original sin Archives - Comics.Cheap

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel discounts Uncanny X-Men and Original Sin. DC cuts pricing for their “start here” titles. Dark Horse has sales on Elfquest and Bendis.

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):

DC’s Starting Line

The DC Start Here sale runs through Monday, 2/3.

Hello, more holiday prices and plenty of $1.99 books in the mix. It looks like this is largely, but not completely, a first volume in the series sale. Well, let’s be rebels and concentrate on good reads that are a little more self-contained, shall we? (But it’s worth your time to have a good browse through the actual sale. It’s quite long and the prices are good.)

All-Star Superman – Grant Morrison / Frank Quitely; A love letter to the Silver Age Superman and something a certain Mr. Gunn has been recommending as a touchpoint
Batman: The Complete Hush – Jeph Loeb / Jim Lee; It’s not like they’re doing a sequel… or are they?
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns – Frank Miller; One of the books that launched post-modernism
Batman: Killing Time – Tom King / David Marquez; A noir heist caper with Gotham’s villains bickering over the loot as Batman’s pursuit gets closer
Batman: The Long Halloween – Jeph Loeb / Tim Sale; The classic tale of Batman hunting a murderer who slays on holidays
- Batman: Dark Victory – the sequel
- Batman: Haunted Knight – The Loeb/Sale specials that preceded The Long Halloween
Batman: Tales of the Demon – Denny O’Neil / Neal Adams / Don Newton; The original Ra’s al Ghul tales, including the ’79-’80 return in Detective.
Tales of the Batman: Steve Englehart – Englehart / Marshall Rogers / Walter Simonson; All of Englehart’s Batman. If the original Detective run isn’t the best Batman run, it’s at least top 3. Highly recommended
Batman: Year One – Frank Miller / David Mazzucchelli; Miller’s take on Batman’s origin
Batwoman by Greg Rucka and J.H. Williams – Get their complete collaboration with this volume. Great run.
Camelot 3000 – Mike W. Barr / Brian Bolland; The Knights of Camelot return to fend off an alien invasion
Challengers of the Unknown by Jack Kirby – Dave Wood / Jack Kirby; Kirby’s ’58 hit for DC is a pretty much a dry run for the Fantastic Four, except the villains are the ones with powers
DC: The New Frontier – Darwyn Cooke’s masterpiece about the dawn of the Silver Age. All in one volume. 500 pages / $2.99 and a highest possible recommendation
The Demon by Jack Kirby – Kirby’s horror-adventure series about a man bound to a demon by Merlin
Dial H – China Mieville / Alberto Ponticelli / Mateus Santolouco; OK, Mieville has been the dean of “weird fiction” for quite some time, but now that he’s collaborated with Keanu on a BZRKR novel (quite good, btw), you might take interest in his take on Dial H for Hero. Mostly under the radar, but wonderfully bizarre
Far Sector – N.K. Jemisin / Jamal Campbell; A rookie Green Lantern with an experimental ring investigates a murder on a planet that hasn’t seen violence in 500 years. Excellent worldbuilding. Highly recommended
Final Crisis – Grant Morrison / J.G. Jones / Doug Mahnke / Carlos Pacheco; Darkseid takes over in this Event and this has the necessary tie-ins. 456 pages for $1.99
The Flash: Savage Velocity – Mike Baron / William Messner-Loebs / Jackson Guice / Mike Collins; The beginning of the Wally West Flash era with the full Baron run and beginning of Messner-Loeb’s tenure
The Forever People by Jack Kirby – Jack Kirby; A Fourth World collection
Gotham City: Year One – Tom King / Phil Hester; The story of how Gotham City got so bad as Slam Bradley involves the kidnapping of the Wayne baby
The Huntress- Origins – Paul Levitz / Joe Staton; The collected solo adventures of The Huntress, back when the character was the daughter of Batman and Catwoman.
Jonah Hex: Welcome To Paradise – John Albano / Michael Fleischer / Tony DeZuniga; Early (70s) stories we don’t always see at a discount
Jonah Hex: Shadows West – Joe R. Lansdale / Tim Truman; All three of the Lansdale/Truman series with a weird western/horror angle on Hex. Under the radar these days, but high octane weird. 387 pages
Kingdom Come – Mark Waid / Alex Ross; A dystopian confrontation between the old guard and new heroes… or a critique of the the grim’n’gritty era?
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen – Alan Moore, Kevin O’Neill; Just pretend the godawful film doesn’t exist. Moore & O’Neill assemble a team of reluctant government operatives from ~1880s SF/F and Horror literature. And a bit more accurately than many of the media adaptions (particularly Nemo). Wonderful series with very funny and subversive advertisements (you’ll see)
Legion of Super-Heroes: The Great Darkness Saga – Paul Levitz / Keith Giffen; A 400+ page volume with arguably the greatest Legion tale… for $1.99, cheap
- Legion of Super-Heroes: The Curse – Paul Levitz / Keith Giffen; The next ~500 pages of Legion after Great Darkness
Manhunter by Archie Goodwin and Walter Simonson Deluxe Edition – Simply one of the best adventure comics of all time, as you might guess from Archie and Walt collaborating. Highest possible recommendation
Mister Miracle by Jack Kirby – Jack Kirby; Kirby’s Fourth World series about a son of New Genesis who was raised on Apokalypse and became the greatest escape artist across all those worlds
Mister Miracle (’17-’19) – Tom King / Mitch Gerads; The Eisner winning series where Scott Free tries to escape death itself
The Multiversity – Grant Morrison / Frank Quitely / Ivan Reis; A tale that hops across parallel Earths as Morrison goes wild with world-building. 450 pages
New Gods by Jack Kirby – Jack Kirby; The original tale of Darkseid and Peak Kirby. Highly recommended
Night Force (’82-83) – Marv Wolfman / Gene Colan; The Tomb of Dracula team reunites at DC for a horror book about a mansion that contains a portal through space and time and its mysterious owner. Marv told us this is his favorite of his work and we happily recommend it
OMAC : One Man Army Corps by Jack Kirby – Jack Kirby; Kirby’s adventure-satire about a corporate dystopian future has aged well and has more bite than you might expect
One-Star Squadron – Mark Russell / Steve Leiber; A pitch black satire of the gig economy as Red Tornado attempts to run a heroes for hire app
Ronin – Frank Miller; Something of an experimental comic at the time, this is Miller’s mashup of cyberpunk and samurai mixing reincarnation, demons and cyborgs
Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow – Tom King / Bilquis Evely; Another James Gunn favorite
Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen by Jack Kirby – Jack Kirby; A fourth world entrant, this is effectively Kirby’s Superman book. Also where Project Cadmus and the DNAliens come from. Don’t shun it because it’s ’70s Jimmy Olsen. It’s Kirby doing adventure
Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen: Who Killed Jimmy Olsen? – Matt Fraction / Steve Lieber; A comedy masterpiece. Jimmy wakes up hung over and freshly married in Gorilla City… and that’s before he has to figure out who’s trying to ice him. Tour de force
Superman: Red Son – Mark Millar / Dave Johnson Killian Plunkett; What If baby Kal-El’s rocket landed in the Soviet Union? (See what we did there?)
Superman Smashes the Klan – Gene Yang / Gurihiru;
Swamp Thing: The Bronze Age, Vol. 1 – Len Wein / Bernie Wrightson; The original run, which is universally considered a classic for good reason
Top 10 – Alan Moore / Gene Ha / Zander Cannon; Eisner-winning mixing of superheroes with a Hill Street Blues style police procedural; highly recommended
V for Vendetta – Alan Moore / David Lloyd; A tale of resistance in an authoritarian dystopia. And it seems it’s listed as an “eTextbook.” Such a world we live in
Watchmen – Alan Moore / Dave Gibbons – We assume you don’t need this one explained to you

