Tag: digital comics

Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Hulk and Nick Fury – ALL the GNs; Plus Oh My Goddess and Zenescope

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel discounts The Hulk and Nick Fury… nearly the whole catalog for each. Dark Horse Slashes Oh My Goddess and Zenescope has a graphic novel 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):

A Hulking Hunk of Burning Discounts

The Incredible Hulk Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 7/10.

Oh, yes. There is a LOT of Hulk on sale.  Most of it, really.  So we’re going to start out by doing what we do (and what Amazon can’t be bothered to do) and break it down by series.

  • Incredible Hulk (1962 – 1999) The original run and then the long running series that picked up a few years later.
  • Tales to Astonish (1964-68) In between the two Hulk solo runs above, Hulk was splitting Tales to Astonish with Ant-Man/Giant Man and then Namor. A lot of the foundational work was really in this run, with Stan Lee/Steve Ditko responsible for a lot of it.
  • Incredible Hulk (1999-2007) – Best known for the Bruce Jones / Lee Weeks/ Mike Deodato run towards the beginning and the Greg Pak / multi-artist “Planet Hulk” and “World War Hulk” epics at the end… though World War Hulk is at this different link.
  • Hulk (2008-13) This is the Red Hulk run (and the title changes to that after awhile). It starts out with the better known Jeph Loeb/Ed Mc Guiness run and then Jeff Parker takes over with Gabriel Hardman, Dave Eaglesham and Patrick Zircher in the artist rotation.
  • Incredible Hulk by Jason Aaron (2011-12) – Lots of artists rotating through here, Marc Silvestri, Steve Dillon and Carlos Pacheco among them
  • Indestructible Hulk (2012 – 14) – Mark Waid’s the writer with an artist rotation including Leinil Francis Yu, Matteo Scalera and Walt Simonson draws the Thor team-up.
  • Hulk by Waid and Duggan (2014-15) – That would be Mark Waid and Gerry Duggan with Duggan doing the bulk of the run. Mark Bagley is the main artist here.
  • The Totally Awesome Hulk (2015-17) – This would be Amadeus Cho’s turn as Hulk, which mean Greg Pak is you primary writer with an artist rotation including Frank Cho, Alan Davis and Luke Ross
  • Immortal Hulk (2018-21) – Al Ewing’s masterpiece as the Hulk slides over towards horror and find a green door that leads to Hell.
  • Hulk (2021-23) – The Donny Cates / Ryan Ottley run
    • Hulk Vs. Thor: Banner of War – The Cates/Martin Coccolo cross-over that’s 100% part of this run, but listed separately.

What’s good? We like the value of the Epic Collections in the original series (and Tales to Astonish) for $6.99.  The Masterworks editions for $5.99 aren’t bad either, so pick your period and format.

As for “the best of” Hulk…

We think this Epic Collection of the Tales to Astonish run is a good introduction to the Hulk. A rock solid creator rotation of Lee/Kirby/Ditko/Kane/Everett/Buscema/Severin. The introductions of The Leader and the Abomination (among others). Cold war paranoia and you get to the the original evolution of the Hulk as a character that changes formats and approaches every so often.

Immortal Hulk is a high water mark and well worth your time, though not really what you’d call a traditional Hulk tale.  Peter David’s lengthy run is a classic (and we’re not going to divide it up by artist periods – it’s all good). Greg Pak has gone big like few others with Planet Hulk and World War Hulk.

Something under the radar?  There’s a Paul Jenkins/Ron Garney/John Romita Junior run that preceded the better known Bruce Jones era. It’s collected with some other things, but the two volumes are The Dogs of War and Past Perfect. It goes darker than a lot of the Hulk tales, but we sure liked it.

Hulk Epic Collection   Hulk Dogs of War   Hulk - Past Perfect

Spy Games

The Marvel Nick Fury and Agents of SHIELD sale runs through Monday, 7/10.

It’s a Nick Fury sale (both of him) and a SHIELD sale, because the two aren’t always the same thing. Let’s start with breaking this down by series:

  • Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos (’63-’74) – Nick Fury started out fronting a WW II war book (as interpreted by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby)
  • Strange Tales (’51-’68) – originally splitting the book with Doctor Strange, Nick Fury started off with Lee/Kirby and ended up with the classic Jim Steranko run.
  • Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. (’68-’71)  – this Masterworks edition catches the last of Steranko and then the creators rotate a bit. Highlights include some Archie Goodwin stories and a bit of early Barry Windsor-Smith (pre-Windsor, technically)
  • Nick Fury Vs. S.H.I.E.L.D. (’88) – Bob Harras and Paul Neary restarted the franchise with a bang in what was originally published as a Prestige/Dark Knight format mini-series
  • Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. (’88-’92) – Spinning out of the hit mini-series, this had a few different teams. We associated it most with Bob Harras/Bob Hall and D.G. Chichester / Jackson Guice.
  • Wolverine & Nick Fury: Scorpio  (’89) – A collection of three Prestige format tales teaming up Logan & Nick. Archie Goodwin / Howard Chaykin; Tom DeFalco/John Buscema; Howard Chaykin / Shawn McManus
  • Secret Warriors (’08-’11) – Bendis is in on the beginning, but this is really a Jonathan Hickman series with Stefano Caselli and Alessandro Vitti as primary artists
  • S.H.I.E.L.D. (’10-’11) – Jonathan Hickman/Dustin Weaver, and this series is listed in a very confusing way. Here’s how you need to look at it:
  • Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (’16) – Based on the TV show with Marc Guggenheim writing and German Peralta as the primary artist.
  • Secret Warriors (’16-’17) – Matthew Rosenberg / Javier Garron
  • Nick Fury: Deep Cover Capers (’17) – James Robinson / ACO

