Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Captain America: Sam Wilson; Nightwing; Ghost Rider and The Midnight Sons; Siege; Grendel; Masters of the Universe

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel discounts Sam Wilson’s adventure as Captain America (and as The Falcon), Ghost Rider and the Midnight Sons get a price drop, as does Siege. DC puts the discount spotlight on family; Dark Horse cuts prices on Grendel, Masters of the Universe, and Lone Wolf & Cub.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

Oh, Captain, My Captain

Captain America & the Falcon: Madbomb  Captain America & the Falcon by Christopher Priest  Captain America: Symbol of Truth

The Marvel Captain America: Sam Wilson Sale runs through Monday, 5/13

This would be Sam Wilson, the former Falcon, in the role as Cap. And really there are two halves to this sale. The Sam-as-Captain America side includes:

Then you’ve got the original series where Sam is merely the Falcon. We’d put the highlights of these offerings as:

  • Captain America: Secret Empire and Captain America: Nomad – These are the classic Steve Englehart / Sal Buscema arcs that most people have near or at the top of the Captain America cannon. You hear a bit of shouting about how this was one of the original “political” comics. It’s true – the subtext of Secret Empire is all about Nixon and Watergate, but filtered through more of a Hydra-type lens. Nomad can be read as Steve Rogers reacting to Watergate, but through the Marvel filter, which involves a certain Skull…
  • Captain America: Madbomb is the first big arc from Jack Kirby’s return to Captain America in the ’70s. Steve and Sam face down a conspiracy of billionaires trying to destabilize the country through bombs that makes people explode with rage and riot. Plus… “Killderby.” Another adventure with subtext that seems to remain relevant.
  • Captain America & The Falcon by Christopher Priest – The Complete Collection – Priest / Bart Sears / Joe Bennett; This is an under the radar run that has Steve and Sam chasing nested conspiracies involving a drug cartel, an “anti-Cap” who might be working for the Navy and MODOK.

Family Ties

Nightwing  Power of Shazam  Jimmy Olsen

The DC Families Sale runs through Monday, 5/13.

Families? Think Superman Family and Batman Family and you’ll be close to the spirit of this sale.  A few things we noticed:

  • Batwoman by Greg Rucka and J.H. Williams – Their Detective Comics run is still the gold standard for the character.
  • Green Lantern Corps (’86) – The Steve Englehart / Joe Staton run
  • Nightwing – See the Tom Taylor / Bruno Redondo volumes at the bottom of the page. We think this is the first time V. 4 has been discounted?
  • Poison Ivy – G. Willow Wilson / Marcio Takara; We think this is the first time V. 2 has been discounted?
  • The Power of Shazam – Jerry Ordway / Peter Krause; Ordway’s updating of the original Captain Marvel and the Fawcett heroes paid a little more attention to the source material than several of the revivals.
  • Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen by Jack Kirby – This is effectively Kirby’s Superman title and part of the Fourth World line. Plus… Don Rickles! (No, really.) More influential than you might realize.
  • Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen: Who Killed Jimmy Olsen? – Matt Fraction & Steve Lieber’s hilarious ode to Silver Age Jimmy Olsen, that’s also a legit mystery story and tour of the DCU. Jimmy wakes up hungover and married in Gorilla City and that’s before things start getting strange. We crave a sequel, but the stars would need to align. Highest possible recommendation if you want something fun that also has a plot.

After Midnight

Spirits of Vengeance Ghost Rider Ghost Rider

The Marvel Midnight Sons Sale runs through Monday, 5/13.

Midnight Sons was a supernatural team that ran through some of Marvel’s mid-90s titles like Ghost Rider, Morbius, and, later on, a few issues of Doctor Strange.

Spirits of Vengeance: Rise of the Midnight Sons collects the opening sequence across the various titles.

Midnight Suns is the Ethan Sacks / Luigi Zagaria revival from a couple years back.

Past those volumes, this is largely a Ghost Rider / Morbius sale.

Ghost Rider

As a bonus, the absurdity of Cosmic Ghost Rider:

You can find the first few years of Morbius in Epic format.

Exiting the Dark

Siege: Prelude  Siege  Siege: New Avengers

The Marvel Siege Sale runs through Monday, 5/13.

The Siege in question is the final act of Marvel Dark Reign era.  Dark Reign was an attempt to have an Event without a miniseries running through the middle of it. In the aftermath of Secret Invasion, Norman Osborne consolidates power, replaces the Avengers with an original Thunderbolts-like “Dark Avengers” reporting to him and generally tries to take over the world… and he’s making progress.  Siege has him pushing his luck and attempting to take over Asgard.

The core would be:

  • Siege: Prelude – the run-up, collecting issues across the Marvel landscape
  • Siege – the main story by Brian Bendis / Olivier Coipel

From here, you can plug in other titles as you’re interested. Bendis, the architect here, also penned:

The Unlisted Directory

Grendel Omnibus  Lone Wolf and Cub  Masters of the Universe: Revelation

Multiple Dark Horse sales dropped this week.

Remember Matt Wagner’s Grendel, one of the longest lived indie series out there?

Lone Wolf and Cub – Kazuo Koike & Goseki Kojima produced one of, possibly THE, best samurai tales… with a twist. Itto Ogami has been framed, along with his infant son, he bides his time working as an assassin while he awaits the opportunity for revenge. Classic series.

Masters of the Universe (otherwise known as He-Man)

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Still on Sale

Comixology at Amazon Sales, Comicon Edition: DC’s SDCC Sale, Spider-Man 2099, Blade, the *Rest* of Dark Horse’s Line Wide Sale

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, it’s San Diego Comic-Con time. While only DC has a formal SDCC, Marvel’s got Blade and Spider-Man 2099 on sale and Amazon remembered to display the rest of the titles in Dark Horse’s massive 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):

You Say There’s a Convention This Weekend?!?

