Tag: James Tynion

Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Batman (at good prices); Thor; Black Widow; Hawkeye; Blue Book

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, DC’s big Batman sale has REAL discounts. Marvel slashes prices on Thor, Black Widow and Hawkeye. Plus, an unannounced Blue Book sale from Dark Horse.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

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

The Batman Sale

The DC Batman Anniversary Sale runs through Monday, 4/8.

Yes, this is the big one. Most of the collected editions are on sale and at good prices. You see $2.99 at DC and it’s time to pull the trigger, so tell your friends.

Let’s try and make things a little easier list and light some highlights of the various series included in the sale:

Batman Special Batman: The War of Jokes and Riddles  Batman '89

What’s good? That depends on what flavor of Batman you like. It seems the caped crusader is flexible and has had different tones over the years.

Do you like the 90s Event era where the Batman family of books crossed over?  Most of those collections are $2.99/$3.99. Here’s a cheat sheet for that (we have a soft spot for No Man’s Land):

Prefer the mid-to-late 80s era? Starlin/Aparo or Grant/Breyfogle? Those collections are running $3.99/$4.99.

“The Caped Crusader” branded volumes collect the Batman issues and start here

“The Dark Knight Detective” branded volumes collect the Detective Comics issues and start here.

We’re also going to call out a few things that are a hair more expensive, but normally have a much higher price point:

Jan Hammer?

Thor - The Wrath of Odin  Thor by Walt Simonson  Thor Road to War of the Realms

Marvel’s Thor Sale runs  through Monday, 4/1.

Pretty much the full Thor line, with the caveat that the Marvel Masterworks volumes are not on sale, so that trend from recent months continues. Which is to say, Epic Collections are your friend.

As per our custom, here’s the breakdown by series/volume:

  • Journey Into Mystery ’52-’66 – The earliest Thor stories from Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
  • The Mighty Thor ’66-’96 – From Lee & Kirby until the relaunches started
  • The Mighty Thor ’96-’04 – The Heroes return Dan Jurgens era, initially with John Romita, Jr.
  • Thor ’07-’11 – Starts with J. Michael Straczynski & Olivier Coipel, ends with Matt Fraction & Pasqual Ferry. Gillen in the middle.
  • The Mighty Thor ’11-’12 – Fraction gets a relaunch with Coipel, Ferry and early Pepe Larraz
  • The Jason Aaron era ’12-’19 – It’s a LOT easer to look at the omnibuses across all the relaunches here
  • Thor ’20 to ’23 – The current Donny Cates run with Nic Klein as the primary artist; Torunn GrØnbekk tags end toward the end while Cates was recovering from his accident (and filled in well, we might add).

The current Al Ewing Immortal Thor gets a big thumbs up from us… but it’s too recent to be on sale yet, alas… or perhaps “fie!”

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

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

We also like to go back to the original Lee/Kirby. Not too early. We’d say stay closer to where it changed from Journey Into Mystery to Thor. The first year of JIM was a little rough. The Wrath of Odin  Epic Collection is a good chunk of prime Lee/Kirby Thor and also features the first time Jane Foster was elevated to godhood, since it turns out to now be foreshadowing.

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

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

These Ex-‘s Aren’t From Texas

Black Widow  Hawkeye  Black Widow by Mark Waid and Chris Samnee

The Marvel Black Widow & Hawkeye Sale runs through Monday, 4/1.

That’s right. These two used to be an item.

First, the Natasha highlights:

There are two Black Widow Epic Collections that collect what were largely guest or co-starring spots (with a couple notable exceptions) through the early 80s.

Flash forward to 2004 and the highlight of a series of miniseries was a pair written by Richard K. Morgan with an art rotation of Bill Sienkiewicz, Sean Phillips and Goran Parlov. (!) Conveniently collected in a single volume.

A decade later, the team of Mark Waid & Chris Samnee (a known quantity) did their own Black Widow run. Predictably, another highlight. (Also conveniently collected in a single volume.)

Shortly after that, the Eisner winning Black Widow run of Kelly Thompson and Elena Casagrande kicked off. Yes, we enjoyed this run, too… and were kind of thinking there might be a follow up, but we haven’t seen one yet.

