Tag: Nexus

Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Comic-Con Edition – Batman; The Hunger and the Dusk; Line-Wide Dark Horse Discounts

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, DC celebrates SDCC with discounts, Dark Horse goes half-off and The Hunger and the Dusk should be cheap enough for you.

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):

We’re smack dab in the middle of San Diego Comic-Con, which is partially reflected by this week’s sales. We say partially, because Marvel didn’t see fit to issue a new sale this week. They’re content to keep a Wolverine and a couple Deadpool sales we’ve covered in previous weeks active (see links at the bottom). But that’s not to say there aren’t some new things to look at:

Unannounced Sale of the Week

The Hunger and the Dusk

The Hunger & The Dusk, V.1 – G. Willow Wilson / Chris Wildgoose; This collected edition has only been out for around 6 weeks. It really should not be $1.99, but somehow it is. (And we’re not sure for how long, so don’t sleep on it.)

As it happens, we read this very collection a couple weeks back and loved it. It’s an Epic Fantasy where despite deteriorating land conditions drawing the humans and orcs into deeper conflict, the two must form a shaky alliance to fend off invaders. Invaders that just might be smarter than they let on. And it’s character-driven, to boot.

We think this is Wilson’s best work since maybe Cairo and Air back at Vertigo. (Cairo is vastly underappreciated.)  If you like Epic Fantasy / sword and sorcery, take a $2 flier on this one.

For the Love of Comic-Con

Batman: The Brave and the Bold: The Winning Card  The Human Target  World's Finest

The DC at SDCC Sale runs through Monday, 7/29.

Yes, the San Diego Comic-Con is going on through the weekend. You might even be there? (We’re not. This is comics.cheap and there is no such thing as ComiconHotel.cheap!)

This week sees another mix of DC products whose display is incredibly random on the Amazon/Comixology page, so let’s run down some of the things we found interesting:

  • Batman: The Brave and the Bold: The Winning Card – Tom King / Mitch Gerads… we’re assuming you’re familiar with that pairing by now?
  • Batman: Killing Time – Tom King / David Marquez; Something of a villain-centric noir caper… that comes recommended from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, no less
  • Gotham City: Year One – Tom King / Phil Hester; A proper hardboiled detective story about a kidnapping that also details how Gotham City got the way it is. This is Slam Bradley story with a little Batman around the outer edges
  • Human Target – Tom King / Greg Smallwood; All-round excellent 2-volume series where the Human Target looks for who poisoned him and the Bwa Ha Ha Ha Justice League are the main suspects; Manages to dance between a dark mystery and Bwa Ha Ha flawlessly. And that art!
  • JLApe: The Complete Collection – A collection that just might make a monkey out of you
  • The Nice House on the Lake – James Tynion IV / Alvaro Martinez Bueno; This very effective horror tale of the end of the world (with imminent sequel) is now in one volume
  • One-Star Squadron – Mark Russell / Steve Lieber; A brilliant seriocomic send-up of the gig economy as Red Tornado tries to run a sort of heroes for hire app
  • Superman (’23) – Josh Williamson / Jamal Campbell; The current series is a rock solid “classic” Superman series; recommended
  • World’s Finest – Mark Waid / Dan Mora; A serious contender for DC’s best title. Mora will be taking on the “normal” Superman title soon, too.

Events

You may have noticed DC’s been leaning into the Events lately. Here are the last few:

Feeling Grimm About Comicon?
Grimm Tales of Terror  Grimm Tales of Terror

The Zenescope Grimm Tales of Terror Sale runs through Saturday, 8/17

This sales comes in two flavors:

Wide-Scale Unannounced Sale

Goldfish  Martha Washington  Nexus

It seems that Dark Horse has a mostly line-wide 50% off sale, excepting recent releases and a few things where perhaps the price wasn’t updated. This is stilted towards the collected editions. The question is how does a person properly browse this?

Not very easily. Amazon does not make it easy to sort by publisher.

This link will get you a _very_ unsorted stream of Dark Horse titles to pick through.

And let’s drop links for some of the usual suspect series while we’re at it:

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: The “Best of 2022” Sales drop with Spidey & Moon Knight; Plus, Dark Horse Superheroes

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, we look at the best of the Marvel Masterworks sale plus holiday sales from Image and Dynamite.

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):

The holiday sales have ended and the “regular” sales has resumed… except, DC seems to still have the holiday deep discount spirit.

Best of 2020 2022 – Marvel Edition

The Marvel Spotlight on 2022 Sale runs through Monday, 1/30.

Yes, we can speak to Marvel’s ’22, though we’ll keep it to series that have a V.1 on sale. (No sense sending you into the middle of something, the way these runs tend to work).

The Jed MacKay section, since he had a bit of a breakout year at Marvel:

Moon Knight is MacKay and Alessandro Cappuccio setting up a new status quo for Moon Knight, a character with so many drastically different takes on him, he’s sort of Marvel’s Hawkman in that respect. MacKay and Cappuccio are methodically incorporating and rationalizing the different versions. Moon Knight has opened a “Midnight Mission” to continue his work for Konshu… after a fashion. He’s seeing a therapist. There are vampires on the loose and a rival emissary of Konshu. A somewhat unpredictable ride, but that’s a definite plus.

