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?

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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 SquadronMark 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: BlazeSi 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 Collinswhich 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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Still on Sale

Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Avengers; Doctor Doom; Aquaman; Vault Comics; The Dark Tower

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel discounts nearly the entire Avengers run, plus Doctor Doom. DC has an “All-Star” sale. Plus, some unannounced Vault and Dark Tower 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):

Avengers Assemble

Avengers Assemble

The Marvel Avengers Sale runs through Monday, 5/27

And this as pretty much everything except the Masterworks editions. (Hey, don’t look at us… we think that’s a strange omission, too.)

Let’s start about by breaking down the major series/titles on sale:

The Jonathan Hickman era

Avengers by Jonathan Hickman

The Hickman era is a little complicated, because his Avengers and New Avengers titles run together, so the Avengers by Jonathan Hickman collections are what we’d recommend for a more natural reading experience. Those collect both titles, plus tie-ins… and this is something were reading order counts.

But, this being Marvel collections, it get more complicated. The Avengers/New Avengers material (whichever format you read it in) is just one segment of Hickman’s tale. The story is continued in Avengers: Time Runs Outwhich is the real last arc of Avengers and New Avengers. (And it’s in the “by Hickman” omnibuses.)

And all this funnels into Secret Wars, the true endgame of Hickman’s Avengers run… which, of course, is not included in the sale… but it is in Doctor Doom sale, this week only. (Stranger and stranger.)

The Hickman era really is it’s own beast. A lot of comics talk about having an “epic scale.” This one’s scope is staggering and the sheer size of the scope means it gets better and better as things progress in a way few comics really do. So just know that the entire era is effectively one extended story and it’s a real “in for a penny, in for a pound” thing.

The Jason Aaron era

Avengers

While not necessarily as complex as the Hickman era, there are a few different ways to read it:

Enter Jed MacKay

Avengers

We didn’t see it on the official list, but  V. 1 of the Jed MacKay / C.F. Villa Avengers run is on sale.

What’s at the top of the list for recommendations?

For the classic series, there are a lot of good runs. The first Roy Thomas/John Buscema run, particularly around the introduction of The Vision. The Kree-Skrull War. Steve Englehart’s Run. Jim Shooter’s run. Roger Stern’s run, particularly when the team of John Buscema and Tom Palmer return. There is a ton of good stuff to look at. When we factor in price point and page count (some of the newer Epic Collections are a little more expensive), we keep coming back to The Final Threat. Steve Englehart/ Gerry Conway / Jim Shooter / George Perez / John Byrne / John Buscema / Sal Buscema. You get the return of Wonder Man, “The Private War of Doctor Doom,” and “Bride of Ultron” for the major arcs. It’s a nice cross-section of creators and stories for $5.99.  But really, it’s hard to go wrong with the Kree-Skrull War through ~#200, and then pick it up again for Roger Stern.

We’re also major fans of the Kurt Busiek / George Perez run that begins here. A second golden age that stands up with the best runs.

Let’s face it, there have been a lot of good Avengers runs.

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, 5/6

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.  Also contained in the larger collection The Final Threat.

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.

There’s a bit more here, but these are a good start.

All-Stars and Friends

The DC All-Stars Sale runs through Monday, 5/6
All-Star Comics  The Atlantis Chronicles  Starman

DC seemingly randomly mixes some titles (lots of Aquaman this time) and… the correct sale pricing has returned. Yay!

A few things that caught our eye:

  • All-Star Comics: Only Legends Live Forever – Gerry Conway / Paul Levitz / Wally Wood / Keith Giffen / Joe Staton; This collects the full Justice Society 70s run and you sure don’t want to be paying the usual HC omnibus price for it!
  • Aquaman (’94) – The Peter David run
  • Aquaman: The Death of a Prince – Most of the relevant ’70s Aquaman tales in one collection – Steve Skates / David Michelinie / Paul Levitz / Jim Aparo / Mike Grell / Don Newton.  It didn’t lack for quality creators, did it?
  • The Atlantis Chronicles – Peter David / Esteban Maroto; Listed as Aquaman, but this insanely under the radar classic is a high fantasy / magic vs. science tale of the history of Atlantis. This is where all the “Orin” references come from. It’s great, beautifully illustrated and another $49.99 HC omnibus price if it isn’t on sale.
  • Starman (’94) – James Robinson / Tony Harris; One of the best comics of the mid-90’s, full stop and what jumpstarted the legacy hero trend. DC needs to finish collecting this gem.

You Were Expecting Winnie the Pooh?

