In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel discounts their cosmic titles. DC cuts prices for the Milestone Team; Dark Horse highlights Resident Alien and Richard Corben.
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):
- The new releases page is here.
- The “Comics Deals” page is here.
- The Kindle Deals comics page is here.
All McDuffie, All the Time
The DC Team Milestone Sale runs through Monday, 2/3.
You may notice that there’s a lot of Dwayne McDuffie material on sale, which is always a good thing. Some McDuffie books we like:
The Justice League of America run (despite his issues with editorial): The Injustice League, Sanctuary, The Second Coming, and When Worlds Collide w/Ed Benes (and Alan Burnett).
We also think extremely highly of Hardware: The Man in the Machine w/ Denys Cowan and JJ Birch, which is pretty much how intellectual property worked in the tech industry in the early 90s.
Some interesting books by other people:
- Batman: Second Chances – Max Allan Collins / Dave Cockrum; Jim Starlin / Jim Aparo; The Collins run and revamping of Jason Todd and the beginning of the Starlin/Aparo run
- Deathstroke (’16) – Christopher Priest / Carlo Pagulayan / Diogenes Neves; A dark and psychological take… and definitely a lead who’s a villain, not an anti-hero
- Lobo by Keith Giffen & Alan Grant Vol. 1 – Keith Giffen / Alan Grant / Simon Bisley; The over-top exploits of The Main Man from the early 90s.
If you haven’t had a look at the DC Start Here sale, that’s still running through Monday and has lots of bargains.
Cosmic Slop
The Marvel Cosmic Sale runs through Tuesday, 2/4.
This is, after a fashion, a convergence of smaller sales as we follow the thread of cosmic tales and characters through Marvel. The threads weave in and out, but for the sake of easy processing, let’s look at them this way:
The Marvel World of Jim Starlin
Jim Starlin defined “cosmic” for Marvel in the 70s and then returned in the late 80s to revive it (and his signature villain, Thanos) in the run-up to The Infinity Gauntlet, after which things kinda blew up.
Starlin’s Captain Marvel is missing, but Warlock by Jim Starlin: The Complete Collection is available on the cheap. It’s highly recommended and a foundational work for a lot of what is to come.
The lack of Epic Collections hampers the availability of Starlin’s Silver Surfer run in this sale, but The Rebirth of Thanos w/ Ron Lim, which sets up The Infinity Gauntlet is included.
Silver Surfer
Most of the “classic” Surfer runs are missing with the lack of Epics and Masterworks in the sale
- Silver Surfer: Parable ’88 – Stan Lee / Moebius; also contains The Enslavers by Lee & Keith Pollard
- Silver Surfer: Requiem – J. Michael Straczynski / Esad Ribic
- The Dan Slott / Michael Allred Silver Surfer in 2014. It is confusing listed in two places. The first three volumes here and the final two volumes here.
Original Guardians of the Galaxy
No, not like the movies or spinning out of Annihilation (we’ll get to that in a bit), this was a super team in the future that occasionally returned to our present. They weren’t created by Steve Gerber, but he built them up in Defenders and then Marvel Presents before moving on.
- Guardians of the Galaxy: Tomorrow’s Avengers – First volume is the original appearance through their Marvel Presents solo run; Second volume is 70s guest star appearances, particularly in Avengers.
- Guardians of the Galaxy (’90-’95) – Best known for the very fun Jim Valentino run (i.e. the first 3 volumes here)
- Guardians of the Galaxy 3000 – Dan Abnett / Gerardo Sandoval
Honestly, this is our preferred GoG. The originals are solid. The Valentino run is a trip (and seems like it must’ve been an influence on Bendis when he rebooted Legion of Super-Heroes). Very different from what came later, though.
Nova
High school student Richard Rider becomes a centurion of the Nova Corps and tries to figure out his powers in the initial run. By the time DnA get ahold of the character, he’s a veteran and the road to Annihilation has begun.
- Nova (1976-78) – The original Marv Wolfman/John Buscema/Sal Buscema/Carmine Infantino run
- Nova (2007-10) – The Dan Abnett/Andy Lanning/Paul Pelletier/Kev Walker/Andrea di Vito era – the Complete Collection is the better deal.
