Tag: DC

Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: World’s Finest; DC Elseworlds; Dark Horse Horror; Alison Bechdel

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, DC looks at more recent titles with their Summer Reading sale and towards the past with an Elseworlds sale. Dark Horse discounts a wide range of horror books and… is that Alison Bechdel?

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):

Summer Loving Reading

World's Finest Lobo  Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes

The DC Summer Reading Sale runs through Monday, 6/24.

Another eclectic title mix from DC, but plenty of $2.99/$3.99 titles and a few things are new (or at least recent) to having a discount. Let’s run down some notables by the bullets:

  • Batman: The Adventures Continue – Alan Burnett / Paul Dini / Ty Templeton; The extremely well done return to the continuity of the 90s animated series by two of the show runners (and Ty Templeton’s been on this version a loooooooong time).
  • Batman: The Golden Age – Big chunks of the original 30s/40s stories for $3.99/volume.
  • Batman/Superman: World’s Finest – Mark Waid/Dan Mora; Probably our favorite DC ongoing title at the moment. Popular with .cheap readers, too. Third volume recently entered discount territory.
  • The Dead Boy Detectives (’05) – Jill Thompson’s manga style adventure of what’s now a Netflix series.
  • Gotham Central – Ed Brubaker / Greg Rucka / Michael Lark / Stefano Gaudiano / Jason Shawn Alexander / Kano; The excellent series where the Gotham PD tries to cope with Gotham Crime without Batman. Double volumes for $2.99. Very worth taking a flier on if you’re unfamiliar.
  • Green Arrow (’23)-Josh Williamson / Sean Izaakse; First time discounted?
  • The Huntress: Origins – Paul Levitz / Joe Staton; All the Bronze Age solo appearances in once place.
  • JLA (’97) –    The 90s run that started with Grant Morrison / Howard Porter, mostly $3.99 for double volumes. A good era for the Justice League.
  • Justice Society of America (’23) – Geoff Johns / Mikel Janin; We can’t tell you when the next few issues will ship, but the collection of the first 7 issues is discounted.
  • Lobo (’90) – Keith Giffen / Alan Grant / Simon Bisley; The original off-color, ultra-violent humor series starring The Main Man. An effective tool for the offending of the easily offendable, but very funny if you aren’t.
  • Mister Miracle (’17) – Tom King / Mitch Gerads; In this much-lauded series, Mister Miracle attempts to escape death itself.
  • The Nice House on the Lake – James Tynion IV / Alvaro Martinez Bueno; $2.99/volume ahead of the next series. High school friends are gathered at a remote house as the world ends… and the rest is spoilers. Very well done and a surprisingly big seller for a Vertigo book without the Vertigo imprint behind it.
  • The Omega Men: The End is Here – Tom King / Barnaby Bagenda; Under-appreciated early Tom King meditation on modern terrorism with the Omega Men reimagined as political terrorists who’ve kidnapped Kyle Rayner. Also one of the best Kyle Rayner stories you’ll find.
  • Peacemaker Tries Hard! – Kyle Starks / Steve Pugh; A recent addition to the ranks of the discounted at $3.99.
  • Rorschach (’20) – Tom King  / Jorge Fornés; The rare Watchmen sequel(ish) that we’ll endorse! It’s a political thriller in the Watchmen universe.
  • Superboy & The Legion of Super-Heroes – Paul Levitz / James Sherman / Mike Grell / Joe Staton / Jim Starlin – better than usual prices for big chunks of the first Paul Levitz run.
  • Superman (’23) – Josh Williamson / Jamal Campbell; Best “traditional” take on Superman in a few years. V.2 came out (at regular price) recently.
  • Superman: Birthright – Mark Waid / Leinil Francis Yu; 12 issue mini about Superman’s early years for $2.99
  • Superman: The Golden Age – Big chunks of the 30s/40s Superman tales for $2.99/$3.99.
  • The Wild Storm – Warren Ellis / John Davis-Hunt; A reimagining/updating of WildCATS and the Jim Lee Wildstorm characters. Davis-Hunt is vastly under-appreciated.
  • Wonder Woman: The Golden Age – It’s hard to describe how deeply strange the early 1940s Wonder Woman comics are… and not just the submission and bondage elements. Blow your mind for $3.99
  • World’s Finest: The Silver Age – Big chunks of the original series (starting with the ’54 material) for $3.99 a pop.

Elsewhere
The Nail  Bizarro Comics  Superman: Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?

The DC Elseworlds Sale runs through Monday, 6/17.

Elseworlds were originally DC’s answer to Marvel’s What If series, frequently re-imagining heroes in different settings and time periods. And you know what? Some of the were legitimately great comics. This sale has a few things that haven’t traditionally been referred to as “Elseworlds” (and we have no idea why some of the high end Batman collections are at the end, so we’ll leave it you to browse those) and there are several  things we are happy to recommend without reservation:

  • Batman: The Dark Knight Returns – Frank Miller; the classic tale of Batman coming out of retirement
  • Batman: Gotham By Gaslight – Brian Augustyn / Mike Mignola; a Victorian/Steampunk/Jules Verne reimaging of Batman who comes in conflict with Jack the Ripper and a version of Verne’s Robur the Conqueror
  • Batman: Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader – Neil Gaiman / Andy Kubert; A Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow – style send-off to Batman that starts at his funeral.
  • Batman: Year 100 & Other Tales – Paul Pope; Pope spins a future tale of a new Batman appearing, as Commissioner Gordon’s grandson pursues him. You don’t want to pay the hardcover price for this one.
  • Bizarro Comics: The Deluxe Edition – Genuinely odd anthology where alternative cartoonists like Peter Bagge, Ivan Brunetti, Tony Millionaire and Carol Lay do shorts with the various DC characters. Yes, that’s a Matt Groening cover.
  • Justice League of America: The Nail – Alan Davis; Ma and Pa Kent get a flat tire and never find Kal-El’s rocket, so the Justice League forms without Superman and things do not go smoothly.
  • Kingdom Come – Mark Waid and Alex Ross; You don’t get Injustice: Gods Among Us without this dystopian tale of a new generation of heroes running amok. It’s really a critique of the 90s grim ‘n’ gritty comics movement.
  • Superman: Red Son – Mark Millar / Dave Johnson / Killian Plunkett; What if baby Kal-el’s rocket crashed in the Soviet Union and he was raised to be Stalin’s secret weapon? Also, Dave Johnson doing interiors!
  • Superman: Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? – Alan Moore / Curt Swan; After Crisis on Infinite Earths wrapped, but before Superman relaunched under John Byrne, Moore and Swan did a two-part story to tie a ribbon on the saga of the original Superman. (Theoretically the Silver/Bronze Age Superman, but this is pretty all encompassing.)

Unannounced Sales – The Horror, The Horror…

Not listed on the Deals page, it seems Dark Horse is having a horror sale.  Indeed, Dark Horse has done a LOT of horror over the years. You might even say it’s a specialty for them. Here are some things we found:

What’s good here? The Mignola-verse is the standard bearer, and a many threaded thing it is. Before you get to the last B.P.R.D. Omnibus (in many ways, the real backbone of that universe), it helps to have read all of Hellboy, plus some Abe Sapien (which gets into his true origins) and Witchfinder. And that’s the _major_ highlights.

Horror’s a pretty strong genre for Dark Horse.

Even More Unannounced Sales
Heathen  Wrassle Castle  Fun Home

From Vault / Wonderbound

The Alison Bechdel Section

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Silver Surfer; DC Pride; Marvel Knights; X-Men; DH Manga; Dragon Age

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel slashes prices on the Silver Surfer, Marvel Knights and X-Men “Crossovers.” DC has their annual Pride sale. Dark Horse discounts most of their manga, plus 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):

Surfin’ Bird

Silver Surfer by Lee/Kirby  Silver Surfer - Englehart  Silver Surfer

The  Marvel Silver Surfer Sale runs through Monday, 6/10.

For the most part, the solo adventures of the Silver Surfer fall into three periods:

First, the classic original series by Stan Lee and (mostly) John Buscema. This ran from ’68-’70 and is a minor legend for a reason. It does not appear to be on sale this time, but we’ll list it for the sake of completeness.

There wasn’t much solo Surfer for the better part of 17 years because the Surfer was considered to be Stan’s character in a similar way to how Sandman is Neil Gaiman’s. That changed in ’87 when Silver Surfer relaunched under the team of Steve Englehart & Marshall Rogers. (Yes, the Batman pairing.) Predictably, it was excellent. The next team was Jim Starlin and Ron Lim, another great run. Starlin used this run to bring back Thanos (mostly unused since he finished his Warlock run) and set up the Infinity Gauntlet.  We think very highly of the first 50 or so issues of this run. The first four Epic Collections will take you through #50 (that would be through Thanos Quest).

Then next major addition to the cannon was the Dan Slott / Michael Allred Silver Surfer in 2014. It is confusing listed in two places. The first three volumes here and the final two volumes here.

For something that ends up being off the radar because of it’s short length, there’s always Parable, which is Stan Lee teaming up with Metal Hurlant (Heavy Metal) legend Moebius for an adventure.

And if you’re interested in cherry picking the Surfer’s original appearances in Fantastic Four, the very definition of classic, there’s an Epic Collection that does just that.

Who Exactly Did the Knighting Ceremony?

Daredevil Marvel Knights   Punisher  Spider-Man

The Marvel Knights Sale runs through Monday 6/10.

It’s probably best to put this in historical context. Prior to becoming Marvel EIC, Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti were co-running an imprint at Marvel called “Marvel Knights.” This started when Marvel was not exactly at a high point and Quesada & Palmiotti reinvigorated several titles. Eventually, Quesada got promoted.

The flagship title for Marvel Knights was probably Daredevil. It started out with Kevin Smith and Quesada as the creators, which was a hit. Then Brian Bendis & Alex Maleev had a storied run on it.

Garth Ennis wrote The Punisher for Marvel Knights, both the comedic series and the later series crime version that eventually moved over the MAX imprint.

Very little of it is in the sale, but the Christopher Priest version of Black Panther is still hugely influential.

Grant Morrison did a Fantastic Four mini-series with Jae Lee and Marvel Boy with J.G Jones.

Mark Millar and Terry & Rachel Dodson did a Spider-Man run.

There was also the infamous “we’re just going to pretend that never happened” Punisher miniseries where Frank returns from the grave as an angel of vengeance. No, really.

There’s a bit more there, but those are the highlights (and the famous misfire). It was a pretty influential imprint.

X Marks the Event

X-Men: The Dark Phoenix Saga  X of Swords  Sins of Sinister

The Marvel X-Men Crossovers sale runs through Monday, 6/17.

This is really a sale on the various Events in the X-family of books. Some of them mostly internal to the X-line, some of them crossing over outside.

The bulk of the sale is the X-Men Milestones line which collects Events from Dark Phoenix through  Age of X.

For something like Onslaught, you can simply get the Milestone edition or you can go whole hog:

Ditto for the slightly earlier Age of Apocalypse:

And then a couple more recent events are too new for the Milestones:

What’s good? We’d go back to that original “Milestone” – The Dark Phoenix Saga. There’s a reason it’s a classic and sent the X-Men into a legendary surge of popularity. Hard to go wrong with Claremont & Byrne. We also think extremely highly of the two most recent events: X of Swords & Sins of Sinister.

Pride

Batwoman  The Invisibles  Wonder Woman by George Perez

The  DC Pride Sale runs through Monday, 6/10.

This is a 288 book set of books related to Pride Month. (Some of them more closely related than others.) A few things we saw that were interesting, including some off the more beaten path:

  • Batwoman by Greg Rucka and J.H. Williams III – Rucka /Williams; The excellent solo series from Detective
  • Batwoman (’11) – W. Haden Blackman / J.H. Williams III / Amy Reeder; Blackman & Williams mount a good follow-up to the above Detective run, but an editorial decision to nix the wedding hampers the ending
  • Doom Patrol – Grant Morrison / Richard Case; The classic… although it’s a shame there’s no Rachel Pollack Doom Patrol in this sale. It would be appropriate.
  • The Invisibles – Grant Morrison / Steve Yeowell / Jill Thompson / Chris Weston; An underground society battles a conspiracy to keep humanity in it’s place.
  • Seven Soldiers of Victory – Grant Morrison’s series of interlocking mini-series isn’t always mentioned, when Morrison’s name is brought up, but we thought it was the execution was on the money.
  • Shade: The Changing Man – Peter Milligan / Chris Bachalo; Early Vertigo as Milligan & Bachalo retool the Ditko hero. The original marketing description of “mind-bending” is apt.
  • Wonder Woman (’87) – There’s a lot to like about this run – George Perez. Phil Jimenez. The first Greg Rucka run. Even a Walt Simonson / Jerry Ordway collaboration. Be aware you need to toggle between the Omnibus page and Volumes page to see all the material

Unlisted Manga + Dragons

Astro Boy  Blade of the Immortal Lone Wolf and Cub

Dark Horse is having an extensive manga sale. By the numbers:

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

Dragon Age

Even More Unannounced Stephen King Comics
Stephen King's Dark Tower

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Guardians of the Galaxy; DC’s Greatest Hits; Scarlet Witch; Rogue & Gambit; Mass Effect

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel slashes prices on the Guardians of the Galaxy, the Scarlet Witch and Rogue & Gambit. DC drops a “Greatest Hits” sale and Mass Effect gets a discount at 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):

DC’s Besties

All-Star Superman  Far Sector  Sandman

The DC Greatest Hits Sale runs through Monday, 6/10.

Something of a “best of” or “classics” sale… and some of the prices are good, particularly on older volumes. This is more of a “what haven’t I gotten around to reading” sale and it’s worth a browse.

A few things that caught our eye and/or are at a particularly good price:

  • All-Star Superman – Grant Morrison / Frank Quitely – a love letter to the Silver Age tales and recommended by James Gunn
  • Batman: The Adventures Continue – Alan Burnett / Paul Dini / Ty Templeton – return to the world of “Batman: The Animated Series” and it doesn’t miss a step
  • Batman: Gotham by Gaslight – Brian Augustyn / Mike Mignola – a Victorian/Steampunk Elseworlds with a new sequel coming out
  • Batman: The Long Halloween – Jeph Loeb / Tim Sale – since a final installment has been announced, here’s the original
  • DC: The New Frontier – Darwyn Cooke – Cooke’s stone cold classic about the dawn of the Silver Age heroes. A+
  • Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles – Mark Russell / Mike Feehan – Snaggletooth recast as Tennessee Williams facing down the House Unamerican Activities Committee
  • Fables – Bill Willingham / Mark Buckingham – $2.99/volume for the long-running Epic of fairy tale heroes and villains in exile
  • Far Sector – N.K. Jemison / Jamal Campbell – A new Green Lantern at the edge of the galaxy investigates the first murder in 500 years. Good luck finding better world building.
  • The Human Target – Tom King / Greg Smallwood – It’s a serious noir that also has all the goofiness of the bwa ha ha era Justice League International. Great book.
  • Injustice: Gods Among Us – Tom Taylor / Mike S. Miller / Bruno Redondo – You wouldn’t think this was a video game adaption + enter the team of Taylor & Redondo
  • Kingdom Come – Mark Waid / Alex Ross – the original dystopian DC epic
  • Saga of the Swamp Thing – Alan Moore / Stephen Bissette / Stan Woch / John Totleben – Moore’s hugely influential run for $2.99/volume
  • Sandman – Neil Gaiman / a rotating cast of artists – Gaiman’s fantasy classic at $2.99/volume
  • Watchmen – Alan Moore / Dave Gibbons – you already know what this is.
  • Wonder Woman: Dead Earth – Daniel Warren Johnson – Diana wakes up in a dystopian hellscape and tries to piece together what destroyed civilization. “Metal” is a good way to describe it.
  • World’s Finest – Mark Waid/ Dan Mora; contender for DC’s best current title and V. 3 is now discounted.
  • Y: The Last Man – Brian K. Vaughan / Pia Guerra – All the men have died, save Yorrick and his monkey. $2.99 per DOUBLE volume. As cheap as it gets!

Groot? Groot Groot.

Guardians of the Galaxy: Tomorrow's Avengers   Guardians of the Galaxy by Al Ewing   Guardians of the Galaxy Omnibus

The Marvel Guardians of the Galaxy Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 6/10.

Let’s break this into incarnations.

Original Guardians of the Galaxy

New GoG (The DnA cast or movie version if you must)

What’s good here?  Well, we’ve always liked the original. Particularly the Steve Gerber bits. We also loved the recent Al Ewing / Juan Cabal run. And if you like the current incarnation, you should probably go back to the source with the DnA run. We’d also be remiss if we didn’t point out that Kev Walker did an amazing job on the art with the most recent run.

Which Witch?

Vision and the Scarlet Witch   Avengers West Coast   House of M

The Marvel Scarlet Witch Sale runs through Monday, 6/3.

The value buy here is Vision & The Scarlet Witch: The Saga of Wanda and Vision. It’s a sort of faux-Epic Edition, clocking in at 467 pages and including the wedding of Wanda and Vision from Giant-Size Avengers #4, the ’82 Bill Mantlo/Rick Leonardi mini-series and the ’85 Steve Englehart/Richard Howell 12-parter.

There’s a lot of West Coast Avengers in this sale, largely for Wanda’s heel-turn in the John Byrne Vision Quest/Darker than Scarlet era — the Epic Collections are the better buys here.

House of M by Brian Bendis and Olivier Coipel might be a little over-hyped at this point, but it’s the tent-pole “Wanda rewrites reality” story that’s central to the TV adaptation.

We might reserve our largest praise for Wanda’s once and future husband, though. Vision by Tom King and Gabriel Hernandez Walta is an excellent tale. The Vision has a synthezoid family in the suburbs and things slowly go horribly wrong.

‘Til Death Do Us Discount

Mr. and Mrs. X   Gambit Classic   Gambit: The Complete Collection

The Marvel Rogue and Gambit Sale runs through Monday, 6/3.

The series the best lives up to the sale’s theme is Mr. & Mrs. X by Kelly Thompson, Oscar Bazaldua and David Lopez. That would be Rogue and Gambit, if you missed the wedding.

While Gambit is the newer character, he’s had more exposure in solo titles. Gambit Classic collects the original Uncanny X-Men arc and the early mini’s, including the 1995 Rogue mini-series in V.2.

Gambit: The Complete Collection is the slightly better known 1999 series primarily by Fabian Nicieza / Steve Skroce / Yanick Paquette

Plenty of assorted X-Men volumes to go with all this, too.

Unlisted Sales

Mass Effect  Killer Queens

Over at Dark Horse, we find a Mass Effect sale, as in the video game from Bioware. It’s available in:

Also with a discount: Killer Queens by David M. Booher & Claudia Balboni, which sports the tagline, “putting the SASS in assassin.”

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Punisher; Batman; Superior Spider-Man; Detective Chimp; Dark Horse Fantasy

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel discounts the MAX version of The Punisher and Superior Spider-Man. DC has a Memorial Day Sale on recent items. Dark Horse cuts prices on fantasy titles.

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):

Momento Mori

Justice Society of America  Detective Comics  The Detective Chimp Casebook

The DC Memorial Day Sale runs through Monday, 5/27.

This is an extra eclectic mix of books and there seem to be a fair amount that are new to being discounted or recently started being discounted. A few things we found notable:

Warner Must Find Punisher MAX Confusing…
Punisher PunisherMax

The Marvel Punisher MAX Sale runs through Monday, 5/27.

Yes, Marvel’s been using the MAX label for mature reader comics longer than Warner’s been using it for streaming. One of those quirks of branding, we suppose.

This sale really breaks down into two titles:

Punisher Max: The Complete Collection is the ’04-’09 run that’s most associated with Garth Ennis returning to the character (with art by Darick Robertson, Leandro Fernendez, Doug Braithwaite and Goran Parlov, among others). This is Ennis doing the serious Punisher, as opposed to the hilarity of Welcome Back, Frank. Mike Benson, Victor Gischler and Jason Aaron pop up at the end of the run.

Then you’ve got PunisherMax, the ’09-’12 relaunch by Jason Aaron/Steve Dillon, where Frank mixes it up with The Kingpin and Bullseye.

Superiority Complex

Superior Spider-Man Superior Spider-Man Companion Superior Spider-Man

The Marvel Superior Spider-Man Sale runs through Monday, 10/16.

Yes, that would be the run when Doctor Octopus took over Peter Parker’s body. One of the greatest moments of “wait… this is actually good” in recent history. (Everyone we knew winced at the high concept, but the execution was on the money!)

The primary Superior Spider-Man series by Dan Slott and Ryan Stegman is best packaged in the 2-volume Complete collection, that also includes the “Dying Wish” arc that sets up the run.

Superior Spider-Man Companion gets you the first 12 issues of Superior Spider-Man Team-Up and some tie-in issues.

Superior Spider-Man (’18-’19) is the Christos Gage / Mike Hawthorne revival that returns Otto Octavious to his Spidey persona.

And for something a little different? The absolutely hilarious Superior Foes of Spider-Man by Nick Spencer & Steve Lieber. Boomerang tries to organize a gang of Spidey’s b-list foes and make a big score. Things… do not go as intended. Think an even more absurd Dortmunder novel with super villains and you won’t be far off.

Unlisted Sale

Air  Beasts of Burden  Elfquest

Dark Horse has a number of fantasy series on sale this week, including:

We’re going to stump a little for Air. This series was way under the radar at Vertigo and prior to G. Willow Wilson being a name author. It’s out there (in a good way) enough to be a little hard to describe, but it’s a strong book and it looks like the reissue is now complete.

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Iron Man; DC in the ’90s; Absolute Carnage; Powers

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel discounts most of their Iron Man catalog, plus Absolute Carnage. DC revisits the 90s. Dark Horse cuts prices on the many works of Bendis & Oeming.

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):

Does Whatever An Iron Can…

Iron Man: The Man Who Killed Tony Stark  Iron Man: Heroes Reborn  Iron Man: Big Iron

The Marvel Iron Man Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 5/27

This would be one of those sales where most of the hero’s run is on sale, so we’re going to follow our usual protocol and start out by breaking out the primary titles and volumes. Iron Man isn’t as goofy to follow as, say, Spider-Gwen… but there are “quirks.”