Gun Honey

The Titan Gun Honey Sale runs through Monday, 6/3

Gun Honey is a series of miniseries about a weapons smuggler. Part of why it’s a series of miniseries is likely because the author is oriented towards novels. Charles Ardai might not have a high profile in the comics world, but over in the mystery world he’s won an Edgar and a Shamus. He’s also the co-publisher of Hard Case Crime. (He also has one helluva collection of pulp novel covers.)

Ang Hor Kheng provides the art.

This is available as $0.99 single issues and $5.99 collected editions. The single issues are the better value.

Undeclared Major

Ether  The Rush  Dark Tower

An eclectic mix of unannounced sales this week:

Dark Horse is celebrating the work of David Rubin:

Vault has a few titles:

More of the Robin Furth / Peter David comics based on Stephen King’s The Dark Tower

And, lastly, Economix: How and Why Our Economy Works (and Doesn’t Work), in Words and Pictures by Michael Goodwin and Dan Burr.

Past that, don’t forget the Marvel May the 4th Star Wars Sale runs through Monday.

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Still on Sale

Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Ultimate Spider-Man; DC’s Golden and Silver Ages; Marvel Villains; Resident Alien

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel lowers prices on Ultimate Spider-Man and their villains; DC slashes the Golden and Silver Ages; Dark Horse discounts Resident Alien.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

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

The Eensy Weensy Bendis Sale

The Marvel Ultimate Spider-Man Sale runs through Monday, 11/21.

Yes, this essentially one very long Bendis-written run, broken up across two people wearing Spidey’s mask. And for the most part, its a very good run. This sale is easily broken into three parts:

  • Ultimate Spider-Man – essentially, the Peter Parker years. Mark Bagley is artist for most of the run. Skip the omnibus (too expensive for V.1-3 of these larger collections), get the regular editions.
  • Ultimate Comics Spider-Man – with art by Bagley, Pichelli, David Lafuente and Chris Samnee. It’s a relaunch, continuing the Parker years to the <spoilers>
  • Ultimate Comics Spider-Man: Death of Spider-Man Fallout – with art by Bagley and Sara Pichelli. This is the transition to Miles Morales.

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

The Naughty List

The Marvel Villains Sale runs through Monday, 11/21.

This is a potpourri mix of villain-centric titles, but it’s really a decent mix if you sift through it and there are a few things we definitely recommend, the top three of which are:

Doctor Doom by Christopher Cantwell and Salvador Larroca.  A fun and out of left field adventure that finds Doom framed for an at of international terrorism, deposed from the throne of Latveria, on the run and seeking revenge while engaging in an oddly bickering relationship with Kang the Conqueror.  Good comics!

M.O.D.O.K.: Head Games by Patton Oswalt, Jordan Blum and Scott Hepburn was another unexpected delight. You might be expect a farce with Oswald and Blum involved and it is a farce… sometimes. Other times it’s a fairly serious plot and flows between the two moods fluidly. M.O.D.O.K. is concerned he might be losing his mind. He’s seeing things. Like a wife and little M.O.D.O.K.s. And he’s trying to figure out what’s gone wrong and how to fix it, which will lead to encounters with Iron Man, Gwenpool and his maker.

And even further up the farce scale is Superior Foes of Spider-Man by Nick Spencer and Steve Lieber. Boomerang has got the gang back together and he’s looking for a big score. things go off the rails in the most entertaining ways…

(If you’re looking for something a bit more serious and enjoy 70s Marvel, you could a lot worse than Super-Villain Team-Up, which is essentially Doctor Doom and Namor butting heads for the bulk of the run.)

Doctor Doom   M.O.D.O.K.: Head Games   Superior Foes of Spider-Man

DC’s Other Metals

The DC Golden Age and Silver Age Sale runs through Monday, 11/21.

And by “Golden Age and Silver Age,” they really mean the reprints with that in the title. In general, these tend to be high page count volumes. They vary a little from volume to volume, but it’s usually good bang for your buck, particularly the lower priced editions.

There’s also a selection of $0.99 single issues mostly corresponding to the collected editions, but usually extending a little past what’s in the book versions. If you go to the single issues listing, you’ll see not everything is on sale, just sections.

So let’s break this down by title:

What’s good here? We’ve always thought Doom Patrol was one of DC’s stronger Silver Age offerings, and its hard to undersell the deep weirdness of the original Wonder Woman comics… but let’s talk about the some of those ’40s single issues, which have a slight different appeal. There’s that Alfred Bester Green Lantern.  Past that Detective Comics and Sensation Comics were originally anthologies, so if you dip into the single issues, there are other features in them. Depending on the exact issue, Detective will have The Crimson Avenger, Slam Bradley, The Boy Commandos (some of it by Simon & Kirby) and Airwave. Sensation will have Mr. Terrific, Wildcat, Black Pirate and Gay Ghost. You need to check the individual issues, because lineups swap and some of them only reprint the Batman or Wonder Woman lead.

