Tag: Image

Comixology Sales: Darth Vader, Gotham Knights (and Batman); Daredevil; Image’s Fall Sale

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Darth Vader, Daredevil and MAYBE Namor get the discounts at Marvel, DC unleashes the Bat-Family with “Gotham Knights” and Image opens a seasonal sale.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

Sith-Tober

There’s supposed to be a Darth Vader sale right now, but the link to the overall sale isn’t posted yet for whatever reason. Our understanding is that it’s supposed to be running through Thursday, 11/3. Maybe it will be by the time you see this? Lucky you, we can see the sale prices and have a couple recommendations:

We still haven’t read a Darth Vader comic to top the Kieron Gillen / Salvador Larroca run.  It’s slow clap territory, especially the scene at the end of the opening arc when Vader figures out he’s been lied to.  This series picks up right after A New Hope and follows Vader as he goes rogue, looking for that rebel pilot who blew up the Death Star.  Note: You also need to get the Vader Down collection, which is the cross-over between the Darth Vader comic and the Star Wars comic.  Key plot points there. Did we mention these volumes are $2.99/$3.99?  Good prices for superior material.

The second best Vader series we’ve read is the Charles Soule / Giuseppe Camuncoli run. It might be the favorite series at the Lucasfilm offices, seeing as how they gave Soule a promotion. This run really hits second gear in V.2 when the librarian of the Jedi Temple turns up.

Vader   Vader Down   Vader Series 2

Sub-Prices

Namor, the Sub-Mariner is another sale that’s supposed to be running, but isn’t posted. Our understanding is it’s supposed to be running through Monday, 10/31. Maybe it will also be up by the time you see this?  Right now we’re not seeing the discounts on this material, but keep an eye out for it. It’s not in the system on Friday evening like it’s supposed to be.

We did enjoy King In Black: Namor (which has very little to do with King in Black) by Kurt Busiek and Benjamen Dewey, for instance… should the discounts materialize.

King In Black: Namor

Marvel Dares You

The Marvel Daredevil: Born Again and Other Tales Sale runs through Monday, 10/31.

Clearly, since it’s being filmed, Daredevil: Born Again is the flagship title of this sale. This is the landmark Frank Miller / David Mazzucchelli tale of the Kingpin discovering Daredevil’s secret identity and tearing down his world, brick by brick. A classic tale that has earned its reputation.

Daredevil: Parts of a Hole written by David Mack and drawn by Joe Quesada & Jimmy Palmiotti (remember that team… it’s been a minute) is the arc that introduces Echo and we find it interesting that this should be in a born again sale. Foreshadowing?

Daredevil: End of Days is the biggest oddity of this sale, but it’s also a series we enjoyed. At the time, Marvel was doing a lot of “the last <insert character here>” stories and this one brings back Brian Bendis, David Mack, Alex Maleev, Klaus Jansen and Bill Sienkiewicz assemble for what starts as the tale of Ben Urich trying to solve the mystery of Daredevil’s final words… and then heads off in unexpected places. It serves as nice “20 years later” sort of endcap to the Bendis/Brubaker era of Daredevil and is something that’s semi-off the radar.

Daredevil: Born Again   Daredevil: Parts of a Hole   Daredevil: End of Days

But Can You Download a Patch?

The DC Gotham Knights Sale runs through Monday, 11/7.

We’d have probably put the Tynion Detective run in here for “Gotham Knights,” but what do we know?

The “Batman-proper” offering here is  the Scott Snyder / Greg Capullo run that kicked off the New 52 era by introducing the Court of Owls. We suspect you’ve heard of it and it’s _mostly_ $4.99/$5.99 per volume. HOWEVER, there are a couple volumes not properly discounted as we type this, so keep an eye on the price. (Perhaps that will fix itself, since DC discounts used to really lag earlier in the year.)

For Nightwing, we’re in the apparent majority opinion that you want to be looking at the Tom Taylor/Bruno Redondo Nightwing.  There were single issues of this at the bottom of the sale page, but they weren’t discounted when we looked at them. Again… this might change. It’s deja vu.

And for an old school selection, the Chuck Dixon / Tom Lyle / Tom Grummet Robin run from the 90s (which is to say, Tim Drake), definitely has a following. Amazon is weird and breaks it up into three listings/links: V. 1, V.2, and V.3-5.

Batman: The Court of Owls   Nightwing   Robin: Reborn

We All Fall Down

The Image Fall Sale runs through Sunday, 11/13.

700+ items makes for a deep list, but there are a few things here we’re more inclined to point out.

For instance, God Country by Donny Cates and Geoff Shaw. While that duo is probably best known for Thanos Wins, we think God Country is the better book. Frankly, we don’t think Cates has topped it, period. The elevator pitch isn’t quite so unique – a magic sword cures an old man’s dementia and gives him the vigor of youth to fight off the invading demons. But the meditation on losing one’s mind and character work? Top notch and elevates everything. We weren’t ready for it.

The Black Monday Murders by Jonathan Hickman and Tomm Coker is a murder mystery. A murder mystery amongst secret and elite cults where financial institutions and banking cartels wield black magic behind the scenes to control the world and get one up on rival sects. Oh, there’s a touch of satire, but it’s mostly played straight. Excellent series and we’re looking forward to the final volume which ought to be popping back on the schedule soon. Hickman’s said he’s done with the scripts and Image is waiting for Coker to have the art in the can before soliciting, so… soon?

Seven to Eternity by Rick Remender and Jerome Opeña is fantasy quest about a man who goes on a quest to save his family and depose his father’s old enemy, the king.  Except this one inverts some tropes and goes to some very dark places as devil’s bargains are struck. It’s also a real showcase for Opeña. It’s hard to praise the art enough.

God Country   The Black Monday Murders   Seven to Eternity

 

 

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Black Adam, Wonder Woman, Black Widow, Champions, The Ultimates and The Walking Dead

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, DC celebrates the Black Adam sale with Teth-Adam and Justice Society comics AND it’s also time for Wonder Woman Day sale. Marvel lets loose with discounts on Black Widow, The Ultimates and The Champions. Dark Horse highlights Berger books and what’s the holiday season without The Walking Dead?

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

Can You Smell What The Rock Is Reading?

The DC Black Adam & the JSA runs through Monday, 11/14.

Well, at least we’d like to think The Rock was reading some of the source material… Lots of stuff we like here, too.

We’re big fans of the Paul Levitz / Sonny Liew Doctor Fate revival from a few years back. A medical student of Egyptian decent encounters the helmet of Fate as ancient forces start showing up in Brooklyn. One of the best, and best explained, passing on of the mantle/identity examples in recent memory. (Now… where is the long promised Immortal Doctor Fate collection?)

Tim Truman’s Hawkworld is still one of our favorite Hawkman series, although we doubt this one will look much like the movie.

Doctor Fate   Hawkworld

Do like the classic Justice Society lineup?  We do, here at the Tower of Cheap.

Justice Society of America: A Celebration of 75 Years is sort of a “best of”/sampler of the various ages. Golden Age All-Star Comics, JSA/JLA team-ups, an All-Star Squadron issue, an issue of the Strazewski/Parobeck Justice Society of America, etc.  (Which reminds us… Hey DC, where’s that Strazewski/Parobeck collection you’ve been promising us?!?)

Justice Society of America: The Demise of Justice has Len Strazewski and a rotating artist group of Rich Burchett, Tom Artis, Mike Parobeck and  Grant Miehm send a ’50s era JSA squad out against Vandal Savage, in the original All-Star Comics format where the heroes split up. Not the later, unreprinted Strazewski/Parobeck series set in the ’90s, this came a little before that.

Infinity, Inc. is a spin-off of All-Star Squadron. It’s the adventures of the children and protégés of the JSA in modern times. Roy and Dann Thomas write it. Jerry Ordway is the initial artist, and if you follow the single issues, you’ll eventually find a young Todd McFarlane, which most people forget. (And he has some pretty wild layouts in those.) They’re not all on sale, but the sale takes you through issue 8 and the end of the Generations Saga

Justice Society of America   Justice Society   Infinity, Inc.

Now what’s more likely to resemble the Black Adam film probably starts with JSA by Geoff Johns. This was originally written by David Goyer (yes, the screenwriter – he did more comics in the early aughts) and James Robinson. Johns turns up in issue #6 and a few years later assumes solo duties.  The Black Adam volume from later in the run, where Black Adam takes over Khandaq and Hawkman doesn’t appreciate it might be where the movie is going.  Only about half the series is in collected editions, however the single issues are $0.99 a pop.  Also seems that the JSA: Classified companion series is also having $0.99 single issues. Go figure.

This series was relaunched (now entering the age of relaunches) as Justice Society of America with Geoff Johns and Dale Eaglesham.  This is also where Alex Ross returned to the Kingdom Come franchise, although it was poorly promoted at the time.

JSA   Black Adam   Justice Society of America: Thy Kingdom Come

JSA Single Issue Bonanza

The DC Black Adam & the JSA Sale Single Issue Sale also runs through Monday, 11/14.

We noted a few of the single issue sales in the last item and while we were doing that, Amazon dropped a new sale.  Let’s break down the list by series (and know there are some specials, one-shots and minis not in the list):

  • Black Adam – Peter J. Tomasi / Doug Mahnke mini-series
  • Doctor Fate – ’87 – The Keith Giffen & J.M. DeMatteis mini-series
  • Doctor Fate – ’88-’92 – J.M. DeMatties / Shawn McManus, later William Messner-Loebs/Scot Eaton
  • Infinity, Inc. – Roy & Dann Thomas/Jerry Ordway/Todd McFarlane
  • JSA – David Goyer/Geoff Johns/Stephen Sadowski is the primary combination
  • JSA All-Stars – Lilah Sturges/Freddie E. Williams
  • JSA Classified – Creators rotate by arc. Think the Justice Society version of Legends of the Dark Knight
  • JSA: Strange Adventures – Mini-series by Kevin J. Anderson/Barry Kitson/Gary Erskine
  • Hawkman – ’64-’68 – Get your Gardner Fox/Murphy Anderson on!
  • Hawkman – ’86-’87 – The Tony Isabella/Richard Howell run
  • Hawkworld – ’89-’93 – A continuation of the Tim Truman series (see above) by John Ostrander/Tim Truman/Graham Nolan
  • Hawkman – ’93-’96 – Continuation of Hawkworld, first by Ostrander/Jan Duursema, then Messner-Loebs/Steve Lieber
  • Hawkman – ’02-’06 – Initially by James Robinson / Geoff Johns / Rags Morales

What’s good here? We particularly liked the continuation of Hawkworld. This is really an eclectic dealer’s choice kind of selection. Get some Silver Age material. Pick up the Walt Simonson or Steve Englehart JSA Classified issues. You have options.

Hawkworld 

Call It a Day

The DC Wonder Woman Day Sale runs through Monday 10/24.  Wonder Woman Day being 10/21, if you were curious.

First let’s break this down by hitting the highlights of the series involved, since this is a really deep sale.

There’s a variety of good material here. Everyone should at least have a look at how entirely bizarre the early Wonder Woman comics are. Those bondage rumors are very real. While Amazon does a strange job of dividing into a different category pages, the George Perez re-imagining is a must-read for the character. We also swear by the Greg Rucka runs. The first, with JG Jones, Drew Johnson and Rags Morales on art, closes out the series that Perez’s run began. He then returned years later for another fantastic run with Nicola Scott and Liam Sharp on art.

Wonder Woman: The Golden Age   Wonder Woman by George Perez   Wonder Woman

Holy Eating Your Mate, Batman!

The Marvel Black Widow Sale runs through Monday, 10/24.

Yes, there’s a bit more Black Widow in print since she started showing up in the movies. We’re genuinely amused Marvel cobbled together an Epic Collection of her guest spots, too. But let’s talk about comics where she’s the lead.

The most recent Black Widow series by Kelly Thompson and Elena Casagrande pulled an Eisner Award and starts out with a very angry and violated Natasha Romanov looking for revenge. (Although ultimately, its a very family-themed run.)

You can pull the Waid/Samnee run on Black Widow in a single volume. This one has Natasha on the run as her past comes looking for her (a common theme in Widow stories). The nice thing about Waid/Samnee books – they’re a known quantity, so you already know if you’re interested.

If you want to go back a little further, we really enjoyed the darker, more espionage-centric pair of mini-series by Richard K. Morgan (yes, the Altered Carbon author) with Bill Sienkiewicz, Goran Parlov and Sean Phillips providing art. They are conveniently collected in the Black Widow: Welcome to the Game book.

Black Widow   Black Widow by Mark Waid and Chris Samnee   Black Widow - Welcome to the Game

Penunltimate

The Marvel Ultimates and the Ultimate Universe Sale runs through Thursday, 10/27.

The Ultimates were The Avengers of the Ultimate Universe. Mark Millar’s and Bryan Hitch’s series sparks a few arguments, but there’s no denying how influential it’s proven to be in everything from the “cinematic comics” movement to the Marvel films.

The other of the four flagship titles that launch the Ultimate Universe was Ultimate Fantastic Four. This title had a few more creators tagging in and out. Brian Bendis, Mark Millar, Mike Carey and Warren Ellis all wrote it at various times. Artists included Adam Kubert, Stuart Immonen and Greg Land.

Ultimates   Ultimate Fantastic Four

Breakfast of Champions

The Marvel Champions Sale runs through Monday, 10/24.

For the original ’70s Champions series by Tony Isabella, Bill Manto, George Tuska, Bob Hall and John Byrne, your best price for the full set is the Marvel Masterworks edition.

The ’16-’18 Mark Waid/Jim Zub/Humberto Ramos/Sean Izaakse/Kevin Libranda Champions run might require a little explanation for optimal cheapness. At the top of that page, get “Because the World Still Needs Heroes” and “Worlds Collide.“ (These are double volumes and better value.) Then jump to V.4 and V.5 of the regular series at the bottom of the page.

Champions   Champions

Image Zombies

The Image Walking Dead Sale runs through Monday, 10/31.

You had to see this one coming for Halloween, right?

So there’s the headline: $17.99 Walking Dead Compendiums. That’s ~48-50 issues, depending on the volume, for $18 and comes out to $0.35-$37/issue.  Cheap.

Hard to beat that deal. There are some assorted ones shots in the sale, but we’d say the other heighted item of interest might be $0.99 issues of Walking Dead Deluxe, which is the color version of Walking Dead. If you’re curious about that, this is a decent time to sample it.

Walking Dead   Walking Dead Deluxe

Karen’s Books

The Dark Horse Berger Books Sale runs through Monday, 10/31.

Yes, that’s Karen Berger who ran Vertigo (and editing Legion of Super-Heroes before that). She set up shop at Dark Horse after DC shut down Vertigo.  Berger Books is a little more genre-diverse than Vertigo was, but there’s a similar vibe.

Invisible Kingdom by G. Willow Wilson and Christian Ward might be the de facto flagship book. This Eisner Award winner finds a religious acolyte and a starship freighter crew on the run after discovering corporate interests conspiring with religious leaders for control and profit.  We wouldn’t have minded a fourth volume.

The Seeds by Ann Nocenti and David Aja got an awful lot of attention towards the beginning of the year and it’s certainly an interesting one that blends a lot of dispirate elements: climate collapse, aliens, exclusion zones, journalism and conspiracies.  Plus… Aja’s art!

And because Halloween beckons, there’s always Anthony Bourdain’s Hungry Ghosts written by Bourdain and Joel Rose with art by Paul Pope, Alberto Ponticelli and Vanesa Del Rey.

Invisible Kingdom   The Seeds x Anthony Bourdain's Hungry Ghosts

 

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: More Halloween Discounts – Image, IDW and Dark Horse

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, we have a look at the rest of the Halloween sales: Image, IDW and Dark Horse.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

Image Says Boo!

The Image Horror Sale runs through Monday, 10/31.

Oh, yes. Image does horror. Some would say they’ve stepped in and grabbed a few things what would have been in Vertigo, if the imprint was still around.

The current Image horror title we’re getting the biggest kick out of is Killadelphia by Rodney Barnes and Jason Shawn Alexander. There’s vampire activity in Philly. Not only are the vampires ambitious, they have some very unusual leadership. An estranged father and son look to head them off at the pass, which would be easier if the father hadn’t already been murdered. This is a pretty wild series with historical references and a few savage one-liners.  Highly recommended.

Fatale was the series that brought Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips to Image and was a key book in Image’s resurgence ~10 years ago. This one’s a horror/crime mashup. A reporter stumbles upon a woman who’s been on the run since 1935 and doesn’t seem to have aged a day. She’s pursued by a gangster who might not be human. And it wouldn’t be a noir if our femme fatale wasn’t leaving a trail of dead admirers in her wake across the decades. Also highly recommended.

And for something a little more obscure, twenty-seven by Charles Soule and Renzo Podestá is an old favorite and early Soule. The high concept here? The reason all those famous musicians die at 27 after blowing up big.  Could there be something unnatural going on?  Surely not during a Halloween sale…

There’s quite a bit more in this sale.

Killadelphia   27

IDW Says Boo!

The IDW Horror Sale runs through Monday, 10/31.

30 Days of Night is the OG horror book at IDW. Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith present the original tale of vampires taking over a remote town in Alaska when the sun sets for a full month straight. There are sequels (and movies), but it starts here for $0.99.

Locke & Key by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez is the more recent hit, this one having been streaming on Netflix. Reeling from their father’s murder, a family returns to a mysterious mansion in New England as the children discover magical keys that open doorways and grant the user strange abilities. The keys have something to do with their father’s death and something would like the keys back.

And for something a little  more off the beaten path, there’s Frankenstein Alive, Alive by Steve Niles and Bernie Wrightson (with Kelly Jones drawing the final chapter) because Bernie Wrightson for Halloween.

30 Days of Night  Locke and Key  Frankenstein Alive, Alive

Dark Horse Says Boo!

The Dark Horse Horror Sale runs through Monday, 10/31.

A little under 1800 items in this one, so when browsing, remember to right click if you want to examine book details, so you spawn a new window and don’t lose your place.

Which is to say, yes – Dark Horse does a lot of horror comics.

The face of Dark Horse horror is probably the Mignolaverse. The center of which is the (excellent) Hellboy (best buy here being the omnibus version).

Sometimes overlooked, but very much a central storyline to the Hellboy world is B.P.R.D. (Bureau of Paranormal Defense and Research), which is the adventures of Hellboy’s team in very, very long story arcs, co-written by Mike Mignola and (mostly) John Arcudi with Guy Davis as the primary artist through Hell on Earth, this is the order of the arc. Each arc is a set of omnibuses for that story. We weren’t joking about long arcs.

While not part of Hellboy proper, the 2-volume Baltimore omnibuses by Mignola/Christopher Golden/ Ben Stenback/Peter Bergting are also a lot of fun. It concerns a world that suffers a vampire plague at the end of WWI and of the British soldier who accidentally unleashes the plague seeking revenge on the vampires.

Hellboy   BPRD - Plague of Frogs   Baltimore Omnibus 1

If you want classic, old school horror, there are three good options that spring to mind:

Tales From the Crypt  Creepy  Eerie

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Avengers, Deadpool, ~3K DC Titles and Image Crime

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, DC goes wide and deep with some better prices, Marvel offers up Avengers and Deadpool and Image slashes crime comics.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

Before we get to the sales, a message for the folks at Comixology: you really need to get some pagination in this new format. Yes, sorting and alphabetizing books is important and a step in the right direction, but there really needs to be some pagination or bookmarks. A sale like the current DC sale requires a person to click the “See more” button around 90 times to get to the end. If that person wants to read the details on any item before getting to the end, they get thrown back to the beginning of the sale when they click the back button to return.  That’s a pretty awful UIX experience and puts a significant burden on the user who wants to browse something at the end of the alphabet, like Wonder Woman. Fix this.

(We recommend right-clicking and opening a new tab or window if you want to examine an item in one of these monster-sized sales. It will save you some headaches.)

DC Forget To Put the Kitchen Sink On Sale

The DC Ultimate eBook Sale runs through Monday, 10/3.

As we were saying, this is a REALLY large sale, around 2700 items – all collected editions. And here’s the thing, items that are a few years old (and a couple more recent releases) are frequently $3.99/volume with some of the “Deluxe” editions – i.e., print HCs that contain two TPBs worth of material – for $5.99.  Good deals and as cheap as we’ve seen some of this in some time.  It’s well worth a browse.

Here’s a list of some things that caught our eye as cheaper than usual and/or not always on sale:

  • Challengers of the Unknown – This is the original Jack Kirby run and if you haven’t read it before, you may be shocked how much it feels like early Fantastic Four. $5.99
  • (Original) Doom Patrol – $5.99 for the first omnibus? Yes, please.
  • Fables – The Bill Willingham/Mark Buckingham fantasy epic in $5.99 double-volumes
  • Far Sector – $5.99 for all 12 issues of the N.K. Jemisen/Jamal Campbell instant classic that introduces a new Green Lantern
  • First Issue Special – Are you confused about the new Tom King / Jorge Fornés Black Label series? It spins out of this ’70s anthology series. A serious weird mix, but with some real gems like Doctor Fate by Martin Pasko & Walt Simonson, a few Jack Kirby one-shots and the debut of Mike Grell’s Warlord feature. $7.99 and it hasn’t been discounted until recently.
  • Gotham Central – $3.99 for double volumes of the Ed Brubaker/Greg Rucka/Michael Lark/Stefano Gaudiano/Kano classic?  That’s crazy cheap for the material.
  • Green Lantern (’60-’86) – There’s a lot here for $3.99 a pop, but here’s a good sequence that’s not always properly discounted V.1 = Len Wein/Dave Gibbons, V.2 = Wein/Gibbons and transitions to Steve Englehart/Joe Staton; V.3 = Englehart/Staton; V.4 of the sequence is inexplicably packaged as Tales of the Green Lantern Corps V.3, but is the next Englehart/Staton volume. The series then changes to Green Lantern Corps, but that volume is $7.99.
  • Green Lantern (’18-’20) – i.e., the Grant Morrison/Liam Sharp run. It’s all one extended story and it’s _all_ on sale now. Season 1 – $3.99. Season 2 – $3.99/$4.99
  • Hardware: The Man in the Machine – $3.99 for the great intro arc by Dwayne McDuffie and Denys Cowan
  • Lois Lane: Enemy of the People – The 12-part Greg Rucka/Mike Perkins serial. – $5.99
  • New Teen Titans (’80-’88) – The original Marv Wolfman/George Perez classic at $3.99/volume
  • Orion – Walt Simonson’s criminally under-rated New Gods series. $5.99/$6.99
  • Rorschach – Tom King and Jorge Fornés do an excellent, if tangential, follow-up to Watchmen with a surprisingly meta meditation on identity and modern mythology.
  • Saga of the Swamp Thing – The Alan Moore era for $3.99/volume.
  • Suicide Squad (87-’92) – The John Ostrander/Luke McDonnell run that defined the concept for $3.99/volume? Ayup!
  • Superman: Phantom Zone – The wonderfully bizarre and creepy Steve Gerber/Gene Colan mini-series that takes more of a horror angle on Superman, plus the DC Comics Presents follow-up. $3.99
  • Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen: Who Killed Jimmy Olsen – Extremely funny take on Jimmy by Matt Fraction and Steve Leiber. HIGHLY recommended.

There’s a ton of stuff here and it’s worth your time to have an extended browse.

Gotham Central   Superman: Phantom Zone   Rorschach

Avengers Disassemble

The Marvel Avengers/Mighty Avengers Sale runs through Monday, 10/3.

This would be the Bendis “New Avengers” era. There are multiple formats in play with this sale, but omnibus seems to be the way to go here:

That said, there a couple things in this sale we prefer from this era: the lesser known Mighty Avengers run by Dan Slott with Koi Pham as the lead artist. It’s not the classic Avengers lineup, but it has more of a classic Avengers feel.

You’ve also got the Ed Brubaker and Rick Remender eras of Secret Avengers. This is the Avengers “covert” ops team, so more of a spy flavor.

The Mighty Avengers by Dan Slott   Secret Avengers

No, Not the Dirty Harry Film

The Marvel Deadpool Vs. the Marvel Universe Sale runs through Monday, 10/3.

Deadpool has always had a lot of fairly short run titles swapping around at any given time, this is a collection of those secondary titles.

The longest running of the set is Deadpool & Cable, Fabian Nicieza and Patrick Zircher being the team most associated with it. Amusingly, the monthly comic was called Cable & Deadpool, but the character popularity has flipped since then.

Deadpool Corps maybe of heightened interest with Rob Liefeld joining writing Victor Gischler for it.

Deadpool & Cable   Deadpool Corps

Crime Time?

The Image Crime Sale runs through Monday, 10/17.

We’d probably call a LOT of these comics more SF/F than Crime, but we always did like a genre-bender.

If you want a straight up crime comic, The Good Asian by Pornsak Pichetshote and Alexandre Tefenkgi should trip your trigger. It lives up to the considerable hype (especially the first half). This is a noir mystery about a Hawaiian detective of Chinese descent, summoned to San Francisco to investigate a disappearance related to his wealthy guardians family… and then things sideways. Conspiracies mingle with politics and racial identity. And it’s well researched, too.

While Criminal was originally published at Icon/Marvel, it’s kind of the old school flagship for crime work at Image, since that’s where Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips started doing crime tales (non-superpowered crime tales, at least, since they’d previously worked together on Sleeper).

Now, if you want something a lot further out there, but still with a criminal element, we’ve always been big fans of Chew. This John Layman / Rob Guillory classic is the right kind of weird. It’s also frequently hilarious. In world recovering from a nasty bird flu, after which poultry is outlawed, FDA agent Tony Chu chases a conspiracy, aided by ability to experience the memories of anything he eats.  Awesomely strange, one might say. (The sequel series, Chu is also top notch.) Oh, yes… there’s also a death-dealing rooster named Poyo.

The rest of the sale is definitely worth a browse. It’s a nice selection, especially if you like Brubaker/Phillips.

The Good Asian   Criminal   Chew

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Sandman, Paper Girls, The Mask, Flaming Carrot and a Daredevil Non-Sale?

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, it’s TV sale time:  Sandman and Paper Girls get solo sales as the Netflix/Prime hype builds. Marvel may or may not have a Daredevil sale. DC goes “Deluxe” and Dark Horse points out they have some superheroes, too.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

We’re Going To Find Who Made That Pun

DC’s Sandman: The Streaming Sale runs through Monday, 8/8.

The Streaming? Oh, somebody thinks they’re funny.  Good grief.

Anyway, Sandman is finally coming to Netflix and it’s slated to drop on 8/5.  There’s a sale, although it’s really been on sale for about a month.  If you’re looking to read it, there is a slight difference in reading order between the two formats.  Since they’re doing an OK job separating out the options on the sale page, we’ll go through it that way… and then point out the important detail that page layout is hiding.

The Deluxe Format is reprinting straight through as it was published.

The “Graphic Novels,” the original collections, aren’t *quite* straight through. The short stories that sometimes pop up between arcs get their own volume.

There’s not _much_ price difference between the two, but the graphic novels will save you a couple bucks. Also, the Deluxe run – and there’s a reason they don’t link you to the series page on this – does not have the final, 5th volume on sale.

So, pick your poison.

Sandman

Where’s Their Two Dollars?

The Paper Girls Sale runs through Monday, 8/15.

Seems like we gave you the heads up on this a little earlier, but now there’s a solo sale.  Paper Girls is time-hopping science fiction romp by Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang that finds some newspaper delivery girls stumbling into a very strange and recursive conflict. We enjoyed it and the Amazon Prime adaption drops today (if you’re reading this on 7/29).  The best buy here is the all-in-one Omnibus.

Paper Girls

We’re Holding Out For Chips Deluxe

The DC Deluxe eBooks Sale runs through Monday, 8/8.

This Deluxe eBook thing… higher page count, but based on print HC pricing, so you only want to approach during a sale. The whole HC pricing for digital model is problematic at its core, but let’s see if we can find some value buys.

Dial H is the reimagining of “Dial H for Hero” by weird fiction icon China Miéville, Mateus Santolouco and Alberto Ponticelli.  And a gloriously weird and offbeat thing it is, particularly as our heroes probe the topic of where the powers that get dialed up actually come from. A highly entertaining book that flew under the radar during the New 52 era and probably would have been more at home at Vertigo in the early ’90s. (That was not an insult.) #0-15 for $9.99, so under a buck per issue.

Marshal Law by Pat Mills and Kevin O’Neil is roughly what you’d get if you crossed a meaner Judge Dredd with The Boys, although it precedes The Boys by over a decade. We’d forgotten DC still had the rights to this, but we’re probably within 10 feet of the HC while typing this.  The premise is a more fanatical lawman in the Judge Dredd mold stalking his prey in a future populated by superheroes.  And he HATES superheroes. Possibly more than Billy Butcher. So when one goes bad, it’s his pleasure to handle the situation.  Very funny, very dark and not for kids.  Not cheap, per se, but you get 450+ pages and it’s quality material.

A good budget buy would be JSA: The Golden Age by James Robinson and Paul Smith. $5.99 will get you the Elseworlds story of what happened to the Justice Society after WWII, featuring the McCarthy Committee and a conspiracy.  To say more would be spoilers, but this was effectively Robinson’s warm-up for Starman and Paul Smith is… well, Paul Smith.

Dial H   Marshal Law   JSA: The Golden Age

The Man Without Discounts

In theory, Marvel has a Daredevil: The Man Without Fear sale running through Thursday, 8/11.

BEWARE. As of this writing, it does not look like these comics are actually discounted.  It’s largely the Marvel Knights run – and we have no problem recommending that whole run, particularly the Bendis/Brubaker eras.

We’ll revisit this next week – if there are discounts by then. (We’ve seen the discounts arrive after a few days for DC sales in the past, but this is the first time we recall seeing one for Marvel.) Maybe these will turn into good deals.

In the meantime, we’ll say that Daredevil: Love’s Labor Lost is the only thing currently reprinted from the Denny O’Neil run the bridged that gap between Frank Miller’s two stints. The rest of it isn’t even on Marvel Unlimited.  This is the tale end of that run, featuring art by David Mazzucchelli, who’d started 9 issues earlier. It’s worth a look, if the discounts show up (and we don’t know why the rest of this era is buried).

Daredevil

Non-Big 2 Capes

The Dark Horse Superhero sale runs through Monday, 8/8.

OK, maybe this is a little shorter on literal capes. The usual suspects: Umbrella Academy, Black Hammer, Grendel and Nexus, we’ve talked about in recent weeks, but are here if you want to look them up.  We’ll look a little further afield for this sale.

The Mask is better known for the Jim Carey / Cameron Diaz film, but it was originally a comic. Primarily a John Arcudi (yes, also of B.P.R.D fame) and Doug Mahnke comic for the first few series (and following an incarnation as “The Masque,”) you can get a couple omnibuses of this particular flavor of mayhem.  And yes, that includes the Arcudi/Mahnke version debuting in the comic Mayhem.

If you want really off the beaten path, there’s The Flaming Carrot. Bob Burden’s 80’s creation is… hard to describe. Surreal is perhaps the word most often used. We’d probably add eccentric and absurdist. It’s also hard to compare to other comics.  Perhaps a stranger predecessor to The Tick with fewer powers floating around? Look, there’s a pretty good sized preview available if you click on the cover on the listing page. It might be easier to just read a bit yourself.  Know that it’s considered a cult classic.

For something a bit more recent (at least the DH edition is from June), there’s the Brian Bendis/Alex Maleev Scarlet. This edition collects both of the previous series about a young woman who sparks a revolution while fighting back against corrupt police. It’s not what we’d call a superhero story. It’s more along the lines of the old school Bendis Caliber catalog… except with Maleev’s art and frankly we were happy to see the throwback. Frankly, this book is a lot more topical than when either series originally came out.

And if you’d like to explore the $0.99 single issue, this link will sort them to the top. (Still a bit of a mess, but easier access.)

Mask Omnibus   Flaming Carrot   Scarlet

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: The Comic-Con Sales Arrive in Force: X-Men, House of M, Batman and Indies Galore

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, the Comic-Con sale arrive in force. Multiple indie sales. X-Men and House of M at Marvel. Another wide sampler from DC, too.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

The Comic-Con Run-Up Arrives in Force!

The “San Diego Graphic Novel Sales – Start Here” page is worth your time to look at.

How long does this grouping of sales last? No idea. They forgot to include dates. Figure it’s probably until the 25th (the Monday after SDCC)?  What particularly interesting is that the folks at… they’re still calling it the Comixology section for the moment… are continuing an attempt to make this a little more navigable by having more alphabetical carousels displaying covers on the various sales pages here.

This is a step in the right direction!

Anyway… lots of ground to cover, just with this section. Let’s hit some highlights… and remember, the Dark Horse sale listed on this page is something we covered last week.

From the “Recent Releases” category / carousel, we would draw your attention to Astro City Metrobook Vol. 1 by Kurt Busiek, Brent Anderson and Alex Ross. At $11.99, it’s at the higher end of price points we’ll recommend, but this is prime material from a LONG running series that’s relocating back to Image and you’re getting ~485 pages / ~19 issues for your troubles.  This is an examination of superhero genre – very much of the classic Silver Age concepts this early in the series. Busiek, Anderson and Ross are world building here and the viewpoint can switch from heroes to sidekicks to bystanders over the various series. Short version – it’s a distillation of everything good about superheroes and it can also be an excellent palette cleanser if Events are getting you down. Very highly recommended!

Astro City Metrobook

Omnibuses

The Omnibus link is something we heartily approve of.  It appears to be a gathering of omnibuses from the various sales currently running.  To quote the great Clay Davis, from the Wire: “sheeeeeeeeeeeee-” (you know the rest). That’s almost like something we’d do! And this is a place where flipping through the graphic carousels will save you a lot of time.

Highlights (we spoke of the joys of Hellboy-verse omnibuses last week):

Best buy: Saga Compendium One – the first 54 issues of the Brian K. Vaughan / Fiona Staples masterwork for a lousy $23.99.  Less than fifty cents per issues.  Cheap and a modern classic. You don’t get much better than that.

Runner up: Paper Girls: The Complete Story – all 30 issues on the Brian K. Vaughan/Cliff Chiang time travel caper for $19.99. The TV version will be hitting Prime shortly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-1cyNm7iAU

And since the third volume in the series is coming out, Luther Arkwright contains The Adventures of Luther Arkwright and Heart of Empire, the first two series in Bryan Talbot’s legendary series about a dimension hopping, empire tumbling adventurer.  Another real winner!

Saga   Paper Girls  Luther Arkwright

Oni / Lion Forge

In regards to the  Oni Press and Lion Forge sales – we don’t really know any more about the situation over at Oni/Lion Forge than you’ve already read. We can’t discount the possibility that some of their titles could end up off the market for a little while. Possibly resurfacing at different publishers. If you’re interested in something and like the price, maybe pull the trigger in the next week or two. (We’ve always liked Kaijumax and Sixth Gun, though we’ve seen better prices for Sixth Gun.)

IDW and the bad link

The IDW SDCC Sale appears to have a bad link.  Only 25 items at that link and there’s a LOT more in the carousel on the main sale page, so scroll through that. And who knows, maybe Amazon will fix the link?

The original 30 Days of Night by Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith for $0.99? Absolutely worth a look if you’ve never tried it. (After all, one could argue it’s the book that “made” IDW.) The high concept? Vampires in Alaska, so far north that the sun will set for 30 days and they’ll have free reign.

It’s not clear if GI JOE is on sale or not (we suspect those are sale prices we’re seeing) and that’s another one that might not be at IDW much longer, so if you like the prices, think about stocking up.

30 Days of Night 

Image

And then there’s the  Image SDDC Graphic Novel Sale.

Seems like the final prices here might be a little higher than we’ve seen in the past? Definitely, we’re seeing the old problem of the Deluxe volumes being on sale. The Deluxe volumes are oversized for print, ergo a little more expensive than the single volumes and usually an inferior deal in digital when everything is based on the print price. After all, there is no hardcover in digital.  So be aware of that while browsing here.

That said, the Spawn Compendium is a similar deal to that giant Saga collection – for $23.99 each, you’ve got a couple 50 issue volumes available. If you want to read the first 100 issues of Spawn, you can get them for under $0.50/issue this way.

Spawn Compendium

Dynamite

The Dynamite SDCC Graphic Novel Sale. 

The first two volumes of Red Sonja by Mark Russell and Bob Quinn are $6.99. Yes, the same Mark Russell from Flintstones and Billionaire Island.  And it works. The main story is a “straight” adventure, but all around the edges satirical elements sink in… if you’re paying attention.  An unusual Red Sonja one, to be sure, but a good one.

Red Sonja

Let the X-Sales Begin…

Marvel’s Reign of X Sale runs through Thursday, 7/21.

Let’s back up a little here.  Reign of X is sort of the third Act of the Hickman-run X-Men era. Act one is House of X / Powers of X. Act two is Dawn of X, which is all the “regular” titles and culminates in the X of Swords Event. Reign of X picks up after X of Swords.

This is the format that collects the issues of the individual series in a preferred reading order. Not quite publication order (you’ll read a two-part in a single title back-to-back, here and there) but that’s the easiest way to think of it.  In general, we think this reading experience is a better way to read Hickman’s X-Saga and seeing the breadth of the world building unfurl is additive. That said, we found the quality of the line a little less consistent in Reign of X than Dawn of X.  (Which is to say, we’re not going to blame you if you skip the Children of the Atom bits.)

This link will show the volumes in order.

Reign of X

Not the Byrne “Generations”

The Marvel Generations of X Sale runs through Thursday, 7/21

This is a somewhat eclectic set of X-Men (and X-Men family) runs. You’re most likely to recognize Wolverine and the X-Men from Jason Aaron / Chris Bachalo / Nick Bradshaw and Generation X by Scott Lobdell and… Chris Bachalo again (at least on the main title in the collection).

Wolverine and the X-Men    Generation X

No More Mutants

Marvel’s House of M sale runs through Monday, 7/18.

This would be the Event Miniseries where Wanda snaps and rewrites reality… forming the basis for the WandaVision TV series.  Brian Bendis and Olivier Coipel are your creators. This is the sort of Event where we recommend getting the main series and then dipping your toe into the supporting collections in the sale at your own discretion.  A good chunk of the Marvel line shifted their storylines to participate in the Event, buy how relevant they were to the main storyline varied widely and a lot of it would firmly be considered side stories. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s not always presented as such.

House of M

DC’s SDCC Run-Up

The DC at SDCC  Ebooks Sale runs through Monday, 7/25.

What we have here is another 2K ebook drop, should you have time for an extended browse.

If you’re looking for a lower price point per eBook, Jonah Hex is good candidate, alternating between $4.99 and $5.99 volumes.  Dark western tales of the disfigured and tortured bounty hunter written by Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray. The artists rotate quite a bit on this one and a certain point, Palmiotti & Gray seemed to be playing a game of “which legend can we get to draw the next issue?”  That is NOT a bad thing.

For $5.99, here’s something that’s under a lot of radars. Not everyone remembers, but prior to the more famous Long Halloween, Jeph Loeb and the late Tim Sale started out with Batman Halloween specials.  And let us assure you, that first one came out of nowhere and punched everyone right between the eyes. Batman: Haunted Knight collects the specials that got the Loeb/Sale ball rolling.

And for a value buy, DC Universe By Len Wein. $9.99 gets you 23 stories – not necessarily 23 issues, because some of the DC titles had backups back then, but you get an interesting mix here: a run of Wein’s under-appreciated Phantom Stranger run with Jim Aparo. The JLA/JSA team-up that reintroduced the Seven Soldiers of Victory. The DC Comics Presents run with Jim Starlin that introduces Mongul.

Jonah Hex   Batman - Haunted Knight   DC Universe by Len Wein

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: DC’s Summer Sale (Batman and friends); Image Touts the Eisner Nods (Dept. of Truth); Dark Horse Has Everything on Sale (Everything)

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, DC’s attempting to make summer sizzle, Image is touting its Eisner nods and Dark Horse… has everything on sale.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

Interestingly, there are no new Marvel sales this week. Check the Still On Sale section for the links to the Thor / GoG / “July” sales which we also looked at in more detail last week.

For those keeping score at home, and we know a lot of you are, the 4th of July was a Marvel BOGO week last year.  We are long overdue for one and the evidence is starting to point to those having gone away when the Comixology site did.  We continue to hope, but until we see the next one…

And By Sizzle, They Mean the Weather

The DC Summer Sizzle eBook Sale runs through Monday, 7/11.

A similar 1K book graphic novel drop to what we’ve been seeing here recently. There’s a smattering of $4.99 titles, but you’re mostly going to find a floor of $5.99 here. Nothing particularly recent on sale here, but with 1000 books, there are always some highlights. Some things that we’ve enjoyed in the past.

Ex Machina originally came out under the Wildstorm banner (will it be rebranded as Black Label or will Vertigo stick around as a legacy label?), Ex Machina is what happens when a world’s first superhero attempts to retire from superheroics and is elected mayor of NYC. Of course… superhero retirements rarely go as planned. Politics against a background of costumes and power… and vice versa, too. It’s a good one and a bit earlier to the “super mayor” party.  Written by a pre-Saga Brian K. Vaughan and drawn by Tony Harris, with a bit of Chris Sprouse and Jon Paul Leon.  It’s a very solid series.

Superman: Red Son is possibly Mark Millar’s best reviewed work.  With art by Dave Johnson and Killian Plunkett (we’re going to go ahead and say – we need more Dave Johnson interior art in life), this is an Elseworlds tale of Kal-El’s rocket landing in the Soviet Union, instead of Kansas, and Superman being raised as Stalin’s weapon.

James Tynion IV recently wrapped up a Batman run, but we honestly preferred his “Batman Family” flavored run from Detective Comics a few years earlier. Eddy Barrows and Alvaro Martinez Beuno are the lead artists and the Tynion run is V. 1-7.

Ex Machina   Superman: Red Son   Detective Comics by Tynion

Awards Season

The Image Eisners Sale runs through Monday, 7/25.

Which is to say, running until Comic-Con. And there are some interesting things here.

We’re fans of Department of Truth, the X-Files-ish horror/conspiracy theory about imagination and beliefs made real by James Tynion IV (that guy again) and  Martin Simmonds. We would like to specifically point out that V.1 is down to $3.99, so the first collection for the price of a single issue.  Also some $0.99 single issues, should you prefer that format… and single issues will be cheaper that $6.99 for 6 issues in a collected edition.

With that in mind, here’s a list of the titles being offered in $0.99 single issues.  Monstress has a $3.99 V. 1, otherwise you need to compare price vs. # of issues in the collection:

Department of Truth

And They Mean Everything.

The Dark Horse Everything 2022 Sale runs through Monday, 7/25.

If it’s not the full catalog, it would seem to be awfully close.

For a lot of folks, Dark Horse starts with Hellboy. (At least in the absence of Aliens and Boris the Bear.) They’re a little pricier than some things, but since they’re basically 4-in-1 volumes, we like the Omnibus editions as a starting point here. And if you browse there is plenty more of the Hellboy universe available. It’s a classic for a reason.

Speaking of classics, there’s also Nexus, Mike Baron’s and (mostly) Steve Rude’s science fiction series with superhero trappings of a man imbued with fusion power by a sinister alien who enlists him as an assassin. Nexus is haunted by dreams of mass murderers and the only way to make them stop is to kill the murders. Also something of a cold war satire around the edges. We’ve gone through the omnibus edition in the last ~3 years and had a good time of it.

Carla Speed McNeil’s Finder has always been one of those “if you know, you know” books. Under the indie radar for a loooooong time, it’s sprawling, world building science fiction series centered around Jaeger, who’s both a sin-eater and a Finder: a sort of tracker/bounty hunter with mysterious abilities related travel, healing and locating things.  You aren’t going to find very many comics with such well-developed alien cultures as Finder, either.  Steve Leiber put us onto this long before Dark Horse acquired the rights and if you can’t trust Steve Leiber, who can you trust?  Those two Finder Library omnibus volumes are over 600 pages each. Bang for your buck!

Bonus cheap: you can find volumes of Groo by Sergio Aragones & Mark Evanier  for as low as $2.99. Not a dumb price for such a dumb barbarian.

If you’re looking for $0.99 single issues, there are a bunch and you can work your way through them starting here.

Honestly, while Amazon makes browsing painful, there’s a lot of worthwhile material here if you have the time to flip through.

Hellboy: The Complete Short Stories   Nexus   Finder

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Iron Man, Fantastic Four, Far Sector, Gotham Central, Pulp, Stray Dogs

This week in Comixology (at Amazon) Sales, Marvel has most of their Iron Man titles on sale, plus alternate Fantastic Four lineups. DC has a memorial day say… though more of that seems to be on sale in the UK and Image has OGNs on sale with collected editions sneaking into the listing.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

Does Whatever An Iron Can…

The Marvel Iron Man Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 5/23.

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 first (because Amazon can’t be bothered to present things in a civilized manor).

  • 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 run lasts from 1-25. We can’t find 20-25 reprinted?!?  You can catch 1-19 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 for Busiek, not the singles.)

  • 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 – The Tom Taylor / Yildiray Cinar run.
  • 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)
  • Infamous Iron Man  ’16-’17 – Brian Bendis and Alex Maleev have Doctor Doom step in as Iron Man
  • 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 – ? – The current Christopher Cantwell / Cafu run. (Also available as $0.99 single issues but the collected editions are the better buy by a lot.)

Before we get into what’s good, a tweak on the general advice: The Masterworks and Epic Collections are both good deals and *in general* we like the Epic Collections as a slightly better buy. In this case, keep an eye on the Epic pricing. The $6.99 Epics are much better buys than the $8.99/$9.99 Epics.  We can all agree inflation sucks?

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.

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, 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 1-19 are currently reprinted.

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’re not quite ready to put the current Christopher Cantwell/Cafu run up in the above pantheon quite yet, but we think it’s the best Iron Man in a while and it’s one of the more ambitious arcs with Tony chasing Korvac into outer space and meditating on the nature of godhood and good intentions.

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

The More Things Change

The Marvel New Fantastic Four Sale runs through Monday, 5/23.

This would be a very small sale built around alternate FF lineups.

For instance, the “New Fantastic Four” Epic Collection is built around a Walter Simonson/Arthur Adams sequence where Spider-Man, Wolverine, Hulk and Ghost Rider become the new Fantastic Four. We also like the Simonson arc featuring the FF’s showdown with the Time Variance Authority in the first half of this volume.

Or another “New Fantastic Four,” this time by Dwayne McDuffie and Paul Pelletier, where Black Panther and Storm tag in.

Fantastic Four   Fantastic Four

In Memoriam

The DC Memorial Day eBook Sale runs through Monday, 5/23.

There are a LOT of books to browse here and more is on sale that not on sale, so if you’ve got something from DC on your list, pop over and see if it’s on sale.

And there’s a catch. In a uniquely “Amazon trying to be Comixology” twist, there was originally a Part 2 to this sale. We are unable to locate the link for that from Thursday on.  We can find the link for the UK version of part 2… but it’s not clear to us that the books on sale in the UK part 2 are all on sale in the US. No idea what happened. Maybe the part 2 link will re-appear and maybe it won’t. It sure does seem like there’s a lot of drama around DC sales, doesn’t it?

Some recommendations?

Far Sector is one of DC’s best titles of the last couple years. N.K. Jemisin, who owns too many SF/F prose awards to reasonably keep track of, makes her comics debut with Jamal Igle excelling on the art duties. The setup – a rookie Green Lantern with an experimental new type of power ring is sent to world on the edge of the known universe where emotion was done away with generations ago in the aftermath of a horrific war. The first murder in 500 years has occurred and political alliance are about to upside down.  On top of everything else, superior world building. Highly recommended if you haven’t had a look yet.

Are you familiar with Gotham Central? Tales of the Gotham City Police Department trying to handle the sort of threats that Gotham produces. With a pre-Question Rene Montoya. Near-universally praised and an enviable creative rotation of Greg Rucka, Ed Brubaker, Michael Lark, Stefano Gaudiano and Kano.  Excellent stuff from the fringes of the Batman Family for $5.99@.

And for something completely different, and perhaps not even in the sale (since we can’t see the back half of the alphabetical listings) there’s Kamandi, Jack Kirby’s post-apocalyptic spin on Planet of the Apes with the last boy on Earth having adventures on a world where the animals are intelligent, bipedal and not always friendly. We’ve been seeing Kamandi’s influences on a lot of comics in the last year (Geiger quickly comes to mind). The bulk of the Kirby run is available for $0.99 each. Yes, there are a few issues missing, but this is an extremely fun run… and was probably Kirby’s biggest newsstand success at DC.  And yes, DC really ought to get this back in print as a collected edition!

Far Sector   Gotham Central   Kamandi

OGN

The Image Original Graphic Novel Sale runs through Thursday, 6/2.

Now, you might flip through this sale and say “a lot of these are really collected editions.” And you’d be right. So let’s recommend a few things from Image’s flagship OGN creative team, Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips.

We’re quite fond of Reckless, an OGN series by Brubaker and Phillips that calls back to the pulp paperback adventure novels of the 70s and early 80s. An off the books private detective/fixer who had a… falling out with his original government employers operates in 80s Los Angeles… a noir flavor of LA, to be precise.  Evil voices from the past, satanic sex cults, and real estate scams.  The first two are on sale and it’s a quality series.

And then there’s Pulp. Let’s face it, Brubaker and Phillips have a fair sized body of work and it’s quality work… but Pulp strikes us as one of the high points of their collaboration.  One part crime novel, one part meditation on aging, it’s got a little more gravitas than most. An aging pulp writer contemplates the youth he’s been trying to hide while stumbling into a combustible stew involving an obnoxious editor, a bank heist, nazi spies and a lot of gunplay. Highly recommended and this one has a more friendly $6.99 price point.

Now if you want a collected edition, not an OGN, you might be interested in Stray Dogs. We haven’t had a chance to read this yet, but it’s on our list and has stirred up quite a buzz. The tagline is “Lady and the Tramp meets Silence of the Lambs,” which is to say, cute cartoon dogs in a psychological thriller by Tony Fleecs and Trish Forstner. It’s also on the Eisner Awards nomination list that recently dropped, so it’s definitely getting some notice.

  Pulp   Stray Gods

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Legion (and X-Men), Batman, Lobo, Geiger and C.O.W.L.

This week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales include Legion (as in Professor X’s son), Image’s oddly named “!” sale and DC has a Spring Break sale… but the usual problems with the fluctuating discounts seem to still apply. Alas, it may be the new status quo.

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

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

Son of X

The Marvel Legion Sale runs through Sunday, 4/17.

This would be Legion, as in Professor X’s son (David Haller).

X-Men: Legion – Shadow King Rising contains some early appearances, including the excellent original arc in New Mutants by Chris Claremont and Bill Sienkiewicz. Worth it just for the New Mutants arc.

If you’re mostly familiar with Legion through the wonder Noah Hawley TV show, the comic that will be most recognizable to you is probably going to be Legion: Son of X by Si Spurrier and Tan Eng Huat.

(Next in our ongoing series of eyerolls at Amazon’s sloppy curation of comics — no, we can’t explain why Amazon has “X-Men Legacy” and photoshopped retitling of the first tpbs cover as the header for the Legion series page. Then again, we frequently don’t know what Amazon’s thinking.)

Speaking of X-Men: Legacy, that’s also on sale. Mike Carey wrote the vast majority of the series, with a rotating cast of artists that notably included Scot Eaton, Daniel Acuna, Billy Tan, Clay Mann and Khoi Pham.

X-Men: Legion - Shadow King Rising   Legion: Son of X   X-Men Legacy

! = ?

The “Image ! Sale” runs through Monday, 5/2.

No, really… the “! Sale.” We’re sure somebody found that title terribly clever, as opposed to descriptive or recognizable.  We think that “!” is supposed to be evocative of recent buzz books, although not everything here is recent.  Have a browse, but here’s what was popping to the top.

Geiger V.1 by Geoff Johns and Gary Frank gave us very strong DC “Great Disaster” vibes. A little Kamandi/Ben Boxer here, some Atomic Knights there… even an out of left field GI Robot analogue. All this wrapped around a chase storyline. We enjoyed it and it definitely wasn’t what we were expecting.

We’ve always liked The Manhattan Projects by Jonathan Hickman and Nick Pitarra. It’s an alternate history where the brain trust of the Manhattan Project isn’t merely there to develop an atomic bomb. No, they’re working on mad science, space exploration and even exploring parallel worlds. Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it’s horrific, but it’s a good ride. We could go for another mini-series, truth be told.

While Radiant Black is the buzz book, there’s another Kyle Higgins comic we’d point you to that we liked better. C.O.W.L.  by Higgins, Alec Siegel and Rod Reis is the tale of the Chicago Organized Workers League – a union for superheroes. Established to combat organized crime and supervillains, it’s now staggering in a world of politics and corruption. (Politics and corruption in Chicago?  Surely not!)

  The Manhattan Projects   C.O.W.L.

DC’s Current Partial Sale

The DC Spring Break eBook Sale runs through Monday, 4/25.

The usual warning applies. The pricing has been screwed up on every DC sale for several weeks and that continues here. Do not touch comics that don’t end in .99. ($5.99, $7.99, etc.) There’s a lot of books in the sale with goofy prices like $13.98 or $9.32.  These are probably not the final sale price, but we have no idea when (or if) all the prices will get fixed.  Yes, it’s a problem and it would be a much better sale if Amazon and/or DC could get their act together.

Now, that said, there are still interesting things in this large sale.

Lobo by Keith Giffen & Alan Grant manages to have both volumes discounted. Largely drawn by Simon Bisley, this is the original Lobo run. It started a series of mini-series and specials… such as the Lobo’s Paramilitary Christmas Special where the Easter Bunny has taken a hit out on Santa. It’s an over-the-top parody of machismo with something to offend to everyone!

Another one where both volumes have been included is Batman by Ed Brubaker, Vol. 1  and Vol. 2. Yes, before Captain America, Fatale and Reckless, Brubaker had a run on Batman. Scott McDaniel was the primary artist on the run.

There’s a lot more I might come back and recommend later if the prices get fixed. So many titles where only part of the individual volumes have the corrected sale price. It’s astonishing. So browse, but pay close attention to the prices.

Lobo   Batman by Ed Brubaker

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Immortal Hulk, X-Men, Captain Marvel and Outcast

This week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales include, the wonder that is Immortal Hulk, X-Men Legacy, Captain Marvel (so many relaunches to keep track of) and a possible late addition to the Image Omnibus sale.

But first, we should probably talk about Amazon’s inability to get their sale prices right on the first iteration of a sale. This seems like it’s mostly a DC thing, but sale prices are dropping TWICE on some comics. The first time when the sale first appears and the second time a day or two after the sales are posted. It’s strange and the best advice we can give is that if the price doesn’t end in .99 or .49, it’s likely there’s an update that hasn’t happened yet.

We can’t tell if this is deliberate or a technical error, and if it’s a technical error, whether the problem is on the Amazon side or the DC side.  Regardless of why, this is really inconvenient. While Amazon (and even Comixology) have always had the odd title that lagged behind the rest of the sale, this has gotten ridiculous.

On a related note, we can’t really tell if all of the Dark Horse titles on the Deals page are really on sale.  You don’t sill the digital list price vs. sale price listed on those, just

Sold by: Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Price set by seller.

That’s not the most helpful thing in the world.

Now, if you go into the sale listings, *some* of the comics will have the “best price in 30 days” banner. Those are probably one sale. The rest? We’re just not sure.  We like things like Hellboy and Joe Kubert’s Tarzan, but we’re not sure those are great sale prices for everything listed.

Speaking of digital list price vs. sale price, if an individual book is enrolled in Comixology Unlimited, you need to be logged out of Unlimited to be able to see the original list price.  Yes, this is yet another inconvenience after Amazon’s attempted absorption of the Comixology site.

We’re so old, we remember when Amazon actually cared about the customer experience. It’s just not clear how much the care about their comics customers, since we keep having all sorts of new hiccups.

Anyway, back to the Cheap.

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

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

The End of the Immortal

Marvel’s Immortal Hulk Sale runs through Thursday, 3/31.

Easily the sale of the week.

This is Al Ewing’s horror-tinged opus. The Hulk and other gamma-afflicted characters gather. It seems those dosed with gamma might not be able to die and it all seems tied to a mysterious green door that might lead to Hell. And there’s someone behind the door.

Now, there are two parallels sets of reprints here: the “regular” volumes (1-11) and the deluxe volumes (Book 1-4). The deluxe ones reprint 2 of the regular volumes, so you’d be waiting on V. 5. Otherwise, there’s not an appreciable price difference between formats.

Note: V. 11 collects various one-shots and is optional.  V.1-10 gets you the full story.

Other than that, just enjoy one of the best comics of the last decade.

Immortal Hulk

LoX?

Marvel’s X-Men Legacy Sale runs through Sunday, 3/27.

This would be the (largely) Mike Carey era of the X-Men: Legacy comic. You might know him from Lucifer and My Faith in Frankie or in his secret identity as M.R. Carey with The Girl With All the Gifts. Yes, he gets around a little.

It’s the X-Men, so there’s quite a few artists passing through – Scot Eaton, Khoi Pham and Clay Mann all figure prominently.

This picks up after Messiah Complex and runs into Avengers Vs. X-Men with Christos Gage penning the last couple volumes.

(The actual series page might be easier to navigate.)

X-Men Legacy

Not A Big Red Cheese?

The Captain Marvel: Earth’s Mightiest Hero Sale runs through Sunday, 3/27.

Hmmm… was somebody bending over backwards to riff on the original Captain Marvel being “The World’s Mightiest Mortal?” It does seem that way, doesn’t it?

OK… brace yourselves… this one has a ton of relaunches:

We think that’s the overly complicated chronology, anyway. For recommendations, we’re not really Captain Marvel experts, but we’re inclined to say go with the current Thompson run. Kelly Sue DeConnick has a very dedicated fanbase, so maybe browse the sample pages there and see if that catches your fancy, too?

Speaking of Complex Relaunches

The Wonder Woman sale was broken down in the last installment.

A Late Addition

That  Image Omnibus sale running through 3/31?

We’re not sure if this was a late addition to the sale or our eye skipped over it, but there’s an omnibus of the Robert Kirkman / Paul Azaceta series Outcast available. 48 issues for $27 is fractionally a lesser deal than the Spawn Omnibuses, but that’s about $3.38 per “normal” collection/ ~56 cents/issue.

We need to read the last volume, but this story that’s twist and subversion of demonic possession has been holding our interest.

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