Tag: Jim Starlin

Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: X-Men and Daredevil (nearly) Full Runs; Batman; Infinity Gauntlet; Usagi Yojimbo

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel puts nearly all the Daredevil and Uncanny X-Men collections on sale. And an Infinity (Gauntlet / War / Crusade) sale on top of that. DC does another installment of their “Epic” sale and Dark Horse slips in Usagi Yojimbo.

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):

X Marks the Price Tag

X-Men Epic Collection: The Sentinels Live  X-Men Epic Collection  X-Men: The Fate of the Phoenix

The Marvel Uncanny X-Men Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 3/11.

It’s a legacy sale, so it’s the Uncanny X-Men core… although this may shorter list than some of the legacy sales. For instance,  X-Men wasn’t part of Heroes Reborn, so no relaunch there.

As is our custom, let’s run through the key series included, first:

  • Uncanny X-Men ’63-’11 – The original X-Men, the “new” X-Men, Morrison… it’s a long run.
  • Uncanny X-Men  ’11-’12 – The original Kieron Gillen era
  • Uncanny X-Men ’13-’15 – The Brian Bendis / Chris Bachalo era (Battle of the Atom fits in with this run as a crossover)
  • Uncanny X-Men ’16-’17 – The Cullen Bunn / Greg Land / Ken  Lashley era
  • Uncanny X-Men ’18-’19 – The Mathew Rosenberg era

And you might be asking yourself, “aren’t there usually more than one X-Men title and don’t they cross over a lot?” Yes, that would be a potential issue… pun intended. Not so much with the Epic Collections and the Masterworks as with the later series, and there are some Event collections in the sale, too.

You should know our general advice right now. There’s a slight preference for the value of Epic Collections over Masterworks collections, but it depends on the exact price point and the Epic Collections sometimes have gaps.  That still applies here.  The wild card with X-Men is that it can get impenetrable with continuity and all the characters floating around. You can’t always just jump in.

So, recommendations with that in mind.

If you’ve never tried the original X-Men, we’d say go with The Sentinels Live Epic Collection. It’s at the very tail end of the original run that the original X-Men run is at its best: a bit of Jim Steranko and then a Roy Thomas / Neal Adams sequence that ended all too quickly.

For the “new” X-Men, we’re cool with the theory that Giant-Sized X-Men #1 / Uncanny X-Men #94 through #200 is one big arc. That’s where we’d start if we were new. The Epic Collections that are discounted only take you to #153, at which point you need to start cutting in the Masterworks editions with V. 7 through 12. (The next Epic with a discount only takes you to #198, which is short of the finish line!)

For an alternate jumping on point, perhaps the Ed Brubaker era, which is collected in three volumes starting with Rise and Fall of the Shi’ar Empire.

We thought the Bendis era was better than it’s reputation, but aware that it runs parallel with All-New X-Men, which isn’t in this sale.

If you were wondering, Grant Morrison is filed under New X-Men and not part of this sale.

Also be aware that X-Men: Reload is effectively the omnibus version of Uncanny X-Men: The New Age, where Chris Claremont returned to the book with Alan Davis.

Hornhead

Daredevil  Daredevil Epic Collection  Daredevil by Zdarsky

The Marvel Daredevil Sale runs through Monday, 3/11.

Let’s break this down by series. Like X-Men, Daredevil has had fewer relaunches than some titles.

  • Daredevil ’64-’98 – The original run. Oddly, as we type this up, the Epics are on sale and the Masterworks mostly aren’t?
  • Daredevil ’98-11 – The Marvel Knights relaunch. Kevin Smith / Brian Bendis / Ed Brubaker
    • For the Bendis and Brubaker runs, you want the Omnibus section and scroll down for their respective “Ultimate Collections”
  • Daredevil ’11-15 – This was really two volumes with an arbitrary relaunch in the middle, but the excellent run by Mark Waid / Chris Samnee / Paolo Rivera / Javier Javier Rodriguez is a better buy in this 5 volume set that collects both volumes and treats it like the single run it was.
  • Daredevil ’15-’18 – The Charles Soule era with Ron Garney as the main artist.
  • Daredevil ’19-’21 – Chip Zdarsky’s breakout title as a writer. Marco Checcetto is the primary artist.
  • Daredevil: Woman Without Fear ’22 – Zdarsky / Rafael de Latorre; Sort of a bridge title during the Devil’s Reign event, but part of the ongoing plot. Note: this is included in the final DD omnibus for the ’19-’21 run.
  • Daredevil ’22-’23 – Also known as Daredevil & Elektra. The final act to the Zdarsky/Checcetto era

