Tag: digital comics

Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: DC Teams; Thanos; The Spider-Verse; Captain Marvel; Usagi Yojimbo

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, DC discounts teams and team-ups. Marvel slashes prices on Thanos, Captain Marvel and the Spider-Verse. Plus, Usagi Yojimbo.

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):

Let’s Fight and Then Team Up

Batman and the Outsiders  Legion of Superheroes: The Curse  Suicide Squad

The DC United Sale runs through Monday, 9/16.

This is a deep, 600+ item sale that’s _mostly_ centered around team books and team-ups. Mostly. The sale page is almost completely unorganized, but it’s worth an extended browse. There’s a lot there.

Some things we found interesting and in a semblance of order? Sure, we can do that.

The OG Marvel Cosmic Sale
Avengers Vs. Thanos Silver Surfer: The Return of Thanos Infinity Gauntlet

The Marvel Thanos Sale runs through Monday, 9/16.

Thanos has become a saga, at least with the Starlin-driven material.

Avengers Vs. Thanos is a meaty ~470 page collection of the original ’70s appearances that were centered in Captain Marvel and Warlock.  You could make an argument that this is where “cosmic” Marvel was born. (It’s one of a handful of candidates.) Recommended.

And then Thanos was mostly on the shelf for ~13 years until Jim Starlin started writing Silver Surfer (with Ron Lim drawing… oh yes, those two would do some collaborating). Thanos got VERY involved in things, starting with The Return of Thanos and continuing with Thanos Quest and Silver Surfer: The Infinity Gauntlet. And yes, the first two volumes absolutely set up the famous The Infinity Gauntlet miniseries (with art by George Perez and Ron Lim).  And both of those are recommended, too.

There were two more Infinity sequels:

And a ton of supporting material.  “Infinity” and Adam Warlock were practically a sub-imprint for a couple years.

Starlin did more Thanos follow-ups over the years, culminating in a couple graphic novel trilogies:

and

And, for good measure, while not really part of the above – Avengers: The Legacy of Thanos by Roger Stern, John Buscema and John Byrne is a highly entertaining tale of Nebula (yes, the Granddaughter of Thanos who’d later be in Guardians of the Galaxy) attempting to conquer the Skrulls.

The most recent big blip on the radar was the Donny Cates / Geoff Shaw Thanos Wins and its spin-off, Cosmic Ghost Rider.

Not A Big Red Cheese?

Captain Marvel by Jim Starlin Captain Marvel Captain Marvel

The Captain Marvel Sale runs through Monday, 9/16.

Right. This one is a little goofy to define (and the beginning overlaps a bit with Thanos).

First off, the original Kree Captain Mar-Vell as Captain Marvel:

Is Starlin’s Mar-Vell, the best Mar-Vell? We’d say so. We’d also say the Englehart/Milgrom follow-up is well worth your time, but it’s not included here.

Carol Danvers as Ms./Captain Marvel:

OK… brace yourselves… this one has a ton of relaunches:

We think that’s the overly complicated chronology, anyway. For recommendations, we’re not really experts on this set of books, but we’re inclined to say go with the current Thompson run. Kelly Sue DeConnick has a very dedicated fanbase, so maybe browse the sample pages there and see if that catches your fancy, too?

Then there’s Mar-Vell’s son Genis:

This one is a Peter David joint, through and through. We did read the ’22 version last year and enjoyed it. It has a little more going on than you might think at first.

Invasion of the Spider-Riffs

Spider-Verse  Superior Spider-Man  Spider-Gwen

The Marvel Spider-Verse Sale runs through Monday, 9/23.

So, the Spider-Verse is basically a celebration of the Spider-Man cast expanding with a lot of Spidey-related characters and then throwing in some Spidey-equivalents from different dimensions. Miles Morales being the most important one, important enough to be ported into the main “616” universe when the Ultimate line was shuttered.

Spider-Verse was the original Spider-Man family event in the comics that formalized much of this. You’re best off getting the omnibus edition that has the entire thing and all the crossovers, else it gets complicated figuring out reading order between the various series-specific collections.  There are a ton of creators working on this, as you might expect, but this is effectively a Dan Slott as show-runner affair. (Which means, yes, Christos Gage is not far behind.) You can also grab the lead-in series,

If you’re a film fan, the first thing you’re probably thinking of when you hear Spider-Verse is Miles. We broke it down last week, but the  Marvel Miles Morales: Spider-Man Sale is still running through Monday.

There’s also a bunch of Spider-Gwen / Ghost-Spider material.

The original Spider-Gwen run was Jason Latour writing with Robbie Rodriguez on art.

The first series is collected as Volume 0. Then the second series is collected as Vol. 1-6, but you can get Unmasked instead of V. 4&5 and save a little money. (We warned you this was messy!)

A bit later, famed fantasy novelist Seanan McGuire (sometimes known as Mira Grant) wrote some Spider-Gwen, as the feature was re-named Ghost-Spider. The first series is here.  The second series, with art by Takeshi Miyazawa and Ig Guara, is here.

And the most recent installment in the sale is Spider-Gwen: Gwenverse by Tim Seeley and Jodi Nishijima.

And then we have a Superior Spider-Man section.

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.

Of course, we all know who the real star of the Spider-Verse is: Spider-Ham!

The Marvel “Maybe” Sales

Ultimate Spider-Man She-Hulk  Venom

The trend continues. New releases at lower than expected price points and discounted pre-orders. Is this the new normal? We’re not sure, but let’s run them down.

Dropping This Week

Pre-Order for Next Week

Unannounced Sales

Usagi Yojimbo  Seconds The Hunger and the Dusk

We have an unannounced Dark Horse sale on Usagi Yojimbo.

This is Stan Sakai’s revered and long running series about a samurai/ronin rabbit. “Beloved” is a good word for it. The strange thing is, only the later volumes are showing the good discounts? Usagi Yojimbo Saga is the omnibus version and the better buy. Single volumes are here.

Also with discounts:

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Miles Morales – Spider-Man; DC’s Top 100; House of M; Groo; The Crow; Nova

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, DC drops a Top 100 sale. Marvel offers discounts on Miles Morales, Nova and House of M. Dark Horse cuts prices on Groo, along with several unannounced offerings.

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 Much For Top 10

Kingdom Come  Superman  Watchmen

The  DC Top 100 Sale runs through Monday, 9/9.

Top 100 what? We have no idea what the criterion would be, here. It’s a mix of recent and evergreen titles. Not a bad mix, either. A few things standing out:

Miles To Go Before I Sleep

  Miles Morales: Spider-Man  Miles Morales

The Marvel Miles Morales: Spider-Man Sale runs through Monday, 9/16.

Miles, of course, was the second Ultimate Spider-Man, but that world no longer exists and now there’s a new Ultimate Spider-Man and… we wouldn’t want to explain that to somebody walking in off the street.

For the first Brian Bendis/David Marquez/Sara Pichelli run, you’re probably best off with the Miles Morales: Ultimate Spider-Man Ultimate Collection set.

Then jump to the  Spider-Man for the ’16 Bendis/Pichelli/Nico Leaon run. (Yes, constant relaunching and it’s confusing to follow.)

