In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, it’s Batman Day and most of the line is discounted. Plus, West Coast Avengers (and the rest of the sundry titles), Ms. Marvel, and a fresh batch of Image titles on 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):
- The new releases page is here.
- The “Comics Deals” page is here.
- The Kindle Deals comics page is here.
The Dark Day Returns?
The DC Batman Day Sale runs through Monday, 9/23.
And this is to say most, not quite all, of the Batman material is discounted.
Let’s break down some of the highlights by series/volume.
Your classic / pre-New 52 material is largely going to be in:
- Batman (1940-2011)
- Detective Comics (1939-2011)
Now… you sorta need to browse both, because with how the two titles started crossing over from the 80s on up, you’re never quite sure which title a collection/story arc/Event will be filed under. And yes, we do like the 80s collections of Caped Crusader and Dark Knight Detective for $4.99. And yes, Knightfall, No Man’s Land, and the like are all in there.
Some more pre-New 52 ongoing titles:
- Batman: Shadow of the Bat – Alan Grant’s title, w/Norm Breyfogle, early on. (Get more of them in Dark Knight Detective/Caped Crusader)
- Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight – standalone arcs by different creative teams, but consistently good
- Batman: Streets of Gotham – Paul Dini’s in-continuity series w/Dustin Nguyen
- The Brave & The Bold – Batman team-ups. Bob Haney, Neal Adams and Jim Aparo were notable creators here. Haney/Aparo was the team on a LOT of comics. (Now if we could get a Nemesis collection…)
A couple one-offs of note:
- Batman: Year 100 & Other Tales – Paul Pope’s excellent Batman at $4.99 and NOT the HC price(!)
- Batman: The Dark Knight Returns – Frank Miller’s classic that upset the card table. $3.99 and your life will be fine if you miss the sequels.
- Trinity – Matt Wagner’s Batman/Superman/Wonder Woman team-up. $3.99
New 52 and forward, your main titles are:
- Batman (’11-’16) – The Scott Snyder/Greg Capullo run
- Batman (’16-current) – starts with the Tom King era and the discounts straight through to Zdarsky’s last release (not for pre-release, though).
- Save a couple bucks on the Tom King run with the “Deluxe” editions
- Detective Comics (’11-’16) – originally Tony Daniels (how many printings did his first issue have?)
- Detective Comics (’16-current) – Starts out with James Tynion’s first (and we’d say better) Batman run.
Some shorter runs of note in the New 52 era:
- Batman ’89 – Sam Hamm / Joe Quinones; The screenwriter of Tim Burton’s Batman films continues that continuity
- Batman: Universe (’19) – Brian Bendis and Nick Derington go against the current trend and deliver and light and fun Batman romp across the DCU that has a certain old school The Brave & the Bold vibe to it… but with more snark. Recommended. $3.99
- Batman: The Adventures Continue – The Animated Series brain trust of Alan Burnett & Paul Dini continue where the cartoon left off with Ty Templeton on art. 3 volumes @$3.99
- Batman: The Brave and the Bold: The Winning Card – Tom King and Mitch Gerads tell a Joker tale
- Batman: The Detective – Tom Taylor (was this his Detective Comics audition?) and Andy Kubert take Batman to Europe where his past rears its head and some actual detection is performed. $3.99
And above the $3.99 level?
Tales of the Batman: Steve Englehart – Englehart’s Detective run with Marshall Rogers and Walt Simonson is one of the “definitive runs” of all-time and in a contender for best run. This has the sequel runs, plus the Aquaman (with some Batman) sequel to “The Laughing Fish” with Trevor Von Eeden. 452 pages for $8.99
Batman: Killing Time – Tom King and David Marquez get their noir on with Batman following the trail of a heist gone bad as his rogues gallery double-cross each other. We read this recently and liked it a lot. $4.99
Batman: Tales of the Demon – Denny O’Neil / Neal Adams / Don Newton. This would be a collection of the original Ra’s al Ghul. Which is to say, the more famous original arc in the early ’70s and when O’Neil revisited the character a few years later in DC Special and the dollar-sized run of Detective. Ideally, we’d like to see a lower price than $8.99 for this page count, but its a good collection with one of the key villains in the Bat-mythos.
