In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel waves goodbye to the Krakoa Age of X-Men with a sale… and some discounts on Power Man & Iron Fist and Civil War, too. Plus, an unannounced Critical Role sale from Dark Horse.
Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?
(Disclosure: If you buy something we link to on our site, we may earn a commission.)
In case you’re having troubles with the new UIX (a LOT of people have been):
X-Going-Away-Party
The Marvel X-Men: The Krakoan Age Sale runs through Monday, 4/29.
Marvel seems to has settled on “The Kakoan Age” for what we’ve been calling the Hickman Era or the HoX/PoX Era.
As things are winding down, ahead of editor Tom Brevoort leading a line wide reset, theoretically helmed by Gail Simone and/or Jed MacKay, the “Krakoan Age” is on sale. And honestly, it was very good for quite a while and some of it stayed good, too.
Let’s talk about the overall arcs and “… of X” editions first. These are the collected editions that approximate reading the Hickman era as single issues. Roughly speaking they cycle through X-Men, Wolverine, X-Force, Marauders, etc. etc.
While this effect dissipates after time, we think this is the better way to read the Hickman X-Men titles. Story elements originally floated between books and their sum was greater than their parts. The order does something like this:
Inferno is the last arc for Hickman before leaving and it fits in roughly after The Trial of Magneto ends, so you can read it somewhere between Trials of X V.3-6.
We’re not as adamant about reading this in issue-to-issue format after Hickman leaves… although X-Force and Wolverine are certainly intertwined at times. Through Inferno, though? Yes.
The next “act” of the Krakoa age was “Destiny of X,” but that’s apparently only available in this format in French?
Our recommendations for your optimal Destiny of X reading is clustered around two tracts:
Track One: the Axis of Gillen/Spurrier/Ewing – the writers of the three “big concept” X-titles that eventually converge in the truly X-cellent Sins of Sinster Event that we might even put ahead of the also X-cellent X-of Swords.
These books are:
- Immortal X-Men by Kieron Gillen / Lucas Werneck; we’d personally consider this the flagship title for the Destiny of X sequence
- Legion of X by Si Spurrier / Jan Bazaldua / Rafael Pimentel; The explorations of Legion and Nightcrawler’s crews
- X-Men: Red – Al Ewing / Stefano Caselli / Juann Cabal; Storm’s adventures leading Arakko (Mars) as Ewing keeps a finger in the cosmic side of Marvel
Track two: Ben Percy continues to keep X-Force and Wolverine intertwined in interesting ways, particularly as the long-running saga of Hank McCoy comes to a head.
Pick up X-Force starting with Vol. 5.
Pick up Wolverine starting with Vol. 4.
A mini-series worth mentioning in the “Destiny” period: X-Terminators by Leah Williams / Carlos Gomez manages to be lighthearted with really dark and occasionally off-color humor as Dazzler, Boom Boom, Laura Kinney and Jubilee get mixed up with vampires in the most humiliating ways.
Now, there’s more to the sale and you can always pull them by individual title… but we really think the “of X” format is additive for the world building while Hickman is running the show.
Sweet Christmas!
The Marvel Luke Cage and Iron Fist Sale runs through Monday, 4/8.
Once upon a time there were two series: Luke Cage, Hero for Hire / Power Man and Iron Fist.
You can get the first 23 issues of Hero for Hire/Power Man in an Epic Collection. There were several creators involved, including Archie Goodwin, Steve Englehart, Tony Isabella, George Tuska and Billy Graham. There’s a certain amount of camp to it, but the early tale of Doctor Doom trying to skip out on his bill is what we’d call a heart-warming favorite.
Iron Fist had a shorter run and you can get the entire solo series (Marvel Premiere and Iron Fist) in an Epic Collection. The run is most associated with the team it finished with: an early pairing of Chris Claremont and John Byrne. You may have heard of them.
The two books then merged into the longer-running Power Man & Iron Fist. Now here’s something we don’t always say: this one’s in Epic Collections, but not Masterworks format. Claremont & Byrne left shortly thereafter, paving the way for Jo Duffy, who might be most associated with it. Among the creators working on it were Duffy, Denny O’Neil, (a very young) Kurt Busiek, Christopher Priest, Kerry Gammil, Denys Cowan, Greg Larocque and Mark Bright. A stronger lineup than you might have guessed and a comic that remembered to be goofy at times.
It was revived as Heroes for Hire by John Ostrander and Pasqual Ferry in ’97. We also have a soft spot for the David Walker / Sanford Greene Power Man & Iron Fist in ’16.
But the best of the bunch? The Immortal Iron Fist. People are most familiar with the first half of the series, with the celebrated team of Ed Brubaker/Matt Fraction/David Aja. We’re here to tell you that the back half by Duane Swierczynski/Travel Foreman is also pretty darn good. Plus, more Fat Cobra! Don’t sleep on the back half. Good value with those collected editions, too!
A Polite Disagreement Among Capes
The Marvel Civil War Sale runs through Monday, 4/8.
One of these days, Marvel is going to quit leaving money on the table and give Civil War the treatment it gives something like Hickman’s Avengers saga or Aaron’s Thor saga: an edition (or series of additions) that integrate the main parts in reading order. After all these years, it’s still piecemeal.
So here’s our take on it:
Civil War the main mini-series by Mark Millar and Steve McNiven – is the action movie version of the story.
Civil War: Front Line – written by Paul Jenkins with art by Ramon Bachs, Steve Lieber and Lee Weeks – is about WHY the Civil War is happening as Ben Urich tries to get to the bottom of things. This title is much more of the Event’s actual plot and motivations than the more famous flagship series and Marvel really need to have a collection that integrates the two.
There are obviously a lot of tie-in books here. You can dip in where you feel like, but Civil War: Wolverine by Marc Guggenheim and Humberto Ramos is a little more relevant than most and has Logan (hellbent on vengeance) tracking down the people responsible for the Stamford incident.
Yes, there is a lot more to the story than the main Millar/McNiven book, it’s just not really emphasized.
Always Specify .22 or .38
The Caliber Comics Library Spring Sale runs through Tuesday, 4/30.
There are a few titles here that were notable in the ’80s indie boom.
And plenty of Don Lomax war comics.
But if you want something a little more recent, Ageless might be of interest. It’s written by Torunn GrØnbekk, who’s been recently been writing Thor, with art by San Espina.
Unannounced Sales
Comixology has not announced that Critical Role from Dark Horse is currently on sale. That would be the comics based on the campaigns from the popular web series about Dungeons & Dragons campaigns.
There’s an omnibus format that’s a little better value and a “regular” collected edition sale.
Then, formerly from Marvel / currently from Gallery 13, Stephen King’s The Dark Tower: Beginnings by Robin Furth / Peter David / Jae Lee and overseen by King is on sale for $1.99 a pop. It’s the backstory/coming of age for a gunslinger name Roland.
Last Call on Batman
A reminder that the Batman anniversary sale ends on Monday. Some of the material likely won’t be at these prices again until the end of year holiday sales zone. Our notes for the sale are here.
Still on Sale