As for Mr. Clint Barton, let get it out of the way.  While there’s some debate to how well it fits into continuity, the series that towers above all other is Hawkeye by Fraction & Aja: The Saga Of Barton And Bishop. That would be the extremely quirky and beloved “Hawk-guy” series featuring Pizza Dog.

A bit further down on the listing page are two volumes of “Hawkeye and the Thunderbolts.” Mark Bagley is your lead artist and this covers the transition from Kurt Busiek to Fabian Nicieza as writer, while Hawkeye was leading the group.

If you want some older Hawkeye, there are a couple Epic Collections:

Unannounced

Blue Book

It has come to our attention that Dark Horse has placed Blue Book V.1: 1961 by James Tynion IV and Michael Avon Oeming on sale. “True stories of UFO abductions.”

 

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: A.X.E. Judgement Day, Conan, Spider-Man, DC on TV and Boom!’s Tynion Catalog

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel discounts the recent A.X.E Judgement Day, plus Conan, Spidey and the X-Men. DC slashes prices on the source material for its TV adaptations and Boom! opens the James Tynion, IV catalog.

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):

Lest Ye Be Judged…

The Marvel A.X.E. Judgment Day Sale runs through Thursday,  12/8

If you have been pining for single issue Marvel comics on sale, here we are with this very recent event.  There are a few more single issues in the sale, but here are the broad strokes:

The Event itself ($0.99/$1.99 single issues):

And from the lead-in titles:

The Eternals:

Avengers

A.X.E. Judgement Day   Avengers by Jason Aaron   Eternals

By Crom!

The Marvel Conan Sale runs through Thursday, 12/29.

We weren’t expecting this one, but we suppose we should have, considering Conan is moving over to Titan soon. (We’re still unsure how this is going to work for the older material.) Here, we’d like to highlight the omnibus editions of the original Marvel material, which goes further then the Epic Editions and… we’re not sure if the omnibuses have been on sale before?

Conan the Barbarian: The Original Marvel Years is the monthly color comic that most people think of by default when they think of Marvel at Conan. 600-800(ish) pages per volume, although V.5 is a 1000 page monster.

King Conan (we’ll call it by the original title) is the spin-off book taking place when an older Conan has captured the throne. Yes, you get some John Buscema art here, but it was also an early stop for Marc Silvestri.

Savage Sword of Conan is the black & white magazine version of Conan. As such, it operated outside the comics code and is little darker than the regular comic. Still lots of John Buscema, plus some Neal Adams, a little Barry Windsor-Smith, Ernie Chan, Gil Kane, Alfredo Alcala… let’s face it, more often than not, the Conan books had good artists.

There’s some of the current Marvel version on sale two, but those ominibuses, particularly King Conan and Savage Sword are a little more unusual to see discounted.

Conan the Barbarian   King Conan   Savage Sword of Conan

Spiders and Mutants

The Marvel X-Men/Spider-Man: Crossovers and Events Sale runs through Monday, 1/2.

This one is somewhat of an Event/”landmark storyline” sale and you can pick your flavor, therein. Some things that caught our eye?

God Loves, Man Kills is a classic X-Men story by Chris Claremont and Brent Anderson (originally from the old Marvel Graphic Novel program). It’s also very much a stand alone unit, which is nice.

X-Men: Deadly Genesis is the launch of the Ed Brubaker era of X, with Trevor Hairsine providing the art. A bit of a retcon/embellishment on the origin of the new X-Men, it features the full story of the X-Men’s trip to a certain mutant-eating island (that shall become more prominent later) and debuts Vulcan, the lost Summers brother you may have recently been reading about in X-Men Red.

With Spidey… you ever notice the Event-type stories tend to be darker than the rest of the Spidey stories? Well, if you’re going dark, Kraven’s Last Hunt by J.M. DeMatties and Mike Zeck is one of the best.

X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills   X-Men: Deadly Genesis   Spider-Man: Kraven's Last Hunt

As Seen on TV

The DC on TV Sale runs through Monday, 12/5.

