Mike Carey Archives - Comics.Cheap

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

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Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

Son of X

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

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

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

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

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

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

! = ?

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

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

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

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

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

DC’s Current Partial Sale

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

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

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

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

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

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