Tag: Star Wars

Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Captain America, Star Wars, Ultimate Spider-Man (and Miles Morales), Suicide Squad and Road to Perdition

This week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales include the majority of Captain America comics, a whole bunch of Star Wars material, Ultimate Spider-Man (and Miles Morales) and the rest of DC’s Memorial Day 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):

Super Soldier Serum

The Marvel Captain America Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 5/30.

There’s a lot of material to cover here, so we’ll go with the usual format and start by breaking out the major series involved

  • Captain America Comics ’40-’50 – The original Golden Age series
  • Tales of Suspense ’59-’68 – Cap’s Silver Age solo stories were in a title shared with Iron Man
  • Captain America ’68-’96 – The original Silver/Bronze Age solo series.
  • Captain America ’98-’02 – The second Mark Waid / Ron Garney run with some Andy Kubert and Lee Weeks art, too. Smaller volumes here, plus the underrated Dan Jurgens run that followed.
  • Captain America ’02-’04 – The Marvel Knights era
  • Captain America ’04-’11 – The main Winter Soldier/Death of Captain America Ed Brubaker run with Steve Epting, Michael Lark, Mike Perkins and Butch Guice in the artistic rotation. Note: you can pick up chunks of it cheaper in these omnibuses
  • Captain America: Reborn – The actual end to the “Death of Captain America” sequence by Ed Brubaker, Bryan Hitch and Butch Guice
  • Captain America ’11-’12 – Brubaker sticks around for a relaunch, post-Death/Reborn
  • Captain America ’12-’14 is the Rick Remender run with John Romita, Jr, Carlos Pacheco, Pascal Alixe and Nic Klein in the artistic rotation.
  • All-New Captain America ’14-’15 – Sam Wilson picks up the shield by Rick Remender and Stuart Immonen
  • Captain America: Sam Wilson ’15-17 – Nick Spencer with Daniel Acuna as the primary artist. The seeds of “Secret Empire,” which was a long game, start here.Note: There’s a Complete Collection omnibus set of the Sam Wilson material that’s a bit cheaper.
  • Captain America: Steve Rogers ’16-’17 – The main runup to Secret Empire by Nick Spencer with Jesus Saiz and Javier Pina as the primary artists.
  • While not on sale, you can’t talk about the Spencer era without mentioning Secret Empire, the controversial “Hydra Cap” arc that Spencer’s entire run builds towards.
  • Captain America ’17-’18 – AKA Captain America by Mark Waid and Chris Samnee (and Leonardo Romero)
  • Captain America ‘18-’21 – The Ta-Nehisi Coates run with art by Leinil Francis Yu, Adam Kubert, Jason Masters and Leonard Kirk

So… do you think Captain America gets relaunched enough? Don’t worry, they’ll relaunch him again.

First the usual general advice: The Masterworks and Epic Collections tend to be the best buys, but keep an eye on price points. Some of the newer Epic Collections can be $8.99+ and make the Masterworks more appealing.

Some recommendations? Absolutely.  Just the way the collections are currently rolled out, the highlights seem to flow more with the Masterworks than the Epics.

For Silver/Bronze Age adventures,  Captain America Masterworks V. 3 gets you some late Stan Lee/Jack Kirby and the influential Jim Steranko Sequence.  You then jump forward to Masterworks V. 7 for the beginning of the Steve Englehart/Sal Buscema era and stay on through Masterworks V.10, which is the return of Jack Kirby and his entirely too timely “Madbomb” arc. (There’s more Kirby in V.11, but Madbomb is a hard act to follow.) There’s also much to recommend with the Mark Gruenwald era which probably peaked with “The Captain” Epic Collection. In general, earlier Gruenwald is better and the art takes a nose dive before his run is over.

Aside from that, your best of the best is anything written by Mark Waid or Ed Brubaker, and know that Brubaker, first run is basically one long and epic story – and be sure to get Reborn or you’re missing a piece.

Captain America   Captain America   Captain America

Nothing But Star Wars

The Marvel Star Wars Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 5/30.

While not the rock bottom prices of the May the 4th sale, this one does have a wider selection of Star Wars material that isn’t limited to the current Marvel titles.  Some titles that may be of interest:

You get a little more material per volume (and they finished the run) getting the original Marvel Star Wars series with the “A Long Time Ago…” omnibus editions.

A lot of the Epic Collections of the older material have been lumped together under an Epic Collections page, to make finding individual series hard, so refer to that link for the bigger picture, but within that link:

  • Dark Empire – Tom Veitch and Cam Kennedy played a BIG part in bringing the Star Wars franchise back to life with their Dark Horse mini-series and it’s sequel. This is the most economical package for the Dark Empire-related titles. It’s a classic.
  • Agent of Empire – John Ostander, Stéphane Roux and Davidé Fabbri did a couple mini-series that effectively answered the question, “what if James Bond worked for The Empire?” Those are the backbone of this collection.
  • Legacy – Far in the Star Wars timeline’s future, the Sith have returned and are stalking the last Skywalker heir. There are three volumes of this fun John Ostrander / Jan Duursema series that might not be cannon anymore, but is better than a lot of things that came after it.

Original Marvel Star Wars   Dark Empire   Agent of Empire

This Time, the Other Peter Isn’t a Clone

The Marvel Ultimate Spider-Man Sale runs through Monday, 5/30.

A Bendis Sale! And Ultimate Spidey might just the the crowning achievement for Brian Bendis in the world of superheroes. (We might like his Daredevil a little more, but Ultimate Spidey and then Miles have had so much impact.)

So let’s break this one down into parts.

  1. The original Ultimate Spider-Man with Mark Bagley, reimaging Peter for a new era. You get a better deal with these larger collections and ignore the omnibus that starts the list.
  2. Ultimate Comics Spider-Man, the relaunch with David Lafuente.
  3. Ultimate Comics Spider-Man, the Miles Morales version with art by Sara Pichelli, Chris Samnee, David Marquez and Pepe Larraz

Ultimate Spider-Man   Ultimate Comics Spider-Man   Ultimate Comics Spider-Man (Miles Morales)

The Other Memorial Day Sale

The DC Memorial Day eBook Sale Part 2 runs through Monday, 5/30.

It would appear that last week’s confusion was caused by Amazon prematurely post this week’s sale last week, then removing it in the US while leaving it online in the UK.  Stranger and stranger.

But this is essentially the back half of the alphabet on sale and worth a browse. Some highlights?

The rock bottom price pick: Dead Boy Detectives for $3.99. Something of a departure for Vertigo as we generally remember it (although there was a similar “Death” volume and My Faith In Frankie wasn’t necessarily far removed), the multi-award-winning Jill Thompson takes the ghost detective children from Sandman and plops them into a manga-style detective comedy.  Yes, Jill is versatile.

