SHIELD Archives - Comics.Cheap

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel discounts The Hulk and Nick Fury… nearly the whole catalog for each. Dark Horse Slashes Oh My Goddess and Zenescope has a graphic novel sale.

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):

A Hulking Hunk of Burning Discounts

The Incredible Hulk Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 7/10.

Oh, yes. There is a LOT of Hulk on sale. Most of it, really. So we’re going to start out by doing what we do (and what Amazon can’t be bothered to do) and break it down by series.

Incredible Hulk (1962 – 1999) The original run and then the long running series that picked up a few years later.
Tales to Astonish (1964-68) In between the two Hulk solo runs above, Hulk was splitting Tales to Astonish with Ant-Man/Giant Man and then Namor. A lot of the foundational work was really in this run, with Stan Lee/Steve Ditko responsible for a lot of it.
Incredible Hulk (1999-2007) – Best known for the Bruce Jones / Lee Weeks/ Mike Deodato run towards the beginning and the Greg Pak / multi-artist “Planet Hulk” and “World War Hulk” epics at the end… though World War Hulk is at this different link.
Hulk (2008-13) This is the Red Hulk run (and the title changes to that after awhile). It starts out with the better known Jeph Loeb/Ed Mc Guiness run and then Jeff Parker takes over with Gabriel Hardman, Dave Eaglesham and Patrick Zircher in the artist rotation.
Incredible Hulk by Jason Aaron (2011-12) – Lots of artists rotating through here, Marc Silvestri, Steve Dillon and Carlos Pacheco among them
Indestructible Hulk (2012 – 14) – Mark Waid’s the writer with an artist rotation including Leinil Francis Yu, Matteo Scalera and Walt Simonson draws the Thor team-up.
Hulk by Waid and Duggan (2014-15) – That would be Mark Waid and Gerry Duggan with Duggan doing the bulk of the run. Mark Bagley is the main artist here.
The Totally Awesome Hulk (2015-17) – This would be Amadeus Cho’s turn as Hulk, which mean Greg Pak is you primary writer with an artist rotation including Frank Cho, Alan Davis and Luke Ross
Immortal Hulk (2018-21) – Al Ewing’s masterpiece as the Hulk slides over towards horror and find a green door that leads to Hell.
Hulk (2021-23) – The Donny Cates / Ryan Ottley run
- Hulk Vs. Thor: Banner of War – The Cates/Martin Coccolo cross-over that’s 100% part of this run, but listed separately.

What’s good? We like the value of the Epic Collections in the original series (and Tales to Astonish) for $6.99. The Masterworks editions for $5.99 aren’t bad either, so pick your period and format.

As for “the best of” Hulk…

We think this Epic Collection of the Tales to Astonish run is a good introduction to the Hulk. A rock solid creator rotation of Lee/Kirby/Ditko/Kane/Everett/Buscema/Severin. The introductions of The Leader and the Abomination (among others). Cold war paranoia and you get to the the original evolution of the Hulk as a character that changes formats and approaches every so often.

Immortal Hulk is a high water mark and well worth your time, though not really what you’d call a traditional Hulk tale. Peter David’s lengthy run is a classic (and we’re not going to divide it up by artist periods – it’s all good). Greg Pak has gone big like few others with Planet Hulk and World War Hulk.

Something under the radar? There’s a Paul Jenkins/Ron Garney/John Romita Junior run that preceded the better known Bruce Jones era. It’s collected with some other things, but the two volumes are The Dogs of War and Past Perfect. It goes darker than a lot of the Hulk tales, but we sure liked it.

Spy Games

The Marvel Nick Fury and Agents of SHIELD sale runs through Monday, 7/10.

It’s a Nick Fury sale (both of him) and a SHIELD sale, because the two aren’t always the same thing. Let’s start with breaking this down by series:

Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos (’63-’74) – Nick Fury started out fronting a WW II war book (as interpreted by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby)
Strange Tales (’51-’68) – originally splitting the book with Doctor Strange, Nick Fury started off with Lee/Kirby and ended up with the classic Jim Steranko run.
Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. (’68-’71) – this Masterworks edition catches the last of Steranko and then the creators rotate a bit. Highlights include some Archie Goodwin stories and a bit of early Barry Windsor-Smith (pre-Windsor, technically)
Nick Fury Vs. S.H.I.E.L.D. (’88) – Bob Harras and Paul Neary restarted the franchise with a bang in what was originally published as a Prestige/Dark Knight format mini-series
Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. (’88-’92) – Spinning out of the hit mini-series, this had a few different teams. We associated it most with Bob Harras/Bob Hall and D.G. Chichester / Jackson Guice.
Wolverine & Nick Fury: Scorpio (’89) – A collection of three Prestige format tales teaming up Logan & Nick. Archie Goodwin / Howard Chaykin; Tom DeFalco/John Buscema; Howard Chaykin / Shawn McManus
Secret Warriors (’08-’11) – Bendis is in on the beginning, but this is really a Jonathan Hickman series with Stefano Caselli and Alessandro Vitti as primary artists
S.H.I.E.L.D. (’10-’11) – Jonathan Hickman/Dustin Weaver, and this series is listed in a very confusing way. Here’s how you need to look at it:
- Part 1 – Architects of Forever
- Part 2 – The Human Machine (note – this one is the version with the ending)
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (’16) – Based on the TV show with Marc Guggenheim writing and German Peralta as the primary artist.
Secret Warriors (’16-’17) – Matthew Rosenberg / Javier Garron
Nick Fury: Deep Cover Capers (’17) – James Robinson / ACO

What’s good? For many, the definitive Nick Fury is the Steranko run and if you only want that, the whole thing is in one edition. (It’s unevenly split across the three masterworks.)

Nick Fury Vs. S.H.I.E.L.D. is the definitive “there’s something wrong at SHIELD and Fury is on the run” story. It’s emulated for a reason.

Nick Fury: Deep Cover Capers is your under the radar pick. Fun, breezy spy hijinks with a ’60s Bond/UNCLE/Avengers vibe and great art.

Not Periscope, Not Necroscope…

The Zenescope $5 Graphic Novel Sale runs through Sunday, 7/23.

Portions of this have been in previous Zenescope sales, but one thing that stood out to us in this one that hadn’t been in the previous sales is the Wonderland material. We’re not particularly familiar with it, but back in the day, the Zenescope title that seemed to have the most positive comments was always the Raven Gregory revival of Wonderland with Alice’s daughter venturing back down the rabbit hole. We think this is the reading order for that:

Return to Wonderland – Gregory/Al Rio
Tales from Wonderland
Beyond Wonderland – Gregory / Daniel Leister
Escape from Wonderland – Gregory / Daniel Leister
Wonderland: House of Liddle
Alice in Wonderland – Gregory / Joe Brusha
Wonderland – ongoing series

And several more mini-series/collections sprinkled in as the ongoing series progresses.

Is This a Veiled George Takei Reference?

The Dark Horse Oh My Goddess Sale runs through Monday, 7/3.

What we have here is a repeat of last week… only this time, the Lone Wolf & Cub sale is sharing the same URL with the Oh My Goddess Sale. Yes, two weeks in a row. (And the Viz sale is also doubled up, although by the time you see this, it will probably be over.)

Instead of linking to the sale page and telling you to reload a few times until the right page turns up, we’re just going to link directly to the actual Oh My Goddess series page and save you some time. Who knows? Maybe this won’t happen next week?

Still On Sale

The Marvel Secret Invasion Sale runs through Monday, 7/10
The DC Flash Multiverse Sale runs through Monday, 7/3
The Kodansha Throwback Thursday: What Did You Eat Yesterday Sale runs through Wednesday, 7/5
The Dark Horse Lone Wolf & Cub Sale runs through Monday, 7/3
The Kodansha Grads In Love Sale runs through Monday, 7/3
The Viz Golden Kamuy Sale runs through Tuesday, 7/4

This week’s Comixology sales include a bunch of Marvel with Spidey, Guardians of the Galaxy, Shang-Chi and SHIELD getting discounts. DC has a “Top 100” Sale and Matt Kindt’s Dark Horse work gets slashed.

(Disclosure: If you buy something we link to on our site, we may earn commissions)

Why Not “Fabulous Spider-Man?”

The Marvel Spectacular Spider-Man Sale runs through Thursday, 9/2.

This sale is so small and organized, we don’t have to link to the individual series, you can just look at the sale page, no sweat.