X Marks the Price Tag

The Marvel Uncanny X-Men Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 2/4.

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 as with the later series, and there are some Event collections in the sale, too.

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. (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.

Point of Origin

The Marvel Original Sin Sale runs through Monday, 1/27.

This would be the Marvel Event by Jason Aaron and Mike Deodato where the Marvel heroes investigate the murder of The Watcher.

Original Sin is the core series.

Original Sin: Hulk Vs. Iron Man by Mark Waid, Kieron Gillen and Mark Bagley is really Original Sin 3.1-3.4

Original Sin: Thor & Loki: The Tenth Realm by Jason Aaron, Al Ewing, Simone Bianchi and Lee Garbett is really Original Sin 5.1 – 5.5

As with most Marvel Events, there are plenty of tie-ins and all manner ways to read them (that involve flipping between collections), but that’s the most central set.

Unannounced Sales

Dark Horse is having an Elfquest sale.

The Complete Elfquest is the omnibus series that will take you all the way from the beginning through The Final Quest. It’s a very good value.

ElfQuest: Stargazer’s Hunt Complete Edition, illustrated by Sonny Strait, is Skywise’s adventure that follows The Final Quest.

Dark Horse has a big block of Brian Bendis titles on sale. Let’s hit the numbers first:

Brilliant – Bendis / Mark Bagley
Cover – Bendis / David Mack
Fortune & Glory – Bendis
Goldfish – Bendis
Jinx – Bendis
Joy Operations – Bendis / Stephen Byrne
Masterpiece – Bendis / Alex Maleev
Murder, Inc. – Bendis / Oeming; for unknown reasons, you need to go here for V. 2
The Ones – Bendis / Jacob Edgar
Pearl – Bendis / Michael Gaydos
Powers – Bendis / Oeming
Scarlet – Bendis / Alex Maleev
Takio – Bendis / Oeming
Torso – Bendis / Marc Andreyko

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

The original comics
The current comics (keyed towards the Netflix incarnation)

Also on sale:

Nancy: A Comic Collection – Olivia Jaimes

The Marvel “Maybe” Sales

The trend continues. New releases at lower than expected price points and discounted pre-orders. Is this the new normal? We’re not sure, but let’s run them down.