From the “Yes, DC published that” division, do you remember Road to Perdition? Yes, before Tom Hanks was a mob enforcer, this was a comic. As usual, these are cataloged strangely.  Listed under “Return to Perdition,” are the original Road to Perdition  and Road to Perdition: On the Road. Both are written by Max Allan Collins with Richard Piers Rayner illustrating Road to Perdition and Jose Luis Garcia Lopez, Steve Leiber and Joseph Rubenstein sharing duties for On the Road. The actual Return to Perdition, a sequel set in the 1970s by Collins and his Ms. Tree partner, Terry Beatty is list separately (for $3.99). Go figure…

For the uninitiated, Road to Perdition can be likened to Lone Wolf and Cub setting against the backdrop of the Capone era Chicago mob. A mob enforcer goes on the lam with his son after the boss of the local mob outpost orders a hit on his family.  Excellent material that’s largely ignored these days.

And if you’d like some supervillains in your life, the John Ostrander/Luke McDonnell Suicide Squad run is available for $5.99 a pop. This is the run that spun off the films.

Dead Boy Detectives   Road to Perdition   Suicide Squad

 

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Doctor Strange, Justice League, Scarlet Witch, Constantine and Jeff Lemire

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales – Doctor Strange has pretty much his entire run on sale and the Scarlet Witch joins him with a sister sale of sorts. DC celebrates the death of the Justice League with (correct) discounts and Image celebrates the work of Jeff Lemire.

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

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):

Bibbidy Bobbidy Boo

The  Marvel Doctor Strange Sale runs through Sunday, 5/16.

And it’s most of the Doctor Strange material that’s been collected in book form. You’d almost think there was a movie out or something.

So first, as is our custom, we’ll walk you through the various series over the years… this is a little more complicated because the early Epic/Masterwork volumes aren’t on the same page. (We’ll let you you pick out the mini’s yourself, since those aren’t as convoluted.)

  • Strange Tales – This is a cluttered series page, but its the original Lee/Ditko run, so let’s break it down to Masterworks 1 and Masterworks 2 or Epic Edition 1
  • Doctor Strange ’68-’69 – the Masterworks listings are here and include the early Marvel Premiere run. The ’68 run is perhaps most notable for some amazing Gene Colan art, but the scripts don’t always live up to the art.
  • Doctor Strange ’74-’87 – The Masterworks here catch the end of the Marvel Premiere run and the Epics pick up with the back half of ’68 run. (Yes, it’s a confusing way to look at things.)
  • Strange Tales ’87-’88 – The Peter B. Gillis / Chris Warner era was back in Strange Tales in between the two “regular” Doctor Strange titles.
  • Doctor Strange ’88-’96 – Probably best known for the Roy & Dann Thomas run with Butch Guice and Geoff Isherwood as notable artists.
  • Doctor Strange ’15-’18 – Initially Jason Aaron/Chris Bachalo with Donny Cates tagging in towards the end. (The omnibuses here are the better buy)
  • Doctor Strange ’18-’19 – The Mark Waid / Jesus Saiz / Barry Kitson era with Strange in space.
  • Doctor Strange, Surgeon Supreme (’19) – the very much under-rated and too short Mark Waid / Kev Walker run. Walker knocks it out of the park here.
  • Death of Doctor Strange – Jed MacKay and Lee Garbett kill off Stephen Strange. For real. (OK, so far for real.) A clever series that delivers its titular promise in unexpected ways.
  • Strange (’22-?) – get the first couple issues of the new Sorcerer Supreme for $0.99

What’s good?  This is where we get into Masterworks vs. Epics… because the Masterworks are a LOT more complete right now, particularly through the 70s.  The original Lee/Ditko run is great and you can get that in the first Epic Collection. Things pick up again when Englehart and Brunner show up towards the end of the Marvel Premiere run and the whole ’74-’87 run is solid, though we have a particular soft spot for the Roger Stern / Marshall Rogers / Paul Smith material towards the end.  Yes, Doctor Strange had A list creators most of the time.  That’s your core.

Something under the radar?  The (as you’d expect with these creators) excellent Doctor Strange: The Oath by Brian K, Vaughan and Marcos Martin. The final Waid/Walker run is also a lot more under the radar than it should be.

Doctor Strange - The Oath    Doctor Strange in Strange Tales   Doctor Strange

Mutant Sorcery

The Marvel Scarlet Witch Sale runs through Sunday, 5/9.

The value buy here is Vision & The Scarlet Witch: The Saga of Wanda and Vision. It’s a sort of faux-Epic Edition, clocking in at 467 pages and including the wedding of Wanda and Vision from Giant-Size Avengers #4, the ’82 Bill Mantlo/Rick Leonardi mini-series and the ’85 Steve Englehart/Richard Howell 12-parter.

There’s a lot of West Coast Avengers in this sale, largely for Wanda’s heel-turn in the John Byrne Vision Quest/Darker than Scarlet era — the Epic Collections are the better buys here.

House of M by Brian Bendis and Olivier Coipel might be a little over-hyped at this point, but it’s the tent-pole “Wanda rewrites reality” story that’s central to the TV adaptation.

Vision and the Scarlet Witch   Avengers West Coast   House of M

Dead Again

The DC Justice League R.I.P. Sale runs through Monday, 5/16.

We’re actually not seeing the goofy $9.32 type prices on this sale that we’ve been seeing on other DC sales for the last couple months. Could the bug be fixed? That’s probably too much to ask for, but we’ll see what happens next week. In the meantime, some of these prices are a little higher than we’d like to see on a sale (part of that being the absurd practice of putting a hard cover list price on eBooks), but they seem like the intended sale prices for a change.

Anyway, this is DC’s celebrating killing off the Justice League as a lead-in to their next crossover event.  Let’s break down some of the major series here:

  • Justice League of America ’60-’87 – The original
  • Justice League of America ’87-’96 – This is, at least initially, the Justice League International / Justice League Europe run with Keith Giffen/J.M. DeMatteis / Kevin Maguire.  BWA HA HA HA HA HA
  • JLA ’97-’06 – Best known for launching with the the Grant Morrison / Howard Porter run
  • Justice League of America ’06-11 – Initially launched as Brad Meltzer / Ed Benes and eventually got Dwayne McDuffie (who was undercut by editorial)
  • Justice League ’11-’16 – The New 52 Geoff Johns era, initially with Jim Lee art.
  • Justice League ’16 – ’18 – The Bryan Hitch (as writer) era with rotating artists
  • Justice League ’18-22 – It’s probably easiest to call the most recent incarnation the Scott Snyder era, as he launched the volume. So many rotating artists here.

That the timeline of the main series.  There are plenty of mini’s and spin-off series in there for your browsing.  If you’d like some $0.99 single issues (you are heard), if you sort by lowest price, you’ll see them quickly. Yes, even JLA: Classified.

Best bets?  For pure bang for your buck, head to the original Justice League of America run and pick up the first two “Silver Age” collections. ~300 pages for $4.99.

The Morrison/Porter JLA  run isn’t nearly the price per page value, but there’s a reason everyone comes back to it. The Waid/Hitch bits aren’t bad, either.

Under the radar?  The Christopher Priest / Pete Woods arc from ~3 years back. It’s just good comics without silly crossovers.

Justice League of America   JLA   Justice League by Priest

Unadvertised Sale

We have an overlooked gem for you this week.  John Constantine, Hellblazer by Si Spurrier, Aaron Campbell and Matias Bergara. It’s not clear to us if these are random discounts or it’s just the wacky “Epic” sale discounts getting fixed on this one.  Either way, this is one of the best comics we’ve read in the last year.

