Tag: Harley Quinn

Comixology (at Amazon) Sales – Star Wars; More $1.99 DC Collections; Old Man Logan; Department of Truth; Black Hammer

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel discounts Star Wars Epic Collections and Old Man Logan. DC has comics that have been adapted for TV and film as low as $1.99. Plus, The Black Hammer and Dragon Age.

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 looked at the X-Men/Krakoa and Thunderbolts sales earlier in the week.
Also, by popular nagging demand, we are at @comicscheap.bsky.social]

We Will Control the Vertigo Vertical

Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters  New Teen Titans  DC: The New Frontier

The DC on TV Sale runs through Monday, 11/18.

Once again, we find ourselves in the midst of holiday pricing. Yes, we’re sad, too. There’s more to the sale (500+ books), but we’re going to focus on some good options at the rock bottom $1.99 and $2.99 price points.

$1.99

  • Deathstroke ’16 – ’20 – Christopher Priest / Carlo Pagulayan / Larry Hama / Diogenes Neves; Very under appreciated character piece. Highly recommended.
  • Doctor Fate – Paul Levitz / Sonny Liew; Superior reimagining of the character that leans into Egyptian mythology. Would that all reinventions of a classic character work this well…
  • Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters – Mike Grell relaunches Green Arrow without the trick arrows as more of a thriller.
  • Green Arrow (’88 – ’98) – Mike Grell / Ed Hannigan / Dan Jurgens / Rick Hoberg; Grell’s regular series follow up to The Longbow Hunters
  • Harley Quinn (’13-’16) – Amanda Connor / Jimmy Palmiotti / Chad Hardin; A slapstick / absurdist take on Harley
    • Harley Quinn (’16-’20) – Amanda Connor / Jimmy Palmiotti / Chad Hardin / John Timms; For all intents and purposes, it’s the same series at the ’13 iteration through V.5
  • Harley Quinn: Breaking Glass – Mariko Tamaki / Steve Pugh; OGN
  • Hawkworld – Tim Truman / Enrique Alcatena; The first post-crisis reimagining of Hawkman, emphasizing the science fiction elements of the Silver Age version
  • Justice Society of America (’07-’11) – Geoff Johns / Dale Eaglesham; Bill Willingham / Jesus Merino; Mixed pricing w/ $2.99; Includes an Alex Ross follow-up to Kingdom Come
  • The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen – Alan Moore / Kevin O’Neill; Ignore that ridiculous movie. Moore & O’Neill raid Victorian literature to assemble a supergroup of Alan Quartermain (King Solomon’s Mine), Mina Harker (Dracula), Captain Nemo  (Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea), Edward Hyde (Doctor Jeckyll and Mister Hyde) and Hawley Griffin (The Invisible Man) as they do a spot of work for the government. Literate and witty. And no bloody Tom Sawyer.

$2.99

  • DC Meets Looney Tunes – You’re getting this for the SHOCKINGLY GOOD Batman Vs. Elmer Fudd by Tom King and Lee Weeks. Weeks cannot be praised enough for pulling this off with such style.
  • New Teen Titans (’80-’88) – Marv Wolfman / George Perez / Eduardo Barreto; Did this classic run save DC in the early ’80s? Quite possibly.
  • Preacher – Garth Ennis / Steve Dillon; God’s gone missing and Jesse Custer would like to have a word with him; Double volumes
  • Saga of the Swamp Thing (’82-’96) – Alan Moore’s legendary run and, for most practical purposes, the birthing of the Vertigo imprint
  • Sandman – Neil Gaiman and a rotating cast of artists
  • Y: The Last Man – Brian K. Vaughan / Pia Guerra; Double volumes for $2.99 as the last living man on Earth searches for his girlfriend as the rest of the world searches for him

$3.99 (and we still recommend it)

  • Batwoman by Greg Rucka and J.H. Williams – You can figure out the creators yourself; Contains the full and excellent run from Detective Comics
  • DC: The New Frontier – Darwyn Cooke’s stone cold masterpiece about the dawn of the Silver Age
  • Doom Patrol: The Silver Age – Arnold Drake / Bruno Premiani; Essentially DC’s answer to the original X-Men, though it seems like they were developed simultaneously. More pathos than most DC’s from the period and good stuff.
  • Doom Patrol (’87-’95) – Grant Morrison / Richard Case; The legendary run in three double volumes
  • Flash (’87 – ’09) – Geoff Johns/Scott Kolins; The original Johns run was where he started to get noticed
  • Flash (’16 – ’20) – Josh Williamson / Carmine di Giandomenico / Howard Porter; Mixed pricing with some scattered $1.99/$2.99

Sing Along With Nick

The Marvel Star Wars Epic Collections Sale runs through Monday, 11/18.

The headline here should probably be that the current Marvel run is starting to get Epic Editions.

Star Wars Epic Collection

Star Wars Modern Era Epic Collection: Skywalker Strikes collects the first 14 issues of the Jason Aaron / John Cassaday (RIP) run, plus the Vader Down crossover issues.