Before we’re done with Bendis, there’s the very good Spider-Men series of mini-series where the “traditional” Peter Parker crosses paths with Miles. Get them both in one volume with Spider-Men: Worlds Collide by Bendis & Pichelli.

And after that wraps, it’s time for Miles Morales by Saladin Ahmed and Javier Garron.

And then, Miles Morales: Spider-Man by Cody Ziglar and Federico Vicentini. 

No More Mutants

House of M  X-Men: Reload  X-Men: The Day After

Marvel’s House of M and Decimation Sale runs through Monday, 9/9.

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.

The “Decimation” part of the sale refers to the aftermath in the X-Men line after Wanda proclaims “no more mutants” and decimates the population. X-Men: Reload By Chris Claremont Vol. 2: House Of M by Claremont/ Chris Bachalo / Billy Tan covers House of M and Decimation in Uncanny X-Men. X-Men: Decimation – The Day After by Peter Milligan / Salvador Larocca / Roger Cruz covers Decimation in X-Men.

Corpsman
Nova Classic  Nova by Abnett & Lanning

The Marvel Nova Sale runs through Monday, 9/9.

Let’s run down the contents here:

  • Nova (1976-78) – The original Marv Wolfman/John Buscema/Sal Buscema/Carmine Infantino run
  • Nova (2007-10) – The Dan Abnett/Andy Lanning/Paul Pelletier/Kev Walker/Andrea di Vito era – the Complete Collection is the better deal.
  • Nova (2013-15) – Gerry Duggan / Paco Medina was probably the longest tenured creative team of this volume.
  • Nova: Resurrection (2015) – Jeff Loveness / Ramon Perez
  • Nova: The Human Rocket (2015-16) – Sean Ryan / Cory Smith / John Timms

What’s good here?  We’d go with the original run or the DnA run (complete with a space station carved out of a Celestial’s head – yes, the concept predates Avengers Mountain).

Theft

Criminal  Gideon Falls  Stray Bullets

The Image Summer Crime Sale runs through Sunday, 9/15.

Crime? Maybe crime, horror and science fiction? The sale’s title might be a bit reductive.

What we’d put at the top of it:

  • Criminal – Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips; While this was their second series (after the lesser known Sleeper), their mid-00s revival of crime comics locked in Brubaker & Phillips as a long term team… and Image would soon lure them away from Marvel
  • Fell – Warren Ellis / Ben Templesmith; A creepy, surrealist detective feature and we seem to recall the plots often resembling actual “News of the Weird” newspaper columns.
  • Gideon Falls – Jeff Lemire / Andrea Sorrentino; A wild SF/horror/time travel tale of a mysterious barn that appears and disappears, always leaving a trail of bodies
  • Stray Bullets – David Lapham; This was Criminal, long before Criminal came to be. Along with AKA Goldfish and Jinx by Bendis, this was the main crime comic of the late ’90s.

The Marvel “Maybe” Sales

X-Men Ultimate Spider-Man

The trend continues. New releases at lower than expected price points and discounted pre-orders. Is this the new normal? We’re not sure, but let’s run them down.

Dropping This Week

Pre-Order for Next Week

Robbin’

Robyn Hood  Robyn Hood  Robyn Hood

The Zenescope Character Spotlight Sale – Robyn Hood Sale  runs through Sunday, 9/22.

This sale is in three flavors with three links:

Looks like the Omnibus is cheaper than the collected editions and the collected editions are cheaper than the single issues, but you can double check that on individual collections. 99-cent single issues make that easy.

And yes, those really are Chuck Dixon and Howard Mackie on runs towards the bottom of the listings.

Possible Oni Sales

OK… you might remember this drill from the distant past. Oni’s had two sales listed for a couple of days. They don’t look like sale prices to us. Maybe that gets fixed at some point, but that’s what we’re seeing at the moment.

Unannounced Sales

The Crow  Groo  Barbaric

Over at Dark Horse, everyone’s favorite stupid barbarian is on sale. Yes, that’s right… it’s Groo by Sergio Aragones and Mark Evanier!

And taking a wider view:

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: DC Labor Day Sale; Doctor Doom; Ant-Man; Scarlet Witch; EC Archives

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, DC has some new items in their Labor Day Sale, Marvel discounts Doctor Doom, Deathlok, Ant-Man and some witch-centric titles. Dark Horse slashes prices on the EC Archives and Crime Does Not Pay.

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 Labors To Find You a Deal

Green Lantern  Shazam  Titans

The DC Labor Day Sale runs through Monday, 9/02.

And this sale features a few new collections for $2.99 that are either new to discounts or haven’t been discounted very long. Let’s run down the highlights.

Recent Discounts

  • Danger Street Vol. 2 – Tom King / Jorge Fornés; Did you get V.1? Here’s the conclusion. Recent Discount
  • Green Lantern ’23 – Jeremy Adams / Xermanico; More of a Silver Age feel to the current series as Hal Jordan is back on Earth and the classic supporting cast turns up. Recent discount
  • Hawkgirl Vol. 1: Once Upon a Galaxy ’23 – Jadzia Axelrod / Amancay Nahuelpan; Recent discount
  • Shazam! Vol. 1: Meet the Captain! ’23 – Mark Waid / Dan Mora; Very fun launch as Waid & Mora steer the franchise a little closer to the whimsical original tone. Recent discount
  • Titans Vol. 1: Out of the Shadows ’23 – Tom Taylor / Nicola Scott; The Titans step up to take over the Justice Leagues duties and Brother Blood is back. Sets up Beast Wars. Good book. Recent discount
  • World’s Finest: Teen Titans – Mark Waid / Emanuela Lupacchino; An adventure of the original squad, similar in tone to Waid’s World’s Finest. Recent discount

Older Titles Worth a Look

  • Batman: The Adventures Continue – Alan Burnett / Paul Dini / Ty Templeton; The *right* people doing an excellent continuation of The Animated Series
  • Batman / Spawn – Frank Miller / Todd McFarlane & Doug Moench / Alan Grant / Chuck Dixon / Klaus Janson; Both crossovers and $2.99 is a good price for it
  • Bizarro Comics – Alternative cartoonists, like Matt Groening, have their way with DC in this entertaining anthology
  • OMAC: One Man Army Corps – Jack Kirby’s ’70s satire of a corporate dystopia
  • One-Star Squadron – Mark Russell / Steve Lieber; Brilliant satire of on-demand apps and the gig economy… with Red Tornado
  • Prez – Mark Russell / Ben Caldwell; Social media accidentally elects a president; An election farce that we wish was not so relevant right now, but it’s a great comic that deserved a longer run
  • Rorschach – Tom King / Jorge Fornés; A meditation on identity in the world of Watchmen
  • Suicide Squad: Blaze; Si Spurrier / Aaron Campbell; A very dark take on super powers and the government… even by Black Label standards
  • Superman: Birthright – Mark Waid / Leinil Francis Yu; Influential exploration of Superman’s coming of age
  • Swamp Thing ’21 – Ram V / Mike Perkins; The origin of the current Swamp Thing… all three volumes are not on sale simultaneously as one might think, too…

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, 9/9

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.