- Nova (2013-15) – Gerry Duggan / Paco Medina was probably the longest tenured creative team of this volume.
- Nova: Resurrection (2015) – Jeff Loveness / Ramon Perez
- Nova: The Human Rocket (2015-16) – Sean Ryan / Cory Smith / John Timms
What’s good here? We’d go with the original run or the DnA run (complete with a space station carved out of a Celestial’s head – yes, the concept predates Avengers Mountain).
Annihilation
Annihilation was a crossover Event for Marvel’s fledging “cosmic” line in which Annihilus mounted a deadly invasion from the Negative Zone. It struck a nerve.
Annihilation is the first series of mini-series.
Annihilation: Conquest is the sequel as Ultron and the Phalanx make their move. This leads into the formation of the new Guardians of the Galaxy.
Annihilation: Scourge is 2019 entry in the series.
New Guardians of the Galaxy (The DnA cast or movie version if you must)
- Guardians of the Galaxy by Abnett & Lanning – written by Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning / art by Brad Walker, Paul Pelletier and others. This is where the “movie” team in the current timeline was formed. Also known as the “Annihilation” team.
- Guardians of the Galaxy by Brian Michael Bendis – Bendis and so. many. artists.
- All-New Guardians of the Galaxy (’17-’18) – Gerry Duggan / Aaron Kuder
- Guardians of the Galaxy by Donny Cates (’19) – Donny Cates/Geoff Shaw
- Guardians of the Galaxy by Al Ewing (’20- ’21) – Al Ewing / Juan Cabal
- Guardians of the Galaxy (’23-’24) – Collin Kelly/Jackson Lanzing/Kev Walker
We LOVED the final Ewing/Cabal series, which ends with “The Final Annihilation.” And if you liked Nova and the Annihilation Events, the DnA run is the continuation of that format. The ’23 version of GoG is indisputably the Kev Walker show.
Eensy Weensy
The Marvel Spider-Woman Sale runs through Tuesday, 2/4
Last week, we noted a lack of Masterworks in the X-Men sale. This week, in the Cosmic sale. Guess what? Same deal with Spider-Woman, so the ’78-’83 original run is off the table. Is this going to be a trend for ’25? Time will tell.
- Spider-Woman: Origin ’07 – Brian Bendis / Brian Reed / Luna Brothers
- Spider-Woman: Agent of S.W.O.R.D. ’09-’10 – Brian Bendis / Alex Maleev
- Spider-Woman ’14-’15 –Dennis Hopeless / Greg Land / Javier Rodriguez
- Spider-Woman ’15-’17 – Dennis Hopeless / Javier Rodriguez / Veronica Fish
- Spider-Woman ’20-’22 – Karla Pacheco / Pere Perez
- Spider-Woman: Gang War – Steve Foxe / Carola Borelli
Unannounced Sales
Resident Alien is a comic by Peter Hogan and Steve Parkhouse about a stranded alien posing as a doctor and solving murders. It got a little more famous when a TV adaptation hit and a lot more famous when the TV show moved over to Netflix. (And will now be moving over to the USA cable network.) We read the first omnibus a few months back and if your point of reference is the TV show, the comic is a little more mystery-oriented. It’s available in
Note: the 7th series is only available as a collected edition at this time.
We’re also seeing an assortment of Richard Corben’s Dark Horse publications on sale:
Also on sale:
- Stephen King’s The Dark Tower: Beginnings – Stephen King / Robin Furth / Peter David / Jae Lee
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
- Hellverine: Resurrection – Ben Percy / Julius Ohta; $6.99
- Star Wars: Jango Fett – Trail Of Lost Hope – Ethan Sacks / Luke Ross; $8.99
Dropping Next Week
- Ultimates By Deniz Camp Vol. 1: Fix The World – Deniz Camp / Juan Frigeri; While not the cheapest thing listed, we’ve been pretty happy with this dark and twisted world builder. Doom and She-Hulk? Not necessarily what you were expecting. $12.99
Still on Sale
- The DC Start Here sale runs through Monday, 2/3
- The Marvel Uncanny X-Men Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 2/4
- The Kodansha Manga that Thrills & Kills Sale runs through Monday, 2/3
- Titan Comics: The Horror, The Eerie & The Strange Sale runs through Friday, 1/31
