Tag: Excalibur

Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Superman; Captain Britain and Excalibur; New Mutants; Thunderbolts; The Witcher

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, DC has wide discounts for Superman’s Anniversary. Marvel drops prices on Captain Britain and Excalibur, New Mutants and Thunderbolts. Dark Horse holds a sale on The Witcher.

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-Sale

Superman  All-Star Superman  Superman: Phantom Zone

The DC Superman Anniversary Sale runs through Monday, 4/22.

An All-Superman, all-the-time sale. Now, DC’s digital depth doesn’t really go as deep as Marvel, so everything before the John Byrne/Man of Steel era is a little spotty… but you know what? Byrne’s run ushered in a pretty entertaining period.

The slightly better buy for the early portion of that Byrne-initiated period is the smaller Man of Steel collections (this flip-flops from sale to sale with the larger volumes). This is the post-Crisis relaunch spearheaded by John Byrne, but also with Marv Wolfman, Jerry Ordway, Roger Stern and Dan Jurgen showing up early on. Solid runs and we’re particularly fond of Ordway’s work.

After Byrne left, but still firmly in what we’d consider this period of Superman, there’s a good run by George Perez with Roger Stern and Kerry Gammill collected in The Adventures of Superman by George Perez.

One of the somewhat rare ’80s reprints that we’ve enjoyed is Superman: The Phantom Zone by Steve Gerber and Gene Colan. This is a very odd, horror-flavored Superman tale as he confronts something unnatural that’s been living in the Phantom Zone… but you weren’t expecting Gerber & Colan to give you the ’50s TV version, were you?

Emperor Joker is a 2000 storyline from Jeph Loeb / Ed McGuinness / Joe Kelly / Doug Mahnke that finds the Joker acquiring godlike powers and remaking the world in his image. Not an Elseworlds, but entertainingly over the top.

For more recent items, the Mark Waid / Dan Mora World’s Finest (with a certain caped crusader in tow) is aces.

Superman Smashes the Klan has Gene Yang and Gurihiru revisiting and revising the original Superman radio show arc, “Clan of the Fiery Cross.” It’s on the YA side of Superman, but has picked up a LOT of good reviews.

Superman: Man of Tomorrow is an very witty collection of tales by Robert Venditti and Paul Pelletier that went under most radars because it was originally serialized digitally.

Superman, the current series by Josh Williamson and Jamal Campbell is also on sale and it’s a good one.

And for something under the radar, the Warworld saga from a couple years back is worth a look. Phillip Kennedy Johnson wrote Action Comics for a spell and there was very little discussion on it. We’ve since had it recommended a couple times and just finished reading it. Severely under-rated and we’d go so far as to call the first two volumes great. The set up is there’s a new Mongul running Warworld. Mongul has been subjugating a lost tribe from Krypton and uses them to lure Superman to Warworld (with The Authority in tow). A trap is sprung and Superman has to lead a rebellion.

Now, you might be saying “haven’t we seen this before on Apokolips?  And the answer is, not exactly. Kennedy Johnson takes a full arc to set this up with signs of portent and excels at creating an atmosphere of foreboding leading into the final act. The characterization is strong and there’s an interesting thread about the problem of leading a revolution when the underclass has never known freedom. (And a bit of political skullduggery in the background.) Several artists tag in and out, but the more prominent ones are Daniel Sampere, Riccardo Federici and Will Conrad.

This storyline is collected across three volumes:

The optional fourth volume to the arc, which takes place in the background during Warlord Rising, is Superman and The Authority by Grant Morrison and Mikel Janin. This is where Superman recruits The Authority for his mission to Warworld… and trust us, this series works better in the greater context of the Warworld arc than it does as a standalone.

“I’m Not a Bad Sword, King Arthur Just Drew Me That Way”
Excalibur Excalibur Exaclibur

Marvel’s Captain Britain and Excalibur Sale runs through Monday, 4/22.