You might be asking “where’s the Vader Epic Collection?” A fine question, too. The answer is the first one is coming out at the end of the month.

Agent of Empire   Dark Empire   Star Wars Newspaper Strip

As for the Epic Collections of the original Marvel run and the Dark Horse material, there really aren’t title-specific links here, which is super annoying.

These Epic Collections are _all_ in this link.

A few things we’ll call out as particularly good.

The original Marvel Star Wars, #49-69, the under appreciated, post-Empire period with Walt Simonson and/or David Michelinie.  Most of it is in this DH Omnibus.

John Ostrander’s “Agent of Empire” is collected in this Epic. Think “what if James Bond spied for the Empire.” It’s fun.

Tom Veitch and Cam Kennedy reinvigorated the franchise in the 90s when they did Dark Empire. That and Dark Empire II are collected in this Epic.

Also fun, the Ostrander/Jan Duursema “Legacy” series, wherein the down and out last heir to the Skywalker legacy finds himself embroiled with a resurgent Sith Empire. 4 volumes, starting here.

And finally, there’s nothing quite like Archie Goodwin and Al Williamson on the Star Wars newspaper strip. Yes, that’s Russ Manning who comes first. 2 volumes starting here.

And finally a list of Epics we don’t think were on sale the last time these prices rolled around:

Wolverine… and the Sea?

Wolerine: Old Man Logan   Wolverine: Old Man Logan

The Marvel Old Logan and the Wasteland Sale runs through Monday, 11/18.

Yes, the Old Man Logan storyline has spawn a series of miniseries set in “The Wasteland” setting from the original.

That’s what the real spread is here with the rest of the sale being side attractions you may or may not be into.  The original storyline of a cranky, aged (“Old Man”) version of Wolverine living in a dystopic future came off as a sort of Elseworlds tale and is fairly well regarded as a standalone tale.

It was popular enough that the “Old Man Logan” version of the character was contrived to appear in the present (his past… before the disaster that spawned a dystopia) in the period when Wolverine was supposed to be “dead.” It even lasted 50 issues. We’d say give the Jeff Lemire issues a look if it sounds interesting, particularly the Lemire/Sorrentino issues. This was one of their pre-Image collaborations and it’s much more entertaining than the editorial premise sounds.

Don’t Feed the Sale-Naming Trolls

Department of Truth   The Fade Out  Sam and Twitch

The Un-be-leafable Image Comics Sale runs through Black Friday.

Do not encourage whoever’s naming these Image sales. Moving right along to the actual sales, this is another one with a mystery/horror bent to it. Lots of good stuff and it’s worth a browse. A few things we’ve read and are happy to recommend:

  • The Department of Truth – James Tynion IV / Martin Simmonds; Possibly our favorite Tynion series. There’s an X-Files-esque setup, but this series is about the power of belief and myth to shape reality, not an alien invasion
  • The Fade Out – Ed Brubaker / Sean Phillips; A Hollywood blacklist era noir thriller about the cover-up of a starlet’s murder from the ever-reliable team of Brubaker & Phillips
  • The Fix – Nick Spencer / Steve Lieber; A farce about two crooked cops and a much more reliable drug sniffing dog by the Superior Foes of Spider-Man team
  • Sam & Twitch – Brian Bendis / Angel Medina / Ashley Wood / Alex Maleev; Spawn’s detective companions investigate weird mysteries. The Bendis issues are a creepy delight
  • Stray Bullets – David Lapham; Lapham’s crime series was basically Criminal, but a decade earlier. A classic “if you know, you know” series

The Marvel “Maybe” Sales

Ghost Rider  Amazing Spider-Man

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

Pre-Order for Next Week

Unannounced Sales

Black Hammer Omnibus  Dragon Age  The Hunger and the Dusk

Dark Horse has the world of Black Hammer on sale this week.

This would be — we think it’s OK to call it a superhero universe at this point — the indie superhero saga by Jeff Lemire, Dean Ormston and friends. There are a couple branches to how this saga unfurls.

The main Black Hammer series is here and that’s where you should start the journey. But, as with many long running titles, there are a few different editions to it and this is what we think the cheapest (if messy to sort) way to read the series is.

There are currently 7 volumes under the main series + a collection of specials + 2 volumes of “Visions” with guest creators playing in the Black Hammer standbox.

So what you want to do to cheap out is go to the omnibus page first.

Black Hammer Omnibus V.1 is basically the same thing as the first Library edition. That gets you the first two “regular” volumes (issues 1-13) + the Annual.

Black Hammer Library Edition V. 2 gets you the equivalent of “regular” volumes 3 &4 (“Age of Doom”) plus the Streets of Spiral material not in the Ominbus.

Then you can pick up again with V.5 of the regular editions.

Then you’ve got the World of Black Hammer collections, which are solo tales about the various heroes and villains like Barbalien and Sherlock Frankenstein.

And finally, there’s Black Hammer / Justice League: Hammer of Justice, the Lemire / Michael Walsh team up between… well, that’s in the title, isn’t it? This one offers savings in the single issue format.

