Tag: X-Men

Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: X-Men – The Krakoa Era; Thunderbolts; Winter Soldier

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel puts the Krakoan age of X-Men on sale, plus Thunderbolts and Winter Soldier.

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):

Administrative Note

The holidays are approaching and that means the sales are likely going to get larger and more numerous, which means we’re probably going to be breaking the weeks into multiple posts from time to time. Since we’ve been getting asked about X-Men sales, here’s the full Krakoa sale and the Thunderbolts sale. We’ll be back at the usual time for DC, Star Wars, Old Man Logan and whatever else turns up. (This would be WAY long if we put in one post.)

Ghosts of X-Mas-Men Past

X-Force  Dawn of X  Sins of Sinister

The Marvel X-Men: The Krakoan Age Sale runs through Monday, 11/25.

If you want to call it the Hickman Era or the HoX/PoX Era, don’t let us stand in your way. We find those names valid.

Let’s talk about the overall arcs and “… of X” editions first. These are the collected editions that approximate reading the Hickman era as single issues. Roughly speaking they cycle through X-Men, Wolverine, X-Force, Marauders, etc. etc.

While this effect dissipates after time, we think this is the better way to read the Hickman X-Men titles. Story elements originally floated between books and their sum was greater than their parts. The order does something like this:

Inferno is the last arc for Hickman before leaving and it fits in roughly after The Trial of Magneto ends, so you can read it somewhere between Trials of X V.3-6.

We’re not as adamant about reading this in issue-to-issue format after Hickman leaves… although X-Force and Wolverine are certainly intertwined at times. Through Inferno, though? Yes. If you do jump off at that point, be sure to add Way of X to your individual title list.

The next “act” of the Krakoa age was “Destiny of X,” but that’s apparently only available in this format in French?

Our recommendations for your optimal Destiny of X reading is clustered around two tracts:

Track One: the Axis of Gillen/Spurrier/Ewing – the writers of the three “big concept” X-titles that eventually converge in the truly X-cellent Sins of Sinster Event that we might even put ahead of the also X-cellent X-of Swords.

These books are:

  • Immortal X-Men by Kieron Gillen / Lucas Werneck; we’d personally consider this the flagship title for the Destiny of X sequence
  • Legion of X by Si Spurrier / Jan Bazaldua / Rafael Pimentel; The explorations of Legion and Nightcrawler’s crews
  • X-Men: Red – Al Ewing / Stefano Caselli / Juann Cabal; Storm’s adventures leading Arakko (Mars) as Ewing keeps a finger in the cosmic side of Marvel

Track two: Ben Percy continues to keep X-Force and Wolverine intertwined in interesting ways, particularly as the long-running saga of Hank McCoy comes to a head.

Pick up X-Force starting with Vol. 5.

Pick up Wolverine starting with Vol. 4.

A mini-series worth mentioning in the “Destiny” period: X-Terminators by Leah Williams / Carlos Gomez manages to be lighthearted with really dark and occasionally off-color humor as Dazzler, Boom Boom, Laura Kinney and Jubilee get mixed up with vampires in the most humiliating ways.

Sabretooth: The Adversary and Sabretooth and the Exiles by Victor LaValle and Leonard Kirk are a pair of horror-edged (see: LaValle, Victor) tales about what Sabretooth was really up to when he was exiled into The Pit, along with the other mutants down there. These took us by surprise and they lead right into the X-Force and especially Wolverine finales.

And for the science fiction fan in your family, New Mutants: Lethal Legion is written by Hugo/Nebula/Locus Award-winner Charlie Jane Anders and drawn by Enid Balám.

Summing this up – while you can definitely go through the sale and pick up the individual titles, we strongly feel there’s an additive effect to reading things in the Dawn/Reign/Trials omnibus format and taking in the universe building. After Hickman exits, that cohesion wanes after a bit and the line isn’t quite as consistent.  And you have to pick up individual titles after the end of “Trials,” regardless. This sale takes you to the end of like for era. There are a few more titles out listed in the sale – the X-line hasn’t been known for brevity in decades – but those are the highlights and the best of the Krakoa era really is top notch.

Thunder. Thunder. Thunderca… Whoops, Wrong Series!

Thunderbolts  Winter Soldier  Taskmaster

The Marvel Thunderbolts Sale runs through Monday, 11/18.

OK, given the upcoming film, this is really a Thunderbolts and Winter Soldier sale. That’s cool. We’ve had a Neapolitan milk stout before.

The Thunderbolts have been through several iterations since they began in ’97, originally having been the Masters of Evil laying the groundwork for nefarious deeds. And yes, there’s a film in the works.

Thunderbolts

The original series was written by Kurt Busiek and drawn by Mark Bagley. Eventually Fabian Nicieza tagged in as writer and Patrick Zircher became the lead artist a bit after that. Alas, these volumes jump around a bit after issue #50. The  omnibus editions are more complete, but aren’t on sale right now.

New Thunderbolts was the ’04-’06 relaunch, and yes, it’s included in the third omnibus of the original. Fabian Nicieza/Tom Grummett is the creative team, here.

This then turns back into (no adjective) Thunderbolts for ’06-’12, starting Nicieza/Grummett and then including runs by Warren Ellis / Mike Deodato and Jeff Parker/Kev Walker/Declan Shalvey

Thunderbolts relaunched for ’12-’14 with Daniel Way and then Charles Soule writing it. The artist rotation included Steve Dillon and Phil Noto.

Jim Zub and Jon Malin were behind the ’16-’17 Thunderbolts run.

