Tag: holiday sale

Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: DC’s $1.99 Mania Pt IV – Mister Miracle to World’s Finest

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, part 4 of our look at DC’s $1.99 Mania – Mister Miracle through World’s Finest in the $1.99 catalog. Plus, a Dark Horse line-wide 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):

Administrative Notes

Ho, ho ho – the holiday sales march on. This is the fourth holiday sale installment. The DC sale is running through 12/30. The Marvel sales are all running through 1/6.

  • Installment one of the holiday columns covered what’s new in this year’s Marvel Epic Collection Sale and the current DC titles in the $1.99 sale
  • Installment two covered 1st Issue Special through Fables of the DC $1.99 sale, Marvel’s Star Wars Omnibus Sale, Best of ’24 Sale and What If? Sale
  • Installment three covered Far Sector through Marshal Law of the DC $1.99 sale.

DC $1.99 Mania Continued (Part IV)

Mister Miracle  New Gods by Jack Kirby  Night Force

The DC Holiday All eBooks Sale runs through 12/30.

We’re still rolling through DC’s very nearly line-wide sale. Not everything from September to the beginning of time is $1.99, but the vast majority of collected editions seem to be. You should probably have your own scroll through it, but we’re looking at it alphabetically and calling out interesting books based on readability, value/larger page count and if it’s infrequently discounted.

  • Mister Miracle by Jack Kirby – Jack Kirby; Kirby’s Fourth World series about a son of New Genesis who was raised on Apokalypse and became the greatest escape artist across all those worlds
  • Mister Miracle by Steve Englehart and Steve Gerber – Steve Englehart/Marshall Rogers and Steve Gerber / Michael Golden / Russ Heath; This book requires a little explanation. This is the late ’70s revival of the series. Englehart & Rogers (of the famous Batman/Detective run) don’t quite gel, but it’s a high floor. Gerber starts exploring the nature of godhood after that and it gets extremely interesting before getting caught in the DC Implosion and cancelled. You need to see Heath inking Golden for yourself. It’s a treat and you’ll end up angry this wonderful experiment was cancelled. Seldom discounted and usually a little overpriced… but not this week
  • Mister Miracle (’17-’19) – Tom King / Mitch Gerads; The Eisner winning series where Scott Free tries to escape death itself
  • The Multiversity – Grant Morrison / Frank Quitely / Ivan Reis; A tale that hops across parallel Earths as Morrison goes wild with world-building. 450 pages
  • New Gods by Jack Kirby – Jack Kirby; The original tale of Darkseid and Peak Kirby. Highly recommended
  • New Gods by Gerry Conway – Gerry Conway / Don Newton / George Perez; The ’77-’78 revival (and material moved over to Adventure Comics), plus the JLA/JSA/New Gods crossover (w/ Perez) that cemented Darkseid as a DCU big bad, not just off in the Fourth World corner of the room; Another volume that’s usually a little more expensive, even on sale
  • New Gods (’89 – ’91) – Mark Evanier / Paris Cullins / Rick Hoberg
  • New Teen Titans (’80-’88) – Marv Wolfman / George Perez; One of the titles that saved DC in the early ’80s and a classic of the era. Really due for the omnibus treatment, too
  • The Newsboy Legion – Joe Simon & Jack Kirby; One of the Simon & Kirby kid gangs (along with The Boy Commandos), the Newsboy Legion were watched over by a superhero called The Guardian. Kirby would return to them… with some twists… in his ’70s Jimmy Olsen run; Another title usually subject to abnormally high HC pricing
  • Night Force (’82-83) – Marv Wolfman / Gene Colan; The Tomb of Dracula team reunites at DC for a horror book about a mansion that contains a portal through space and time and its mysterious owner. Marv told us this is his favorite of his work and we happily recommend it

Orion  Plastic Man  Sandman Mystery Theater

  • OMAC : One Man Army Corps by Jack Kirby – Jack Kirby; Kirby’s adventure-satire about a corporate dystopian future has aged well and has more bite than you might expect
  • Orion – Walt Simonson; Yes, that’s Walt doing New Gods / the son of Darkseid with an approach not so different to his Thor. Excellent book that never seemed to get a push and fell under the radar. Highly recommended
  • Planetary – Warren Ellis / John Cassaday; The full series in two 400+ page volumes
  • Plastic Man: Rubber Banded – Kyle Baker; Baker’s full 20 issue run is hilarious. We’d say there’s two people to have done Plas that came anywhere near the spirit of Jack Cole. Baker is one of them (Hilary Barta is the other). This one is usually at a bizarre price for a digital book, due to the fancy HC edition. Currently $2.99
  • Preacher – Garth Ennis / Steve Dillon; God has gone missing and Jesse Custer would like to have a word with him. Double volumes
  • Promethea – Alan Moore / J.H. Williams III; A beautifully illustrated fantasy/occult adventure with an extra side of philosophy. Double volumes. Recommended
  • Richard Dragon: Kung Fu Fighter – Denny O’Neil / Ric Estrada; The full 70s series at a good price for the completist in your life
  • Robin – In the 90s, there were three miniseries of Tim Drake as Robin that led into the ongoing title, so of course they’re not all listed on the same page
  • Sandman Mystery Theater – Matt Wagner / Steven T. Seagle / Guy Davis; The adventures of Wesley Dodds as the Golden Age Sandman, replete with gas mask and gun, ably assisted by Dian Belmont. This excellent title had a 70 issue run under the old Vertigo label and the first 24 issues are available across two volumes. If you like ’30s pulp detectives, this will be your jam
  • Scalped – Jason Aaron / R. M. Guera; This neo-noir about an undercover FBI agent infiltrating the casino at the reservation he grew up on and thought he’d escaped was Jason Aaron’s breakthrough series. Double volumes
  • Secret Six – Gail Simone’s cult series about a crew of villains that flirt with the straight and narrow. We’d put it at or near the top of her catalog.
    • Secret Six V.1 – Gail Simone / Dale Eaglesham / Brad Walker; Villains United, which this spun off from, and the original mini-series
    • Secret Six V.2-4 – Gail Simone / Nicola Scott / Jim Calafiore; Double volumes of the ongoing series
  • Seven Soldiers of Victory – Grant Morrison / J.H Williams III / Simone Bianchi / Frazier Irving; Morrison crafts a story across a series of mini-series, including Zatanna and his reinvention of Frankenstein
  • Sheriff of Babylon – Tom King / Mitch Gerads; An political thriller as an ex-cop contracted to train Iraq’s new police force looks into the murder of one of his recruits and finds a maze of conflicting agendas and duplicity. The full series in one volume

Superman: Phantom Zone  Jimmy Olsen  World's Finest

  • Superman: Birthright – Mark Waid / Leinil Francis Yu; An expanded origin tale that spends a little more time than most on the period between Smallville and Metropolis.
  • Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen by Jack Kirby – Jack Kirby; A fourth world entrant, this is effectively Kirby’s Superman book. Also where Project Cadmus and the DNAliens come from. Don’t shun it because it’s ’70s Jimmy Olsen. It’s Kirby doing adventure
  • Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen: Who Killed Jimmy Olsen? – Matt Fraction / Steve Lieber; A comedy masterpiece. Jimmy wakes up hung over and freshly married in Gorilla City… and that’s before he has to figure out who’s trying to ice him. Tour de force
  • Superman: Phantom Zone – Steve Gerber / Gene Colan / Rick Veitch; A Superman tale that veers into horror as a Phantom Zone escapee causes Superman to look a little deeper into the Zone’s origins. Also includes the DC Comics Presents sequel.
  • Superman: The Man of Steel – John Byrne / Marv Wolfman / Jerry Ordway; The Byrne era of Superman in 450+ page chunks for $1.99
  • Saga of the Swamp Thing – (initially) Alan Moore / Stephen Bissette / John Totleben, with some Stan Woch and Rick Veitch; This volume starts out not quite two years into the series (see next listing) with Alan Moore’s arrival to spark an absolutely legendary run.
  • Swamp Thing (’72 – ’76) – Len Wein / Bernie Wrightson; The “Bronze Age” collections on this link are three distinct things. V.1 is the original Wein/Wrightson run, which completely lives up to its reputation. V. 2 is the remainder of the original run, with David Michelinie and Nestor Redondo being the longest serving creative team, plus some extra’s like Swamp Thing’s guest star run in Challengers of the Unknown. V.3 is really the pre-Alan Moore issues of Saga of the Swamp Thing from 1982. Martin Pasko writes, artists include Tom Yeates, with Stephen Bissette and John Totleben arriving a couple issue prior to Moore.
  • Transmetropolitan – Warren Ellis / Darick Robertson; The 23rd century adventures of Hunter S. Thompson-esque journalist Spider Jerusalem as he feuds with corrupt presidents.
  • Watchmen – Alan Moore / Dave Gibbons – We assume you don’t need this one explained to you
  • Wonder Woman (Golden Age) – William Moulton Marston & H.G. Peter; It’s hard to understate how wild, over-the-top and bondage-driven these original tales are. It reads differently to an adult audience.
  • Wonder Woman (’87 – ’06) – We’re  big fans of the George Perez and Greg Rucka runs. Walt Simonson & Jerry Ordway, too. This is the post-Crisis reset, and for a lot of people this is where Wonder Woman begins. NOTE – to get the V.5 and V.6 of the Perez run, you need to go to this page. (Hey, don’t look at us, we didn’t put it there.)
  • Wonder Woman (’11-’16) – Brian Azzarello / Cliff Chiang; The first six volumes are the Azarello/Chiang run. Some feel it’s sacrilegious to the character (Azzarello being less than reverent? That’s his brand!), but regardless of that aspect, it’s a highly entertaining adventure as Wonder Woman discovers… let’s call it a possible new origin. A high point of the New 52 initiative.
  • Wonder Woman (’16) – Greg Rucka returns in a refutation of the Azzarello run that’s GREAT. Nicola Scott and Liam Sharp alternate issues (and plot threads). Get in two volumes. Wonder Woman: The Rebirth – Book 1 and Wonder Woman: The Rebirth – Book 2
  • World’s Finest (’22-current) – Mark Waid / Dan Mora; We’re still leaning towards calling the series about the early team-ups of Batman & Superman DC’s best current series.

