Tag: digital comics

Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Spider-Man, Thor, Daredevil, Hercules, Vertigo and Mike Mignola

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, the Vertigo catalog (or what’s left of it) is on sale, plus Spidey, Thor, Daredevil, Hercules and the Dark Horse works of Mike Mignola.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

“Where is the alleged dead man, sir?”

The DC/Vertigo eBook Sale runs through Monday, 8/8.

Yes, we just had to break out that quote from the old “Man in a Suitcase” show because Vertigo gets an awful lot of sales for an imprint that’s supposed to be defunct.

Let’s break down the highlights of titles involved here:

  • Preacher – Garth Ennis / Steve Dillon (TV version was on AMC)
  • Hellblazer – The original run (TV and Film as “Constantine” and the Fox TV version was better than it gets credit for)
  • Lucifer – a Mike Carey/Peter Gross series (TV version on Fox, then Netflix)
  • Lucifer (’18 version) – Dan Watters/Max Fiumara/Sebastian Fiumara
  • Y – The Last Man – Brian K. Vaughan/Pia Guerra/Jose Marzon, Jr. (TV version was on FX on Hulu)
  • The Losers – Andy Diggle/Jock (film)
  • Sweet Tooth – Jeff Lemire (TV version on Netflix)
  • DMZ – Brian Wood/Riccardo Burcchiell (TV version on HBO Max)
  • iZombie – Chris Roberson/Mike Allred (TV version on CW)
  • Stardust – Neil Gaiman/Charles Vess (Film, though that was probably from the novel)
  • Fables – Bill Willingham/Mark Buckingham (primary artist)
  • Fables: The Wolf Among Us – video game adaption
  • Unwritten – Mike Carey/Peter Gross
  • The Invisibles – Grant Morrison and rotating artists
  • 100 Bullets – Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso
  • American Vampire – Scott Snyder and Rafael Albuquerque
  • Scalped – Jason Aaron/R.M. Guera
  • Daytripper – Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon
  • Animal Man – ’88 to ’95 version
  • We3 – Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely (amazing this isn’t a movie yet)
  • Books of Magic (’18 version) – Kat Howard and Tom Fowler are the most frequent creators
  • The Wake – Scott Synder/Sean Murphy
  • Northlanders – Brian Wood / rotating artists
  • Global Frequency – Warren Ellis/rotating artists (we liked the TV pilot, but it wasn’t picked up)
  • Transmetropolitan – Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson

A lot of TV/film activity for a “dead” label, eh?

You can pretty much “pick your poison” with this sale.  That said, the 12-issue sized Preacher collections for $5.99 are a pretty good deal.  Same deal for the $5.99 double volumes of Y: The Last Man.

Preacher   Y the Last Man

Catches Your Money Just Like Flies

August’s “Marvel Monthly Sale” is The Spider-Man 60th Anniversary Sale, which runs through 9/5.

Yes, it cracks us up that the monthly sales always end in a different month.

This one is a little different from the last big Spidey sale in that it isn’t just Amazing Spider-Man it’s a 330-item selection across various titles.  They’re also using that scrolling carousel format on the main sale page that makes this a lot easier to parse.

A few ideas?

We always liked the Brand New Day  era of teams shuttling in and out for story arcs (it was all carefully coordinated) and you had all the usual suspects involved: Mark Waid, Dan Slott, Zeb Wells, John Romita, Jr., Phil Jimenez, Lee Weeks, etc., etc.

While his Iron Man work is more celebrated and his Amazing Spider-Man work often overshadowed by the artists he worked with, David Michelinie had a pretty good and lengthy run, much of which is in Epic Collections.  You can start with Venom, which feature art from some guy named McFarlane.

And coming in from left field, while Marvel Team-Up was usually the third wheel Spidey title, we’ve got a lot of love for the Chris Claremont/John Byrne era of it. After their Iron Fist run and leading into their X-Men run… which a little bit of mutant mayhem here and there.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day x Amazing Spider-Man - Venom x Marvel Team-Up

You Were Expecting “Brave Ulysses?”

The Marvel Thor: Tales of Asgard Sale runs through Thursday, 8/11.

This is an odd sale. Not _all_ of Thor, but mostly because only parts of the original ongoing title are on sale. Epic Collections, yes. Masterworks, not so much.

The sale presentation leads with Thor by Jason Aaron: The Complete Collection and these not-quite Epic-sized large collections are a good value at $6.99. We also think this particular set of collections eliminates the problem of “what order do I read this in?” one gets when the story flips between titles.

You really can’t go wrong with $3.99 for the *actual* Thor: Tales of Asgard, which is a collection of the Stan Lee/Jack Kirby “Tales of Asgard” backups from Journey Into Mystery and Thor. 300 pages worth.

And for an off-the-radar pick, it’s been forever since we notice Thor: Godstorm, which was a Kurt Busiek/Steve Rude mini-series back in the day. We seem to remember liking it and Rude always shows the love on Kirby properties, too.

Thor by Jason Aaron x Thor: Tales of Asgard x Thor: Godstorm

He Doesn’t Get Along with Amazons…

The Marvel Hercules Sale runs through Monday, 8/8.

Your “classic” solo Hercules would be the “Prince of Power” era pair of miniseries by Bob Layton, now in once volume.

If you want something totally under the radar, we enjoyed the short lived Dan Abnett/Luke Ross run where Herc sobers up and attempts to get serious about his trade.

Hercules: Prince of Power   Hercules

DD Found His Discounts

Marvel has a Daredevil: The Man Without Fear sale running through Thursday, 8/11.

Last week, this sale was listed, but there weren’t any discounts on the books.  This week, the discounts arrived.  And this is a WEIRD sale with multiple collections of the same material and different formats with different discounts.

The real meat of the Marvel Knights era of Daredevil (what this mostly seems to be) is a set of two runs that blend together: Brian Bendis/Alex Maleev, followed by Ed Brubaker/Michael Lark.

Your best value for the Bendis/Maleev run is the 3-volume Daredevil by Bendis and Maleev Ultimate Collection towards the bottom of the page, here.

You’ll find the Brubaker/Lark volumes discounted over here, toward the bottom of the page.

And as we said last time, Daredevil: Love’s Labor Lost is the only thing currently reprinted from the Denny O’Neil run the bridged that gap between Frank Miller’s two stints. The rest of it isn’t even on Marvel Unlimited.  This is the tale end of that run, featuring art by David Mazzucchelli, who’d started 9 issues earlier. It’s worth a look, if the discounts show up (and we don’t know why the rest of this era is buried).

Daredevil

They Like Mike

The Dark Horse Mike Mignola Sale runs through Monday, 8/15.

Yes, you might say Mignola’s important to Dark Horse.

Your core Mignola experience is going to be Hellboy, but you probably already knew that.  It’s wonderful and the omnibus line is the way to go.

While it does suffer from the “hardcover pricing for digital” problem, the Lobster Johnson Omnibus is still cheaper than getting the single volumes. It’s a rotating creative cast and a rotating tone from farce to pulp thriller, but we’ve found the adventures in the 1930s Hellboy-verse highly entertaining.