Also on sale, Dark Horse’s comics adaptations of BioWare’s Dragon Age line of video games:

Also on sale:

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: The Joker and Harley Quinn; Venom; X-23 (Wolverine); Marvel 2099; Dark Horse Horror

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, things move into the Halloween season. DC discounts The Joker and Harley Quinn. Marvel slashes prices on Venom, X-23 (Wolverine) and the 2099 line. Dark Horse even has a horror 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):

52 Pick-Up

The Joker: 80 Years of the Clown Prince of Crime  Joker War Saga  Harley Quinn

The DC Joker and Harley Quinn Sale runs through Monday, 10/14.

Villains running wild! You’d think there was a movie coming out or something?

Let’s break this down by character, since Harley has her own life these days.

Joker

Harley Quinn

  • Harleen – Stjepan Sejic; Black Label reimagining of Harley’s origin
  • Harley Quinn ’00-’04 – Karl Kesel / Rachael & Terry Dodson
  • Harley Quinn ’13-’16 – Jimmy Palmiotti / Amanda Connor / Chad Hardin / John Timms
  • Harley Quinn ’16-’20 – Jimmy Palmiotti / Amanda Connor / Chad Hardin / John Timms (Is there a difference between this and the ’13 series? Nope. It’s all one run with a company wide relaunch in the middle.)
  • Harley Quinn ’21 – present – Stephanie Phillips / Riley Rossmo

What’s good here? We’d say get The Joker: 80 Years of the Clown Prince of Crime for O’Neil/Adams, Englehart/Rogers, The Killing Joke and Mad Love (still the best Harley Quinn tale). There are some classics in that book.

If your ideal Joker is the Heath Ledger version, Joker by Azzarello & Bermejo is your huckleberry.

For Harley, see Mad Love above and we’ve always had a soft spot for the absurdist, almost Looney Tunes take of Connor/Palmiotti/Hardin/Timms.

Spider-Juice

Venom by Remender   Venom by Cates   Venom

The Marvel Venom Sale runs through Monday, 11/4.

This is a fairly scattered sale, with multiple formats and a lot of random early miniseries floating around. Browse for a better accounting of the listings.

For the early stuff, the better values are the somewhat scattered Epic Collections.

The early (mostly) Spider-Man appearances can be found in Venom Epic Collection: Symbiosis. That’s largely the David Michelinie / Todd McFarlane / Erik Larsen material.  That’s followed by Venom Epic Collection: Lethal Protector which has a few more villainous appearances and the original Lethal Protector mini. And then Venom Epic Collection: Carnage Unleashed continues the 90s appearances.

Eventually Venom gets his own series:

  • Venom  (2003-4) – The Daniel Way era
  • Venom  (2011-3) – Rick Remender/Tony Moore, then Cullen Bunn/Declan Shalvey
  • Venom (2016-8) – Mike Costa / Tradd Moore / Mark Bagley
  • Venom (2018-21) – Donny Cates / Ryan Stegman
  • Venom (2021-present) – Al Ewing / Ram V / Bryan Hitch

Let’s talk about the last 12 years or so. The ’11-’13 series is more interesting than you might think. That’s when Flash Thompson has the symbiote and uses it (among other things) to replace the legs his lost in the war. There are some interesting pathos floating around, particularly in the Remender/Moore run.

The Cates/Stegman run is probably the most famous right now. That’s where Venom gets Cosmic and leads into the King In Black Event.

The current Ewing / V / Hitch run, Ewing is wrapping up and Ram V has moved on,  but it’s something else. Al Ewing drives the Cosmic elements, which are the most interesting part. Eddie Brock is dead. But he isn’t. He’s separated from his body and he’s bouncing around in time as his son becomes Venom in the present. It’s a much, much stranger take on Venom than most others and really dives into the King in Black mythos and timeline.

So yes, between Cates and Ewing, Venom has been a Cosmic book for some time.

The _Other_ Clone Saga

All-New Wolverine    X-23

The Marvel X-23 Sale runs through Monday, 10/7.

Laura Kinney is X-23. She’s also the clone daughter of Wolverine. Eventually, she’ll take up the mantle of Wolverine, but this sequence starts earlier than that. This can all be grouped into three titles to simplify your browsing.

  • NYX: The Complete Collection – Joe Quesada / Josh Middleton. Marjorie Liu / Kalman Andrasofszky; X-23 debuted here
  • X-23: The Complete Collection – These two volumes contain everything through the 2010 series.
  • New X-Men – The “Childhood’s End” Complete collection gets you issues #16-32; then skip ahead to V.4 & 5 to actually complete the run.
  • X-Force ’08-’12 – Craig Kyle / Christopher Yost / Clayton Crain
  • All-New Wolverine – Tom Taylor / David Lopez; Juann Cabal; Laura picks up the Wolverine mantle while Logan is “dead.”
  • X-23 (2018-19) – Mariko Tamaki / Juann Cabal / Diego Olortegui

We absolutely love All-New Wolverine. Tom Taylor runs the gamut of story types from goofy to action to borderline horror/thriller and does a ton of character development. Recommended.