The Death of Doctor Strange can function as a standalone, but it’s really the first act in a longer arc. MacKay and Lee Garbett kill off Stephen Strange, but not exactly the way you were expecting. A clever book.

Strange is the next act. Clea Strange has assumed the mantle of Sorcerer Supreme. She’s trying to find a way to resurrect Stephen, but keeps butting heads with a group of paranormal gangsters calling themselves “The Blasphemy Cartel.” MacKay is joined by Marcelo Ferreira on art.

Moon Knight x The Death of Doctor Strange x Strange

Also good:

The Marvels is Kurt Busiek and Yildiray Cinar (with Alex Ross covers) doing a story from more of a Marvels (the 90s painted series). The point of view here is an outsider who’s collected some superhero/villain technology and finds himself dragged along on an adventure. Lady Lotus, the Invaders villain is taking over the country of Siancong, in plot that has its origins back in World War II. The scope takes you from there to the present day for a big tour of the Marvel universe with an excursion to some… unusual corners. Basically, a showcase for classic Marvel. (Both volumes are on sale, so treat this like a 2-parter.)

The Defenders: There Are No Rules by Al Ewing and Javier Rodriguez find Doctor Strange and… The Masked Rider organizing an inter-dimensional posse of sorts. Very cosmic, very mind-bending and Rodriquez is really outdoing himself here.

Amazing Spider-Man by Zeb Wells and John Romita, Jr. is another recent title we’ve been enjoying. The first arc, with Tombstone, is a bit more serious than we were expecting, but the tone shifts a bit more Wells-like with arc two. Romita is as icon a Spidey artist as his father, so it’s good to see him back on the book.

Marvels   Defenders   Amazing Spider-Man

The Literary Roots of WandaVision

The Marvel Scarlet Witch Sale runs through Monday, 1/9.

Vison & The Scarlet Witch, as the pair were colloquially known for much of their time at Marvel are kind of a strange one to go looking for collections of, largely because most of their adventures were as supporting cast members in The Avengers.

Vision and the Scarlet Witch: The Saga of Wanda and Vision collects their Wedding from Giant-Sized Avengers #4, the ’82 mini-series by Bill Mantlo and Rick Leonardi and the ’85 maxi-series by Steve Englehart and Richard Howell. Usually, it’s that maxi-series that gets referenced the most, but this is as complete a set of early (ish) solo adventures as exists.

Now, it you want something a little closer to the TV show, there’s the John Byrne run of Avengers West Coast. “Vision Quest” is where Vision is disassembled and rebuilt with the white body and revelations are made about her children. “Darker than Scarlet” is the first time Wanda snaps.

If you want Wanda wholesale rewriting reality, that’s more House of M and the Avengers: Disassembled that leads into it and those aren’t in the sale.  WandaVision is a goofy fit with the comics in some ways.

Vision and the Scarlet Witch   Avengers West Coast

Best of 2020 2022 – DC Edition

The DC Best of 2022 sale runs through Monday, 1/30.

Oof! We hope you were taking advantage of DC’s unusually good discounts at their holiday sale, ’cause the collected editions we’re seeing this week are largely things that were on sale last week, too… except now they’re at least twice as expensive. We’re not going to highlight those.

All the way at the bottom of the sale page is a selection of (mostly) $1.99 single issues. Yes, we know… they’re not $0.99 anymore, but they did somewhat rotate the selection. Here are some highlights. You should know the drill by now… with longer running titles like Batman, you may need to scroll down a little to get to where things are on sale.

Dark Capes

The Dark Horse Superhero Sale runs through Monday, 1/30.

Yes, Dark Horse has a few superheroes. They even have their own line.

We did a re-read of Nexus over the last couple years and Omnibus line holds up. (We’d also forgotten how many issues Paul Smith drew.) Nexus is sort of a science fiction/superhero mash about a man who reluctantly becomes a superpowered assassin for a mysterious alien. Nexus has nightmares about the mass murderers he’s to kill and they won’t go away until the deed is done. Lots of world building in this one. Mike Baron writes the whole thing and Steve Rude is the primary artist. Omnibuses 1-6 are the original Capital City/First Comics run, V. 7 picks up when the license moved to Dark Horse. Yes, Nexus is still around.

For something way off the beaten path, there’s The Best of Milligan & McCarthy. That would be Peter Milligan (Shade, the Changing Man; Hellblazer; X-Statix) and Brendan  McCarthy (Judge Dredd, Strange Days, and believe it or not, the co-writer of Mad Max: Fury Road). These two collaborated a lot in their early days in the UK market with the best known bits in the US probably being the Strange Days mini-series from Eclipse. It fits in here because of their Paradax strip. Trippy would be the key term for these two.

With Brian Bendis moving his base of operations to Dark Horse, that means Powers is getting a new edition. Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming are the creators of this long running (on again, off again… with 4 relaunches as they’ve switched publishers) police procedural about the cops who investigate those with superhuman abilities. The police aren’t supposed to have powers, but… that would be getting ahead of ourselves. This was one of the early hits that eventually led Bendis to Marvel and it’s a quality series. Perhaps better read in collected edition, since you aren’t trying to figure out the publishing schedule (which has probably diluted the reputation of the series).

Nexus   The Best of Milligan and McCarthy   Powers

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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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