Dropping This Week

Alien: Black, White & Blood – Colin Kelly / Jackson Lanzing / Paul Jenkins / Cody Ziglar / Michael Dowling; $6.99

Dropping Next Week

Hellverine: Resurrection – Ben Percy / Julius Ohta; $6.99
Star Wars: Jango Fett – Trail Of Lost Hope – Ethan Sacks / Luke Ross

Still on Sale

The Kodansha Catch up with: Medaka Kuroiwa Sale runs through Monday, 1/27
Titan Comics: The Horror, The Eerie & The Strange Sale runs through Friday, 1/31

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, we’ve got discounts on Kieron Gillen’s Marvel work – Eternals / Uncanny X-Men / Journey Into Mystery / etc.; Marvel’s Original Sin Event; another big block of DC collections, including Sandman; IDW cuts the prices on some classic newspaper strip collections; and we couldn’t really have a new season of Umbrella Academy without a sale on the original material, could we?

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):

Journey into Gillen

The Marvel Kieron Gillen Sale runs through Monday, 6/27.

We find it really sad that a “Marvel” Gillen sale does not include our two favorite works of the bunch: Darth Vader and Doctor Aphra. Yes, there will other Star Wars sales, but if you’re talking Gillen, that’s what we’d put at the top of the heap.

So let’s start out with a cleaner recap of the major items in this sale:

The Eternals with Eric Ribić. $0.99 single issues only and the collected edition is NOT on sale for reasons known only to Amazon and/or Marvel.
War Hammer 40,000: Marneus Calgar with Jacen Burrows
Journey Into Mystery (i.e. Loki) with Doug Braithwaite and Richard Elson (among others) – omnibus editions
Uncanny X-Men – omnibus editions
Young Avengers with Jamie McKelvie – omnibus edition
Thor with Billy Tan / Richard Elson / Doug Braithwaite – omnibus edition
Iron Man with Greg Land / Dale Eaglesham / Joe Bennett / Luke Ross

What’s good? This one’s going to be more personal preference than with many sales and to that end, we’d point out that we did read the War Hammer volume and it felt like that’s a book you’ll get a LOT more out of it if you’re a gamer. (But if you’re already into War Hammer, you’ll probably love it.) Past that, Journey Into Mystery is where Gillen really popped onto the Marvel radar, Young Avengers is the familiar team of Gillen/McKelvie and Gillen’s Mr. Sinister in Uncanny X-Men definitely has had influence.

Casting the First Stone

The Marvel Original Sin Sale runs through Monday, 6/27.

We’d probably call this a one book sale – Original Sin is a big Event by Jason Aaron and Mike Deodato. Someone’s killed the Watcher, dirty secrets are bubbling up from everyone’s past and… more would get into spoilers. There are a few tie-in volumes also listed, but our recollection is that the tie-in volumes are not really necessary. While this is often the case with Events, it might be even more so here. Proceed with tie-ins only if they’re scratching an itch for you.

When they say “Multiverse,” they mean “Infinity”

The DC Multiverse and Beyond eBooks Sale runs through Monday, 7/4.

This is another entry in the new DC trend of dropping ~2000 collections without much noticeable curation, so you can pick through it at your leisure. Lowest prices are $4.99, but most non-YA doesn’t get below $5.99.

With the Netflix adaptation looming a little over a month away, they’re leading this sale off with Sandman. And it’s certainly a classic series. The question is whether it will dip below $5.99 when the show drops and we don’t have an answer for that. DC’s been holding the line at $5.99 for most of their sales in the last couple months.

Of possible interest from the more recently published volumes (DC does wait awhile before applying discounts):

Jack Kirby’s OMAC: One Man Fighting Corps is listed at $5.99. If you’re not familiar with it, OMAC is a surprisingly subversive dystopian take on a future where billionaires/corporations are running amok. There are superhero trappings, but it’s really a science fiction adventure/satire.

And for something else out of left field in a good way, $5.99 will get Manhunter: The Deluxe Edition. This collects the Detective Comics serial by Archie Goodwin and Walt Simonson. An absolute classic run, it’s not as mainstream well-known because the Paul Kirk character wasn’t continued in his own title (for obvious reasons). It’s just an excellent stand-alone tale by two legends of the art form.

Where’s My Umbrella?

The Umbrella Academy Sale runs through Tuesday, 6/28.

Why yes, there’s a new season on Netflix and we might even start on that tonight. Funny how sales line up with such things…

This one’s a lot easier to define: it’s a series by Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba about an extremely dysfunctional family of superhumans who are more than a little scarred by their adoptive upbringing. One series link for the collected editions and no fuss. Good comic, too. We enjoyed it.