And yes, there is a reasonable amount here… particularly if you count the supporting cast. DC’s been hitting things like Sandman pretty hard over the last few months, so here are a couple other suggestions.

We’re really big fans of the Christopher Priest era of Deathstroke. There was a bit of artist rotation on that title, with the primary artists being Carlo Pagulayan and Diogenes Neves. Deathstroke contemplates changing his ways amidst conspiracies and family drama… and also includes a very big wink to Priest’s Black Panther run. Note: While it’s listed as a Titans book, The Lazarus Contract is really a crossover and integral to the storyline.

We’re also big on the Grant Morrison / Richard Case Doom Patrol, which is a big influence on the current streaming show.

Deathstroke   Titans: The Lazarus Contract   Doom Patrol

And since we know a lot of .cheap readers pine for $0.99 single issues, here are some highlights of the batch all the way at the bottom of the sale. Remember it’s the most recent batch of issues on sale, so you’ll need to get all the way to the bottom of the list for the longer running titles. That said, Nightwing is on sale through the October issue, so this really is a good catch up.

Boning a Sale

The Bone and RASL Sale runs through Monday, 12/19.

Now there’s something you don’t see on sale all that often! The works of Jeff Smith. If you prefer, the excellent works of Jeff Smith, since they are.

His best known work is, of course Bone. This fantasy series entered the “classics” category really fast. We’re kind of traditional about this and thing the $9.99 for 1300 pages in one volume of the original black & white comics is the way to go and MASSIVE bang for your buck. The smaller color volumes will run you $4.99 a pop.

Not as famous, but something we thoroughly enjoyed, is RASL, a dimension hopping conspiracy comic as an art thief attracts the wrong kind of attention and the chase is on for the technology he possesses. A little science fiction, a little crime, a little noir and unlike Bone, this one isn’t for the kids.

Bone   RASL

Something Is Discounting Tynion

The Boom! James Tynion Sale! runs through Thursday, 12/15.

You can flip through the entire Tynion catalog – at least the Boom! catalog – with this sale.

His big hit over there, and our favorite of his Boom! work, is Something Is Killing the Children. And if you prefer your monster-hunting goodness in $0.99 single issues, you might even find that’s a cheaper way to read the series.

Something is Killing the Children

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: DC’s Black Friday Sale = Lots of Batman and Recent $0.99 Single Issues

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, it’sDC’s Black Friday Sale! Better than normal discounts on collected editions – yes, lots of Batman – plus a lot of recent $0.99 single issues.

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):

Surprise! DC’s Black Friday Sale dropped while we were writing up Marvel’s (annual Black Friday) Epic Collection Sale – which you should absolutely have a look at – and we’ve been getting prodded to annotate DC’s, too.  So… DC today and then we’ll get back with the rest of the Black Friday sales on Black Friday… since sales are definitely starting to drop.

I See a Sale and I Want It Painted Black…

The DC Black Friday Sale runs through Monday, 11/28.

This sale is a mix of some more recent material and some classic material… and some of the prices are good. But let’s hit some highlights and then try to run down the single issue options, since those are buried at the bottom of the sale and most people don’t have kind of patience it takes to click that far down.

’80s Batman

Gosh, you think a DC Sale will have a lot of Batman?  Duh.

For 80s Batman, a primo deal is V. 1-6 of Batman: The Dark Detective (click and scroll down a little, you’ll see them). That’s the 80s Detective Comics run starting with Mike W. Barr / Alan Davis and continuing through the Alan Grant / Norm Breyfogle run. V. 3 includes the sequence by Batman screenwriter Sam Hamm and Denys Cowan. A really nice run for $3.99/$4.99 a pop.

Speaking of Sam Hamm, his Batman ’89 is the Two-Face story he would have done for the Tim Burton/Michael Keaton era Batman films, had the franchise not moved over to Joel Schumacher. Joe Quinones does the art. It’s on our “to read list,” but we haven’t gotten there yet, HOWEVER we would like to point out this was an August release and that awfully fast for DC to put the discounts on it. ($3.99)

For whatever reason, we don’t usually see the first volume of Batman and the Outsiders on sale. More often, it’s just V. 2 & 3 – which aren’t on sale this time, so go figure. This is #1-13 of the Mike W. Barr / Jim Aparo series, so if you’ve been curious, this is not a bad time to stick a toe in.