The original run of Excalibur is here. We’re big fans of anything Alan Davis touched on this book and especially his second run as writer/artist. The Epic Collections are the better deal here, so you’re looking at The Sword is Drawn and The Cross-Time Caper as the two Epic Collections with Chris Claremont writing. We’d probably skip ahead to Curiouser and Curiouser, which begins the Davis solo run. HOWEVER, the last segment of the Davis run is only in Excalibur Visionaries: Alan Davis, Vol. 3 further down the page.

What else is here? Captain Britain: Legacy of a Legend is an odd, incomplete selection of tales across the various UK titles the character appeared in (plus, Marvel Team-Up). It’ll give a flavor for it, and has some of the Alan Moore/Alan Davis run, but there’s a reason we jump up and down when the omnibus goes on sale. That’s the complete version.

Claremont returned to Excalibur for a 2004 series with Aaron Lopresti. He also worked on New Excalibur with Christopher Yost and several rotating artists in 2006.

Captain Britain and MI:13 by Paul Cornell and Leonard Kirk has Captain Britain and the UK super-espionage community butting heads with Skrulls and vampries.

Fresh Mutations

New Mutants: The Demon Bear Saga  New Mutants

The Marvel New Mutants Sale runs through Monday, 4/22

Let’s break this one down by the series highlights first:

  • New Mutants (’83 – ’91) – The original run
  • New Mutants (’09 – ’11) – Zeb Wells / Diogenes Neves; DnA / Leandro Fernandez & David Lopez
  • New Mutants (’03 – ’04) – Nunzio DeFilippis / Christina Weir / Keron Grant / Khary Randolph
  • New Mutants Forever (’10) – Chris Claremont / Al Rio
  • New Mutants: Dead Souls (’18) – Matthew Rosenberg / Adam Gorham
  • New Mutants (’19-’22) – The HoX/PoX (Hickman) era with rotating creators

What’s the best run of New Mutants? That’s a question that runs to personal preference more than most series. We’d say, #18-31 is the core with Chris Claremont and Bill Sienkiewicz that stands above the rest. Demon Bear. The introduction of Warlock. A good Legion arc. And it’s conveniently packaged in an Epic Collection. It’s still an interesting run after Sienkiewicz moves on, but he’s so good at setting mood and tone.

Another thing we’d throw out as particularly interesting is specifically the Jonathan Hickman installments of the most recent series. These are also conveniently collected in a single volume… and his issues didn’t always run sequentially.

Past that, this is one where you browse and see if something strikes your fancy.

Thunder. Thunder. Thunderca… Whoops, Wrong Series!

Thunderbolts

The Marvel Thunderbolts Sale runs through Monday, 8/14.

The Thunderbolts have been through several iterations since they began in ’97, originally having been the Masters of Evil laying the groundwork for nefarious deeds. And yes, there’s a film in the works.

The original series was written by Kurt Busiek and drawn by Mark Bagley. Eventually Fabian Nicieza tagged in as writer and Patrick Zircher became the lead artist a bit after that. Alas, these volumes are only going to take you through issue #50. The  omnibus editions are more complete, but aren’t on sale right now.

New Thunderbolts was the ’04-’06 relaunch, and yes, it’s included in the third omnibus of the original. Fabian Nicieza/Tom Grummett is the creative team, here.

This then turns back into (no adjective) Thunderbolts for ’06-’12, starting Nicieza/Grummett and then including runs by Warren Ellis / Mike Deodato and Jeff Parker/Kev Walker/Declan Shalvey

Thunderbolts relaunched for ’12-’14 with Daniel Way and then Charles Soule writing it. The artist rotation included Steve Dillon and Phil Noto.

Jim Zub and Jon Malin were behind the ’16-’17 Thunderbolts run.

’20 saw King in Black: Thunderbolts by Matthew Rosenberg/Gerry Duggan/Juan E. Ferreyra/Luke Ross.

The most recent volume in the sale is ’22’s Thunderbolts: Back on Target by Jim Zub and Sean Izaakse.

With Thunderbolts, we feel pretty strongly you need to read the first sequence or two and get a flavor for the concept before jumping into the later evolutions.