We’re looking at 4 things here. In order of presentation:

The more recent Spectacular Spider-Man, mostly by Chip “I have a Substack now” Zdarsky and Adam Kubert. You should already know if that sounds good.
Masterworks editions of Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man. Masterwork editions tend to be good value and we’d point out that V.2 has Frank Miller’s first Daredevil work and the Carrion storyline would turn out to be an important one, if controversial.
The ’03-’05 Spectacular Spider-Man. We’ve always found Paul Jenkin’s Spidey to be under-appreciated. He writes the first 4 volumes with Humberto Ramos as the primary artist… with some early Paolo Rivera in V. 3. Feel free to skip the Sins Remembered tie-in in V. 5 and then Jenkins is back for V.6
And the last thing listed is a collection of the 1968 magazine version of Spectacular Spider-Man by Stan Lee and John Romita, Sr.

If you like Spidey, it’s a decent menu.

Who Guards the Guardians?

The Marvel Guardians of the Galaxy Sale runs through Sunday, 8/29.

The Guardians have been around quite a while and were originally based in the future. We always recommend going back to the original Steve Gerber/Roger Stern/Al Milgrom run. Guardians of the Galaxy: Tomorrow’s Avengers covers that. Vol. 1 is the first appearance through the primary solo run in Marvel Presents. Vol. 2 covers the rest of their guest appearances, notably including the Korvac Saga in Avengers.

The Guardians popped up again in ’90 in a very popular (and very fun) series by Jim Valentino. Yes, we know everyone reading this is old school enough to associate Valentino more with Normalman, but GoG was the direct line leading him to co-found Image comics. This version of GoG spends quite a bit of time exploring the legacy of the Marvel universe… and some of the less mortal characters who are still floating around far in the future. Guardians of the Galaxy by Jim Valentino collects his run.

The current run start with Guardians of the Galaxy by Al Ewing with Juan Cabal on art, which finds the Guardians at war with the gods… and, as you might expect with Ewing, setting up a longer game.

SHIELD’s Up

The Marvel S.H.I.E.L.D. sale runs through Sunday, 8/29.

Many would still sale the best SHIELD is Jim Steranko’s SHIELD, which is conveniently collected in… can you guess the name? Yes, S.H.I.E.L.D. by Steranko – the Complete Collection. There’s nothing wrong with the Lee/Kirby material, and if you go the Masterworks route, there’s some Archie Goodwin to be read, but Steranko is still the bar for many.

Nick Fury Vs. SHIELD by Bob Harras and Paul Neary was the late 80s reappraisal and still the “SHIELD has been infiltrated compromised” arc that everyone apes. (This led to the ’89-’92 series.)

The Deadly Hands of Reboot

The Marvel Shang-Chi Sale runs through Sunday, 9/12.

Gosh, you’d think there was a movie coming out or something?

Shang-Chi is kind of an odd character in the world of Marvel. He essentially has had three lives:

First was the Master of Kung Fu era. This was originally a licensed comic and the license was Fu Manchu. Shang, an original creation (thus, owned by Marvel) was Fu Manchu’s virtuous, rebellious son who worked with MI-5 against his father. It was blend of espionage, pulp and Hong Kong cinema. Doug Moench was the writer for the bulk of the period. Paul Gulacy is the artist most associated with the feature, but Jim Craig, Mike Zeck and Gene Day had their runs. This was considered one of Marvel’s finest comics of the 70s, but… let’s put it mildly and say Fu Manchu is a little out of favor.

The second life was when Marvel tried to revive the character, mostly intact, and just not mention who his father is. Or assign a different father. This never went very far.

Right now, we’ve entered the third life where Shang-Chi is now more of a fantasy comic with a more mystical evil father, weapons/caste-based secret societies and the undead. Oh, there’s still some MI-5 around the edges, but it’s a very different comic than where it started. Gene Yang, Dike Ruan and Philip Tan. You can feel the influence from Jimmie Robinson’s Five Weapons, too!

We Thought The 100 Were Villains?

The DC Top 100 eBooks Sale runs through Monday, 8/30

DC’s back at the sub-50% discount game again. You have been warned. Items of interest include:

Kingdom Come is the 90s classic by Mark Waid and Alex Ross that defined the dystopian future sub-genre for a spell (and we still think it’s the true inspiration for the Injustice video game).

Superman: Red Son by Mark Millar, Dave Johnson and Killian Plunkett is the tale of infant Kal-El’s spacecraft landing in the Soviet Union instead of Kansas. It’s on the short list for Millar’s best work.

We’ve mentioned before how pleasantly surprised we were with DCeased, Tom Taylor’s and Trevor Hairsine’s Anti-Life Equation zombie(ish) epic. We’re not recanting.