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 new releases page is here. 
• The “Comics Deals” page is here.
• The Kindle Deals comics page is here.

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:

 

• All-Star Batman ’16 – Scott Snyder with rotating artists
• All-Star Batman and Robin, the Boy Wonder – Frank Miller / Jim Lee
• Batman  ’40-’11
• Batman  ’11-’16 – The Scott Synder/Greg Capullo run
• Batman ’16 – present – The Tom King run through the current Chip Zdarsky run
• Batman ’89 – Continuing the Tim Burton film continuity by original screenwriter Sam Hamm and Joe Quinones
• The Batman Adventures – The original animated series comic by (mostly) Kelley Puckett / Ty Templeton
• Batman & Robin ’09 – ’11 – Grant Morrison / Frank Quitely / Frazier Irving
• Batman & Robin ’11-’15 – Peter J. Tomasi / Patrick Gleason
• Batman & Robin Adventures – Animated series comic by Paul Dini & Ty Templeton
• Batman & Robin Eternal
   
• Batman & The Joker: The Deadly Duo – Marc Silvestri
• Batman / Catwoman – Tom King / Clay Mann / Liam Sharp
• Batman: Dark Victory – The sequel to The Long Halloween by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale.
• Batman: Death and the Maidens – Greg Rucka / Klaus Janson
• Batman: Earth One – Geoff Johns / Gary Frank
• Batman: Gates of Gotham – Scott Snyder / Kyle Higgins / Trevor McCarthy
• Batman: Gotham by Gaslight – The classic Elseworlds by Brian Augustyn / Mike Mignola
• Batman: Gotham Knights – Devin Grayson / Roger Robinson
• Batman: Haunted Knight – The specials the led the way to The Long Halloween by Jeph Loeb / Tim Sale
• Batman Incorporated ’11 – Grant Morrison / Yanick Paquette
• Batman Incorporated ’12-’13 – Grant Morrison / Chris Burnham
• Batman / Judge Dredd – John Wagner / Alan Grant / Simon Bisley
     
• Batman: Killing Time – Tom King / David Marquez
• Batman: One Bad Day 
• Batman: One Dark Knight – Jock
• Batman: Reptilian – Garth Ennis / Liam Sharp
• Batman: Shadow of the Bat – Alan Grant / Norm Breyfogle / Brett Blevins
• Batman / Spawn – Chuck Dixon / Alan Grant / Doug Moench / Frank Miller / Greg Capullo / Klaus Janson
• Batman: Streets of Gotham – Paul Dini / Dustin Nguyen
• Batman / Superman ’13 – ’16
     
• Batman: The Adventures Continue – Continuation of the animated series by Alan Burnett / Paul Dini / Ty Templeton
• Batman: The Dark Knight ’11-’14 – Gregg Hurwitz / David Finch
• Batman: The Dark Knight Returns – Frank Miller
• Batman: The Killing Joke – Alan Moore / Dave Gibbons
• Batman: The Knight – Chip Zdarsky / Carmine Di Giandomenico
• Batman: The Long Halloween – Jeph Loeb / Tim Sale
• Batman Universe – Brian Bendis / Nick Derington
• Batman: Urban Legends
• Batman Vs. Bane – The original Bane special by Chuck Dixon/Graham Nolan, plus Bane of the Demon
     
  
• Detective Comics  ’37 – ’11
• Detective Comics  ’11 – ’16 – New 52 that launch with Tony Daniel’s run
• Detective Comics ’16-present – Starts with a James Tynion IV run, currently by Ram V (and on sale through the Mariko Tamaki run)
• Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight
• Batman and the Outsiders (original) – Mike W. Barr / Jim Aparo / Alan Davis
• The Brave and the Bold  – The original team-ups
• The Brave and the Bold: Batman and Wonder Woman ’18 – Liam Sharp
• Superman/Batman – Initially by Jeph Loeb / Ed McGuiness
• World’s Finest ’41-’86
• World’s Finest ’22 – present – Mark Waid / Dan Mora

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):

• The Knightfall sequence (Bane, a broken back and Azrael)
  • Batman: Prelude to Knightfall
  • Batman: Knightfall V.1
  • Batman: Knightquest 
  • Batman: Knightquest – The Search
  • Batman: Knightsend
  • Batman: Prodigal
  • Batman: Troika 
• Contagion / Legacy (Virus)
  • Batman: Contagion
  • Batman: Legacy V. 1
  • Batman: Legacy V. 2
• No Man’s Land (Gotham is cut off from the mainland and goes Lord of the Flies)
  • Batman: Cataclysm 
  • Batman: Road to No Man’s Land V. 1
  • Batman: Road to No Man’s Land V. 2
  • Batman: No Man’s Land V.1
  • Batman: No Man’s Land V.2
  • Batman: No Man’s Land V.3
  • Batman: No Man’s Land V.4
• Bruce Wayne – Murderer (A frame-up)
  • Batman: Bruce Wayne – Murderer?
  • Batman: Bruce Wayne – Fugitive
• War Games (Gang wars, Gotham-style)
  • Batman: War Games Book 1
  • Batman War Games Book 2

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:

• Batman and the Outsiders
• Batman: Tales of the Demon – The original Ra’s al Ghul saga, much of it by Denny O’Neil / Neal Adams
• Batman: The Demon Trilogy – Collects Son of the Demon, Bride of the Demon and Birth of the Demon
• Tales of the Batman: Archie Goodwin – He didn’t do a ton of Batman, but what he did was pretty darn good.
• Tales of the Batman: Gerry Conway – 3 volumes from the early ’80s with Don Newton and Gene Colan (starting w/V.2) art
• Tales of the Batman: Steve Englehart – Englehart’s run on Detective w/ Marshall Rogers and Walt Simonson is considered a high point of the character. This has all Englehart’s Batman work. Highly recommended.

Jan Hammer?

   

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

   

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:

• The Avenging Archer is the early appearances and the Mark Gruenwald mini-series
• The Way of the Arrow collects his Solo Avengers feature.

Unannounced

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.”

 

Still on Sale

• The Kodansha Read Beyond the Anime Sale runs through Monday, 4/1
  
• The Titan The Twelfth Doctor Sale runs through Monday, 4/8
  
• The Zenescope Fairy Tale Team Up: Belle & Robyn Hood Sale runs through Saturday, 4/13