This is a really an extended 12-issues arc, so you’re going to want both volumes. It starts at the end of the world and follows Constantine through a series of gangland skirmishes as he tries to perceive who or what is the strangely familiar entity pulling the strings. Sometimes straight horror, sometimes comedy (Constantine vs. the sensitive new age magician is priceless), this is quite possibly the best work of all the creators involved.

John Constantine, Hellblazer

Jeff Who?

The Image Jeff Lemire Sale runs through Monday, 5/16.

Yes, we’ll go ahead and say it: we think Jeff Lemire is at his best when he’s working on his own projects and Image has a few of them on sale. Of possible note and interest:

Gideon Falls with Andrea Sorrentino – A sort of horror/science fiction mashup that starts out rural and claustrophobic and then unfurls across a fairly epic canvas and multiple landscapes… while still managing to have that feeling of claustrophobic terror being ready to swallow up the heroes at any moment.  Rock solid dark adventure.

Descender with Dustin Nguyen is a science fiction epic about a little boy who happens to be a robot who’s looking for his family and falls into the middle of a robot rebellion. A beautiful book.

Ascender is the sequel as Lemire and Nguyen pivot for a space adventure with magic and vampires… and at least one killer robot. 😉

Gideon Falls   Descender   Ascender

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales – Rock Bottom “May the Forth” Star Wars Prices, Plus: Spider-Man, Batman, Doctor Fate and The Witchfinder

This week in Comixology (at Amazon) sales: Star Wars gets nice and cheap for the “May the Fourth” holiday, plus Spider-Man and his friends (OK, acquaintances), Batman, Doctor Fate and The Witchfinder (but not the Witchfinder General, that’s different).

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

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):

Nothing But Star Wars

The Marvel Star Wars May the Fourth Sale runs through Monday, 5/16.

Let’s break this down by key series first (since Amazon can’t be bothered to organize things this way).  There are a lot more shorter runs included, too and the prices are GOOD. Lots of $0.99 first volumes and $1.99 after that.  This is the time of the year to go hog wild on Star Wars.

  • Darth Vader (’15-’16) – The AMAZING Kieron Gillen / Salvador Larroca run
    Vader Down – the Darth Vader / Star Wars crossover sequence that is KEY to this run.
  • Darth Vader (’17 – ’18) – The also great Charles Soule / Giuseppe Camuncoli run
  • Doctor Aphra (’16-’19) – Sort of an evil Indiana Jones in the Star Wars universe, spinning off from Darth Vader. The first three volumes are especially entertaining
    The Screaming Citadel – Star Wars/Aphra crossover with key plot points to the early sequence
  • Kanan: The Last Padawan – Star Wars Rebels prequel by by Greg Weisman and Pepe Larraz
  • Star Wars (’15-’19) – The Marvel flagship title amazingly went 4 years without a relaunch!
  • Star Wars: The High Republic ($0.99 for Vol. 1)

Recommendations? For whatever reason, Darth Vader seems to bring out the best in Marvel. Get both series first. Is is a coincidence Lucasfilm recently hired Charles Soule as a creative consultant?

Your under the radar title is Kanan. A very solid series from one the animated show’s producers and Pepe Larraz has since been promoted to X-Men.

Vader   Vader Series 2   Kanan - The Last Padawan

Team-Up

The Marvel Spider-Man and Friends Sale runs through Sunday, 5/1.

There have been a few Spidey team-up books over the years and the listed here include:

The OG title, however, was Marvel Team-Up. While we like the value of Masterworks editions in general, the standout sequence of this title is the too-short Chris Claremont/John Byrne run. Yes, the classic X-Men team did a Spidey run here. Masterworks V.6 catches the beginning of that, but Marvel also has Spider-Man: Marvel Team-Up by Claremont and Byrne that catches it all in one place.  And yes, that business with the Soul Catcher from issues 60-62 is a follow up to a Tigra story line.  (The more you know…)

Marvel Team-Up

Some of the Discounts Are Decent…

The DC Epic eBooks Sale runs through Monday, 5/9.

The usual DC disclaimers apply – Amazon and/or DC seem to screw up the sale prices, initially pricing many books at bizarre numbers like $9.32 or $24.87 before settling down to something like $5.99 or $7.99.  So if the price doesn’t end in $*.99, be aware it might not be the final sale price.  Then again, they might not get around to fixing it.  We wish we were making it up, but that’s the cold, hard reality of the situation.

Anyway, some things we saw and thought the “real” sale price was active for:

WE3 is a unusual and downright disturbing self-contained story by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely about about three house pets – a dog, a cat and a rabbit – who have been converted into cybernetically enhanced weapons systems by a government agency. They make a break for it and all hell breaks loose. Seriously, this is not The Secret of N.I.H.M. This is bloody. $5.99 is a good price, here.

Brave and the Bold: Batman and Wonder Woman is Liam Sharp’s tale of Batman & Wonder Woman investigating the murder of a Celtic god. $4.99 for a proper discount.

Doctor Fate in this case is the 2015-16 revival by Paul Levitz, with the amazing Sonny Liew as the primary artist. We don’t always like updates, but Levitz and Liew nailed this one. The helmet of Fate falls into the possession of an Egyptian American medical student for a series of adventures tied into Egyptian mythology and history.  An underappreciated gem that blends a sliver of classic Peter Parker into the Fate mythos.

There’s a LOT of collections to sort through here, we just wish it were easier to find a series that had ALL the volumes priced consistently.

WE3   The Brave and the Bold   Doctor Fate

Lost and Found

The Dark Horse Witchfinder Sale runs through Monday, 5/2.

This is another entry in the extended Mignolaverse, a staple of Dark Horse’s horror efforts. Sir Edward Grey is a witchfinder in Victorian England, who hunts things that go bump in the night while in the service of the Queen. And yes, of course Saucy Jack eventually turns up.  Mike Mignola with John Arcudi and Chris Robeson. Ben Stenbeck is the primary artist, but the some of other artists popping include John Severin, Tyler Crook, D’Israeli and Christopher Mitten.

This series of mini-series is now conveniently collected in  two omnibus editions on sale for $6.99 each and that’s a lot of bang for your buck.

Witchfinder

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Comixology Sales: Holiday Sale Season Has Started – $0.99/$1.99 Masterworks, Spider-Man, Star Wars, King in Black, Strange Adventures, Plus Deep Discounts From Vault, Valiant and Fantagraphics

The Holiday Comixology Sales have arrived! $0.99/$1.99 Marvel Masterworks!  $3.99 Star Wars Epic Collections! $0.99/$1.99 collected editions from Vault, Valiant and Fantagraphics! Plus, the Oni Holiday Sale and (Adam) Strange Adventures.

Given the time of the year, it’s time to pay attention to the sale end dates. The “real” holiday sales typical start between now and next week and run into the first week of January.  Publishers tend to drop 2-3 week sales now and then not update much in between ~12/23 and ~1/3.  So Marvel, Oni, Vault, Fantagraphics and Valiant are sticking around. DC’s “real” sale is yet to come.  (And there may well be a little more Marvel to come.)