’20 saw King in Black: Thunderbolts by Matthew Rosenberg/Gerry Duggan/Juan E. Ferreyra/Luke Ross.

’22 saw Thunderbolts: Back on Target by Jim Zub and Sean Izaakse.

The most recent volume in the sale is Thunderbolts: Worldstrike by Colin Kelly / Jackson Lanzing / Geraldo Borges.

With Thunderbolts, we feel pretty strongly you need to read the first sequence or two and get a flavor for the concept before jumping into the later evolutions.

Winter Soldier

The originating storyline runs in the 2004 series of Captain America by Ed Brubaker and a rotating squad of artists including Steve Epting, Michael Lark, Butch Guice and Mike Perkins. There are a couple omnibuses available, but this doesn’t really have a definitive larger collection like, say, the Hickman Avengers era. We’d probably point you to the Captain America Modern Era Epic Collection: The Winter Soldier volume. It’s a couple bucks more, but it gives you #1-19 straight through and that’s a very good run.

For solo series, the first choice is Winter Soldier by Ed Brubaker, which is Brubaker and Butch Guice in a spin-off.

Also of possible interest:

And two bonus recommendations:

  • Taskmaster: The Rubicon Trigger – Jed MacKay / Alessandro Vitti; A very funny adventure finds Taskmaster blackmailed into doing a job for Nick Fury. Alternately, the Black Widow will likely hunt him down and kill him.
  • U.S.Agent: American Zealot – Christopher Priest / Georges Jeanty; In something of a deadpan political satire, John Walker develops some issues with his handlers when sent to a small town threatened by a corporate entity… if only the optics matched reality. Smart, but you figured that with Priest involved.

The Marvel “Maybe” Sales

Ghost Rider  Amazing Spider-Man

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

Pre-Order for Next Week

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Still on Sale

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: DC’s First Holiday Sale w/ Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman; Iron Man; X-Men

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, DC has the first holiday sale of the season with their “Trinity” sale of Batman/Superman/Wonder Woman… as low as $1.99/book. Plus, Marvel puts almost the entire Iron Man catalog on sale, as well as some X-Men and Storm titles. Dark Horse chips in with an Erik Powell sale.

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 First Holiday Sale Is Here

Batman: The Detective  Superman: The Man of Steel  Wonder Woman

The DC Trinity Sale runs through Monday, 11/11.

This sale is often the first holiday sale. Why are we saying it this year? $1.99 collected editions. The rule of them is if a collected edition is $2.99, go ahead a pull the trigger. $1.99? Yeah, that’s rock bottom for DC in recent years.

As such we’re going to be taking a look here at the vast swatch of $1.99 and $2.99 books. (This is comics.CHEAP, after all.) There are definitely newer books on the sale, but they might be — gasp — $3.99 or $4.99.

Batman

  • All-Star Batman (’16 – ’17) – Scott Snyder / John Romita, Jr. / Jock / Rafael Albuquerque
  • Batman (’40 – ’11) – mixed pricing
  • Batman (’11 – ’16) – Scott Snyder / Greg Capullo; That’s right, you can stick the full Snyder/Capullo run in somebody’s stocking for $1.99@
  • Batman (’16 – present) – Most of the Tom King and James Tynion IV runs are $1.99@
  • Batman: The Dark Knight Returns – Frank Miller
  • Batman: The Detective – Tom Taylor / Andy Kubert; (yes, the first Taylor run for $1.99. Happy holidays.)
  • Batman: The Killing Joke – Alan Moore / Brian Bolland
  • Batman: Three Jokers – Geoff Johns / Jason Fabok
  • Batman: Year One – Frank Miller / David Mazzucchelli
  • Batman/Superman (’13 – ’16) – Greg Pak / Jae Lee
  • Detective Comics (’37 – ’11) – Mixed pricing
  • Detective Comics (’11-’16) – Tony Daniel, then John Layman / Jason Fabok
  • Detective Comics (’16 – present) – James Tynion IV / Eddy Barrows through Mariko Tamaki / Dan Mora (before the price starts inching up)

Superman

Wonder Woman

  • Wonder Woman ’87 – ’06 – Mixed pricing. Perez is one of the definitive runs, though not as cheap. The first Greg Rucka run is cheap, though, and it’s great.
  • Wonder Woman (’11-’16) – You want the first 6 volumes of the Brian Azzarello / Cliff Chiang / Goran Sudzuka run. It’s a divisive take on the character (see: Azzarello, Brian), but it’s a solid yarn. Treat it like an Elseworlds, if you like.
  • Wonder Woman (’16 – ’20) – You want the *excellent* first four volumes by Greg Rucka, Nicola Scott and Liam Sharp

This is one you want to take some time and browse. Some interesting things in these lower price points? Sure.

Trinity by Matt Wagner teams up Batman / Superman / Wonder Woman as Ra’s al Ghul has a plot involving Bizarro, a rogue Amazon and some nukes. Also… it’s Matt Wagner. $2.99

Wonder Woman: The Hiketeia by Greg Rucka and J.G. Jones finds Wonder Woman and Batman having a little trouble agreeing to disagree. $2.99

Batman: Venom – Denny O’Neil / Trevor Von Eeden / Russ Braun / Jose Luis Garcia Lopez; About a year before Bane appeared, this was the Legends of the Dark Knight arc that introduced “venom,” the super-steroid that bulked up Bane. (With as good a creative lineup as you could reasonably ask for.) $1.99 – cheap.