  • Tales of Suspense – Iron Man debuted here in what was a split book with Captain America for most of the run.
  • Iron Man ’68-’96 – The original solo run in the era before constant relaunch gimmicks

OK, sit tight. The ’98 -’04 run is collected in VERY odd ways and poorly cataloged for browsing.  The truly excellent Kurt Busiek/Sean Chen/Patrick Zircher run lasts from 1-25. We can’t find 15-25 collected? (That entire run should be!)  You can catch 1-14 and the Mike Grell run (50-59)  in cheap omnibus form here.  You can catch Joe Quesada’s scripting run (26-32) and the Avengers: Disassembled tie-in late in this run in single volumes here. (But get the omnibus version for Busiek.)

  • Iron Man ’04-07 – Best known for launching with the “Extremis” storyline
  • Invincible Iron Man ’08-’12 – The excellent Matt Fraction / Salvador Larroca run. Save some money with the omnibus collecting the first 3 volumes.
  • Iron Man ’12-’14 – The Kieron Gillen run with Greg Land as initial artist
  • Invincible Iron Man ’15-’16 – Brian Bendis and David Marquez/Mike Deodato, Jr. start out with Tony Stark in the armor
  • International Iron Man ’16 – Brian Bendis and Alex Maleev (And yes, we’re in the thick of the relaunches now)
  • Invincible Iron Man ’16-’18 – Brian Bendis and Stefano Caselli with Riri Williams/Ironheart filling Tony Stark’s shoes (yes, parallel substitute Iron Man runs)
  • Tony Stark: Iron Man ’18-’19 – The Dan Slott era with Valerio Schiti as the principle artist in the rotation.
  • Iron Man ’20-’22 – The Christopher Cantwell / Cafu run.
  • Invincible Iron Man ’22-current – Gerry Duggan / Juan Frigeri

If you’re keeping score at home, you’ll have notice Superior Iron Man and Infamous Iron Man are not on sale. Why? We cannot say.

So what’s good?  We haven’t read ALL the Iron Man out there, but we’ve read a lot of them.

In our opinion Iron Man starts hitting it’s stride when Archie Goodwin arrives toward the end of the Tales of Suspense run and then is pure gold through issue 28 of the ’68 Iron Man series. Artists for this run include Gene Colan and George Tuska. (That’s collected in both Masterworks and Epic formats, but only the Epic is discounted right now..)

The next “all-star” run is #116-157 of the original Iron Man, that’s the David Michelinie / John Romita, Jr. / Bob Layton run that’s most famous for the “Demon in a Bottle” alcoholism arc, but there’s more to the run than just that arc.  The Denny O’Neil / Luke McDonnell run that follows is solid (make sure you get a collection that includes #200!!!), but Michelinie & Layton return for #215-250 with a few artists, including Mark Bright and Jackson Guice… with Layton even switching to penciller, instead of his usual inking post, for parts of it.  This second run is most famous for “Armor Wars” (originally known as Stark Wars).

When Heroes Return hits, Kurt Busiek and Sean Chen are pop in for the excellent 1998 run, of which only 1-14 are currently collected.

The ’08 – ’12 run by Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca is particularly good. You know how modern Marvel titles can get sidetracked by Events. Fraction and Larroca lean into it and produce a lengthy and self-contained arc with Tony Stark on the run and attempting to overwrite his brain to keep everyone’s secrets out of the hands of Norman Osborn. Yes, an honest to goodness great Event tie-in arc. It’s a rare thing.

We were quite happy with the  Christopher Cantwell/Cafu run. Tony Stark chases Korvac into outer space and meditates on the nature of godhood, good intentions and addictions. Lots of character work and action.

Be Kind, Please Rewind

Hellblazer  League of Extraordinary Gentlemen  The Nail

The  DC 90s Rewind Sale runs through Monday, 5/20.

Yes, it’s a 90s sale… with a little late 80s/early 00s around the edges. It’s worth a browse, particularly if you want to go wide on the Batman of that period, but let’s hit some highlights, shall we?

  • Animal Man – Initially Grant Morrison / Chas Truog, the full run is on sale this time.
  • The Authority – Ellis & Hitch, then Millar & Quitely; Hugely influential at the end of the ’90s, this is what effectively started the “widescreen comics” trend. (Pity the Stormwatch lead-in isn’t in the sale.)
  • Batman: No Man’s Land: The epic line-wide crossover Event, where Gotham is cut off from the rest of the country and the villains set themselves up as Warlords. (Yes, this predates DMZ by several years.) We thought this was the peak of the 90s Bat-Events.
  • Green Arrow (’88-’98) – Mike Grell / Ed Hannigan / Dan Jurgens – the Grell version that did away with most of the trick arrows.
  • Hellblazer – The first 13 volumes are on sale from the original Vertigo run. Delano / Ennis / Jenkins / Ellis.  Strong, strong run and for what it’s worth, we enjoyed the less-talked about Paul Jenkins/Sean Phillips issues. Don’t sleep on them.
  • The League of Extraordinary Gentleman – Alan Moore / Kevin O’Neil; Yes, DC (via Wildstorm) still has the first two volumes. And they’re good! It’s a literary team-up with satirical elements around the edges (pay attention to the ads…). Note: there is a demise in V. 2 that is very much NOT for kids.
  • The Nail – Alan Davis presents the tale of a world where the Kents didn’t find Kal-El’s rocket and the Justice League forms without Superman to bail them out.
  • Preacher – Garth Ennis & Steve Dillion; Since adapted for TV. God’s gone missing and Jesse Custer would like a word with him. A series as wrong as it is praised.
  • The Spectre – John Ostrander / Tom Mandrake; This would be on our best of the 90s list. Jim Corrigan is dead and tethered to the Wrath of God. He’s trying to work through that. It’s a lot.
  • Superman: The Death of Superman – The most famous line-wide Superman Event. The “Funeral for a Friend” and “Reign of the Supermen” sequences worked far better than one would have expected when solicited. This is also where John Henry Irons / Steel is introduced.
  • Transmetropolitan – Warren Ellis / Darick Robertson; The science fiction satire about a Hunter S. Thompson-esque future journalist and his war against a corrupt establishment. One of the more influential titles of the late 9os.

Absolute Hyperbole

Absolute Carnage  Venom: Absolute Carnage

The Marvel Absolute Carnage Sale runs through Monday, 5/20.

Absolute Carnage was, by Marvel standards, a small scope crossover between Donny Cates’s Venom run and the Nick Spencer era Amazing Spider-Man. Yes, in the context of an Event, only generating eight collected edition counts as restraint.

The Event miniseries holding it together is Absolute Carnage by Donny Cates & Ryan Stegman.

Venom: Absolute Carnage by Cates & Iban Coello collects the Venom tie-in issues.

Amazing Spider-Man: Absolute Carnage by Nick Spencer & Ryan Ottley collects, you guessed it, the Amazing Spider-Man tie-in issues.

From there, fill-in as your tastes dictate. We will say that the lead story in Absolute Carnage: Immortal Hulk And Other Tales is worthwhile, if not central to anything. Immortal Hulk being a high water mark in general.

Unannounced Sales

Powers  Goldfish  Fortune and Glory

Dark Horse has a big block of Brian Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming titles on sale. Let’s hit the numbers first:

We’d like to talk a little about the early Bendis, which doesn’t seem to be widely remembered after all his time at Marvel and DC. Bendis started out doing the full cartoonist and working on crime comics like Goldfish and Jinx.

