In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel keeps things moving in a Halloween direction with discounts on Moon Knight and Ghost Rider. Dark Horse slashes prices on the independent work of Brian Bendis and Dynamite celebrates Halloween.

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 new releases page is here. 
• The “Comics Deals” page is here.
• The Kindle Deals comics page is here.

The Light of the Silvery Moon

   

The Marvel Moon Knight Sale runs through Monday, 10/14.

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

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

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

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

Highlights of the rest:

• Moon Knight ’89-’94 – Most of this is only collected in omnibus form  for the longest running volume. This is largely the Terry Kavanaugh years with Gary Kwapisz and James Fry on art. Possibly more interesting, it also includes a Bruce Jones/Denys Cowan special and a Doug Moench/Art Nichols team-up with Shang Chi. (A second volume with earlier issues just dropped, but isn’t discounted yet.)
• Moon Knight ’10-12 – Brian Bendis / Alex Maleev; Controversial to say the least, this one really leans into Moon Knight’s multiple personality disorder and breaks the character if you prefer the original concept. On the other hand, it’s surprisingly witty and funny. One of the oddest takes on the character.
• Moon Knight  ’14-’15- Most notable for the style-forward Warren Ellis/Declan Shalvey reworking (introducing the business suit)

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

• Moon Knight ’06-’09 – Charlie Huston / David Finch
• Vengeance of the Moon Knight ’09-’10; Gregg Hurwitz / Jerome Opeña

Shouldn’t He Be “In the Sky?”

   

The Marvel Ghost Rider Sale runs through Monday, 10/14.

Halloween is coming, so here comes a demonic biker. Coincidence? We think not.

• Ghost Rider ’73-’83 – The original (and no Masterworks on sale this time)
• Ghost Rider ’90-’98 – Howard Mackie / Mark Texeira /Javier Saltares
• Ghost Rider: Road to Damnation ’05 – Garth Ennis / Clayton Crain
• Ghost Rider ’06-’09 – Daniel Way / Javier Saltares; then Jason Aaron / Tan Eng Haut/ Tony Moore
• Ghost Rider: Trail of Tears ’07 – Garth Ennis / Clayton Crain
• Ghost Rider: Danny Ketch ’08 – Si Spurrier / Javier Saltares
• Ghost Rider: Heaven’s on Fire ’09 – Jason Aaron / Roland Boschi
• Ghost Rider ’11-’12 – Rob Williams / Matthew Clark
• All-New Ghost Rider ’14-’15 – Felipe Smith / Tradd Moore
• Ghost Rider ’19-20 – Ed Brisson / Aaron Kuder
• Ghost Rider ’22 – Ben Percy / Cory Smith; Current series
  • Ghost Rider/Wolverine: Weapons Of Vengeance – Percy / Geoff Shaw; current series crosses over with Wolverine to hunt a serial killing demon
• Danny Ketch – Ghost Rider: Blood & Vengence ’23 – Howard Mackie / Daniel Picciotto; Mackie revisits his late 80s version of Ghost Rider

As a bonus, the absurdity of Cosmic Ghost Rider:

• Cosmic Ghost Rider by Donny Cates – Donny Cates / Geoff Shaw / Chris Bachalo
• Cosmic Ghost Rider Destroys Marvel History – Paul Scheer / Nick Giovannetti
• Revenge of the Cosmic Ghost Rider – Dennis Hopeless / Scott Hepburn
• Cosmic Ghost Rider: Duel Identity – Stephanie Phillips / Juann Cabal

The Marvel “Maybe” Sales

   

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

Dropping This Week

• Night Thrasher: Remix – J. Holtham / Nelson Dániel – $6.99
• Spectacular Spider-Men Vol. 1: Arachnobatics – Greg Weisman / Humberto Ramos; As in Peter _and_ Miles teaming up – $10.99
• Scarlet Witch by Steve Orlando Vol. 3: Scarlet Witch & Quicksilver – Steve Orlando / Lorenzo Tammetta – $8.99

Pre-Order for Next Week

• Edge Of Spider-Verse: Spider-Society – Colin Kelly / Alex Segura / Travel Foreman / Pete Woods – $6.99
• Predator: The Last Hunt – Ed Brisson / Francesco Manna – $6.99

Putting the Bite on Halloween

   

The Dynamite Halloween Sale runs through Thursday 10/31. (Fancy that!)