What’s good?  For many, the definitive Nick Fury is the Steranko run and if you only want that, the  whole thing is in one edition. (It’s unevenly split across the three masterworks.)

Nick Fury Vs. S.H.I.E.L.D. is the definitive “there’s something wrong at SHIELD and Fury is on the run” story. It’s emulated for a reason.

Nick Fury: Deep Cover Capers is your under the radar pick. Fun, breezy spy hijinks with a ’60s Bond/UNCLE/Avengers vibe and great art.

SHIELD by Steranko   Nick Fury vs. SHIELD   Nick Fury Deep-Cover Capers

Not Periscope, Not Necroscope…

The Zenescope $5 Graphic Novel Sale runs through Sunday, 7/23.

Portions of this have been in previous Zenescope sales, but one thing that stood out to us in this one that hadn’t been in the previous sales is the Wonderland material. We’re not particularly familiar with it, but back in the day, the Zenescope title that seemed to have the most positive comments was always the Raven Gregory revival of Wonderland with Alice’s daughter venturing back down the rabbit hole.  We think this is the reading order for that:

And several more mini-series/collections sprinkled in as the ongoing series progresses.

Return to Wonderland   Tales From Wonderland

Is This a Veiled George Takei Reference?

The  Dark Horse Oh My Goddess Sale runs through Monday, 7/3.

What we have here is a repeat of last week… only this time, the Lone Wolf & Cub sale is sharing the same URL with the Oh My Goddess Sale. Yes, two weeks in a row. (And the Viz sale is also doubled up, although by the time you see this, it will probably be over.)

Instead of linking to the sale page and telling you to reload a few times until the right page turns up, we’re just going to link directly to the actual Oh My Goddess series page and save you some time. Who knows? Maybe this won’t happen next week?

Oh My Goddess

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Secret Invasion, Ultimate X-Men, Flash, Ultimate Fantastic Four, Lone Wolf and Cub

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel discounts Secret Invasion, Ultimate X-Men and Ultimate Fantastic Four. DC has a second Flash sale and Dark Horse slashes prices on Lone Wolf & Cub.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

(Disclosure: If you buy something we link to on our site, we may earn a commission.)

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

The Flash Sequel

The DC Flash Multiverse Sale runs through Monday, 7/3.

Yes, it’s a sequel… to last week’s Flash sale. (And a lot of the same comics are still on sale). Go back to the last column for a look at some of the Flash comics on sale and we’ll focus on Multiversal goodness here.  For example…

Multiversity by Grant Morrison, Ivan Reis, Frank Quitely and Jim Lee (among others) is just about as multiverse as a person can get. That would be Morrison creating new and fun worlds from whole cloth and conducting and interdimensional tour of sorts. Your basic triumph of imagination and fun. Plus, it’s a 450 page volume.

Justice League of America: The Nail – The Complete Collection by Alan Davis. A nail gives Ma and Pa Kent a flat tire and they don’t find Kal-El’s rocket. Thus, the Justice League forms in a world without Superman and it’s a less trusting world.  A masterwork from Davis. This collects The Nail and the sequel Another Nail.

And for something off the radar – Freedom Fighters: Rise of a Nation by Robert Venditti, Eddy Barrows and Bruno Redondo. This one pretty much shocked us when we read it. A modern, and darker, telling of the traditional Earth X setup. On world where the Germany won WWII and crushed the remaining resistance in a Dallas book depository in 1963, a team of Freedom Fighters reform in the image of the fallen and seek out Uncle Sam to lead them against their Nazi oppressors.  Much closer in tone to The Man in the High Castle than the original. And yes, its a spin-off from Multiversity.

Plenty more to look at in this sale, should you have some time to browse.

Multiversity   The Nail   Freedom Fighters

Is It Still a Secret?

The Marvel Secret Invasion Sale runs through Monday, 7/10.

Why yes, there’s a streaming series coming out. And yes, that’s a longer sale than usual.

This is about the Skrulls invading Earth, assuming identities, embedding themselves and trying to take over.

We’re honestly not sure why Marvel hasn’t come up with a series of omnibuses to better collect this Event. Secret Invasion was a very carefully coordinated series that crossed over into most of the line and was also partially told in flashback. You’d get a little further in plot and then some of the sundry titles would reveal what really happened that you didn’t yet know about. We’re not even sure how official the official reading order is. (Has Bendis ever posted one? He’d be the one to ask.)