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.

Also of possible interest – Iron Man: Doomquest collects a famous pair of David Michelinie / Bob Layton tales (w/John Romita, Jr. on the first) that have a time travelling Doom clashing with Iron Man.  Iron Man: Legacy of Doom is the lesser-known Michelinie/Layton/Ron Lim follow-up.

Witches

Vision and the Scarlet Witch  Strange Academy Strange

The Marvel Agatha, Marvel Witches, and The Darkhold Sale runs through Monday, 9/30.

There’s a new TV show coming out… but there aren’t a lot of Agatha comics (especially in this sale), so we get a little bit of everything else, instead.

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.

Also of interest:

  • Strange Academy – Skottie Young / Humberto Ramos (Omnibus editions)
  • Strange – Jed MacKay / Marcelo Ferreira; Clea’s turn as Sorceress Supreme

What Did the Pink Panther Say To The Ant?

Ant-Man    Ant-Man: World Hive

The Marvel Ant-Man Sale runs through Monday, 9/2.

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 Epic Collection: The Man in the Ant-Hill is a collection of the early Hank Pym stories from Tales to Astonish

Ant-Man/Giant-Man Epic Collection: Ant-Man No More follows Pym from the final Tales to Astonish issues through Scott Lang’s debut in the suit in Marvel Premiere.

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.

The Al Ewing trilogy. Ewing did this sneaky trilogy that wasn’t billed as such. Three miniseries that build on each other with Ant-Man and the Wasp. Naturally, the third one (which was GREAT) isn’t included in the sale.

Lok… Because Spelling Is Kewl

Deathlok Masterworks Deathlok Deathlok

The Marvel Deathlok 50th Anniversary Sale runs through Monday, 9/2.

Originally a cyborg (against his will) in a dystopian future, the original Deathlok was a Rich Buckler creation and the whole run of that incarnation can be had in the Deathlok Masterworks, nice and easy.

The next time Deathlok popped up in a major way was the 90s and it was a hot comic for a short period of time. Dwayne McDuffie/Gregory Wright/Butch Guice/Denys Cowan reinvented a modern day Deathlock in Deathlok: The Living Nightmare of Michael Collins, which was followed by an ongoing series.

Since then, there have been a few revivals:

  • Deathlok ’99-’00- Joe Casey / Leonardo Manco
  • Deathlok ’09-’10 – Charlie Huston / Lan Medina
  • Deathlok ’14-’15 – Nathan Edmondson / Mike Perkins

The Marvel “Maybe” Sales

X-Men  Avengers: Twilight  Wolverine

The trend returns after a short break. New releases at lower than expected price points and discounted pre-orders. Is this the new normal? We’re not sure, but let’s run them down.

Dropping This Week

Pre-Order for Next Week

Possible Oni Sales

OK… you might remember this drill from the distant past. Oni’s had two sales listed for a couple of days. They don’t look like sale prices to us. Maybe that gets fixed at some point, but that’s what we’re seeing at the moment.

Unannounced Sales

EC Crime SuspenStories  Tales From the Crypt Crime Does Not Pay

Dark Horse has their EC Archives on sale. Tales From the Crypt, Weird Science, Two-Fisted Tales and that whole family of famous titles.

They also have Crime Does Not Pay on sale. This isn’t an EC book. It actually predates EC, but it eventually had a narrator called “Mr. Crime” who was a few years ahead of the Crypt Keeper and company… although the mysterious host was a radio tradition going back to the 1930s. (The Shadow was the narrator of Detective Story Hour in 1930 before the pulp magazine turned him into a fleshed out character, for instance.)

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: X-Force; Winter Soldier; Gillen at Marvel; Kirby at DC

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel drops prices on X-Force, Winter Soldier and the work of Kieron Gillen. DC highlights some deeper cuts in the catalog (and Jack Kirby). Oni may or may not be having a 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):

Paths Less Taken

Far Sector  Omega Men  Orion

The DC Summer Sizzle Sale runs through Monday, 8/26.

And this week, DC’s mix of titles has a LOT of what we’d call “under the radar” books, many of which are featured a little less frequently. Fortunately, this is firmly in our wheelhouse to navigate.

Some highlights:

  • Checkmate – Greg Rucka / Jesus Saiz; Rucka’s take on the intersection of spies and superheroes
  • DC: The New Frontier – Darwyn Cooke’s look at the dawn of the Silver Age isn’t really under the radar, but it’s a truly great comic.
  • Deathstroke – Christopher Priest / Carlo Pagulayan; Missing the Titans crossovers, but this is a smart comic about villain that makes few bones about it.
  • Far Sector – N.K. Jemisin / Jamal Campbell; Superior worldbuilding as a new Green Lantern with an experimental ring investigates the first murder in living memory on a world without feelings. You could count Jemisin’s SF/F awards, but you’d need some time on your hands.
  • Flex Mentallo: Man of Muscle Mystery – Grant Morrison / Frank Quitely; An even further-out-there delight & Doom Patrol spin-off that, for legal purposes, has NOTHING to do with Charles Atlas ads…
  • Freedom Fighters: Rise of a Nation – Robert Venditti / Eddy Barrows; Just a very well done reworking of the original Freedom Fighters concept. Very under the radar, but we really enjoyed it. (Would work as an Elseworlds or Black Label.)
  • Jonah Hex – Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray and an absurd rotation of high end artists; Fun westerns, some arcs, some done in one
  • Omega Men – Tom King / Barnaby Bagenda; Before he blew up, King penned this meditation on line between terrorism and freedom fighters, which is arguably a Green Lantern tale (Kyle Rayner). Often overlooked.
  • Orion – Walt Simonson’s entry in the New Gods saga. We liked it as much as his Thor, which is to say, a lot! Totally under most radars.

Kirby Korner

A good chunk of the King’s DC work is on sale:

Forced Entry

X-Force X-Force X-Force

The Marvel X-Force Sale runs through Monday, 8/26.

Yes, the mutant black ops team, as originally established by Cable (and morphing out of New Mutants). There absolutely have a been a few incarnations and relaunches over the years. Let’s start out with an overview of that:

  • X-Force ’91-’02 – Originally Rob Liefeld & Fabian Nicieza with Greg Capullo tagging in early on. The first edition, if you will.
    • Counter-X: X-Force – From the period when Warren Ellis was showrunning some of the X-titles, by Ian Edgington & Jorge Lucas
  • Uncanny-Force ’10-’12 – Rick Remender and rotating roster of Raphael Albuquerque, Esad Ribic, Jerome Opena, Billy Tan and Phil Noto
  • Uncanny X-Force ’13-’14 – Sam Humphries / Ron Garney / Dalibor Talajic
  • Deadpool vs. X-Force ’14 – Duane Swierczynski / Pepe Laraz
  • X-Force ’19-’24 – Ben Percy / Joshua Cassara / Robert Gill

What’s good? Our top pick is the Remender Uncanny-Force. Black ops and a wide ranging, but complete story unit when taken as a whole. We’re also fans of the Ben Percy / Krakoa era X-Force.  If you want something off-beat, start here for the Milligan/Allred run, which is a satire.