Does Whatever An Iron Can…

Iron Man: The Man Who Killed Tony Stark  Iron Man: Heroes Reborn  Iron Man: Big Iron

The Marvel Iron Man Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 11/11.

This would be one of those sales where most of the hero’s run is on sale, so we’re going to follow our usual protocol and start out by breaking out the primary titles and volumes. ‘Ole Shellhead hasn’t had as many relaunches as some titles, but there is a volume where the collection options are a little… odd. Note: the Masterworks aren’t included in this sale, so you’re looking at Epic Collections and “regular” collections for the classic material.

  • Tales of Suspense – Iron Man debuted here in what was a split book with Captain America for most of the run.
  • Iron Man ’68-’96 – The original solo run in the era before constant relaunch gimmicks

OK, sit tight. The ’98 -’04 run is collected in VERY odd ways and poorly cataloged for browsing.  The truly excellent Kurt Busiek/Sean Chen/Patrick Zircher run lasts from 1-25. We can’t find 15-25 collected? (That entire run should be!)  You can catch 1-14 and the Mike Grell run (50-59)  in cheap omnibus form here.  You can catch Joe Quesada’s scripting run (26-32) and the Avengers: Disassembled tie-in late in this run in single volumes here. (But get the omnibus version for Busiek.)

  • Iron Man ’04-07 – Best known for launching with the “Extremis” storyline
  • Invincible Iron Man ’08-’12 – The excellent Matt Fraction / Salvador Larroca run. Save some money with the omnibus collecting the first 3 volumes.
  • Iron Man ’12-’14 – The Kieron Gillen run with Greg Land as initial artist
  • Superior Iron Man ’14-’15 – Tom Taylor / Yildiray Cinar
  • Invincible Iron Man ’15-’16 – Brian Bendis and David Marquez/Mike Deodato, Jr. start out with Tony Stark in the armor
  • International Iron Man ’16 – Brian Bendis and Alex Maleev (And yes, we’re in the thick of the relaunches now)
  • Invincible Iron Man ’16-’18 – Brian Bendis and Stefano Caselli with Riri Williams/Ironheart filling Tony Stark’s shoes (yes, parallel substitute Iron Man runs)
  • Tony Stark: Iron Man ’18-’19 – The Dan Slott era with Valerio Schiti as the principle artist in the rotation.
  • Iron Man ’20-’22 – The Christopher Cantwell / Cafu run.
  • Invincible Iron Man ’22-current – Gerry Duggan / Juan Frigeri

If you’re keeping score at home, you’ll have notice Infamous Iron Man are not on sale. Why? We cannot say. Too close to Doom assuming the mantle of Sorcerer Supreme?

So what’s good?  We haven’t read ALL the Iron Man out there, but we’ve read a lot of them.

In our opinion Iron Man starts hitting it’s stride when Archie Goodwin arrives toward the end of the Tales of Suspense run and then is pure gold through issue 28 of the ’68 Iron Man series. Artists for this run include Gene Colan and George Tuska. (That’s collected in both Masterworks and Epic formats, but only the Epic is discounted right now..)

The next “all-star” run is #116-157 of the original Iron Man, that’s the David Michelinie / John Romita, Jr. / Bob Layton run that’s most famous for the “Demon in a Bottle” alcoholism arc, but there’s more to the run than just that arc.  The Denny O’Neil / Luke McDonnell run that follows is solid (make sure you get a collection that includes #200!!!), but Michelinie & Layton return for #215-250 with a few artists, including Mark Bright and Jackson Guice… with Layton even switching to penciller, instead of his usual inking post, for parts of it.  This second run is most famous for “Armor Wars” (originally known as Stark Wars).

When Heroes Return hits, Kurt Busiek and Sean Chen are pop in for the excellent 1998 run, of which only 1-14 are currently collected.

The ’08 – ’12 run by Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca is particularly good. You know how modern Marvel titles can get sidetracked by Events. Fraction and Larroca lean into it and produce a lengthy and self-contained arc with Tony Stark on the run and attempting to overwrite his brain to keep everyone’s secrets out of the hands of Norman Osborn. Yes, an honest to goodness great Event tie-in arc. It’s a rare thing.

We were quite happy with the  Christopher Cantwell/Cafu run. Tony Stark chases Korvac into outer space and meditates on the nature of godhood, good intentions and addictions. Lots of character work and action.

The Calm Before?

X of Swords  X-Men: Red  Resurrection of Magneto

The Marvel Storm Sale runs through Monday, 11/11.

It might be better to break up the highlights as pre-Krakoa and Krakoa era.

Pre-Krakoa

  • X-Men: Magik – Storm & Illyana – Chris Claremont / Brent Anderson / John Buscema; extra dark tale of Illyana’s abduction by demons
  • Storm (’06) – Eric Jerome Dickey / David Yardin; prequel to her marriage to T’Challa
  • Storm (’14-15) – Greg Pak / Victor Ibenez

Krakoa Era

  • Marauders (’19-’22) – Gerry Duggan / Matteo Lolli / Stefano Caselli; Kitty becomes a pirate captain w/ Storm in tow
  • Giant-Size X-Men by Jonathan Hickman (’20) – Jonathan Hickman / Russell Dauterman / Alan Davis
  • X of Swords (’20) – Hickman showrunning the full creative staff
  • X-Men: Red (’22-’23) – Al Ewing / Stefano Caselli; Storm rules Arrako (Mars)
  • Resurrection of Magneto (’24); Al Ewing / Luciano Vecchio; An X-Men: Red end cap of sorts, as it’s time for Magneto to return from the dead

What’s good? We’re partial to the Krakoa era. X of Swords is a satisfying Event – yes, that’s possible, it just doesn’t happen often enough. X-Men: Red was a highlight of the late-stages of Krakoa and Resurrection of Magneto was interesting… although if you’re a regular reader, you’ll know we’re usually in the bag for Al Ewing. (Mmm… ZOMBO!)