He started getting a little more notice when he jumped over to Image for Powers w/ Oeming. Powers starts out as a police procedural in a world where super powers have to be registered (this is LONG before Marvel’s Civil War) and follows a police unit that handles “powers”-related crimes. There’s a lot of worldbuilding involved and things get quite a bit more complicated as the backstories of the main characters unfold.

Powers left Image for Marvel’s Icon imprint when Bendis blew up there and as he got deeper into Marvel, the shipping schedule got erratic. It’s relaunched a few times and seemingly lost a lot of audience momentum. Shipping schedules, have very little to do with the quality of the comic, however. It’s a good one and an influential one that’s worth dipping into the collected editions of. (And trust us, its so much easier with omnibuses where you don’t have to remember which relaunch a given issue is from!)

Also very worthwhile:  Fortune & Glory is Bendis recounting tales of interacting with Hollywood when Goldfish got optioned. It’s hilarious and multiple folks who work in TV/Film have assured us it’s frighteningly accurate.

We’d also point you to Scarlet as a more recent example of Bendis returning to that early crime vibe. It’s a strong comic.

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Captain America: Sam Wilson; Nightwing; Ghost Rider and The Midnight Sons; Siege; Grendel; Masters of the Universe

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel discounts Sam Wilson’s adventure as Captain America (and as The Falcon), Ghost Rider and the Midnight Sons get a price drop, as does Siege. DC puts the discount spotlight on family; Dark Horse cuts prices on Grendel, Masters of the Universe, and Lone Wolf & Cub.

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):

Oh, Captain, My Captain

Captain America & the Falcon: Madbomb  Captain America & the Falcon by Christopher Priest  Captain America: Symbol of Truth

The Marvel Captain America: Sam Wilson Sale runs through Monday, 5/13

This would be Sam Wilson, the former Falcon, in the role as Cap. And really there are two halves to this sale. The Sam-as-Captain America side includes:

Then you’ve got the original series where Sam is merely the Falcon. We’d put the highlights of these offerings as:

  • Captain America: Secret Empire and Captain America: Nomad – These are the classic Steve Englehart / Sal Buscema arcs that most people have near or at the top of the Captain America cannon. You hear a bit of shouting about how this was one of the original “political” comics. It’s true – the subtext of Secret Empire is all about Nixon and Watergate, but filtered through more of a Hydra-type lens. Nomad can be read as Steve Rogers reacting to Watergate, but through the Marvel filter, which involves a certain Skull…
  • Captain America: Madbomb is the first big arc from Jack Kirby’s return to Captain America in the ’70s. Steve and Sam face down a conspiracy of billionaires trying to destabilize the country through bombs that makes people explode with rage and riot. Plus… “Killderby.” Another adventure with subtext that seems to remain relevant.
  • Captain America & The Falcon by Christopher Priest – The Complete Collection – Priest / Bart Sears / Joe Bennett; This is an under the radar run that has Steve and Sam chasing nested conspiracies involving a drug cartel, an “anti-Cap” who might be working for the Navy and MODOK.

Family Ties

Nightwing  Power of Shazam  Jimmy Olsen

The DC Families Sale runs through Monday, 5/13.

Families? Think Superman Family and Batman Family and you’ll be close to the spirit of this sale.  A few things we noticed:

  • Batwoman by Greg Rucka and J.H. Williams – Their Detective Comics run is still the gold standard for the character.
  • Green Lantern Corps (’86) – The Steve Englehart / Joe Staton run
  • Nightwing – See the Tom Taylor / Bruno Redondo volumes at the bottom of the page. We think this is the first time V. 4 has been discounted?
  • Poison Ivy – G. Willow Wilson / Marcio Takara; We think this is the first time V. 2 has been discounted?
  • The Power of Shazam – Jerry Ordway / Peter Krause; Ordway’s updating of the original Captain Marvel and the Fawcett heroes paid a little more attention to the source material than several of the revivals.
  • Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen by Jack Kirby – This is effectively Kirby’s Superman title and part of the Fourth World line. Plus… Don Rickles! (No, really.) More influential than you might realize.
  • Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen: Who Killed Jimmy Olsen? – Matt Fraction & Steve Lieber’s hilarious ode to Silver Age Jimmy Olsen, that’s also a legit mystery story and tour of the DCU. Jimmy wakes up hungover and married in Gorilla City and that’s before things start getting strange. We crave a sequel, but the stars would need to align. Highest possible recommendation if you want something fun that also has a plot.

After Midnight

Spirits of Vengeance Ghost Rider Ghost Rider

The Marvel Midnight Sons Sale runs through Monday, 5/13.

Midnight Sons was a supernatural team that ran through some of Marvel’s mid-90s titles like Ghost Rider, Morbius, and, later on, a few issues of Doctor Strange.

Spirits of Vengeance: Rise of the Midnight Sons collects the opening sequence across the various titles.

Midnight Suns is the Ethan Sacks / Luigi Zagaria revival from a couple years back.

Past those volumes, this is largely a Ghost Rider / Morbius sale.

Ghost Rider

As a bonus, the absurdity of Cosmic Ghost Rider:

You can find the first few years of Morbius in Epic format.

Exiting the Dark

Siege: Prelude  Siege  Siege: New Avengers

The Marvel Siege Sale runs through Monday, 5/13.

The Siege in question is the final act of Marvel Dark Reign era.  Dark Reign was an attempt to have an Event without a miniseries running through the middle of it. In the aftermath of Secret Invasion, Norman Osborne consolidates power, replaces the Avengers with an original Thunderbolts-like “Dark Avengers” reporting to him and generally tries to take over the world… and he’s making progress.  Siege has him pushing his luck and attempting to take over Asgard.

The core would be:

  • Siege: Prelude – the run-up, collecting issues across the Marvel landscape
  • Siege – the main story by Brian Bendis / Olivier Coipel

From here, you can plug in other titles as you’re interested. Bendis, the architect here, also penned:

The Unlisted Directory

Grendel Omnibus  Lone Wolf and Cub  Masters of the Universe: Revelation

Multiple Dark Horse sales dropped this week.

Remember Matt Wagner’s Grendel, one of the longest lived indie series out there?

Lone Wolf and Cub – Kazuo Koike & Goseki Kojima produced one of, possibly THE, best samurai tales… with a twist. Itto Ogami has been framed, along with his infant son, he bides his time working as an assassin while he awaits the opportunity for revenge. Classic series.

Masters of the Universe (otherwise known as He-Man)

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Avengers; Doctor Doom; Aquaman; Vault Comics; The Dark Tower

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel discounts nearly the entire Avengers run, plus Doctor Doom. DC has an “All-Star” sale. Plus, some unannounced Vault and Dark Tower titles.

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):

Avengers Assemble

Avengers Assemble

The Marvel Avengers Sale runs through Monday, 5/27

And this as pretty much everything except the Masterworks editions. (Hey, don’t look at us… we think that’s a strange omission, too.)

Let’s start about by breaking down the major series/titles on sale:

The Jonathan Hickman era

Avengers by Jonathan Hickman

The Hickman era is a little complicated, because his Avengers and New Avengers titles run together, so the Avengers by Jonathan Hickman collections are what we’d recommend for a more natural reading experience. Those collect both titles, plus tie-ins… and this is something were reading order counts.

But, this being Marvel collections, it get more complicated. The Avengers/New Avengers material (whichever format you read it in) is just one segment of Hickman’s tale. The story is continued in Avengers: Time Runs Out, which is the real last arc of Avengers and New Avengers. (And it’s in the “by Hickman” omnibuses.)