Journey into Gillen

Darth Vader  Journey Into Mystery  Sins of Sinister

The Marvel Kieron Gillen Sale runs through Monday, 8/26.

Yes, has has written quite a bit for Marvel over the years. Our favorites? An absolutely brilliant turn on Darth Vader with Salvador Larocca and his evil Star Wars analogue of Indiana Jones, Doctor Aphra w/Kev Walker. When the glass cracks in his Vader run… well, see for yourself. Great moment.

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

What’s good?  This one’s going to be more personal preference than with many sales and to that end, we’d definitely say Immortal X-Men and particularly Sins of Sinister, which was as good as X-Men Event as there’s been… but needs context from Immortal and the X-line of books. 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.

The Sidekick in Winter

Captain America  Winter Soldier  The Winter Soldier: The Bitter March

The Marvel Winder Soldier Sale runs through Monday, 8/26.

This is a slightly odd sale, in that it encompasses most – but apparently not all – of Ed Brubaker’s Captain America run and then several miniseries and abortive attempts at an ongoing series… including a few creator names you’ll recognize.

The originating storyline runs in the 2004 series of Captain America by Ed Brubaker and a rotating squad of artists including Steve Epting, Michael Lark, Butch Guice and Mike Perkins. There are a couple omnibuses available, but this doesn’t really have a definitive larger collection like, say, the Hickman Avengers era.

Note: if you’re going to read the Winter Soldier saga, you’re going to need Captain America: Reborn, the Ed Brubaker /Bryan Hitch mini-series that wraps up the “Death of Captain America” sequence.

For solo series, the first choice is Winter Soldier by Ed Brubaker, which is Brubaker and Butch Guice in a spin-off.

Also of possible interest:

The Marvel “Maybe” Sales

Resurrection of Magneto  Cable: United We Fall  Avengers: Twilight

The trend returns after a short break. New releases at lower than expected price points and discounted pre-orders. Is this the new normal? We’re not sure, but let’s run them down.

Dropping This Week

Pre-Order for Next Week

Possible Oni Sales

OK… you might remember this drill from the distant past. Oni’s had two sales listed for a couple of days. They don’t look like sale prices to us. Maybe that gets fixed at some point, but that’s what we’re seeing at the moment.

Unannounced Sales

Apex Legends  Anthem

Dark Horse has a couple of their video game adaptations showing up discounted:

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Image Comics Returns; X-Men; Moon Knight; Green Arrow; Minor Threats

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Image Comics returns to the discount listing for the first time in a year. DC offers sale prices on some more recent titles like Green Arrow. Marvel cuts prices on Moon Knight, X-Men, and Avengers vs. X-Men. Plus, Minor Threats.

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):

Holy Crap! Image Is Back?!?

Black Magick  Chew  Nailbiter

The Hooked on Image Comics Sale runs through Thursday, 8/29.

We get a lot of questions about why Image hasn’t had any sales lately. Interestingly, this is right about when Image resurfaced for a few weeks of sales in mid-August 2023. Um, ’tis the season?

This is a rather small and… almost alphabetical slice of Image?

Things we’ve read and can happily recommend:

  • Black Magick – Greg Rucka / Nicola Scott; a police detective who happens to be a witch has her worlds collide. What were Rucka and Scott doing before the Wonder Woman relaunch? This.
  • Cassanova – Matt Fraction / Gabriel Ba; Extra trippy adventures with a dimension-hopping thief caught up in a conspiracy with a very Jerry Cornelius vibe to it.
  • Chew – John Layman / Rob Guillory; Absurdist adventures in a world where eating chicken is outlawed with a federal agent who experiences the sense of what he eats. So if he ate your thumb, he’d know where it had been. Black humor abounds, as to vampires and a death-dealing rooster. It’s a favorite. Layman’s now working on Spawn and Titans. This is the book that really launched Layman.
  • Nailbiter – Josh Williamson / Mike Henderson; Why does a small town in Oregon produce so many serial killers? A federal agent descends upon the town with one of those prodigal serial killers in tow, looking to find out. One of the things Williamson was doing before Superman and GI Joe took over his hours.

And By Recent, We Mean Within 5 Years

Danger Street  Green Arrow  The Sandman Universe: Nightmare Country

The DC Recent Hits Sale runs through Monday, 8/19.

It does have some new releases in it, though. More importantly, there are plenty of $2.99 collected editions. Let’s work through some highlights.

X-Men: The Glory Years

X-Men Epic Collection: The Sentinels Live   X-Men: The Fate of the Phoenix  

The Marvel X-Men Masterworks/Epic Collections Sale runs through Monday, 8/26.

To paraphrase The Blues Brothers, “We’ve got both kinds, Epics and Masterworks.”

Which is to say this is all contained in the original X-Men series link.

Pick your preferred format. In general, the Epics have a more pages and end up being more bang for your buck… although the more recent Masterworks have been pretty thick volumes.

From a pragmatic standpoint, the Masterworks volumes have everything in order through issue #243 (Uncanny X-Men Masterworks Vol. 16 – which covers Inferno).

The Epic Collections exist in order through #198… and then they start jumping ahead to Jim Lee / Whilce Portacio era. If you’re looking for 90s X-Men, you want the Epics.

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 stop at #198 before jumping ahead and that’s super annoying. #200 is a landmark issue.

The Light of the Silvery Moon

Moon Knight  Moon Knight Epic Collection   Moon Knight

The Marvel Moon Knight Sale runs through Monday, 1/29.

The original Moon Knight run is mostly in Epic Collections, but it’s in two separate links because… well, we shouldn’t be surprised by this, should we?  The first link has two volumes that are not closely related. Bad Moon Rising is the Werewolf by Night appearances through the backups in Hulk Magazine and the first issues of 1980 solo series. The other volume in that link… we’re not as big on. That was later volumes.

You can go here for the rest of the 1980 Moon Knight series, which was the most famous version for quite some time. If you came into the character through the TV series, know that the original Moon Knight was a lot closer to Batman and The Shadow. Oh, sure the werewolf showed up, but most of the mystical things around Konshu were kept in the background and a lot more mysterious. The multiple identities were originally more like the cover identities adopted by the Shadow (and the original series editor, Denny O’Neil, adapted The Shadow for DC.) This is where Moon Knight got popular.

If you came in through the TV show, there really isn’t a comic that quite matches that version of the character, but the series did draw on the Jeff Lemire / Greg Smallwood Moon Knight series in which Moon Knight has a run-in with the Egyptian gods and his personalities run amok. It’s also a good run.

We also have been enjoying the current Jed MacKay/Alessandro Cappuccio Moon Knight series. This one takes up the unenviable task of rationalizing the various incarnations over the years (and there have been a lot of different takes on the character). Mr. Knight is in therapy for his multiple personality issues. He’s running the Midnight Mission and conduct himself as Konshu’s ambassador… after a fashion, although he’s not really happy with Konshu. And there are vampires. Lots of vampires.