What’s good here? Honestly, with the exception of the “Shadowlands” Event at the end of the Marvel Knights run, DD has been consistently good to great since Frank Miller showed up. You don’t hear us saying that about every title! We will say that Gene Colan’s return to DD (with Joe Kelly writing) seems to be under the radar these days.  But starting with Miller, just pick a run (Miller / O’Neil / Nocenti / Chichester / Kessel / Kelly / Smith / Bendis / Brubaker / Waid / Soule / Zdarsky) and dig in.

Infinite Jest

The  Marvel Infinity Sale runs through Monday, 3/11.

On the one hand, this sale would seem to be a continuation of last week’s Cosmic sale, which naturally segues into The Infinity Guantlet. On the other hand, they’re throwing in anything else with “Infinity” in the title, so we’re going to have to separate this out a little more than we normally would.

Starlin’s Infinity Saga

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

Alongside those titles, Warlock & the Infinity Watch (Starlin / Angel Medina / Tom Grindberg and others) ran parallel and filled some gaps between Events.

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

Avengers

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

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

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

Sounds Like a Marvel Brand – Week Two

Batman: Venom   Manhunter  Jimmy Olsen

The  DC Epic eBooks Part 2 Sale runs through Monday, 03/11.

This time out it’s a seriously eclectic set of volumes. Occasionally just one or two from the middle of a run.  Some things that jumped out at us?

  • Batman: Venom – Denny O’Neil / Jose Luis Garcia Lopez / Russ Braun;  Long before Knightfall, or even Vengeance of Bane, O’Neil and company did a Legends of the Dark Knight arc to introduce “Venom,” the drug that originally fueled Bane’s strength.
  • DCeased – which they really ought to file together, but don’t. It’s still entertaining stuff (and, of course, the opening volume isn’t included):
  • Fables – Bill Willingham / Mark Buckingham; the first half of the series is on sale (in double-volume format) for the classic tales of fairy tale creatures hiding out in Manhattan after their worlds are overrun by invaders.
  • Freedom Fighters: Rise of a Nation – Robert Venditti / Eddy Barrows – in a world where the Nazis discovered the payload of a certain rocket from Krypton and over-ran the world, the Freedom Fighter form up as the resistance. A vastly overlooked take on the original concept.
  • Manhunter – Archie Goodwin and Walt Simonson tell a superb tale of spies, ninjas, clone and a certain caped crusader. One of the best adventure comics of all-time.
  • The Road to Perdition – Max Allen Collins / Richard Piers Rayner – A mob enforcer and his son go into hiding after a betrayal. You may have seen the film version.
  • Superman: The Phantom Zone – Steve Gerber / Gene Colan / Rick Veitch – Leave it to Gerber to come up with a creepy, horror-tinged take on Superman. There are much stranger things in the Phantom Zone that you realized. (Big thumbs up.)
  • Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen: Who Killed Jimmy Olsen? – Matt Fraction / Steve Lieber – Jimmy wakes up hungover and married in Gorilla City… and that’s not even the silliest part. One of the funniest comics of the last few years. A+

Rabbit Rabbit

Usagi Yojimbo

We have an unannounced Dark Horse sale on Usagi Yojimbo.

This is Stan Sakai’s revered and long running series about a samurai/ronin rabbit. “Beloved” is a good word for it.

The real bargain is the $6.99 “Saga” omnibus editions.

Filed separately, is the  Saga “Legends” volume, which includes things like Space Usagi.