Prefer the 90s Event era where the Batman family of books crossed over? Most of those collections are $3.99 – $5.99. Here’s a cheat sheet for that (we have a soft spot for No Man’s Land):
- The Knightfall sequence (Bane, a broken back and Azrael)
- Contagion / Legacy (Virus)
- No Man’s Land (Gotham is cut off from the mainland and goes Lord of the Flies)
- Bruce Wayne – Murderer (A frame-up)
- War Games (Gang wars, Gotham-style)
Plenty more here and worth a weekend browse.
The Other Avengers(es)
The Marvel Avengers West Coast & Beyond Sale run through Monday, 9/23.
That sale name is a nice way of saying “all the Avengers titles, except the main one.” It just happens the main spin-off title everyone thinks about is West Cost Avengers / Avengers West Coast. (I mean even DC moved to the West Coast. It’s a thing.)
Let’s run down the highlights of the rest of it:
- All-New, All-Different Avengers ’15-’16 – Mark Waid / Adam Kubert / Mahmud Asrar
- Dark Avengers ’09-13 – Brian Bendis / Mike Deodato, then Jeff Parker/ Declan Shalvey; When Norman Osborn was running a fake Avengers squad during Dark Reign
- The Bendis material is also in an Epic Collection
- Mighty Avengers ’07-10 – Brian Bendis / Dan Slott / Frank Cho / Koi Pham
- Mighty Avengers ’13-14 – Al Ewing / Greg Land; Where Al Ewing starts some of the Blue Marvel sub-plots
- New Avengers ’04-’12; Brian Bendis and So. Many. Artists.; It’s easier to get all the Bendis New Avengers (including relaunches) in the “Complete Collection” format
- New Avengers ’13 -’15 – Jonathan Hickman / Steve Epting / Mike Deodato / Simone Bianchi / and friends; Warning – you only get 1/2 of Hickman’s saga with this format
- New Avengers ’15-’16 – Al Ewing / Gerardo Sandoval; Sunspot’s Avengers Idea Mechanics (and Squirrel Girl)
- Savage Avengers ’19-’22; Gerry Duggan / Mike Deodato / Patrick Zircher; Think of this as Conan forming the Defenders to hunt down Kulan Gath in the modern day… quite entertaining, as it happens
- Savage Avengers ’22-’23 – David Pepose / Carlo Magno; relaunched for a new creative team
- Secret Avengers ’10 – ’12 – Initially Ed Brubaker / Mike Deodato; The Avengers’ black ops squad
- Secret Avengers ’13-14 – Nick Spencer / Luke Ross
- Secret Avengers ’14-’15 – Ales Kot / Michael Walsh
- Uncanny Avengers ’12-’14 – Rick Remender / John Cassaday / Daniel Acuna
- Uncanny Avengers ’15 – ’17 – Gerry Duggan / Ryan Stegman
- Uncanny Avengers: The Resistance ’23 – Gerry Duggan / Javier Garron
- West Coast Avengers ’18-’19 – Kelly Thompson / Stefano Casseli; More of a Hawk-guy & Kate Bishop series than traditional WCA.
- Young Avengers ’05 – ’06 – Allan Heinberg / Jim Cheung
- Young Avengers ’13-’14 – Kieron Gillen / Jamie McKelvie
What’s good? We’re partial to the original Englehart / Milgrim West Cost Avengers and we don’t think there’s been a sale on this since that series filled out in Epic Collections? There’s a case to be made for the Byrne run, but that one is a lightning rod for strong opinions.
We also thought the Dan Slott Mighty Avengers run was a fun slice of “traditional” Avengers in the middle of the Bendis “New Avengers” era.
