Tag: holiday sales

Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: DC’s $1.99 Mania Pt III – Far Sector to Marshal Law

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, part 3 of our look at DC’s $1.99 Mania, look at Far Sector through Marshal Law in the $1.99 catalog.

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.

  • 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

DC $1.99 Mania Continued (Part III)

Far Sector  Flash by Mark Waid  Green Lantern

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.

  • Far Sector – N.K. Jemisin / Jamal Campbell; A rookie Green Lantern with an experimental ring investigates a murder on a planet that hasn’t seen violence in 500 years. Excellent worldbuilding. Highly recommended
  • Final Crisis – Grant Morrison / J.G. Jones / Doug Mahnke / Carlos Pacheco; Darkseid takes over in this Event and this has the necessary tie-ins. 456 pages for $1.99
  • The Flash (’87 – ’09) – Everything in this omnibus section is oversized, a good read and seldom at these prices. That goes double for the Mark Waid volumes, which can top 400 pages.
  • The Flintstones – Mark Russell / Steve Pugh; A brilliant, dark satire with a lingering sense of melancholy that takes the classic cartoon in a slightly different direction. A+. Full series in one volume
  • The Forever People by Jack Kirby – Jack Kirby; A Fourth World collection
  • Green Arrow (’01-’07) – Kevin Smith / Phil Hester; Smith’s full 15 issue run for $1.99
  • Green Lantern (’60-’86) –
  • Green Lantern (’05 -’11) – Geoff Johns / Dave Gibbons / Ivan Reis; These are double volumes of the excellent Johns run. (Sinestro Corps War might be the peak of this era). Now, you’ll need to move over to the “regular volumes” w/ Agent Orange to move forward and you’ll want to add Blackest Night Saga, which is the Event endcapping the first segment of the Johns Green Lantern catalog.
  • Green Lantern by Grant Morrison & Liam Sharp; This series is organized a little peculiarly in book form. The four volumes tell a story that involves a little misdirection, so we’re on spoiler prevention. The high level is Morrison wanting to approach the Lanterns as more of a police procedural, but there’s a little more subtext than that. Sharp stretches his repertoire of art styles as the series progresses
  • Hard Time: The Complete Series – Steve Gerber / Mary Skrenes / Brian Hurtt; We see this is now a Black Label book. That fits. A 15-year old manifests a super power. It might be it’s own entity. The trouble is, somebody dies and the kid  is sentenced to 50 years as he tries to figure out what just happened. Under the radar, but solid book and odd in all the ways only Gerber can be. 458 pages for $1.99
  • Hellblazer – Strangely, there haven’t been omnibus editions of this, which seems like an oversight. At any rate, this was a consistently good run and is cheap for the moment.
  • Hitman – Garth Ennis / John McCrea; Ennis gets irreverent with a hitman who kills metahumans. On sale less often than other titles
  • The Human Target – Tom King / Geoff Smallwood; No deluxe edition (yet), just a highly recommended 2-volume noir tale of doomed Christopher Chance trying to figure out which member of the Bwa Ha Ha era Justice League poisoned him before he dies
  • The Huntress- Origins – Paul Levitz / Joe Staton; The collected solo adventures of The Huntress, back when the character was the daughter of Batman and Catwoman. Another one that isn’t always discounted and not usually this deeply
  • I… Vampire! – J.M. DeMatteis / Tom Sutton; The ’80s version as a recalcitrant vampire battles his ex- and the cult of the Blood Red Moon
  • Infinity Inc. – Roy Thomas / Jerry Ordway; The children of the Justice Society form their own team as trouble looms. Infrequently discounted
  • JLA – The classic ’90s Justice League restart by Grant Morrison & Howard Porter. Don’t sleep on the later volumes.
  • John Constantine, Hellblazer (’19) – Si Spurrier / Aaron Campbell / Matias Bergara; We’ll put this revival up against anything in the Hellblazer cannon, and that’s not something to be said lightly, though to describe it would involve spoilers. Get both volumes, it’s effectively a two-parter
    Jonah Hex: Shadows West  Kamandi  Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes
  • Jonah Hex: Shadows West – Joe R. Lansdale / Tim Truman; All three of the Lansdale/Truman series with a weird western/horror angle on Hex. Under the radar these days, but high octane weird. 387 pages
  • Justice League International – Keith Giffen / J.M. DeMatteis / Kevin Maguire; This set of collected editions incorporates Justice League Europe into the books when that launches, which is a definite plus. There’s also a lone omnibus, but it doesn’t break evenly with the contents of the rest
  • Justice League of America: The Nail – Alan Davis; Ma and Pa Kent get a flat tire and don’t find baby Kal-El’s rocket, creating a world without a Superman in this excellent Elseworlds. Things do not go well for the Justice League without him. Also contains the sequel
  • Justice Society of America: A Celebration of 75 – A sampler of the JSA across the different era’s. Usually on the expensive side
  • Kamandi: The Last Boy on Earth – Jack Kirby; This is Kirby riffing on Planet of the Apes, but with many different species of animal-men. Tons of fun and Kirby’s most successful book at DC while it was being published.
  • The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen – Alan Moore, Kevin O’Neill; Just pretend the godawful film doesn’t exist. Moore & O’Neill assemble a team of reluctant government operatives from ~1880s SF/F and Horror literature. And a bit more accurately than many of the media adaptions (particularly Nemo). Wonderful series with very funny and subversive advertisements (you’ll see)
  • Legion of Super-Heroes – Let’s put the highlights under this heading. These are often more expensive titles.
  • Lobo (’90) – Alan Grant / Keith Giffen / Simon Bisley; ~300 page chunks of the original series of mini-series and specials about The Main Man. Hilarious and an effective tool in the offending of the easily offendable.
  • Lucifer (’00-’06) – Mike Carey / Peter Gross; Double volumes. What was M.R Carey doing prior to The Girl With All the Gifts? Among other things, writing this Sandman spinoff about Lucifer Morning Star. Now, if we could get a digital edition of My Faith in Frankie…
  • Marshal Law – Pat Mills / Kevin O’Neill; Think a darker version of Judge Dredd policing (and satirizing) superheroes. Very dark, very funny. There are some legit comparisons to The Boys, but this came first and might have been an influence.

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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Still on Sale

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: DC $1.99 Mania Pt 2; Star Wars; Marvel’s Best of ’24; What If?

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, part 2 of our look at DC’s $1.99 Mania. Marvel applies discounts to Star Wars, What If? and their best of 2024 list. Dark Horse also is slashing price on Star Wars.

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. Last time out, we flagged all the new Marvel Epic Collections since the last time those had a dedicated sale and pointed out DC’s $1.99 collections of recent/active series. We’ll probably be breaking the DC sale into two more installments… it’s just that big and those rock bottom prices demand attention.

DC $1.99 Mania Continued (Part II)

Tales of the Batman: Steve Englehart  DC: The New Frontier  Fables

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

So, last time we were taking a quick glance at the current titles that are $1.99 (which is our kind of madness). Now we’re starting on a deep dive through the sale catalog. We’re not really going to be putting an emphasis on titles from the last few years, unless they were exceptional or there’s a Deluxe format (double volumes) you should be aware of. You know how to look up the current run of Batman without our help. We’re looking at good (but perhaps less visible) reads, large collections with exceptional value and things that might not get discounted very often as our compass points.