Highlights of the rest:

  • Moon Knight ’89-’94 – Most of this is only collected in omnibus form  for the longest running volume. This is largely the Terry Kavanaugh years with Gary Kwapisz and James Fry on art. Possibly more interesting, it also includes a Bruce Jones/Denys Cowan special and a Doug Moench/Art Nichols team-up with Shang Chi. (A second volume with earlier issues drops in October.)
  • Moon Knight ’10-12 – Brian Bendis / Alex Maleev; Controversial to say the least, this one really leans into Moon Knight’s multiple personality disorder and breaks the character if you prefer the original concept. On the other hand, it’s surprisingly witty and funny. One of the oddest takes on the character.
  • Moon Knight  ’14-’15- Most notable for the style-forward Warren Ellis/Declan Shalvey reworking (introducing the business suit)

The novelist corner, because Marvel has put a couple name novelists on the property:

Friday Night Fights

Avengers Vs. X-Men A.X.E. Judgement Day

The Marvel AvX & A.X.E. Sale runs through Monday, 8/19.

And by “AvX,” they mean Avengers vs. X-Men. “Go along to get along” doesn’t necessarily apply here.

The “primary” Avengers Vs. X-Men was an Event back in ’12 with all sorts of creators contributing to it. Were there tie-in books? It’s Marvel, so there were plenty. Avengers vs. X-Men: VS was essentially the “all-fights” series.

Also included is the more recent A.X.E.: Judgment Day, the Kieron Gillen/Valerio Schiti – driven Event that crossed over Avengers, X-Men and The Eternals.

The Marvel “Maybe” Sales

Beware the Planet of the Apes  Resurrection of Magneto  Cable: United We Fall

The trend returns after a short break. New releases at lower than expected price points and discounted pre-orders. Is this the new normal? We’re not sure, but let’s run them down.

Dropping This Week

Pre-Order for Next Week

Unannounced Sales

Minor Threats  Daisy

That Patton Oswalt guy has recently been seen in comic shops promoting his “Minor Threats” franchise. Guess what’s on sale?

Also from Dark Horse:

  • Daisy – Colin Lorimer
  • UXB – Colin Lorimer

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: X-Factor; Star Wars: The High Republic; Scarlet Spider; Aliens; Predator; Avatar: The Last Airbender

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel discounts Aliens, Predator, X-Factor, Scarlet Spider and Star Wars: The High Republic. Dark Horse cuts the price on Avatar the Last Airbender. Batman’s still on sale, plus some more unannounced discounted items.

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 Mutant Variable

X-Factor by Peter David   X-Factor by Peter David   X-Factor

The Marvel X-Factor Sale runs through Monday, 8/12.

This one’s a little different from most of the Legacy sales in that it’s mainly a Peter David X-Factor sale. Let’s walk through that.

Of the original X-Factor run, you’re really looking at the Epic Collections, here. While the book started out with Bob Layton/Butch Guice, Louise & Walt Simonson tagged in and had one of the defining runs on the book. A bit later, Peter David started his first run, which had Joe Quesada and Larry Stroman as part of the artist rotation, while it was definitely funnier, this was still basically the original X-Factor setup, just tweaked a little.

When people think of Peter David and X-Factor, the run they’re most likely thinking of is the 2005-13 run that starts out with Madrox (The Multiple Man) opening a detective agency. Yes, this is the run where Layla Miller knows stuff. (If you know, you know.)

Technically, this all started in the Madrox mini-series, originally under the Marvel Knights banner.

There are also two X-Factor by Peter David: The Complete Collection  volumes. Vol. 1 is the original Madrox mini-series and X-Factor 1-12. Vol. 2 collects #13-24, 28-32 and two specials. You can save a couple bucks there.

There was also a ’14-’15 X-Factor relaunch by David and Giuseppe Camuncoli. This sale is all about the Peter David runs!

Out from under the shadow of Mr. David, there are two other notable titles in the sale.

Back in 2010, X-Factor Forever saw Louise Simonson returning to the situation as she left it on the book (prior to Peter David taking over) along with Dan Panosian.

And then, in the aftermath of House of X / Powers of X, Leah Williams and David Baldeon relaunched X-Factor as the mutants who investigate the circumstances of death and missing persons for Krakoa.

Not of this Earth

The Marvel Aliens & Predators Sale runs through Monday, 8/12.

Predator versus Wolverine  Alien  Aliens

It’s probably best to divide this into the Marvel section and the Dark Horse section.

On the Marvel side of the fence, there are two big winners, we’ll happily point you to.

Predator Vs. Wolverine by Ben Percy / Ken Lashley / Andrea Di Vito / Greg Land is exactly what it sounds like… except that it’s actually very enjoyable. You’d think this would be a trite cash-in, but that’s not the case. Predator Vs. Wolverine in a vendetta-ish scenario across the years. $2.99 even qualifies as Cheap!

The Philip Kennedy Johnson Alien sequence (V.1 & 2 here; then V. 3 here — yeah, we know… comics publishers need to work on the meta data) with Salvador Larroca, followed by Julius Ohta; is essentially one winding tale of Weyland-Yutani Corporation conspiracies that starts out with hiding a few of those eggs that couldn’t possibly get out of control, moves on to interstellar pioneers and religion, then comes back to the living conditions of rogue androids. Effective slow burn storytelling.

Also on the Marvel side:

  • Declan Shalvey’s Alien run
    • V.1 w/ Andrea Broccardo
    • V.2 w/Danny Earls
  • Ed Brisson’s Predator run
    • V.1 w/ Kev Walker
    • V.2 w/ Netho Diaz

From the original Dark Horse material:

Spiders

Spider-Man: The Complete Clone Saga Epic Spider-Man: The Complete Ben Reilly Epic Spider-Geddon

The Marvel Ben Reilly and Kaine – Scarlet Spiders Sale runs through 8/12.

Yes, it’s a clone sale! Let’s take this roughly in order.

Your Clone Saga choices are:

After the Clone Saga, Ben Reilly takes over as the Scarlet Spider (for about a year). That’s collected in:

Then in ’12 (spinning out of Spider Island, which isn’t in the sale), Kaine takes over for:

Then we pop back to Amazing Spidey in ’16 for a storyline

Then back to a solo book:

Then an Event:

Then a solo mini:

And finally, Ben Reilly is mixed up in another Event:

See? Nothing complicated about all those clones! <If you have a cheat sheet, that is.>

How High?

Star Wars: The High Republic   Star Wars: The High Republic - Season 2   Star Wars: The High Republic - The Blade

The Marvel Star Wars: High Republic Sale runs through Monday, 8/12.

For the uninitiated, this is a time period set “a long time ago” relative the first two film trilogies.

What are we looking at here?

The Marvel “Maybe” Sales

Beware the Planet of the Apes  Resurrection of Magneto

The trend returns after a short break. New releases at lower than expected price points and discounted pre-orders. Is this the new normal? We’re not sure, but let’s run them down.

Pre-Order for Next Week

Unannounced Sales

Avatar: The Last Airbender  The Blue Flame  Verse

BATMAN

Last week’s big and cheap Batman sale is still going on through Monday evening.

