Comixology Sales: DC’s Odd Valentine’s Day Selections, Hellboy, Nova, Jeff Lemire and Kieron Gillen

This week’s Comixology Sales are highlighted by DC’s… unusual sense of romance, the many incarnations of Nova over at Marvel, Image’s 2020 highlights and delicate embrace of Hellboy.

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

Not the Nova from Planet of the Apes

Marvel’s Nova Sale runs through Sunday (2/14).

Starting at the beginning, Nova  Classic is the original Marv Wolfman series that’s probably most associated artistically with Sal Buscema and Carmine Infantino.  And yes, volume 3 does include the wrap up in Fantastic Four.

Nova by Abnett & Lanning is the series that the Annihilation event series spun out of. That would be Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning with a rotating roster of artists. This one had some pretty wild concepts, like a city made out of the corpse of a Celestial, long before Avengers Mountain was a thing.

New Warriors was team book that had a definite moment in the sun in the 90s. Nova was a member, as were Namorita, Vance Astro/Marvel Boy, Speedball and their leader, Night Thrasher.  This is a fun title most people associate with Fabian Nicieza and Mark Bagley.

Nova Classic   Nova by Abnett & Lanning  New Warriors

Image celebrates 2020 so you don’t have to

The Image Best of 2020 Sale runs through Thursday (2/25).

Descender / Ascender  are two titles by Jeff Lemire and Dustin Nguyen.  Descender is the tale of a robot cast in the form a little boy and a robot rebellion.  It is a wonderful series that earns it hype.  Ascender is the sequel series that takes things in a fantasy direction.

Die by Kieron Gillen and Stephanie Hans is the extra dark tale of a group of gamers who thought they’d seen the last of a fantasy realm they’d entered and escaped from. They were wrong.  If you wanted to look at this as a nightmare mirror of the old 1980s Saturday morning Dungeons & Dragons cartoon, that’s not a bad point of reference.  Good series.

Gideon Falls is also by that Lemire guy, with time with Andrea Sorrentino for an excellent time hopping, body possessing horror tale of which we’d rather not say more for fear of spoilers.

Descender   Ascender   Die   Gideon Falls

DC has a strange take on Valentine’s Day

The DC’s Heroes in Love Sale runs through Monday (2/15). We have to say, Birth of the Demon and Longbow Hunters miiiiiiiight not be what we’d push for a romantic theme, but your mileage may vary… we’ll forge ahead with that in mind.

Aquaman: The Search for Mera  is the beginning  of the Steve Skeates/ Jim Aparo run on Aquaman that’s gotten a lot of love over the years. In this arc (and DC didn’t have so many arcs like this in ’68) Mera has been abducted and Aquaman goes on a quest to find her that involves some fantasy tropes, the mob, Black Manta and an insurrection. It covers a lot of ground.  Since this is currently matching the print hardcover price, the sale has it at a heftier discount than most.

Mad Love is Paul Dini and Bruce Timm telling the origin story of Harley Quinn in the Batman: The Animated Series continuity. A very, very influential tale by the two best people to tell it.  Worth a look and yes, Harley’s in love.  Not in a healthy relationship, but in love.

Mister Miracle #18 is the wedding issue for Scott Free and Big Barda. After the Batman non-wedding, we thought maybe it was worth highlighting an actual wedding for Valentine’s Day? It’s Jack Kirby, after all!

Aquaman   Mad Love   Mister Miracle

Go straight to Hellboy

The Hellboy Sale runs through Monday (2/21).

Hellboy (proper) is the regular series you’re most familiar. Do we really have to say anything about something that’s widely considered a classic and has spawned a couple films, among other things?  Didn’t think so.  The Omnibus editions of this are by far your best value.  We also love when Richard Corben popped in.

Hellboy and the BPRD is a companion of series of miniseries filling in the backstory. You’ll find most of these are titled by the year and they’re working their way through the 1950s.  Tip – if the digital collected edition only has 5 issues in it, as is usually the case here, you can save a buck by getting the $0.99 single issues.

Hellboy   Hellboy and the BPRD

Still on Sale

Comixology Sales: Ant-Man, Hellboy & The BPRD, Saga & Image Science Fiction, Miles Morales: Spider-man and More

Marvel’s so excited about their Ant-Man sale on Comixology, they renamed Tales to Astonish! Plus Hellboy & the B.P.R.D., Saga, Outer Darkness, Elephantmen, Miles Morales: Spider-Man and a bunch more digital comics at deep discounts.