The spine of the Event is the Secret Invasion miniseries by Brian Bendis and Leinil Francis Yu.

The next layer of Secret Invasion is the Bendis-penned Avengers titles where a lot of things get fleshed out and you discover how things got to where they did:

Now from there, you spread out closer to the characters you’re interested in. For something clear out of left field, we’d recommend the Secret Invasion: Captain Marvel collection by Brian Reed and Lee Weeks. The original Mar-Vell returns as the Invasion begins and he’s not quite sure how he got there.  It’s a bigger part of the over-all story than you might be expecting going in.

Secret Invasion   Secret Invasion: Captain Marvel

Ultimate Sale III – Now With More Mutants

The Marvel Ultimate X-Men and FF Sale runs through Monday, 6/26.

We told you this was coming, didn’t we?

Since The Maker is the instigator of the upcoming Jonathan Hickman / Bryan Hitch Ultimate Invasion, that makes the original Ultimate Fantastic Four a little more central to the Marvel experience doesn’t it? We’re talk two runs:

The original Ultimate Fantastic Four had Brian Bendis, Warren Ellis, Mark Millar and Mike Carey (yes, The Girl With All the Gifts M.R. Carey) tagging off on writer duties. The artist rotation includes Adam Kubert, Stuart Immonen, Jae Lee, Greg Land, Pasqual Ferry, Mark Brooks and Tyler Kirkham.  And a bit of trivia for you: Marvel Zombies?  It’s an Ultimate Fantastic Four spin-off.  Check out V.3 of the omnibuses. That’s where it all begins.

Ultimate Fantastic Four

Over on the mutant side of the street, the spread looks like this:

The original Ultimate X-Men run has a very interesting writer rotation. Mark Millar begins and ends it. In between are runs by Bryan K. Vaughan (Saga / Y – The Last Man) and Robert Kirkman (Walking Dead). The artist rotation includes Adam Kubert, Andy Kubert, Chris Bachalo, David Finch, Brandon Peterson, Stuart Immonen, Tom Raney and Salvador Larocca… among others.

Ultimate Comics X-Men was written first by Nick Spencer and later Brian Wood. Artists included Paco Medina, Carlo Barberi, Mahmud Asrar and Alvaro Martinez.

Ultimate X-Men   Ultimate Comics X-Men   Ultimate Comics Wolverine

The Baby Cart Assassin

The Dark Horse Lone Wolf & Cub Sale runs through Monday, 7/3.

As we type this, the sale is currently one of those “Nega-Bands” sales. Amazon has assigned it to the same URL as the Avatar sale and if you reload a few times, it will alternate between the sales like Rick Jones and Mar-Vell switching places in the Negative Zone. Amazon, in their infinite smoothness, does this more often than you’d think.

Since this is a single title sale, we’re linking directly to the title page, which should hopefully prevent confusion.

Where were we? Right.

Lone Wolf & Cub by Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima is one of the most respected manga out there and likely the greatest samurai manga of all time. No hyperbole.

When the Shogun’s executioner is framed for treason and his household slaughtered, Itto Ogami flees with his one year old son and becomes an assassin for hire, biding his time as he plans revenge on the clan that tried to ruin him.

There’s a lot of revenge served cold in this series. It’s pretty bloody and not for kids, but very, very good. Also $2.99/volume, so cheap.

Lone Wolf and Cub

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales – The Ultimates / Marvel Ultimate Universe; Original Sin; Marvel Manga

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, it’s a Marvel week: The Ultimates, Original Sin and Marvel Manga are the new additions to the deal pile.

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 “Other” Avengers

The Marvel Ultimates & the Ultimate Universe Sale runs through Monday, 6/19.

As you’ve probably heard, Jonathan Hickman and Bryan Hitch (we’ll come back to those names) are re-launching the Ultimate Universe in some fashion in a few months.

Last week, we had the Ultimate Spider-Man sale. We suspect in the next week or two, we’ll have Ultimate Fantastic Four and Ultimate X-Men sales. This week, it’s The Ultimates, who are the Avengers of that universe… and that series, particularly the first couple installments, was extremely influential on the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

And yes, you’re going to be seeing a parade of A-list artists.

The core material here is the Mike Millar-penned Ultimates material.  His run is:

Hitch drew those iconic first two volumes, but you might reasonable be curious what Mr. Hickman was doing when he wrote for the Ultimate line:

There’s actually a lot of good stuff to browse here, but it comes with a warning. (How often do we issue a warning?) You don’t want Jeph Loeb in the Ultimate Universe. Nope. It’s not Long Halloween. You also don’t want the Orson Scott Card Iron Man. Marvel probably thought they were getting Ender and it is NOT.

Ultimates   The Ultimates 2   Ultimate Comics - The Ultimates

Born This Way

The Marvel Original Sin Sale runs through Monday, 6/19.

This would be the Marvel Event by Jason Aaron and Mike Deodato where the Marvel heroes investigate the murder of The Watcher.

Original Sin is the core series.