Unannounced Sales

Hellboy  Martha Washington  Minor Threats

It appears that Dark Horse has most of their collected editions on sale, but not the newest material and not the single issues.  Here’s a link that will *eventually* get you through their catalog in a very laborious way and with the single issues mixed in. (It’s not perfect, but we’re trying.)

Here are some direct links to various series:

Under the radar alert: you don’t hear about this much anymore, but     The Life and Times of Martha Washington in the Twenty-First Century is a Frank Miller / Dave Gibbons collaboration with a different tone than Miller’s commonly associated these days. It’s a lot closer to Halo Jones than it is to Sin City or the later Dark Knight volumes.

The Marvel “Maybe” Sales

Spider-Man: Shadow of the Green Goblin  Darth Vader  Vengeance of the Moon Knight

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 Next Week

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: The Marvel Epic Collection Sale Returns; $1.99 Recent Collections from DC

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, the Marvel Epic Collection Sale returns after skipping a year. Plus, DC wants you to read their recent collections for $1.99!

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):

Administrative Notes

The final holiday sales are underway and things are overflowing. Marvel Epics and the first glance at the jaw-dropping DC sale right now. We’ll be back for Star Wars, What If and DC later in the week. That DC sale will definitely take a little time to go through.

Cheap Marvel Epic Collections

Captain America  New X-Men  Silver Surfer: The Return of Thanos

The Marvel Epic Collection Sale runs through Monday, 1/6.

Welcome to the big sale week. The majority of Marvel’s Epic Collections are $6.99-$8.99 and this is an good time to fill in gaps in your collection. There was a LOT of grousing when this sale didn’t run last year, so we’re popping in early to give you the rundown on it.

First we’re going to give a quick overview of what’s in it (for quicker browsing).

Then we’re going to try and root out what’s new in the sales since last year — yes, we know some of you stock up on your Epic Collections every year when this sale drops and this ought to save you some time.

Then some recommendations.

Then a quick reference list of titles with Epic Collections available.

What’s New Since Black Friday ’22?

Near as we can tell, these are the new releases since the last Black Friday Epic Collection sale dropped, two years ago. Compare them to what you’ve already purchased, just in case, but this is what it’s looking like to us:

What’s good here? A fair amount. Things we’d pay special attention to:

Avengers Epic Collection: The Yesterday Quest  – This is a very solid run, starting with the Jim Shooter / George Perez / David Wenzel” Korvac Saga” and ending with the the David Michelinie / Mark Gruenwald / Steven Grant / John Byrne “Yesterday Quest” featuring… well, one origin of the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver.

Captain America Epic Collection: The Secret Empire is the real meat of the classic Steve Englehart / Sal Buscema run, featuring the debut of The Serpent Squad, the debut of Baron Zemo II (under a different identity) and the famous Secret Empire story everyone references these days.

Captain America Epic Collection: The Man Who Sold The United States – The end of the Steve Englehart run (with Frank Robbins on art), followed by Jack Kirby’s Madbomb serial, which has certainly had a reappraisal in the last decade.

Captain America Modern Era Epic Collection: The Winter Soldier – The opening act of Ed Brubaker’s hugely influential run as Bucky seemingly returns from the dead. Steve Epting, Michael Lark and Lee Weeks are in the artist rotation.

Defenders Epic Collection: Enter – The Headmen – The end of the Len Wein / Sal Buscema run and then Steve Gerber arrives for some wonderfully off-kilter action.

New X-Men Modern Era Epic Collection: E Is For Extinction – Grant Morrison’s resetting of the X-Men (w/Frank Quitely / Igor Kordey /  Leinil Francis Yu) gets an Epic Collection.

Silver Surfer Epic Collection: The Return Of Thanos is a superior package. First Steve Englehart wraps up his run with the second Kree/Skrull War, then Jim Starlin shows up for the return of Thanos and to lay the groundwork for The Infinity Gauntlet. Ron Lim, who’s drawn a LOT of Silver Surfer is the main artist here.

X-Men Epic Collection: The Brood Saga – This is some prime X-adventuring from the title’s golden period as the team heads into space and encounters The Brood. Chris Claremont / Dave Cockrum / Paul Smith.

Daredevil Epic Collection: It Comes With The Claws is a transition period for the book. It starts out just after the “Born Again” arc and after a few issues, Ann Nocenti begins what would be the next major run. Louis Williams and Rick Leonardi are the main artists, but John Romita, Jr. shows up towards the end, which begins the most famous part of Nocenti’s run.

A Quicker Guide to the Series with Epic Collections.

Here’s a list of the series involved in the sale. You may need to scroll down past the Masterworks editions to the Epics in some of the links… and that’s OK, because you should remember the Masterworks are usually on sale around the holidays (although since the Epics skipped last year and are running through 1/6, there is a distinct possibility the Masterworks are taking a year off… but tune in 1/7 to see what happens).  The material from the mid-80s to present, tends to be in Epic Collections only. So this is the time to get Avengers West Coast, Silver Surfer, New Mutants and the more recent material and discounts for those will dry up on the 1st. You have more sale options with material in both formats.

DC Goes $1.99 Crazy

Batman  Nightwing  Batman / Dylan Dog

The DC Holiday All eBooks Sale runs through 12/30.

There’s a LOT more to it, but our eyes are immediately drawn to the current incarnations of the DC titles at $1.99 per collected edition. Yes, including things discounted for the first time. You’ll probably like it. Until the official link shows up, here’s our quick guides to some of the current line… and we’ve found the DC line to have improved immensely in the last couple years, so there’s plenty to enjoy.

The Guide to $1.99 current series. Some of these are at the bottom of a longer series page and we’ll do individual volume links for those.

  • Action Comics – rotating creators – Vol. 1 / Vol. 2
  • Batman – Chip Zdarsky / Jorge Jiménez / Mike Hawthorne – Vol. 1, Vol. 2, Vol. 3 (newly discounted)
  • Batman & Robin – Josh Williamson / Simone Di Meo
  • Batman / Dylan Dog – Roberto Recchioni / Gigi Cavenago; Hidden gem as Batman teams with the Italian comics goofy occult investigator. One of the better takes on The Joker, too.
  • Birds of Prey –Kelly Thompson / Leonardo Romero – Black Canary leads a raid on Paradise Island
  • Detective Comics – Ram V written run w/ Rafael Albuquerque / Ivan Reis; A slow burn gothic horror take we’re enjoying quite a bit – Vol. 1, Vol. 2, Vol. 3
  • Flash – Si Spurrier / Mike Deodato, Jr.; Cosmic horror enters the speed force and we’re good with that
  • Green Arrow – Josh Williamson / Sean Izaakse; The adventures of the Green Arrow family (as Waller lurks and plots)
  • Green Lantern – Jeremy Adams / Xermanico; Back to a Silver Age feel
  • Green Lantern War Journal – Phillip Kennedy Johnson / Montos; A particularly disturbing extra-dimensional invader stalks John Stewart
  • Nightwing – Tom Taylor / Bruno Redondo; this highly enjoyable run nears its end (in collected editions) – Vol. 1, Vol.2, Vol. 3, Vol. 4, Vol. 5 (newly discounted)
  • Poison Ivy – G. Willow Wilson / Marcio Takara
  • Shazam – Mark Waid / Dan Mora; Waid & Mora steer “The Captain” back towards his original tone
  • Superman – Josh Williamson / Jamal Campbell; Quality back to basics run
  • Titans – Tom Taylor / Nicola Scott; The Titans as Justice League. In a way, an extension of Nightwing
  • Wonder Woman – Tom King / Daniel Sampere; Political maneuvering and misinformation drive this darker than you’d expect adventure
  • World’s Finest – Mark Waid / Dan Mora; Early adventures of Batman & Superman, with a Kingdom Come prequel. One of DC’s best offerings.