Villains of the Atom

X-Men: Dark Phoenix Saga Complete Collection  Mystique  X-Men: Age of Apocalypse

The  Marvel X-Men Villains Sale runs through Monday, 11/11.

It’s true. The X-Men have villains and sometimes the villains eventually become friends. And sometimes friends become villains and then become friends.

The best thing here is the utter classic X-Men: Dark Phoenix Saga Complete Collection by Chris Claremont & John Byrne. Yes, the comic is definitely better than the film in this case and that edition has some extra issues that are worthwhile.  (For Jean Grey’s initial resurrection, there’s also X-Men: Phoenix Rising)

Best thing under most radars? Mystique, where she’s repurposed as Xavier’s spy. The first Brian K. Vaughan / Jorge Lucas / Michael Ryan omnibus is particularly good.

You have a couple options for the Age of Apocalypse arc. X-Men: The Complete Age of Apocalypse does appear to be slightly more complete.

The sequel is filed under the two volume X-Men Vs. Apocalypse.

Also under the radar: Magneto (’14-’15 ) by Cullen Bunn & Gabriel Hernandez Walta goes to some dark places.

The Marvel “Maybe” Sales

Ms. Marvel  Ghost Rider

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

Pre-Order for Next Week

Unannounced Sales

Big Man Plans  1984  Godzilla: The Half-Century War

Dark Horse has a sale on Eric Powell’s comics:

Also on sale:

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Miles Morales – Spider-Man; DC’s Top 100; House of M; Groo; The Crow; Nova

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, DC drops a Top 100 sale. Marvel offers discounts on Miles Morales, Nova and House of M. Dark Horse cuts prices on Groo, along with several unannounced offerings.

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):

So Much For Top 10

Kingdom Come  Superman  Watchmen

The  DC Top 100 Sale runs through Monday, 9/9.

Top 100 what? We have no idea what the criterion would be, here. It’s a mix of recent and evergreen titles. Not a bad mix, either. A few things standing out:

Miles To Go Before I Sleep

  Miles Morales: Spider-Man  Miles Morales

The Marvel Miles Morales: Spider-Man Sale runs through Monday, 9/16.

Miles, of course, was the second Ultimate Spider-Man, but that world no longer exists and now there’s a new Ultimate Spider-Man and… we wouldn’t want to explain that to somebody walking in off the street.

For the first Brian Bendis/David Marquez/Sara Pichelli run, you’re probably best off with the Miles Morales: Ultimate Spider-Man Ultimate Collection set.

Then jump to the  Spider-Man for the ’16 Bendis/Pichelli/Nico Leaon run. (Yes, constant relaunching and it’s confusing to follow.)

Before we’re done with Bendis, there’s the very good Spider-Men series of mini-series where the “traditional” Peter Parker crosses paths with Miles. Get them both in one volume with Spider-Men: Worlds Collide by Bendis & Pichelli.

And after that wraps, it’s time for Miles Morales by Saladin Ahmed and Javier Garron.

And then, Miles Morales: Spider-Man by Cody Ziglar and Federico Vicentini. 

No More Mutants

House of M  X-Men: Reload  X-Men: The Day After

Marvel’s House of M and Decimation Sale runs through Monday, 9/9.

This would be the Event Miniseries where Wanda snaps and rewrites reality… forming the basis for the WandaVision TV series.  Brian Bendis and Olivier Coipel are your creators. This is the sort of Event where we recommend getting the main series and then dipping your toe into the supporting collections in the sale at your own discretion.  A good chunk of the Marvel line shifted their storylines to participate in the Event, buy how relevant they were to the main storyline varied widely and a lot of it would firmly be considered side stories. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s not always presented as such.

The “Decimation” part of the sale refers to the aftermath in the X-Men line after Wanda proclaims “no more mutants” and decimates the population. X-Men: Reload By Chris Claremont Vol. 2: House Of M by Claremont/ Chris Bachalo / Billy Tan covers House of M and Decimation in Uncanny X-Men. X-Men: Decimation – The Day After by Peter Milligan / Salvador Larocca / Roger Cruz covers Decimation in X-Men.

Corpsman
Nova Classic  Nova by Abnett & Lanning

The Marvel Nova Sale runs through Monday, 9/9.

Let’s run down the contents here:

  • 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).

Theft

Criminal  Gideon Falls  Stray Bullets

The Image Summer Crime Sale runs through Sunday, 9/15.

Crime? Maybe crime, horror and science fiction? The sale’s title might be a bit reductive.

What we’d put at the top of it:

  • Criminal – Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips; While this was their second series (after the lesser known Sleeper), their mid-00s revival of crime comics locked in Brubaker & Phillips as a long term team… and Image would soon lure them away from Marvel
  • Fell – Warren Ellis / Ben Templesmith; A creepy, surrealist detective feature and we seem to recall the plots often resembling actual “News of the Weird” newspaper columns.
  • Gideon Falls – Jeff Lemire / Andrea Sorrentino; A wild SF/horror/time travel tale of a mysterious barn that appears and disappears, always leaving a trail of bodies
  • Stray Bullets – David Lapham; This was Criminal, long before Criminal came to be. Along with AKA Goldfish and Jinx by Bendis, this was the main crime comic of the late ’90s.