Original Sin: Hulk Vs. Iron Man by Mark Waid, Kieron Gillen and Mark Bagley is really Original Sin 3.1-3.4

Original Sin: Thor & Loki: The Tenth Realm by Jason Aaron, Al Ewing, Simone Bianchi and Lee Garbett is really Original Sin 5.1 – 5.5

As with most Marvel Events, there are plenty of tie-ins and all manner ways to read them (that involve flipping between collections), but that’s the most central set.

Original Sin   Original Sin: Hulk vs. Iron Man   Original Sin: Thor & Loki

Special Export

The Viz Marvel Manga Sale runs through Tuesday, 6/20.

That’s right. Spidey and Deadpool from Viz.

Deadpool: Samurai   Spider-Man: Fake Red   Marvel's Secret Reverse

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: The Flash (and Batman); Ultimate Spider-Man; Black Panther; and Avatar

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, it’s a movie week – comics with The Flash, Black Panther (with a screen writer pedigree), Spider-Man and Avatar.

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 Flash (Featuring Batman)

DC’s Flash Sale runs through Monday, 6/19.

It’s like there’s a movie coming out!  And that means there’s a ton of Batman and Supergirl in the sale, too.

Let’s start with the two most obvious things here:

The Flash film is based on the Flash-centered crossover Event, Flashpoint. That Geoff Johns / Adam Kubert series has The Flash altering the timeline with very unexpected effects and leads into the New 52 relaunch. (Our acquaintance saw a preview of the film, liked it and thought it improved on the comic.)

And since Michael Keaton returns to the Batman role in the film, the obvious tie-in here is Batman ’89.  Sam Ham, the original 80s Batman screenwriter, joins artist Joe Quinones to tell the tale he had in mind for the third Keaton Batman film, had the franchise not had a creative shuffle. And that’s Bill Dee Williams as Two-Face. We enjoyed this one.

Flashpoint   Batman '89

There’s plenty of Batman on sale here at good prices (particularly the 80s material), but let’s have a look at the Flash material, since this is theoretically a Flash sale.

Perhaps the most interesting thing here is the ’87 – ’09, post-Crisis Wally West Flash. It starts out with a collection of the Mike Baron / Butch Guice / Mike Collins run (with William Messner-Loebs tagging in for Baron towards the end of the collection).

Then pop over to the omnibus page of that series for some of the better prices we’ve seen on The Flash by Mark Waid (with Greg Larocque, Mike Collins and Salvador Larocca, among others); the Grant Morrison / Mark Millar / Paul Ryan run; and The Flash by Geoff Johns (with Scott Kolins and Howard Porter, among others). Those are some classic runs and the Flash runs we prefer by Waid and Johns.

The current run of Flash is here, and it starts with a lengthy Josh Williamson run. (It’s a little cheaper to get these three double-volumes which are the equivalent of the first 6 at the first link.)

The Flash   The Flash   Flash

Ultimate Spider-Bendis

The Marvel Ultimate Spider-Man Sale runs through Monday, 6/12.

Is this a companion piece to the Spider-Verse sale? It might as well be, because Miles Morales is the centerpiece of that sale and the saga of the Ultimate Peter Parker runs right into the origin of Miles.  And yes, the two Ultimate Spider-Men could be looked at as one really long Brian Bendis tale.

This sale is easily broken into three parts:

Ultimate Spider-Man   Ultimate Comics Spider-Man   Ultimate Comics Spider-Man: Death of Spider-Man Fallout

Black Pantherama

The Marvel Black Panther Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 6/12.

It’s a Legacy sale, which means the whole catalog, so first lets break down the highlights

  • The Don McGregor era (AKA, pre-Priest), where Don McGregor was primary author… with a notable Kirby interlude. The best way to navigate the multiple editions is:
  • The Chrisopher Priest era  – with art by Mark Texiera, M.D. Bright and Sal Velluto (among others)
  • The Reggie Hudlin era (yes, “House Party” / “Boomerang” Hudlin) – with art by John Romita, Jr., Scot Eaton and Denys Cowan (among others)
  • The Ta-Nehisi Coates era (yes, from The Atlantic) – while the volumes are numbered consecutively, it’s split into two listing
    • Part one – with art by Brian Stelfreeze and Chris Sprouse (among others)
    • Part two – with art by Daniel Acuna and Kev Walker (among others)
  • The John Ridley era (Yes, Oscar-winner Ridley from 12 Years a Slave) – with art by Juann Cabal and German Peralta

Honestly, most of the Panther pantheon is pretty good. If you haven’t read the original McGregor run, it’s truly the foundational work on the character and almost everyone calls back to it. (That’s also where Killmonger originates.)

The Priest run might be the most celebrated – and it is extremely good.

And while it’s lesser known (possibly because it’s new), we’ve been pretty happy with the Ridley run, in particular the second volume with its extra biting commentary on colonialism.

Black Panther Masterworks   Black Panther by Priest   Black Panther by John Ridley

Speaking of Movies…

The Dark Horse Avatar Sale runs through Monday, 6/26.

Yes, there are Avatar comics. And they’re displayed in a somewhat confusing way. (Yes, yes… we were shocked, too.)