The DC SDCC Sale runs through Monday, 7/24.

Somebody had to have a San Diego Comicon sale and it looks like DC got elected. Let’s have a look around for some of the better prices and content.

Batman: The Adventures Continue for $2.99?  Yes, please! For the uninitiated, this is Batman: The Animated Series writers/executives Alan Burnett & Paul Dini returning to continue where the cartoon left off. Ty Templeton is that artist and the whole this is pretty great. This one brings The Red Hood into the animated continuity. (Yes, think about that for a moment…)

A few more gems for $2.99 a pop

Batman: The Adventures Continue   Gotham Central   Superman: Red Son

Jonah Hex: Shadows West is now an oddity we don’t always see highlighted. It collects the three excellent Jonah Hex mini-series by Joe R. Lansdale and Tim Truman. These stories put the “weird” in weird western and could accurately be called western horror. 387 pages for $3.99 is a steal.

A few more books we think highly of at the $3.99 price point:

Jonah Hex: Shadows West   Jimmy Olsen   Wonder Woman: Dead Earth

If you’re looking for big chunks of comics, here are a couple things at the $5.99 price point:

Doom Patrol: The Silver Age V.1 – is an Arnold Drake / Bruno Premiani experience. We don’t see this one at the $5.99 level so often (check on Saturday to see if V.2 has dropped, as well… it currently has an odd price point). This is where the Doom Patrol started. Lots of similarities to early X-Men (which started independently at roughly the same time), but more pathos. 374 pages.

Legion of Super-Heroes: The Great Darkness Saga is one of the more iconic DC tales of the 80s and shows up highly on “best stories” lists to this day. Elevator pitch: The Legion vs. Darkseid. This collection starts with the runup to the tale with some Paul Levitz/Pat Broderick stories and then Keith Giffen tags in as artist and collaborator for the famous ride. It’s a good one. 414 pages of mayhem.

Doom Patrol   Legion of Super Heroes The Great Darkness Saga

Because “Stake” Would Be Too on the Nose

The  Marvel Blade Sale runs through Monday, 7/24.

That would be the Daywalker and vampire slayer who’s better known through the films than the comic.

We feel pretty strongly that Blade is best experienced in his original context – a supporting character in Tomb of DraculaIt’s not clear you can call Tomb of Dracula an under-the-radar 70s classic anymore, since it’s gotten a fair amount of exposure since the Essentials line (finally) collected it ~20 years ago, but now it’s in color reprints. One note, though – you need to give the series six or seven issues to get moving. There were some false starts until Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan were paired up… but after they’ve got a couple issues under their belt, this one really takes off.

Blade: Black & White is a collection of… that’s right, the black & white adventures over the years and is built around some magazine appearances in Vampire Tales and Marvel Preview. Wolfman and Chris Claremont are the primary writers for that period. Colan and Tony DeZuniga are the primary artists.

If you’re looking for something has resembles the film franchise a bit more, there’s Blade: The Complete Collection by Marc Guggenheim (with Howard Chaykin as artist).

Tomb of Dracula   Blade: Black and White   Blade

76 Years Away

The Marvel Spider-Man 2099 Sale runs through Monday, 7/24.

Yes, 2099 was a line for Marvel in ’90s. Spider-Man  2099 was the flagship and longest lasting of the bunch. Peter David wrote it and Rick Leonardi is the artist most associated with it. Note: the omnibus is a better value.

What else was in the line (that’s been collected and is on sale?)

  • Doom 2099 – This collection is the Warren Ellis run with Pat Broderick and Steve Pugh as the main illustrators
  • X-Men 2099 The beginning arc with John Francis Moore and Ron Lim
  • Deadpool 2099 – What? You don’t remember this? Ha ha! Marvel is slipping in a collection of a few Gerry Duggan / Scott Koblish issues from the ’15 run of Deadpool!
  • Amazing Spider-Man: 2099 – The 2099 arc from the Nick Spencer run with Patrick Gleason on art duties

No Ravage 2099 / Punisher 2099 / Ghost Rider 2099 collections to be seen, if you were wondering.

Spider-Man 2099   Doom 2099   X-Men 2099

They Fixed It

The  Dark Horse Everything Digital Sale runs through Monday, 7/31.  And now it’s showing the old catalog. Filed under “better late than never.” So let’s look at some less trendy, yet interesting items from the back catalog that we haven’t seen in a while.

Looking for something that’s filed under “classic?” Look no further than The Complete Elfquest by Richard and Wendy Pini.  Yes, Elfquest had a 40-year run with that original quest. Very few comic books hang on to their creators for that kind of a run. No two ways about that!

Another classic is Nexus by Mike Baron and Steve Rude (with notable guest artists like Paul Smith, Adam Hughes, Rick Veitch and Jose Luis Garcia Lopez). We revisited this one during lockdown and enjoyed it. This is an odd book. There are superhero trappings, but Nexus is a reluctant assassin and this is a science fiction adventure. There are cold war trappings and a bit of satire around the edges. Plenty of world building. 6 omnibuses of the original run and two more of the new material after Dark Horse liberated the rights from the defunct First Comics.

Something that was probably under your radar? Nobody seems to remember The Light Brigade when it came out from DC. This would be a Peter J. Tomasi/Peter Snejbjerg historical/urban fantasy about a WWII platoon tasked by a higher power to retrieve the Sword of God before an unkillable Nazi unit can lay hands on it. A highly entertaining adventure that’s worth a little more attention.

And a few more things that might not be at the top of the mind that we’ve enjoyed over the years:

Elfquest   Nexus   Light Brigade

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Still On Sale