We’ll be back for a much closer look at this sale, probably split into at least two parts. If this isn’t *every* digital collected edition from Sept. and earlier, it’s pretty close. Most of it seems to be $1.99 and there are bargains to be had. We’re a little shocked at the first flipping through.

The Marvel “Maybe” Sales

Immortal X-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

  • Immortal X-Men Vol. 5 – X-Men Forever – Kieron Gillen / Luca Maresca; Technically, this is the X-Men Forever mini-series that tied in with Fall of the House of X. But, yeah, it’s really the final installment of Immortal X-Men. $6.99

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: DC’s First Holiday Sale w/ Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman; Iron Man; X-Men

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, DC has the first holiday sale of the season with their “Trinity” sale of Batman/Superman/Wonder Woman… as low as $1.99/book. Plus, Marvel puts almost the entire Iron Man catalog on sale, as well as some X-Men and Storm titles. Dark Horse chips in with an Erik Powell 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):

DC’s First Holiday Sale Is Here

Batman: The Detective  Superman: The Man of Steel  Wonder Woman

The DC Trinity Sale runs through Monday, 11/11.

This sale is often the first holiday sale. Why are we saying it this year? $1.99 collected editions. The rule of them is if a collected edition is $2.99, go ahead a pull the trigger. $1.99? Yeah, that’s rock bottom for DC in recent years.

As such we’re going to be taking a look here at the vast swatch of $1.99 and $2.99 books. (This is comics.CHEAP, after all.) There are definitely newer books on the sale, but they might be — gasp — $3.99 or $4.99.

Batman

  • All-Star Batman (’16 – ’17) – Scott Snyder / John Romita, Jr. / Jock / Rafael Albuquerque
  • Batman (’40 – ’11) – mixed pricing
  • Batman (’11 – ’16) – Scott Snyder / Greg Capullo; That’s right, you can stick the full Snyder/Capullo run in somebody’s stocking for $1.99@
  • Batman (’16 – present) – Most of the Tom King and James Tynion IV runs are $1.99@
  • Batman: The Dark Knight Returns – Frank Miller
  • Batman: The Detective – Tom Taylor / Andy Kubert; (yes, the first Taylor run for $1.99. Happy holidays.)
  • Batman: The Killing Joke – Alan Moore / Brian Bolland
  • Batman: Three Jokers – Geoff Johns / Jason Fabok
  • Batman: Year One – Frank Miller / David Mazzucchelli
  • Batman/Superman (’13 – ’16) – Greg Pak / Jae Lee
  • Detective Comics (’37 – ’11) – Mixed pricing
  • Detective Comics (’11-’16) – Tony Daniel, then John Layman / Jason Fabok
  • Detective Comics (’16 – present) – James Tynion IV / Eddy Barrows through Mariko Tamaki / Dan Mora (before the price starts inching up)

Superman

Wonder Woman

  • Wonder Woman ’87 – ’06 – Mixed pricing. Perez is one of the definitive runs, though not as cheap. The first Greg Rucka run is cheap, though, and it’s great.
  • Wonder Woman (’11-’16) – You want the first 6 volumes of the Brian Azzarello / Cliff Chiang / Goran Sudzuka run. It’s a divisive take on the character (see: Azzarello, Brian), but it’s a solid yarn. Treat it like an Elseworlds, if you like.
  • Wonder Woman (’16 – ’20) – You want the *excellent* first four volumes by Greg Rucka, Nicola Scott and Liam Sharp

This is one you want to take some time and browse. Some interesting things in these lower price points? Sure.

Trinity by Matt Wagner teams up Batman / Superman / Wonder Woman as Ra’s al Ghul has a plot involving Bizarro, a rogue Amazon and some nukes. Also… it’s Matt Wagner. $2.99

Wonder Woman: The Hiketeia by Greg Rucka and J.G. Jones finds Wonder Woman and Batman having a little trouble agreeing to disagree. $2.99

Batman: Venom – Denny O’Neil / Trevor Von Eeden / Russ Braun / Jose Luis Garcia Lopez; About a year before Bane appeared, this was the Legends of the Dark Knight arc that introduced “venom,” the super-steroid that bulked up Bane. (With as good a creative lineup as you could reasonably ask for.) $1.99 – cheap.

Does Whatever An Iron Can…

Iron Man: The Man Who Killed Tony Stark  Iron Man: Heroes Reborn  Iron Man: Big Iron

The Marvel Iron Man Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 11/11.

This would be one of those sales where most of the hero’s run is on sale, so we’re going to follow our usual protocol and start out by breaking out the primary titles and volumes. ‘Ole Shellhead hasn’t had as many relaunches as some titles, but there is a volume where the collection options are a little… odd. Note: the Masterworks aren’t included in this sale, so you’re looking at Epic Collections and “regular” collections for the classic material.

  • Tales of Suspense – Iron Man debuted here in what was a split book with Captain America for most of the run.
  • Iron Man ’68-’96 – The original solo run in the era before constant relaunch gimmicks

OK, sit tight. The ’98 -’04 run is collected in VERY odd ways and poorly cataloged for browsing.  The truly excellent Kurt Busiek/Sean Chen/Patrick Zircher run lasts from 1-25. We can’t find 15-25 collected? (That entire run should be!)  You can catch 1-14 and the Mike Grell run (50-59)  in cheap omnibus form here.  You can catch Joe Quesada’s scripting run (26-32) and the Avengers: Disassembled tie-in late in this run in single volumes here. (But get the omnibus version for Busiek.)

  • Iron Man ’04-07 – Best known for launching with the “Extremis” storyline
  • Invincible Iron Man ’08-’12 – The excellent Matt Fraction / Salvador Larroca run. Save some money with the omnibus collecting the first 3 volumes.
  • Iron Man ’12-’14 – The Kieron Gillen run with Greg Land as initial artist
  • Superior Iron Man ’14-’15 – Tom Taylor / Yildiray Cinar
  • Invincible Iron Man ’15-’16 – Brian Bendis and David Marquez/Mike Deodato, Jr. start out with Tony Stark in the armor
  • International Iron Man ’16 – Brian Bendis and Alex Maleev (And yes, we’re in the thick of the relaunches now)
  • Invincible Iron Man ’16-’18 – Brian Bendis and Stefano Caselli with Riri Williams/Ironheart filling Tony Stark’s shoes (yes, parallel substitute Iron Man runs)
  • Tony Stark: Iron Man ’18-’19 – The Dan Slott era with Valerio Schiti as the principle artist in the rotation.
  • Iron Man ’20-’22 – The Christopher Cantwell / Cafu run.
  • Invincible Iron Man ’22-current – Gerry Duggan / Juan Frigeri

If you’re keeping score at home, you’ll have notice Infamous Iron Man are not on sale. Why? We cannot say. Too close to Doom assuming the mantle of Sorcerer Supreme?

So what’s good?  We haven’t read ALL the Iron Man out there, but we’ve read a lot of them.

In our opinion Iron Man starts hitting it’s stride when Archie Goodwin arrives toward the end of the Tales of Suspense run and then is pure gold through issue 28 of the ’68 Iron Man series. Artists for this run include Gene Colan and George Tuska. (That’s collected in both Masterworks and Epic formats, but only the Epic is discounted right now..)

The next “all-star” run is #116-157 of the original Iron Man, that’s the David Michelinie / John Romita, Jr. / Bob Layton run that’s most famous for the “Demon in a Bottle” alcoholism arc, but there’s more to the run than just that arc.  The Denny O’Neil / Luke McDonnell run that follows is solid (make sure you get a collection that includes #200!!!), but Michelinie & Layton return for #215-250 with a few artists, including Mark Bright and Jackson Guice… with Layton even switching to penciller, instead of his usual inking post, for parts of it.  This second run is most famous for “Armor Wars” (originally known as Stark Wars).