If you’re in the market for single volumes, those are $4.99… but only for Vol. 8 and higher. (Hey, don’t look at us! We think that’s peculiar, too… but the Saga volumes are a better buy.)

Also Unannounced…

BAKEMONOGATARI

Vertical’s manga series BAKEMONOGATARI is on sale for $3.99/volume (although we can’t tell you where V. 1 went to…)

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Batman Beyond and DC’s “Start Here”

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales,  DC has the new sales with Batman Beyond and… “Start Here.”

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):

Beginner’s Luck

Batman / Superman: The Archive of Worlds   Kingdom Come    Swamp Thing

The DC Start Here Sale runs through Monday, 1/15.

This is one of those sales where they give you a discount on volume one and hope to entice you into buying volume 2 for full price. We seem to recall that’s similar to how Comixology originally pitched Comixology Unlimited to publishers.

We’ll be contrarian and look at some volumes that stand a little better on their own, as opposed to being a cliffhanger.

Batman/Superman: The Archive of Worlds – Gene Yang / Ivan Reis – Fun-forward adventure as Batman and Superman chase a mystery across parallel, film-themed worlds.

Batman The Long Halloween – Jeph Loeb/Tim Sale – The classic tale of Batman chasing a killer who only strikes on holidays… and the case’s toll on Harvey Dent.

Doom Patrol: Book One – The first few arcs of the Grant Morrison / (mostly) Richard Case run on Doom Patrol. Good enough for TV, it seems, although we liked the book better.

JLA Vol. 1 – The first two arcs of the Grant Morrison/Howard Porter run on Justice League.

JSA: The Golden Age – A forgotten classic as James Robinson and Paul Smith take the post-WWII Justice Society through the horror of McCarthyism. This might not read quite as dated as one might initially think…

Kingdom Come – Mark Waid and Alex Ross explore a dystopian nightmare that’s also a critique of the 90s grim’n’gritty fad. (90s? OK… maybe that fad lasted a little longer…)

Superman Vs. Mongul – A bit more under the radar, this would be the original DC Comics Presents encounters between Superman and Mongul, mainly by Len Wein and Jim Starlin. Plus a certain Alan Moore/Dave Gibbons tale.

Swamp Thing: The Bronze Age, V.1 – The original Swamp Thing run by Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson. One of DC’s shining lights of the early 70s.

Above and Beyond

Batman Beyond: Industrial Revolution  Batman Beyond  Batman Beyond: The Final Joke

The DC Batman Beyond 25th Anniversary Sale runs through Monday, 1/8.

Feeling old, yet?

For those coming in late, this is the comics continuation of the ’99-’01 animated series that finds young Terry McGinnis stepping in as a new Batman for the elderly Bruce Wayne in futuristic, vaguely cyberpunk Gotham.

Batman Beyond hasn’t had a constant presence in comics, but there was a concerted effort to keep it in print for 10 years and Dan Jurgens had a pretty respectable run. 66 issues across the two titles is a lot more than most people manage these days!

Here’s the chronology of the titles:

And a reminder that Monday is last call for the annual holiday Marvel Masterworks sale.

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Marvel Max (Miracleman / Punisher / Alias), Thanos, James Bond 007 and a Metric Ton of Kodansha Manga

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel Max doles out discounts, which means Miracleman, Alias, Punisher and… Conan? Thanos is also on sale, and is James Bond and seemingly the whole Kondansha line if you’re in a manga kind of mood.

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):

A little housekeeping first. We’re going to be travelling the rest of the week, so we’re posting on Tuesday. We’ll see you next week at the usual spatio-temporal coordinates.  Also, there doesn’t appear to be a new DC sale this week. They seem to be standing pat with the Sandman sale (see: still on sale at the end of the column or the last couple weeks’ columns).

Is THAT Where HBO Max Got the Name?

The Marvel Max Sale runs through Thursday 9/8.

In this case, “Marvel Max” refers to Marvel’s old, on and off, mature readers line. (Yes, that does mean a lot of Garth Ennis material.) They generally only float this one once or twice year, so let’s have a look.