And all this funnels into Secret Wars, the true endgame of Hickman’s Avengers run… which, of course, is not included in the sale… but it is in Doctor Doom sale, this week only. (Stranger and stranger.)

The Hickman era really is it’s own beast. A lot of comics talk about having an “epic scale.” This one’s scope is staggering and the sheer size of the scope means it gets better and better as things progress in a way few comics really do. So just know that the entire era is effectively one extended story and it’s a real “in for a penny, in for a pound” thing.

The Jason Aaron era

Avengers

While not necessarily as complex as the Hickman era, there are a few different ways to read it:

Enter Jed MacKay

Avengers

We didn’t see it on the official list, but  V. 1 of the Jed MacKay / C.F. Villa Avengers run is on sale.

What’s at the top of the list for recommendations?

For the classic series, there are a lot of good runs. The first Roy Thomas/John Buscema run, particularly around the introduction of The Vision. The Kree-Skrull War. Steve Englehart’s Run. Jim Shooter’s run. Roger Stern’s run, particularly when the team of John Buscema and Tom Palmer return. There is a ton of good stuff to look at. When we factor in price point and page count (some of the newer Epic Collections are a little more expensive), we keep coming back to The Final Threat. Steve Englehart/ Gerry Conway / Jim Shooter / George Perez / John Byrne / John Buscema / Sal Buscema. You get the return of Wonder Man, “The Private War of Doctor Doom,” and “Bride of Ultron” for the major arcs. It’s a nice cross-section of creators and stories for $5.99.  But really, it’s hard to go wrong with the Kree-Skrull War through ~#200, and then pick it up again for Roger Stern.

We’re also major fans of the Kurt Busiek / George Perez run that begins here. A second golden age that stands up with the best runs.

Let’s face it, there have been a lot of good Avengers runs.

Victor Von Doom Bows Before No Man!

Doctor Doom  Avengers - The Private War of Doctor Doom  Doctor Strange & Doctor Doom: Triumph and Torment

The Marvel Doctor Doom Sale runs through Monday, 5/6

The top dog here is the Doctor Doom series by Christopher Cantwell and Salvador Larroca. Its an instant classic well worth your time. Doom has been framed. For now he’s on the run, but his vengeance will be terrible. Featuring Kang in a highly amusing frenemy role.

Avengers: The Private War of Doctor Doom has a lot of creators with Gerry Conway, Steve Englehart and Jim Shooter as the primary writers and George Perez as the primary artist. This is a cross-over between Super Villain Team-Up (a better than you might think series that was basically Namor and Doom plotting against each other) and Avengers.  Also contained in the larger collection The Final Threat.

Doctor Strange & Doctor Doom: Triumph and Torment by Roger Stern and Mike Mignola has Strange and Doom invading Hell to free Doom’s mother from the clutches of Mephisto.

There’s a bit more here, but these are a good start.

All-Stars and Friends

The DC All-Stars Sale runs through Monday, 5/6
All-Star Comics  The Atlantis Chronicles  Starman

DC seemingly randomly mixes some titles (lots of Aquaman this time) and… the correct sale pricing has returned. Yay!

A few things that caught our eye:

  • All-Star Comics: Only Legends Live Forever – Gerry Conway / Paul Levitz / Wally Wood / Keith Giffen / Joe Staton; This collects the full Justice Society 70s run and you sure don’t want to be paying the usual HC omnibus price for it!
  • Aquaman (’94) – The Peter David run
  • Aquaman: The Death of a Prince – Most of the relevant ’70s Aquaman tales in one collection – Steve Skates / David Michelinie / Paul Levitz / Jim Aparo / Mike Grell / Don Newton.  It didn’t lack for quality creators, did it?
  • The Atlantis Chronicles – Peter David / Esteban Maroto; Listed as Aquaman, but this insanely under the radar classic is a high fantasy / magic vs. science tale of the history of Atlantis. This is where all the “Orin” references come from. It’s great, beautifully illustrated and another $49.99 HC omnibus price if it isn’t on sale.
  • Starman (’94) – James Robinson / Tony Harris; One of the best comics of the mid-90’s, full stop and what jumpstarted the legacy hero trend. DC needs to finish collecting this gem.

You Were Expecting Winnie the Pooh?

Gun Honey

The Titan Gun Honey Sale runs through Monday, 6/3

Gun Honey is a series of miniseries about a weapons smuggler. Part of why it’s a series of miniseries is likely because the author is oriented towards novels. Charles Ardai might not have a high profile in the comics world, but over in the mystery world he’s won an Edgar and a Shamus. He’s also the co-publisher of Hard Case Crime. (He also has one helluva collection of pulp novel covers.)

Ang Hor Kheng provides the art.

This is available as $0.99 single issues and $5.99 collected editions. The single issues are the better value.

Undeclared Major

Ether  The Rush  Dark Tower

An eclectic mix of unannounced sales this week:

Dark Horse is celebrating the work of David Rubin:

Vault has a few titles:

More of the Robin Furth / Peter David comics based on Stephen King’s The Dark Tower

And, lastly, Economix: How and Why Our Economy Works (and Doesn’t Work), in Words and Pictures by Michael Goodwin and Dan Burr.

Past that, don’t forget the Marvel May the 4th Star Wars Sale runs through Monday.

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Amazing Spider-Man (all of it); Blade; Dracula; Lazarus Planet; Dark Horse’s Cullen Bunn catalog

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel puts pretty much the full run of Amazing Spider-Man on sale and follows that up with Tomb of Dracula and Blade’s various titles. DC… has issues this week. Dark Horse celebrates the work of Cullen Bunn.

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):

So Many Spiders…

Amazing Spider-Man  Amazing Spider-Man  Amazing Spider-Man - Kraven's Last Hunt

Marvel’s Spider-Man Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 4/29.

There’s a lot of ground to cover here, so let’s break it down by series.

  • Amazing Spider-Man (1963-98) – The original run before Marvel became quite so obsessed with rebooting titles.
  • Amazing Spider-Man (1998 – 2013) – This run starts out with the controversial J. Michael Straczynski/John Romita, Jr./Mike Deodato, Jr. run, then goes into the Brand New Day era with rotating creative teams and segues into the beginning of the Dan Slott era. (Slott’s written a LOT of Spidey.)  Now… this Amazon’s listings, so you knew something had to be messed
  • Superior Spider-Man – Possibly the high point of the Dan Slott era – Doc Ock takes over Peter’s body and life. The Complete Collections are the way to go here.
  • Amazing Spider-Man (2014 – 15) – Peter’s back in control and the Slott era continues.
  • Amazing Spider-Man(2015-2018) – It’s a relaunch. (Hey, Spidey’s been relaunched a lot less than Captain Marvel!) This is the end run of the Slott era, culminating in the Red Goblin affair. The “Worldwide Collection” omnibuses are the better buy.
  • Amazing Spider-Man (2018 – 22) – The Nick Spenser era is here, PLUS the 4 volumes of Spider-Man Beyond with Ben Reilly stepping in that take place prior to:
  • Amazing Spider-Man (2022-Present) – The current Zeb Wells / John Romita, Jr. / Ed McGuinness run.

And there are a few more Slott era omnibus editions floating around.  That’s probably not getting cleaned up anytime soon.<sigh>

Recommendations?  Well, first off Amazing Spider-Man doesn’t really have very many BAD periods. Oh, some runs are definitely better than others, but there aren’t huge swaths of duds.