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Huge Batman Sale; Justice League; Black Hammer; Matt Kindt

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, DC breaks out a very deep and cheap Batman sale with lots of $2.99 ebooks… and the Justice League, too. Marvel cuts prices on Elektra. Dark Horse highlights Black Hammer and Matt Kindt amidst a line-wide 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):

You Had Me at $2.99 Batman

The DC Batman: The Caped Crusader Sale runs through Monday, 8/12.

Well, now… this is certainly an interesting and relatively exhaustive sale. 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 take note and lord it over your friends.

And yes, it’s named after the new animated series, which we’ve started watching and is starting out astonishingly dark and pulpy. (Both good things in our book.)

Let’s try and make things a little easier list and mark off the more notable of the various series included in the sale:

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

What’s that? You’re still not satisfied? *Sigh* Fine, there’s some Harley Quinn in this one, too.

  • Harley Quinn ’00-’04 – Karl Kesel / Terry & Rachel Dodson
  • Harley Quinn ’13-’16 – Jimmy Palmiotti / Amanda Connor / Chad Hardin
  • Harley Quinn ’16-’20 – Jimmy Palmiotti / Amanda Connor / Chad Hardin
  • Harleen ’19 – Stjepan Sejic
  • Harley Quinn ’21- current – Stephanie Phillips / Riley Rossmo

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

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

Prefer the mid-to-late 80s era? Starlin/Aparo or Grant/Breyfogle? Those collections are running $3.99/$4.99 and filed under the original Batman and Detective runs.

“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:

Coincidentally, This Title is Returning Soon

Justice League of America  Justice League International Justice League

The DC Justice League Sale runs through Monday, 8/5.

That’s right, as it’s announced at Comic-Con that Mark Waid & Dan Mora are launching a new Justice League Unlimited series, a sale on the Justice League follows. To paraphrase Casablanca, “We’re shocked. Shocked to find Justice League on sale.” We also note some decent prices and a chunk of $2.99 books sprinkled in.

Let’s start out by counting down the many flavors available:

For some of the side series:

What’s good?

The Nail is Alan Davis with an A+ Elseworlds take on a Justice League on a world where Superman did not emerge as the first hero.

You can get a big chunk (500+ pages) of the BWA HA HA era in omnibus format for $5.99.

$2.99 for Dwayne McDuffie’s run (starting here) is a good deal.

$2.99 for the first pair of Silver Age collections is also a good deal.

Under the radar?  The Christopher Priest / Pete Woods arc from ~3 years back. It’s just good comics without silly crossovers.

Miss Natchios If You’re Nasty…

Elektra Assassin  Daredevil: Fall From Grace  Daredevil The Man Without Fear

The Marvel Elektra Sale runs through Monday, 8/5.

That would Elektra, the former Hand assassin and on-again-off-again love interest of a certain Mathew Murdoch.  Strangely, the original Daredevil run isn’t included here, but let’s do a quick rundown in rough chronological order.

What’s good here? Elektra: Assassin is the undisputed classic. A very odd series, originally from Epic (not for kids) about Elektra rebelling against The Beast (the demon behind The Hand, not the X-Man) and stalking a politician controlled by The Beast.

Daredevil: The Man Without Fear is essentially Miller doing “Daredevil: Year One.” It isn’t Elektra-heavy, but it’s good.

Daredevil & Elektra by Chip Zdarsky is quite good, though it’s also the final act of Zdarsky’s run and isn’t the best place to start.

The Chichester / McDaniel Daredevil era seems to be getting a critical reappraisal these days. We liked it the first time around and it’s when Elektra was re-introduced into the supporting cast (on order from editorial, IIRC).

Unannounced Sale of the Week – Held Over

The Hunger and the Dusk

The Hunger & The Dusk, V.1 – G. Willow Wilson / Chris Wildgoose; We were startled this was on sale for $1.99 last week (it hasn’t even been out for 2 months yet), we’re still startled… but it was probably our favorite read of the last month and it’s well worth a look if you like intelligent Epic Fantasy.

All Kinds of Unannounced Dark Horse Sales

Apache Delivery Service

There are two new unannounced Dark Horse Sales:

1)  The wide world of Matt Kindt, who’s done quite a bit of work for them:

2) Black Hammer by Jeff Lemire & Dean Ormston

And then the line-wide sale

Goldfish  Martha Washington  Nexus

.Dark Horse has a mostly line-wide 50% off sale, excepting recent releases and a few things where perhaps the price wasn’t updated. This is stilted towards the collected editions. It’s been going on since last week and we think it should still be active through Monday, maybe Tuesday? How does a person properly browse this?

Not very easily. Amazon does not make it easy to sort by publisher.

This link will get you a _very_ unsorted stream of Dark Horse titles to pick through.

And let’s drop links for some of the usual suspect series while we’re at it:

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Comic-Con Edition – Batman; The Hunger and the Dusk; Line-Wide Dark Horse Discounts

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, DC celebrates SDCC with discounts, Dark Horse goes half-off and The Hunger and the Dusk should be cheap enough for you.

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):

We’re smack dab in the middle of San Diego Comic-Con, which is partially reflected by this week’s sales. We say partially, because Marvel didn’t see fit to issue a new sale this week. They’re content to keep a Wolverine and a couple Deadpool sales we’ve covered in previous weeks active (see links at the bottom). But that’s not to say there aren’t some new things to look at:

Unannounced Sale of the Week

The Hunger and the Dusk

The Hunger & The Dusk, V.1 – G. Willow Wilson / Chris Wildgoose; This collected edition has only been out for around 6 weeks. It really should not be $1.99, but somehow it is. (And we’re not sure for how long, so don’t sleep on it.)

As it happens, we read this very collection a couple weeks back and loved it. It’s an Epic Fantasy where despite deteriorating land conditions drawing the humans and orcs into deeper conflict, the two must form a shaky alliance to fend off invaders. Invaders that just might be smarter than they let on. And it’s character-driven, to boot.

We think this is Wilson’s best work since maybe Cairo and Air back at Vertigo. (Cairo is vastly underappreciated.)  If you like Epic Fantasy / sword and sorcery, take a $2 flier on this one.

For the Love of Comic-Con

Batman: The Brave and the Bold: The Winning Card  The Human Target  World's Finest

The DC at SDCC Sale runs through Monday, 7/29.

Yes, the San Diego Comic-Con is going on through the weekend. You might even be there? (We’re not. This is comics.cheap and there is no such thing as ComiconHotel.cheap!)