Since it looks like new material is finally getting back on the schedule, there’s a couple Miracleman runs that are a little more topical.

First is the Alan Moore / Gary Leach / Alan Davis / John Totleben run. Originally started WAY pre-Watchmen, this is an early and influential post-modern superhero reconstruction with Moore resurrecting a 50s era UK superhero that’s a bit a of Captain Marvel (Shazam) clone and taking things to their logical conclusion with a mad scientist foe, a conspiracy and a sidekick gone wrong.  It’s been half-forgotten after being out of print for a long time and Marvel botched the initial rollout of the reprints. (Don’t ask about the pricing on their original reprints.)

So then Neil Gaiman and Mark Buckingham got passed the torch when Moore finished his story. “The Golden Age” shows an age where Miracleman sits atop Olympus, presiding over an “age of miracles,” like a god over the mere mortals on the ground. This is where the story will picked up from after all these years.

Miracleman   Miracleman by Gaiman & Buckingham

We have no idea what a Conan book is doing in this sale, but… we like the material. Conan Chronicles: Return to Cimmeria is from the Dark Horse era and features the endcap to the Kurt Busiek/Cary Nord run and the beginning of the Tim Truman/Tomas Giorello run.  Can’t complain about a Conan sale and we’re a little fuzzy what’s going to be happening with the reprints after the new material switches over to Titan.

Alias, which made it to Netflix as “Jessica Jones” is the Brian Bendis/Michael Gaydos hard drinking superpowered private eye series, now conveniently in 2 volumes.

Conan Chronicles   Alias

Oh, you want Ennis Punisher?  Well, browse the main link for some of his one-offs (there are several), but here’s an overview:

If you were expecting Thanatos…

The Marvel Thanos and the Infinity Gauntlet Sale runs through Monday, 8/22.

Thanos has become a saga, at least with the Starlin-driven material.

Avengers Vs. Thanos is a meaty ~470 page collection of the original ’70s appearances that were centered in Captain Marvel and Warlock.  You could make an argument that this is where “cosmic” Marvel was born. (It’s one of a handful of candidates.) Recommended.

And then Thanos was mostly on the shelf for ~13 years until Jim Starlin started writing Silver Surfer (with Ron Lim drawing… oh yes, those two would do some collaborating).  The Rebirth of Thanos arc was the “oh, snap” moment (pun intended) where Thanos resurfaced and the wheels were set in motion for The Infinity Gauntlet (with art by George Perez and Ron Lim).  And both of those are recommended, too.

There were two more Infinity sequels:

And a ton of supporting material.  “Infinity” and Adam Warlock were practically a sub-imprint for a couple years.

Starlin did more Thanos follow-ups over the years, culminating in a graphic novel trilogy:

Avengers Vs. Thanos   Rebirth of Thanos   Infinity Gauntlet

Bondage

The Dynamite James Bond Sale runs through Monday, 8/29.

There is one 007 comic we recommend above all others. Kill Chain by Andy Diggle and Luca Casalanguida is a great updating of the literary James Bond.  SMERSH is back and trying to undermine NATO… and assassinate a few people. This may be the best executing of melding the current political situation with Bond’s Cold War roots.  Highly recommended if you’re into this sort of thing.

While we’ve been waiting for the collected edition and can’t review, we have been really curious about James Bond: Himeros,  which has Rodney Barnes from Killadelphia and HBO’s Winning Time putting 007 up against sex traffickers. The single issues are $0.99.

James Bond Kill Chain   James Bond: Himeros

All-In Manga

The Kodansha End of Summer Line-Wide Sale runs through Monday, 8/22.

Cards upfront, we’re not as familiar with manga as we could be.  That said, (along with the rest of the world), we’ve really enjoyed Attack on Titan, a surprisingly complex series combining elements of horror and political thriller with a little bit of steampunk around the edges. It’s a little hard to discuss without a steady stream of spoilers. But it lives up to the hype.

$1.99 for the first volume of old school classic Ghost in the Shell strikes us as a good deal.

Although, in this case, it might be expensive. Most of the first volumes in the sale are $0.99.  So if you have a manga itch, it would behoove you to browse this one.

