes with modern sensibilities.

Superman: Phantom Zone   Superman: Emperor Joker   Batman / Superman: The Archive of Worlds

And let’s give a shout out to a couple of our favorite Jimmy Olsen collections (both of them?) that happen to be collected here:

Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen by Jack Kirby is one of the “Forth World” titles, but it’s also effectively Kirby’s Superman book. What do we get here? The debut of the Cadmus Project and the DNAliens, the return of the Guardian and the Newsboy Legion, Intergang… and a clone saga that predates Spidey’s first encounter with the Jackyl. Very fun stuff.

Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen: Who Killed Jimmy Olsen? is the more recent Jimmy Olsen 12-parter by Matt Fraction and Steve Leiber. We’ve raved about this one before and we’ll doing it again: this is one of the funniest comics of modern times. Jimmy Olsen wakes up in Gorilla City hungover and married… to an intergalactic jewel thief and that’s far from the strangest part of story (nor is the alien cat that pukes up buckets of blood over everyone). Somebody, lots of somebodies, are trying to kill him. Jimmy’s on the run, trying to stay one step ahead of the killers, maintain his career and figure out who’s behind this. It’s a homage to the 50’s/60’s series and it’s transformations. There’s an actual mystery underneath the humor and it goes out of its way to explore some of the odder corners of the DC Universe. A bit of a masterpiece in our opinion. We’re eager for a proper sequel.

Jimmy Olsen by Jack Kirby   Jimmy Olsen

The Doctor Is In – Redux

The  Marvel Doctor Strange Sale runs through Monday, 3/28.

And it’s most of the Doctor Strange material that’s been collected in book form… and a couple more titles than when this run a few weeks back (see: The Peter Gillis Strange Tales, for instance.)

So first, as is our custom, we’ll walk you through the various series over the years… this is a little more complicated because the early Epic/Masterwork volumes aren’t on the same page. (We’ll let you you pick out the mini’s yourself, since those aren’t as convoluted.)

  • Strange Tales – This is a cluttered series page, but its the original Lee/Ditko run, so let’s break it down to Masterworks 1 and Masterworks 2 or Epic Edition 1
  • Doctor Strange ’68-’69 – the Masterworks listings are here and include the early Marvel Premiere run. The ’68 run is perhaps most notable for some amazing Gene Colan art, but the scripts don’t always live up to the art.
  • Doctor Strange ’74-’87 – The Masterworks here catch the end of the Marvel Premiere run and the Epics pick up with the back half of ’68 run. (Yes, it’s a confusing way to look at things.)
  • Strange Tales ’87-’88 – The rest of the Peter B. Gillis run from Strange Tales with art by Chris Warner, Kevin Nowlan, Terry Shoemaker and Richard Case.
  • Doctor Strange ’88-’96 – Probably best known for the Roy & Dann Thomas run with Butch Guice and Geoff Isherwood as notable artists.
  • Doctor Strange ’15-’18 – Initially Jason Aaron/Chris Bachalo with Donny Cates tagging in towards the end. (The omnibuses here are the better buy)
  • Doctor Strange ’18-’19 – The Mark Waid / Jesus Saiz / Barry Kitson era with Strange in space.
  • Doctor Strange, Surgeon Supreme (’19) – the very much under-rated and too short Mark Waid / Kev Walker run. Walker knocks it out of the park here.
  • Death of Doctor Strange – Jed MacKay and Lee Garbett kill off Stephen Strange. For real. (OK, at least it lasted for a bit and served a plot point.) A clever series that delivers its titular promise in unexpected ways.

Strange isn’t included, so somebody considers it a Clea title, perhaps?

What’s good?  This is where we get into Masterworks vs. Epics… because the Masterworks are a LOT more complete right now, particularly through the 70s.  The original Lee/Ditko run is great and you can get that in the first Epic Collection. Things pick up again when Englehart and Brunner show up towards the end of the Marvel Premiere run and the whole ’74-’87 run is solid, though we have a particular soft spot for the Roger Stern / Marshall Rogers / Paul Smith material towards the end.  Yes, Doctor Strange had A list creators most of the time.  That’s your core.