And, of course, the primary companion piece to Hellboy is B.P.R.D., the first arc of which is in omnibus editions here. There are some false starts, but one the “Plague of Frogs” arc properly starts up, your creative team is Mignola/John Arcudi/Guy Davis and it’s a helluva ride… pun intended.

However… you know how sometimes unexpected things show up in a sale (we’ll see how long it takes them to correct this after the column goes live)?  How about three issues of Captain America?  Yes, issues #286, #287 and #288. That’s a J.M. DeMatteis/Mike Zeck Deathlok storyline.  As it happens, one of the best arcs… but we’ve no idea what it has to do with a Mignola sale.  $0.99 a pop, if you’re inclined.  There are a lot of random Marvel single issues scattered throughout this sale if you page through it.

Hellboy   Lobster Johnson   BPRD - Plague of Frogs

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: SDCC ’22 Discounts Continue with X-Men, Nightwing, BOOM! and IDW Joining the Party

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Comic-Con 2022 has arrived and the sales came along for the ride. Added to the pile: lots of X-Men, Eisner nods from DC, BOOM!’s wide swath of books and last week’s IDW link got fixed.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

Just a heads up – there is a LOT of indie action at the “San Diego Graphic Novel Sales” page.  Or full annotations for the bulk of that are in last week’s column.

Brand X

The Marvel X-Men Legacy Sale runs through Thursday, 7/28.

It’s a legacy sale, so it’s the Uncanny X-Men core… although this may shorter list than some of the legacy sales. For instance,  X-Men wasn’t part of Heroes Reborn, so no relaunch there.

As is our custom, let’s run through the key series included, first:

And you might be asking yourself, “aren’t there usually more than one X-Men title and don’t they cross over a lot?” Yes, that would be a potential issue… pun intended. Not so much with the Epic Collections and the Masterworks as with the later series, and there are some Event collections in the set.

You should know our general advice right now. There’s a slight preference for the value of Epic Collections over Masterworks collections, but it depends on the exact price point and the Epic Collections sometimes have gaps.  That still applies here.  The wild card with X-Men is that it can get impenetrable with continuity and all the characters floating around. You can’t always just jump in.

So, recommendations with that in mind.

If you’ve never tried the original X-Men, we’d say go with The Sentinels Live Epic Collection. It’s at the very tail end of the original run that the original X-Men run is at its best: a bit of Jim Steranko and then a Roy Thomas / Neal Adams sequence that ended all too quickly.

For the “new” X-Men, we’re cool with the theory that Giant-Sized X-Men #1 / Uncanny X-Men #94 through #200 is one big arc. That’s where we’d start if we were new. The Epic Collections only take you to #153, at which point you need to start cutting in the Masterworks editions with V. 7 through 12.

For an alternate jumping on point, perhaps the Ed Brubaker era (# to # ) which is collected in three volumes starting with Rise and Fall of the Shi’ar Empire.

We assume you already know about the Morrison run.

And if you were looking for the Events that started after #200… well, that’s next.

X-Men Epic Collection: The Sentinels Live   

Did Somebody Say Crossover?

The Marvel X-Men Milestones Sale runs through Monday, 7/25.

And this would be a set of single volume collections of the big “Event” storylines where the various X-titles converge.  And maybe look at it in chronological view.

Dark Phoenix is the classic, but perhaps best enjoyed in the context of that #94-200 run we described above.  Past that, everyone has their favorite. We might go out on a limb and suggest that Messiah Complex is the best post-Claremont arc, but… opinions vary.

Messiah Complex

Award Bait

The DC Eisners Sale runs through Monday, 7/25.

This is a tiny, 9 item sale that originally included some single issues that don’t appear to be on sale. No clue what was up with that.

Of the contenders, Batman is the usual suspect, but the Tom Taylor / Bruno Redondo Nightwing is the critical belle of the ball, here.

A bit more under the radar is the Ram V / Mike Perkins Swamp Thing. We’re not so sure that shouldn’t have waited to package the entire story in one volume (V.2 drops in ~3 weeks), but this slight reimaging of the character as a new avatar for The Green emerges is definitely an interesting read.

Nightwing   Swamp Thing

Return to the Planet of the Comic-Con Sales

The Boom! SDCC Graphic Novel Sale runs through 8/4/22.

This one popped on the SDCC later than the rest, and you know what?  There are a few BOOM! titles we’re happy to share the love for.

We Only Find Them When They’re Dead is an absolutely bonkers delight from Al Ewing (who’s on a hot streak) and Simone Di Meo. It starts out as tale of smuggling around a salvage operation, scavenging the body parts of dead gods found floating in space. Then it gets into suppressive governments and cults. We’re not sure precisely where it’s going to end up, but we’re happy to be along for the ride.  It appears only V. 1 is on sale.

Once and Future by Kieron Gillen and Dan Mora is probably a little higher up on the BOOM! visibility scale. It’s a breezy adventure with a bit of humor and darkness around the edges at times concerning a fellow who’s been drafted into the family monster-hunting business by his grandmother (who isn’t as retired as she should be) and a plot to raise a decidedly unfriendly King Arthur from the grave. A really fun series.

And for a deeper cut that’s coming to the surface because of a Netflix film deal, there’s Irredeemable by Mark Waid, Peter Krause and Diego Barreto.  The high concept here is somewhere between “Superman has a psychotic break” and “Superman meets The Bad Seed.” The Plutonian, a sort of Superman-esque character finally snaps and decides he’s in charge.  The surviving heroes and villains must try to stay alive long enough to figure out how to stop him.  Interestingly, there seem to now be a lot of comparisons to The Boys, which you didn’t really hear when then two books were running. There is an “abuse of superpowers” theme in common, but the two series are nearly tonal opposites. The Boys, particularly the original comic, is slapstick and parody. Irredeemable plays it straight. We’ve always enjoyed it.

We Only Find Them When They're Dead   Once & Future   Irredeemable

How IDW Got Its Link Back

The IDW SDCC Sale runs through Monday, 7/25… and guess what?  Comixology/Amazon fixed the link from last week’s error, so now we can see the whole thing.

A buried bargain: $3.49 for Jeff Lemire’s Underwater Welder, a well regarded science fiction character study graphic novel.

$3.99 will get you Bermuda by John Layman and Nick Bradshaw. This fairly recent collection (came out in Feb.) concerns a region of the Atlantic Ocean that collects missing ships and planes. There’s an island in it, inhabited by pirates, dinosaurs and assorted monsters.  And a 16 year old girl named Bermuda running roughshod over the lot of them.  A little bit of Kamandi, a little bit of Land of the Lost. It’s a really fun book with great art, too. Seems like it flew under the radar.

And for the “classic” option, it’s sometimes hard to find enough praise to heap on Darwyn Cooke’s Richard Stark’s Parker series of graphic novels.  An absolutely brilliant adaptation of the Donald Westlake crime novels about a thief who believes in payback. Highly recommended.

Underwater Welder   Bermuda   Richard Stark's Parker

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: The Comic-Con Sales Arrive in Force: X-Men, House of M, Batman and Indies Galore

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, the Comic-Con sale arrive in force. Multiple indie sales. X-Men and House of M at Marvel. Another wide sampler from DC, too.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

The Comic-Con Run-Up Arrives in Force!