76 Years Away

Spider-Man 2099   Doom 2099   X-Men 2099

The Marvel 2099 Sale runs through Monday, 10/7.

Yes, 2099 was a line for Marvel in ’90s. Spider-Man  2099 was the flagship and longest lasting of the bunch. Peter David wrote it and Rick Leonardi is the artist most associated with it. Mind you, Spidey 2099 has had scrolling revivals over the years including (and currently discounted):

What else was in the line (that’s been collected and is on sale?)

  • Doom 2099 – This collection is the Warren Ellis run with Pat Broderick and Steve Pugh as the main illustrators
  • X-Men 2099 – The beginning arc with John Francis Moore and Ron Lim
  • Deadpool 2099 – What? You don’t remember this? Ha ha! Marvel is slipping in a collection of a few Gerry Duggan / Scott Koblish issues from the ’15 run of Deadpool!
  • Marvel Knights 2099 – Robert Kirkman / Steve Epting
  • Timestorm 2009 – 2099 – Brian Reed / Eric Battle; 2009 crossover between “regular” Spidey, Wolverine and the 2009 universe
  • Secret Wars 2099 – Peter David / Will Sliney; Yes, Secret Wars had a tie-in for just about everything!

No Ravage 2099 / Punisher 2099 / Ghost Rider 2099 collections to be seen, if you were wondering.

The Marvel “Maybe” Sales

Deadpool & Wolverine: World War III  Ultimate Black Panther The Spectacular Spider-Men

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

Pre-Order for Next Week

Something in Parabellum?
Deadworld   The Realm    Jazz Age Chronicles

The Caliber Comics Library 50% off Fall Sale runs through Thursday, 10/31.

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

And plenty of Don Lomax war comics.

But if you want something a little more recent, Ageless might be of interest. It’s written by Torunn GrØnbekk, who’s been recently been writing Thor, with art by San Espina.

Ageless

Unannounced Sales

Grendel Omnibus  Hellboy  These Savage Shores

We have an unannounced Dark Horse on horror, or possibly Halloween. Here are a few things we noticed:

Also with discounts:

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Image Returns; Blue Beetle; X-Factor; Venom; Watchmen

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Image returns to the deals page! Plus, DC gives Blue Beetle the discount treatment and Marvel slashes prices on X-Factor and Venom.

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):

Image Returns!

The Image Comics Discovery Sale runs through Thursday, 8/31.

Now there’s a publisher we haven’t seen in roughly 6 months. What we have here is a little on the peculiar side. First volumes in a series from the letter M through the beginning of S, or at least that’s what’s showing up as we type this.  We looked and Killadelphia V.1 didn’t seem to be discounted yet, so we’re not sure if there will be an A-L sale at a later date or thing will start showing up in a week or two.  But hey, it’s been awhile since Image was around.

A few things of note:

Public Domain by Chip Zdarksy. We read this recently and it’s quite good. That’s not a shock, since it won an Eisner. This is a fairly savage parody of corporations and film companies taking over comics as the artist of a classic superhero discovers he really owns the character and his dysfunctional sons try to figure out what to do about it. Zdarsky expertly walks a tightrope with characters that clearly aren’t Stan & Jack, but you can’t help but think of Stan & Jack. Excellent satire of the business.

And as long as we’re talking about Zdarsky, the first first volume of his crime comic Newburn is also on sale. Jacob Phillips draws this tale of a PI with very naughty clients.

Manifest Destiny Chris Dingess and Matthew Roberts is the tale of the real mission of the Lewis & Clark expedition. Oh, sure they were mapping the Louisiana Purchase, but they were also clearing the way of dangerous monsters that might prey on pioneers. They’re also… but that would be a spoiler. This recently wrapped up and it’s a very solid story. Vol. 1 is fairly light-hearted, though the tone gets considerably darker a few volumes into it.

Public Domain   Newburn   Manifest Destiny

Nocterra by Scott Snyder and Tony Daniel is a post-apocalyptic adventure/horror book about a world where the sun went down and stayed down with monsters inhabiting the darkness and they’re contagious. (Which is to say, Daniel has ample opportunities to cut loose.)

Nita Hawes’ Nightmare Blog by Rodney Barnes / Jason Shawn Alexander / Szymon Kudranski / Patric Reynolds is a companion piece to Killadelphia (which you’re already reading, right?), featuring a professor with a ghostly brother getting drawn into supernatural mysteries… oh, and Anansi keeps popping up.

And for your under the radar classic, Matt Wagner’s Mage: The Hero Discovered. This is the first installment of the Arthurian legend as urban fantasy series from the 80s. Wagner took a looooong break from it after Comico blew up, focusing more on Grendel, but this book is really where Wagner first made his name.

Nocterra   Nita Hawes' Nightmare Blog   mage

The Mutant Variable

The Marvel X-Factor Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 8/21.

This one’s a little different from most of the Legacy sales in that it’s mainly a Peter David X-Factor sale. Let’s walk through that.

Of the original X-Factor run, you’ll find that only the X-Factor Visionaries by Peter David volumes are on sale (near the bottom of the page).