You can definitely pick your poison between the $5.99 Masterworks and $6.99 Epic Collections for the original run (although a few Epic’s run a little higher). The Epics are typically much larger collections for only a buck more, but it depends on which format you started buying and which era you’re interested in. Some stretches are only in Masterworks, some are only in Epic.

Of possible interest, since there’s a sequel mini-series out, but NOT included in the link for the V.1 of Amazing is the Kraven’s Last Hunt Epic Collection, so we’ll call that one out directly. You get the J.M. DeMatteis/Mike Zeck classic, plus the issues of Amazing around it, plus Spider-Man Vs. Wolverine for about the price of just getting the regular Kraven collection.

We’d also recommend a look at the Brand New Day collections. It’s not a run that’s immediately talked about, but we found it entertaining and a much better set of creators was assembled than Marvel was necessarily given credit for: Mark Waid, Bob Gale (we wish he did more comics), Marc Guggenheim, Joe Kelly, Dan Slott, John Romita, Jr., Steve McNiven, Salvador Larroca, Phil Jimenez, Barry Kitson, Marcos Martin, Paolo Rivera, Lee Week and… others. I’m not sure there are “hidden” gems with Spidey, just runs that get discussed less.

And yes, we are enjoying the current Zeb Wells / (mostly) John Romita, Jr. series. It’s a little more somber than we were expecting from Wells, but it’s been a good ride so far. And this is a series that plays the long game resolving subplots.

Could There Possibly Be an Event Approaching?
Blade: Black and White Tomb of Dracula Greenberg the Vampire

The  Marvel Blade and Marvel Vampires Sale runs through Monday, 4/29.

That would be the Daywalker and vampire slayer who’s better known through the films than the comic.

We feel pretty strongly that Blade is best experienced in his original context – a supporting character in Tomb of Dracula. It’s not clear you can call Tomb of Dracula an under-the-radar 70s classic anymore, since it’s gotten a fair amount of exposure since the Essentials line (finally) collected it ~20 years ago, but now it’s in color reprints. One note, though – you need to give the series six or seven issues to get moving. There were some false starts until Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan were paired up… but after they’ve got a couple issues under their belt, this one really takes off.

Blade: Black & White is a collection of… that’s right, the black & white adventures over the years and is built around some magazine appearances in Vampire Tales and Marvel Preview. Wolfman and Chris Claremont are the primary writers for that period. Colan and Tony DeZuniga are the primary artists.

If you’re looking for something has resembles the film franchise a bit more, there’s Blade: The Complete Collection by Marc Guggenheim (with Howard Chaykin as artist).

For something completely out of left field, J.M. DeMatteis, Steve Leialoha and Mark Badger present Greenberg the Vampire. He tries to avoid drinking blood, loves his Mama and occasionally has writer’s block.

DC’s Almost-Sale

Legion of Super Heroes The Great Darkness Saga  Batman Beyond: The Final Joke  Lazarus Planet

The DC Multiverse Sale runs through Monday, 4/29.

*Sigh* It appears to have happened again. Most of these books are are at higher price points than we’ve seen in months or set to a really strange price point. Precedent would suggest that someone at DC did not enter the sale data correctly. This was a BIG problem at various point last year. (Especially August.)  As we type this up, no prices have been corrected… maybe they will be by the weekend?

If not, here’s the much shorter list of things we think are at “normal” price points & discounts. Hopefully this doesn’t linger for a month like it did in August.

Not on the sale page, but good prices:

An Unannounced Bunn in the Oven

Harrow County Omnibus 1  Tales From Harrow County  Shock Shop

It appears Dark Horse is having an unannounced sale on Cullen Bunn titles.

His flagship work for Dark Horse is most likely Harrow County with Tyler Crook. The two omnibus editions in that link are the best value here by a LOT.  Go to the bottom of the “regular” collection links for the Tales From Harrow County continuation.

Also on the list:

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Superman; Captain Britain and Excalibur; New Mutants; Thunderbolts; The Witcher

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, DC has wide discounts for Superman’s Anniversary. Marvel drops prices on Captain Britain and Excalibur, New Mutants and Thunderbolts. Dark Horse holds a sale on The Witcher.

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):

Super-Sale

Superman  All-Star Superman  Superman: Phantom Zone

The DC Superman Anniversary Sale runs through Monday, 4/22.

An All-Superman, all-the-time sale. Now, DC’s digital depth doesn’t really go as deep as Marvel, so 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 smaller Man of Steel collections (this flip-flops from sale to sale with the larger volumes). 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.

One of the somewhat rare ’80s reprints that we’ve enjoyed is Superman: The Phantom Zone by Steve Gerber and Gene Colan. This is a very odd, horror-flavored Superman tale as he confronts something unnatural that’s been living in the Phantom Zone… but you weren’t expecting Gerber & Colan to give you the ’50s TV version, were you?

Emperor Joker is a 2000 storyline from Jeph Loeb / Ed McGuinness / Joe Kelly / Doug Mahnke that finds the Joker acquiring godlike powers and remaking the world in his image. Not an Elseworlds, but entertainingly over the top.

For more recent items, the Mark Waid / Dan Mora World’s Finest (with a certain caped crusader in tow) is aces.

Superman Smashes the Klan has Gene Yang and Gurihiru revisiting and revising the original Superman radio show arc, “Clan of the Fiery Cross.” It’s on the YA side of Superman, but has picked up a LOT of good reviews.

Superman: Man of Tomorrow is an very witty collection of tales by Robert Venditti and Paul Pelletier that went under most radars because it was originally serialized digitally.

Superman, the current series by Josh Williamson and Jamal Campbell is also on sale and it’s a good one.

And for something under the radar, the Warworld saga from a couple years back is worth a look. Phillip Kennedy Johnson wrote Action Comics for a spell and there was very little discussion on it. We’ve since had it recommended a couple times and just finished reading it. Severely under-rated and we’d go so far as to call the first two volumes great. The set up is there’s a new Mongul running Warworld. Mongul has been subjugating a lost tribe from Krypton and uses them to lure Superman to Warworld (with The Authority in tow). A trap is sprung and Superman has to lead a rebellion.

Now, you might be saying “haven’t we seen this before on Apokolips?  And the answer is, not exactly. Kennedy Johnson takes a full arc to set this up with signs of portent and excels at creating an atmosphere of foreboding leading into the final act. The characterization is strong and there’s an interesting thread about the problem of leading a revolution when the underclass has never known freedom. (And a bit of political skullduggery in the background.) Several artists tag in and out, but the more prominent ones are Daniel Sampere, Riccardo Federici and Will Conrad.

This storyline is collected across three volumes:

The optional fourth volume to the arc, which takes place in the background during Warlord Rising, is Superman and The Authority by Grant Morrison and Mikel Janin. This is where Superman recruits The Authority for his mission to Warworld… and trust us, this series works better in the greater context of the Warworld arc than it does as a standalone.

“I’m Not a Bad Sword, King Arthur Just Drew Me That Way”
Excalibur Excalibur Exaclibur

Marvel’s Captain Britain and Excalibur Sale runs through Monday, 4/22.

The original run of Excalibur is here. We’re big fans of anything Alan Davis touched on this book and especially his second run as writer/artist. The Epic Collections are the better deal here, so you’re looking at The Sword is Drawn and The Cross-Time Caper as the two Epic Collections with Chris Claremont writing. We’d probably skip ahead to Curiouser and Curiouser, which begins the Davis solo run. HOWEVER, the last segment of the Davis run is only in Excalibur Visionaries: Alan Davis, Vol. 3 further down the page.