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

Marvel leads the weekend with its Ant-Man Sale.  Ant-Man comes in primarily two flavors: Hank Pym and Scott Lang.  (We’re going to ignore O’Grady.)  For Hank Pym’s original Tales to Astonish run, your best deal is picking up the two Marvel Masterworks volumes.  You should, regardless, click that link and see how Marvel has rebranded those Tales to Astonish issues as “Ant-Man.”  Even the ones after Pym had switched his identity to Giant Man.  It’s a hoot.  Those pre-Hulk Tales of Astonish are also available in the original format (i.e., as Tales to Astonish), but those versions aren’t on sale. This sale runs until Sunday (11/15).

Ant-Man Masterworks

For Scott Lang, there have been a few recent titles and they’ve tended towards tongue-in-cheek.  There were two Nick Spencer/Ramon Rosanas runs: Second Chance Man sets up the new status quo as the bumbling hard luck father seeking approval.  Astonishing Ant-Man then continues that arc.

Ant-Man: Second Chance Man  Astonishing Ant-Man

Ant-Man & The Wasp: Lost and Found by Mark Waid and Javier Garron finds Scott Lang and Nadia Pym lost in subatomic space.  Ant-Man: World Hive by Zeb Wells and Dylan Burnett finds Scott Lang wearing out his welcome as a house guest in an ant hill while encountering an insect conspiracy and is forced to team up with Swarm.  Yes, that would be the Swarm whose body is made of bees.

Ant-Man and the Wasp  Ant-Man: World Hive

Then there’s the Dark Horse Hellboy & BPRD Sale  through Monday (11/16). I had occasion to go back and re-read most of these a few months ago and it’s high quality work.  BPRD is also very much an ongoing saga told in large acts.  There are a lot creators involved in the saga, with Mike Mignola and John Arcudi being the primary writers through Hell on Earth.  Guy Davis is the primary artist for most of  Plague of Frogs and Hell on Earth.

The prequel is B.P.R.D. 1946 – 1948 featuring Prof. Bruttenholm and his original agents running down Nazi vampire experiments.  That’s a 469 page volume with three series in it.

The BPRD sequence really starts with The Plague of FrogsSpecifically, it starts picking up about halfway through the first omnibus as the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense investigates the increasing appearances of frog-like monsters and slowly come to realize something very bad is on the way.  This leads into the next sequence, Hell on Earthwhich is accurately named.  Ancient powers get unleashed and the world is just trying to survive.  You know how with a lot comics, you can be pretty sure they’re not going to that dark, disaster-ridden place?  Well, BPRD goes there.  And does it well.  The best value for these titles is the omnibus editions, which are all 400+ pages (i.e., 3 of the regular collected editions).  There’s a bit more in the series, but those three sequences are the backbone and everything I’ve ever read of the series has been high quality.

BPRD - Plague of Frogs  BPRD - Hell on Earth

Let’s also talk a little more about the ongoing Image Science Fiction Sale that runs through Thursday (11/19).  So much good stuff in this one. Farmhand by Rob  Guillory is about a farm that grows replacement organs instead of corn and the strange things that are starting to happen to the transplants. You may remember Rob as the artist of Chew.  If you liked Chew, you should like Farmhand. It might be a little darker, but the two are very much compatible.  Speaking of Chew, Outer Darkness  by Chew writer John Layman and Afu Chan is also on sale.  Outer Darkness is about ghosts and demonic possessions in the outer reaches of space and it’s fantastic.  It also ends with a Chew crossover.  Saga  is also on sale.  What else really needs to be said about the Brian K. Vaughan/Fiona Staples classic, other than we’re all impatiently waiting for new issues to resume?  Note: as is often the case with Image, it’s slightly less expensive to get the “Collected Editions” than the “Omnibuses” in digital.  It usually works the other way with Dark Horse digital sales.

Farmhand   Outer Darkness  Saga

The Elephantmen Sale contains the Image run of Richard Starking’s long-running Elephantmen series.  Comixology scooped this series up as an exclusive title, post-Image.  The “elephantmen” are genetically engineered human/animal hybrids bred and trained to be mercenaries by a company the sought to own them and rent them out.  Eventually, things changed and the survivors seek to integrate back into society with a lot of baggage from their wars and old scores that pop up wanting to be settled.  Starking assembled a wonderful set of artists like Moritat and Ladronn for the series and it’s definitely worth a look.

Elephantmen

Still on sale

The Miles Morales: Spider-Man Sale through Sunday 11/22.
The DC Back in the 90s Sale through Monday 11/16.

Miles Morales - Spider-Man  

The Eternals through Sunday 11/15
The Image Donny Cates Sale  through Monday 11/16

Eternals by Jack Kirby  Redneck by Donny Cates

The IDW Judge Dredd Sale through Monday 11/16
Resident Alien 
through Monday, 11/16

Judge Dredd   Resident Alien