Another personal favorite that wasn’t in the previous sale, Doctor Strange: The Oath by a pre-Saga Brian K. Vaughan and Marcos Martin.

Something under the radar?  The final Waid/Walker run is also a lot more under the radar than it should be.

    Doctor Strange in Strange Tales   Doctor Strange   Doctor Strange - The Oath

Mutations – Redux

The Marvel New Mutants Sale runs through Monday, 4/24

Let’s break this one down by the series highlights first:

  • New Mutants (’83 – ’91) – The original run
  • New Mutants (’09 – ’11) – Zeb Wells / Diogenes Neves; DnA / Leandro Fernandez & David Lopez
  • New Mutants (’03 – ’04) – Nunzio DeFilippis / Christina Weir / Keron Grant / Khary Randolph
  • New Mutants: Dead Souls (’18) – Matthew Rosenberg / Adam Gorham
  • New Mutants (’19-’22) – The HoX/PoX (Hickman) era with rotating creators

What’s the best run of New Mutants? That’s a question that runs to personal preference more than most series. We’d say, #18-31 is the core with Chris Claremont and Bill Sienkiewicz that stands above the rest. Demon Bear. The introduction of Warlock. A good Legion arc. And it’s conveniently packaged in an Epic Collection. It’s still an interesting run after Sienkiewicz moves on, but he’s so good at setting mood and tone.

Another thing we’d throw out as particularly interesting is specifically the Jonathan Hickman installments of the most recent series. These are also conveniently collected in a single volume… and his issues didn’t always run sequentially.

Past that, this is one where you browse and see if something strikes your fancy.

New Mutants: The Demon Bear Saga   New Mutants

Hammered

The  Dark Horse 2023 Black Hammer Sale runs through Monday, 5/1.

This would be — we think it’s OK to call it a superhero universe at this point — the indie superhero saga by Jeff Lemire, Dean Ormston and friends. There are a couple branches to how this saga unfurls.

The main Black Hammer series is here and that’s where you should start the journey. But, as with many long running titles, there are a few different editions to it and this is what we think the cheapest (if messy to sort) way to read the series is.

There are currently 7 volumes under the main series + a collection of specials + 2 volumes of “Visions” with guest creators playing in the Black Hammer standbox.

So what you want to do to cheap out is go to the omnibus page first.

Black Hammer Omnibus V.1 is basically the same thing as the first Library edition. That gets you the first two “regular” volumes (issues 1-13) + the Annual.

Black Hammer Library Edition V. 2 gets you the equivalent of “regular” volumes 3 &4 (“Age of Doom”) plus the Streets of Spiral material not in the Ominbus.

Then you can pick up again with V.5 of the regular editions.

Then you’ve got the World of Black Hammer collections, which are solo tales about the various heroes and villains like Barbalien and Sherlock Frankenstein.

And finally, there’s Black Hammer / Justice League: Hammer of Justice, the Lemire / Michael Walsh team up between… well, that’s in the title, isn’t it? This one offers savings in the single issue format.

Black Hammer Omnibus   Sherlock Frankenstein   Black Hammer / Justice League

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Luke Cage and Iron Fist, Spider-Woman, Umbrella Academy, Black Hammer

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Luke Cage (Power Man) & Iron Fist get the discounts, plus Spider-Woman and Silk on the Marvel side. Dark Horse offers up the Black Hammer and Umbrella Academy. Meanwhile, the Batman Day Sale continues.

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):

So let’s talk about about the latest Comixology/Amazon navigation change, which Comixology was talking up on it’s Twitter. They’re trying to fix things, but it’s still a little odd.

The upshot is that they’re implementing a little better sorting.