The “San Diego Graphic Novel Sales – Start Here” page is worth your time to look at.

How long does this grouping of sales last? No idea. They forgot to include dates. Figure it’s probably until the 25th (the Monday after SDCC)?  What particularly interesting is that the folks at… they’re still calling it the Comixology section for the moment… are continuing an attempt to make this a little more navigable by having more alphabetical carousels displaying covers on the various sales pages here.

This is a step in the right direction!

Anyway… lots of ground to cover, just with this section. Let’s hit some highlights… and remember, the Dark Horse sale listed on this page is something we covered last week.

From the “Recent Releases” category / carousel, we would draw your attention to Astro City Metrobook Vol. 1 by Kurt Busiek, Brent Anderson and Alex Ross. At $11.99, it’s at the higher end of price points we’ll recommend, but this is prime material from a LONG running series that’s relocating back to Image and you’re getting ~485 pages / ~19 issues for your troubles.  This is an examination of superhero genre – very much of the classic Silver Age concepts this early in the series. Busiek, Anderson and Ross are world building here and the viewpoint can switch from heroes to sidekicks to bystanders over the various series. Short version – it’s a distillation of everything good about superheroes and it can also be an excellent palette cleanser if Events are getting you down. Very highly recommended!

Astro City Metrobook

Omnibuses

The Omnibus link is something we heartily approve of.  It appears to be a gathering of omnibuses from the various sales currently running.  To quote the great Clay Davis, from the Wire: “sheeeeeeeeeeeee-” (you know the rest). That’s almost like something we’d do! And this is a place where flipping through the graphic carousels will save you a lot of time.

Highlights (we spoke of the joys of Hellboy-verse omnibuses last week):

Best buy: Saga Compendium One – the first 54 issues of the Brian K. Vaughan / Fiona Staples masterwork for a lousy $23.99.  Less than fifty cents per issues.  Cheap and a modern classic. You don’t get much better than that.

Runner up: Paper Girls: The Complete Story – all 30 issues on the Brian K. Vaughan/Cliff Chiang time travel caper for $19.99. The TV version will be hitting Prime shortly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-1cyNm7iAU

And since the third volume in the series is coming out, Luther Arkwright contains The Adventures of Luther Arkwright and Heart of Empire, the first two series in Bryan Talbot’s legendary series about a dimension hopping, empire tumbling adventurer.  Another real winner!

Saga   Paper Girls  Luther Arkwright

Oni / Lion Forge

In regards to the  Oni Press and Lion Forge sales – we don’t really know any more about the situation over at Oni/Lion Forge than you’ve already read. We can’t discount the possibility that some of their titles could end up off the market for a little while. Possibly resurfacing at different publishers. If you’re interested in something and like the price, maybe pull the trigger in the next week or two. (We’ve always liked Kaijumax and Sixth Gun, though we’ve seen better prices for Sixth Gun.)

IDW and the bad link

The IDW SDCC Sale appears to have a bad link.  Only 25 items at that link and there’s a LOT more in the carousel on the main sale page, so scroll through that. And who knows, maybe Amazon will fix the link?

The original 30 Days of Night by Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith for $0.99? Absolutely worth a look if you’ve never tried it. (After all, one could argue it’s the book that “made” IDW.) The high concept? Vampires in Alaska, so far north that the sun will set for 30 days and they’ll have free reign.

It’s not clear if GI JOE is on sale or not (we suspect those are sale prices we’re seeing) and that’s another one that might not be at IDW much longer, so if you like the prices, think about stocking up.

30 Days of Night 

Image

And then there’s the  Image SDDC Graphic Novel Sale.

Seems like the final prices here might be a little higher than we’ve seen in the past? Definitely, we’re seeing the old problem of the Deluxe volumes being on sale. The Deluxe volumes are oversized for print, ergo a little more expensive than the single volumes and usually an inferior deal in digital when everything is based on the print price. After all, there is no hardcover in digital.  So be aware of that while browsing here.

That said, the Spawn Compendium is a similar deal to that giant Saga collection – for $23.99 each, you’ve got a couple 50 issue volumes available. If you want to read the first 100 issues of Spawn, you can get them for under $0.50/issue this way.

Spawn Compendium

Dynamite

The Dynamite SDCC Graphic Novel Sale. 

The first two volumes of Red Sonja by Mark Russell and Bob Quinn are $6.99. Yes, the same Mark Russell from Flintstones and Billionaire Island.  And it works. The main story is a “straight” adventure, but all around the edges satirical elements sink in… if you’re paying attention.  An unusual Red Sonja one, to be sure, but a good one.

Red Sonja

Let the X-Sales Begin…

Marvel’s Reign of X Sale runs through Thursday, 7/21.

Let’s back up a little here.  Reign of X is sort of the third Act of the Hickman-run X-Men era. Act one is House of X / Powers of X. Act two is Dawn of X, which is all the “regular” titles and culminates in the X of Swords Event. Reign of X picks up after X of Swords.

This is the format that collects the issues of the individual series in a preferred reading order. Not quite publication order (you’ll read a two-part in a single title back-to-back, here and there) but that’s the easiest way to think of it.  In general, we think this reading experience is a better way to read Hickman’s X-Saga and seeing the breadth of the world building unfurl is additive. That said, we found the quality of the line a little less consistent in Reign of X than Dawn of X.  (Which is to say, we’re not going to blame you if you skip the Children of the Atom bits.)

This link will show the volumes in order.

Reign of X

Not the Byrne “Generations”

The Marvel Generations of X Sale runs through Thursday, 7/21

This is a somewhat eclectic set of X-Men (and X-Men family) runs. You’re most likely to recognize Wolverine and the X-Men from Jason Aaron / Chris Bachalo / Nick Bradshaw and Generation X by Scott Lobdell and… Chris Bachalo again (at least on the main title in the collection).

Wolverine and the X-Men    Generation X

No More Mutants

Marvel’s House of M sale runs through Monday, 7/18.

This would be the Event Miniseries where Wanda snaps and rewrites reality… forming the basis for the WandaVision TV series.  Brian Bendis and Olivier Coipel are your creators. This is the sort of Event where we recommend getting the main series and then dipping your toe into the supporting collections in the sale at your own discretion.  A good chunk of the Marvel line shifted their storylines to participate in the Event, buy how relevant they were to the main storyline varied widely and a lot of it would firmly be considered side stories. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s not always presented as such.

House of M

DC’s SDCC Run-Up

The DC at SDCC  Ebooks Sale runs through Monday, 7/25.

What we have here is another 2K ebook drop, should you have time for an extended browse.

If you’re looking for a lower price point per eBook, Jonah Hex is good candidate, alternating between $4.99 and $5.99 volumes.  Dark western tales of the disfigured and tortured bounty hunter written by Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray. The artists rotate quite a bit on this one and a certain point, Palmiotti & Gray seemed to be playing a game of “which legend can we get to draw the next issue?”  That is NOT a bad thing.