The Marvel “Maybe” Sales

X-Men Ultimate Spider-Man

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

Pre-Order for Next Week

Robbin’

Robyn Hood  Robyn Hood  Robyn Hood

The Zenescope Character Spotlight Sale – Robyn Hood Sale  runs through Sunday, 9/22.

This sale is in three flavors with three links:

Looks like the Omnibus is cheaper than the collected editions and the collected editions are cheaper than the single issues, but you can double check that on individual collections. 99-cent single issues make that easy.

And yes, those really are Chuck Dixon and Howard Mackie on runs towards the bottom of the listings.

Possible Oni Sales

OK… you might remember this drill from the distant past. Oni’s had two sales listed for a couple of days. They don’t look like sale prices to us. Maybe that gets fixed at some point, but that’s what we’re seeing at the moment.

Unannounced Sales

The Crow  Groo  Barbaric

Over at Dark Horse, everyone’s favorite stupid barbarian is on sale. Yes, that’s right… it’s Groo by Sergio Aragones and Mark Evanier!

And taking a wider view:

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Image Comics Returns; X-Men; Moon Knight; Green Arrow; Minor Threats

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Image Comics returns to the discount listing for the first time in a year. DC offers sale prices on some more recent titles like Green Arrow. Marvel cuts prices on Moon Knight, X-Men, and Avengers vs. X-Men. Plus, Minor Threats.

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):

Holy Crap! Image Is Back?!?

Black Magick  Chew  Nailbiter

The Hooked on Image Comics Sale runs through Thursday, 8/29.

We get a lot of questions about why Image hasn’t had any sales lately. Interestingly, this is right about when Image resurfaced for a few weeks of sales in mid-August 2023. Um, ’tis the season?

This is a rather small and… almost alphabetical slice of Image?

Things we’ve read and can happily recommend:

  • Black Magick – Greg Rucka / Nicola Scott; a police detective who happens to be a witch has her worlds collide. What were Rucka and Scott doing before the Wonder Woman relaunch? This.
  • Cassanova – Matt Fraction / Gabriel Ba; Extra trippy adventures with a dimension-hopping thief caught up in a conspiracy with a very Jerry Cornelius vibe to it.
  • Chew – John Layman / Rob Guillory; Absurdist adventures in a world where eating chicken is outlawed with a federal agent who experiences the sense of what he eats. So if he ate your thumb, he’d know where it had been. Black humor abounds, as to vampires and a death-dealing rooster. It’s a favorite. Layman’s now working on Spawn and Titans. This is the book that really launched Layman.
  • Nailbiter – Josh Williamson / Mike Henderson; Why does a small town in Oregon produce so many serial killers? A federal agent descends upon the town with one of those prodigal serial killers in tow, looking to find out. One of the things Williamson was doing before Superman and GI Joe took over his hours.

And By Recent, We Mean Within 5 Years

Danger Street  Green Arrow  The Sandman Universe: Nightmare Country

The DC Recent Hits Sale runs through Monday, 8/19.

It does have some new releases in it, though. More importantly, there are plenty of $2.99 collected editions. Let’s work through some highlights.

X-Men: The Glory Years

X-Men Epic Collection: The Sentinels Live   X-Men: The Fate of the Phoenix  

The Marvel X-Men Masterworks/Epic Collections Sale runs through Monday, 8/26.

To paraphrase The Blues Brothers, “We’ve got both kinds, Epics and Masterworks.”

Which is to say this is all contained in the original X-Men series link.

Pick your preferred format. In general, the Epics have a more pages and end up being more bang for your buck… although the more recent Masterworks have been pretty thick volumes.

From a pragmatic standpoint, the Masterworks volumes have everything in order through issue #243 (Uncanny X-Men Masterworks Vol. 16 – which covers Inferno).

The Epic Collections exist in order through #198… and then they start jumping ahead to Jim Lee / Whilce Portacio era. If you’re looking for 90s X-Men, you want the Epics.

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 stop at #198 before jumping ahead and that’s super annoying. #200 is a landmark issue.

The Light of the Silvery Moon

Moon Knight  Moon Knight Epic Collection   Moon Knight

The Marvel Moon Knight Sale runs through Monday, 1/29.

The original Moon Knight run is mostly in Epic Collections, but it’s in two separate links because… well, we shouldn’t be surprised by this, should we?  The first link has two volumes that are not closely related. Bad Moon Rising is the Werewolf by Night appearances through the backups in Hulk Magazine and the first issues of 1980 solo series. The other volume in that link… we’re not as big on. That was later volumes.

You can go here for the rest of the 1980 Moon Knight series, which was the most famous version for quite some time. If you came into the character through the TV series, know that the original Moon Knight was a lot closer to Batman and The Shadow. Oh, sure the werewolf showed up, but most of the mystical things around Konshu were kept in the background and a lot more mysterious. The multiple identities were originally more like the cover identities adopted by the Shadow (and the original series editor, Denny O’Neil, adapted The Shadow for DC.) This is where Moon Knight got popular.

If you came in through the TV show, there really isn’t a comic that quite matches that version of the character, but the series did draw on the Jeff Lemire / Greg Smallwood Moon Knight series in which Moon Knight has a run-in with the Egyptian gods and his personalities run amok. It’s also a good run.