Green Lantern   Detective   Sensation Comics

Let’s See That Passport

The Dark Horse Resident Alien Sale runs through Monday, 11/28.

This would be the Peter Hogan / Steve Parkhouse series about a stranded alien hiding out as a small-town doctor. It’s better known as a TV series on Syfy.

At $4.99, the Resident Alien Omnibus V.1 is a good deal. It collects the first three “regular” collected edition. Speaking of which, while they’re not yet in an omnibus, V.4-6 of the “regular” collections are also on sale for $4.99 to underscore that the omnibus is a good deal.  Single issues are $0.99.

Resident Alien

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Still On Sale

Comixology Sales: Civil War, Doctor Doom, Shang-Chi and 50% off BOOM! (and better for Power Rangers)

Highlights from this week’s Comixology Sales include Marvel revisiting Civil War (and including Front Line for a change), Doctor Doom and Shang-Chi; plus CU subscribers get 50% off the BOOM! line which stacks on top of a Power Rangers sale.

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

50% off BOOM! for Subscribers

In what seems to be a fairly regular thing, we have another half-off sale for Comixology Unlimited subscribers.  This time it’s 50% off BOOM! – log in and the discount appears. The sale runs through 11PM ET on Monday 5/17.  You know the drill by now: go to the release date view to get this week’s new comics half off or move forward to pre-order at the same discount. A couple series you might have heard of that we’re happy to vouch for are Once & Future (Kieron Gillen & Dan Mara) and Something Is Killing the Children (James Tynion IV & Werther Dell’Edera).

And since the discount stacks, that means you’re looking at 75% discounts for the Power Rangers Sale.

Power Rangers

Civil War

The Marvel Civil War Complete Event Sale runs through Sunday, 5/16.

Which is to say, all the copious tie-in volumes are also on sale. We’ve been saying this for YEARS – Marvel has done a lousy job packaging the Civil War reprints. There are two titles you need to read Civil War properly. The titular Civil War mini-series is sort of the action movie version of the story. This is the more famous series by Mark Millar and Steve McNiven.  Civil War: Front Line Vol.1  and Vol. 2 written by Paul Jenkins and drawn by lots of folks, including Ramon Bachs, Steve Lieber and Lee Weeks, is the actual plot of the story as reporters (notably Ben Urich) try to track down who caused the conflict and why.  We firmly maintain you should not read Civil War without also reading Front Line.

You can expand to the rest of the line after these two series.  Maybe start with the Wolverine volume as that has Logan going after the people responsible for the inciting incident.

Civil War   Civil War: Front Line V. 1   Civil War: Front Line V. 2

The Face of Doom

The Marvel Doctor Doom Sale runs through Sunday, 5/16.

The recent Doctor Doom series by Christopher Cantwell and Salvador Larroca is an instant classic well worth your time. (There’s a second volume not on sale.)

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 sort of off-shoot of the Doctor Doom vs. Sub-Mariner Super Villain Team-Up title and a fun enough sequence.

Fantastic Four Epic Collection: The Name is Doom by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby is one of two Fantastic Four Epic Collections in the sale and we just like this volume slightly better for having a particularly iconic Doom story.

Doctor Doom   Avengers - The Private War of Doctor Doom   Fantastic Four Epic Collection: The Name is Doom

Master of Kung Fu

The Marvel Shang-Chi Sale runs through Thursday, 5/20.

As you may have heard, Marvel has a movie coming out with their 70s Kung Fu hero, Shang-Chi. There’s a bit of controversy around the character, as it was originally a licensed feature spinning out of the Fu Manchu franchise. Marvel’s currently re-inventing Shang-Chi without Fu Manchu as more of a fantasy-tinged Kung Fu strip.  We’d suggest checking out the original version, which was much more of an espionage comic. Sort of Shaw Brothers crossed with Ian Fleming.  There are two Epic Editions on sale: Master of Kung Fu Epic Edition: Weapon of the Soul and Master of Kung Fu Epic Edition: Fight Without Pity. Steve Englehart and Jim Starlin launch it, then Doug Moench takes over as writer with several artists rotating through including Jim Craig, Keith Pollard and (most famously) Paul Gulacy. Potential trigger warning on ’70s tropes and color palettes, but a lot of people place MOKF at the top of Marvel’s 70s titles alongside Tomb of Dracula and Man-Thing.

Master of Kung Fu   Master of Kung Fu

Still on Sale