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

$0.99/$1.99 Marvel Masterworks

Yes, you read that correctly.

The Marvel Masterworks Sale runs through Monday, 1/3. (Amazon link)

What’s good?  At these prices, anything you don’t already own, basically.

Things of note here (the sale goes alphabetical after the first page, and don’t pretend you’re not going to browse it):

And yes DD and FF Masterworks are starting to enter the Miller and Byrne eras.  Some people are probably feeling old when they read that.

Black Panther Masterworks Captain Marvel Defenders Masterworks

Catches Cheap, Just Like Flies — Look Out, Here Comes the Spider Sale

The Marvel Amazing Spider-Man Legacy Sale runs through Saturday, 1/1.  (Amazon link) And it’s a big one.

As with previous “Legacy” sales, this one is Spidey through the years, specifically different incarnations of Amazing Spider-Man.

You want a stellar deal? We’ve got it right here. 22 volumes of Amazing Spider-Man Masterworks (i.e. the original series). $0.99 for the first volume, $1.99 for the rest. That will take you into the Roger Stern/John Romita, Jr. years.

So let’s break this down by series.

Original ’63 – ’98 Amazing Spider-Man. For the sake of value, you only want the massively discounted Masterworks for the contents of issues 1-237. And since the Epic Collections _aren’t_ on sale this time around (that was a couple weeks ago), the only other things available here would be along the lines of Origin of the Hobgoblin (picks up where the next Masterworks would start) or the Michelinie/Larsen Sinster Six collection.

’99 – ’13 Amazing Spider-Man is noted for the JMS run and the following “Brand New Day” era.  The JMS run is divisive. We like it well enough, with the caveat that there were a couple major editorial missteps (Sins of the Past and One More Day), but your mileage will vary. As soon as JMS leaves, the One More Day era begins and it’s more of a throwback to the Spidey of years past. We particularly liked it when Mister Negative turned up and the introduction of Kraven’s heirs. The last arc of this series brings back Doc Ock, who… sticks around.

Which brings us to The Superior Spider-Man. A surprisingly entertaining run wherein Otto Octavius possess the body of Peter Parker and intends to make himself into a better, nay… superior Spider-Man. If you want this, go for the omnibuses.

Amazing Spider-Man Masterworks  Amazing Spider-Man Brand New Day   Superior Spider-Man

Still with us?  Good. Remember, Spidey reboots less than Captain America!

The ’15-’18 series of Amazing Spider-Man is the end of the Dan Slott era. (He was part of the Brand New Day rotation before taking over.) Otto build up Peter’s fortune and now Peter sort of plays Tony Stark until the old Parker Luck rears it’s head… as does Norman. Possibly best known for the Red Goblin story line that wraps the series.

And the brings us to the current Amazing Spider-Man, which is the Nick Spencer era, for the purposes of this sale. An era of Parker Luck and conspiracies… although we prefer the occasional humorous interludes that have echoes Superior Foes.

Amazing Spider-Man: Red Goblin   Amazing Spider-Man

Now, because Marvel and Comixology sometimes divide things up strangely, here are a couple other things of note that don’t show up in the main title categories:

Dig through the sale and you can find the 90s Clone saga and McFarlane run listed as a separate titles for… cataloging purposes?

Did Somebody Say “Holiday Special?”

The Marvel Star Wars Massive Sale runs through Monday, 1/3. (Amazon link)

Marvel might have figured out you like those $3.99 Epic Collections.  There’s a TON of them with the original Marvel 70s/80s run and the Dark Horse material.

The Epic’s are actually a little better organized on the Sale page (yes, that’s unusual), so let’s just list out a few things we particularly like there:

  • The Legacy series (John Ostrander and Jan Duursema leading the creatives) has bounty hunting Cade Skywalker, the last heir, mixing it up with the Sith Empire
  • The Newspaper Strips – both volumes. Russ Manning is pretty good, but you really can’t beat Archie Goodwin and Al Williamson!
  • The Empire V. 6 is worth the money for the “Agent of Empire” material. The elevator pitch is “What if James Bond worked for The Empire?”  Yes, yes he does.
  • For The Original Marvel Years, we’d lean towards V.3 and V.4, if we had to choose. Empire through the beginning of Jo Duffy’s run.  You get some memorable Goodwin/Williamson (and Goodwin/Infantino), great one-off’s by Larry Hama and Mike W. Barr and the under-appreciated David Michelinie/Walt Simonson run.

Now, if you’ve got your eye on the current Marvel era of Star Wars, we have a priority for you.  We’ve liked an awful lot of it, but the BEST is the Kieron Gillen/Salvador Larroca Darth Vader run. It is jaw-dropping.  Get the two Omnibus editions – they’re cheaper and the second one includes Vader Down.  Follow it up with Doctor Aphra or the Soule run… but this is where you start.

Darth Vader Omnibus

We Thought Legendary Was a Movie Company?!?

The Marvel Legendary Runs Sale runs through Monday, 1/3. (Amazon link)

You’ll want to have a good browse through this one.  Some of the thicker volumes approach Masterworks/Epic Collection size, too.  Yes, we like it when things are 80% off.

Things that pop to the top of the list here?  (This sale is alphabetical, so just scroll through the actual sale page.)

  • Avengers Assemble is the Kurt Busiek / George Perez run and and wonderful era of Avengers.
  • Black Panther by Christopher Priest: The Complete Collection is probably still the definitive run. Yes, even ahead of Don McGregor.  Worth your time for very thick volumes at 80% off.
  • Howard the Duck: The Complete Collection – you only need the first two volumes, this site doesn’t recognize HTD if he isn’t written by Steve Gerber. Note: The 99-cent Masterworks doesn’t quite have as many issues as V.1, but it’s close.  V. 2 is not in Masterworks format.
  • Thor by Walter Simonson because Walt is the best.

Avengers Assemble   Black Panther by Priest   Howard the Duck

Not to be Confused with Dark Tower or Johnny Cash

The Marvel King in Black Sale runs through Sunday, 12/19. (Amazon link)

The is the Venom-centric cosmic invasion Event with the core mini-series by Donny Cates and Ryan Stegman.

As far as the tie-ins (and there are quite a few), we like a couple that intersected a bit more tangentially.

King in Black: Namor is largely a flashback to Namor’s youth that features an origin for Attuma as a dark secret from the past rears it’s head to menace Atlantis.  It works pretty well as a stand alone story. We’d have been good with this being an ongoing title.

The Union, drawn by Andrea Di Vito and written by British indie comics legend Paul (Kane, Jack Staff) Grist finds Union Jack heading up a new group of British heroes, very much against his better judgement.

King in Black   King in Black Namor   The Union

What a Long Strange Trip

The DC Strange Adventures Sale runs through Monday, 12/20. (Amazon link)

A sale that’s… strange?  So let’s talk about Adam Strange.  The most topical item of this sale is the current Strange Adventures Adam Strange series by Tom King, Mitch Gerads and Doc Shaner. The first 10 issues are available for $0.99 cents… and then the last 2 issues are $4.99/pop.  That’s $19.88 for the series vs. $29.99 for the digital collection.  So you can save a bit if you want to read it now or you can wait for the collection to go on sale in 6-8 months, as it inevitably will.

