Tag: Blue Book

Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Batman (at good prices); Thor; Black Widow; Hawkeye; Blue Book

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, DC’s big Batman sale has REAL discounts. Marvel slashes prices on Thor, Black Widow and Hawkeye. Plus, an unannounced Blue Book sale from Dark Horse.

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):

The Batman Sale

The DC Batman Anniversary Sale runs through Monday, 4/8.

Yes, this is the big one. Most of the collected editions are on sale and at good prices. You see $2.99 at DC and it’s time to pull the trigger, so tell your friends.

Let’s try and make things a little easier list and light some highlights of the various series included in the sale:

Batman Special Batman: The War of Jokes and Riddles  Batman '89

What’s good? That depends on what flavor of Batman you like. It seems the caped crusader is flexible and has had different tones over the years.

Do you like the 90s Event era where the Batman family of books crossed over?  Most of those collections are $2.99/$3.99. Here’s a cheat sheet for that (we have a soft spot for No Man’s Land):

Prefer the mid-to-late 80s era? Starlin/Aparo or Grant/Breyfogle? Those collections are running $3.99/$4.99.

“The Caped Crusader” branded volumes collect the Batman issues and start here

“The Dark Knight Detective” branded volumes collect the Detective Comics issues and start here.

We’re also going to call out a few things that are a hair more expensive, but normally have a much higher price point:

Jan Hammer?

Thor - The Wrath of Odin  Thor by Walt Simonson  Thor Road to War of the Realms

Marvel’s Thor Sale runs  through Monday, 4/1.

Pretty much the full Thor line, with the caveat that the Marvel Masterworks volumes are not on sale, so that trend from recent months continues. Which is to say, Epic Collections are your friend.

As per our custom, here’s the breakdown by series/volume:

  • Journey Into Mystery ’52-’66 – The earliest Thor stories from Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
  • The Mighty Thor ’66-’96 – From Lee & Kirby until the relaunches started
  • The Mighty Thor ’96-’04 – The Heroes return Dan Jurgens era, initially with John Romita, Jr.
  • Thor ’07-’11 – Starts with J. Michael Straczynski & Olivier Coipel, ends with Matt Fraction & Pasqual Ferry. Gillen in the middle.
  • The Mighty Thor ’11-’12 – Fraction gets a relaunch with Coipel, Ferry and early Pepe Larraz
  • The Jason Aaron era ’12-’19 – It’s a LOT easer to look at the omnibuses across all the relaunches here
  • Thor ’20 to ’23 – The current Donny Cates run with Nic Klein as the primary artist; Torunn GrØnbekk tags end toward the end while Cates was recovering from his accident (and filled in well, we might add).

The current Al Ewing Immortal Thor gets a big thumbs up from us… but it’s too recent to be on sale yet, alas… or perhaps “fie!”

Of your point of reference for Thor is the most recent film, you want the Jason Aaron era. The God Butcher is the first arc. If you go with that set of omnibuses, Jane Foster picks up the hammer in V.2. We don’t think that starting with the first Jane Foster issues (and slimmer volumes) is a great jumping on point. It’s a saga and you’ll get a lot more out of it if you start at the beginning of Aaron’s run.

Past that, we’re all about the Walt Simonson Thor. It’s probably the most influential run since early days and it’s great. You’ll want the Thor Visionaries: Walter Simonson set that starts here. (The Thor by Walter Simonson version of the reprints seems to be missing the final volume, or at least the last few issues. *sigh* These things happen.)

We also like to go back to the original Lee/Kirby. Not too early. We’d say stay closer to where it changed from Journey Into Mystery to Thor. The first year of JIM was a little rough. The Wrath of Odin  Epic Collection is a good chunk of prime Lee/Kirby Thor and also features the first time Jane Foster was elevated to godhood, since it turns out to now be foreshadowing.

Something under the radar? Ignore this being marketed as a kid’s comic – Roger Langridge and Chris Samnee had a short run on Thor: The Mighty Avenger that was just a good Thor comic, full stop. And you might expect that from those two.

If you want to move in the opposite direction, Thor: Vikings is a seriously violent Marvel MAX title from Garth Ennis and Glenn Fabry that has Viking zombies invading Manhattan. (No, not Fleet Week. That’s different.)

These Ex-‘s Aren’t From Texas

Black Widow  Hawkeye  Black Widow by Mark Waid and Chris Samnee

The Marvel Black Widow & Hawkeye Sale runs through Monday, 4/1.

That’s right. These two used to be an item.

First, the Natasha highlights:

There are two Black Widow Epic Collections that collect what were largely guest or co-starring spots (with a couple notable exceptions) through the early 80s.

Flash forward to 2004 and the highlight of a series of miniseries was a pair written by Richard K. Morgan with an art rotation of Bill Sienkiewicz, Sean Phillips and Goran Parlov. (!) Conveniently collected in a single volume.

A decade later, the team of Mark Waid & Chris Samnee (a known quantity) did their own Black Widow run. Predictably, another highlight. (Also conveniently collected in a single volume.)

Shortly after that, the Eisner winning Black Widow run of Kelly Thompson and Elena Casagrande kicked off. Yes, we enjoyed this run, too… and were kind of thinking there might be a follow up, but we haven’t seen one yet.

As for Mr. Clint Barton, let get it out of the way.  While there’s some debate to how well it fits into continuity, the series that towers above all other is Hawkeye by Fraction & Aja: The Saga Of Barton And Bishop. That would be the extremely quirky and beloved “Hawk-guy” series featuring Pizza Dog.

A bit further down on the listing page are two volumes of “Hawkeye and the Thunderbolts.” Mark Bagley is your lead artist and this covers the transition from Kurt Busiek to Fabian Nicieza as writer, while Hawkeye was leading the group.

If you want some older Hawkeye, there are a couple Epic Collections:

Unannounced

Blue Book

It has come to our attention that Dark Horse has placed Blue Book V.1: 1961 by James Tynion IV and Michael Avon Oeming on sale. “True stories of UFO abductions.”

 

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Still on Sale

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