We also have been enjoying the current Jed MacKay/Alessandro Cappuccio Moon Knight series. This one takes up the unenviable task of rationalizing the various incarnations over the years (and there have been a lot of different takes on the character). Mr. Knight is in therapy for his multiple personality issues. He’s running the Midnight Mission and conduct himself as Konshu’s ambassador… after a fashion, although he’s not really happy with Konshu. And there are vampires. Lots of vampires.

Highlights of the rest:

  • Moon Knight ’89-’94 – Most of this is only collected in omnibus form  for the longest running volume. This is largely the Terry Kavanaugh years with Gary Kwapisz and James Fry on art. Possibly more interesting, it also includes a Bruce Jones/Denys Cowan special and a Doug Moench/Art Nichols team-up with Shang Chi. (A second volume with earlier issues drops in October.)
  • Moon Knight ’10-12 – Brian Bendis / Alex Maleev; Controversial to say the least, this one really leans into Moon Knight’s multiple personality disorder and breaks the character if you prefer the original concept. On the other hand, it’s surprisingly witty and funny. One of the oddest takes on the character.
  • Moon Knight  ’14-’15- Most notable for the style-forward Warren Ellis/Declan Shalvey reworking (introducing the business suit)

The novelist corner, because Marvel has put a couple name novelists on the property:

Friday Night Fights

Avengers Vs. X-Men A.X.E. Judgement Day

The Marvel AvX & A.X.E. Sale runs through Monday, 8/19.

And by “AvX,” they mean Avengers vs. X-Men. “Go along to get along” doesn’t necessarily apply here.

The “primary” Avengers Vs. X-Men was an Event back in ’12 with all sorts of creators contributing to it. Were there tie-in books? It’s Marvel, so there were plenty. Avengers vs. X-Men: VS was essentially the “all-fights” series.

Also included is the more recent A.X.E.: Judgment Day, the Kieron Gillen/Valerio Schiti – driven Event that crossed over Avengers, X-Men and The Eternals.

The Marvel “Maybe” Sales

Beware the Planet of the Apes  Resurrection of Magneto  Cable: United We Fall

The trend returns after a short break. 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

Pre-Order for Next Week

Unannounced Sales

Minor Threats  Daisy

That Patton Oswalt guy has recently been seen in comic shops promoting his “Minor Threats” franchise. Guess what’s on sale?

Also from Dark Horse:

  • Daisy – Colin Lorimer
  • UXB – Colin Lorimer

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Deadpool, Wolverine, Teen Titans, Ultimate X-Men, Resident Alien, Neil Gaiman and some Unannounced Sales

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel drops sales with Deadpool, Wolverine and Ultimate X-Men / The Ultimates, plus some more of these oddly discounted new releases. DC discounts Teen Titans, plus mysterious price reductions on Superman and Wonder Woman.  And then, Resident Alien and Neil Gaiman sales from Dark Horse.

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):

Oh, look… the Marvel sales came back.

Ghosts of Ultimates Past

Ultimate X-Men  Ultimates Ultimate Comics X-Men

The Marvel Ultimate X-Men and Ultimates Sale runs through Monday, 7/1.

This is effectively two sales in one: the highly influential original Ultimate Universe rebootings of X-Men and Avengers.

Over on the mutant side of the street, the spread looks like this:

The original Ultimate X-Men run has a very interesting writer rotation. Mark Millar begins and ends it. In between are runs by Brian K. Vaughan (Saga / Y – The Last Man) and Robert Kirkman (Walking Dead). The artist rotation includes Adam Kubert, Andy Kubert, Chris Bachalo, David Finch, Brandon Peterson, Stuart Immonen, Tom Raney and Salvador Larocca… among others.

Ultimate Comics X-Men was written first by Nick Spencer and later Brian Wood. Artists included Paco Medina, Carlo Barberi, Mahmud Asrar and Alvaro Martinez.

The Ultimates is a little harder to explain because of how it was rolled out. They treated it as miniseries “seasons.” Suffice it to say, you saw a lot of it’s influence on the Avengers films.

The core material here is the Mike Millar-penned Ultimates material.  His run is:

Ultimates 3 is in the sale, but here at the Tower of Cheap, we like to pretend Jeph Loeb never got involved in the Ultimate universe.

But when the Ultimate Comics relaunch started, Jonathan Hickman turned up to work on The Ultimates and isn’t he a bigger name these days?

SNIKT

Wolverine and the X-Men  All-New Wolverine  

The Marvel Wolverine and the X-Men Sale runs through Monday, 7/8.

This is a fairly unusual mix of various characters using the “Wolverine” code name and some X-Men titles, too. There’s a bit more to the sale, but here’s rundown of the highlights.

  • All-New Wolverine – Tom Taylor / David Lopez / Juan Cabal; A top notch series feature X-23/Lauren Kinney taking on the costume while Logan is “dead.” The best thing to come out of The Death of Wolverine by a wide margin.
  • Marvel Comics Presents – Ever notice they rarely show anything from MCP aside from the Wolverine serials? The first one from Chris Claremont / John Buscema is a lead-in to the original ongoing solo series.
  • Uncanny X-Men – scroll down a bit and you’ll find 16 volumes at $5.99@. From the birth of the new team roughly through Inferno.
  • Wolverine & The X-Men – Jason Aaron / Chris Bachalo / Nick Bradshaw; Logan takes his turn as headmaster
  • Wolverine Legends – Collections of some mini’s and story arcs. V.2 is the excellent “Meltdown” series from Walt Simonson/Louise Simonson/Jon J. Muth/Kent Williams

AARP Titans

New Teen Titans  Silver Age Teen Titans  Teen Titans

The DC Teen Titans 60th Anniversary Sale runs through Monday, 7/1.