When people think of Peter David and X-Factor, the run they’re most likely thinking of is the 2005-13 run that starts out with Madrox (The Multiple Man) opening a detective agency. Yes, this is the run where Layla Miller knows stuff. (If you know, you know.) There are also two X-Factor by Peter David: The Complete Collection volumes that are listed separately. (Who knows why?) Vol. 1 is the original Madrox mini-series and X-Factor 1-12. Vol. 2 collects #13-24, 28-32 and two specials.

There was also a ’14-’15 X-Factor relaunch by David and Giuseppe Camuncoli. This sale is all about the Peter David runs!

Out from under the shadow of Mr. David, there are two other notable titles in the sale.

Back in 2010, X-Factor Forever saw Louise Simonson returning to the situation as she left it on the book (prior to Peter David taking over) along with Dan Panosian.

And then, in the aftermath of House of X / Powers of X, Leah Williams and David Baldeon relaunched X-Factor as the mutants who investigate the circumstances of death and missing persons for Krakoa.

X-Factor by Peter David   X-Factor by Peter David   X-Factor

Symbiosis

The Marvel Venomverse Sale runs through Monday, 8/21.

This isn’t a sale on the main Venom titles, more the around the periphery of that world. What might be interesting? We have thoughts.

Of this lot, the one we’re the most familiar with is the Venom run by Rick Remender/Tony Moore and then Cullen Bunn/Declan Shalvey. We wish the earlier Remender volumes had bigger discounts on them, too. This is the time period where Flash Thompson is the symbiote’s host. It helps him with his war injuries and he attempts to be a hero.

If you like to roll old school, there’s Venom: Lethal Protector by David Michelinie / Mark Bagley / Ron Lim. Dating back to 1993, this was Venom’s first solo title (OK, Spidey shows up a little, but you know what we mean). Venom in San Francisco… it just might have had some influence on the film version (which didn’t have Spidey).

And for something odd and under the radar? How about Toxin: The Devil You Know? Why? For the unusual team of Peter Milligan and Darick Robertson working on a fringe Venom character.

Venom   Venom: Lethal Protector   Toxin: The Devil You Know

Feeling Blue

The DC Blue Beetle Sale runs through Monday, 8/28.

That would be the Jaime Reyes Blue Beetle and… say, is there a film coming out? What a coincidence.

Jaime first popped up in the Geoff Johns/(mostly) Phil Jimenez Infinite Crisis. Infinite Crisis was a pretty major Event that tweaked the DCU a bit in it’s wake.

The first Jaime Reye Blue Beetle series ran from ’06-’09 with John Rogers & Keith Giffen as the writing brain trust and Cully Hamner and Rafael Albuquerque as the primary artists. (And yes, that’s the John Rogers behind Leverage and The Librarians.)

The next Blue Beetle run was ’11-’13 by Tony Bedard and Ig Guera.

Then for the Rebirth era (’16-18), Keith Giffen returned to Blue Beetle, with his Justice League cohort, J.M. DeMatties  and Scott Kolins as the primary artist.

Infinite Crisis   Blue Beetle   Blue Beetle

A Sale With a Truncated Name?

The DC to the MAX Sale runs through Monday, 8/28.

What’s interesting and at a better price point for DC’s non-themed sale?

For lowest price, $4.99 will get you Harley Quinn, Breaking Glass, the well-regarded graphic novel from Mariko Tamaki and Steve Pugh.

Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons is considered by a whole lot of folks to be the top graphic novel of all time. Plot-wise, the murder of a hero leads to a conspiracy unspooling, but this also a character-based tale and it’s scope widens considerably. A classic and a good number of pages at $5.99

Batman: The Long Halloween by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale. Another from the classics pile as Batman pursues a killer whose exploits are tied to holidays on the calendar. It’s also a Harvey Dent story. Not a Two-Face story, per se, but a Two-Face prequel of sorts.

Harley Quinn: Breaking Glass   Watchmen   Batman: The Long Halloween

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Spider-Man, Batman’s Valentines, Nova, New Warriors and Hellboy

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel chops prices on Amazing Spider-Man, Nova and New Warriors. DC and Dark Horse celebrate Valentine’s Day.

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):

So Many Spiders…

Marvel’s Spider-Man Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 2/20.

There’s a lot of ground to cover here, so let’s break it down by series.

  • Amazing Spider-Man (1963-98) – The original run before Marvel became quite so obsessed with rebooting titles.
  • Amazing Spider-Man (1998 – 2013) – This run starts out with the controversial J. Michael Straczynski/John Romita, Jr./Mike Deodato, Jr. run, then goes into the Brand New Day era with rotating creative teams and segues into the beginning of the Dan Slott era. (Slott’s written a LOT of Spidey.)  Now… this Amazon’s listings, so you knew something had to be messed
  • Superior Spider-Man – Possibly the high point of the Dan Slott era – Doc Ock takes over Peter’s body and life. The Complete Collections are the way to go here.
  • Amazing Spider-Man (2014 – 15) – Peter’s back in control and the Slott era continues.
  • Amazing Spider-Man (2015-208) – It’s a relaunch. (Hey, Spidey’s been relaunched a lot less than Captain Marvel!) This is the end run of the Slott era, culminating in the Red Goblin affair.
  • Amazing Spider-Man (2018 – 22) – The Nick Spenser era is here, PLUS the 4 volumes of Spider-Man Beyond with Ben Reilly stepping in that take place prior to:
  • Amazing Spider-Man (2022-Present) – The current Zeb Wells / John Romita, Jr. run. Also some 99-cent single issues if you prefer that format.