When Heroes Return hits, Kurt Busiek and Sean Chen are pop in for the excellent 1998 run, of which only 1-14 are currently collected.

The ’08 – ’12 run by Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca is particularly good. You know how modern Marvel titles can get sidetracked by Events. Fraction and Larroca lean into it and produce a lengthy and self-contained arc with Tony Stark on the run and attempting to overwrite his brain to keep everyone’s secrets out of the hands of Norman Osborn. Yes, an honest to goodness great Event tie-in arc. It’s a rare thing.

We were quite happy with the  Christopher Cantwell/Cafu run. Tony Stark chases Korvac into outer space and meditates on the nature of godhood, good intentions and addictions. Lots of character work and action.

The Calm Before?

X of Swords  X-Men: Red  Resurrection of Magneto

The Marvel Storm Sale runs through Monday, 11/11.

It might be better to break up the highlights as pre-Krakoa and Krakoa era.

Pre-Krakoa

  • X-Men: Magik – Storm & Illyana – Chris Claremont / Brent Anderson / John Buscema; extra dark tale of Illyana’s abduction by demons
  • Storm (’06) – Eric Jerome Dickey / David Yardin; prequel to her marriage to T’Challa
  • Storm (’14-15) – Greg Pak / Victor Ibenez

Krakoa Era

  • Marauders (’19-’22) – Gerry Duggan / Matteo Lolli / Stefano Caselli; Kitty becomes a pirate captain w/ Storm in tow
  • Giant-Size X-Men by Jonathan Hickman (’20) – Jonathan Hickman / Russell Dauterman / Alan Davis
  • X of Swords (’20) – Hickman showrunning the full creative staff
  • X-Men: Red (’22-’23) – Al Ewing / Stefano Caselli; Storm rules Arrako (Mars)
  • Resurrection of Magneto (’24); Al Ewing / Luciano Vecchio; An X-Men: Red end cap of sorts, as it’s time for Magneto to return from the dead

What’s good? We’re partial to the Krakoa era. X of Swords is a satisfying Event – yes, that’s possible, it just doesn’t happen often enough. X-Men: Red was a highlight of the late-stages of Krakoa and Resurrection of Magneto was interesting… although if you’re a regular reader, you’ll know we’re usually in the bag for Al Ewing. (Mmm… ZOMBO!)

Villains of the Atom

X-Men: Dark Phoenix Saga Complete Collection  Mystique  X-Men: Age of Apocalypse

The  Marvel X-Men Villains Sale runs through Monday, 11/11.

It’s true. The X-Men have villains and sometimes the villains eventually become friends. And sometimes friends become villains and then become friends.

The best thing here is the utter classic X-Men: Dark Phoenix Saga Complete Collection by Chris Claremont & John Byrne. Yes, the comic is definitely better than the film in this case and that edition has some extra issues that are worthwhile.  (For Jean Grey’s initial resurrection, there’s also X-Men: Phoenix Rising)

Best thing under most radars? Mystique, where she’s repurposed as Xavier’s spy. The first Brian K. Vaughan / Jorge Lucas / Michael Ryan omnibus is particularly good.

You have a couple options for the Age of Apocalypse arc. X-Men: The Complete Age of Apocalypse does appear to be slightly more complete.

The sequel is filed under the two volume X-Men Vs. Apocalypse.

Also under the radar: Magneto (’14-’15 ) by Cullen Bunn & Gabriel Hernandez Walta goes to some dark places.

The Marvel “Maybe” Sales

Ms. Marvel  Ghost Rider

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

Big Man Plans  1984  Godzilla: The Half-Century War

Dark Horse has a sale on Eric Powell’s comics:

Also on sale:

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales – The DC Holiday Sale – $1.99 Batman, Superman, etc. (Cheap)

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, it’s a DEEP dive into the DC Holiday Sale. Plus, an unannounced Bendis sale at Dark Horse.

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):

DC’s Commitment to Cheap

The DC Holiday Sale runs through Monday, 1/1.

This is definitely the value sale between now and January 1st. Plenty of $1.99 collected editions and MUCH better than usual prices on expensive volumes that get lousy discounts during the rest of the year. If you have received some gift cards or are about to, this is where your credits will go the furthest at the moment.

There’s 3071 items in it, so it takes a little time to scroll through. When you do, PLEASE remember to right-click on anything you’re interested in and open the link/book in a new tab? You really, really do not want to loose your place. Trust us – this ain’t our first rodeo.

That said, here’s an entirely too large list of annotations of things we like, think are particularly good deals or otherwise notable. And we’ll try and get a *little* organization to it, because it’s still a lot of info.  Yes, that we can make this list may also be an indictment of our lifestyle, but we’re used to it. 😉

Batman

Tales of the Batman: Steve Englehart  Tales of the Batman: Archie Goodwin  Legends of the Dark Knight Norm Breyfogle 2

  • Batman (1940-’11) -We especially like $2.99 “Caped Crusader” (the ’80s run) and $2.99 Ed Brubaker volumes if you scroll down.
  • Detective Comics(1937-’11) – We especially like $2.99 “Dark Knight Detective” (the ’80s run) and “New Gotham” volumes.
  • Batman and the Outsiders – The classic ’80s team book by Mike W. Barr / Jim Aparo / Alan Davis. It’s rare to see all three volumes on sale at the same time (and the first volume rarely gets a proper discount)
  • Batman & The Joker: The Deadly Duo – Marc Silvestri does Batman. $2.99
  • Batman/Superman: World’s Finest – Mark Waid & Dan Mora’s excellent current series. (And yes, this is a star turn for Mora.) – $2.99@
  • Batman: Damned – Brian Azzarello / Lee Bermejo; It will go down as infamous for the “bat pole” and the behind the scenes political upheaval it caused.
  • Batman: Death and the Maidens – A Ra’s Al Ghul tale by Greg Rucka / Klaus Janson
  • Batman: Gates of Gotham – Scott Snyder / Kyle Higgins / Trevor McCarthy – early Snyder Batman
  • Batman Universe – Brian Bendis channeling pure fun? Believe it! This is the Bendis/Nick Derington tale that was hidden away in the Walmart comics and we want another volume! A lot more than $1.99 worth of entertainment.
  • Batman and Robin – The Grant Morrison / Frank Quitely / Cameron Stewart / Frazier Irving material
  • Batman/Spawn – both of the 90s crossovers for $1.99
  • Batman: Arkham Asylum – The Grant Morrison / Dave McKean classic for $1.99
  • Batman (2016-present) – Tom King’s run through the current Chip Zdarksy run, mostly $1.99/volume with some $2.99 sprinkled in.
  • Detective Comics (2016-present) – James Tynion IV’s first and – we’ll say it – better Batman run for $1.99@.
  • Tales of the Batman: Steve Englehart – Mostly Englehart/Marshall Rogers, but also some Walt Simonson. This is the Detective Comics run that’s on most “best Batman run” short lists, plus the follow-ups over the years. 452 pages / $5.99
  • Tales of the Batman: Archie Goodwin – The Batman tales of one of the best writers (who moved up to editorial) and also one of the nicest guys in comics. Probably The nicest guy. 471 pages / $4.99
  • Legends of the Dark Knight: Norm Breyfogle V.1 and V.2 – The Batman team of Alan Grant and Norm Breyfogle, who had a fantastic run in the late 80s/early 90s and (get this) introduced a lot of new villains. 522 / 471 pages, $5.99
  • Tales of the Batman: Gerry Conway Vol. 1 / Vol. 2 / Vol. 3 – Conway wrote Batman & Detective in the early 80s and the stories bounced between the two books quite a bit, so this is the better way to read the Don Newton and Gene Colan stories. 438 / 472 / 502 pages, $5.99
  • Tales of the Batman: Alan Brennert – Normally a TV screenwriter, Brennert wrote some notable Batman over the years, all collected here. 207 pages / $2.99
  • Legends of the Dark Knight: Alan Davis – The Mike W. Barr / Alan Davis run from Detective. 270 pages / $4.99
  • Legends of the Dark Knight: Jim Aparo Vol. 1 / Vol. 2 / Vol. 3 – This is mostly the very long and rather amazing Bob Haney / Jim Aparo run from The Brave and the Bold. Every volume over 500 pages / $5.99. Fun stuff, off in it’s own little world.
  • Batman: Tales of the Demon – Denny O’Neil / Neal Adams / Don Newton. This is the original set of Ra’s al Ghul stories. Because it’s a HC in print, it usually has a ridiculous digital price, so $5.99 is a good price for it, right now.