If you want some of the original Adam Strange, there are some $0.99 reprints towards the tail end of the original Strange Adventures series available. It’s digital, so they’re all reprints.  We’d avoid Deadman in this run: it’s incomplete and you’re better off getting a collected edition when those are on sale. The Animal Man issues are also in black & white.  We did mention this was a strange sale.

JSA: Strange Adventures is a pulpy take on the Justice Society by Kevin J. Anderson, Barry Kitson and Gary Erksine.

Strange Adventures   Strange Adventures   JSA Strange Adventures

$0.99 / $1.99 Indie Graphic Novels are Back

Welcome to the holidays, we were expecting this to filter in soon.  Remember how the first volume in a series was $0.99 and subsequent volumes were $1.99 around Black Friday?  It’s back.

Vault

The Best of Vault Sale runs through Thursday, 1/6.

We’ve heard nothing but good things about These Savage Shores, a colonial horror tale by Ram V and Sumit Kumar. We’ve also heard a bit of buzz building around Money Shot by Tim Seeley, Sarah Beattie and Rebekah Isaacs, a tale about *cough* relations with aliens *cough* and it’s not really a book for kids.

These Savage Shores   Money Shot

A Different Love & Rockets

The Fantagraphics Love & Rockets Sale runs through Thursday, 1/6.

Yes, one of the legendary indie comics by Gilbert, Jaime and Mario Hernandez falls under this category… and since the series is broken up into different sequences, there’s a lot more $0.99 material than you might expect.  A real fielders choice here. Pick what speaks to you, the pedigree is there.

Love & Rockets

Valiant

The Valiant Ring in the New and Old Sales runs through Thursday, 1/6. (Amazon link)

They had a similar sale on Black Friday, so let’s talk about three particularly good older titles that have popped up here.

Quantum & Woody by Priest and MD Bright is from the Acclaim era of Valiant and is probably the best thing they’ve published. A superhero farce with gravitas, heart and… a goat. A wonderful comic that didn’t last as long as it should have. Highly recommended.

X-O Manowar: Retribution is the opening act in the original series where a barbarian comes into possession of sentient suit of unspeakably powerful armor worship by aliens. Sort of Conan gets Iron Man’s suit… but with more explosions.  The creative line up on this one? Steve Englehart, Jim Shooter, Bob Layton, Barry Windsor-Smith and Joe Quesada. Yes, there are reasons this was a hot book in the 90s and worth revisiting.

Harbinger: Children of the Eighth Day kicked off the original Harbinger saga. It’s something that seemed to fall out of the collective consciousness after Valiant’s first incarnation folded, but it’s a solid tale of teen psionics (mutants… why that would be a different publisher) confronting a conspiracy to control and own them. Jim Shooter and David Lapham are the creators.

Quantum and Woody   X-O Manowar   Harbinger

Oni For the Holidays

The Oni Holiday Sale runs through Tuesday, 1/4. (Amazon link)

Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim might be Oni’s flagship book at this point. The main question is whether a sequence that started in 2004 is a “modern classic” or just “a classic.” Hugely influential, either way.  The color omnibus is the best value here.  6 volumes for $14.99 comes out to ~$2.50/volume and that’s not bad at all.

We’ve spoken about the greatness that is The Sixth Gun before (and it’s also on sale), but we haven’t spoken of Shadow Roads. It’s a sequel series. Now… without getting into spoilers, this is not a sequel you were necessarily expecting, but there are a few familiar faces and some… echoes you’ll recognize. It does follow on quite nicely and if you liked The Sixth Gun, we’re confident you’ll like Shadow Roads.  Cullen Bunn and Brian Hurtt are back with A.C. Zamudio on art.

Stumptown is a Rockford Files-inspired detective comic by Greg Rucka, Matthew Southworth and Justin Greenwood.  A down on her heels PI navigates the quirky world of Portland. We especially liked V.4’s affair with rare coffee beans for maximum quirk.

Scott Pilgrim in Color   Shadow Roads   Stumptown

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Comixology Sales: Star Wars, Y: The Last Man, Garth Ennis, Killadelphia, Red Sonja, Hercules and a LOT of Image

Highlights of this week’s Comixology Sales include a Star Wars sale, discounts on a wide range of Image’s crime-related comics, Hercules, Red Sonja… and you might have heard a Y: The Last Man TV show is approaching, so of course that’s on say.

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

Nothing But Star Wars

The Marvel Star Wars by Aaron & Gillen Sale runs through 9/16.

In one of the most straight forward sales we’ve ever seen at Comixology, this is simply the Marvel Star Wars run that begins with Jason Aaron/John Cassady and ends with Kieron Gillen/Andrea Broccardo, with Salvador Larroca handling much of the art in the middle of the run.  Let’s face it, you already know if you want this or not.

Star Wars

Prince of Power

The Marvel Hercules Sale runs through Sunday, 9/12.

Hercules: Price of Power by Bob Layton is pretty much where Herc starts as a solo character.  It’s something of a space opera centuries in the future and has gained something of a cult following over the years.

For something a hair more recent, we thought the Dan Abnett/Luke Ross Hercules never really got a fair shake.  It was fun and creative with the character.

Now speaking of cult runs, The Thing: Project Pegasus shows up in this sale.  Arguably the best arc from Marvel Two-in-One, Ben Grimm finds himself embroiled in suspicious dealing at Project Pegasus, an alternate energy research facility. (Or is it something more sinister?)  A classic from Gruenwald & Macchio on the writing side, with art by Sal Buscema, John Byrne and George Perez.

Hercules: Prince of Power   Hercules   Project Pegasus

Crime Time

The Image Crime Sale runs through Thursday, 9/16 and comes in two flavors: Graphic Novels and Single Issues.  The single issues are mostly $0.99 and there are a few older titles in there that don’t have their collected editions in digital, so worth a browse. We’ll be looking a bit more at the graphic novels.

To start out with a bit of an oddity, we hadn’t realized Bloody Mary had resurfaced at Image. If that sounds familiar, but you can’t place it, that’s because it’s a Garth Ennis/Carlos Ezquerra dystopian assassin comic that originally saw print at Helix.  Helix?  Yes, Helix – DC’s short lived attempt to create a science fiction-centric version of Vertigo.

Joshua Williamson is having a turn as the focus of attention at DC and will be taking over Batman soon. We always liked Nailbiter, a series he did with Mike Henderson about a small town that produces a highly suspicious number of serial killers and the secret behind it. [Note: it’s slightly less expensive to get the regular collections than the omnibus/deluxe editions.]

Bloody Mary   Nailbiter

About a month back, we finally got around to cracking open Killadelphia and it would be hard to be happier about the first two volumes.  This Rodney Barnes/Jason Shawn Alexander vehicle is a neo-noir detective thriller about a vampire conspiracy over-running Philly. There’s a historical twist we won’t spoil and some VERY good one-liners pop up.  Very highly recommended.