What else is here? Captain Britain: Legacy of a Legend is an odd, incomplete selection of tales across the various UK titles the character appeared in (plus, Marvel Team-Up). It’ll give a flavor for it, and has some of the Alan Moore/Alan Davis run, but there’s a reason we jump up and down when the omnibus goes on sale. That’s the complete version.

Claremont returned to Excalibur for a 2004 series with Aaron Lopresti. He also worked on New Excalibur with Christopher Yost and several rotating artists in 2006.

Captain Britain and MI:13 by Paul Cornell and Leonard Kirk has Captain Britain and the UK super-espionage community butting heads with Skrulls and vampries.

Fresh Mutations

New Mutants: The Demon Bear Saga  New Mutants

The Marvel New Mutants Sale runs through Monday, 4/22

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 Forever (’10) – Chris Claremont / Al Rio
  • 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.

Thunder. Thunder. Thunderca… Whoops, Wrong Series!

Thunderbolts

The Marvel Thunderbolts Sale runs through Monday, 8/14.

The Thunderbolts have been through several iterations since they began in ’97, originally having been the Masters of Evil laying the groundwork for nefarious deeds. And yes, there’s a film in the works.

The original series was written by Kurt Busiek and drawn by Mark Bagley. Eventually Fabian Nicieza tagged in as writer and Patrick Zircher became the lead artist a bit after that. Alas, these volumes are only going to take you through issue #50. The  omnibus editions are more complete, but aren’t on sale right now.

New Thunderbolts was the ’04-’06 relaunch, and yes, it’s included in the third omnibus of the original. Fabian Nicieza/Tom Grummett is the creative team, here.

This then turns back into (no adjective) Thunderbolts for ’06-’12, starting Nicieza/Grummett and then including runs by Warren Ellis / Mike Deodato and Jeff Parker/Kev Walker/Declan Shalvey

Thunderbolts relaunched for ’12-’14 with Daniel Way and then Charles Soule writing it. The artist rotation included Steve Dillon and Phil Noto.

Jim Zub and Jon Malin were behind the ’16-’17 Thunderbolts run.

’20 saw King in Black: Thunderbolts by Matthew Rosenberg/Gerry Duggan/Juan E. Ferreyra/Luke Ross.

The most recent volume in the sale is ’22’s Thunderbolts: Back on Target by Jim Zub and Sean Izaakse.

With Thunderbolts, we feel pretty strongly you need to read the first sequence or two and get a flavor for the concept before jumping into the later evolutions.

Unannounced Sales

Witcher Omnibus

Dark Horse has put their adaptations of The Witcher on sale. They’re available in:

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Still on Sale

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Grant Morrison’s X-Men; Superman; Squirrel Girl; Fear Itself; Richard Corben

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel cuts prices on Grant Morrison’s X-Men run, Squirrel Girl and Fear Itself. DC discounts the most recent Superman volume, amongst its “spring break” specials. Plus, an unannounced Richard Corben 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):

Everything New is Old Again

New X-Men

The Marvel New X-Men by Gran Morrison Sale runs through Monday, 4/15.

Marvel does use “New” in their titles a lot, don’t they? Tells you the emphasis on this month’s single issues vs. collected editions.

What’s this one about? Grant Morrison did a highly celebrated run on the rebranded New X-Men from ’01-’04 with Frank Quitely, Igor Kordey, Chris Bachalo and Marc Silvestri, among others on art duty.  Highly celebrated enough to get its own sale. (Hey, we enjoyed it!)

Conveniently available in three volumes.

Fear… the Deer?
Fear Itself Invincible Iron Man: Fear Itself

The Marvel Fear Itself Sale runs through Monday, 4/15.

Fear Itself was a Marvel crossover Event we always thought should have just been a Thor/Iron Man crossover.

Fear Itself is the main series and on the Thor-centric side as the Asgardian god of fear escapes and marches Midgard towards an apocalypse. Matt Fraction and Stuart Immonen are your creators.

The tie-in we liked for this was Invincible Iron Man: Fear Itself from the excellent Matt Fraction / Salvador Larocca Iron Man run. Tony Stark doesn’t think he’s surviving this one, so he joins the dwarves in boozing while making weapons. One of the better “drinking with dwarves” sequences in literature.

Go for the Nuts
Squirrel Girl

The Marvel Squirrel Girl Sale is running through Monday, 4/15.

In the inimitable Marvel Way, this is one is a little goofy because of how many different editions of the same comics there are.

  • Unbeatable Squirrel Girl series “2015A” and “2015B” by Ryan North and Erica Henderson. This is where everything starts and the original Squirrel Girl appearances are in the first volume.  These are omnibus editions and take you up to #31 of the “2015B” series.
  • To get the rest of the series, switch over to the single volumes and V.9 – 12 will take you from issue #32 to the end. Coincidentally, this is where Derek Charm pops in as artist.

That’s the easy way. Now, if you want the absolute cheapest way, you want to sub in these two alternate packaging volumes for V.2 and V.3 of those omnibuses above (i.e. #1-21 of “2015B”).

Don’t worry, they’ll inevitably add another layer of repackaging to further confuse the situation.

Also, if you’re looking for Squirrel Girl’s earliest appearances, there’s Squirrel Girl & the Great Lakes Avengers.

Spring Break Bodysnatchers From Dayton – The Sequel

Superman  The Human Target  One-Star Squadron

The DC Spring Break Sale runs through Monday, 4/15.

It’s another DC sale with an eclectic selection of books, so we’ll go through some highlights (and assume you’re mostly all Batman’d out after the last couple weeks… that’s OK, the Superman selections are interesting).

  • DC Meets Looney Tunes – You’re getting this for the absolutely astonishing Batman / Elmer Fudd by Tom King and Lee Weeks (who cannot be praised enough for how he makes this work). Yes, a noir interpretation of Elmer Fudd heads to Gotham and the less you know past that, the better.
  • The Human Target – Tom King and Greg Smallwood send Christopher Chance investigating who poisoned him and it looks like the bwa ha ha era Justice League was involved… yet it’s a still pure noir. Great book.
  • The Joker – James Tynion IV / Guillem March
  • Justice League: Last Ride – You knew Chip Zdarsky did a Justice League story, right?  Zdarksy / Miguel Mendonca
  • The Nice House on the Lake – James Tynion IV & Alvaro Martinez Bueno with the most successful horror series in recent memory. (Wither Vertigo, DC?)
  • One-Star Squadron – Mark Russell & Steve Lieber (such an obvious pairing, it’s odd they haven’t done more together) present a dark satire of the gig economy as Red Tornado attempts to run a hero-on-demand app. Good stuff!
  • Rogues – Josh Williamson and Leomacs present a Black Label take on the Flash’s Rouges Gallery.
  • Superman V.1: Supercorp – This is the first volume of the current Josh Williamson / Jamal Campbell Superman series. This was definitely a buzz book that we’ll vouch for.
  • Superman: Son of Kal-El – The Jon Kent series by Tom Taylor / John Timms / Cian Tormey
  • Superman: For All Seasons – The Jeph Loeb / Tim Sale take on Superman

Lucky 13
Doctor Who

The Titan The Thirteenth Doctor Sale runs through Monday, 5/20.

That’s the 13th Doctor as in Jodie Whittaker’s run on Doctor Who.

Mostly done by Jody Houser / Rachael Stott / Roberta Ingranata, you get your choice of formats:

Also available The Road to the Thirteenth Doctor is available in single issues or a collected  edition.

Unannounced
Den Edgar Allan Poe's Spirits of the Dead

It appears Dark Horse has a Richard Corben sale with a wider set of items than you might expect:

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Still on Sale

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