Attack on Titan   Ghost in the Shell

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Comixology Sales: Dawn of X, Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, Jim Starlin’s Dreadstar

This week’s Comixology sales include: Dawn of X from Marvel, DC loosing The Sandman (and Sandman Mystery Theater), Horror from Dark Horse and Omnibus editions from Dynamite.

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

Mutated Reading

The Marvel Dawn of X Sale runs through Thursday, 8/26.

Dawn of X is a different type of Marvel collected edition. This collects the titles of the Hickman X-Men line into a book format, but bounces between the various series in a manner similar to how one would read the issues as they came out. We’ve always felt that reading the  entire line was an additive experience and this is probably the best way to experience that in the collected edition format.  The 16 volumes of Dawn of X take you right up to the edge of X of Swords.

Dawn of X

The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of

The DC Spotlight: Sandman and the Sandman Universe Sales runs through Monday, 8/23.

We’re assuming you’re already heard of the  Neil Gaiman Sandman series. (Note: sub-50% discounts again)

So let’s talk a bit about the very loosely connect pulp spin-off Sandman Mystery Theater. It’s a pulp detective feature with a bit of subtext that’s primarily written by Matt Wagner and/or Steven T. Seagal. Guy Davis is the primary artist. It’s a lost classic from the ’90s as the Golden Age Sandman, replete with gas mask and gas gun stalks his prey.  This one DOES get you 50% off the collected editions (which will get you through issue#24) and 99-cent single issue.

Sandman   Sandman Mystery Theater

The Long, Hot… Halloween?

The Dark Horse Hot August Horror sale runs through Monday, 8/23.

Yes, we did hear it got a little warm in Portland.

You can’t have a Dark Horse Horror sale without the Mignolaverse. Rise of the Black Flame by Mike Mignola, Chris Roberson and Christopher Mitten is the tale of the Hellboy villain when the power was controlled by a cult.

In a different direction, there’s John Allison’s (Bad Machinery, Giant Days) Steeple.

And you ever notice that Steve Niles has done quite a bit of Criminal Macabre?

Rise of the Black Flame   Steeple   Criminal Macabre

Another One Rides the (Omni)Bus

The  Dynamite Omnibus Sale runs through Monday, 9/13.

We would draw your attention to two things here.

First, we’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, Jim Starlin’s Dreadstar is fantastic. It didn’t get quite as much attention when it came out from Epic and First, but it’s a large part of what he was working on between his first run at Marvel and when he returned for the run-up to Infinity Gauntlet.

Jeff Parker and Doc Shaner did an under the radar – and extremely fun – take on Flash Gordon a few years back that’s worth a look.

Dreadstar   Flash Gordon

Still on Sale

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Comixology Sales: The Joker, Transformers, War of the Realms, Vintage Jim Starlin, Young Avengers and Image gets Romantic(ish)

This week’s Comixology Sales highlights start with a celebration of the Joker. Then Marvel highlights the Young Avengers and Ware of the Realms. Valentine’s Day is over, but we look at what’s notable in Image’s romance sale anyway. Plus, Transformers galore and that the glory that is Dreadstar.

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

The Joke’s on who?

DC’s The Joker’s Greatest Jokes Sale runs through Monday (3/1).

If you’re going to get one “Best of” Joker collection, you’re going to want The Joker: A Celebration of 75 Years. Being a thicker collection makes it more complete, but moreover, we don’t think you can have a “Best of” that doesn’t include the Englehart/Rogers “Laughing Fish” storyline.

For something that doesn’t necessarily come immediately to mind, there’s the Joker arc of Gotham Central, the classic GPD series by Ed Brubaker & Greg Rucka with Michael Lark as the artist for this arc.

There’s a lot more Bat-family material in this one, though we weren’t sure the Joker is integral to (or even appearing in) all the titles in this sale.

Joker: Celebration of 75 Years   Gotham Central

No love for the Old Avengers

The Marvel Young Avengers Sales runs through Sunday 2/28.