Unannounced Sales

Witcher Omnibus

Dark Horse has put their adaptations of The Witcher on sale. They’re available in:

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: X-Men, Deadpool and Ms. Marvel

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, it’s Marvel on parade with X-Men, Deadpool and Ms. Marvel getting the discount treatment.

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: Looks like our projections from last week were off. The DC sale was extended a week — so we’re not sure if DC’s sales are now going to be bi-weekly or not. The Dark Horse sale was also not updated, so… maybe they’re just not going to display the rest of the alphabet? It’s bad form. As far as we know, everything is on sale, not just what’s displayed.

X-Sale

The Marvel X-Men: Epic Collections & Milestones Sale runs through Monday, 7/24.

Our appreciate for an Epic Collection sale is well documented, and we like the value of 400-500 pages for $4.99, as some of these are priced.  But let’s do some cherry picking for the more interesting things.

For Excalibur, you’re better off when Alan Davis is attached, be it with Chris Claremont writing or Davis as writer/artist (and we might even put Davis higher while doing the full cartoonist).

Excalibur    Excalibur

For New Mutants, we’ve always thought The Demon Bear Saga‘s period, which paired Chris Claremont and Bill Sienkiewicz, as the high point of the whole series.

 x New Mutants: The Demon Bear Saga

For X-Factor, two titles stand out:

  • Angel of Death – a big chunk of the Louise & Walt Simonson run, notable for Apocalypse, Cameron Hodge and Angel’s transformation into Death.
  • All-New, All-Different X-Factor – this collects the bulk of Peter David’s first run with art by Larry Stroman, Joe Quesada and Dale Keown

X-Factor Epic Collection

For X-Men… you can pick your poison.

We’d say the highlight of the original run would be Roy Thomas/Neal Adams (as well as Jim Steranko) sequences in The Sentinels Live.

For the “New” X-Men, we’d say the golden period starts somewhere around issue 100 and runs through 200, although you’ll hear a lot of opinions about the golden period of X-books. That would be:

No, they don’t have that full period complete in the Epic format yet. There are some as-yet uncollected volumes between I, Magneto and The Gift, and The Gift stops just short of 200, but that’s what we’d call the best period.

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

No-Prize Winning Sale Title

The Marvel Ms. Marvel Sale runs through Monday 7/17.

This would be Ms. Marvel as in Kamala Khan, not the current Captain Marvel, Carol Danvers. Is there a movie coming out in a few months? Hmm…  Let’s break this down by volume, since there have been relaunches.

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

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

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

Ms. Marvel

Not the Dirty Harry Movie

The Marvel Deadpool Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 7/17

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.

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 (’12-15) – The Brian Posehn and Gerry Duggan Era
  • Deadpool (’15-’17) – Gerry Duggan and many, many artists
  • Despicable Deadpool (’17-’18) – Duggan/Mike Hawthorne
  • Deadpool (’18-’19) – Skottie Young / Nic Klein
  • King Deadpool (’19-’21) – Kelly Thompson / Chris Bachalo

 

Deadpool Classics  Deadpool by Joe Kelly  Cable & Deadpool

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Comixology Sales: Wolverine, Joker, Avengers, My Hero Academia, Hellboy

This week’s Comixology sales include Marvel throwing the mutant gate open for Wolverine and Excalibur, plus New Avengers. DC puts the spotlight on The Joker. Dark Horse drops a discount on Hellboy and Viz has a My Hero Academia sale.

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

The Best at What He Does

The Marvel Wolverine Legacy Sale runs through Sunday, 11/14.

We’re not entire sure when Logan became “Legacy” Wolverine, instead of just “Wolverine,” but this is a sale on the original material.  Some highlights:

Here’s the original ’88-’03 series. Yes, it’s probably best known for the Larry Hama/Marc Silvestri run, but we’d draw your attention to the “Basic to Basics” Epic Collection, which has a nice arc by Archie Goodwin & John Byrne AND includes Wolverine: The Jungle Adventure by Walt Simonson & Mike Mignola.