And there are a few more Slott era omnibus editions floating around.  That’s probably not getting cleaned up anytime soon.<sigh>

Recommendations?  Well, first off Amazing Spider-Man doesn’t really have very many BAD periods. Oh, some runs are definitely better than others, but there aren’t huge swaths of duds, here.

You can definitely pick your poison between the $5.99 Masterworks and $6.99 Epic Collections for the original run (although a few Epic’s run a little higher). The Epics are typically much larger collections for only a buck more, but it depends on which format you started buying and which era you’re interested in. Some stretches are only in Masterworks, some are only in Epic.

Of possible interest, since there’s a sequel mini-series out, but NOT included in the link for the V.1 of Amazing is the Kraven’s Last Hunt Epic Collection, so we’ll call that one out directly. You get the J.M. DeMatteis/Mike Zeck classic, plus the issues of Amazing around it, plus Spider-Man Vs. Wolverine for about the price of just getting the regular Kraven collection.

We’d also recommend a look at the Brand New Day collections. It’s not a run that’s immediately talked about, but we found it entertaining and a much better set of creators was assembled than Marvel was necessarily given credit for: Mark Waid, Bob Gale (we wish he did more comics), Marc Guggenheim, Joe Kelly, Dan Slott, John Romita, Jr., Steve McNiven, Salvador Larroca, Phil Jimenez, Barry Kitson, Marcos Martin, Paolo Rivera, Lee Week and… others. I’m not sure there are “hidden” gems with Spidey, just runs that get discussed less.

And yes, we are enjoying the current Zeb Wells / (mostly) John Romita, Jr. series. It’s a little more somber than we were expecting from Wells, but it’s been a good ride so far. Peter’s trying to get back on his feet after doing something to get everyone mad at him. Who should show up with a redemptive peace offering, but… Norman Osborn? And that’s before the Hobgoblin turns up.

Amazing Spider-Man - Kraven's Last Hunt   Spider-Man Brand New Day   Amazing Spider-Man

Nooooova, Come Out and Plaaaaaay…

The Marvel Nova and the New Warriors Sale runs through Monday, 2/20.

Let’s run down the contents here:

  • Nova (1976-78) – The original Marv Wolfman/John Buscema/Sal Buscema/Carmine Infantino run
  • Nova (2007-10) – The Dan Abnett/Andy Lanning/Paul Pelletier/Kev Walker/Andrea di Vito era – the Complete Collection is the better deal.
  • Nova (2013-15) – Gerry Duggan / Paco Medina was probably the longest tenured creative team of this volume.
  • Nova: Resurrection (2015) – Jeff Loveness / Ramon Perez
  • Nova: The Human Rocket (2015-16) – Sean Ryan / Cory Smith / John Timms

What’s good here?  We’d go with the original run or the DnA run (complete with a space station carved out of a Celestial’s head – yes, the concept predates Avengers Mountain).

For the New Warriors:

  • New Warriors Classic – The original Fabian Nicieza / Mark Bagley / Darick Robertson series
  • New Warriors ’07-’09 – The Kevin Grevioux / Paco Medina / Reilly Brown series
  •  New Warriors ’14 – The Christopher Yost / Marcus To series

And here we’d absolutely go with the original run.

Nova Classic   Nova by Abnett & Lanning   New Warriors

Not the Safest Valentine…

The DC Valentine’s Day Sale runs through Monday, 2/20.

We’re not saying the DC universe is the safest place to celebrate a relationship… but there are a few things on sale.

The Batman Adventures: Mad Love is a classic of unhealthy relationships. This is the animated series origin story of Harley Quinn and Mister J. by Paul Dini and Bruce Timm. It is a romance, after all! Also falls under the category of “classic.” If you don’t need all the optional extras, you can get the original story in its original format for a lousy $0.99.

Speaking of Batman and unhealthy relationships, there’s always Batman: Birth of the Demon. This collects Batman: Son of the Demon by Mike W. Barr and Jerry Bingham, Batman: Bride of the Demon by Mike W. Barr and Tom Grindberg and Batman: Birth of the Demon by Denny O’Neil and Norm Breyfogle. Three original graphic novels about R’as al Ghul and Bruce’s relationship with Talia al Guhl. Indeed, Son of the Demon could be considered the origin of Damien, or at least a chunk of it. Originally, that tale wasn’t even supposed to be in continuity, except it was quite popular and things changed.