For $5.99, here’s something that’s under a lot of radars. Not everyone remembers, but prior to the more famous Long Halloween, Jeph Loeb and the late Tim Sale started out with Batman Halloween specials.  And let us assure you, that first one came out of nowhere and punched everyone right between the eyes. Batman: Haunted Knight collects the specials that got the Loeb/Sale ball rolling.

And for a value buy, DC Universe By Len Wein. $9.99 gets you 23 stories – not necessarily 23 issues, because some of the DC titles had backups back then, but you get an interesting mix here: a run of Wein’s under-appreciated Phantom Stranger run with Jim Aparo. The JLA/JSA team-up that reintroduced the Seven Soldiers of Victory. The DC Comics Presents run with Jim Starlin that introduces Mongul.

Jonah Hex   Batman - Haunted Knight   DC Universe by Len Wein

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: DC’s Summer Sale (Batman and friends); Image Touts the Eisner Nods (Dept. of Truth); Dark Horse Has Everything on Sale (Everything)

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, DC’s attempting to make summer sizzle, Image is touting its Eisner nods and Dark Horse… has everything on sale.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

Interestingly, there are no new Marvel sales this week. Check the Still On Sale section for the links to the Thor / GoG / “July” sales which we also looked at in more detail last week.

For those keeping score at home, and we know a lot of you are, the 4th of July was a Marvel BOGO week last year.  We are long overdue for one and the evidence is starting to point to those having gone away when the Comixology site did.  We continue to hope, but until we see the next one…

And By Sizzle, They Mean the Weather

The DC Summer Sizzle eBook Sale runs through Monday, 7/11.

A similar 1K book graphic novel drop to what we’ve been seeing here recently. There’s a smattering of $4.99 titles, but you’re mostly going to find a floor of $5.99 here. Nothing particularly recent on sale here, but with 1000 books, there are always some highlights. Some things that we’ve enjoyed in the past.

Ex Machina originally came out under the Wildstorm banner (will it be rebranded as Black Label or will Vertigo stick around as a legacy label?), Ex Machina is what happens when a world’s first superhero attempts to retire from superheroics and is elected mayor of NYC. Of course… superhero retirements rarely go as planned. Politics against a background of costumes and power… and vice versa, too. It’s a good one and a bit earlier to the “super mayor” party.  Written by a pre-Saga Brian K. Vaughan and drawn by Tony Harris, with a bit of Chris Sprouse and Jon Paul Leon.  It’s a very solid series.

Superman: Red Son is possibly Mark Millar’s best reviewed work.  With art by Dave Johnson and Killian Plunkett (we’re going to go ahead and say – we need more Dave Johnson interior art in life), this is an Elseworlds tale of Kal-El’s rocket landing in the Soviet Union, instead of Kansas, and Superman being raised as Stalin’s weapon.

James Tynion IV recently wrapped up a Batman run, but we honestly preferred his “Batman Family” flavored run from Detective Comics a few years earlier. Eddy Barrows and Alvaro Martinez Beuno are the lead artists and the Tynion run is V. 1-7.

Ex Machina   Superman: Red Son   Detective Comics by Tynion

Awards Season

The Image Eisners Sale runs through Monday, 7/25.

Which is to say, running until Comic-Con. And there are some interesting things here.

We’re fans of Department of Truth, the X-Files-ish horror/conspiracy theory about imagination and beliefs made real by James Tynion IV (that guy again) and  Martin Simmonds. We would like to specifically point out that V.1 is down to $3.99, so the first collection for the price of a single issue.  Also some $0.99 single issues, should you prefer that format… and single issues will be cheaper that $6.99 for 6 issues in a collected edition.

With that in mind, here’s a list of the titles being offered in $0.99 single issues.  Monstress has a $3.99 V. 1, otherwise you need to compare price vs. # of issues in the collection:

Department of Truth

And They Mean Everything.

The Dark Horse Everything 2022 Sale runs through Monday, 7/25.

If it’s not the full catalog, it would seem to be awfully close.

For a lot of folks, Dark Horse starts with Hellboy. (At least in the absence of Aliens and Boris the Bear.) They’re a little pricier than some things, but since they’re basically 4-in-1 volumes, we like the Omnibus editions as a starting point here. And if you browse there is plenty more of the Hellboy universe available. It’s a classic for a reason.

Speaking of classics, there’s also Nexus, Mike Baron’s and (mostly) Steve Rude’s science fiction series with superhero trappings of a man imbued with fusion power by a sinister alien who enlists him as an assassin. Nexus is haunted by dreams of mass murderers and the only way to make them stop is to kill the murders. Also something of a cold war satire around the edges. We’ve gone through the omnibus edition in the last ~3 years and had a good time of it.

Carla Speed McNeil’s Finder has always been one of those “if you know, you know” books. Under the indie radar for a loooooong time, it’s sprawling, world building science fiction series centered around Jaeger, who’s both a sin-eater and a Finder: a sort of tracker/bounty hunter with mysterious abilities related travel, healing and locating things.  You aren’t going to find very many comics with such well-developed alien cultures as Finder, either.  Steve Leiber put us onto this long before Dark Horse acquired the rights and if you can’t trust Steve Leiber, who can you trust?  Those two Finder Library omnibus volumes are over 600 pages each. Bang for your buck!

Bonus cheap: you can find volumes of Groo by Sergio Aragones & Mark Evanier  for as low as $2.99. Not a dumb price for such a dumb barbarian.

If you’re looking for $0.99 single issues, there are a bunch and you can work your way through them starting here.

Honestly, while Amazon makes browsing painful, there’s a lot of worthwhile material here if you have the time to flip through.

Hellboy: The Complete Short Stories   Nexus   Finder

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Kieron Gillen’s Marvel Work (Eternals, Loki, X-Men); Original Sin; DC’s 2K Title Drop with Sandman, OMAC and Manhunter; Bloom County; Umbrella Academy

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, we’ve got discounts on Kieron Gillen’s Marvel work – Eternals / Uncanny X-Men / Journey Into Mystery / etc.; Marvel’s Original Sin Event; another big block of DC collections, including Sandman; IDW cuts the prices on some classic newspaper strip collections; and we couldn’t really have a new season of Umbrella Academy without a sale on the original material, could we?

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

Journey into Gillen

The Marvel Kieron Gillen Sale runs through Monday, 6/27.

We find it really sad that a “Marvel” Gillen sale does not include our two favorite works of the bunch: Darth Vader and Doctor Aphra.  Yes, there will other Star Wars sales, but if you’re talking Gillen, that’s what we’d put at the top of the heap.

So let’s start out with a cleaner recap of the major items in this sale:

  • The Eternals with Eric Ribić.  $0.99 single issues only and the collected edition is NOT on sale for reasons known only to Amazon and/or Marvel.
  • War Hammer 40,000: Marneus Calgar with Jacen Burrows
  • Journey Into Mystery (i.e. Loki) with Doug Braithwaite and Richard Elson (among others) – omnibus editions
  • Uncanny X-Men – omnibus editions
  • Young Avengers with Jamie McKelvie – omnibus edition
  • Thor with Billy Tan / Richard Elson / Doug Braithwaite – omnibus edition
  • Iron Man with Greg Land / Dale Eaglesham / Joe Bennett / Luke Ross

What’s good?  This one’s going to be more personal preference than with many sales and to that end, we’d point out that we did read the War Hammer volume and it felt like that’s a book you’ll get a LOT more out of it if you’re a gamer.  (But if you’re already into War Hammer, you’ll probably love it.)  Past that, Journey Into Mystery is where Gillen really popped onto the Marvel radar, Young Avengers is the familiar team of Gillen/McKelvie and Gillen’s Mr. Sinister in Uncanny X-Men definitely has had influence.