This link is for the $0.99 single issues AND the three High Ground 88 page “graphic novels.”

The collected editions are here. 6 issues to a $5.99 collected edition, so there’s a 5-cent difference between the two formats, if you’re keeping count.

Avatar   Avatar

The Green Hood

The Zenescope Character Spotlight Sale runs through Saturday, 6/24.

And the character in question is Robyn Hood (the Grimm’s Fairy Tales version).

This is available in 3 formats:

And as we were looking at this, we saw a couple names we weren’t expecting to see.  The volumes “The Curse” and “Justice” are written by Chuck Dixon. “Outlaw” is written by Howard Mackie.

Robyn Hood x Robyn Hood x Robyn Hood

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Spider-Verse, Miles Morales, DC Pride, Fear Itself, Usagi Yojimbo, Plants vs. Zombies

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, it’s a Spider-Verse  and Fear Itself Discounts from Marvel. DC has a Pride sale. Dark Horse offers up Usagi Yojimbo and Plants Vs. Zombies.

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):

A Half-Month Sale

The DC Pride Sale runs through Thursday, 6/15.

No, your eyes aren’t deceiving you, a 17-day sale from DC. Been a while since we’ve seen one of those

What’s good?

For this sale, our favorite volume is Batwoman by Greg Rucka and J.H. Williams III. That would be the full collection of the Detective Comics run. Strong collection and the introduction of Alice. To say more would be spoilers.

The Grant Morrison / (primarily) Richard Case run on Doom Patrol is a classic journey into the offbeat.  Mr. Nobody and The Brotherhood of Dada, Danny the Street, Crazy Jane… strange is the operative word here, in a good way.

You can’t really have a Pride Sale without Wonder Woman, can you? And there’s a LOT of Wonder Woman at the bottom of the sale. You can’t really go wrong with either of the Greg Rucka runs, the second of which (with Nicola Scott and Liam Sharp) can be found in the first two volumes here. And you can’t go wrong with George Perez, either.

Batwoman    Doom Patrol   Wonder Woman

Invasion of the Spider-Riffs

The Marvel Spider-Verse Sale runs through Monday, 6/12.

Gosh, you’d think there was a movie coming out or something…

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.)

If you’re looking for Miles Morales, Miles Morales: Ultimate Spider-Man Ultimate Collection is the best place to start (and also a bit of a tongue twister). That’s the original Brian Bendis / Chris Samnee / David Marquez / Sara Pichelli Ultimate Universe material that set the table and we’ve enjoyed this take.

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

Spider-Verse   Miles Morales - Spider-Man   Spider-Ham

If You Needed Something To Fear…

The Marvel Fear Itself Sale runs through Monday, 6/5.

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

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

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

Fear Itself   Invincible Iron Man: Fear Itself

Gardening For The Dead

The Dark Horse Plants Vs. Zombies Sale runs through Monday, 6/19.

Yes, this would be the comics adaptation of the Plants vs. Zombies video games by Paul Tobin and several artists (Ron Chan being the most frequent). And these sell better in the bookstore market than you might realize.

The omnibus editions are the best deal.

Plants vs. Zombies

Have Rabbit, Will Travel

The Dark Horse 2023 Usagi Yojimbo Digital Sale runs through Monday, 6/19.

This is Stan Sakai’s long-running (it started in 1984) saga of a samurai/ronin rabbit. It’s got a pretty nice collection of awards, too.

And this is one where there’s a CLEAR winner in format: $6.99 Omnibus Editions that are usually over 600 pages.

Usagi Yojimbo

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Captain America (It Is Memorial Day Weekend, After All)

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, it’s a Captain America sale for Memorial Day Weekend, plus a look at some of the more recently discounted DC titles.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

(Disclosure: If you buy something we link to on our site, we may earn a commission.)

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

Super Soldier Sale

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

A Captain America Sale for Memorial Day? Can’t argue with that.

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

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 are pricier 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

We’ve also been enjoying the current set of Captain America books. Set? Yes, Symbol of Truth (Sam) and Sentinel of Liberty (Steve) start out on separate paths, but eventually converge. Symbol of Truth comes out of the gate hot. Sentinel of Liberty is slowly unspooling a conspiracy retcon and takes a little longer to get moving, but it gets there. We’ve heard some references to these titles being underappreciated, so now’s a decent time to sample.

Captain America: Symbol of Truth   Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty

Bats and Such

The DC Memorial Day Sale runs through Monday, 5/29.

Yes, this is the same sale as last week. If you scroll down to the “Still on Sale” section, you’ll find that most of what was on last week is still on sale this week… with a couple new manga editions.

But since this is a larger sale and it’s a slow week, we’re going to highlight the more recent releases, several of which haven’t been on sale that many times previously. Most of these collections came out between December and February, so browse the newer material:

Batman / Catwoman   Catwoman: Lonely City   Swamp Thing V.3 - The Parliament of Gears

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales – Batman; Adam Warlock; Fables; Squirrel Girl; Avatar: the Last Airbender

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, DC discounts some Batman and Fables (among others);  Marvel serves up Adam Warlock and Squirrel Girl; Dark Horse slashes prices on The Witcher, Avatar the Last Airbender and Legend of Korra; and Caliber goes line wide.