And for something a little more recent, there’s Mister Miracle by Tom King and Mitch Gerards. While the storyline is about Mister Miracle attempting to escape death, his relationship with his wife, Big Barda, is certainly at the core of the story. A series that did quite well for itself on the awards circuit.

Scroll down to the bottom of the sale for an eclectic selection of single issues. A lot of wedding issues, but… to be honest, we probably wouldn’t have suggested celebrating Valentine’s Day with the first issue of Longbow Hunters. That’s a bit much.

Mad Love   Batman: Birth of the Demon   Mister Miracle

Enough With the Romance

The Dark Horse Valentine’s Day Sale runs through Monday, 2/20.

OK, enough with mushy stuff, let’s talk about the usual suspects here.  It’s Dark Horse, so you know there’s going to be multiple Mike Mignola items on sale. The Hellboy Omnibus line continues to be a good value – excellent comics with high page counts (especially V.3). If you haven’t been keeping up, scroll through the sale and scan the newer releases. Hellboy is still coming out.

Blacksad by Juan Díaz Canales and Juanjo Guarnido is an amazing body of work. Chandler-esque hardboiled detective stories in a world of anthropomorphic animals… but there’s nothing cartoony about it. Absolutely jaw-dropping art by Guarnido, too. Thick with detail and atmosphere. Click through and look at a couple preview pages.

Invisible Kingdom by G. Willow Wilson and Christian Ward has several rewards to it’s name. It’s a science fiction tale of what happens when an intergalactic corporation gets in bed with a religion.  All’s far in love and profit, after all. Note: The Library Edition is cheaper than getting the single volumes, which is not always the case.

Hellboy   Blacksad   Invisible Kingdom

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Harley Quinn, Loki, TMNT: The Last Ronin, Sleeping Beauties, Land of Oz

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Harley Quinn enters a new decade, Marvel spotlights Loki and the Land of Oz, and IDW discounts Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin and Sleeping Beauties (as in Stephen & Owen King’s novel getting adapted).

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

The Better Punchline

The DC Harley Quinn 30th Anniversary Sale runs through Monday, 9/12.

30 years?  Yup.  If you saw the debut on Batman: The Animated Series, we understand if you don’t admit it.

While it isn’t the cheapest deal by page count right now ($2.99 for 66 pages), any Harley Quinn conversation has to start with The Batman Adventures: Mad Love, wherein Paul Dini and Bruce Timm reveal Harley’s origin.  It’s a gem.

We’ve always had a soft spot for the New 52 Amanda Conner/Jimmy Palmiotti/Chad Hardin run of Harley Quinn. Their take is particularly absurdist and brings in an… eclectic supporting cast to say the least. We’ve heard compared to Deadpool a few times. It’s the version we’ve laughed at the most.

Your off the beaten path option (relative to the rest of the HQ catalog) is Harley Quinn: Breaking Glass by Mariko Tamaki and Steve Pugh is a YA take with a teenaged Harley and it’s one of the most critically lauded versions.

Mad Love   Harley Quinn   Harley Quinn: Breaking Glass

God of Mischief

The Marvel Loki Sale runs through Thursday, 9/15.

These days you have “post-TV” Loki and traditional Loki.

If you’re looking for Loki as the lead, the closest you’re likely to get to the TV show (thus far) is probably looking for either Loki, Agent of Asgard by Al Ewing, Lee Garbett and Jorge Coelho or the Loki run in the revived Journey Into Mystery by Kieron Gillen, Doug Braithwaite, Richard Elson (and a few more artists).

For your Loki as the villain, we’re going to slightly off the reservation into the world of Mutants with X-Men: Asgardian Wars. This is a collection of a story arc consisting of the X-Men / Alpha Flight mini-series (Chris Claremont/Paul Smith), the New Mutants Special Edition and an X-Men Annual (both by Claremont/Arthur Adams).  Loki starts some trouble and the X-Men eventually end up in Asgard looking for him.  Back in the mid-80s, the annuals in the X-verse were a bit more standalone from the ongoing plots and the New Mutants annuals were particularly wild for a few years. Claremont basically uses the mini-series and annuals (the “special edition” was essentially a New Mutants annual) to tell a self-contained, though somewhat sprawling tale.  Fun collection with superior artists.

Loki: Agent of Asgard   Journey Into Mystery   X-Men: Asgardian Wars

The Marvelous Land of On Sale

The Marvel Oz and Other Classics Sale runs through Monday, 9/12.

This would be a collection of the Marvel Illustrated (read: Classics Illustrated) adaptions from ’07-’13.  The most famous of which being the Wizard of Oz adaptions by Eric Shanower and Skottie Young. Yes, that Skottie Young.

The key piece here is the set of Oz: The Complete Collection where it’s two books per volume.  Also, it should be noted Amazon lists the Road to Oz / Emerald City of Oz volume first… and that’s actually the last volume of the three.  The order is Wizard of Oz/Land of Oz, Ozma of Oz/Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz, and then Road to Oz / Emerald City of Oz.

Oz: The Complete Collection

No, Not “Hit” as in “Hit-Girl”

The IDW Recent Hits Sale runs through Thursday, 9/29.