The real under the radar one here is the Gerry Duggan Savage Avengers run. If you’ve had an itch for some classic Defenders, this (of all things) might scratch it. It’s offbeat, fun and the sequence where Conan humiliates/shames Doctor Doom while having dinner with him has to be experienced to be believed.
Kamala Sale
The Ms. Marvel Sale runs through Monday 11/20.
Thank goodness they’re not calling this “The Marvel Ms. Marvel Sale!” 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
- Even cheaper in Omnibus format
- 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.
- Also cheaper in Omnibus format
- 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 recent mini-series by Samira Ahmed and Andrés Genolet.
- Ms. Marvel: The New Mutant – Iman Vellani / Sabir Pirzada / Carlos Gomez; Yes, that’s right, the actress who plays Ms. Marvel is co-writing this with the show’s supervising producer
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.
The Marvel “Maybe” Sales
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
- She-Hulk by Rainbow Rowell Vol. 5: All In – Rowell / Ig Guara – $8.99
- Venom by Al Ewing Vol. 7: Exsanguination – Ewing / Torunn GrØnbekk / Ken Lashley / Juan E. Ferreyra – $10.99
Pre-Order for Next Week
- Dead X-Men – Steve Foxe / Bernard Change; $6.99
- Werewolf By Night: Unholy Alliance – All sorts of creators; $6.99
- X-Force by Benjamin Percy Vol. 9 – Percy / Daniel Picciotto / Robert Gill; The wrap up of the Krakoa era X-Force; $6.99
A Pocket Full of Posies?
The Image All Falls Down Sale runs through Monday, 9/30.
No, we’re not sure where they got the name either, we’re just glad they’re back having sales again. This is another small, vaguely alphabetical slice of titles.
A few things we’ve enjoyed enough to put at the top of the list:
- Kane – Paul Grist; A largely under the radar (and quirky) crime series from the UK. Originally from Dancing Elephant Press, no less!
- Kill or Be Killed – Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips; Is he nuts or possessed? Either way, a vigilante is in an ever-deepening amount of trouble with the Russian mob. Top form for Brubaker & Phillips, just don’t ask us what’s up with the pricing on the back half of the series
- Killadelphia – Rodney Barnes / Jason Shawn Alexander; This one’s a particular favorite. A cop who grew up in Philly returns for his father’s funeral and discovers he’s at ground zero of a vampire invasion. One with… let’s call it a sense of history
- Lazarus – Greg Rucka / Michael Lark; 20 minutes into the future, the world is run by corporations and the families that own those corporations are feuding. The genetically engineered bodyguard/warlord of one of these families is rapidly becoming unsatisfied with the status quo. Some of the early predictions of this series are starting to be a bit uncomfortable…
All top of the line stuff!
Also of possible interest:
- Happy! – Grant Morrison / Darick Robertson; the basis for the TV show a few years back
- Local Man – Tim Seely / Tony Fleecs; A noir that’s also a sendup of 90s anti-hero comics as a failed superhero slinks back to the small town he grew up in
- M.O.M.: Mother of Monsters – Emilia Clarke / Marguerite Bennett / Leila Leiz; The Game of Thrones actress tries her hand at comics
Unannounced Sales
We have an unannounced Dark Horse sale on Mob Psycho 100 by ONE.
Also with discounts:
- Barbaric – Michael Moreci / Nathan C. Gooden
- V.3 is listed separately because of course it is
- The Hunger & The Dusk – G. Willow Wilson / Chris Wildgoose (still $1.99)
Still on Sale
- Marvel Agatha, Marvel Witches, and The Darkhold Sale runs through Monday, 9/30
- The Marvel Spider-Verse Sale runs through Monday, 9/23
- Kodansha Grindhouse Sale runs through Monday, 9/23
- The Zenescope Character Spotlight Sale – Robyn Hood Sale runs through Sunday, 9/22