  • 1st Issue Special – A very odd Showcase type anthology that for this price, you’re looking at specific issues/feature: Atlas and Manhunter by Kirby. The debut of Warlord by Mike Grell. A Mike Fleisher/Steve Ditko Creeper issue. Most definitely a masterful Doctor Fate tale by Martin Pasko and Walt Simonson. This is normally more than $1.99
  • 52 – Johns/Morrison/Rucka/Waid/Giffen writing (and laying out) a 52 issue weekly series… which you can now have the entirety of for $3.98? Madness.
  • Action Comics ’38-’11 – Everything here is $1.99, including large Golden Age volumes and the Gil Kane collection, which is usually much more expensive.
  • All Star Comics: Only Legends Live Forever – Gerry Conway / Paul Levitz / Wally Wood / Keith Giffen / Joe Staton; The complete ’70s JSA revival, including the Adventure Comics stories; 449 pages, usually more than $1.99
  • American Vampire – Scott Snyder / Rafael Albuquerque – America gets it’s own breed of vampire
  • Animal Man (’89) – The Grant Morrison / Chas Troug is cheaper in omnibus format here, then cut back to “regular” volumes for Peter Milligan, Tom Veitch and Jamie Delano/Steve Dillon
  • Aquaman (’62-’78) – Apparently, I lied last week. This is the cheapest you’ll see these. 2 volumes of the Steve Skeates / Jim Aparo run and then a collection of the Adventure Comics and last few issues of the regular series by David Michelinie / Paul Levitz / Jim Aparo / Mike Grell / Don Newton. (Death of a Prince is listed at 337 pages.) These are all usually priced like HCs.
  • Aquaman: The Atlantis Chronicles – Peter David / Esteban Maroto; This one is usually priced at a premium. What it actually is, is an undersea sword and sorcery epic about this history of Atlantis. Epic Fantasy, beautifully illustrated and deserves a much wider audience. $1.99? Bargain for 337 pages
  • Aztek: The Ultimate Man – Grant Morrison & Mark Millar / N. Steven Harris; Can a Morrison/Millar collaboration be under the radar? Yes! Infrequently discounted, too.
  • Batman (’40-’11) – Lots of worthy books here, but we’re going to focus on good collections that are usually a lot more expensive.
    • Batman: Birth of the Demon – Mike W. Barr / Denny O’Neil / Jerry Bingham / Tom Grindberg / Norm Breyfogle; Collects the graphic novels: Son of the Demon, Bride of the Demon and Birth of the Demon; A Ra’s al Ghul trilogy
    • Batman: Tales of the Demon – Denny O’Neil / Neal Adams / Don Newton; The original Ra’s al Ghul tales, including the ’79-’80 return in Detective.
    • Tales of the Batman: Steve Englehart – Englehart / Marshall Rogers / Walter Simonson; All of Englehart’s Batman. If the original Detective run isn’t the best Batman run, it’s at least top 3.  452 pages of QUALITY for $1.99. Highest possible recommendation.
    • Tales of the Batman: Gerry Conway – For whatever reason, V. 1 is listed with Batman and subsequent volumes are listed under Detective. What you need to know – if you want to read the Gene Colan or Don Newton runs, get them in the Gerry Conway titled collections. The stories frequently jumped between titles in this era and the stories will make a lot more sense this way!
    • Batman: The Caped Crusader: V. 1 – There are six volumes, starting here, that collect the 80s run, which is a good period. (Although watch you don’t duplicate materials, particularly with Grant/Breyfogle.)
  • Batman (’16 – present) – The “Deluxe” double volumes of Tom King’s run are at $1.99 in the “Omnibuses” section
  • Batman and the Outsiders – Mike W. Barr / Jim Aparo / Alan Davis; Batman’s mid-80s team book. Seldom are all three volumes on sale the same time and they’re usually on the pricey side
  • Batman Eternal – The weekly Batman serial led by Scott Snyder & James Tynion IV. 52 issues across 3 volumes for $1.99@
  • Batman: Shadow of the Bat – Slightly longer volumes of the Bat-title launched by Alan Grant and Norm Breyfogle
  • Batman: The Adventures Continue – Excellent continuation of the Batman: The Animated Series from the ’90s by people qualified to continue it: Alan Burnett / Paul Dini / Ty Templeton
  • Bizarro Comics – DC shorts done by an all-star set of alternative cartoonists
  • Booster Gold – The original Dan Jurgens series from the ’80s
  • Boy Commandos by Joe Simon & Jack Kirby – Simon & Kirby’s very popular WWII series, normally subject to HC pricing
  • The Brave and the Bold (’59-’83) – The team-up issues start with Haney and occupy most of the Jim Aparo titled volumes, with some large page counts. Then you have the classic Neal Adams Batman filed here
  • Challengers of the Unknown by Jack Kirby – Dave Wood / Jack Kirby; Kirby’s ’58 hit for DC is a pretty much a dry run for the Fantastic Four, except the villains are the ones with powers
  • DC: The New Frontier – Darwyn Cooke’s masterpiece about the dawn of the Silver Age. All in one volume. 500 pages / $1.99 and a highest possible recommendation
  • DC Through the 80s – Paul Levitz curates two large anthologies highlighting DC high points in the 80s.
  • Deadman – Neal Adams / Paul Levitz / Len Wein / Jim Aparo / Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez; The very definition of a cult series, this collects the Adams original and the various spots Deadman was kept alive (pun intended) in the 70s/80s
  • The Demon by Jack Kirby – Kirby’s horror-adventure series about a man bound to a demon by Merlin
  • Detective Comics (’37 – ’11) – Lots of good things that are worth a browse, including the Golden Age reprints and the “Dark Detective” volumes containing the 80s issues, but let’s specifically call out a few things:
    • Batman: New Gotham V.1 and V.2 – Greg Rucka / Shawn Martinbrough / Rich Burchett; Very stylish (and stylized) run that’s not as recognized as it could be.
    • Legends of the Dark Knight: Norm Breyfogle Vol. 1 & Vol. 2; Get the Alan Grant / Norm Breyfogle run in larger chunks (before switching over to Caped Crusader and Shadow of the Bat); Heaps of good stuff for $1.99
    • Tales of the Batman: Archie Goodwin – Archie is one of the best ever to write comics (and we can 100% confirm the stories of what a nice guy he was). These are his Batman stories.
    • Batwoman by Greg Rucka and J.H. Williams – Get their complete collaboration with this volume. Great run.
    • Manhunter by Archie Goodwin and Walter Simonson Deluxe Edition – Simply one of the best adventure comics of all time, as you might guess from Archie and Walt collaborating. Highest possible recommendation
  • Detective Comics (’16 – present) – That link takes you to the “Deluxe” double volumes (still $1.99) of James Tynion IV’s Detective run. It has a “Batman Family” flavor and we prefer it to the more recent, higher profile run on Batman
  • Dial H – China Mieville / Alberto Ponticelli / Mateus Santolouco; OK, Mieville has been the dean of “weird fiction” for quite some time, but now that he’s collaborated with Keanu on a BZRKR novel (quite good, btw), you might take interest in his take on Dial H for Hero. Mostly under the radar, but wonderfully bizarre
  • Doctor Fate (’15-’16) – Paul Levitz / Sonny Liew; Would that all re-imaginings be so good. This Egyptian mythology-centric take on Fate deserves more love. Plus, Sonny Liew!
  • Doom Patrol (’64-’68) – Arnold Drake / Bruno Premiani; The Doom Patrol was effectively (if not intentionally) DC’s version of the X-Men. Outcasts as heroes
  • Doom Patrol (’87 – ’95) – Grant Morrison / Richard Case; The Morrison run (and the Brotherhood of Dada) in three volumes, $1.99@
  • Ex Machina – Brian K. Vaughan / Tony Harris; NYC’s first superhero is elected mayor and then things get complicated; 10-issue volumes
  • Fables – Bill Willingham / Mark Buckingham; The excellent saga of fairy tale characters hiding out in NYC after being driven from their lands by a despot. Why yes, The Big Bad Wolf is their sheriff. “Deluxe” double volumes for $1.99

There will probably be two more installments of this before the sale is over. Next time we start back with the remarkable Far Sector.

May the Sale Be With You

Darth Vader by Gillen Omnibus  Star Wars Omnibus  Star Wars Wild Space

The Marvel Star Wars Omnibus Sale runs through Monday, 1/6.

This is similar to the previous Marvel Omnibus Sale, just with Star Wars instead of Spidey.

What’s good? Dark Vader really seems to bring out the best in creators.  Darth Vader by Gillen & Larroca Omnibus is at the top of the mountain. Star Wars: Darth Vader by Charles Soule Omnibus isn’t too far behind it.

The New Republic  V.2 is a decent way to get the Dark Empire and Thrawn material that effectively re-energized Star Wars in the 90s.

The Best of the Best of the Best

Avengers, Inc.  G.O.D.S.Ultimate Spider-Man

The Marvel Best of 2024 Sale runs through Monday, 1/6.

OK, some of the single issues in these collections might be from ’23, but you know the drill here. If you’re looking for recent Spidey or the last act of the Hickman/Krakoa/HoX-PoX era of X-Men, that’s definitely here. As for the best, we’ll narrow that down a little in the World According to Cheap:

  • Avengers Inc.: Action, Mystery, Adventure – Al Ewing / Leonard Kirk; The Wasp, out of uniform and investigating superhuman murders with an amnesiac partner who isn’t the Vision, but uses one of his old aliases. Great little series.
  • Avengers: Twilight – Chip Zdarsky / Daniel Acuna; In a possible future, an aging Steve Rogers assembles a new team to revolt against a world controlled by corrupted media
  • Doctor Strange by Jed Mackay Vol. 2: The War-Hound Of The Vishanti – Jed MacKay / Pasqual Ferry / Juan Gedeon – Strange confronts a splintered off version of himself who’s spent 5,000 years fighting a war for the Vishanti. Suffice it to say his other self has been changed by the experience. Doctor Strange has been MacKay’s finest work at Marvel
  • G.O.D.S. – Jonathan Hickman / Valerio Schiti; This one is more of a literary urban fantasy plopped down in the Marvel universe, such that Doctor Strange and the Living Tribunal are supporting players. In what might be called a variation on Michael Moorcock’s battles between Order and Chaos, we find two… let’s call them “agencies” patrolling around the entities that govern magic and reality, but with competing philosophies. We could really do with another series when Hickman has a break in his schedule.
  • Immortal Thor – Al Ewing / Martin Coccolo; Thor finds himself caught in a series of plots involving the power of stories
  • Marvel Unleashed – Kyle Starks / Jesús Hervás; This is one of the more unusual things Marvel has released in recent years. It’s a Pet Avengers book, but don’t let that scare you off. It’s fine for adults. Lockjaw has been abducted and the Pet Avengers are helping a pet look for a missing master who had dealings with A.I.M. Oh, it’s funny, but the underlying plot is serious. Very good book and likely won’t be quite what you were expecting
  • Miracleman by Gaiman & Buckingham: The Silver Age – Neil Gaiman / Mark Buckingham; After all these years, The Silver Age is finally completed. Now, about the next issue of THB? I’ve been waiting almost as long…
  • The Incredible Hulk – Phillip Kennedy Johnson / Nic Klein; As Banner roams the country, a conspiracy of monsters is looking for him. They seem to recognize the Hulk from ancient times and wish to use him to awaken their mother. Klein is really killing it, too. Horror, but more occult than Immortal Hulk’s horror
  • Predator Vs. Wolverine – Ben Percy / Ken Lashley / Andrea Di Vito – Exactly what it sounds like, but better. Wolverine encounters a Predator and it keeps coming back. It definitely scratches an itch and it’s all in the execution.
  • Ultimate Invasion – Jonathan Hickman / Bryan Hitch; The set-up for the new Ultimate line as The Maker (aka Ultimate Reed Richards) escapes captivity and seeks to reshape a new universe to eliminate the competition
  • Ultimate Spider-Man – Jonathan Hickman / Marco Checchetto; In the best of the Ultimate line, a married with children Peter Parker becomes Spidey later in life, meets a new Green Goblin and explores a world that is not what it seems. Emphasis is on world building, early on.

If Not, Why Not?

What If?  What If

The Marvel What If? Sale runs through Monday, 1/6.

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).

We’re not saying this was a try-out book like Marvel Premiere or Showcase, but flash forward a couple decades and some of the topics started turning up nice and regular… and still are.

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

Unannounced Sales

Vader's Castle  40: A Doonesbury Retrospective  Bad Dreams in the Night

It’s a double team on Star Wars as Dark Horse has their current tiles on sale:

Also on sale:

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: DC Prices Improve; Spider-Man; Loki; Assassin’s Apprentice

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, DC’s deals improve with a little more $1.99 action and bigger books at $2.99. Marvel discounts Spider-Man and Loki. Dark Horse cuts prices on Assassin’s Apprentice, Assassin’s Creed and Critical Role.

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):

So That’s Where the Black Friday Sale Went?

World's Finest  The Flash  Wonder Woman: Dead Earth

The DC World’s Greatest Super-Heroes Sale runs through Monday, 12/16.

If you were thinking that DC’s Black Friday sale didn’t contain the pricing you were expecting, this week might work a little better for you and there are definitely some things we’re going to be pointing out for price points here.

As usual, there’s more to the sale and it’s worth your time to browse, but here are a few things that caught out attention:

Recent Release / First Discount

This is a popular series at the site, so let’s point out up top that V.4 of Batman/Superman: World’s Finest has gotten it’s first discounted listing. Mark Waid and Dan Mora continue the Kingdom Come prequel from V.2 as this continues to be one of DC’s best reads. (The whole series is on sale and we recommend it.)

“Regular” Highlights

  • 52 – Geoff Johns/ Grant Morrison / Greg Rucka / Mark Waid / Keith Giffen / Eddy Barrows / Phil Jimenez / Dale Eaglesham; A 52 issue weekly series to tell the story of a “missing” year in the DCU. Also where Dan DiDio picked up his proclivity for the number 52. 2 volume set for $2.99 + $3.99
  • Alan Scott: The Green Lantern – Tim Sheridan / Cian Tormey; First time discounted
  • All-Star Superman – Grant Morrison / Frank Quitely; Essentially, this is a love letter to and distillation of everything good about the Silver Age Superman stories. Highly recommended. $2.99
  • Aquaman: Deadly Waters – Back half of the influential Steve Skeates / Jim Aparo run. This one is usually a little overpriced in digital because it’s a HC in print; $2.99 (as low as we’ve seen it)
  • Batman: The Black Mirror – Scott Snyder / Jock / Francesco Francavilla; Snyder’s earlier run on Detective; $1.99
  • Batman: The Court of Owls Saga – Scott Snyder / Greg Capullo; The first arc of the Snyder/Capullo Batman run. 11 issues / 350 pages – $2.99 (And yet, not the biggest page count for $2.99 you’ll see today…)
  • Batman: Year One – Frank Miller / David Mazzucchelli; Bruce Wayne figures out how to be Batman and Catwoman gets a new background story. You may have heard that David Mazzucchelli draws real purdy. It’s true. $1.99
  • Birds of Prey (’23) – Kelly Thompson / Leonardo Romero; Black Canary leads a raid on Paradise Island
  • Black Lightning – The original series through the Detective and World’s Finest solo appearances; $1.99@
  • The Flash: Savage Velocity – Mike Baron / William Messner-Loebs / Jackson Guice / Greg Larocque;  Wally West debuts as The Flash with the full Mike Baron run and beginning of Messner-Loebs. Kilg%re! Kapitalist Kourier! Chunk! Also, 475 pages for $2.99!
  • Green Arrow: War of the Clans – Jeff Lemire / Andrea Sorrentino; 450 pages for $2.99 (!)
  • Justice Society of America: The Demise of Justice – Len Strazewski / Grant Miehm / Mike Parobeck / Tom Artis / Rich Burchett + a couple Paul Levitz/Joe Staton tales; Warm up miniseries prior to the Strazewski/Parobeck run that STILL NEEDS TO BE COLLECTED; $2.99
  • Legion of Super-Heroes (’80-’85) – As low as the prices get for most of these. The Curse is a real value buy with 450 pages of Paul Levitz / Keith Giffen goodness for $2.99
  • Saga of the Swamp Thing – Alan Moore / Stephen Bissette / John Totleben; The legendary run w/ the first four volumes at $1.99@
  • Superman Smashes the Klan – Gene Yang / Gurihiru; An Eisner winner based on a Superman radio serial. YA;  $1.99
  • Superman: Up In the Sky – Tom King / Andy Kubert; Superman pursues kidnappers into space; $1.99
  • Swamp Thing: The Dead Don’t Sleep – Len Wein (Swampy’s creator) returns to the swamp in ’16 w/ Kelley Jones; $1.99
  • Wonder Woman (’23) Vol. 1: Outlaw – Tom King / Daniel Sampere; An Amazon is implicated in a death and a coverup / propaganda campaign begins as Wonder Woman becomes an enemy of the state. Darker than you’re expecting and V.2 is even *darker* as King explores the politics of domination and manipulation.
  • Wonder Woman: Dead Earth – Daniel Warren Johnson; Wonder Woman wakes up to an apocalyptic hellscape and tries to determine what happened. If you’re looking for the “metal” experience, look no further. $2.99
  • Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons – Kelly Sue DeConnick / Phil Jimenez / Gene Ha / Nicola Scott; Multi-Eisner winner

Golden Age Omnibuses

Silver Age Omnibuses

300+ pages for $2.99

Spider-Teen

Mighty Marvel Masterworks: The Amazing Spider-Man  Untold Tales of Spider-Man  Ultimate Spider-Man

The Marvel Teen Spider-Man Sale runs through Monday, 12/16.

We’re not sure that’s the best name for this sale, despite it being literal, so let’s explain the thought behind it. When Spidey started under Stan Lee & Steve Ditko, Peter Parker was a high school student. When the original Ultimate Comics launch happened (and does that ever feel strange to type), Peter was once more in high school.

This isn’t so much “teen” Spidey as “Spidey the early years.” And really, you can break this into original / 616-Spidey and Ultimate Spidey.

616-Spidey

Mighty Marvel Masterworks: The Amazing Spider-Man collects the original Stan Lee / Steve Ditko run. Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 will take you through #19 and Annual #1.

Spider Man: Blue by the famed team of Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale is a story about Peter and Gwen Stacy falling in love.

Spidey is the ’15-’16 take on Peter’s high school years by Robbie Thompson and Nick Bradshaw.

Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 1.1: Learning To Crawl is essentially the Dan Slott / Ramon Perez take on “Spider-Man: Year One”

But we’d like to draw special attention to Untold Tales Of Spider-Man: The Complete Collection Vol. 1  by Kurt Busiek and Pat Olliffe. This ’95-’97 series often flies under the radar because it was part of an experimental line of $0.99 comics at Marvel. This was the only thing from this line that got any traction. For our money, this was the best Spidey comic from that period. It’s set in the same time as those early Lee/Ditko stories and it just feels right. And let’s face it… this is .cheap. OF COURSE we liked the quality $0.99 book when everything else was $1.50 cover price. Plus, no clones and stories that ended promptly.

Ultimate Spidey

Ultimate Spider-Man  – Brian Bendis / Mark Bagley (and Bill Jemas in the outline/treatment stages). This was the first “Ultimate” title. A back to day one “modern” restart on Spidey that introduced his friends and enemies in slightly tweaked incarnations and in different orders. And it was a very good comic. Worth your time if you’ve never tried it. The link is to the double volumes (listed by Amazon as Omnibuses), which are a little cheaper for the number of issues.

God of Mischief

Loki: Agent of Asgard   Journey Into Mystery   Mighty Marvel Masterworks: The Mighty Thor Vol. 1: The Vengeance Of Loki

The Marvel Loki Sale runs through Monday, 12/16.

The interesting thing about a Loki sale? 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).

If your jam is the traditional Loki as a villain, this isn’t the best sale for that, although it does have Loki’s original appearances in Mighty Marvel Masterworks: The Mighty Thor Vol. 1: The Vengeance Of Loki.

The Marvel “Maybe” Sales

Weapon 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

Unannounced Sales

Assassin's Apprentice The Hunger and the Dusk The Metamorphosis

Dark Horse seems to have multiple sales going on in the background:

Also,

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Deadpool; Wolverine; Batman and… Bazooka Joe?

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel discounts Deadpool and Wolverine. DC has a Winter Sale with plenty of Batman. Dark Horse puts their Crime titles on sale and… Bazooka Joe?

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 Note

It’s the holiday shopping season, which means a few more sales than usual and we’re breaking the week into two posts again. Last time out, we looked at the Infinity (Gauntlet), Thor and Image sales.

Whither Mister Freeze and Captain Cold?

Batman  The Brave and the Bold  Nightwing

The DC Winter Sale runs through Monday, 12/9.

Things could always get a little colder if you’re focused on Winter. (But apparently not Baron Winters?) Here are a few things that caught our eye while sifting through the listings:

  • Batman Vol. 1: Failsafe & Batman Vol. 2: The Bat-Man of Gotham – Chip Zdarsky / Jorge Jiménez / Mike Hawthorne; The first two volumes of the Zdarsky run for $1.99@
  • Batman/Catwoman – Tom King / Clay Mann / Liam Sharp; King continues the Bat/Cat relationship. $2.99 for 400+ pages is good value
  • Batman: One Bad Day – Ah, here’s Mr. Freeze. This is a series of ~80 page Euro-albums spotlighting Batman’s Rouges Gallery
  • The Brave and the Bold Vol. 1: Lords of Luck – Mark Waid / George Perez; Batman, Green Lantern and friends search for the stolen Book of Destiny; First time discounted for this September release
  • Creature Commandos – J.M. DeMatteis / Robert Khanigher / Fred Carillo; The original series from Weird War Stories; $1.99 – cheap
  • DCeased: War of the Undead Gods – Tom Taylor / Trevor Hairsine; The endcap to the DCeased Trilogy where the Anti-Life equation has gotten loose and transformed much of humanity (and the metahuman community) into zombie-like creatures
  • Gotham City: Year One – Tom King / Phil Hester; Gotham City starts to slide into the abyss when an heir to the Wayne fortune is kidnapped. Slam Bradley investigates and breaks eggs in a noir mystery set in pre-Batman times
  • The Human Target – Tom King / Greg Smallwood; This series somehow manages to be a noir mystery AND accommodate the antics of the Bwa Ha Ha Justice League as doomed Christopher Chance investigates who poisoned him. Excellent series
  • Nightwing – Tom Taylor / Bruno Redondo; As it’s nearing it’s wrap-up in the world of collected editions, the Taylor / Redondo Nightwing run has been a delight
  • Superman: Red Son – Mark Millar / Dave Johnson / Kilian Plunkett; What if baby Kal-El’s rocket crashed in Stalin’s U.S.S.R instead of Kansas?
  • World’s Finest – Mark Waid / Dan Mora; The early days of the Batman/Superman team-up; Highly recommended

The Cheapest at What He Does

Wolverine: Spore  Wolverine: Enemy of the State  

The Marvel Wolverine Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 12/16.

You ever see Wolverine shell out for expensive beer? He understands cheap.

This is the sale on the “main” Wolverine titles we said would be coming. Let’s start out by listing the various titles involved. (Relaunches? At Marvel? <faints>) The warning from earlier in the week still applies here: the Epic Collections are not on sale this time out and we’re waiting to see if they turn up on sale at a later date.

  • Wolverine (’82) – Chris Claremont / Frank Miller / Paul Smith; The miniseries that kicked off the solo stories and an X-Men 2-parter that’s a sort of follow-up
  • Wolverine (’88-’03) – The original ongoing solo title. Yes, it took six years after the mini… it was a different time
  • Wolverine (’03-’09) – Greg Rucka / Darick Robertson; Mark Millar / John Romita, Jr.; Jason Aaron/Ron Garney… among others
  • Wolverine: Origin (’06-’10) – Daniel Way / Steve Dillon
  • Wolverine: Weapon X (’09) – Jason Aaron / Ron Garney
  • Wolverine (’10-’12) – Jason Aaron / Renato Guedes / Ron Garney; “Wolverine Goes to Hell” was not a metaphor
  • Wolverine (’13-’14) – Paul Cornell / Alan Davis
  • Wolverine: Savage Land (’14) – Frank Cho
  • Death of Wolverine (’14) – All the mini’s in one volume
  • Old Man Logan (’16-’18) – Jeff Lemire / Andrea Sorrentino; While Logan is “dead,” his future dystopian self journeys to the present day. (And it’s actually pretty good, despite the wonky premise.)
  • Return of Wolverine (’18-’19) – Charles Soule / Steve McNiven; “They always come back”
  • Wolverine (’20-’24) – Ben Percy / Adam Kubert; The Krakoan era Logan. The first link is the “omnibus” page, here’s the individual collections page, which are discounted a little further into the series.

So, what’s actually good?

The  original miniseries is generally regarded as a classic.

With the original series, you’re pretty good from the beginning through the end of the Larry Hama run (a bit after #100), though towards the end of that, the X-Events get annoying. We’re particularly fond of the Archie Goodwin / John Byrne arc from #17-23.

The Greg Rucka / Darick Robertson / Leandro Fernandez run is an enjoyable, lower key run.

Mark Millar did two great runs shortly after Rucka:

  • Enemy of the State w/ John Romita, JR introduces Gorgan and has Wolverine up against an unholy alliance of the Hand and Hydra
  • Old Man Logan w/ Steve McNiven has an aging Logan trying to keep to himself in a dystopian future when trouble comes looking. Yes, this should sound an awful lot like one of the films!

The Krakoan era, while it almost merged with X-Force (kind of like the triangle era Superman line), was quite enjoyable.

You Were Expecting a Dirty Harry Film?
Deadpool Classics Deadpool by Posehn and Duggan Deadpool by Joe Kelly

The Marvel Deadpool Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 12/16.

Deadpool is… oddly collected. There have been a lot of titles and lot of relaunches. Most of these are absorbed into the Deadpool Classics line of collected editions.  Some, but not all, of the series, have omnibus editions and those are the cheaper way to collect those runs… which means, if you’re a completist and you’re cheap, you’re going to want to be wanting to fill in the Classics volumes around the omnibuses.  And Deadpool Classics V. 1 collects the various miniseries that kicked things off.  In a sense, the easiest way (but perhaps not cheapest – and certainly not the most current) to keep things chronological is to follow the Classics line. And, of course, this time out we have the caveat that the Epic Collections are not on sale (nor is Cable & Deadpool).

Hey, when was getting Marvel collected editions in the proper order ever easy?

So let’s run down the main titles:

  • Deadpool Classics (’93 – as far as they’ve gotten)
  • Deadpool (’97-’02) – Known as the Joe Kelly era (at least what’s collected here)
  • Deadpool (’08-’12) – The Daniel Way Era
  • Deadpool Team-Up (’09 – ’11) – all sorts of creators for this Deadpool variant on Marvel Two-In-One (and selectively discounted this time)
  • Deadpool (’12-15) – The Brian Posehn and Gerry Duggan Era
  • Deadpool (’15-’17) – Gerry Duggan and many, many artists
  • Despicable Deadpool (’17-’18) – Duggan/Mike Hawthorne
  • Deadpool (’18-’19) – Skottie Young / Nic Klein
  • King Deadpool (’19-’21) – Kelly Thompson / Chris Bachalo
  • Deadpool (’22-’23) – Alyssa Wong / Martin Coccolo

Pick your preferred creator and go to town.

The Marvel “Maybe” Sales

Avengers  Immortal Thor  Weapon 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

Pre-Order for Next Week

Unannounced Sales

Air  Lobster Johnson  Mister X

Dark Horse appears to have all their crime-related titles (sometimes tenuously related) at ~50% off this week. Things we’re seeing discounts on:

And there’s a lot to like here. The paranoid art deco world of Dean Motter’s Mister X. The pulpy fun of the Mignolaverse’s Lobster Johnson (which proves to be very flexible in tone). Bendis and Oeming running a superpowered police procedural in Powers.

Also on sale:

Bazooka Joe and his GangBombing Nazi Germany

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Infinity Gauntlet, Thor, The Good Asian, Thief of Thieves

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel offers up the Infinity Gauntlet / War / Crusade family of titles and a lot of Thor. Image frets that winter is coming, but has discounts on some quality titles, nonetheless.

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 Note

It’s the holiday shopping season, which means a few more sales than usual and we’re breaking the week into two posts again. We’ll be back at the normal time at the end of the week for the rest of the Marvel sales, DC’s Winter Sale and whatever else happens to pop up.

Infinite Jest

Infinity Gauntlet  Infinity War  Infinity Crusade

The  Marvel Infinity Sale runs through Monday, 12/16.

All things infinity. Some Starlin, so not. Best to separate those things out, so we will:

Starlin’s Infinity Saga

As you may recall from last week, Jim Starlin returned to Marvel and re-introduced Thanos in Silver Surfer, which lead up to Thanos getting his hands on the Infinity Gems and kicking off a series of Event mini-series.

Alongside those titles, Warlock & the Infinity Watch (Starlin / Angel Medina / Tom Grindberg and others) ran parallel and filled some gaps between Events. Ditto, Silver Surfer Epic Collection: The Infinity Gauntlet (primarily Ron Marz / Ron Lim)

And then some more Thanos/Infinity mini’s and graphic novels:

Avengers

Not part of the Starlin Infinity world, but thrown in for… reasons (?)

Avengers Infinity by Roger Stern / Sean Chen is a cosmic/Avengers in space tale.

Infinity is roughly the middle act of Jonathan Hickman’s massive Avengers run. That volume pulls in all the various parts and is how you want it, although we’ve said in before and we’ll say it again – Hickman’s Avengers is one long epic and if you’re going to sample, read the whole thing. The sheer scope of it adds to the experience when you start at the beginning.

Hammered at the Holiday Party?

Thor by Walt Simonson  Thor Road to War of the Realms  Thor: The Mighty Avenger

Marvel’s Thor Sale runs  through Monday, 12/16.

This looks like a Marvel “legacy” sale, but with one big departure from how this has been done in the past: no Masterworks or Epic Collections… which almost entirely takes the Lee/Kirby material off the table. Both formats seem to be missing from all the Marvel sales as we type this. Does this mean we’re getting separate Epic _and_ Masterworks sales before the holiday season is over? Time will tell.

As per our custom, here’s the breakdown by series/volume, although the earlier material isn’t discounted:

  • Journey Into Mystery ’52-’66 – The earliest Thor stories from Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, not discounted this time, however
  • The Mighty Thor ’66-’96 – From Lee & Kirby until the relaunches started, but the discounts don’t really start showing up until the Len Wein/John Buscema run
  • The Mighty Thor ’96-’04 – The Heroes return Dan Jurgens era, initially with John Romita, Jr.
  • Thor ’07-’11 – Starts with J. Michael Straczynski & Olivier Coipel, ends with Matt Fraction & Pasqual Ferry. Gillen in the middle.
  • The Mighty Thor ’11-’12 – Fraction gets a relaunch with Coipel, Ferry and early Pepe Larraz
  • The Jason Aaron era ’12-’19 – It’s a LOT easer to look at the “Complete Collections” across all the relaunches here
  • Thor ’20 to ’23 – The Donny Cates run with Nic Klein as the primary artist; Torunn GrØnbekk tags end toward the end while Cates was recovering from his accident (and filled in well, we might add).
  • Immortal Thor (’23 – current) – Al Ewing / Martin Coccolo; Strangely omitted from the sale, but listed here for reference

If your point of reference for Thor is the most recent film, you want the Jason Aaron era. The God Butcher is the first arc. If you go with that set of Complete Collections, Jane Foster picks up the hammer in V.2. We don’t think that starting with the first Jane Foster issues (and slimmer volumes) is a great jumping on point. It’s a saga and you’ll get a lot more out of it if you start at the beginning of Aaron’s run.

Past that, we’re all about the Walt Simonson Thor. It’s probably the most influential run since early days and it’s great. You’ll want the Thor Visionaries: Walter Simonson set that starts here. (The Thor by Walter Simonson version of the reprints seems to be missing the final volume, or at least the last few issues. *sigh* These things happen.)

If you have a Lee/Kirby itch (and who doesn’t), Thor: Tales of Asgard is your best way to scratch it at a discount. These are the old backups featuring tales of Asgard’s past, occasionally with young Thor and Loki, occasionally the Warriors Three. Slightly more mythology-centric as a whole, as filtered through Stan and Jack.

Something under the radar? Ignore this being marketed as a kid’s comic – Roger Langridge and Chris Samnee had a short run on Thor: The Mighty Avenger that was just a good Thor comic, full stop. And you might expect that from those two.

If you want to move in the opposite direction, Thor: Vikings is a seriously violent Marvel MAX title from Garth Ennis and Glenn Fabry that has Viking zombies invading Manhattan. (No, not Fleet Week. That’s different.)

Folks in Buffalo Would Say It’s Already Here
The Good Asian  The One Trick Rip-Off Thief of Thieves

The Image Winter’s Coming Sale runs through Sunday 12/15.

Another small title count sale with some books in it we’ve enjoyed and are happy to recommend:

  • Bad Weekend – Ed Brubaker / Sean Phillips; An expansion of a backup from Criminal as a disillusioned comics art legend acts out at comic convention
  • The Good Asian – Pornsak Pichetshote / Alexandre Tefenkgi; A superior noir detective tale takes place in 1936, during the final years of the Chinese Exclusion act. A Chinese-America detective is summoned to SF when a series of extra bloody, possibly Tong-initiated murders, threaten his adopted family. A period piece that dots its historical i’s and earns its rep.
  • The One Trick Rip-Off + Deep Cuts – Paul Pope; A heist story fronts the collection, which also includes his “Supertrouble” manga series.
  • Thief of Thieves – (Mostly) Andy Diggle / Robert Kirkman / Shawn Martinbrough; A master thief plans his exit as both the FBI and the underworld circle around him.

The Marvel “Maybe” Sales

Avengers  Immortal Thor  Weapon 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

Pre-Order for Next Week

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: The Best Bets in the Marvel Masterworks Sale

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales,  we have a look at some of the best bets in the Marvel Masterworks 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):

The Best of the Marvel Masterworks Sale

As you may recall, The Marvel Masterworks Sale runs through Monday, 1/8.

One of the things you’ll notice about the Masterworks line is they started with relatively thin volumes – around 10 issues/~225-250 pages per book. And then as things got further along, they got bigger. Some of them being effectively the same size as an Epic Collection. So let’s start out by looking at that and the biggest bang for your buck by page count.

I Like Big Page Counts

Masterworks with 400+ pages!
Amazing Spider-Man Masterworks Doctor Strange Masterworks Uncanny X-Men Masterworks

  • Amazing Spider-Man Masterworks Vol. 22 – 410 pages – Roger Stern / John Romita, Jr. era, including THAT Juggernaut story
  • Amazing Spider-Man Masterworks Vol. 23 – 468 pages – Roger Stern / John Romita, Jr. era… and the Hobgoblin debuts in this volume
  • Avengers Masterworks Vol. 21 – 386 pages (close enough) – Effectively the end of the Jim Shooter/Bob Hall run, plus the first Vision & the Scarlet Witch mini and, notably, a 2-part Steven Grant/Greg Laroque Black Knight storyline.
  • Avengers Masterworks Vol. 23 – this appears to be mislabeled on Amazon and should be closer to 380 pages (close enough) – Roger Stern / Al Milgrom / Mark Gruenwald. Includes the Hawkeye mini-series.
  • Champions Masterworks Vol. 1 – 460 pages – The whole ’70s series + crossovers – Bill Mantlo/Tony Isabella/George Tuska/John Byrne and others.
  • Doctor Strange Masterworks Vol. 10 – 394 pages (close enough) – Roger Stern/Paul Smith (and the Doctor Strange vs. Dracula sequence)
  • Incredible Hulk Masterworks V. 17 – 393 pages (close enough) – Bill Mantlo / Sal Buscema – Includes the Contest of Champions mini-series.
  • Killraven Masterworks Vol. 1 – 471 pages – Don McGregor / P. Craig Russell – the entire Amazing Adventures run plus the OGN follow up
  • Uncanny X-Men Masterworks Vol. 9 – 471 pages – OK, get this line-up: Chris Claremont writing all of… Uncanny X-Men w/ Paul Smith; the God Loves, Man Kills OGN w/ Brent Anderson and the original Wolverine mini-series w/ Frank Miller.
  • Uncanny X-Men Masterworks Vol. 10 – 458 pages – the beginning of the Claremont/John Romita, Jr. era with the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and Morlocks, plus the Magik mini-series w/ John Buscema
  • Uncanny X-Men Masterworks Vol. 11 – 457 pages – Claremont writing: X-Men with John Romita, Jr. (including the Kulan Gath issues), X-Men/Alpha Flight with Paul Smith and Kitty Pride & Wolverine with Al Milgrim
  • Uncanny X-Men Masterworks Vol. 12 – 466 pages – Claremont writes X-Men w/ John Romita, Jr. (culminating in the trial of Magneto and the end of a big arc); the “Asgardian Wars” crossover with New Mutants w/Art Adams; and then Dave Cockrum’s Nightcrawler mini.
  • Uncanny X-Men Masterworks Vol. 13 – 449 pages – Claremont & John Romita, Jr. on X-Men, plus and Ann Nocenti and Art Adams on Longshot.
  • Uncanny X-Men Masterworks Vol. 14 – 485 pages – Enter the Mutant Massacre, plus Psylocke joins the X-verse in New Mutants and Fantastic Four Vs. X-Men.
  • Uncanny X-Men Masterworks Vol. 15 – 508 pages (!) – Chris Claremont / Marc Silvestri / Roger Stern. Includes the “Fall of the Mutants” arc and the Avengers vs. X-Men mini-series.

Other notable runs (that aren’t Lee/Kirby, since those go without saying).
Black Panther Masterworks Daredevil Masterworks Warlock Masterworks

We’ll link to the first volume in the set on these.

  • Avengers V. 10 – 18; V. 10 is the Kree/Skrull War. V.11 starts the Englehart run through V.15. V. 16 & V.17 are the Jim Shooter run w/ George Perez & John Byrne; V. 18 is David Michelinie/John Byrne -a prime chunk of Avengers
  • Black Panther Masterworks Vol. 1 – The original, classic Jungle Action run with Don McGregor / Rich Buckler / Billy Graham / Gil Kane – a LOT of things get established here.
  • Captain America V. 7 – 11; V.7-9 is the classic Steve Englehart/ (mostly) Sal Buscema run with the Secret Empire, the Red Skull and a snake of an ad man. V.10-11 is Jack Kirby’s return and V.10’s Madbomb is more relevant today than it should be. Also good – V.14 contains the brief, but classic, Roger Stern/John Byrne run
  • Captain Marvel V.3 -4; V. 3 is Jim Starlin’s run, which is the first Thanos arc. Utter classic. V.4 is the half-forgotten, yet quite entertaining Steve Englehart/Al Milgrom run.
  • Daredevil V. 15-17; Frank Miller’s first run. (V. 14 ends with the first issue he drew, but it’s not particularly connected to the rest of the run.) Yes, the whole thing is now in Masterworks and it’s a decent price for the material.
  • Defenders V. 3-5; The inspired strangeness of Steve Gerber’s run. Headmen! Elf With a Gun!
  • Doctor Strange V.5-10; Once Steve Englehart and Frank Brunner show up the 70s and 80s were a strong time for Doctor Strange. Consistently A-list writers and artists. Almost amazingly so for a bi-monthly title.
  • Fantastic Four V. 21-25; The John Byrne era in thick slices
  • Iron Man V.5-7; The meat of Archie Goodwin’s Iron Man run with Gene Colan and George Tuska
  • Iron Man V. 13-15 – V. 13 has David Michelinie, Bob Layton and John Romita, Jr. arrive. They start with “Demon in a Bottle,” the famous arc, but Iron Man is very good for a long time, starting here.
  • Marvel Two-In-One V. 5-6; In V.5 Mark Gruenwald and Ralph Macchio arrive for a fun run that’s not always remembered. George Perez and Ron Wilson handle most of the art. “Project Pegasus” and “The Serpent Crown Affair” are two of the major arcs.
  • Sub-Mariner V. 7 – Something different? Namor’s creator, Bill Everett returns to his creation as writer/artist.
  • Warlock V. 2 – Jim Starlin’s first run on Adam Warlock, complete in one volume. A continuation of his Captain Marvel run, Thanos is back and this one really lays the groundwork for the eventual Infinity Gauntlet.

Remember, New Year’s Day is last call for the DC Holiday Sale. Our extensive annotations for it are here.

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: (Pre-Film) Aquaman; Old Man Logan; Alpha Flight

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, DC discounts Aquaman ahead of the film, while Marvel drops prices on Old Man Logan and Alpha Flight.

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):

Wolverine… and the Sea?

Wolerine: Old Man Logan   Wolverine: Old Man Logan

The Marvel Old Logan and the Wasteland Sale runs through Monday, 12/18.

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.

The Great White North

Alpha Flight  X-Men / Alpha Flight

The Marvel Alpha Flight Sale runs through Monday, 12/18.

We know what you’re thinking: “If Spider-Man could team up with the Not Ready for Prime Time Players, why couldn’t Alpha Flight team up with Bob and Doug McKenzie?” The way we heard it, this was proposed, but Guy Caballero nixed it.

The main item of note here is Alpha Flight Classic, 3 volumes that comprise the John Byrne run on the original series and a Bill Mantlo/Mike Mignola issue and Byrne essentially traded Alpha Flight for The Incredible Hulk. (We recall the Mantlo run being better than advertised, but there doesn’t currently seem to be interest in collecting it.)

Of possible related interest is X-Men / Alpha Flight, which features some early Uncanny X-Men appearances and two crossover mini-series. The 1985 mini by Chris Claremont and Paul Smith is particularly good and the first half of the “Asgardian Wars” story arc.

And for something out of left field, there’s the more recent Gamma Flight, which is an Alpha Flight adjacent spin-off of Immortal Hulk by Al Ewing, Crystal Frazier and Len Medina.

The Deep Blue Sea

Aquaman    Aquaman  Aquaman by Peter David

The DC Aquaman Sale runs through Monday, 12/18.

You’d think there was a movie coming out?

We’ve heard a few versions of what the new film is supposed to be about. Inspired by Silver Age Aquaman stories with Black Manta as the villain is one story we’ve heard. That it’s incorporating elements from the abandoned “The Trench” spin-off film in another.

We always associated Black Manta a little more with the 70s and the Death of a Prince storyline, but he debuted in ’67 and made some more appearances as the first Aquaman run was ending. And, really, the Steve Skeates/Jim Aparo run was one of the better Silver Age runs, so there you go. That’s collected in a couple books that are a little more expensive than things we’ve seen in recent weeks. Manta pops up in The Search for Mera, but we think what the filmmakers are referring to are the Deadly Waters stories, where Manta tries to usurp Atlantis.

All this business about “The Trench” is from the first two volumes of the Geoff Johns / Ivan Reis (New 52) run, where Aquaman encounters a scary race of creatures from the deepest depths of an undersea trench. The second volume, “The Others,” is particularly good.

Another take was the Peter David / Martin Egeland ’90s Aquaman run, which featured an angrier, more violent Aquaman who’d lost a hand and replaced it with a hook. Popular, but controversial.

But if you want an unusual (and quite enjoyable) run, you’re looking for Aquman: Sword of Atlantis. Kurt Busiek and Jackson Guice added an undersea Conan feel to the feature with plenty of sorcery and a bit of mystery around who various characters really were. We wished this version had a longer run.

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Holiday Sales From DC (More $1.99 Collections), Archie, BOOM! and IDW

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, holiday sales from DC (it’s a doozy), IDW, Archie and BOOM!.

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):

A clerical note before we jump into things. Comics.Cheap will probably be on a strange holiday schedule, like everyone else. We’re not sure if we’ll be putting out the usual Friday round-up this week.  That will be determined largely by whether any more notable sales dropping between now and then. (There’s an Image sale listed, but as we’re typing this, it sure doesn’t look like the sale prices are appearing yet… but if it’s not more than 50% off, we’ll wait for next week.)  Next week, we’ll have a closer look at the BEST of the Marvel Masterworks sale and catch up on any interesting sales dropping between now and then.

DC’s Insane Holiday Sale

The DC Holiday Sale runs through Monday, 1/2.

WOW. This is like the last few DC sales, only more of it. And with over 3K items this is approaching a line-wide sale. Not quite, but getting there. If you scroll back to the last few $1.99/$2.99 sales between Black Friday and now, we think most of that material is back on sale, so we’ll focus on things that caught our eye this time around that maybe weren’t previously on sale. Yes, some of these items are giving the Marvel Masterpieces sale a run for your money.

This is 3600+ items, so remember – when browsing the main sale link, right click on comics and open them in a new window or you’ll lose your place and have to start over at the top!

Here’s an extended list of what caught our eye:

$1.99 Collected Editions

$2.99 Collected Editions

Over $3

  • Bizarro Comics – Matt Groening / Kyle Baker / Harvey Pekar and bunch more
  • Marshal Law – Pat Mills / Kevin O’Neill
  • Mister Miracle – The second series with Steve Englehart / Marshall Rogers and then Steve Gerber / Michael Golden / Russ Heath – that’s right, Heath inking Golden!
  • Night Force – The first Marv Wolfman / Gene Colan run (Marv’s favorite series)

What’s the cream of the crop? More so than most weeks, it depends on your individual tastes.  We will definitely say that the double volume editions of Gotham Central for $1.99 seems like an absolute steal.  We might slightly favor Jimmy Olsen (essentially, Kirby’s Superman title), but all of those 70’s Jack Kirby books for $2.99 are great deals. And we’re leaning toward Justice League International for the third slot because it’s just never this cheap.

Gotham Central   Jimmy Olsen by Jack Kirby   Justice League International

What’s that? You say you’d rather have single issues? Preferably for $0.99? It seems DC would like to placate your tastes. Note: these are fairly recent issues being discounted, so on longer running titles, you’ll need to scroll down a bit to see the 99 cent issues.  There’s a lot more than list here, but you’ll need to get below the collected editions on the main page.

Holidays go BOOM!

The BOOM! Holidays Graphic Novel Sale runs through Monday, 1/2.

This looks to be a line-wide 50% off sale, so let’s look at some things might be slightly below the radar.

Steed & Mrs. Peel is an adaption of the British TV Avengers, the often absurdist spy-fi show. This is a relatively early Grant Morrison script and drawn by Ian Gibson, who’s best known for his 2000 AD work on Robo-Hunter and Judge Dredd.

Is this the first time BRZRKR has been discounted? This one made a big splash on Kickstarter and variant covers, but you know what? Despite all the hype that wasn’t about the interior pages, this is actually a very enjoyable action/SF/dark fantasy comic. It’s written by Keanu Reeves and Matt Kindt with art by Ron Garney and concerns a seemingly immortal warrior from centuries past who’s ready to leave immortality behind. It’s bloody as all get out, but alternates the violence with character work.

And for something completely different: Jeremy Bastian’s Cursed Pirate Girl. You need to see the art in this fantasy tale for yourself. A delightfully unique experience.

Steed and Mrs. Peel   BRZRKR   Cursed Pirate Girl

A Different Side of Riverdale

The Archie Holiday Graphic Novel Sale runs through Monday, 1/2.

Since this looks line wide, we’ll draw your attention to something well off the beaten path:

The Black Hood by Duane Swierczynski / Michael Gaydos / Howard Chaykin / Greg Scott is more a crime book than a superhero caper. Vigilante if you must. In the wake of a shooting, involving a vigilante called The Black Hood, an injured cop develops a pain killer addiction, dons the Black Hood’s mask for less than puritanical reasons and finds himself in over his head in a world of vendettas. Very dark, very good. For some reason V. 3 is listed separately.

Black Hood   Black Hood

IDW Does the Holidays

The IDW Holidays Sale runs through Monday, 1/2.

Much like with BOOM!, this looks to be a near line wide sales at 50%-ish off, so we’ll highlight some under the radar books. If you’ve had your eye on something specific, have a browse and you’ll likely find it.

Popeye by Roger Langridge and Bruce Ozella is just straight up fun. A satisfying and amusing entry in the Popeye library.

The One by Rick Veitch is very dark superhero satire steeped in cold war politics. It’s effectively the younger sibling of Brat Pack and one of the earlier deconstructionist superhero comics (After Marvelman/Miracleman’s run in Warrior, but before Watchmen).

Sachs and Violens by Peter David and George Perez was originally a mini-series for Marvel’s Epic imprint, near the end of Epic’s original run. It’s a lighthearted adventure contrasted with heavy material (snuff films) as a model and photographer mete out street justice. Oddly, David later included the characters in his Fallen Angel series.

Popeye   The One   Sachs & Violens

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Comixology (At Amazon) Sales: $0.99 / $1.99 Marvel Masterworks (Cheap)

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, the Marvel holiday sales have arrived and by that, we mean the annual Marvel Masterworks sale.

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):

Our Favorite Sale of the Year

The Marvel Masterworks Sale runs through Monday, 1/2.

Yes, this is what we consider the finest sale of the year – the Marvel Masterworks Sale. This year, the first volume in a series is $0.99 and the rest in the series are $1.99. Masterworks are usually contain at least 10-12 issues and some of the later volumes can push 500 pages, so there are excellent values to be had. Volume one is, generally speaking, where the character’s appearances begin. These let you get a complete run of a character/title and the flagship titles are now getting into 80s material.

Also, if you want to read the Don McGregor (or Jack Kirby) Black Panther runs, this is when you get them: Volume 1 – $0.99; Volume 2 – $1.99; Volume 3 – $1.99

We’ll come back before the sale is over and highlight what we think the best buys are in the Masterworks catalog, but right now let’s talk about what’s new to the sale this year. We think this is what’s new – or newly on sale – since last December’s sale dropped. If you gorge on the sale each year, it’ll probably save you some time. That said, always remember to check these against your library!

What’s particularly interesting here? A few things. Reading down the list, Captain America has the entirely too short Roger Stern/John Byrne run. Daredevil  is from the Frank Miller run and this volume culminates in the death of Elektra. Doctor Strange has the under-rated Roger Stern/Paul Smith run. Fantastic Four is the middle of John Byrne’s run. Iron Man  is part of the first David Michelinie/Bob Layton run (with John Romita, Jr. pencils) and just after the “Demon in a Bottle” arc. Marvel Two-In-One is part of the under-rated Mark Gruenwald/Ralph Machio era with some Jerry Bingham, George Perez and Ron Wilson art. Arcs include “The Serpent Crown Affair” and a Starhawk/Moondragon/Adam Warlock 3-parter.

These Masterworks sales are always a grand time!

Daredevil Masterworks   Doctor Strange Masterworks   Marvel Two-In-One Masterworks

Is It Secret If Everyone Knows?

The Marvel Secret Wars Sale runs through Monday, 1/2.

So many tie-ins with the sale, but here’s the rule of thumb breakdown:

Marvel Superheroes Secret Wars is the original 12 part series by Jim Shooter and Mike Zeck wherein The Beyonder does a bit of kidnapping and lots of fights ensue.  (And a symbiote turns up.)

Secret Wars by Jonathan Hick and Esad Ribic is the endcap to Hickman’s Fantastic Four and Avengers runs about what Douglas Adams might have called the world at the end of the universe.

Beyond! is your hidden gem here. We’d almost forgotten about it. A Dwayne McDuffie/Scott Kollins tales you might well call “What If… Dwayne McDuffie Wrote Secret Wars?”

Secret Wars  Secret Wars  Beyond!

Surf’s Up

The Marvel Silver Surfer Sale runs through Monday, 12/19.

This is a much smaller sale, focused a bit more on the more recent Surfer titles.

If you want old school Silver Surfer, there’s the Stan Lee / Moebius Parable, which was originally put out under the old Epic imprint. It also has the Enslavers OGN by Stan and Keith Pollard. You don’t get much more old school than Stan on one of his favorite characters.

The most impactful of the selections here is probably Silver Surfer: The Rebirth of Thanos by Jim Starlin and Ron Lim. This contains the Surfer arc where Starlin returns to the big bad of his 70s cosmic work and also Thanos Quest. This is the lead-in to Infinity Gauntlet and the beginning of a very fruitful collaboration between Starlin and Lim.

And for the longest running incarnation of the Surfer since that 80/90s run, there’s the Dan Slott/Mike Allred.  Technically, speaking this is the ’14-’15 series and the ’16-’17 series. Is it two volumes? Yes. Are we going to count it as one run for our purposes? Yes, again.

Silver Surfer: Parable   Rebirth of Thanos  Silver Surfer

And don’t forget the DC’s Greatest Hits Sale that’s running through Monday, it’s not *quite* as good as the Masterworks sale, but it’s close.

Expect the rest of the holiday floodgates to open on Tuesday.

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Comixology Sales: Holiday Sale Roundup Part 2 – DC, Image, IDW and BOOM!

This week in Comixology, it’s all holiday sale, all the time with everything lasting into the new year.  In Part 2 of the Holiday roundup, we’re adding DC, Image, IDW and BOOM! into the discount vortex.

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

Pretty much every sale that’s dropped since our last installment is at 50% discount, so we would highly recommend you also click here and have a gander at all the $0.99/$1.99 graphic novels on sale, include Marvel Masterworks.

And now… the rest of the holiday sale highlights.

DC’s Discount Presents

The DC Holiday eBook Sale runs through Monday, 1/3. It comes in two parts: Part 1 (100 Bullets through Nightwing) and Part 2 (Nightwing through Zero Hour).  (Amazon link)

There are a little less than 2500 DC graphic novels on sale.  Basically, the whole digital catalog (save for the books too new to get discounted).  If there’s a title you’re looking for, it’s likely there, so go have a browse. The vast majority of books are around 50% off.

A handful of good reads that are perhaps a little better value? Sure. We have some likely candidate for you.

Like most of the comics community, we’ve been alarmed at George Perez’s cancer diagnosis.  George’s landmark, mythology-forward Wonder Woman series is on sale and Wonder Woman by George Perez V. 1 is a larger than average page count make it a good value on top of a good comic. It’s one of George’s signature pieces. If you want to move forward, for reasons known only to DC, V.5 is in the “collected editions” section of the series page, not the “ominbuses” section. It’s also not on sale.  There’s a V. 6, but you’re better off getting the War of the Gods collection in the omnibuses section that collects the same material and is actually on sale.

Green Lantern by Geoff Johns Book 1 is also a pretty good value.  It’s 375 pages and includes the opening arc of the Dave Gibbons/Patrick Gleason Green Lantern Corps title.  We think pretty highly of the original Johns GL run through Blackest Night, but be warned – subsequent volumes in this format have premium HC pricing for digital files. Just say no to HC pricing whenever possible. It’s also 53% off instead of 50%. (Missed it by that much!(

Legion of Super-Heroes: The Curse is the post-Great Darkness Saga LSH run by Paul Levitz and Keith Giffen. A classic of the era, and a volume we enjoyed revisiting awhile back. While Great Darkness is absolutely worth your time, this massive 544 page volume is the slightly better value by (its considerable) volume.

Wonder Woman by George Perez   Green Lantern by Geoff Johns   Legion of Superheroes: The Curse

The Cheaper Image

The Image Recent Hits Sale runs through Monday, 1/3. (Amazon link)

We’re still looking at 50% off here (plus some 99-cent single issues), but Image is running a much smaller sale centered around what’s been hot for them lately.  And we can absolutely vouch for some them.

Reckless by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips is a very pulpy series of graphic novels about an off-the-bookers “fixer” in ’80s. LA. “If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them….maybe you can hire” sorry… wrong 80s LA fixers.  Reckless is much darker and deals with things like fallout from Cointel Pro, the Satanic Panic and shady real estate deals. Two of the three are on sale and we like the set, but maybe like the opening installment best.

Killadelphia is a genre bending tale of police detectives trying to head off a vampire uprising in Philly. A little bit of horror, a little bit of neo noir, a sinister sense of history and a strong streak of gallows humor. We’ve been all-in for this one since we tried it.  Rodney Barnes and Jason Shawn Alexander run the blood bank for this one.

Department of Truth is incrementally the youngest book of the set. This would be James Tynion, IV and Martin Simmonds telling a tale of the power of belief causing conspiracy to burst into reality and a shadowy government agency trying to reign this in. There’s an X-Files vibe to it, but Department of Truth is really it’s own thing… and a good thing at that.

Note: $3.99 for the first volumes in this sale is a genuinely good deal.

Reckless   Killadelphia   Department of Truth

Holiday Theft

The IDW Holiday Mega Sale runs through Wednesday 1/5.

That’s pretty much the whole catalog 50% off here.  Highlights?

If you want to talk masterpiece, there’s Richard Stark’s Parker by Darwyn Cooke. Cooke does jaw dropping adaptions of Donald Westlake’s (Stark was a pen name) classic novels about a vengeance-minded professional thief. If you like crime comics, you don’t find much better than this.

Locke & Key by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez has become a standard bearer for IDW, but let’s ignore the TV adaptation thing – it was a good comic before any of that came to fruition. A creepy tell of a magical keys and generational horror stalking a family.

Richard Stark's Parker x  Locke & Key

Discount Go Boom!

The BOOM! Holiday Sale runs through Thursday, 1/6.

Again, it sure looks like most of the catalog is half off, so if you had something on your wish list, it’s probably here.  Highlights?

We absolutely loved the first volume of We Only Find Them When They’re Dead by Al Ewing and Simone Di Meo. What’s it about? Skullduggery surrounding salvaging flesh and organs from the corpse of alien gods found floating in space. A twisted high concept science fiction series and we’re slightly impatient for V. 2.

We also haven’t heard anyone mention Mouse Guard in a spell. This David Peterson series is an Eisner-winner and is absolutely gorgeous to behold and his art is as good at creating mood as it is pretty. Its a medieval tale of the “Mouse Guard” (think an order like the Three Musketeers) as they investigate a conspiracy and try to keep the common mice safe.  Fall: 1152 is the first book in the series.

We also haven’t heard Irredeemable mentioned lately. This Mark Waid/Peter Krause/Diego Barreto tale could be described as “what if Superman had a psychotic break?” It’s a bit deeper than that and it develops it’s own little superhero universe and cast as it explores what happens when the nicest, most powerful hero finally snaps and decides to kill everyone and take over.

We Only Find Them When They're Dead   Mouse Guard  Irredeemable

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