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):

Bats and Such

The DC Memorial Day Sale runs through Monday, 5/29.

This is one of DC’s thematically unlinked sales… which happens to have some good prices mixed into a 460 item list.

If you like ’80s/early ’90s Batman comics, the Caped Crusader (Batman) and Dark Knight Detective (Detective Comics) collections are $3.99 each, which is less than they’re sometimes offered. You’ll need to scroll down a little in the links, but Caped Crusader will take you from the Starlin/Aparo era through Alan Grant & Norm Breyfogle.  Dark Knight Detective takes you from Mike W. Barr / Alan Davis through Peter Milligan/Jim Aparo.

Also $3.99 each, the “Deluxe” (i.e., larger) edition of Fables by Bill Willingham and Mark Buckingham. The classic fantasy about the characters of fables and fairy tales fleeing to our world as a despot conquers their worlds.

Batman: The Caped Crusader   Batman: The Dark Knight Detective   Fables

A more recent book, but still at a good price, that’s been getting a little cheap attention is Batman: Killing Time by Tom King and David Marquez for $3.99.

Batman: Killing Time

The Artist Formerly Known as Him

The Marvel Adam Warlock and the Infinity Watch Sale runs through Monday, 5/22.

A small, but interesting sale, since Warlock is a through point for much of Jim Starlin’s Marvel work.  With the original “main” title, you can pretty much pick your packaging of the Starlin work. Masterworks V.1 is the pre-Starlin original solo run of the character. Everything else is basically the same material in slightly different formats.

And then Warlock returned for the Infinity series of Events

George Perez is the initial artist on these titles, with Ron Lim tagging in after a few issues. We found Infinity Gauntlet to be one of Marvel’s most enjoyable Events. War and Crusade start to dilute a bit from the original, but are a notch above most of the recent events.

It’s also worth noting the Aftermath volumes are a little more germane to the overall story arc than with some others. They’re absolutely not required reading, but Starlin and company do tend to the garden of plot developments between Events in places like the Adam Warlock titles and Silver Surfer.

Warlock Masterworks   Infinity Gauntlet   Infinity War

The Rodent of the Trees

The Marvel Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Sale is running through Monday, 5/22.

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

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

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

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

Squirrel Girl

Magical Bounty Hunting

The Dark Horse Witcher Sale runs through Monday, 5/29.

While it’s usually presented as a video game adaptation, since these pre-date the TV series, we usually thing of The Witch as a series of novels.  We’re reasonably sure Andrzej Sapkowski would agree with that assessment.

You can partake here in three formats:

  1. $0.99 single issues
  2. The “regular” collected editions
  3. The omnibuses

The first omnibus is pretty good deal. And the second “Library Edition” omnibus is still cheaper than single issues, though it’s a bit pricier.

Witcher Omnibus

Throw Another Nickel In

The Dark Horse Avatar/Korra Digital Sale runs through Monday, 5/29.

Nickelodeon comics adapting the animated features. For these comics, what Amazon refers to as “issues” is generally an 80 page comic and the omnibuses are collecting three of those, with the omnibus being more bang for your buck.

There’s a bit more to the longer-lived Avatar series, which feature Gene Yang and Faith Erin Hicks among its writers.

The Legend of Korra is a bit newer property and has fewer volumes.

Avatar: The Last Airbender   Legend of Korra

But Is It 9mm or .45?

The Caliber Digital Comics Sale runs through Thursday, 6/15.

There are a few titles here that were notable in the ’80s indie boom.

Deadworld   The Realm    Jazz Age Chronicles

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.

Ageless

Still On Sale

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Green Lantern, Carnage, Cyberpunk 2077; Grimm Fairy Tales

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, DC discounts Green Lantern, Marvel’s Carnage sale stops being stealth, DH throws Cyberpunk 2077 into the arena and Zenescope goes line wide with Grimm Fairy Tales.

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):

Night Lights

The DC Green Lantern Sale runs through Monday, 1/15.

Green Lantern’s been rebooted a LOT over the years (especially post-New 52), so let’s start out by listing the major titles involved here.