Batman: The Dark Knight Detective   Batman '89   Batman and the Outsiders

Current Batman

We think this is the first time the Josh Williamson run of Batman has been on sale (again, an August release for $3.99). You’ll also find the James Tynion 4.0 run at this link for $2.99/$3.99 if you scroll down a bit.

We’ve always loved the continuation of the animated series, but we love Batman: The Adventures Continue V.2 (Alan Burnett/Paul Dini/Rich Burchett/Ty Templeton) even more for $2.99! The Court of Owls enters the animated universe!

Is that a new volume of the Tom Taylor / Bruno Redondo Nightwing? Why yes, we think this is the first time V. 2 has been on sale and we know it’s a popular series with .cheap readers.

Batman: Abyss   Batman: The Adventures Continue   Nightwing

Recently On Sale

Not new, but not really that old, either. At least we’ve seen them on sale before.

Far Sector by N.K. Jemisin and Jamal Campbell was a jaw-dropping debut for Jemisin (who’s won just about every major Science Fiction/Fantasy prose award that comes to mind). A new Green Lantern with an experimental ring is off in a far corner of the galaxy and finds herself in the middle of a murder investigation on a world where murder hasn’t happened in centuries. Superior world building! 12 issues worth for $3.99

Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen: Who Killed Jimmy Olsen? by Matt Fraction and Steve Lieber is an utter delight. One of the funniest comics DC has ever produced. Again, $3.99 for a 12-issue series is as good as it gets with DC.

The Nice House On the Lake by James Tynion IV and Alvaro Martinez Bueno is a creepy SF/Horror genre bender (and more than a bit of a hit). A group of people are summoned to an isolated vacation home, only to witness the end of the world beginning outside their safe hideout. The mutual friend who invited them there… well, they have some questions about him. $2.99?!? Yeah, you can get it on the cheap right now.

Rorschach by Tom King and Jorge Fornés is a really odd creature. Set in the Watchman world, after the end of the book, it’s more about the mythology that has sprung up around Rorschach. It’s a mystery about political killings and muses about ideology and identity. It’s something of a unique book. While we were nervous picking up ANY non-Moore/Gibbons Watchmen title, we really enjoyed this one.

Swamp Thing by Ram V and Mike Perkins. This is the current run and we haven’t seen V.2 on sale before. The set up here finds Levi Kamei as the new Swamp Thing/Avatar of the Green. He’s not entirely sure what’s happened to him, but it might involve a corporation and it might involve his family. Interesting setup that has some echoes to The Anatomy Lesson as V. 2 nears its conclusion. Worth at look when it’s a rock bottom $2.99/volume.

Far Sector   Jimmy Olsen   Nice House on the Lake   Rorschach   Swamp Thing

Older Material At Good Prices

A couple ~20 issue/$5.99 volumes that are at a better price than we recall seeing lately:

Kamandi –Jack Kirby’s take on Planet of the Apes, although that’s a reductionist description. Many, many years after The Great Disaster, the last boy on Earth navigates a strange wasteland of warring kingdoms of bipedal, talking evolved animals, where most humans are little more than livestock. An incredibly fun adventure book.

The Flash: Savage Velocity – this is the launch of the Wally West Flash era, post-Crisis. It contains the entire Mike Baron/Jackson Guice/Mike Collins run and the beginning of the William Messner-Loebs/Greg LaRocque run. (Yes, run is a pun.) Chunk! Red Trinity/Kapitalist Kouriers! Vandal Savage! Velocity 9!

Kamandi   The Flash

$0.99 Single Issues

This is going to be a little goofy for links, since you’re going to need to scroll down to the more recent issues on any of these pages, but you’ll get a good idea what’s out there. These are all fairly current issues… in the case of Batman,  January ’22 through August ’22.

 

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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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