  • Volumes in a title are now grouped together. (Not always in numerical order – that’s still handled poorly if there are more than 10 volumes.)
  • It’s sometimes in alphabetical order.  The tendency appears to be to have the highlighted title at the beginning and then slip in a… more alphabetical order later.  In the Batman Day Sale, they run all the collected editions and then run all the single issues after that.  In the Luke Cage sale, all Luke Cage/Power Man material comes before Iron Fist material, so it’s not really alphabetical.

It’s a little easier read, but the inconsistency with alphabetizing can be confusing.

The bad news is they removed to ability to change the display order. In other words, you can no longer search by publication date to see what the most recent book on sale is. (i.e., what just started to get discounted) You also can’t sort price (helpful for bargain hunting and to jump right to the $0.99 single issues when those are available). We have a philosophical problem with taking features away from users and we used those sorts.

On to the sales:

Bats

We broke down the big Batman Day Sale last time, but it’s still running. Click through for a closer look.

Batman: The Caped Crusader

Sweet Christmas!

The Marvel Luke Cage and Iron Fist Sale runs through Monday, 9/19.

The chronology moves something like this: Initially there was a Luke Cage, Hero For Hire. This eventually was retitled Power Man. Running in parallel was Iron Fist, first in Marvel Premiere, then in the Chris Claremont/John Byrne solo series. Then the two titles merged to form the off-beat Power Man and Iron Fist.  Power Man and Iron Fist might be best known for the Jo Duffy run, but it also has early work by Kurt Busiek, Priest and Denys Cowan, among others.

Power Man   Iron Fist   Power Man and Iron Fist

There have been a few revivals since, but the one that’s nearest to our heart is The Immortal Iron Fist. People are most familiar with the first half of the series, with the celebrated team of Ed Brubaker/Matt Fraction/David Aja. We’re here to tell you that the back half by Duane Swierczynski/Travel Foreman is also pretty darn good. Plus, more Fat Cobra! Don’t sleep on the back half.

Immortal Iron Fist

Along Came a Spider-Woman

The Marvel Spider-Woman Sale runs through Monday, 9/19.

Or maybe a Spider-Man/Silk sale if we want to be accurate.

So the sorting by series is broken here and the Spider-Woman titles are co-mingled, so let’s straighten that out:

Ditto for Silk. The “main” series are:

  • Silk ’15 – Robbie Thompson / Stacy Lee
  • Silk ’15-’17 – Robbie Thompson / Stacy Lee / Irene Strychalski
  • Silk ’21 – Maurene Goo / Takeshi Miyazawa (Amazon has the wrong creator credits)

And then when they list Silk: Out of the Spider-Verse, that’s really the two series that start in ’15 collected along with some other relevant Spider-Man/Spider-Verse titles.

What do we like out of this? We’re not really current on Spider-Woman/Silk, but we can tell you that the original Spider-Woman comic is a deeply weird book. Lots of magic early on. Morgan Le Fey, Werewolf By Night, The Brothers Grim. If you like the more bizarre corners of 70s Marvel for its strangeness, it’s worth a look.

Spider-Woman

Getting Hammered

The  Dark Horse World of Black Hammer Sale runs through Monday, 9/26.

This critical darling by Jeff Lemire and Dean Ormston is very much a world building experience.  Start with the core series and then branch to the spin-offs as the spotlighted characters catch your fancy.  There’s plenty of imagination to go around.

Black Hammer

Where’s My Umbrella?

The Umbrella Academy Sale runs through Monday, 10/17.

Why yes, there’s a new season on Netflix and we might even start on that tonight. Funny how sales line up with such things…

This one’s a lot easier to define: it’s a series by Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba about an extremely dysfunctional family of superhumans who are more than a little scarred by their adoptive upbringing.  One series link for the collected editions and no fuss.  Good comic, too. We enjoyed it.

Umbrella Academy

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