It’s  been just long enough since Criminal wrapped up, not everyone remembers that’s where Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips used to put their crime stories. All sorts of thoroughly enjoyable mayhem in these, but if you have to choose just one, that’s an easy choice. V. 6, “The Last of the Innocent” is a film noir pastiche of the Archie comics and it is straight up brilliant.

Killadelphia  Criminal

We’ve liked Chew for a long time and consider the first issue an absolute textbook on how to launch a series. This John Layman / Rob Guillory series concerns Tony Chu. In a world where an avian flu has outlawed the consumption of chicken, Chu is an agent of the FDA. He also has the strange ability to know the past of anything he eats. Want to know who killed that corpse? Chomp. Oh, yes… this is beyond absurd and has it all — chicken speakeasies, rogue chefs, aliens, vampires, criminal conspiracies and a death-dealing secret agent rooster named Poyo.

Recently, Chew spawned a spin-off.  Chu is the story of Tony’s sister Saffron, who operates on the opposite side of the law. And their mysterious grandfather. If you like Chew, Chu basically an old friend coming back to visit. John Layman returns and Dan Boultwood handles the art.

Chew   Chu

Y: The Last Sale

The DC Spotlight: Y The Last Man Sale runs through Monday, 9/13.

You may recall that a pre-Saga Brian K. Vaughan teamed with Pia Guerra for Y: The Last Man about the sole male survivor of a mysterious plague. It’s got a TV adaptation that drops on 9/13.  The first 5 items in the sale, “Book One” through “Book Five” are the omnibus editions and better deal for this classic series.

Y the Last Man

Paint the Sale Red

The  Dynamite Red Sonja Sale runs through Thursday, 9/16.

When it comes to Red Sonja, come people want Gail Simone. Some people want Frank Thorne.  And both are on sale, but the Mark Russell / Mirko Colak / Bob Q run is the one that really floored us.  Equal parts military adventure and a satire of pretentious sword & sorcery narratives, the two sides blend together incredibly well for a unique experience.

Red Sonja

Still on Sale

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Comixology Sales – Massive May the Fourth Be With You Star Wars Sale, Avengers, She-Hulk, Greg Rucka and Mike Mignola

This week in Comixology sales, Marvel has CRAZY deals on Star Wars for May the Fourth Be With You. Up to 96% off kind of crazy. Plus Avengers vs. X-Men, She-Hulk, Image selections from Greg Rucka and Dark Horse selections from Mike Mignola & Christopher Golden.

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

May the Fourth Be With You

The Star Wars Day Sale runs through Thursday, 5/6.

Go to that page and look it up and down. You’ve got the “Legends” material, most of which originated at Dark Horse. You’ve got the current Marvel era. You’ve got the IDW “Adventures” line.  We’ve gone on at length about how much we like Gillen and Soule on Darth Vader, but this is Comics.Cheap and when it comes to cheap, that “Legends” section at the top of the page is in some rarified air.  Volume 1’s for $0.99 and subsequent volumes for $1.99.  Including omnibuses editions. It’s enough to make Uncle Scrooge cry!

Some highlights:

  • The original Marvel Star Wars series is available as a series of omnibus editions. With this link you’ll also find the excellent newspaper strip by Archie Goodwin and Al Williamson listed as Classic Star Wars.
  • For a real oddity, try the “Wild Space” Omnibus which collects the Star Wars strips Marvel made for the UK comics from some of the usual Marvel suspects… and Alan Moore, too.
  • Remember Dark Empire? Tom Veitch, Jim Baikie and Cam Kennedy did a series of mini-series in the mid-90s that were key to reinvigorating Star Wars.  Star Wars Dark Empire Trilogy has the whole set for 99 pennies – good AND cheap.
  • Star Wars: Legacy by John Ostrander and Jan Duursema takes place 125 years after return of the Jedi and follows the adventures of Cade Skywalker, a descendant of Luke who might have more in common with Han.
  • Agent of Empire by John Ostrander, Stéphane Créty, Stéphane Roux and Davidé Fabbri has an elevator pitch of “What if James Bond worked for The Empire?”

Star Wars Omnibus   Star Wars Wild Space   Star Wars Dark Empire Trilogy   Star Wars: Legacy   Agent of Empire

AVX

The Marvel Avengers Vs. X-Men Sale runs through Sunday, 5/2.

Avengers Vs. X-Men Collection collects the core mini-series written by Brian Bendis, Jason Aaron, Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction and Jonathan Hickman with art by Frank Cho, John Romita, Jr., Olivier Coipel and Adam Kubert.

Expand to the tie-in series at will, there are a ton of them, but be aware there are a lot of cooks in the kitchen here.

Avengers vs. X-Men

Gama Sale

The Marvel She-Hulk Sale runs through Sunday, 5/2.

You can get the Masterworks of the original run, but there are three series that are more likely to come to mind here.

Sensational She-Hulk is the late 80s series by John Byrne.

The Dan Slott / Juan Bobilla era runs across two volumes. (Ah, yes – the Marvel relaunch era)

She-Hulk by Soule and Pulido: The Complete Collection is a one-volume collection of the well-received Charles Soule / Javier Pulido run.

Sensational She-Hulk   She-Hulk   She-Hulk by Soule

Rucksack!

The Image Greg Rucka Sales runs through Thursday, 5/6.

The Old Guard by Rucka and Leandro Fernandez is a tale of immortal soldiers of fortune that’s gotten a bit of notoriety after being adapted on Netflix.

Lazarus by Rucka and Michael Lark is dystopian tale of a future where corporate families have carved up the world into feudal fiefdoms and a genetically engineered guardian of the system who’s coming to understand a few things she wasn’t intended to. This is Rucka’s signature series at Image. Here, the “regular” collected editions are less expensive than the omnibus editions.

Black Magick by Rucka and Nicola Scott tells the tale of a police detective who’s also a witch and what’s come looking for her. Once again, pick up the normal collected editions, not the more expensive omnibus.

Old Guard   Lazarus   Black Magick

The Horror, The Horror…

The Dark Horse Mike Mignola & Christopher Golden Sale runs through Monday, 5/3.

Fun fact, the two highlighted series were originally written as novels by the Mignola/Golden partnership and then expanded into comic series.

Baltimore, the post-WWI vampire hunting saga with art by Ben Steinbeck and Peter Bergting, is probably Mignola’s and Golden’s best known and longest comics collaboration. The Omnibus editions are a value buy.

Joe Golem: Occult Detective is just what it sounds like and features art by Patric Reynolds and Peter Bergting.

Baltimore Omnibus 1   Joe Golem

Still on Sale

 

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Comixology Sales: Star Wars, X-Force, Atomic Robo, Iron Fist, Captain Ginger, Frank Miller and Douglas Rushkoff

This week’s Comixology sales have Marvel putting Star Wars, Iron Fist and X-Force up for discounts. DC’s goes “deluxe” (and we sidestep their superfolks). Indie science fiction is highlighted and Dark Horse crime is on sale.

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

Marvel Comics Presents: Stars, Fists and Force

Marvel’s X-Force Sale runs through Sunday (1/31). There are several eras to X-Force over the years, two of the stand out to us:

The Rick Remender years, where X-Force went black ops and the storyline was extra dark was a standout – particularly in regard to it’s contemporaries at Marvel during that time period.  Jemore Opena was the primary artist, but there were a lot of artists tagging in and out in that period. It’s collected Uncanny X-Force by Rick Remender  Vol. 1 and Vol. 2.