  • Green Lantern (’60-’86) – The original, although only certain stretches are collected.
  • Green Lantern Corps (’86-’88) – The original title changed to Corps to wrap up the Steve Englehart/Joe Staton era. We consider this the last stretch of the original series.
  • Green Lantern (’90 – ’04) – Only some of the Kyle Rayner material is collected from this era.
  • Green Lantern (’05 – ’11) – The Geoff Johns era (and one of the character’s best periods), but this is complicated to get the best deal. The omnibus editions  aren’t complete yet and are broken up into different sets than the single volumes though the single volumes are mostly cheaper.  You also should get Blackest Night to go with that volume of the series. There are all sorts of tie-ins for Blackest Night, but the omnibus of that does not seem to be offered in digital.
  • Green Lantern Corps Recharge (’05 – ’06) – Geoff Johns / Dave Gibbons / Patrick Gleason set up the GLC ongoing
  • Green Lantern Corps (’06-’11) – The companion book to Green Lantern, initially by Dave Gibbons / Patrick Gleason
  • Green Lantern (’11-’16) – New 52 relaunch. Starts out with Geoff Johns / Doug Mahnke, then Robert Venditti/Billy Tan start a long run.
  • Green Lantern: New Guardians (’11-’15)-The New 52 Kyle Raynor series
  • Green Lantern Corps (’11-’15) – The New 52 John Stewart / Guy Gardner / Kilowog series
  • Red Lanterns (’11-’15) – Yes, even the Red Lanterns had a New 52 book!
  • Sinestro (’14-’16) – Cullen Bunn / Dale Eaglesham / Brad Walker
  • Green Lantern/New Gods: Godhead (’14-’15) – Event crossing over with the entire GL line
  • Green Lantern Corps: Lost Army (’15) – Cullen Bunn / Jesus Saiz
  • Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps (’16-’18) – The DCU Rebirth relaunch, initially by Robert Venditti and Rafa Sandoval
  • Green Lanterns (’16-’18) – Rebirth title starring Simon Baz and Jessica Cruz
  • Green Lantern (’19) – Also known as “Season One” by Grant Morrison and Liam Sharp
  • Green Lantern: Season Two (’20-’21) – finishing the Morrison/Sharp storyline
  • Green Lantern (’21-’22) – More of a John Stewart / Jo Mullein / Teen Lantern series by Geoffrey Thorne and Tom Raney

So what’s good? As a consequence of there not being that much reprinted, what’s available of the  original run is pretty solid. The early Broome/Kane. O’Neil/Adams. Wein/Gibbons. Englehart/Staton. All good stuff.

The Geoff Johns era is particularly good. We’d put Sinestro Corps War as the best sequence, if we had to pick.

The Morrison / Sharp run is also interesting. It starts out as more of a police procedural in space and then progressively gets stranger, with Sharp embracing the fantastical elements and leaning into that with the art. But remember, the two seasons (One and Two) form a single story.

Green Lantern   Green Lantern by Geoff Johns   Green Lantern

Deja Vu

The Marvel Carnage Sale runs through Monday, 5/15.

What’s this, you say? Wasn’t this at the bottom of the Star Wars sale last week?

Sure enough, it’s back and… got a promotion to its own sale? Umm… we have no good explanation.

If you want old school Spidey vs. Carnage, our recommendation would be the Carnage: Born in Blood Epic Collection. This gets you the first Carnage arc, as well as Maximum Carnage.

While we’re not seeing Ram V’s current horror (and Asgard) tinged Carnage title in the sale, we’re fans (the few, the proud) of the Gerry Conway / Mike Perkins Carnage run that took it in a definite horror direction with an almost Tomb of Dracula-like vibe.

Carnage  Carnage

Cheap Punks

The Dark Horse Cyberpunk 2077 sale runs through Monday, 5/15.

This video game adaption comes in two flavor – collected editions and single issues.

Guess what? 4 issues @ $0.99 each is cheaper than $5.99 for the collected edition. Choose wisely.

Cyberpunk 2077   Cyberpunk 2077

Another Fine Myth

The Grimm Universe Line Wide Digital Sale runs through Sunday, June 4th.

For those of you who’ve been clamoring for a few more independent publishers on the deals page, we now see a Zenescope sale for the first time in a while.

Unfortunately, we’re not that familiar with Zenescope’s output and the thing we most often hear about, Raven Gregory’s Wonderland saga, isn’t well represented in the sale

The flagship title for this sale is Grimm Fairy Tales.

It breaks down this way (for easier browsing):

2007-16 series

Collected Editions and Omnibus Editions work out to roughly the same price and are cheaper than single issues. The Omnibuses only take you to issue 75, the Collected Editions go further.

2016 series

Grimm Fairy Tales   Grimm Fairy Tales 2016 series

Still On Sale

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Guardians of the Galaxy; Green Arrow; Injustice: Gods Among Us; Creepy and Eerie

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, The Guardian of the Galaxy get discounts at Marvel. DC cuts prices on Green Arrow and video game titles (like Injustice), while Dark Horse slashes Creepy and Eerie.

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):

Note: we covered the Marvel May the Fourth Star Wars Sale on May 4th, so click there for Darth Vader & Co.

Groot is the Word

The Marvel Guardians of the Galaxy Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 5/15.

You’d think there was movie coming out or something?

Original Guardians of the Galaxy

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

What’s good here?  Well, we’ve always liked the original. Particularly the Steve Gerber bits. We also loved the recent Al Ewing / Juan Cabal run. And if you like the current incarnation, you should probably go back to the source with the DnA run.

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

The Bow’s Green, Too

The DC Green Arrow Sale runs through Monday, 5/8.

They have a couple anthologies of Green Arrow over the years (the 80 years version is cheaper), but the bulk of this sale are the solo titles from Longbow Hunters onward.