Journey Into Mystery   Young Avengers   Uncanny X-Men

Casting the First Stone 

The Marvel Original Sin Sale runs through Monday, 6/27.

We’d probably call this a one book sale – Original Sin is a big Event by Jason Aaron and Mike Deodato. Someone’s killed the Watcher, dirty secrets are bubbling up from everyone’s past and… more would get into spoilers.  There are a few tie-in volumes also listed, but our recollection is that the tie-in volumes are not really necessary. While this is often the case with Events, it might be even more so here. Proceed with tie-ins only if they’re scratching an itch for you.

Original Sin

When they say “Multiverse,” they mean “Infinity”

The DC Multiverse and Beyond eBooks Sale runs through Monday, 7/4.

This is another entry in the new DC trend of dropping ~2000 collections without much noticeable curation, so you can pick through it at your leisure. Lowest prices are $4.99, but most non-YA doesn’t get below $5.99.

With the Netflix adaptation looming a little over a month away, they’re leading this sale off with Sandman.  And it’s certainly a classic series. The question is whether it will dip below $5.99 when the show drops and we don’t have an answer for that. DC’s been holding the line at $5.99 for most of their sales in the last couple months.

Of possible interest from the more recently published volumes (DC does wait awhile before applying discounts):

Jack Kirby’s OMAC: One Man Fighting Corps is listed at $5.99. If you’re not familiar with it, OMAC is a surprisingly subversive dystopian take on a future where billionaires/corporations are running amok. There are superhero trappings, but it’s really a science fiction adventure/satire.

And for something else out of left field in a good way, $5.99 will get Manhunter: The Deluxe Edition. This collects the Detective Comics serial by Archie Goodwin and Walt Simonson. An absolute classic run, it’s not as mainstream well-known because the Paul Kirk character wasn’t continued in his own title (for obvious reasons). It’s just an excellent stand-alone tale by two legends of the art form.

Sandman   OMAC   Manhunter

Where’s My Umbrella?

The Umbrella Academy Sale runs through Tuesday, 6/28.

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

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

Umbrella Academy

Those Things in the Newspaper

The IDW Newspaper Classics Sale runs through Thursday, 6/30.

And by classics they mean comic strips.  In this case, we’re looking at:

Academia Waltz   Bloom County   For Better or For Worse

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Ant-Man, DC Pride, Jeff Lemire’s Dark Horse Titles

Recent additions to the Comixology (at Amazon) sales include – DC’s Pride sale with Hellblazer, The Invisibles and Snagglepus; Ant-Man from Marvel and Dark Horse’s Jeff Lemire catalog.

Tuesday’s look at the X-Factor and Mickey Mouse sales are also still in effect.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

You’d Think This Sale Would Be All Month

The DC Pride eBook Sale runs through Monday, 6/13.

It’s Pride month and DC’s curated a bit under 400 titles for this sale.  Let’s look at the lower priced options first.

It’s always a good time for Hellblazer, with many of the earlier volumes going for $5.99. Hellblazer was consistently entertaining over it’s original run, too. (We also can’t say enough good things about the most recent series.)

Completely at $5.99/volume, you’ve also got Grant Morrison’s The Invisibles an ancient secret society that advances humanity through anarchy (read: freedom) clashes with the forces of order (read: the aristocracy); i.e. an urban fantasy about sticking it to The Man. All kinds of artists you’ll recognize on this: Steve Yeowell, Jill Thompson, Phil Jimenez, Chris Weston… even early Ivan Reis.

But perhaps the most Pride Month book of the lot is Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles. And an unusual book it is. Mark Russell and Mike Freehan recast Snagglepuss as Tennessee Williams-esque playwright in 1950s NYC. The House Unamerican Activities Committee is trolling showbiz for subversives and communists. Snagglepuss is not without his enemies and being gay only puts a bigger target on his back. Yes, Snagglepuss as a dark social and political satire. And it’s good! Worth it for the Dorothy Parker bits, alone.

Hellblazer   The Invisibles   Snagglepuss

What Did the Pink Panther Say To The Ant?

The Marvel Ant-Man Sale runs through Monday, 6/13.

Since there are multiple formats for much of this, we’re going to walk through the highlights in the cheapest formats (which means omnibus, if available).

Ant-Man/Giant-Man Masterworks is one of the occasions we’ll give Masterworks a nod over Epics. In this case, the Epic is a higher price point and isn’t complete. We will caution you that this wasn’t one of Marvel’s better known Silver Age strips for a reason, but you get Stan Lee, Larry Leiber, Jack Kirby, Don Heck, Dick Ayers, Carl Burgos and Bob Powell.  Still, it’s the Hank Pym run.

Ant-Man: Scott Lang is a compilation book of the early appearances of Scott Lang in the Ant-Man suit. i.e., Lang before Lang became more of a comedy character. This is a relatively David Michelinie-driven volume with the solo 2-parter in Marvel Premiere, an Avengers arc and an Iron Man arc.

Irredeemable Ant-Man is the Robert Kirkman / Phil Hester run with Eric O’Grady finding the Ant-Man suit. At this point, O’Grady’s an unethical SHIELD agent playing both sides against the middle and it’s a bit of a farce. And this is where Ant-Man starts being played as an action comedy. Something that’s still largely the case.

The Astonishing Ant-Man: The Complete Collection is the omnibus for the Nick Spencer era, with art by Ramon Rosanas, Anapaolo Martello and Brent Schoonover. This is where Ant-Man is reset closer to the films as more of an action-farce. Scott Lang has worse luck than Peter Parker and he tries to get his life together, get a job and start co-parenting his daughter… but things are seldom that easy.

Ant-Man: World Hive by new Spidey scribe Zeb Wells and Dylan Burnett finds Scott Lang forced to team up with Swarm. Yes, a Nazi scientist with a body made up of bees. There’s an honest-to-goodness invasion/conspiracy to create an insect uprising and he’s having the hardest time getting the Avengers… or Spidey… or even Black Cat to take him seriously. We particularly enjoyed this one.

Ant-Man Masterworks      Ant-Man: World Hive

Another Jeff (Collect Them All)

The Dark Horse Jeff Lemire Sale runs through Monday, 6.13.

As you might expect, this is dominated by the Black Hammer franchise, a superhero universe devised by Lemire and Dean Ormston.

The Black Hammer is the core series/story by Lemire and (mostly) Ormston.

The World of Black Hammer is the umbrella title for a series of mini-series that flesh out some of the characters and other corners of this universe. Lemire scripts and all sorts of artists pop up.

Note: the Library Editions tend to be a little more expensive than the regular volumes in digital and this sale.