The polar opposite of that would Peter Milligan’s and Mike Allred’s run on the title.  A goofy period of the feature that would soon be renamed X-Statix.  It’s collected inX-Force Vol. 1 and Vol. 2

X-Force   X-Force   X-Force by Milligan and Allred   X-Force by Milligan and Allred

The Star Wars Legends Sale runs through Sunday (1/31).

This sale is largely about the Dark Horse titles (and we’ll note that neither Agent of Empire or Legacy are present), but we’re thinking you might be interested in a couple older things: The Star Wars newspaper strip, which begins with Russ Manning and ends with a lengthy Archie Goodwin/Al Williamson run. Mmmm… Goodwin/Williamson.  Then there’s the original Marvel run, which has even more Archie Goodwin.  That said, we’ve always thought the David Michelinie/Walt Simonson run that’s part of V.4 of the Epic collections hasn’t gotten enough love.  Especially when they were working under the constraints of the time period between Empire and Return of the Jedi.

Star Wars Newspaper Strip   Star Wars

The Iron Fist Sale runs through, you guessed it, Sunday (1/31).

Three things stand out here. You can start at the beginning with the  Iron  Fist Epic Collection that collects the original Marvel Premiere run and the Claremont/Byrne solo title.

That, of course, leads directly into Power Man & Iron Fist, which has Epic Collections on sale and is more of a fun-forward, occasionally goofy take on the character.

Finally, there’s Immortal Iron Fist, the excellent (and more recent) take on Iron Fist and the guardians of K’un-Lun.

Iron Fist   Power Man and Iron Fist   Immortal Iron Fist

Let’s talk about non-cape DC books

The DC  Deluxe Sale runs through Monday (2/1). This sale is theoretically about DC’s hardcover collections, which is a little counter-intuitive when talking about digital. It also might not make for the best price points, which is a common complaint about DC’s sales.  So let’s look past the usual superhero fare that you can find most weeks and concentrate on the unusual.

Frank Miller’s Ronin is what Miller originally left Marvel for. It’s a sort of science fiction/fantasy mashup concerning a samurai’s quest to kill a demon that lands the titular Ronin in a dystopian future, adding a touch of cyberpunk to the mix.

Marshal Law by Pat Mills and Kevin O’Neill is most easily described as Judge Dredd with superheroes. Quite possibly an inspiration for The Boys, too. Marshal Law is charged with policing superheroes. It’s a vicious satire of the genre and something of a trendsetter that the general audience wasn’t always quite sure what to make of when it came out.

Sheriff of Baylon is a bit more recent. It’s Tom King’s and Mitch Gerads’s mystery/thriller tale of murder and political maneuvering inside the Green Zone as a contractor attempts to train the new Iraqi police force.  One of King’s best works.

Ronin   Marshal Law   Sheriff of Babylon

Indie Science Fiction Comics

The Small Press Sci-Fi Sale runs through Monday (2/1). Which is to say indie comics and it’s an unusual mix.

Atomic Robo by Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegener is pure, distilled fun. A robot created by Nikolai Tesla takes on mad science, Nazis and dinosaurs.  As one does. A delightful amusement.

Captain Ginger by Stuart Moore and June Brigman is a space opera about evolved cats on a spaceship built by humans after all the humans were wiped out by an invasive alien species… that’s still chasing the cats. Another fun comic from Ahoy, which has a fairly tight lineup.

Testament by noted cyberculture/media critic/journalist/academic Douglas Rushkoff and Liam Sharp (currently wrapping up on Green Lantern) was actually a Vertigo comic, back in the day. It appears the rights reverted.  It’s a tale about history repeating itself split between the near future and Biblical times and the evolution of religion with a resistance cell’s struggle in parallel with Biblical actions. You can save a dollar by buying the $0.99 single volumes instead of the omnibus.

Atomic Robo   Captain Ginger   Testament

Cops and Robbers… but mostly Robbers

The Dark Horse Crime Sale runs through Monday (2/1).

We really can’t say enough about Blacksad: The Collected Stories. Wonderful hardboiled detectives stories and amazing art. Click through and look at the preview.

You also really can’t go wrong with the EC Archives.  In this case, Crime SuspenStories Vol. 2 and  Vol. 4

Blacksad   Crime SuspenStories  EC Crime SuspenStories

Still on Sale

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Comixology Sales Roundup: Darth Vader, Miracleman, Punisher, Metal, Astro Boy, Umbrella Academy and Imports

This week in Comixology sales finds Marvel opening some slightly different vaults, DC venturing to dark place, Dark Horse being media-friendly and the joy of Jazz Maynard.

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

Darth Vader = Good Comics

Let’s start with the good stuff: the Marvel  Darth Vader Sale.  Darth Vader has been the best Star Wars title.  We’re mainly looking at two runs here: the all-caps EXCELLENT Kieron Gillen / Salvador Larroca run and the very good Charles Soule / Giuseppe Camuncoli run.

Two things to pay attention to:

1)Vader Down is the real V. 3 of the Gillen/Larroca run, you’ll need it.
2)We’d say the Soule/Camuncoli doesn’t really hit it’s stride until V.2 and the Jedi librarian.  Remember, you want the 6-issue original tpbs of this run, much cheaper than the 12 issue collections.

This sale runs through Sunday (1/10).

Vader  Vader Series 2  Vader Down

“The Original Writer” and Marvel Max Titles

Then you’ve got the Marvel Max sale that runs through Thursday (1/14).  Marvel Max being theoretically for grownups and usually is more violent (although you have your odd adult situations and a childbirth scene).

Let’s start off with Miracleman – Parental Advisory Edition. Yeah, there’s a childbirth scene in there.  Sense 8 wasn’t the first to have one of those, even if they were, perhaps, a bit more fixated on it.  The “Original Writer” in the credits is Alan Moore. He doesn’t have the best relations with Marvel.  Artists on this include Gary Leach, Alan Davis, John Ridgeway, Rick Veitch and John Totleben. It’s an early more post-modern deconstruction where Miracleman (originally Marvelman, a UK knock-off of Captain Marvel after it Fawcett lost the DC lawsuit and ceased publication) awakens after a time… away and all sorts of unpleasantness follows.  Hugely influential comic that was out of circulation for quite some time.

This sequence is followed by Miracleman by Gaiman & Buckingham, Vol 1.: The Golden Age. Yes, that would be Neil Gaiman and Mark Buckingham. One day, there might be another volume in this series. It’s been talked about for a very long time.

Miracleman   Miracleman by Gaiman & Buckingham

The Garth Ennis Punisher runs have always been a big part of Marvel Max.  You can still get his excellent and hilarious “Welcome Back Frank” sequence with Steve Dillon in this sale, but we’d point out the more serious Punisher run Ennis did with Leandro Fernandez, Darick Robertson, Doug Braithwaite and Goran Parlov, among others.  It’s a quality, hard as nails run that doesn’t always get the fanfare of the lighter version.  Punisher Max: The Complete Collection V. 1-4 covers the Ennis run.