From the reboot that followed, we’ll offer two more recommendations:  Wolverine by Greg Rucka is a low-key, ditch the costume, anti-hero run by Rucka, Leandro Fernandez and Darick Robertson that doesn’t get talked about as much.  Wolverine: Enemy of the State is much better known. Mark Millar and John Romita, Jr. drag Logan through the wringer with a brainwashing by The Hand and Hydra, it also features the debut of Gorgon. The polar opposite of the Rucka run, this is the high octane action movie version.

Wolverine: Back to Basics   Wolverine by Greg Rucka   Wolverine: Enemy of the State

I’ve Got To See a Man About a Sword

The Marvel Excalibur Sale runs through Sunday, 11/7.

We’ve said it before, but when it comes to Excalibur (and Captain Britain, for that matter), you want to look for the stories where Alan Davis is involved – artist or writer, it doesn’t matter. He’s there for the best.  If you pop over to  the original series, the Epic Collections of The Sword is Drawn and The Cross-Time Caper cover the Chris Claremont/Alan Davis collaboration. Skip ahead to Curiouser and Curiouser to start the Alan Davis writer/artist run and then finish that run with V. of Excalibur Visionaries: Alan Davis.  All that Davis goodness will keep you out of trouble.

Excalibur

Bendis Assemble

The Marvel New Avengers Sale runs through Sunday, 11/7.

Brian Bendis revamped Avengers as New Avengers as stayed on it longer than some people realize. Nearly 100 issues worth across two volumes of the title… and that’s before the specials, aligned miniseries and so forth.  That’s a pretty long run. As you might expect, lots of artists passed through the run. Steve McNiven and David Finch early on. Frank Cho, Mike Deodato, Jr.,  Leinil Francis Yu – all sorts of A-listers.

The simplest way to read this is with New Avengers by Brian Michael Bendis: The Complete Collection, which pulls in some of the spin-off material, specials and minis.  Otherwise, it can all get a little complicated to keep track of.

New Avengers by Bendis

The Joke’s on You

The DC The Joker’s Greatest Joke’s Sale runs through Monday, 11/8.

And no, The Joker doesn’t appear to be in EVERY comic that’s on sale here. We don’t get it, either.  But what we will tell you is if you want a single volume Joker anthology, The Joker: 80 Years of the Clown Prince of Crime – Deluxe Edition is a bit under 1/2 the price of the 75 year collection at the top of the sale and has ~40 more pages. And Mad Love is included!  Listed at 441 pages, this is a good bang for your buck.

For something recent, there’s The Joker War Saga. This would be the James Tynion IV Batman saga, but with the tie-in issues included.  Alas, the discount is based on HC pricing, but that’s how it goes with DC’s system.

And for something  a little more off-beat, there’s Superman: Emperor Joker by Joe Kelly, Jeph Loeb, Doug Mahnke and Ed McGuinness.  This is essentially House of M, five years BEFORE House of M. Superman awakens trapped in Arkham Asylum as the Joker has somehow gained the ability to remake the world in his own image and rule over it as Emperor. It’s a slapstick world of dark humor and Superman has to figure out how it has happened before he can do much about it.  An odd and influential story arc we’ve always liked.

The Joker: 80 Years of the Clown Prince of Crime   Joker War Saga   Superman: Emperor Joker

Go Straight to Hellboy

The Dark Horse Hellboy Sale runs through Monday, 11/8.

The centerpiece of the Mignola-verse and occasional film franchise, the core of Hellboy is collected in 2 places: The Hellboy Omnibus collections and Hellboy: The Complete Short Stories. (scroll down to the Omnibus section for both)

There’s plenty of material filling in around the edges, but you should read the core first. It’s great fun.

Hellboy   Hellboy: The Complete Short Stories

School for Super Heroes

The  Viz My Hero Academia sales runs through Sunday, 11/7.

This Kohei Horikoshi manga is the tale of a high school for superheroes in a world where 80% of the population manifests super powers.  Yes, it’s one of the those weak Viz 29% discounts, but if you want to get a look at one of the most popular comics out there (it really performs outside the Direct Market), it’s on sale right now.