And since Jeff Lemire is very capable of doing the illustrations himself, here are the single issues for Mazebook, a recently completed urban fantasy series where Lemire did what we like to call “The Full Cartoonist.”

Black Hammer   Unbelievable Teens   Mazebook

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: X-Factor, The Hulk vs. The Thing, and Mickey Mouse

Recent additions to the Comixology (at Amazon) sales include – the many incarnations of X-Factor, the ongoing slugfest between The Hulk and The Thing and Disney’s Mickey Mouse across the years… and continents.

Since the dates the sales are getting announced have been shuffled, we’re playing this week a little differently and will be back Friday to talk about the new DC sale and what else pops up during the week.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

Mutations

The Marvel X-Factor Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 6/13.

This one can basically be defined as the actual “X-Factor” titles and various crossovers, Events and guest appearances.  Let’s focus on the X-Factor titles.

  • X-Factor ’86-’98 – The first run, and a long one in the days before constant relaunches. The two things highlighted by the collections are Louise & Walt Simonson run and Peter David’s first run with Joe Quesada and Larry Stroman.
  • X-Factor ’05-’13 – commonly referred to as the Peter David era, and yes, he’s written a ton of X-Factor. This is where Madrox the Multiple Man steps in with the detective agency motif.   (You can save a couple bucks on the early volumes with the X-Factor by Peter David: The Complete Collection omnibuses)
  • All-New X-Factor ’14-’15 – I’m sure you’ll be shocked to know X-Factor was relaunched in Marvel’s “All-New” era. Still Peter David.
  • X-Factor ’20-’21 – The House of X / Powers of X era run by Leah Williams and David Baldeon

And then all manner of X-Men family Event/Crossover collections.

Recommendations? It depends on what you’re looking for.  The first two Epic Collections of the original run are more of the traditional X-Men school (and since it’s reuniting the original team, it should be). When Peter David pops up later in that run, things get quirky in a hurry.  It’s not like David is exclusively a humorist, but there’s a lot more humor in his work. His second run is a completely different creature than the how X-Factor began.

X-Factor   X-Factor by Peter David

The Classic Marvel Punch-Up

The Marvel Hulk Vs. Thing Sale runs through Thursday, 6/9.

Oh, yes… this is a reoccurring confrontation that goes back to the EARLY days of Marvel: Ben Grimm facing off with the Hulk. More often than not, this would happen in the pages of Fantastic Four and the various writers would go back to it every so often.

What you’re looking at here depends on whether you’re more of a Hulk person or FF person. After all that first Hulk Epic Collection is duplicating content from the FF Epic Collection and we personally find FF to be the stronger feature at the time.  And actually, that’s probably what we’d recommend here if you were only picking one – Fantastic Four Epic Collection Book 2, which also gives you some early Doctor Doom, Namor and X-Men, in addition The Hulk.

Fantastic Four

House of Mouse

The Fantagraphics Disney Masters and Mickey Mouse Sale runs through Wednesday, 6/22.

This is really two sales under one umbrella:

First, it’s a sale on the Floyd Gottfredson Mickey Mouse comic strip. While perhaps not as heralded as Dick Tracy or Terry and the Pirates, Gottfredson’s Mickey Mouse was an influential adventure strip and he stayed on it for decades.

Second, it’s a sale on the “Disney Master’s” line, which probably needs a word of explanation. It’s not clear that ALL of these titles are from the international markets, but certainly a number of them are Disney comics produced for the European markets (where Disney is very popular) and are making a US market debut.

Mickey Mouse   Mickey Mouse

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Shang Chi, Ms. Marvel, Captain Marvel, Superman, Green Lantern and Elfquest

This week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales include Marvel’s transmedia heroes: Shang Chi and Ms. Marvel (Kamala Khan), plus the original Kree Captain Marvel. DC highlights include Superman, Green Lantern and Jimmy Olsen, while Dark Horse discounts Elfquest.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

(Former) Master of Kung Fu

The Marvel Shang Chi Sale runs through Monday, 6/6.

Shang Chi has a… complicated story at Marvel that involves a lot of “inside Baseball” maneuvering behind the scenes.  There are basically three periods to the character:

Period #1 is what we’ll call the “classic” period, for lack of a better term. Master of Kung Fu started out as a licensing deal for the old Fu Manchu novels.  In original run, Shang is the son of Fu Manchu, who’s rejected his ways and is working with an elderly Sir Dennis Nayland Smith (protagonist of the novels) and British Intelligence against Fu Manchu’s schemes. When Doug Moench settled in as writer, especially with Paul Gulacy, Mike Zeck and/or Gene Day on art duties, it settled into a sort of pulpy espionage comic with touches of fantasy around the edges.  It’s also widely considered one of Marvel’s best works of the ’70s.  The series technically lasted past Doug Moench leaving for DC, but only by a couple issues.  Moench would eventually return for a Marvel Comics Presents serial (alongside a revival of another 70s cult star, Man-Thing) and a special.

There are two Epic Collections of this run, though the second is probably more representative of the series.

Eventually, Marvel decided to revive the character a little more actively, but in the 00’s, they no longer had the Fu Manchu license, so they updated Shang’s costume to more of a track suit (*cough* Bruce Lee *cough*) and just didn’t talk about his father and/or tried to switch his father to The Yellow Claw, a 50s Marvel Fu Manchu knock-off that appeared every once in a while. In this period, Shang was usually popping up in team books, like Secret Avengers.

Then, a bit more recently (and likely influenced by Marvel Studios), Marvel decided maybe it wasn’t such a good thing to have one of their most prominent Asian characters rooted in the most famous Yellow Peril franchise.  So they pulled in heavy hitter Gene Lueng Yang, Dike Ruan and Phillip Tan to relaunch Shang Chi as more of a fantasy adventure hero. An ongoing series followed shortly thereafter.  It’s a pretty big shift between eras. If you’re familiar with the character from the films, this is the version you’re looking for.

Master of Kung Fu   Secret Avengers   Shang-Chi

You Look Marvelous

The Marvel Ms. Marvel Sale runs through Monday 6/20.

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

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

There’s a selection of Champions, where Ms. Marvel was a member, also on sale.

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

Ms. Marvel

Speaking of Marvelous…

The Marvel Captain Mar-Vell Sale runs through Monday, 6/6.

Yes, things have gotten complex enough that Marvel is calling him by his Kree name of Mar-Vell. This would be Marvel’s original Captain Marvel, who’s title Carol Danvers took up in recent years… yet, only one of the two series comprising the bulk of the sale is of the original Marvel.

What we’re looking at:

  • Captain Marvel ’68-’79 – This being the original run most people think of.
  • Captain Marvel ’02-’04 – This being the adventure of the orginal Mar-Vell’s son, Genesis. Written by Peter David with seemingly a different artist for each arc.

Recommendations? If you’re not looking to get the full run of Masterworks for the original run, we’d point you towards two volumes:

  1. Captain Marvel by Jim Starlin: The Complete Collection – Get this in place of Masterworks V. 3. It also contains the Death of Captain Marvel graphic novel and some other material for a slightly high page count.  This is the first Thanos storyline and Starlin’s Captain Marvel is the character’s high point.
  2. Captain Marvel Masterworks V. 4 – This volume is largely forgotten, but a friend made this magically appear in our Comixology account a couple years back and we enjoyed it. Steve Englehart and Al Milgrim pick up where Starlin leaves off and run with it for a bit. The Supreme Intelligence schemes and Ronan accuses. Not quite to the legendary level of Starlin, but these two volumes are effectively the “Best of.”