This week sees another mix of DC products whose display is incredibly random on the Amazon/Comixology page, so let’s run down some of the things we found interesting:

  • Batman: The Brave and the Bold: The Winning Card – Tom King / Mitch Gerads… we’re assuming you’re familiar with that pairing by now?
  • Batman: Killing Time – Tom King / David Marquez; Something of a villain-centric noir caper… that comes recommended from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, no less
  • Gotham City: Year One – Tom King / Phil Hester; A proper hardboiled detective story about a kidnapping that also details how Gotham City got the way it is. This is Slam Bradley story with a little Batman around the outer edges
  • Human Target – Tom King / Greg Smallwood; All-round excellent 2-volume series where the Human Target looks for who poisoned him and the Bwa Ha Ha Ha Justice League are the main suspects; Manages to dance between a dark mystery and Bwa Ha Ha flawlessly. And that art!
  • JLApe: The Complete Collection – A collection that just might make a monkey out of you
  • The Nice House on the Lake – James Tynion IV / Alvaro Martinez Bueno; This very effective horror tale of the end of the world (with imminent sequel) is now in one volume
  • One-Star Squadron – Mark Russell / Steve Lieber; A brilliant seriocomic send-up of the gig economy as Red Tornado tries to run a sort of heroes for hire app
  • Superman (’23) – Josh Williamson / Jamal Campbell; The current series is a rock solid “classic” Superman series; recommended
  • World’s Finest – Mark Waid / Dan Mora; A serious contender for DC’s best title. Mora will be taking on the “normal” Superman title soon, too.

Events

You may have noticed DC’s been leaning into the Events lately. Here are the last few:

Feeling Grimm About Comicon?
Grimm Tales of Terror  Grimm Tales of Terror

The Zenescope Grimm Tales of Terror Sale runs through Saturday, 8/17

This sales comes in two flavors:

Wide-Scale Unannounced Sale

Goldfish  Martha Washington  Nexus

It seems that Dark Horse has a mostly line-wide 50% off sale, excepting recent releases and a few things where perhaps the price wasn’t updated. This is stilted towards the collected editions. The question is how does a person properly browse this?

Not very easily. Amazon does not make it easy to sort by publisher.

This link will get you a _very_ unsorted stream of Dark Horse titles to pick through.

And let’s drop links for some of the usual suspect series while we’re at it:

🤞 Don’t miss these tips!

We don’t spam! Read more in our privacy policy

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Deadpool; Wolverine; Umbrella Academy; Batman; Manhunter

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel drops the “real” Deadpool and Wolverine sales. DC discounts some more Batman, Superman and friends. Dark Horse celebrates the comics of Gerard Way and Umbrella Academy.

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 Cheapest at What He Does

Wolverine  Wolverine: Enemy of the State  

The Marvel Wolverine Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 8/5.

You ever see Wolverine pay for expensive beer? Our boy is CHEAP!

This is the sale on the “main” Wolverine titles we said would be coming. Let’s start out by listing the various titles involved. (Relaunches? At Marvel? <faints>)

  • Wolverine (’82) – Chris Claremont / Frank Miller / Paul Smith; The miniseries that kicked off the solo stories and an X-Men 2-parter that’s a sort of follow-up
  • Wolverine (’88-’03) – The original ongoing solo title. Yes, it took six years after the mini… it was a different time
  • Wolverine (’03-’09) – Greg Rucka / Darick Robertson; Mark Millar / John Romita, Jr.; Jason Aaron/Ron Garney… among others
  • Wolverine: Origin (’06-’10) – Daniel Way / Steve Dillon
  • Wolverine: Weapon X (’09) – Jason Aaron / Ron Garney
  • Wolverine (’10-’12) – Jason Aaron / Renato Guedes / Ron Garney; “Wolverine Goes to Hell” was not a metaphor
  • Wolverine (’13-’14) – Paul Cornell / Alan Davis
  • Wolverine: Savage Land (’14) – Frank Cho
  • Death of Wolverine (’14) – All the mini’s in one volume
  • Old Man Logan (’16-’18) – Jeff Lemire / Andrea Sorrentino; While Logan is “dead,” his future dystopian self journeys to the present day. (And it’s actually pretty good, despite the premise.)
  • Return of Wolverine (’18-’19) – Charles Soule / Steve McNiven; “They always come back”
  • Wolverine (’20-’24) – Ben Percy / Adam Kubert

So, what’s actually good?

The  original miniseries is generally regarded as a classic.

With the original series, you’re pretty good from the beginning through the end of the Larry Hama run (a bit after #100), though towards the end of that, the X-Events get annoying. We’re particularly fond of the Archie Goodwin / John Byrne arc from #17-23. Since there are multiple formats for these issues, you can pick your format.

The Greg Rucka / Darick Robertson / Leandro Fernandez run is an enjoyable, lower key run.

Mark Millar did two great runs shortly after Rucka:

  • Enemy of the State w/ John Romita, JR introduces Gorgan and has Wolverine up against an unholy alliance of the Hand and Hydra
  • Old Man Logan w/ Steve McNiven has an aging Logan trying to keep to himself in a dystopian future when trouble comes looking. Yes, this should sound an awful lot like one of the films!

We’ll Put $20 on Uncle Ben
Deadpool Classics  Cable & Deadpool  Deadpool by Posehn and Duggan

The The Marvel Deadpool Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 8/5.

Deadpool is… oddly collected. There have been a lot of titles and lot of relaunches. Most of these are absorbed into the Deadpool Classics line of collected editions.  Some, but not all, of the series, have omnibus editions and those are the cheaper way to collect those runs… which means, if you’re a completist and you’re cheap, you’re going to want to be wanting to fill in the Classics volumes around the omnibuses.  And Deadpool Classics V. 1 collects the various miniseries that kicked things off.  In a sense, the easiest way (but perhaps not cheapest – and certainly not the most current) to keep things chronological is to follow the Classics line

Hey, when was getting Marvel collected editions in the proper order ever easy?

So let’s run down the main titles:

  • Deadpool Classics (’93 – as far as they’ve gotten)
  • Deadpool (’97-’02) – Known as the Joe Kelly era (at least what’s collected here)
  • Cable & Deadpool (’04-’08) – Fabian Nicieza / Patrick Zircher / Mark Brooks (among others)
  • Deadpool (’08-’12) – The Daniel Way Era
  • Deadpool Team-Up (’09 – ’11) – all sorts of creators for this Deadpool variant on Marvel Two-In-One
  • Deadpool Max (’10 – ’11) – David Lapham / Kyle Baker in a Max (“adult”) series
  • Deadpool Max 2 (’11 – ’12) Lapham / Baker, back for more
  • Deadpool (’12-15) – The Brian Posehn and Gerry Duggan Era
  • Deadpool (’15-’17) – Gerry Duggan and many, many artists
  • Spider-Man / Deadpool (’16-’19) – Initially, Joe Kelly / Ed McGuinness
  • Despicable Deadpool (’17-’18) – Duggan/Mike Hawthorne
  • Deadpool (’18-’19) – Skottie Young / Nic Klein
  • King Deadpool (’19-’21) – Kelly Thompson / Chris Bachalo

Pick your preferred creator and pay attention to the Epic Collections in the ’97 run.

Did Oberon Authorize This?

Batman / Superman: The Archive of Worlds  Manhunter  Superman: Man of Tomorrow

The DC Midsummer Sale runs through Monday, 7/22.

The sale page on this is possibly the most disorganized one we’ve seen in months. Not much order to it, if any. Let’s have a peek at some highlights, though.

