Villains Archives - Comics.Cheap

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, it’s villains week. DC’s discounts are on their “Villains” sale, while Marvel offers up Thanos and Super Spider-Man (Dr. Octavius, if you’re nasty).

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):

They’re Just Drawn That Way…

The DC Villains Sale runs through Monday, 10/16.

Spotlighting villains? Sure. It’s not like giving villains their own comics is common or anything.

We’d put the best villain comic in recent memory as the Priest/Carlo Pagulayan run on Deathstroke. Oh, there’s talk of reforming… but there’s a lot more scheming and a bit of philosophy as Deathstroke runs slightly wild through the DCU.

Note: Deathstroke crosses over with Teen Titans a couple time for key plot points (and Priest writes a better Damien Wayne than most), so you absolutely need The Lazarus Contract and The Terminus Agenda to get the complete series.

One of the bigger villains in DC’s world is Darkseid, so naturally, The New Gods by Jack Kirby is included in the sale. The original run is definitely an impressive feat.

You really couldn’t have this sale without The Joker. While there’s plenty of that, we’ll point out one of the more offbeat offerings: Emperor Joker. That’s a Joe Kelly / Jeph Loeb / Doug Mahnke / Ed McGuinness tale that has Superman running up against a Joker who’s somehow gained the power to reshape reality in his image.

Now, if we go back to that concept of villains taking more of a heroic turn there a couple other things that come to mind.

Gail Simone, Nicola Scott and Jim Calafiore had a memorable run on Secret Six –featuring Deadshot (moving over from Suicide Squad) Catman, Ragdoll and even Bane towards the end. (The preceding Secret Six miniseries is here.)

Did we just say Suicide Squad? Good, because the original villains pressed into service series by John Ostrander, Luke McDonnell and Geoff Isherwood is also on sale. Amanda Waller assembles a team of imprisoned super villains and offers them a deal… if they go on what’s effectively a suicide mission. This is where the format was set.

For a more recent take on this, there’s Suicide Squad: Bad Blood by the team of Tom Taylor and Bruno Redondo, not too long before they landed on Nightwing.

The OG Marvel Cosmic Sale

The Marvel Thanos and the Infinity Gauntlet Sale runs through Monday, 10/16.

Thanos has become a saga, at least with the Starlin-driven material.

Avengers Vs. Thanos is a meaty ~470 page collection of the original ’70s appearances that were centered in Captain Marvel and Warlock. You could make an argument that this is where “cosmic” Marvel was born. (It’s one of a handful of candidates.) Recommended.

And then Thanos was mostly on the shelf for ~13 years until Jim Starlin started writing Silver Surfer (with Ron Lim drawing… oh yes, those two would do some collaborating). The Rebirth of Thanos arc was the “oh, snap” moment (pun intended) where Thanos resurfaced and the wheels were set in motion for The Infinity Gauntlet (with art by George Perez and Ron Lim). And both of those are recommended, too.

There were two more Infinity sequels:

And a ton of supporting material. “Infinity” and Adam Warlock were practically a sub-imprint for a couple years.

Starlin did more Thanos follow-ups over the years, culminating in a couple graphic novel trilogies:

and

And, for good measure, while not really part of the above – Avengers: The Legacy of Thanos by Roger Stern, John Buscema and John Byrne is a highly entertaining tale of Nebula (yes, the Granddaughter of Thanos who’d later be in Guardians of the Galaxy) attempting to conquer the Skrulls.

Superiority Complex

The Marvel Superior Spider-Man Sale runs through Monday, 10/16.

Yes, that would be the run when Doctor Octopus took over Peter Parker’s body. One of the great moments of “wait… this is actually good” in recent history. (Everyone we knew winced at the high concept, but the execution was on the money!)

The primary Superior Spider-Man series by Dan Slott and Ryan Stegman is best packaged in the 2-volume Complete collection, that also includes the “Dying Wish” arc that sets up the run.

Superior Spider-Man Companion gets you the first 12 issues of Superior Spider-Man Team-Up and some tie-in issues.

Superior Spider-Man (’18-’19) is the Christos Gage / Mike Hawthorne revival that returns Otto Octavious to his Spidey persona.