Captain Marvel by Jim Starlin   Captain Marvel

Crisis On the Road To Utopia

The DC Road To Dark Crisis eBook Sale runs through Monday, 6/13.

These “Road To” titles always make us think the marketing departments are Bob Hope/Bing Crosby fans…

So, while this is supposed to be a Dark Crisis lead-in sale, the 1000-ish comics in it suggest that might be hyperbole.  Or perhaps DC will prove us wrong and the Meg (Princess Diaries) Cabot / Cara McGee Black Canary: Ignite YA OGN is really leading into Dark Crisis?

There’s obvious a LOT on sale, so it’s worth a browse.  Recommendations? Sure.

Superman: Man of Tomorrow, Vol. 1: Hero of Metropolis is a bona fide hidden gem. Completely under most radars as a digital first comic, this is a string of connected “classic” Superman tales as a conspiracy unfolds in the background… with the Parasite, Metallo and a giant ape in the mix. It also has a strong sense of humor with a subplot about how hard it is to stash your clothes when changing into costume. Robert Venditti writes it, Paul Pelletier is the primary artist.  Probably our favorite Superman in at least a couple years. (Plus, $5.99 is one of the lower price points, here.)

While a little more expensive at $8.99 (but at least you’re getting 12 issues, here), Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen: Who Killed Jimmy Olsen by Matt Fraction and Steve Leiber is an instant classic. This is a surprisingly densely plotted screwball adventure that simultaneously calls back to the over-the-top silliness of the Silver Age. As Jimmy Olsen tries to stay alive long enough to solve his own murder, we witness: a drunken marriage in Gorilla City, an ancestral feud between the Luthors and the Olsens, podcast pranks and… look, OF COURSE there’s a giant turtle. A masterpiece.

The first two volumes/season are priced a little lower, but the entirety of the Grant Morrison/Liam Sharp Green Lantern run is now on sale.  Morrison explores a lot of tropes in what starts out as exploring the “space cop” aspect of GL. Sharp varies the art with the themes for a different experience than you typically get with a mainline DC character, too.  This is essentially one extended story told across two “seasons.”

Season One
Season Two (Note: the 80th Anniversary book is NOT part of the story, despite how it’s displayed.)

Superman: Man of Tomorrow   Jimmy Olsen   Green Lantern

Wolf Riders

The Dark Horse Elfquest Sale runs through Monday, 6/13.

This is the classic and pioneering fantasy tale of Elves fleeing when the humans burn down their forest by Wendy and Richard Pini.

The saga, except for the current installment, is collected in very thick omnibus volumes as The Complete Elfquest and 500-600 pages for $5.99 is a good deal!

The current installment is Elfquest: Stargazer’s Hunt, of which the second book isn’t out, but the first is on sale.

Elfquest   Elfquest: Stargazer's Hunt

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Captain America, Star Wars, Ultimate Spider-Man (and Miles Morales), Suicide Squad and Road to Perdition

This week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales include the majority of Captain America comics, a whole bunch of Star Wars material, Ultimate Spider-Man (and Miles Morales) and the rest of DC’s Memorial Day Sale.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

Super Soldier Serum

The Marvel Captain America Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 5/30.

There’s a lot of material to cover here, so we’ll go with the usual format and start by breaking out the major series involved

  • Captain America Comics ’40-’50 – The original Golden Age series
  • Tales of Suspense ’59-’68 – Cap’s Silver Age solo stories were in a title shared with Iron Man
  • Captain America ’68-’96 – The original Silver/Bronze Age solo series.
  • Captain America ’98-’02 – The second Mark Waid / Ron Garney run with some Andy Kubert and Lee Weeks art, too. Smaller volumes here, plus the underrated Dan Jurgens run that followed.
  • Captain America ’02-’04 – The Marvel Knights era
  • Captain America ’04-’11 – The main Winter Soldier/Death of Captain America Ed Brubaker run with Steve Epting, Michael Lark, Mike Perkins and Butch Guice in the artistic rotation. Note: you can pick up chunks of it cheaper in these omnibuses
  • Captain America: Reborn – The actual end to the “Death of Captain America” sequence by Ed Brubaker, Bryan Hitch and Butch Guice
  • Captain America ’11-’12 – Brubaker sticks around for a relaunch, post-Death/Reborn
  • Captain America ’12-’14 is the Rick Remender run with John Romita, Jr, Carlos Pacheco, Pascal Alixe and Nic Klein in the artistic rotation.
  • All-New Captain America ’14-’15 – Sam Wilson picks up the shield by Rick Remender and Stuart Immonen
  • Captain America: Sam Wilson ’15-17 – Nick Spencer with Daniel Acuna as the primary artist. The seeds of “Secret Empire,” which was a long game, start here.Note: There’s a Complete Collection omnibus set of the Sam Wilson material that’s a bit cheaper.
  • Captain America: Steve Rogers ’16-’17 – The main runup to Secret Empire by Nick Spencer with Jesus Saiz and Javier Pina as the primary artists.
  • While not on sale, you can’t talk about the Spencer era without mentioning Secret Empire, the controversial “Hydra Cap” arc that Spencer’s entire run builds towards.
  • Captain America ’17-’18 – AKA Captain America by Mark Waid and Chris Samnee (and Leonardo Romero)
  • Captain America ‘18-’21 – The Ta-Nehisi Coates run with art by Leinil Francis Yu, Adam Kubert, Jason Masters and Leonard Kirk

So… do you think Captain America gets relaunched enough? Don’t worry, they’ll relaunch him again.

First the usual general advice: The Masterworks and Epic Collections tend to be the best buys, but keep an eye on price points. Some of the newer Epic Collections can be $8.99+ and make the Masterworks more appealing.

Some recommendations? Absolutely.  Just the way the collections are currently rolled out, the highlights seem to flow more with the Masterworks than the Epics.

For Silver/Bronze Age adventures,  Captain America Masterworks V. 3 gets you some late Stan Lee/Jack Kirby and the influential Jim Steranko Sequence.  You then jump forward to Masterworks V. 7 for the beginning of the Steve Englehart/Sal Buscema era and stay on through Masterworks V.10, which is the return of Jack Kirby and his entirely too timely “Madbomb” arc. (There’s more Kirby in V.11, but Madbomb is a hard act to follow.) There’s also much to recommend with the Mark Gruenwald era which probably peaked with “The Captain” Epic Collection. In general, earlier Gruenwald is better and the art takes a nose dive before his run is over.

Aside from that, your best of the best is anything written by Mark Waid or Ed Brubaker, and know that Brubaker, first run is basically one long and epic story – and be sure to get Reborn or you’re missing a piece.

Captain America   Captain America   Captain America

Nothing But Star Wars

The Marvel Star Wars Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 5/30.