  • The Authority – Warren Ellis / Brian Hitch, then Mark Millar/Frank Quitely; The hugely influential spin-off (OK, continuation) of Stormwatch
  • Batman: Reptilian – Garth Ennis / Liam Sharp; There’s something nasty in the Gotham sewers
  • Batman / Superman: The Archive of Worlds – Gene Yang / Ivan Reis; We’re big fans of this dimension hopping tale that distills a lot from the Silver Age tales.
  • Batman: The Detective – Tom Taylor / Andy Kubert; Batman scours Europe for the perp – and yes, Tom Taylor will be taking over Detective Comics soon
  • Fables – Bill Willingham / Mark Buckingham; The first half of the classic series about refugee fairy tale beings hiding out in NYC while plotting to regain their lands in on sale for $5.99@ in the “Deluxe Format.”
  • Justice League: Last Ride – Chip Zdarsky / Miguel Mendonca
  • Manhunter – Archie Goodwin / Walt Simonson; One of the best adventure comics of all time
  • Strange Adventures – Tom King / Mitch Gerads / Doc Shaner; Possibly not for Adam Strange fans, this is a political thriller about war crimes and political identity
  • Superman: Man of Tomorrow – Robery Venditti / Paul Pelletier; It flew under the radar as a digital-first title, but this sequence is a witty delight

The Marvel “Maybe” Sales

White Widow

The trend we noticed last week is still moving forward. New releases at lower than expected price points and discounted pre-orders. Is this the new normal? We’re not sure, but let’s run them down.

Released this week

Pre-Order for Next Week

  • No prices are making us raise an eyebrow next week? Is this a pricing experiment that’s winding down? It’s unclear.

We’re not quite sure what’s going on with these prices, but we’ll give you a heads up if it looks like it’s cheaper than it would normally be.

Unannounced Indie Sales

Umbrella Academy   The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys

Dark Horse has put the works of Gerard Way on sale. At Dark Horse, that means two series:

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Still on Sale

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales – Flash, Iron Man, Suicide Squad, Thor, Groo, Dune

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel revisits “Heroes Return” with discounts. DC drops a 750 book “MAX” sale with Flash, Superman and the Suicide Squad. In unannounced sales, we find Groo, Stranger Things, Dune and… Quentin Tarantino?

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):

Is That a Streaming Pun?

The Flash  Superman Y the Last Man

The DC to the MAX Sale runs through Monday, 7/15.

This is a large (750 items) and fairly wide-ranging sale, so it’s perhaps worth a bit of browsing time, but here are some highlights we noticed:

  • DMZ – Brian Wood / Riccardo Burchielli; During a second Civil War, an embedded reporter becomes stranded in the DMZ that Manhattan has become and promptly gets embroiled in local political/warlord scene.
  • The Flash (’59-’85) – The Silver Age volumes highlight this section
  • The Flash (’87 – ’09) – The prices on the Geoff Johns run are good.
  • The Flash (’16-’23) – Initially, Josh Williamson / Carmine Di Gianmenico. Later, Jeremy Adams / Roger Cruz
  • Hawkworld – Tim Truman leans into the science fiction side of the character in this excellent Hawkman reboot
  • Jonah Hex (’06 – ’11) – Jimmy Palmiotti & Justin Gray write a very fun Western with what turns into a jaw dropping parade of artists like Darwyn Cooke, Paul Gulacy, Jordi Bernet, Russ Heath, Phil Winslade, Eduardo Risso and so on…
  • Rorschach – Tom King /Jorge Fornés; A very well done follow up to the ideas of Watchmen
  • Suicide Squad (’87-’92) – John Ostrander / Luke McDonnell / Geoff Isherwood; There’s been some comments lately about how Amanda Waller was a much more nuanced character in the original incarnation… and we’d have to agree. This is a classic.
  • Suicide Squad: Blaze – Si Spurrier / Aaron Campbell; A darker than dark take on the Squad various DC mythos in this Black Label edition.
  • Superman  Vol. 1: Supercorp (2023-)- Josh Williamson / Jamal Campbell; The opening to the quite enjoyable current Superman run.
  • Superman/Batman (’03  – ’11) – Initially Jeph Loeb / Ed McGuinness; These double-volumes are a good value
  • Unstoppable Doom Patrol – Dennis Culver / Chris Burnham; First time discounted?
  • Y: The Last Man – Brian K. Vaughan / Pia Guerra; The last man on Earth (and his monkey) navigates a dystopian landscape and tries to piece together what happened.

Come Again?

Iron Man: Heroes Reborn  Captain America Heroes Return

Marvel’s Heroes Reborn Sale runs through Monday, 7/15.

This is the 90s experiment when Marvel outsourced some of their titles to Image and then took them back. “Heroes Reborn” is the Image experiment and “Heroes Return” was when Marvel resumed production. Now, for our money, the gems here are from the “Heroes Return” period.

Heroes Reborn: The Return is the Peter David / Salvador Larroca tale that brings the heroes back to the “normal” Marvel Universe.

Iron Man: Heroes Return – The Complete Collection V. 1 has Kurt Busiek, Roger Stern and Sean Chen as the primary creative team, re-establishing shell head back in the Marvel Universe. You get some Mandarin, there’s a side trip with Captain America and MODOK. This collects the first portion of one of our favorite Iron Man periods.

And speaking of high points, this sale also has Captain America: Heroes Return – The Complete Collection,  which is the Mark Waid/Ron Garney run resuming. (It had just started, and was abruptly halted, for Heroes Reborn.) A little Hydra, a lost shield… that MODOK tale from Iron Man is also reprinted here (a shared Annual). It’s a solid run.

Fantastic Four: Heroes Return – The Complete Collection Vol. 1  takes a longer view of the Heroes Return timeframe than the other do. This was starts out with a Chris Claremont/Alan Davis run and ends up with an underrated Carlos Pacheco run. Essentially, Heroes Return is deemed to stop right before the Mark Waid / Mike Wieringo run.

Why the Kurt Busiek / George Perez Avengers run isn’t included here… that’s a good question. In some ways it was the flagship of the returning titles.

Marvel revisited it in ’21 with the minor Event Heroes Reborn, headlined by a Jason Aaron / Ed McGuinness miniseries.

The Image-produced Heroes Reborn titles were:

And, to be complete, it’s not in the sale for inexplicable reasons, but Heroes Reborn: Fantastic Four by Jim Lee & Brandon Choi.

The Marvel “Maybe” Sales

Thor Modern Epic Collection White Widow

The trend we noticed last week is still moving forward. New releases at lower than expected price points and discounted pre-orders. Is this the new normal? We’re not sure, but let’s run them down.

Released this week

Pre-Order for Next Week

We’re not quite sure what’s going on with these prices, but we’ll give you a heads up if it looks like it’s cheaper than it would normally be.

Unannounced Indie Sales

Groo Meets Tarzan  Dune  Quentin Tarantino

Over at Dark Horse, everyone’s favorite stupid barbarian is on sale. Yes, that’s right… it’s Groo by Sergio Aragones and Mark Evanier! Yes, this includes Groo Meets Tarzan with Thomas Yeates.

Also from Dark Horse, the Stranger Things line of graphic novels.

Plus, further removed from the Direct Market:

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Still on Sale

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