Punisher Max

A Trail of Infinity Events

The Infinity Gauntlet sale runs through Thursday (1/14). We say go back to the originals.  Avengers Vs. Thanos collects the original Captain Marvel and Warlock sequences by Jim Starlin, the father of this saga.  Infinity Gauntlet started the current cycle, written by Starlin with art by George Perez and Ron Lim.

If you’re looking at the Jonathan Hickman’s Avengers sequence – and it’s a true epic – know that you can’t do into it halfway.  It’s all or nothing.  Avengers, New Avengers, Infinity, Time Runs Out AND Secret Wars.  That’s one long, complex story.

Avengers Vs. Thanos   Infinity Gauntlet

DC Goes Dark

DC’s Darkest Hour Sale runs through Monday (1/11) and it’s a fairly small sale.  DCeased and the Dark Night: Metal titles.  It’s quick to browse, but we feel obliged to point out you can save a little money getting the DCeased and Dark Nights: Metal (the main book) as $0.99 single issues.

Dark Nights: Metal

Import Goodness

The Magnetic Press New Year’s Linewide Sale runs through Monday (1/11) and it’s filled with some absolutely lovely European imports.  Seriously, browse some of those books.  Top flight art.  What we’d really like to draw your attention to here is Jazz Maynard by Raule and Roger Ibanez Ugena.  Formally, it’s about an ex-con getting dragged back into his old world, but this comic is more about how the story is told.  A noir-ish tale of a rogue, it reminded us of a modern setting for Corto Maltese and we’re not ones to invoke a Corto Maltese vibe lightly.

Jazz Maynard

DH Transmedia Options

The  Dark Horse Screen to Comics Sale runs through Monday (1/11) and has a fair amount of comics to screen. It’s comics based on TV & movies AND comics that have been adapted.  Things like Osamu Tezuka’s Astro Boy manga.  (Note: the first bundle is really V.1 & 2 in the same package. $3.99 for 424 pages is good deal.)  Hellboy is one of Dark Horse’s flagship properties. Your best value there is the Omnibus editions, some of which have pretty generous page counts. Umbrella Academy is the current Dark Horse media adaption star over at Netflix.

Astro Boy   Hellboy   Umbrella Academy

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Comixology Sales: Marvel has Buy One Get One Free and drops another 3 sales, plus Batman, Star Wars Adventures and Red Sonja

Comixology sales this week include Marvel dropping 3 new sales (including some prime Silver Surfer comics), Batman/Catwoman’s still running at DC, Red Sonja takes a digital discount at IDW and Star Wars Adventures visits the bargain zone.

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

Marvel’s Dropping Lots of Sales and BOGO

Marvel just started a Buy One Get One Free Sale through Monday (12/7) at 11pm ET.  Here’s what you do: go to this Comixology page and grab the Code, enter it in the cart and every other book is free (well, the lower priced of the two is free… but you know the drill).  And yes, that stacks on top of the sale books, so those get very cheap, very fast!

Let’s start the Marvel parade with the Silver Surfer Sale. Strangely, the Stan Lee / John Buscema series you automatically think of is not on sale.  An Epic Collection of the early Fantastic Four appearances is, however.

There’s also a lot to love with the 1987 Silver Surfer series. At that main link, the “Freedom” Epic Collection is built around some specials (including a Stan Lee/John Byrne issue) and the first 14 issues of the Steve Englehart / Marshall Rogers run that we just love. There’s a missing Epic Collection that hasn’t been issued yet that would contain the end of the Englehart run and the beginning of the Starlin run, but the “Thanos Quest” Epic Collection collects the back end of the Jim Starlin/Ron Lim run, plus the Thanos Quest mini-series and the beginning of Ron Marz’s long run.  There are more Marz volumes, we’d start with Englehart/Starlin since that establishes the ongoing arc, but you’ll get a lot of Infinity Gauntlet-related material if you continue with the Epic Collections for this run.

Strangely, Comixology and Marvel have filed the first part of the Starlin/Lim run away from the rest of that Silver Surfer title as “Silver Surfer: Rebirth of Thanos” and added Thanos Quest here, too.  Not exactly a unified publishing program, but good comics and a big part of what they’d call “The Road to Infinity Gauntlet” if this were being published today.

The more recent Silver Surfer are also on sale, as well as some more Stan Lee material, but those are some foundational works well worth your time. The sale runs through Thursday (12/10).

Silver Surfer by Lee/Kirby    Silver Surfer - Englehart   Rebirth of Thanos

Next up, running through Sunday (12/6) is the Spider-Girl Sale.  This series, across a few different titles (Marvel relaunching a comic?  *gasp*) ran from ’98-’10 and it’s about Mayday Parker, Spidey’s daughter from the future. Worth noting, especially for such a long run, almost everything in the sale is by a combination of at least 2 of Tom DeFalco, Ron Frenz and Pat Olliffe.  You don’t see creators that consistent on such long runs very often.

Spider-Girl

Marvel’s “Stormbreakers” Sale  has nothing to do with the Alex Rider novel of the same name and isn’t a political movement (though we’ll admit it kinda sounds like one), it’s just the new name they’re using to promote their new favored artists they way they used to call them “Young Guns.”

We’ve enjoyed Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man by Tom (“you keep mentioning that guy”) Taylor and Stormbreaker Juann Cabal, among other artists and the first volume is $2.99 for 6 issues.

You also really can’t go wrong with House of X/Powers of X by Jonathan Hickman, Pepe Larraz and Stormbreaker R.B. Silva. (And honestly, you shouldn’t need a promotion to know who Silva is.  Silva’s been working at DC and Marvel for over 10 years!)

This sale runs through Thursday (12/17).

Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man   House of X / Powers of X

And let’s not forget the Vision & the Scarlet Witch Sale (Wanda/Vision, if you prefer) is still running through Sunday (12/13).

Vision and the Scarlet Witch

The Bat and The Cat

DC’s “Batman Catwoman Sale” is still running through Monday (12/7).  We talked about this one last time, but we’d still like to point out Legends of the Dark Knight: Norm Breyfogle. It’s a little pricier than what we normally point out here (63% off is still $12.99), but it’s 522 pages of the Alan Grant / John Wagner / Norm Breyfogle Batman run that’s definitely an era unto itself.

Batman by Breyfogle

The She-Devil with a Sword

Also running through Monday (12/7) is the Red Sonja Sale. If you’d like some sword with your sorcery, we’d recommend going back to the very beginning of Dynamite’s run with the first omnibus. Mel Rubi is the lead artist. You start out Mike (M.R.) Carey writing, followed by Michael Avon Oeming and it’s a fun comic. If memory serves, that Omnibus ends with the return of Kulan Gath, who you might remember from some non-Robert E. Howard Marvel comics.

Red Sonja

The Force Happens

The IDW Star Wars Adventures Sale features the all-ages version of Star Wars and runs through Monday (12/14).  A place to start?  Vol. 1… or maybe take a trip to the Dark Side with Vader’s Castle?

Tales from Vader's Castle

Still On Sale

Posted on by comics_p1pusl