Young Avengers by Allen Heinberg and Jim Cheung: The Complete Collection is the original, formative run. And for as short as it actually was, this is a fairly influential comic with everything from the recent Empyre Event to WandaVision on streaming having echoes of it.  Oh, there’s more Young Avengers material on sale, but this is one of the times to start at the beginning.  And yes, Young Avengers: Children’s Crusade is conspicuous by its absence.

Young Avengers

Why can’t The Realms just get along?

Marvel’s  War of the Realms Sale runs through Thursday (3/4).

This was a Thor-centric Jason Aarons event. As a Marvel Event, there were a ton of spin-off mini-series that tied in. Explore those at your leisure, but this War of the Realms is the tentpole series around which the Event revolved.

War of the Realms 

More off-kilter romance

The Image Romance Sale runs through Monday (3/8).

No, Image really isn’t a bastion of traditional romance, but they do have a few things that fall vaguely into that territory.

Twisted Romance is an anthology of, well… twisted romantic tales built around a set of Alex de Campi stories with some prose and shorter comics filling in around them. Notably, there’s some intergalactic space pirate romance with Carla Speed McNeil on the art.

My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies might not be the most romantic title in the sale, but it’s good book. A entry in Ed Brubaker / Sean Phillips crime catalog (as consistent a catalog as you’ll find these days), this one concerns murder and mayhem at a high end rehab clinic.  As always, recommended if you have an itch for crime comics.

Sex Criminals is the recently completed Matt Fraction / Chip Zdarsky off-color comedy about a couple who can freeze time when they have sex and use their ability to rob banks.  OK, there’s a bit more to it, but that’s the tried and true tagline.  All but the still-new final volume are on sale.

Twisterd Romance   My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies   Sex Criminals

All Hail Megatron has transformed into an omnibus

The IDW Transformers Sale runs through Thursday (3/4).

IDW has effectively treated the Transformers line as a saga. The original run of that is The Transformers: The IDW Collection series of omnibuses and is probably a good place to start here.

Fans of a certain age might also be interested in Transformers: Classics, which is the original Marvel Comics run.

Transformers: The IDW Collection   Transformers: Classics

Thicker editions

The Dynamite Select Omnibus Sale runs through Sunday (2/28).

Dreadstar Omnibus is the first 12 issues (and story arc) of Jim Starlin’s Dreadstar. Dreadstar was Starlin’s major work between wrapping up the original Captain Marvel / Warlock / Thanos saga and returning to Marvel (proper) for Silver Surfer and Infinity Gauntlet. (Sure, he did some Batman before returning, but Dreadstar is just on another level.) It’s the tale of the last survivor of the Milky Way taking on the corrupt Church of the Instrumentality as a rebel insurgency of sorts. An absolute classic of the first wave of creator owned comics in the ’80s.

The Shadow: Year One – Omnibus is an origin tale for The Shadow and Margo Lane, written by Matt Wagner (who’s done a lot with ’30s era heroes over the years) with art by Wilfredo Torres.

There’s a lot of Red Sonja and Vampirella on sale, too, if that floats your boat.

Dreadstar   The Shadow: Year One

Still on Sale

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Comixology Sales Roundup: Darth Vader, Miracleman, Punisher, Metal, Astro Boy, Umbrella Academy and Imports

This week in Comixology sales finds Marvel opening some slightly different vaults, DC venturing to dark place, Dark Horse being media-friendly and the joy of Jazz Maynard.

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

Darth Vader = Good Comics

Let’s start with the good stuff: the Marvel  Darth Vader Sale.  Darth Vader has been the best Star Wars title.  We’re mainly looking at two runs here: the all-caps EXCELLENT Kieron Gillen / Salvador Larroca run and the very good Charles Soule / Giuseppe Camuncoli run.

Two things to pay attention to:

1)Vader Down is the real V. 3 of the Gillen/Larroca run, you’ll need it.
2)We’d say the Soule/Camuncoli doesn’t really hit it’s stride until V.2 and the Jedi librarian.  Remember, you want the 6-issue original tpbs of this run, much cheaper than the 12 issue collections.