Superman

All-Star Superman  Adventures of Superman  Superman Smashes The Klan

Wonder Woman 

Wonder Woman: The Golden Age  Wonder Woman New 52  Wonder Woman - True Amazon

  • Wonder Woman: The Golden Age – Early Wonder Woman is strange. Lots of bondage and domination themes. Seriously. ~400 pages for $2.99. Worth getting one cheap to see how off the wall these are.
  • Wonder Woman (1987 series) – Don’t ask us why, but you need to click here and here to get everything. We don’t know why the listings are split like that. Anyway, you can’t go wrong with the George Perez run or the first Greg Rucka run at the end of this series. And be away that V.6 of the Perez run and the War of the Gods collection that isn’t numbered contain the same comics.
  • Wonder Woman (2011 series) – The first six issues by Brian Azzarello / Cliff Chiang / Goran Sudzuka are a top notch story. A little sacrilegious to the character? Probably. Consider it an Elseworlds take, but it’s good.
  • Wonder Woman (2016 series) – You want the first two “Rebirth Deluxe Editions” as Greg Rucka / Nicola Scott / Liam Sharp reset Wonder Woman, post-Azzarello
  • Wonder Woman: True Amazon – Jill Thompson’s Eisner Award winner

Justice League

Justice League of America  Justice League Quarterly  JLA

  • Justice League of America (1960 – 87) – The biggest highlight here is the set of $1.99/$2.99 Silver Age collections of the earliest stories. The JSA/JLA team-ups (Crisis on Multiple Earths) are also deep discounted at $1.99. This series hasn’t really been collected often.
  • Justice League of America (1987 – 96) – This is the Justice League International era, as started by Keith Giffen/J.M. DeMatteis/Kevin Maguire. Bwa ha ha. And that’s the best place to start.  $1.99 each.
  • JLA (’97-’06) – Starts with the Grant Morrison/Howard Porter Justice League run. Then some Mark Waid, Joe Kelly… even Chris Claremont / John Byrne. Double volumes for the most part: $1.99/$2.99
  • Justice League of America (2006 – 11) – The gems here are the 4 volumes written by Dwayne McDuffie (from the animated series): V1 / V2 / V3 / V4
  • Justice League (2016 -18) – The gem here is the Priest / Pete Woods arc.
  • The Nail – Alan Davis weaves a masterpiece in this pair of Elseworlds about a world where the Kents don’t find baby Kal-El in his spaceship and Superman does not emerge. A+ for $2.99

Green Lantern

Green Lantern  Green Lantern  Green Lantern by Geoff Johns

  • Green Lantern (’60 – ’86)
    • Silver Age omnibuses for $2.99
    • This listing has O’Neil / Adams for $2.99 and don’t sleep on the Len Wein / Dave Gibbons -> Steve Englehart / Joe Staton volumes at the end –  $1.99@
    • Tales of the Green Lantern Corps, V.3  – Bizarrely mislabeled, this is the first six issues of the Steve Englehart/Joe Staton Green Lantern Corps, which extends their Green Lantern run
    • Green Lantern Corps continues the Englehart/Staton run… after that Tales volume
  • Green Lantern (’05 – ’11) – The Geoff Johns run… and this is more complicated than is should be, but it really is an excellent run.
  • The Green Lantern by Grant Morrison & Liam Sharp – One of the more imaginative Lantern stories in a while, especially as illustrated, this is really one long story in four volumes, broken up as Season One  and Season Two (even though the first series was never referred to as a season… that or DC is actively trying to confuse you, which is not beyond the realm of possibility).

Legion of Super-Heroes

Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes   Legion of Super Heroes The Great Darkness Saga  Legion of Superheroes: The Curse

Not as much of the Legion run is in digital or currently in print as you might think. Of what is, here are some highlights and recommendations.

  • Legion of Super-Heroes: The Silver Age – The earliest appearances, through the first 10 issues of their Adventure Comics feature.
  • Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes – These two volumes pick up roughly where Paul Levitz starts writing and takes you through where Superboy leaves the Legion (which is the Gerry Conway run). Artists include Mike Grell, James Sherman, Joe Staton and a bit of Jim Starlin. Included are the wedding of Lightning Lad & Saturn Girl and the Earthwar sequence.
  • Legion of Super-Heroes (1980-85) – What you’re really looking at here are the last two volumes where Paul Levitz returns and starts to hit his stride, with Keith Giffen joining him fairly quickly.
    • The Great Darkness Saga  – Levitz/Giffen with their all-time classic arc in the middle of it. 414 pages for $2.99? A steal.
    • The Curse – Levitz/Giffen continue to deal with the fallout from The Great Darkness. 544 pages for $2.99? Very hard to beat for value.
  • Legion of Super-Heroes (1985-89) – Only one volume available and they really need to get on the stick about collecting the rest of the Levitz run.
  • Legion Lost – The entertaining (if controversial) Dan Abnett / Andy Lanning / Oliver Copiel run. The setup and then the actual Legion Lost.
  • Legion of Super-Heroes (2005-09) – Starts out with the now familiar team of Mark Waid and Barry Kitson. Ends with a flawed, but interesting run by Jim Shooter, returning to the feature he started out on.
  • Legion of Super-Heroes (2010-11) – Paul Levitz returns.
  • Legion of Super-Heroes (2011 – 13) – The Levitz run is relaunched for New 52… and Keith Giffen returns for the final volume in the set.

Jack Kirby

New Gods by Jack Kirby  Jimmy Olsen by Jack Kirby  Kamandi

Most of his DC material is included

Fourth World:

Non-Fourth World DC work:

And more gems from that tall pile of comics:

Creature Commandos  Doctor Fate  Doomsday Clock

  • 100 Bullets – Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso spin a tale about the intersection of revenge, crime and espionage. A classic from Vertigo. Double volumes for $2.99.
  • The Atlantis Chronicles – Sometimes filed under Aquaman, this is an undersea high fantasy series about the history of Atlantis and Atlantean royalty. (And where all this “Orin” stuff comes from.) Always under the radar because there isn’t usually a reasonably priced edition. Peter David writes. Estabon Maroto draws – and slays. We don’t usually see this for $5.99 outside the holidays.
  • Camelot 3000 – Mike W. Barr / Brian Bolland – King Arthur returns to repel an alien invasion… as was foretold. ~300 pages / $1.99
  • Clean Room – A lesser-known Gail Simone / Jon Davis-Hunt horror tale from Vertigo
  • Creature Commandos – soon to be an animated series, these are the originals for a lousy $1.99
  • The Scott Snyder / Greg Capullo “Metal” crossover Events:
  • DC: The New Frontier: Darwyn Cooke’s must-read classic about the dawn of the Silver Age characters
  • Deadman – Collecting the appearances from Neal Adams in Strange Adventures through the ’80s mini-series.
  • Dial H – The China Mieville / Alberto Ponticelli / Mateus Santolouco “weird fiction” take on the dial that gives it’s wearer new powers each time. A bizarre delight. ~400 pages / $3.99
  • Doctor Fate – Paul Levitz and Sonny Liew did a wonderful, mythology forward update of the character.
  • The Doomsday Clock – The Geoff Johns / Gary Frank crossover Event that brought Watchmen into the DC Universe. 455 pages/$4.99
  • Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepus Chronicles – Mark Russell’s and Mike Feehan’s dark satire casts the cartoon character as a gay playwright facing off against the House Un-American Activities Committee in the 1950s. No, really. It’s good.
  • Fables – Bill Willingham’s / (mostly) Mark Buckingham’s series about the characters from fairy tales hiding out in New York City as refuges after their worlds have been conquered. A classic. Double (deluxe) volumes for $2.99!
    Far Sector  Gotham City: Year One  John Constantine, Hellblazer
  • Far Sector – N.K. Jemisin / Jamal Campbell take a new Green Lantern to the edge of the universe to solve a mystery. Absolutely wonderful book. ~300 pages / $2.99.
  • Final Crisis – The celebrated crossover Event by Grant Morrison / J.G. Jones / Doug Mahnke / Carlos Pacheco. 456 pages / $2.99
  • The Flash (’87 – ’09) – $2.99/$3.99 omnibuses of the Mark Waid and Geoff Johns runs… plus the “it’s not happening again” team of Grant Morrison & Mark Millar for $1.99.
  • The Flash: The Silver Age – The early stories, ~400 pages / $2.99
  • The Flintstones – Mark Russell and Steve Pugh hit a high water mark with a satirical and bittersweet take on the stone age.
  • Gotham Central – Ed Brubaker / Greg Rucka / Michael Lark / Stefano Gaudiano / Jason Alexander / Kano – The Gotham PD handles things without Batman. EXCELLENT series and $1.99 for double volumes. Just get it.
  • Gotham City:  Year One – Tom King & Phil Hester’s very recently collected noir detective series where Slam Bradley is sucked into a chain of events that create the Gotham City as we know it today.
  • Grayson – The Tim Seeley / (early) Tom King / Mikel Janin series with Dick Grayson as a spy/double agent
  • Hard Time: The Complete Series – Steve Gerber / Mary Skrenes / Brian Hurtt in a criminally below the radar of super powered teen who gets (shafted) sent to prison. 458 pages / $4.99
  • Hardware: The Man in the Machine -Dwayne McDuffie and Denys Cowan gave this Milestone book a great opening arc.
  • Hellblazer – Vertigo’s longest running title for $1.99/$2.99 per volume.
    • John Constantine, Hellblazer – The superlative Si Spurrier / Aaron Campbell / Matias Bergara that’s right up there with the best of a storied franchise. $1.99/volume, so no excuses!
  • Hitman – The Garth Ennis / John McCrae bloody farce
  • Infinite Frontier – The crossover Event. 392 pages / $2.99
  • Jack of Fables – The Bill Willingham / Lilah Sturges/ Tony Akins / Russ Braun Fables companion book. (i.e., fun) $1.99/volume
  • Jonah Hex: Shadows West – All of the Joe R. Lansdale / Tim Truman horror take on Jonah Hex for $2.99. Great stuff that started a lawsuit!
    Kingdom Come  Manhunter  Mister Miracle
  • Kingdom Come – Mark Waid and Alex Ross paint a dystopian future (and comment on the 90s grim ‘n’ gritty trend) – $1.99
  • Lobo by Keith Giffen and Alan Grant – With art by Simon Bisley, until the editors realized what he was sneaking into the cover. The rude, crude humor version that screams “Jason Momoa” to everyone. Much fun, but not for puritans.
  • Manhunter – Archie Goodwin and Walt Simonson did an absolute classic as a backup in Detective. Spies, ninjas, a secret society and Batman crosses over in the end. Highest recommendation – $1.99.
  • Marshal Law– Pat Mills and Kevin O’Neill do a satire of superheroes as a Judge Dredd-like vehicle. If you like The Boys, this is worth a look for $5.99. Darker and more violent, not for kids.
  • Mister Miracle by Steve Englehart & Steve Gerber – A few years after Kirby left, DC revived Mister Miracle, only to have it fall in the “DC Implosion.” That’s actually Englehart/Marshall Rogers and Gerber/Michael Golden/Russ Heath. Yes, Heath inking Golden and it’s GREAT. The Gerber/Golden/Heath run is the star and you’ll be mad it was cancelled. Totally under the radar for years.
  • Mister Miracle (2017-19) – The Tom King / Mitch Gerads Eisner-Winning revival. $2.99
  • New Teen Titans – Marv Wolfman / George Perez for $1.99@
  • Night Force – Marv Wolfman & Gene Colan (as in Tomb of Dracula) reunite at DC for horror/time travel series that flew under too many radars.
  • Nightwing – Tom Taylor / Bruno Redondo – the series that could be the current center of the DCU. Vol. 1 for $1.99;  Vol. 2  and  Vol. 3 for $2.99@. (We think it hits its stride in V.2)
  • The Omega Men: The End – Tom King and Barnaby Bagenda turn the Omega Men into a study of fanaticism and terrorism. Also a Green Lantern tale as Kyle Rayner is abducted. Near the top of the King cannon.
  • One-Star Squadron – The “wait… why haven’t they collaborated before?” team of Mark Russell and Steve Leiber pit Red Tornado and Power Girl against the gig economy! Yes, it’s a pitch black satire. – $1.99
  • Orion by Walt Simonson – Walt at the top of his game exploring the Kirby mythos. We’d put it up with his Thor, but DC didn’t market it very well and hardly anyone remembers it. Recommended.
  • Planetary – Warren Ellis & John Cassaday.
  • Preacher – Garth Ennis / Steve Dillion. Double volumes for $1.99 (!)
    Road to Perdition  Sandman Mystery Theater  Sheriff of Babylon
  • Prez: Corndog-in-Chief – Mark Russell & Ben Caldwell. We wish this book wasn’t so darn relevant. An accurate satire of election law and political horse trading finds a teen becoming president after a video of her mishap with a corn dog deep fryer goes viral. It’s a winner, especially as we approach an election year. – $1.99
  • Promethea – Alan Moore & J.H. Williams explore mythology and symbolism as a college student becomes the latest incarnation of the avatar of imagination… and tries to head off a looming apocalypse. Smart and beautifully illustrated book. – $1.99@
  • The Road to Perdition – Max Allan Collins & Richard Piers Rayner – this is where the film came from.
  • Saga of the Swamp Thing – The legendary Alan Moore years for $1.99@.
  • Sandman Mystery Theater – Matt Wagner / Steven T. Seagle / Guy Davis (main artist) – A wonderful pulp detective series from Vertigo with the Golden Age Sandman (pre-teen sidekick). Pulp with more introspection. 300+ page installments for $2.99. Great series.
  • Scalped – Jason Aaron & R.M. Guéra – A Vertigo crime series. An FBI agent goes undercover at the casino on the reservation he grew up in and thought he’d escape. Nobody does rural noir like Aaron.
  • Secret Society of Super Villains – For the completists, at a better price.
  • Seven Soldiers of Victory – Grant Morrison’s self-contained series of mini-series/Event in two volumes
  • Shade, The Changing Man – Peter Milligan and Chris Bachalo reimagine the Ditko character for Vertigo. – $1.99
  • The Sheriff of Babylon – Tom King & Mitch Gerads explore murder and crime in Baghdad’s Green Zone. The full series for $2.99
  • Starman – James Robinson & Tony Harris reinvent the legacy superhero (and legacy villain) with one of the best things to come out of DC in the 90s. DC really needs to finish collecting this one.
  • Stormwatch – The original Warren Ellis / Tom Raney / Brian Hitch run
  • Strange Adventures – Tom King & Mitch Gerads with a political/deconstructionist take on Adam Strange
  • Suicide Squad – John Ostrander / Luke McDonnell – the original ’80s Dirty Dozen riff that spawned the current franchise. -$1.99@
  • Suicide Squad: Get Joker – Brian Azzarello & Alex Maleev did a Black Label version
    Jimmy Olsen    The Human Target  The Brave and the Bold
  • Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen: Who Killed Jimmy Olsen? – Matt Fraction & Steve Leiber drop a joke bomb disguised as a murder mystery. HILARIOUS. Highly recommended.
  • The Authority – Warren Ellis & Bryan Hitch revamp Stormwatch, then Mark Millar & Frank Quitely tag in.
  • The Brave & The Bold – Liam Sharp teams Batman and Wonder Woman against Celtic gods.
  • The Hawk and the Dove: The Silver Age – Steve Ditko’s original run for $2.99
  • The Human Target – One of the most recent releases listed, Tom King & Greg Smallwood craft a noir mystery about Christopher Chance investigating who poisoned him and it looks like one of the BWA HA HA era Justice League did the deed. Noir and slapstick intermingling? YES. Very well done and especially great art. And, apparently, James Gunn’s favorite DC title of ’23. Both volumes for ~$5, total.
  • The Huntress: Origins – Paul Levitz and (mostly) Joe Staton with The Huntress’s adventures from Batman Family and Wonder Woman. – $1.99
  • The Invisibles – Grant Morrison / Jill Thompson / Phil Jimenez – The one with the letter column request. If you know, you know.
    Multiversity  Nice House on the Lake  
  • Multiversity – Grant Morrison’s tale of parallel worlds. One volume/$2.99.
  • The Nice House on the Lake – James Tynion IV and Alvaro Martinez Bueno spin a horror table in what was a pretty big hit. – $1.99@
  • The Spectre – John Ostrander and Tom Mandrake’s under the radar classic about a man who isn’t alive and the force of destruction he’s bound to. – $1.99@
  • The Unwritten – Mike (M.R.) Carey and Peter Gross in a tale of fiction shaping reality (with a mild Harry Potter satirical element in the premise).
  • The Wild Storm – Warren Ellis and John Davis-Hunt reimagine the Wildstorm universe.
    • The Wild Storm: Michael Cray – Bryan Hill / N. Stephen Harris companion book where an assassin goes after funhouse mirror versions of the DC heroes.
  • Top 10 – Alan Moore / Gene Ha / Zander Cannon – What if Alan Moore wrote Hill Street Blues, but the police were superheroes? That’s essentially what this is and it’s wonderful.
  • Transmetropolitan – Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson present the absurdist adventures of a Hunter S. Thompson-esque journalist in a dystopian future, butting heads against a corrupt president. The interesting thing is how many different presidents/prime ministers/etc. have been compared to “The Smiler.”
  • Watchmen – Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. We figure you’ve heard of it by now. $2.99. We do find it a little offensive this is listed as “Media Tie-in / Adaptation,” though…
  • Y: The Last Man – Brian K. Vaughan / Pia Guerra in $1.99 double volumes. A deal!