The highlight here, particularly since Vampirella is one of the flagship characters at Dynamite, is the Christopher Priest / Ergün Gündüz Vampirella run. This is something we’ve been meaning to circle back to, since the collected editions slowed down during lockdown. We’ve read the first volume and it’s definitely a Priest take on the character (which we consider a good thing). A bit more continuity than you might expect and conspiracy unravelling as several longtime foes converge on Vampi.

Priest (this time w/Jae Lee & Stephanie Roux) also has a spin-off series Sacred Six (yes, we’re taking that as a pun on Secret Six), which teams up Vampi secondary characters Draculina, Pantha, Nyx and Chastity while Vampi’s mom is scheming.

Something a bit off the beaten path? Eduardo Risso’s Tales of Terror. The 100 Bullets artist does a series of horror tales, scripted by his Borderline collaborator, Carlos Trillo.

Unannounced Sales

 

We have two more unannounced Dark Horse sales: Plants Vs. Zombies and the work of Brian Bendis.

Plants Vs. Zombies

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, but single volumes are also on sale.

Bendis

Dark Horse has a big block of Brian Bendis titles on sale. Let’s hit the numbers first:

• Brilliant – Bendis / Mark Bagley
• Cover – Bendis / David Mack
• Fortune & Glory – Bendis
• Goldfish – Bendis
• Jinx – Bendis
• Joy Operations – Bendis / Stephen Byrne
• Murder, Inc. – Bendis / Oeming; for unknown reasons, you need to go here for V. 2
• The Ones – Bendis / Jacob Edgar
• Pearl – Bendis / Michael Gaydos
• Powers – Bendis / Oeming
• Pros and (Comic) Cons – Anthology
• Scarlet – Bendis / Alex Maleev
• Takio – Bendis / Oeming
• Torso – Bendis / Marc Andreyko

We’d like to talk a little about the early Bendis, which doesn’t seem to be widely remembered after all his time at Marvel and DC. Bendis started out doing the full cartoonist and working on crime comics like Goldfish and Jinx.

He started getting a little more notice when he jumped over to Image for Powers w/ Oeming. Powers starts out as a police procedural in a world where super powers have to be registered (this is LONG before Marvel’s Civil War) and follows a police unit that handles “powers”-related crimes. There’s a lot of worldbuilding involved and things get quite a bit more complicated as the backstories of the main characters unfold.

Powers left Image for Marvel’s Icon imprint when Bendis blew up there and as he got deeper into Marvel, the shipping schedule got erratic. It’s relaunched a few times and seemingly lost a lot of audience momentum. Shipping schedules, have very little to do with the quality of the comic, however. It’s a good one and an influential one that’s worth dipping into the collected editions of. (And trust us, its so much easier with omnibuses where you don’t have to remember which relaunch a given issue is from!)

Also very worthwhile:  Fortune & Glory is Bendis recounting tales of interacting with Hollywood when Goldfish got optioned. It’s hilarious and multiple folks who work in TV/Film have assured us it’s frighteningly accurate.

We’d also point you to Scarlet as a more recent example of Bendis returning to that early crime vibe. It’s a strong comic.

Also with discounts:

• Brooms –Jasmine Walls / Teo DuVall
• A Fire Story: A Graphic Memoir – Brian Fies

Still on Sale

• The DC Joker and Harley Quinn Sale runs through Monday, 10/14
  
• The Marvel Venom Sale runs through Monday, 11/4
  

  

• Kodansha Fall Anime Sale runs through Monday, 10/21
  
• The Caliber Comics Library 50% off Fall Sale runs through Thursday, 10/31.
  

  

• The Zenescope Character Spotlight Sale Van Helsing Sale runs through Tuesday, 10/15