What’s good? While you’ll certainly have your Lemire/Sorrentino proponents, we prefer the earlier solo material. Mike Grell had an impressive run between The Longbow Hunters and the ongoing series. The ongoing was a bit less violent than Longbow Hunters and widely known for being both an enjoyable and quick read. We’d also give a look to the Kevin Smith / Phil Hester run, which was a fun time.

Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters   Green Arrow    Green Arrow by Kevin Smith

Shall We Play a Game?

The DC Video Game Tie-In Sale runs through Monday, 5/8

And if we are honest, there is a star in this sale. Injustice: Gods Among Us, a video game adaptation that had more legs than anyone ever would have guessed. It’s good! It’s written by Tom Taylor and, later, Brian Buccellato. Art is by Bruno Redondo and Mike S. Miller.  Hmmm… Tom Taylor and Bruno Redondo. Wherever have we heard that pairing before?

Other things in a little more palatable browsing order:

Injustice: Gods Among Us

Mysterious and Spooky

The Dark Horse – 2023 Creepy Eerie Digital Sale runs through Monday, 5/15.

These would be the classic Warren horror magazines that had some pretty big names attached to them over the years.

Creepy was the first one and is available in both omnibus  format and “Creepy Presents” volumes spotlighting individual artists (Alex Toth, Bernie Wrightson, Richard Corben, Steve Ditko).

Eerie was the companion series. By halfway through it’s run, it had evolved into something a little different with multi-part stories and characters who returned, the breakout character being The Rook (a time traveler with some western elements baked in). It’s also available in omnibus format and “Eerie Presents” for collecting individual features (El Cid and Hunter).

Creepy   Eerie

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: May the Fourth Be With You – Star Wars Sale (and Carnage, too)

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, it’s May the 4th, so that means a Star Wars Sale. And also… Carnage?

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):

Yes, we know May 4th is a holy day for many of you, so we’re breaking down the Star Wars Sale today and then we’ll be back at the normal time for the rest of this week’s sales.

Nothing But Star Wars… except for Carnage

The Marvel May the Fourth Star Wars Sale runs through Monday, 5/8.

First, let’s run through the highlights. Where appropriate, we’ll be linking the the omnibus editions. You can toggle between “omnibuses” and “volumes” (i.e. the “regular,” thinner collected editions) using the drop down menu on the left hand side of the screen under the series picture/graphic.

  • Bounty Hunters (’20 – present) – Ethan Sacks / Paolo Villanelli
  • War of the Bounty Hunters (’21) – Charles Soule / Steve McNiven / Luke Ross, wherein Boba Fett tries to deliver a carbonite encased Han Solo to Jaba the Hutt
  • Darth Vader (’15-’16) – The AMAZING Kieron Gillen / Salvador Larroca run
    Vader Down – the Darth Vader / Star Wars crossover sequence that is KEY to this run if you’re getting the “regular” volumes – it’s in the omnibus editions.
  • Darth Vader (’17 – ’18) – The also great Charles Soule / Giuseppe Camuncoli run
  • Darth Vader (’20 – present) – Greg Pak and Raffaele Ienco step in.
  • Doctor Aphra (’16-’19) – Sort of an evil Indiana Jones in the Star Wars universe, spinning off from Darth Vader. The early Gillen/Walker run is particularly good.
    The Screaming Citadel – Star Wars/Aphra crossover with key plot points to the early sequence – it’s included in the Omnibus, but not the “regular” volumes. (Seeing a pattern?)
  • Doctor Aphra (’20 – present) – Alyssa Wong / Marika Cresta / Minkyu Jung
  • Kanan: The Last Padawan – Star Wars Rebels prequel by by Greg Weisman and Pepe Larraz
  • The Mandalorian (’22-’23) – Steven Barnes and Georges Jeanty adapt the first season
  • Star Wars (’15-’19) – The Marvel flagship title amazingly went 4 years without a relaunch!
  • Star Wars (’20 – present) – The relaunch! And, following protocol, Charles Soule moves from Darth Vader to Star Wars, like Gillen before him.
  • Star Wars: The High Republic (’21-’22)

Recommendations? For whatever reason, Darth Vader seems to bring out the best in Marvel. Those first two series with Gillen and Soule, especially. Is is a coincidence Lucasfilm hired Charles Soule as a creative consultant?

Your under the radar title is Kanan. A very solid series from one the Star Wars Rebels producers and Pepe Larraz has since been promoted to X-Men.

Darth Vader    Darth Vader    Kanan - The Last Padawan

And then, at the bottom of the Star Wars sales page, there are a bunch of Carnage comics on sale. We have absolutely no idea why this is. Then again, is it the first time we were baffled? That would be a big NOPE.

So, if you want old school Spidey vs. Carnage, our recommendation would be the Carnage: Born in Blood Epic Collection. This gets you the first Carnage arc, as well as Maximum Carnage.

While we’re not seeing Ram V’s current horror (and Asgard) tinged Carnage title in the sale, we’re fans (the few, the proud) of the Gerry Conway / Mike Perkins Carnage run that took it in a definite horror direction with an almost Tomb of Dracula-like vibe.

Carnage  Carnage

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