Hmmm… perhaps 60 is the new 16?  What’s here? Quite a variety of things, really. Let’s hit some highlights.

“Original” Teen Titans

  • Teen Titans (’66-’78) – Bob Haney / Nick Cardy

“New” Teen Titans

  • New Teen Titans (’80-’88) – Marv Wolfman / George Perez / Jose Luis Garcia Lopez / Eduardo Baretto
  • New Titans (’84-’96) – Wolfman / Tom Grummett

“Post-Wolfman” Teen Titans

  • Teen Titans  (’03-’11) – Geoff Johns / Mike McKone
  • Teen Titans (’11-’14) – Scott Lobell / Brett Booth / Eddy Barrows
  • Teen Titans (’14-’16) – Will Pfeifer / Kenneth Rocafort
  • Teen Titans (’16-’21) – Ben Percy / Adam Glass / Jonboy Meyers / Bernard Chang
  • Titans (’16-’19) – Dan Abnett / Brett Booth
  • Teen Titans: Earth One – Jeff Lemire / Terry & Rachel Dodson

“Kids” Teen Titans

What’s good? The Wolfman / Perez run is still the gold standard (and it’s hard to understate its importance to DC at the time). With the original series, the question is whether you like Bob Haney’s brand of quirk, although Nick Cardy is consistently great.  For something later in the feature, maybe give a look to the Geoff Johns / Mike McKone run. This is one of the things Johns was working on just before he really blew up with Green Lantern.

$20 on Hugh Jackman’s Dignity

Deadpool & Cable  Spider-Man / Deadpool  Deadpool Corps

The Marvel Deadpool Vs. the Marvel Universe Sale runs through Monday, 8/5.

Deadpool has always had a lot of fairly short run titles swapping around at any given time, this is a large and wide collection of those secondary titles. You’ll want to browse yourself, but here are some of the more prominent titles being featured.

The longest running of the set is Deadpool & Cable, Fabian Nicieza and Patrick Zircher being the team most associated with it. Amusingly, the monthly comic was called Cable & Deadpool, but the character popularity has flipped since then.

Spider-Man / Deadpool also ran 50 issues. Joe Kelly / Ed McGuinness was the early creative team with Robbie Thompson / Chris Bachalo tagging in later.

Deadpool Corps maybe of heightened interest with Rob Liefeld joining writing Victor Gischler for it and for… reasons rumored to be in the new film, we suppose…

The Marvel “Maybe” Sales

New X-Men  Hawkeye  Captain Marvel

The trend we noticed last week is still moving forward. 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.

Released this week

  • New X-Men Modern Era Epic Collection: E Is For Extinction – Grant Morrison / Frank Quitely / Leinil Francis Yu; $6.99 is definitely a sale price for Epic Collections and we’re astonished the price is still active on it’s debut week.
  • Captain Marvel by Margaret Stohl – Stohl / Ramon Rosanas; Listed 484 pages, this is essentially an Epic Collection. $44.99 list price for print. $24.99 digital list price. As we type this, the “Kindle price” is $10.99.  Not quite as low one of the Deal Page sales, but plenty cheap for the page count on the debut week.

Pre-Order for Next Week

We’re not quite sure what’s going on with these prices, but we’ll give you a heads up if it looks like it’s cheaper than it would normally be.

Unannounced DC Sales?

Wonder Woman New 52   Wonder Woman by Gail Simone  Wonder Woman

We’re a little puzzled by this one. It might be next week’s sale loaded early. It might be remnants of an old sale. We’re not sure, but we’ll give you some links to browse through if you’re curious.

We also saw some Batman prices that looked like what you get when the sale prices are broken, so MAYBE they’re starting to load the sale prices in for a Batman/Superman/Wonder Woman “Trinity” sale next week? Or it could be something else.

Unannounced Resident Alien and Neil Gaiman sales.

Resident Alien Norse Mythology  Neil Gaiman Library

Over at Dark Horse, we found two 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.

Over on the Gaiman side of things, there are a couple flavors – New comics material by Gaiman and adaptions of his prose work. P. Craig Russell is involved with much of the adapted work and check to see if a series is in the Neil Gaiman Library collections, because several are.

For original material,

  • Signal to Noise – Gaiman / Dave McKean
  • Mister X: The Archives – An explanation is order. This is a very good SF/noir series by Dean Motter / Los Bros. Hernandez / Ty Templeton (among others), but there’s also a Gaiman / Dave McKean story in it

Adaptions of prose work…

First not in the Gaiman Library editions

Then the Library and the individual titles collected within

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: A Week of Unannounced Sales and the Marvel Mystery Pricing

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, DC has a Juneteenth sale and anything else new is unannounced… including the mystery of what’s going on with Marvel’s digital prices and whether they still have sales?

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):

Buckle up for an unusual round-up. Amazon only posted one new sale and we had to do some serious scrounging… but it seems the deal page is not the end-all, be-all of listings this week.

The Sole *Announced* New Sale of the Week

Far Sector  Black Lightning  Hardware

The DC Juneteenth Sale runs through Monday, 6/24.

If we were going to pick one book out of this sale, it’s Far Sector by N.K. Jemisin and Jamal Campbell. A rookie Green Lantern is sent to a remote world on the far side of the universe where violence is unheard of… and encounters the first murder in anyone’s memory. You’ll be hard pressed to find better world building and Jemisin really nails her debut.

