Heroes Return Archives - Comics.Cheap

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel revisits “Heroes Return” with discounts. DC drops a 750 book “MAX” sale with Flash, Superman and the Suicide Squad. In unannounced sales, we find Groo, Stranger Things, Dune and… Quentin Tarantino?

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):

Is That a Streaming Pun?

The DC to the MAX Sale runs through Monday, 7/15.

This is a large (750 items) and fairly wide-ranging sale, so it’s perhaps worth a bit of browsing time, but here are some highlights we noticed:

DMZ – Brian Wood / Riccardo Burchielli; During a second Civil War, an embedded reporter becomes stranded in the DMZ that Manhattan has become and promptly gets embroiled in local political/warlord scene.
The Flash (’59-’85) – The Silver Age volumes highlight this section
The Flash (’87 – ’09) – The prices on the Geoff Johns run are good.
The Flash (’16-’23) – Initially, Josh Williamson / Carmine Di Gianmenico. Later, Jeremy Adams / Roger Cruz
Hawkworld – Tim Truman leans into the science fiction side of the character in this excellent Hawkman reboot
Jonah Hex (’06 – ’11) – Jimmy Palmiotti & Justin Gray write a very fun Western with what turns into a jaw dropping parade of artists like Darwyn Cooke, Paul Gulacy, Jordi Bernet, Russ Heath, Phil Winslade, Eduardo Risso and so on…
Rorschach – Tom King /Jorge Fornés; A very well done follow up to the ideas of Watchmen
Suicide Squad (’87-’92) – John Ostrander / Luke McDonnell / Geoff Isherwood; There’s been some comments lately about how Amanda Waller was a much more nuanced character in the original incarnation… and we’d have to agree. This is a classic.
Suicide Squad: Blaze – Si Spurrier / Aaron Campbell; A darker than dark take on the Squad various DC mythos in this Black Label edition.
Superman Vol. 1: Supercorp (2023-)- Josh Williamson / Jamal Campbell; The opening to the quite enjoyable current Superman run.
Superman/Batman (’03 – ’11) – Initially Jeph Loeb / Ed McGuinness; These double-volumes are a good value
Unstoppable Doom Patrol – Dennis Culver / Chris Burnham; First time discounted?
Y: The Last Man – Brian K. Vaughan / Pia Guerra; The last man on Earth (and his monkey) navigates a dystopian landscape and tries to piece together what happened.

Come Again?

Marvel’s Heroes Reborn Sale runs through Monday, 7/15.

This is the 90s experiment when Marvel outsourced some of their titles to Image and then took them back. “Heroes Reborn” is the Image experiment and “Heroes Return” was when Marvel resumed production. Now, for our money, the gems here are from the “Heroes Return” period.

Heroes Reborn: The Return is the Peter David / Salvador Larroca tale that brings the heroes back to the “normal” Marvel Universe.

Iron Man: Heroes Return – The Complete Collection V. 1 has Kurt Busiek, Roger Stern and Sean Chen as the primary creative team, re-establishing shell head back in the Marvel Universe. You get some Mandarin, there’s a side trip with Captain America and MODOK. This collects the first portion of one of our favorite Iron Man periods.

And speaking of high points, this sale also has Captain America: Heroes Return – The Complete Collection, which is the Mark Waid/Ron Garney run resuming. (It had just started, and was abruptly halted, for Heroes Reborn.) A little Hydra, a lost shield… that MODOK tale from Iron Man is also reprinted here (a shared Annual). It’s a solid run.

Fantastic Four: Heroes Return – The Complete Collection Vol. 1 takes a longer view of the Heroes Return timeframe than the other do. This was starts out with a Chris Claremont/Alan Davis run and ends up with an underrated Carlos Pacheco run. Essentially, Heroes Return is deemed to stop right before the Mark Waid / Mike Wieringo run.

Why the Kurt Busiek / George Perez Avengers run isn’t included here… that’s a good question. In some ways it was the flagship of the returning titles.

Marvel revisited it in ’21 with the minor Event Heroes Reborn, headlined by a Jason Aaron / Ed McGuinness miniseries.

The Image-produced Heroes Reborn titles were:

Heroes Reborn: Avengers; Rob Liefeld / Jim Valentino / Jeph Loeb / Chap Yaep
Heroes Reborn: Captain America; Rob Liefeld / Jeph Loeb
Heroes Reborn: Iron Man; Jim Lee / Scott Lobdell / Whilce Portacio

And, to be complete, it’s not in the sale for inexplicable reasons, but Heroes Reborn: Fantastic Four by Jim Lee & Brandon Choi.

The Marvel “Maybe” Sales

The trend we noticed last week is still moving forward. 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.

Released this week

Thor Modern Era Epic Collection: Reborn From Ragnarok – J. Michael Straczynski / Olivier Coipel; Another week, another “Modern” Epic Collection being floated for pre-order at what sure looks like a sale price to us. The beginning of the JMS Thor run for $8.99.

Pre-Order for Next Week

White Widow: Welcome To Idylhaven – Sarah Gailey / Alessandro Miracolo; At this new $6.99 price point we’re starting to see.

We’re not quite sure what’s going on with these prices, but we’ll give you a heads up if it looks like it’s cheaper than it would normally be.

Unannounced Indie Sales

Over at Dark Horse, everyone’s favorite stupid barbarian is on sale. Yes, that’s right… it’s Groo by Sergio Aragones and Mark Evanier! Yes, this includes Groo Meets Tarzan with Thomas Yeates.

Also from Dark Horse, the Stranger Things line of graphic novels.

Plus, further removed from the Direct Market: