Tag: Iron Man

Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Black Friday Sales, Part 1 – The Annual Marvel Omnibus Sale

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Black Friday sales are early this year. In Part 1, it’s the annual Marvel Omnibus Sale and we break out what’s new to the sale since last year.

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):

Important Black Friday Administrative Notes:

This week the Black Friday sales are out a week before Black Friday. (Everyone’s doing it!) There were some problems with the ones that were posted the morning of Tuesday, 11/19. If you bought something off the deals page On Tuesday, double check and make sure the price isn’t a little lower right now. All the new sales were removed from the deals page Tuesday evening and reposted a few hours later. The new prices should be correct (although we need to take a closer look at the reposted DC sale).

Because of the size and all the hubbub around the (now) Annual Marvel Omnibus Sale, we’re looking at that right away and will come back at the usual time for the DC sale and anything else that pops up.

The Annual Marvel Omnibus Sale (Omni-Man is Elsewhere)

Avengers Omnibus  Daredevil Omnibus  Spider-Man Brand New Day Omnibus

The Marvel Omnibus Sale runs through Monday 12/2.

The Marvel omnibuses will run as long as ~1200 pages / 50 issues, although page and issue counts vary per issue. They’re mostly running in the $10-$15 range, instead of the $30-40-ish range, so the prices are slashed and 50 issues for $15 would be $0.30/issue.

There are a few things here that aren’t in other collections, but the reason we keep hearing that folks like the digital versions is that they’re easier to sort. That is to say, fewer items in your digital library.

So first, let’s run down the list of what we think are all the Omnibuses released since last year’s sale (or rather, getting discounted the first time since then). Did you think Marvel was releasing quite a few Omnibus editions in the last year? Yeah, you might be surprised. And this doesn’t include Rom or Micronauts, neither of which appear to be discounted. Annotations added when appropriate:

Is that enough Omnibus activity for one year? Only David Gabriel’s opinion of that matters! At any rate, the omnibuses have historically gone on sale once a year and that’s now, so it’s worth your time to have a browse through the actual sale at some point before 12/2. The official page is NOT well organized, so you can also use the above list to get quicker access to some of the series, just click on the series link on the book page.

A few “older” items we would make sure you’re aware of:

  • Captain Britain Omnibus – This has everything from the beginning of the 70s UK run through Captain Britain Magazine and the early X-Men appearances. What you’re really getting this for are the excellent and groundbreaking Alan Moore/Alan Davis and Jamie Delano/Alan Davis runs from the end of this period, which we’re not currently seeing available elsewhere. The rest is a bonus.
  • Incredible Hulk by Peter David Omnibus 1-5. That would be Hulk by David with that ridiculous sequence of artists he had, including Todd McFarlane, Gary Frank, Dale Keown, Angel Medina and Liam Sharp. 1-4 collect his original run and V. 5 collects some of the many times he’s revisited Hulk since the original run ended. Why the omnibus? Because this is a weird run to pick up in collected editions. It starts out in “Marvel Visionary” editions and eventually switches over to Epic Collections. This is just a drastically easier way to grab an exceptionally long run and probably cheaper than waiting to score the Visionary editions on sale. We also don’t mind tipping our hat to Peter David when he’s recovering from some health problems.
  • Knights of Pendragon Omnibus was out of the Marvel UK office. Knight of Pendragon was a Captain Britain-adjacent title. Dai Thomas, the supporting character from the main strip, is more of the central character with Captain Britain and Union Jack along for the ride. This was largely a Dan Abnett/John Tomlinson/Garry Erksine feature. You get some Brian Hitch art from Mys-Tech Wars and Carlos Pacheco art from Dark Guard. This is another where if you want the comics, it’s Omnibus or the back issue bins.
  • Miracleman Omnibus is the 80s revival of the British character Marvelman by Alan Moore, Gary Leach, Alan Davis, John Totleben and Rick Veitch. Another of Moore’s pre-Watchmen superhero deconstructions with a Captain Marvel (Shazam)-like character rediscovering his magic word after years of a normal life and very bad things following that. A landmark book that fell to the wayside after years and years of legal battles over who held which rights. This one isn’t on sale very often and it’s roughly as cheap as you’ll find it.

The Marvel “Maybe” Sales

Amazing Spider-Man  Deadpool X-Men '97

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

🤞 Don’t miss these tips!

We don’t spam! Read more in our privacy policy

Still on Sale

Posted on by comics_p1pusl

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

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

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

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

DC’s First Holiday Sale Is Here

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

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

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

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

Batman

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

Superman

Wonder Woman

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

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

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

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

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

Does Whatever An Iron Can…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Calm Before?

X of Swords  X-Men: Red  Resurrection of Magneto

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

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

Pre-Krakoa

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

Krakoa Era

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

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

Villains of the Atom

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Marvel “Maybe” Sales

Ms. Marvel  Ghost Rider

The trend continues. New releases at lower than expected price points and discounted pre-orders. Is this the new normal? We’re not sure, but let’s run them down.

Dropping This Week

Pre-Order for Next Week

Unannounced Sales

Big Man Plans  1984  Godzilla: The Half-Century War

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

Also on sale:

🤞 Don’t miss these tips!

We don’t spam! Read more in our privacy policy

Still on Sale

Posted on by comics_p1pusl

Comixology (at Amazon) Sales – Flash, Iron Man, Suicide Squad, Thor, Groo, Dune

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

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

(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):

Is That a Streaming Pun?

The Flash  Superman Y the Last Man

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

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

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

Come Again?

Iron Man: Heroes Reborn  Captain America Heroes Return

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Image-produced Heroes Reborn titles were:

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

The Marvel “Maybe” Sales

Thor Modern Epic Collection White Widow

The trend we noticed last week is still moving forward. New releases at lower than expected price points and discounted pre-orders. Is this the new normal? We’re not sure, but let’s run them down.

Released this week

Pre-Order for Next Week

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

Unannounced Indie Sales

Groo Meets Tarzan  Dune  Quentin Tarantino

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

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

Plus, further removed from the Direct Market:

🤞 Don’t miss these tips!

We don’t spam! Read more in our privacy policy

Still on Sale

Posted on by comics_p1pusl

Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Iron Man; DC in the ’90s; Absolute Carnage; Powers

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel discounts most of their Iron Man catalog, plus Absolute Carnage. DC revisits the 90s. Dark Horse cuts prices on the many works of Bendis & Oeming.

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):

Does Whatever An Iron Can…

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

The Marvel Iron Man Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 5/27

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. Iron Man isn’t as goofy to follow as, say, Spider-Gwen… but there are “quirks.”

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

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

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

If you’re keeping score at home, you’ll have notice Superior Iron Man and Infamous Iron Man are not on sale. Why? We cannot say.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Be Kind, Please Rewind

Hellblazer  League of Extraordinary Gentlemen  The Nail

The  DC 90s Rewind Sale runs through Monday, 5/20.

Yes, it’s a 90s sale… with a little late 80s/early 00s around the edges. It’s worth a browse, particularly if you want to go wide on the Batman of that period, but let’s hit some highlights, shall we?

  • Animal Man – Initially Grant Morrison / Chas Truog, the full run is on sale this time.
  • The Authority – Ellis & Hitch, then Millar & Quitely; Hugely influential at the end of the ’90s, this is what effectively started the “widescreen comics” trend. (Pity the Stormwatch lead-in isn’t in the sale.)
  • Batman: No Man’s Land: The epic line-wide crossover Event, where Gotham is cut off from the rest of the country and the villains set themselves up as Warlords. (Yes, this predates DMZ by several years.) We thought this was the peak of the 90s Bat-Events.
  • Green Arrow (’88-’98) – Mike Grell / Ed Hannigan / Dan Jurgens – the Grell version that did away with most of the trick arrows.
  • Hellblazer – The first 13 volumes are on sale from the original Vertigo run. Delano / Ennis / Jenkins / Ellis.  Strong, strong run and for what it’s worth, we enjoyed the less-talked about Paul Jenkins/Sean Phillips issues. Don’t sleep on them.
  • The League of Extraordinary Gentleman – Alan Moore / Kevin O’Neil; Yes, DC (via Wildstorm) still has the first two volumes. And they’re good! It’s a literary team-up with satirical elements around the edges (pay attention to the ads…). Note: there is a demise in V. 2 that is very much NOT for kids.
  • The Nail – Alan Davis presents the tale of a world where the Kents didn’t find Kal-El’s rocket and the Justice League forms without Superman to bail them out.
  • Preacher – Garth Ennis & Steve Dillion; Since adapted for TV. God’s gone missing and Jesse Custer would like a word with him. A series as wrong as it is praised.
  • The Spectre – John Ostrander / Tom Mandrake; This would be on our best of the 90s list. Jim Corrigan is dead and tethered to the Wrath of God. He’s trying to work through that. It’s a lot.
  • Superman: The Death of Superman – The most famous line-wide Superman Event. The “Funeral for a Friend” and “Reign of the Supermen” sequences worked far better than one would have expected when solicited. This is also where John Henry Irons / Steel is introduced.
  • Transmetropolitan – Warren Ellis / Darick Robertson; The science fiction satire about a Hunter S. Thompson-esque future journalist and his war against a corrupt establishment. One of the more influential titles of the late 9os.

Absolute Hyperbole

Absolute Carnage  Venom: Absolute Carnage

The Marvel Absolute Carnage Sale runs through Monday, 5/20.

Absolute Carnage was, by Marvel standards, a small scope crossover between Donny Cates’s Venom run and the Nick Spencer era Amazing Spider-Man. Yes, in the context of an Event, only generating eight collected edition counts as restraint.

The Event miniseries holding it together is Absolute Carnage by Donny Cates & Ryan Stegman.

Venom: Absolute Carnage by Cates & Iban Coello collects the Venom tie-in issues.

Amazing Spider-Man: Absolute Carnage by Nick Spencer & Ryan Ottley collects, you guessed it, the Amazing Spider-Man tie-in issues.

From there, fill-in as your tastes dictate. We will say that the lead story in Absolute Carnage: Immortal Hulk And Other Tales is worthwhile, if not central to anything. Immortal Hulk being a high water mark in general.

Unannounced Sales

Powers  Goldfish  Fortune and Glory

Dark Horse has a big block of Brian Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming titles on sale. Let’s hit the numbers first:

We’d like to talk a little about the early Bendis, which doesn’t seem to be widely remembered after all his time at Marvel and DC. Bendis started out doing the full cartoonist and working on crime comics like Goldfish and Jinx.

He started getting a little more notice when he jumped over to Image for Powers w/ Oeming. Powers starts out as a police procedural in a world where super powers have to be registered (this is LONG before Marvel’s Civil War) and follows a police unit that handles “powers”-related crimes. There’s a lot of worldbuilding involved and things get quite a bit more complicated as the backstories of the main characters unfold.

Powers left Image for Marvel’s Icon imprint when Bendis blew up there and as he got deeper into Marvel, the shipping schedule got erratic. It’s relaunched a few times and seemingly lost a lot of audience momentum. Shipping schedules, have very little to do with the quality of the comic, however. It’s a good one and an influential one that’s worth dipping into the collected editions of. (And trust us, its so much easier with omnibuses where you don’t have to remember which relaunch a given issue is from!)

Also very worthwhile:  Fortune & Glory is Bendis recounting tales of interacting with Hollywood when Goldfish got optioned. It’s hilarious and multiple folks who work in TV/Film have assured us it’s frighteningly accurate.

We’d also point you to Scarlet as a more recent example of Bendis returning to that early crime vibe. It’s a strong comic.

🤞 Don’t miss these tips!

We don’t spam! Read more in our privacy policy

Still on Sale

Posted on by comics_p1pusl

Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Iron Man, Justice League, Thunderbolts, Kingdom Come

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel puts full runs of Iron Man and Thunderbolts on discount duty. DC goes Justice League-centric with their 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):

Does Whatever An Iron Can…

The Marvel Iron Man Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 8/14

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. Iron Man isn’t as goofy to follow as, say, Spider-Gwen… but there are “quirks.”

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

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

  • Iron Man ’04-07 – Best known for launching with the “Extremis” storyline
  • Invincible Iron Man ’08-’12 – The excellent Matt Fraction / Salvador Larroca run. Save some money with the omnibus collecting the first 3 volumes.
  • Iron Man ’12-’14 – The Kieron Gillen run with Greg Land as initial artist
  • Superior Iron Man ’14-’15 – 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-’22 – The Christopher Cantwell / Cafu run.

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? And the over general caveat: the Masterworks run sequentially and the Epic collections have some gaps.  But you can still pick off some awfully nice material for $6.99.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thunder. Thunder. Thunderca… Whoops, Wrong Series!

The Marvel Thunderbolts Sale runs through Monday, 8/14.

The Thunderbolts have been through several iterations since they began in ’97, originally having been the Masters of Evil laying the groundwork for nefarious deeds. And yes, there’s a film in the works.

The original series was written by Kurt Busiek and drawn by Mark Bagley. Eventually Fabian Nicieza tagged in as writer and Patrick Zircher became the lead artist a bit after that. The “regular” collected editions of this are a little spotty for the Nicieza/Zircher run and not everything is discounted, so we’d recommend the  omnibus editions.

New Thunderbolts was the ’04-’06 relaunch, and yes, it’s included in the third omnibus of the original. Fabian Nicieza/Tom Grummett is the creative team, here.

This then turns back into (no adjective) Thunderbolts for ’06-’12, starting Nicieza/Grummett and then including runs by Warren Ellis / Mike Deodato and Jeff Parker/Kev Walker/Declan Shalvey

Thunderbolts relaunched for ’12-’14 with Daniel Way and then Charles Soule writing it. The artist rotation included Steve Dillon and Phil Noto.

Jim Zub and Jon Malin were behind the ’16-’17 Thunderbolts run.

And then the most recent series was King in Black: Thunderbolts by Matthew Rosenberg/Gerry Duggan/Juan E. Ferreyra/Luke Ross.

With Thunderbolts, we feel pretty strongly you need to read the first sequence or two and get a flavor for the concept before jumping into the later evolutions.

Thunderbolts 

Wasn’t This a Comic Strip?

The DC World’s Greatest Super-Heroes Sale runs through Monday, 8/28.

Yes, The World’s Greatest Superheroes was definitely DC’s comic strip. And the strip isn’t even in the sale. (Did the person naming the sale realize it was a strip? Possibly not.)

This is sort of / kind of a Justice League sale. Let’s take a look at some of the better books with an eye on price, because not all discounts are created equal.

Kingdom Come is the classic mini-series by Mark Waid and Alex Ross. It’s a near-future showdown between a new generation and the old guard Justice League. Not quite post-apocalyptical, but close. If you’ve never run across it, the modern way to explain it is Injustice: Gods Among Us isn’t officially a reboot of Kingdom Come, but it sure feels like it at times.

A more under the radar pick is DC Universe: Legacies. This is a “history of the DC universe” type comic with an eye witness relating the broad strokes in a narrative. Len Wein does the writing along with a ridiculous set of artists: Brian Bolland, George Pérez, Joe Kubert, Andy Kubert, J.G. Jones, Scott Kolins and J.H. Williams III.

Also decent pricing on the landmark Grant Morrison / Howard Porter run of JLA (And yes, the prices go up when the creative teams tag off.)

Also of potential under the radar interest. Did you like the Justice League and Justice League Unlimited cartoons? Dwayne McDuffie had a run on JLA with Ed Benes on art. They didn’t really give him the full roster, but it’s still McDuffie on the Justice League.

Kingdom Come   DC Universe: Legacies   JLA

🤞 Don’t miss these tips!

We don’t spam! Read more in our privacy policy

Still on Sale

Posted on by comics_p1pusl

Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Marvel Omnibuses; Miles Morales: Spider-Man; Dark Reign; DC Celebrates Black History Month; Image’s Discounted Romance

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel has a rare sale on their Omnibuses, plus Miles Morales and Dark Reign. DC celebrates Black History Month and Image puts a (discounted) price on romance.

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):

As we adjust to whatever’s going on behind the scenes at Amazon, the sales did post this week, but they trickled out in an unusual pattern. At least the pricing seemed to be correct when they sales appeared this week. There’s a reason we don’t always rush to post the sale.

Did Somebody Say Omnibus?

The Marvel Omnibus Sale runs through Monday, 2/13.

Well, here’s a sale you don’t see every day. These omnibuses contain _around_ 40 issues each, though it can vary a few hundred pages from volume to volume. Evaluate these as bundles of collected editions, but there are some volumes that caught our eye.

The Captain Britain Omnibus is a very interesting thing. It’s basically all the Captain Britain appearances through when he first starts turning up in the X-Men line, so just before Excalibur kicks off. You’ve got the original UK run, which does have a little bit of early Chris Claremont in it. The Marvel Team-Up appearances (Claremont/Byrne), the David Thorpe/Alan Davis reset and then the two crown jewels: the Alan Moore/Alan Davis run and the Alan Davis solo run in the magazine version of Captain Britain. These last two runs are fantastic and highly influential (although you might be surprised how many things Thorpe initiated). And then a couple X-verse annuals to cap it.  Some really good stuff in here and Marvel’s a little inconsistent about keeping all of this available.

The Incredible Hulk by Peter David Omnibus set is the entire run. Peter David was on that book a LONG time and had a pretty darn good set of artists to team with, including Todd McFarlane, Gary Frank, Dale Keown, Liam Sharp and several others. It’s a little more understandable with such a long run, but we’re under the impression this is the only collection of David’s entire run. The “Visionaries” series doesn’t go all the way and only sections of it are in Epic Collections. So, here’s the entirety of a landmark run in 1000-1100 page chunks.

Another meaty set of books is the Thunderbolts set. V.1 is 1100 pages of Kurt Busiek and Mark Bagley. V.2 is another 1100 pages as Fabian Nicieza tags in for Busiek and we don’t think the back half of V.2 is currently collected elsewhere, either.

We know you were thinking it, so we’re going to go ahead and say it out loud: omnibus editions are a lot more convenient to read in digital. Those hardcovers can top 6 pounds.

Captain Britain Omnibus   Incredible Hulk by Peter David   Thunderbolts

Spider-Verse

The Marvel Monthly Sale: Miles Morales: Spider-Man Sale runs through Monday, 2/27

This sale is… kind of a mess to navigate.

For the first Brian Bendis/David Marquez/Sara Pichelli run, you’re probably best off with the Miles Morales: Ultimate Spider-Man Ultimate Collection set.

Then jump to the Miles Morales: Spider-Man, Vol. 2 collection for the ’16 Bendis/Pichelli/Nico Leaon run. (Do not ask us why the first omnibus isn’t on sale…)

And after that wraps, it’s time for Miles Morales by Saladin Ahmed and Javier Garron.

  Miles Morales: Spider-Man   Miles Morales

Make It Reign

The Marvel Dark Reign Sale runs through Monday, 2/6.

Dark Reign is a sort of background story that spun through a bunch of the Marvel titles, post-Secret Invasion.  Norman Osborn manages to get himself installed as Director of SHIELD and makes a power play. A lot of it involved declaring the various heroes to be enemies of the state and hunting them down. There wasn’t a mini-series driving this in the usual sense, but there were a ton of mini-series out there. A lot of this ran through the numerous Bendis Avenger titles.

The best thing to come out of Dark Reign was the “World’s Most Wanted” arc in Invincible Iron Man (Book 1 and Book 2) by Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca. Fraction and Larroca essentially paused their story for this arc where Norman Osborn is after the knowledge in Tony Stark’s brain – especially all the secret identities. Stark is a fugitive on the run and he’s trying to delete and overwrite his brain, like a hard drive, to keep all the sensitive information out of Osborn’s hands. A superior arc.

Iron Man   Iron Man

You can pop in on the other titles to see where Dark Reign takes them, but Iron Man was a class above.

February

The DC Black History Month Sale runs through Monday, 2/27.

Some picks? Sure. Justice League by Christopher Priest collects the Priest / Pete Woods wherein Batman has a lapse in judgement and a “fan” moves in for the kill.

A lesser known recent title is Michael Cray by Bryan Hill and N. Stephen Harris. This was part of the Wildstorm revival and the titular Cray is an assassin tasked with eliminating some funhouse mirror versions of the Justice League. Well done twisted fun.

And from clear out of left field, here’s something we don’t recall seeing on sale in a while: Steel single issues for $0.99. Yes, the Death of Superman spin-off about John Henry Irons that spawned a Shaq movie. Creators on this include Louise Simonson, David Michelinie, Christopher Priest, Chris Batista, Phil Gosier and Denys Cowan. Yes, that’s an early Priest/Cowan pairing at the end of the series.

Justice League by Priest   Michael Cray   Steel

Romance… Through The Mirror, Darkly…

The Image Romance Sale runs through Monday, 2/27.

Might modern “romance” comics be a little off-kilter? Could be!

A marque Image series popping up here is Sex Criminals by Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky (Mr. Romance, himself) has a high concept along the lines of “Make love. Stop time. Rob banks.” Why yes, it’s also a comedy. The “normal” collections are a better price than the “Big Hard” collections and that’s an instance of a fancier print edition translating to poor digital pricing, as is frequently the case.

My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips does have a romance in the middle of a tale about nefarious goings-on at a rehab facility. That’s a fair cop.

And a new title that might be of interest here: $0.99 single issues of Love Everlasting by Tom King and Elsa Charretier, featuring a woman caught in a series of bizarre romances bouncing around different time periods.

Sex Criminals   My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies   Love Everlasting

🤞 Don’t miss these tips!

We don’t spam! Read more in our privacy policy

Still on Sale:

Posted on by comics_p1pusl

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

🤞 Don’t miss these tips!

We don’t spam! Read more in our privacy policy

Still On Sale

Posted on by comics_p1pusl

Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: X-Men, Iron Man, Heroes Reborn and DMZ

This week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales include: The Dawn of X segment of X-Men comics, Heroes Reborn (OK, for our purposes, Heroes Return), Iron Man and the DMZ, now as seen on TV.

Side comments about the nature of reprinting cross-over Events included at no extra charge!

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

X-Hijinks

Marvel’s X-Men: Dawn of X Sale runs through Thursday, 3/20.

To put this in the context of the Hickman era of X, you start out with the House of X / Powers of X mini’s, then you go into the “regular” X-Men family of titles. This post HoX/PoX era is what’s being called “Dawn of X” and it basically stops just before the X of Swords crossover Event.

Dawn of X is a series of trade paperbacks (or digital TPBs for our purposes) that collect the issues of the _entire_ X-Men line of books, to more properly approximate reading the line in release order. Oh, they’ll fudge the exact release order here and there for 2-parters, but you get the idea.

Essentially, particularly early on in the line, the ideas of the X-family floated between titles. Ben Percy’s Wolverine and X-Force cross-pollinated a fair amount, too. We’ve felt that you do get a more out of the X-line by reading it as a whole. It enhances the scope and the worldbuilding aspects. Oh, there’s a dud of an issue here and there, but on the whole, it’s a strong line. (We didn’t think the line was quite as uniformly strong post-X of Swords, but that’s for a different time.)

Marvel has been getting better about going back and collecting stories that bounced between titles (like Hickman’s Avengers saga) in the actual reading order, as opposed tpbs of the individual titles that you need to bounce between. In general, this is a good thing.

We wish we could get you this listed in numerical order, but Amazon’s sorting routines aren’t very good here… but we can give you the list in reverse order! <rolls eyes>

Dawn of X

We’ll Stick with the Return

Marvel’s Heroes Reborn Sale runs through Thursday, 3/24.

This is the 90s experiment when Marvel outsourced some of their titles to Image. Now, for our money, the gems here are from the “Heroes Return” period, when those title came back to Marvel:

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

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

Iron Man: Heroes Reborn   Captain America Heroes Return

We Forget… Is It Still 2020?

The last couple years really are a blur and this sale is confusing us!

The Marvel Iron Man 2020 and Other Stories Sale runs through Sunday, 3/20.

First off, the Heroes Return sale for Busiek/Chen Iron Man is by far the better deal, so ignore the shorter collections here.

Now here’s a comic we haven’t seen mentioned in quite a while: Iron Man: The Inevitable by Joe Casey and Frazier Irving. We liked that one when it was coming out. Stark tries to rehabilitate the Living Lazer, while Spymaster and the Ghost plot his downfall. Introspection, espionage and then some things blow up. We think the audience may have been expecting more slam-bang when it came out, but we recall this as a slower build up… and it likely benefits from a collected edition.

Iron Man: Iron Monger is the end of the Denny O’Neil/Luke McDonnell era… although McDonnell bows out a little early, so you get some Rich Buckler and Mark Bright starts his run with #200.  And #200 is a helluva ride. O’Neil runs Tony Stark through the ringer and this sees him dragging himself up from the gutters after an alcoholic relapse to deal with Obadiah Stane and his Iron Monger armor. That finale has proven very influential over the years!

Iron Man: The Inevitable   Iron Man: Iron Monger

Feudal Warlords of Manhattan

The Stream DC: DMZ Sale runs through Monday, 3/28.

And yes, that would be the old Vertigo series, DMZ by Brian Wood and Riccardo Burchielli. And it’s a good one. The premise? There’s been a militia uprising. The rebels have captured the coast and New Jersey. The US Army holds Long Island. Manhattan is a no-man’s land between the armies. A demilitarized zone, i.e. DMZ. A rookie photojournalist pulls an assignment in the DMZ, but things go pear-shaped and he finds himself stranded… but also with a unique opportunity as an embedded reporter, so he attempts to navigate a strange landscape of neighborhood-based warlords and the strange society that’s popped up around the Manhattanites who could get out… while both armies jockey for position in the shadows.

You can read a few volumes on Comixology Unlimited to test drive it, but if you’re buying, you want the larger deluxe editions for your lowest tab.

DMZ

🤞 Don’t miss these tips!

We don’t spam! Read more in our privacy policy

Still On Sale

Posted on by comics_p1pusl

Comixology Sales: Batman Day, Iron Man, Uncle Scrooge by Carl Barks and Don Rosa

This week in Comixology Sales, it’s Batman Day and there’s a whole lot of Batman floating around, Marvel has a big run of Iron Man on sale and if you like Disney, especially Carl Barks and Don Rosa Uncle Scrooge, that’s at a discount, too.

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

Batman Day

The DC Batman Day Sale runs through Monday, 9/20 and it comes in three parts: Graphic Novels, Single Issues I and Single Issues II.  Yes, that means a couple thousand single issues, including some oddities like Batman Family and the usually excellent – and mostly uncollected: Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight  (the original run, not the later digital-first edition).  Oddly enough, no Detective Comics single issues.

Batman Family   Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight

For collected editions, well… it’s mostly all there, from the current Tynion run (through Joker War) all the way back.  You can easily pick your own flavor of Batman, but we’d point out a couple things…

Legends of the Dark Knight: Norm Breyfogle V. 1 is a nice thick volume containing the beginning of Alan Grant/Norm Breyfogle run. Early enough the John Wagner was involved. You get the debuts of The Ventriloquist and The Ratcatcher, a Clayface reunion and a tale of The Demon, among other things.  Strong collection.

If you’d like something a little lighter on the wallet, while it’s included in the larger Archie Goodwin collection, Batman: Night Cries by Goodwin and Scott Hampton is a mere $1.99 for the standalone graphic novel.

Legends of the Dark Knight Norm Breyfogle   Batman: Night Cries

Not the Ozzy Version

The Marvel Iron Man: Massive Golden Avenger Sale runs through Sunday, 9/19.

This one is a real jumbled mess to browse, so we’re going to break this down by series.  The rule of thumb is that Epic Collections tend to be slightly better values than the Masterworks, but pick your format.  Masterworks are released in order, Epics are… a little eclectic in their releases.

Iron Man’s story starts in Tales of Suspense. Call us heretics, but we don’t think Shellhead really soars until Archie Goodwin shows up at the end of this run and takes Tony into the solo title.  That would be By Force of Arms if you go Epic or Masterworks V. 4.

So then the long running Iron Man series is one of eras. The opening run with Archie Goodwin is pure gold. While it’s not bad after Goodwin, it next takes a bit leap with David Michelinie and Bob Layton turn up.  Both runs, really.  The first run with John Romita, Jr. brings the classic “Demon in a Bottle” and the later run with Mark Bright brings “Armor Wars.” You can’t lose when those two are on Iron Man.  And, honestly, the Denny O’Neil/(mostly) Luke Mc Donnell run in between the Michelinie/Layton runs is under-rated.  The “Iron Monger” final arc ending in #200 is a good one that Hollywood embraced.

Iron Man: The Man Who Killed Tony Stark

The next superlative run was dubbed Iron Man: Heroes Reborn. This is Kurt Busiek and Sean Chen. For inexplicable reasons, only about 1/2 of the series has been collected, but you can get all that has been in one volume. (Sorry Kurt, you can protest all you want, but your run is a highlight.)

Iron Man: Heroes Reborn

And the final entry on the highlights list is the Matt Fraction/Salvador Larroca run. This run gets special recognition for the “World’s Most Wanted” arc. When Dark Reign’s “non-event” event dropped, Fraction put the story arc on pause and delivered a KILLER self-contained epic about Tony Stark on the run.  And then popped back to what he was planning on doing a year later. Great run.  You can save a little money by getting the omnibus edition that collects the first 3 volumes.

Iron Man

*The first volume of the current Christopher Cantwell/Cafu Iron Man is $2.99. We’re enjoying it, but we’re not ready to put it on the wall before the first arc is over.  😉

Iron Man: Big Iron

If It Walks Like a Duck…

The Fantagraphics Disney Sale runs through Thursday, 9/23.

And with Disney, we’d point you to the Duck masters.  Carl Barks and Don Rosa. They rule the roost.

Uncle Scrooge   The Don Rosa Library

Still on Sale

Posted on by comics_p1pusl

Comixology Sales: $0.99 Marvel Masterworks and Holiday Sales from DC, Dynamite and IDW

Looking for some Comixology sales?  Welcome to the holiday sale season.  All these new sales are running into January, too.  $0.99 Marvel Masterworks are good and Cheap. DC, IDW and Dynamite are also catering to your discount needs.  Many of these sales are “linewide,” which means pretty much everything is on sale from those publishers.  Been waiting for something to go on sale? It’s probably there.

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

Marvel gets CHEAP

Do you like classic Marvel?  If so you will LOVE the Marvel Masterworks sale (Amazon link) and might not get any further than this.  Volume 1’s are $0.99 and the rest are $1.99.  The page counts are always good and sometimes GREAT and you can’t beat the price.

The best buy here, and maybe the best buy on all of Comixology, is probably Black Panther Masterworks V. 1. That’s the entire Jungle Action run written by Don McGregor with art by Billy Graham, Rich Buckler and Gil Kane.  A truly excellent run that established a LOT of the character’s cast, especially Killmonger.  330 pages of excellence for $0.99?  If you haven’t tried it, this is the time.

You want a LOT of pages for your 99 cents?  Check out  Killraven (AKA War of the Worlds).  This post-apocalyptic band of freedom fighters throwing off the Martian yoke clocks in at 471 pages.  A lot of creators were involved with this, but it’s fondly remembered as a Don McGregor/P. Craig Russell feature.  And yes, it includes the graphic novel.

For something a little more off the radar, everyone remembers Jim Starlin’s Captain Marvel run. It was the first round with Thanos.  Hardly anyone remembers that Steve Englehart and Al Milgrom had an enjoyable run right after Starlin. That would be Captain Marvel Masterworks V. 4 and can be yours for a lousy $1.99 (V. 3 is the main Starlin run and grab that one if you haven’t read it.)

Black Panther Masterworks   Killraven  Captain Marvel

Head to the main link for an extended browse.  There’s a lot of very cheap classic comics and you don’t need me to tell you about Avengers and X-Men.  I will say that Doctor Strange is pretty solid the whole way through and if you like Golden Age Marvel and Atlas-era Marvel, pay close attention to the final two sections on the page.

Next up, we have the Marvel “Greatest Runs” sale.  Yes, it sounds like they need more fiber, but there are some superior deals here, too.

We’ve always been big fans of the Matt Fraction / Salvador Larroca run of Invincible Iron Man and the whole run is alternating $2.99 and $1.99 per volume.  Great prices.

Mark Waid’s superlative Daredevil run gets the omnibus treatment at $3.99 a pop.  This one starts out with Marcos Martin and Paolo Rivera as the main artists and then settles into Chris Samnee as the lead for the duration. It probably falls into the modern classic category.

Immortal Iron Fist is an incredibly fun series that’s collected in 2 omnibuses.  Volume 1 (482 pages) is primarily written by Ed Brubaker & Matt Fraction and primarily drawn by David Aja. Volume 2 (474 pages) is primarily written by Duane Swierczynski and drawn by the criminally under-rated Travel Foreman. Yes, you’ll want both volumes and you’ll probably want more Fat Cobra, too.

Iron Man  Daredevil  Iron Fist V. 1 Iron Fist V. 2

DC’s Holiday Sales

DC has a couple different sales conveniently located on one page.  And really, this one looks a lot like the Black Friday sale.

First up is a Wonder Woman sale… with 69 items!  <eye roll> Yes, DC… we see what you did there.  </eye roll>

For Wonder Woman, you can  click here and two classic runs begin and end the Omnibus section.  Wonder Woman by George Perez is the post-Crisis rebirth and actually wraps up with the War of the Gods volume.  Towards the end of the Perez run, you get some early Jill Thompson art, too.  That run really set the table for modern Wonder Woman.  At the end of the section is Wonder Woman by Greg Rucka, which is also an absolutely fantastic run.

Wonder Woman by George Perez Wonder Woman by Greg Rucka

For the general graphic novel sale — and this is linewide, so while almost everything is there, here are a some ideas of things that might not immediately jump out:

Y: The Last Man by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra is getting a TV show pretty soon and it’s a great series.  Make sure you scroll to the Omnibus section — they’re same price as the “regular” collections, so double up the page count!

Swamp Thing: The Bronze Age Vol. 1 is the original Len Wein/Bernie Wrightson run.  There’s a reason it’s a classic and it’s well worth your time.

We were always fans of Paul Levitz’s Doctor Fate and it sure didn’t hurt our feelings that Sonny Liew drew most of it.  Killer creators and an interesting way to get back to Fate’s Egyptian roots.

Y the Last Man   Swamp Thing  Doctor Fate

DC’s sales are running through Monday, 1/4.

Dynamite’s Holiday Sale

The Dynamite Linewide Sale comes in three parts: Graphic Novels and then single issues broken up into A-P, P-W and W-Z.  (Amazon link) It pretty much is the entire line.  When you’re looking at the graphic novels, remember that the majority of single issues are $0.99, so 6 single issues = $5.94. Be pure, be vigilant, be cheap!

As for what we’d draw your eye to, three things come to mind as we flip through the pages.  Howard Chaykin’s American Flagg! is a hugely influential science fiction series with liberal does of satire.

The Shadow Masters Series is the absurdist and subversive take on The Shadow from the late ’80s by Andy Helfer, Bill Sienkiewicz and Kyle Baker (with a an extra special appearance by Marshall Rogers that almost defies description… old vendettas, children acting out and a nurse who used to be a professional wrestler.  It’s really something else.

Here at the Tower of Cheap, we’ve been waiting… and waiting… on the collected edition of the Christopher Priest/Ergün Gündüz Vampirella run and it keeps getting pushed back.  We keep hearing good things and the ever-reliable Priest on Vampi is so counter-intuitive, it’s probably worth it.  Guess what?  The single issues are (mostly) $0.99 if you want to get a jump on the collections.

This sale runs through Monday 1/4.

American Flagg!    The Shadow   Vampirella

IDW Holiday Sale

The IDW Linewide Sale is broken into SIX parts: Graphic Novels I, Graphic Novels II and then single issues I, II, III and IV.  (Amazon link) Which is to say, a whole lot o’ stuff.  What might we point you at the might otherwise slip your mind?

Bloom County: The Complete Library – A classic comic strip by a classic cartoonist.  Essentially, the whole archive is on sale.

Like Walt Simonson’s Thor? Then you need to check out Ragnarok. Valhalla has fallen and the survivors of the realm are picking up the pieces.  Although not everyone who survived is necessarily alive. Walt returns to the Norse mythos and it’s some of his best work.  Possibly the best thing IDW’s published.

Richard Stark’s Parker is another contender for the best thing IDW’s published. Darwyn Cooke adapts the crime novels about a professional thief who takes double-crosses extra personal. You might know the source material from the films like Point Blank and Payback.

This sale runs until Tuesday, 1/5.

Bloom County   Ragnarok Richard Stark's Parker

Still on sale

Posted on by comics_p1pusl