Things are probably going to be quiet through New Year’s Day. We may or may not pop in sometime next week to drop some recommendations on individual Masterworks editions. If you want to see what was new to the annual Masterworks sale this year, click here.

In the meantime… holiday vacations are a good time to read some comics.

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Comixology (At Amazon) Sales: The Annual Marvel Masterworks Sale, Plus Star Wars and What If

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, its the Annual Marvel Masterworks sale, plus Star Wars and What If.

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):

Marvel’s Annual Masterworks Sale
Daredevil Masterworks Amazing Spider-Man Masterworks Black Panther Masterworks

The Marvel Masterworks Sale runs through Monday, 1/8.

Yes, we’ve been getting a lot questions about whether this sale was happening this year. It’s happening now, though the $4.99 price point is not as cheap as it’s been the last couple years.  Since a lot of folks make this an annual “stock-up sale,” and wandering what’s come out since last year’s sale, we’ve compiled a list of those titles.  We’re looking out for you on that.

For the most part, we’re into the 1980s with this batch. Daredevil is the end of the first Frank Miller run. Fantastic Four is nearing the end of the John Byrne era and V. 25 includes The Last Galactus Story. Iron Man sees the transition from the first David Michelinie / Bob Layton run to Denny O’Neil / Luke McDonnell run and Rhodey taking over armor duties.

We also feel we should point out the oddity of that last Dazzler collection. Did you realize that the original series ended with a short run by Archie Goodwin and Paul (Concrete) Chadwick? It also contains the more X-centric Beauty and the Beast mini-series by Ann Nocenti and Don Perlin.

Past that, hit the main sales page and dig it. Plenty of classic Marvel on sale for what usually works out to under $0.50/issue.  Cheap.

Whither the Epic Edition Sale?

Yes, we’ve been hearing that question, too. In past years, the Epic Editions were on sale the week of Black Friday. This year, there was an Omnibus sale the week of Black Friday.  Since the Masterworks sale is in it’s normal time slot, we’re guessing the Epic Editions sale is pushed back to January… although whether the second week or later is beyond us.  We can’t imagine they’d skip it altogether, though.

Nothing But Star Wars

Original Marvel Star Wars   Star Wars Wild Space

The Marvel Star Wars Omnibus Sale runs through Monday, 1/8.

$4.99 collections of the original Marvel run and the Dark Horse Material. This is broken up in the series entries a little oddly:

What’s good?  Over in “The Rebellion” link, some of those volumes of the original Marvel series get over 500 pages.  Lets call those V. 1, V.2, V.3, V.4 and V.5.  V. 3 catches most of the under-rated David Michelinie / Walt Simonson run.

This is really organized to let you pick your era and go.

If Not, Why Not?

What If?

The Marvel What If? Sale runs through Monday, 1/8.

NOTE: as we type this, What If is in a negaband sale, assigned to the same URL as last week’s Alpha Flight sale. If you click the link and get Alpha Flight, reload a few times until What If shows up.

We have a preference for the original What If, here, but we’d like to point something out to you first. When you go to the series link for the original, toward the top of the page, you’ll see a new navigation feature that’s a little more relevant here. Under the series graphic on the left hand side is a pulldown menu where you can select “Volumes” or “Omnibus.” Volumes being the “normal” sized collections.  We’ll have to have a longer look at how that’s implemented. It might be useful… IF it works.  In this case it only shows the omnibus on sale. Yes, that’s right, there are actually four omnibuses containing ~12 issues each of What If. Only one of them is on sale and that’s the only one that shows up on the Omnibuses page, ergo the Omnibuses page appears to be broken. (Why are you acting surprised?)

So, here’s the link for the “regular” volumes. Here’s the link for the lone omnibus on sale (which is issues #1-12).  And we’ll look at some of the more interesting stuff in the individual volumes, since What If is all over the map. Some of these are going to sound awfully darn familiar, too.  What If seems like a gold mine for pitching your editor!

  • #1 – What If Spider-Man Joined the Fantastic Four? (V. 1 / Omnibus)
  • #2 – What If The Hulk Had the Brain of Bruce Banner? (V. 1 / Omnibus)
  • #10 – What If Jane Foster Had Found the Hammer of Thor? (V. 2 / Omnibus)
  • #12 – What If Rick Jones Had Become The Hulk? (V. 2 / Omnibus)
  • #13 – What If Conan the Barbarian Walked the Earth Today?  (NOPE, no longer collected)
  • #23 – What If The Hulk Had Become a Barbarian? (V. 4)
  • #30 – What If Spider-Man’s Clone Had Lived? (V. 5)
  • #35 – What If Elektra Had Lived? (V.6)
  • #37 – What If The Beast and The Thing Continued to Mutate? (V.6)
  • #43 – What If Conan Were Stranded in the 20th Century? (No longer collected).

Gosh, we’re sure NOBODY ever picked up those topics a decade or four later…

We’ll be back at the normal time at the end of the week to look at the rest of the new sales. The DC sale looks familiar and cheap, but we need some time to dig through it.

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Howard the Duck; Doctor Who; Aliens; Inhumans; Planet of the Apes and Ms. Tree

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel discounts the unique mix of Howard the Duck, Inhumans and Alien. Plus, Doctor Who and Ms. Tree.

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):

You can find the highlights of this week’s DC sale here (plenty of $1.99 collected editions).

And a quick word about the Marvel sales. There’s usually a Masterworks sale around the holidays. You want what you want, when you want it… but keep that in the back of your mind. At this point we’re not sure if they’re holding that back for NYE or not, but we can’t imagine it’s not coming.  That said…

Duck Soup

Howard the Duck  Howard the Duck  Howard the Duck

The Marvel Howard the Duck Sale runs through Monday, 12/11.

The original 27-issue Howard the Duck run by Steve Gerber/Frank Brunner/Gene Colan is a classic and a delight. (You may have noticed Gerber has several classics, too.) Wonderful comics.

Now, Howard was Geber’s baby and Gerber didn’t necessarily like other people writing Howard. We tend to feel that way, too, but you be you.  After a handful of issues post-Gerber, the series was relaunched (outside the comics code) as Howard the Duck Magazine. That was largely written by Bill Mantlo with Gene Colan, John Buscema and Michael Golden on art.

Then in ’15 (possibly due to a movie cameo), Howard got brought back by Chip Zdarksy and Joe Quinones. First in a mini-series. Then in a regular series.

We’re So Glad Disney Re-Acquired the Film Rights and Ended the Nightmare…

Inhumans.  The Origin of the Inhumans  Inhumans: Once and Future Kings

The Marvel Inhumans Sale runs through Monday, 12/11.

Yeah, sign us up for the “The Inhumans shouldn’t replace the X-Men” party. And yes, Ms. Marvel should have been a mutant the entire time. Notarize it.

With Inhumans comics there is one volume that stands far above the rest: Inhumans by Paul Jenkins and Jae Lee, which was part of the old Marvel Knights imprint when it came out as a 12 issue maxi-series. That’s your gold standard.

Curiously, the Black Bolt series by Saladin Ahmend and Christian Ward isn’t in the sale. We’d have probably slotted that at #2. It’s quite good and the first six issues? Extra special.

There’s nothing wrong with going back to the beginning. Inhumans: The Origin of the Inhumans is a collection of the early Stan Lee & Jack Kirby appearances from Fantastic Four and Thor. It’s also a thick 425 pages.

For something under the radar? Inhumans: Once and Future Kings by Priest and Phil Noto. Inhuman politics from the younger days of Black Bolt and Maximus… plus, Lockjaw comics.

Foxy

The Marvel 20th Century Sale runs through Monday, 12/11.

Aliens: The Original Years  Alien  Planet of the Apes Adventures

And by “20th Century,” they mean 20th Century Fox. These are movie comics.