This a particularly small sale and single issues are the key thing you’ll be looking at here.

The headline here is probably the $0.99 single issues of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin by Peter Laird, Kevin Eastman, Tom Waltz and Esau & Isaac Escorza. We’re not sure the “Dark Knight for TMNT” elevator pitch is quite right, but this is the story of a future where the last surviving Turtle heads for a final confrontation with the Foot Clan. This is much darker than the original series. We enjoyed the first issue and have this on our short list since it seemed to prudent to wait for it to wrap up.

Sleeping Beauties is the Rio Youers / Alison Sampson of the Stephen & Owen King novel. Since the second collected edition isn’t on sale, you’re better off with the single issues here.

TMNT - The Last Ronin   Sleeping Beauties

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Comixology Sales: Hickman X-Men, 50% off Kodansha for CU, The Boys, Harley Quinn, Resident Alien

This week’s Comixology Sales include the Dawn of Hickman’s X-Men ear, Harley Quinn, 50% off Kodansha for CU subscribers, The Boys and an outbreak of spies at Dark Horse.

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

Dawn of Hickman

The Marvel X-Men: Dawn of X Sale runs through Sunday, 4/25.

This is the current Jonathan Hickman curated X-era, which is a pretty  good era. The sale is with the individual series collected editions and single issues, not the Dawn of X collections, which might be a better way to read the material as a line.

Everything starts out with House of X / Powers of X, the dual limited series that set up the premise. That’s by Hickman, Pepe Larraz and R.B. Silva.

X-Men by Jonathan Hickman is the flagship title, written by Hickman with Leinil Francis Yu. A lot of the plots flow through the main book (though sometimes the threads are picked up in the sundry titles).

Hellions by Zeb Wells is a newer addition to the line and its more self-contained than some of the other titles. Wells and Stephen Segovia craft a (very) darkly humorous tale of Mister Sinister tasking Psylocke with running a team of the more… damaged mutants so that they can take out their frustrations, aggressions and murderous instincts on appropriate targets. It’s nice to see Wells back in comics.

House of X / Powers of X   X-Men by Jonathan Hickman   Hellions by Zeb Wells

It’s like there was movie coming out…

The DC Harley Quinn & Suicide Squad Sale runs through Monday, 4/26.

If you’re itching for Harley Quinn, there’s a lot here, but (with Mad Love not here) we’d point to the ’13-’16 Harley Quinn series written by Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti with Chad Hardin as the primary artist.  Conner & Palmiotti pop in and out of Harley all the time for several years and have a nice, absurdist take on the character, poke around and you’ll find a lot more of it.

For Suicide Squad… well, truth be told, we’re waiting for the Tom Taylor run to be collected next week. We’ve heard good things about it and Taylor’s reliable. Until such a time as we read that, we say you need to start with the classics – the John Ostrander/Luke McDonnell run.

Harley Quinn   Suicide Squad

Half Off Kodansha

There’s another sale for Comixology Unlimited Subscribers. This week it’s 50% off Kodansha comics. Yes, the discounts are stackable, so you can get functional discounts of 70%+ if something’s already on sale.

And yes, the preorders are 50% off, too. Here’s the release date view – you can move the weeks forward and preorder about a month out.

This runs through 11PM ET on Sunday, 4/25.

Attack on Titan

Cloak & Lobster

The Dark Horse Spy Sale runs through Monday, 4/26.

This is an eclectic sale, not all of which we’d necessarily put under the spy heading, but there’s some fun stuff here.

We love Lobster Johnson and we suppose it does frequently involve Nazi spies. This is a Hellboy spin-off pulp style 30’s/40’s adventurer written by Mike Mignola and John Arcudi with Tonci Zonjic being the most regular artist. Sometimes it’s a “serious” pulp and sometimes the tongue is firmly planted in cheek, but it’s always entertaining.

You may have seen Resident Alien on Syfy Channel. It was a comic by Peter Hogan and Steve Parkhouse before it was a TV show. The omnibus is the better buy here (collects V. 1-3 of the regular collections).

And speaking of media adaptions, for a more direct spies and assassins tale (this one being adapted by Netflix), there’s always Polar by Victor Santos.

Lobster Johnson   Resident Alien   Polar

Boys, What a Sale

The  Dynamite Garth Ennis Sale runs through Monday, 5/3.

The Boys is the series most associated with Ennis at Dynamite. With art by Darick Robertson, John McCrea and Russ Braun, it’s a violent, filthy satire of superheroes with a heart. Lots of people have seen the Amazon streaming adaption, which takes off on a slightly different vector.

You’ll also note at the very end of The Boys single issues, you’ll find The Boys: Dear Becky issues on sale for $0.99 each.  That’s the follow up mini-series by Ennis and Braun.

Also on sale is Battlefields, a series where Ennis tells a range of war stories. And Ennis telling a war story is something you already know whether you like or not.  The “Complete Editions” are the better buys, except for V. 1, where it’s slightly cheaper to get the individual collections.

The Boys  The Boys: Dear Becky   Battlefields

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