While not the rock bottom prices of the May the 4th sale, this one does have a wider selection of Star Wars material that isn’t limited to the current Marvel titles.  Some titles that may be of interest:

You get a little more material per volume (and they finished the run) getting the original Marvel Star Wars series with the “A Long Time Ago…” omnibus editions.

A lot of the Epic Collections of the older material have been lumped together under an Epic Collections page, to make finding individual series hard, so refer to that link for the bigger picture, but within that link:

  • Dark Empire – Tom Veitch and Cam Kennedy played a BIG part in bringing the Star Wars franchise back to life with their Dark Horse mini-series and it’s sequel. This is the most economical package for the Dark Empire-related titles. It’s a classic.
  • Agent of Empire – John Ostander, Stéphane Roux and Davidé Fabbri did a couple mini-series that effectively answered the question, “what if James Bond worked for The Empire?” Those are the backbone of this collection.
  • Legacy – Far in the Star Wars timeline’s future, the Sith have returned and are stalking the last Skywalker heir. There are three volumes of this fun John Ostrander / Jan Duursema series that might not be cannon anymore, but is better than a lot of things that came after it.

Original Marvel Star Wars   Dark Empire   Agent of Empire

This Time, the Other Peter Isn’t a Clone

The Marvel Ultimate Spider-Man Sale runs through Monday, 5/30.

A Bendis Sale! And Ultimate Spidey might just the the crowning achievement for Brian Bendis in the world of superheroes. (We might like his Daredevil a little more, but Ultimate Spidey and then Miles have had so much impact.)

So let’s break this one down into parts.

  1. The original Ultimate Spider-Man with Mark Bagley, reimaging Peter for a new era. You get a better deal with these larger collections and ignore the omnibus that starts the list.
  2. Ultimate Comics Spider-Man, the relaunch with David Lafuente.
  3. Ultimate Comics Spider-Man, the Miles Morales version with art by Sara Pichelli, Chris Samnee, David Marquez and Pepe Larraz

Ultimate Spider-Man   Ultimate Comics Spider-Man   Ultimate Comics Spider-Man (Miles Morales)

The Other Memorial Day Sale

The DC Memorial Day eBook Sale Part 2 runs through Monday, 5/30.

It would appear that last week’s confusion was caused by Amazon prematurely post this week’s sale last week, then removing it in the US while leaving it online in the UK.  Stranger and stranger.

But this is essentially the back half of the alphabet on sale and worth a browse. Some highlights?

The rock bottom price pick: Dead Boy Detectives for $3.99. Something of a departure for Vertigo as we generally remember it (although there was a similar “Death” volume and My Faith In Frankie wasn’t necessarily far removed), the multi-award-winning Jill Thompson takes the ghost detective children from Sandman and plops them into a manga-style detective comedy.  Yes, Jill is versatile.

From the “Yes, DC published that” division, do you remember Road to Perdition? Yes, before Tom Hanks was a mob enforcer, this was a comic. As usual, these are cataloged strangely.  Listed under “Return to Perdition,” are the original Road to Perdition  and Road to Perdition: On the Road. Both are written by Max Allan Collins with Richard Piers Rayner illustrating Road to Perdition and Jose Luis Garcia Lopez, Steve Leiber and Joseph Rubenstein sharing duties for On the Road. The actual Return to Perdition, a sequel set in the 1970s by Collins and his Ms. Tree partner, Terry Beatty is list separately (for $3.99). Go figure…

For the uninitiated, Road to Perdition can be likened to Lone Wolf and Cub setting against the backdrop of the Capone era Chicago mob. A mob enforcer goes on the lam with his son after the boss of the local mob outpost orders a hit on his family.  Excellent material that’s largely ignored these days.

And if you’d like some supervillains in your life, the John Ostrander/Luke McDonnell Suicide Squad run is available for $5.99 a pop. This is the run that spun off the films.

Dead Boy Detectives   Road to Perdition   Suicide Squad

 

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: DC Classics w/ New Teen Titans, What If?, Cullen Bunn and Tyler Crook, Peanuts

This week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales include DC “Classics,” which includes the Marv Wolfman/George Perez New Teen Titans run, so we’ll have to agree with the sale’s title. Marvel offers up What If? Fantagraphics discounts Peanuts and Dark Horse celebrates Cullen Bunn & Tyler Crook.  We would also remind you that there’s a very cheap Star Wars sale and a Doctor Strange sale that aren’t quite finished yet.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

A “Classical” Education

The DC Classics Sale runs through Monday, 5/16

This one is a DEEP dive into the DC backlist. And since the sale prices seem to have normalized, we’re happy to be able to point you to a few title that now have each volume on sale, which wasn’t happening in the last couple months.

Point in case: New Teen Titans by Marv Wolfman and George Perez now has the first 10 volumes (coincidentally, the Perez years) for $4.99 each. Previously several volumes would be at those bizarre prices that appeared to be in error. Well, no more of that.  New Teen Titans was effectively DC’s answer to X-Men in the early 80s (along with the Levitz/Giffen-era LSH, whose reprinting is more convoluted). It’s supposed to be a “classics” sale and this one is more classic than most.

Fast forward a few years and you get the “Man of Steel” era of Superman. Some people call it the John Byrne era, but this time frame also brings Marv Wolfman and Jerry Ordway into the fold. $4.99 – $5.99 per volume is also good pricing.

New Teen Titans   Superman: The Man of Steel

In general, the “Silver Age” collections tend to be a slightly larger page count and good bang for your buck.  However, you also might find yourself thinking that DC’s collected editions can be a little spotty and, gosh darn it, sometimes you’d just like to get some $0.99 single issues to fill in those series.  You’re in luck, there are a LOT of $0.99 single issues here, although it’s a royal pain to browse in Amazon sub-par user interface.  Here’s a cheat sheet for some of the single issues on sale:

If Not, Why Not?

The Marvel What If Sale runs through Monday, 5/16.

The interesting thing about What If is how often the modern age of Marvel has gone back to pilfer from it.  What If is where Jane Foster first took up the hammer of Thor. The first place Conan stalked the streets of the present. The first time the Hulk became a barbarian. Apparently, “there’s gold in them there hills!”  The larger collections are slightly more bang for your buck, BTW.

What If

The Fantagraphics Peanuts Sale runs through Monday, 5/16.

Yes, the classic Charles Schultz comic strip with Charlie Brown and Snoopy. Fantagraphics is reprinting it from the beginning. Strangely, there’s no series link on Amazon for this.

The Complete Peanuts

Tag Team?

The Dark Horse Bunn & Crook Sale runs through Monday, 5/23.

That would be Cullen Bunn & Tyler Crook, who’ve done quite a bit at Dark Horse over the years.  Their best known collaboration is probably Harrow County  (the omnibus editions are BY FAR the best buy).

If you’d like something a bit more recent, Parasomnia by Bunn and Andrea Mutti was a February release.  The Unbelievable Teens (part of the Black Hammer universe) by Jeff Lemire and Crook was released on 4/5… and this is as quickly as we’ve seen a collection go on sale!

Harrow County Omnibus 1   Parasomnia   Unbelievable Teens

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Still On Sale

Posted on by comics_p1pusl