My Hero Academia

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Comixology Sales – Justice League, Deadpool, James Bond, The Witcher, Critical Role and The Guild

The highlights of this week’s Comixology sales include all manner of Justice League comics, a birthday for Deadpool, James Bond, Tini Howard’s Marvel work and some gaming properties over at Dark Horse.

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

Wade Wilson is how old?

The Deadpool 30th Anniversary Sale runs through Sunday,  3/7.  And there’s all kinds of Deadpool on sale.  That said, there’s one thing that really took us by surprise:

Did you realize there are 23 volumes of Deadpool Classic? Some of the more recent runs of the flagship series are listed as their own sets, but that’s a lot of Deadpool!

Deadpool Classic

Marvel’s writer of the week

The Marvel Tini Howard Sale runs through Thursday, 3/11.

We’re happy to recommend Excalibur by Howard and (primarily) Marcus To.  The first two collections feature the mechanizations of Apocalypse and shenanigans in Otherworld.  The pair will take you right to the precipice of X of Swords.  And yes, you’ll eventually want to read X of Swords. That was the best comics crossover Event in recent memory.

Excalibur

And by “teamwork,” they mostly mean Justice League

The DC Teamwork Sale runs through Monday, 3/8.  It also is divided into three sections – Graphic Novels, Single Issues I and Single Issues II. You’ll want to keep a close eye on prices for this one. Some of the offerings, particularly the ones that are hardcover in print are not at particularly good prices for a digital sale.  Pretty much everything in the graphic novels will be available for 99-cents/issue  and the single issues might be cheaper.  There are also more single issues available that haven’t been collected as graphic novels, so the single issue sections are worth a browse if you have the time.

JLA is the ’97 series that launched with the Grant Morrison/Howard Porter run. The collections  are priced lower than the singles here and there are some more unusual runs later in the series you can cherry pick as singles if you don’t like what they’re packaged with in the graphic novels: #94-99 is a Chris Claremont/John Byrne arc.  (We wouldn’t say it’s quite up to their X-Men run, but it’s sure a novelty.) #107-114 is a Kurt Busiek/Ron Garney run.

Justice League of America is the original ’60s into ’80s title.  The “Silver Age” collections offer a better rate per issue, but the entire run is available as single issues.  You can cherry pick some 100 page spectaculars or pick up the Steve Englehart/Dick Dillon run (starting with #139).

JLA Year One doesn’t seem to have a graphic novel edition available in digital right now.  This is a 12-part series written by Mark Waid and Brian Augustyn with art by Barry Kitson. It’s a fun 90s take (yes, there were comics embracing fun in the 90s… just not that many) on the Justice League’s origin.

The Brave and the Bold in this case refers to the recent Liam Sharp series teaming Batman with Wonder Woman in an adventure through Celtic mythology.  This one is cheaper to pick up the single issues.

JLA   Justice League of America   JLA Year One   The Brave and the Bold

Games people read

The Dark Horse Video Game Sale runs through Monday, 3/15.

This might really be more of a gaming sale than strictly a video game sale.  A few things of note:

Critical Role is the adaption of the popular streaming show of a Dungeons & Dragons campaign. The digital issues were some of the best selling comics on Comixology while it was being serialized.

The Guild is an adaption of the Felicia Day web comedy about a group of gamers. Day does the writing and Jim Rugg provides the art for Volume 1.

The Witcher Omnibus… you could say this is a comic based on a game or you could say its a comic based on a series of books.  The Witcher is as transmedia as a property can get these days. Paul Tobin is your scribe with a rotating cast of artists.

Critical Role   The Guild   Witcher Omnibus

007

The Dynamite James Bond Sale runs through Thursday, 4/1.

Dynamite has several 007 titles, but there’s one that stands above the others for our dollar: Kill Chain by Andy Diggle and Luca Casalanguida. It might just be the perfect repositioning of Bond for the modern era.  Finding himself in the middle of a “Kill Chain” of assassinations, Bond discovers his old foes at SMERSH have reemerged and are trying to draw MI6 and the CIA into conflict.

James Bond Kill Chain

Still On Sale

The  Image Romance Sale through Monday, 3/8.
Sex Criminals

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