The Aliens: The Original Years Omnibus program is extended from last month’s omnibus sale. That’s the Dark Horse Aliens material. The first chunk of that Dark Horse Aliens material is also available in an Epic Collection, if you’d rather just dip a toe in. It’s likely the rest will eventually get in Epic format, but that will likely take a few years.

You may recall that Marvel was doing some new Aliens material. It’s true and we quite enjoyed it. Phillip Kennedy Johnson writes it. Salvador Larocca illustrates the first two volumes and Julius Ohta does the third. Weyland-Yutani Corporation is the through line for these tales, as you might expect, manipulating all manner of things as they look for that perfect weaponized life form. This one is split up oddly – Vol. 1 & 2 are here, while Vol. 3 is here.

And for something a little more odd, there’s Planet Of The Apes Adventures: The Original Marvel Years. What is this? Marvel’s Planet of the Apes magazine adapted the first two films. Marvel then reprinted the adaptations in color as the “normal” Adventures on the Planet of the Apes comic. Doug Moench writes, George Tuksa illustrates the first film and Alfredo Acala illustrates Beneath the Planet of the Apes. Unusually, they’ve got this “omnibus” priced at $6.99, although this is a lot skinner than the typical omnibus.

Hammer-isms

Ms. Tree

The Titan Ms. Tree Sale runs through Sunday, 12/31.

You don’t hear the name pop up that often, but Ms. Tree had a 50-issue run (plus specials) before DC Comics picked it up for a ~2.5 year run as an ~80 page quarterly, at which point everything stopped. Including the specials, that’s pushing the equivalent of a 100-issue run. Not something many 80s/90s indies can boast of.

Max Allan Collins, these days, is probably best known as the writer of The Road to Perdition. When this started he was fresh off some awards for his detective novels and was also writing the Dick Tracy comic strip. He was joined on his comic book adventure by Terry Beatty, who’s currently writing and drawing the Rex Morgan, MD comic strip.

Ms. Tree’s premise is essentially “what if Mike Hammer got killed and Velda took over?” (Velda being Hammer’s secretary who’s quite a bit more hardboiled in the books than in the TV adaptations.) So this is a Mickey Spillane/Mike Hammer-esque detective series. And yes, these days Collins – at Spillane’s request – has been completing the manuscripts and manuscript fragments from Spillane’s files. So if you’re looking for Spillane-esque, this is pretty close to official.

Now, these collections are somewhat out of order. V. 1 and V.2 are actually collecting the Ms. Tree Quarterly stories from DC, which weren’t collected before. V. 3 goes back to the beginning and starts going through the original material, which did have a couple different book collections (including mass market paperback).

V.1 – 3 are here.

V.4 (and the upcoming, not discounted, V.5) are here.

Knock Knock

Doctor Who

The Titan 10th Doctor Sale runs through Monday, 1/15.

That’s 10th Doctor as in David Tennant’s first run on Doctor Who. Nick Abadzis is your writer, initially with Elena Casagrande and then Giorgia Sposito on art.

It’s available as single issues and collected editions.

We would point out that five issues @ $0.99 is cheaper than a five issue collection for $5.99. Just saying…

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Holiday Sales March on – More $1.99 DC Titles

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, DC has a new set of $1.99/$2.99 titles, include more recent selections and a heads up on the latest Marvel sale incidents.

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):

First a little housekeeping. We’re not sure what’s going on with the Marvel sales this week, so we’re going to look at DC right now, since they have another holiday-priced ($1.99/$2.99) sale, and then circle back around to Marvel at the end of the week at the usual time.

Marvel’s sales from two weeks ago are still up – we’re not sure if they’re supposed to be – and we have some Nega-Band action! (This is when two sales occupy the same URL. Reload ~5 times and watch the sales switch places, just like Mar-Vell and Rick Jones did with their Nega-Bands.)

The Heroes Reborn Sale and Marvel 20th Century Sale occupy the same URL. And that’s supposed to be 20th Century Fox – Planet of the Apes / Aliens / Predator. We also don’t think this Planet of the Apes Omnibus is supposed to be $6.99, so if it’s appealing, you might want to grab it before it gets corrected.

The Marvel Omnibus sale page is still up, but except for the Aliens collections, the prices are no longer $19.99, so heads up on that. The Secret Wars prices seem to be intact.

And, 6 hours later, there have been some adjustments. But we’re still not sure that PoA price will stand.

It’s always something, isn’t it?

Freshly Discounted

The DC Recent Hits Sale runs through Monday, 12/11.

This is a fairly odd sale. It appears to be collected editions released from the first week of September and then back as far as April ’21.  That said, there a lot of the $1.99/$2.99 price points of the last few weeks (it must be the holiday season) and this will be the first time a decent chunk of these have been on sale, so let’s hit the highlights (roughly speaking, from newest to oldest):

Nightwing  DCeased: War of the Undead Gods  Gotham City: Year One

  • Gotham City: Year One by Tom King and Phil Hester. This one needs some contextual framing. First off, we’re under the impression this isn’t a Black Label title, so it could be in continuity. It sure reads like a Black Label. From a Batman perspective, it’s an attempt to explain how Gotham City got to its current state. From a reader perspective, this isn’t a Batman comic. It’s hardboiled/noir detective story somewhere in between the Hammett and Spillane schools, featuring Slam Bradley (who is, broadly speaking, more in the Mike Hammer role than Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe). There’s been a kidnapping. The Wayne family is involved. Bradley doesn’t realize he’s up to his chin in sewage until he’s trapped. It’s a good detective (graphic) novel that might actually be better if it wasn’t tied into the Bat-mythos. Don’t get it for a child thinking it’s just a Batman comic, though. This one goes to dark places.
  • DCeased: War of the Undead Gods by Tom Taylor and Trevor Hairsine – the final chapter in the DCeased series of mini-series. We know a lot of you have been waiting on this to get a discount.
  • Batman V.2: The Bat-Man of Gotham – Chip Zdarksky / Mike Hawthorne. 2nd Zdarksky collection. If you go to the end of the series page, you’ll also see V.1 of Zdarky run, the Josh Williamson collection and the final Tynion Fear State on sale for $1.99/$2.99.
  • Batman: The Knight – Speaking of Zdarksy, this is his take on Bruce Wayne’s training years with art by Carmine Di Giandomenico.
  • The Human Target – Tom King / Greg Smallwood. Still on sale. Still great, especially at $1.99 a volume.
  • Nightwing Vol. 3: The Battle for Bloodhaven’s Heart – Tom Taylor / Bruno Redondo. This was not on sale last week and will put you back $2.99. First two volumes are $1.99@ and still on sale. And this volume is very nearly a Titan’s tale.
  • Batman: One Bad Day – The whole line is $1.99/volume.
  • Wonder Woman Historia – The Amazons – Kelly Sue DeConnick / Phil Jimenz / Gene Ha / Nicola Scott. Want to see some absolutely jaw dropping art? This one.
  • Black Adam: Theology – Priest / Rafa Sandoval / Eddy Barrows.  Black Adam catches a plague and thinks about his line of succession. Priest exploring a really odd angle? Go figure. Interesting read with a caveat: we’re not sure if V.2 is going to be collected or not in digital, so you might need single issues to finish the series. (Print orders apparently didn’t meet DC’s expectations?)
  • Batman/Superman: World’s Finest – Mark Waid / Dan Mora. If you’re looking for the classic/traditional DC feel, this is your book. Bats and Supes encounter a demon and the Doom Patrol is along for the ride. Lots of fun and Mora has made the transition to superheroes VERY well.
  • Batman: Killing Time – Tom King/David Marquez. We’ve mentioned it before but a solid noir/caper tale.
  • Suicide Squad V.1: Trial by Fire – John Ostrander / Luke McDonnell. You remember on Friday, we said that V. 1 of the original series would be on sale soon enough. Well, it’s on sale. As we’re typing this, it looks like the entire series is now on sale, but we’re not sure how much longer V.2-8 will be $1.99, so heads up.
  • The Flash: The Death of Iris West – Cary Bates / Alex Savuik / Don Heck. A collection that digitally suffers from HC pricing is now $4.99 in digital, so if you’re curious now is the time. This is a real oddity. First off, she’s going by Iris Allen at this point in the continuity, not Iris West. This is the famed storyline where Professor Zoom murders her and Barry loses it. It’s a particular oddity because this is a fairly early attempt to write a DC comic in more of a Marvel style with more subplots lurking in the background before coming to the surface. And not all of it works. Some folks swear by this arc, though.

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