This sale runs through Sunday (1/10).

Vader  Vader Series 2  Vader Down

“The Original Writer” and Marvel Max Titles

Then you’ve got the Marvel Max sale that runs through Thursday (1/14).  Marvel Max being theoretically for grownups and usually is more violent (although you have your odd adult situations and a childbirth scene).

Let’s start off with Miracleman – Parental Advisory Edition. Yeah, there’s a childbirth scene in there.  Sense 8 wasn’t the first to have one of those, even if they were, perhaps, a bit more fixated on it.  The “Original Writer” in the credits is Alan Moore. He doesn’t have the best relations with Marvel.  Artists on this include Gary Leach, Alan Davis, John Ridgeway, Rick Veitch and John Totleben. It’s an early more post-modern deconstruction where Miracleman (originally Marvelman, a UK knock-off of Captain Marvel after it Fawcett lost the DC lawsuit and ceased publication) awakens after a time… away and all sorts of unpleasantness follows.  Hugely influential comic that was out of circulation for quite some time.

This sequence is followed by Miracleman by Gaiman & Buckingham, Vol 1.: The Golden Age. Yes, that would be Neil Gaiman and Mark Buckingham. One day, there might be another volume in this series. It’s been talked about for a very long time.

Miracleman   Miracleman by Gaiman & Buckingham

The Garth Ennis Punisher runs have always been a big part of Marvel Max.  You can still get his excellent and hilarious “Welcome Back Frank” sequence with Steve Dillon in this sale, but we’d point out the more serious Punisher run Ennis did with Leandro Fernandez, Darick Robertson, Doug Braithwaite and Goran Parlov, among others.  It’s a quality, hard as nails run that doesn’t always get the fanfare of the lighter version.  Punisher Max: The Complete Collection V. 1-4 covers the Ennis run.

Punisher Max

A Trail of Infinity Events

The Infinity Gauntlet sale runs through Thursday (1/14). We say go back to the originals.  Avengers Vs. Thanos collects the original Captain Marvel and Warlock sequences by Jim Starlin, the father of this saga.  Infinity Gauntlet started the current cycle, written by Starlin with art by George Perez and Ron Lim.

If you’re looking at the Jonathan Hickman’s Avengers sequence – and it’s a true epic – know that you can’t do into it halfway.  It’s all or nothing.  Avengers, New Avengers, Infinity, Time Runs Out AND Secret Wars.  That’s one long, complex story.

Avengers Vs. Thanos   Infinity Gauntlet

DC Goes Dark

DC’s Darkest Hour Sale runs through Monday (1/11) and it’s a fairly small sale.  DCeased and the Dark Night: Metal titles.  It’s quick to browse, but we feel obliged to point out you can save a little money getting the DCeased and Dark Nights: Metal (the main book) as $0.99 single issues.

Dark Nights: Metal

Import Goodness

The Magnetic Press New Year’s Linewide Sale runs through Monday (1/11) and it’s filled with some absolutely lovely European imports.  Seriously, browse some of those books.  Top flight art.  What we’d really like to draw your attention to here is Jazz Maynard by Raule and Roger Ibanez Ugena.  Formally, it’s about an ex-con getting dragged back into his old world, but this comic is more about how the story is told.  A noir-ish tale of a rogue, it reminded us of a modern setting for Corto Maltese and we’re not ones to invoke a Corto Maltese vibe lightly.

Jazz Maynard

DH Transmedia Options

The  Dark Horse Screen to Comics Sale runs through Monday (1/11) and has a fair amount of comics to screen. It’s comics based on TV & movies AND comics that have been adapted.  Things like Osamu Tezuka’s Astro Boy manga.  (Note: the first bundle is really V.1 & 2 in the same package. $3.99 for 424 pages is good deal.)  Hellboy is one of Dark Horse’s flagship properties. Your best value there is the Omnibus editions, some of which have pretty generous page counts. Umbrella Academy is the current Dark Horse media adaption star over at Netflix.

Astro Boy   Hellboy   Umbrella Academy

Posted on by comics_p1pusl