Also notable:

  • The Other History of the DC Universe – John Ridley / Giuseppe Camuncoli
  • The DC Universe by Dwayne McDuffie – If you don’t like McDuffie, there’s much we can’t help you with.
  • Black Lightning (’77-’78) – Initially, Tony Isabella / Trevor Von Eeden; $3.99 may be the lowest we’ve seen these priced. V.2 is the follow-on features in Detective and World’s Finest.
  • Hardware: The Man in the Machine – Dwayne McDuffie / Denys Cowan; The classic original Milestone arc, which is pretty darn accurate in it’s depiction of IP and non-competes. Tech workers, feel seen.
  • Icon – Dwayne McDuffie / Mark Bright; Milestone’s original analog to Superman
  • Static – Dwayne McDuffie / Robert L. Washington / John Paul Leon; Long before the Static Shock cartoon…

Possible Unannounced Marvel Sales
Avengers, Inc.  New X-Men Predator versus Wolverine

We aren’t 100% sure what to make of this. As you may have noticed, there have been no new Marvel sales on the Deals page for two weeks. We did find a smattering of collections that appear to be discounted. Not quite the sort of discounts you’re used to seeing from Marvel and and a fairly random set, so maybe it’s an unannounced sale and maybe it’s not. We’ll leave that for you to decide.

The first one, we’re pretty sure it’s an unannounced sale and you might want to jump fast if you haven’t read it: New X-Men Modern Era Epic Collection: E Is For Extinction – As in 365 pages of Grant Morrison’s X-Men run with a pre-order price of $6.99? (Art by Frank Quitely / Leinil Francis Yu)  We aren’t sure how long that price is sticking around!

Past that… we see a few prices that are lower than we might normally expect and some just plain weird price points.

  • Avengers, Inc. – Al Ewing / Leonard Kirk; The Wasp solves crimes out of uniform. Her sidekick? Someone has possessed the body of Whirlwind and she’s not quite sure who he really is. One of our favorite Marvel releases in recent months. We’re seeing the very odd price of $8.79 as we type this.
  • Daredevil: Black Armor– D.G. Chichester / Netho Diaz; Revisiting the time where horn head had that alternate costume. We’d put this as taking place shortly after Fall From Grace. We’re seeing $6.99 as we type this.
  • Ghost Rider V. 4: Rite of Passage – Ben Percy / Carlos Nieto; We’re seeing $6.99 as we type this.
  • Predator vs. Wolverine – Ben Percy / Ken Lashley / Andrea Di Vito; You’re groaning at the concept, but this was actually a very enjoyable miniseries. Yes, we were surprised, too, but there you are. We’re seeing the genuinely odd price point of $6.49 as we type this.
  • She-Hulk by Rainbow Rowell Vol. 4 – Rainbow Rowell / Jessica Gao; We’re seeing the oddest price yet, $7.19, as we’re typing this.
  • Star Wars: Dark Droids – Charles Soule / Leinil Francis Yu / Luke Ross We’re seeing $8.99 as we type this.
  •  Ultimate Invasion – Jonathan Hickman / Bryan Hitch; The setup for the new Ultimate Universe. We’re seeing $8.99 as we type this.
  • Uncanny Avengers: The Resistance  – Gerry Duggan / Javier Garron; We’re seeing $7.99 as we type this.
  • Wolverine Vol. 7 – Ben Percy / Juan Jose Ryp; We’re seeing $6.99 as we type this
  • Wolverine Vol. 8 – Ben Percy / Victor LaVelle / Geoff Shaw; We’re seeing $6.99 as we type this

We’re not completely sure what to make of the above. At minimum, there’s some noticeable variation in the Marvel digital pricing. Are they experimenting with an $8.99 / $6.99 new release price or are those sales? Unclear. Not everything starts at $8.99 and here’s the thing: you can change the digital list price just as easily as you can issue a digital sale price. We’ll have to see how all this develops. That X-Men Epic Collection, though? That’s a sale price, no matter how anybody wants to spin it.

Everything in the price box says “price set by the seller,” so we are forced to assume these odd price variations (and lack of deals page entries) are from Marvel and by design, as opposed to Amazon-initiated.

Unannounced Hellboy and Youneek Sales at Dark Horse

Hellboy and the BPRD  E.X.O.

Hellboy and the B.P.R.D. goes back to tell Hellboy’s early adventures with the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense, starting in the 1950s. (Remember, Hellboy first appeared on Earth in 1944.) Which is to say, more Hellboy adventures. These are available in

And then from Youneek Studios:

Unannounced Manga & Misc. Sales

Barnaby  Yozakura Quartet

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Silver Surfer; DC Pride; Marvel Knights; X-Men; DH Manga; Dragon Age

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel slashes prices on the Silver Surfer, Marvel Knights and X-Men “Crossovers.” DC has their annual Pride sale. Dark Horse discounts most of their manga, plus Dragon Age.

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):

Surfin’ Bird

Silver Surfer by Lee/Kirby  Silver Surfer - Englehart  Silver Surfer

The  Marvel Silver Surfer Sale runs through Monday, 6/10.

For the most part, the solo adventures of the Silver Surfer fall into three periods:

First, the classic original series by Stan Lee and (mostly) John Buscema. This ran from ’68-’70 and is a minor legend for a reason. It does not appear to be on sale this time, but we’ll list it for the sake of completeness.

There wasn’t much solo Surfer for the better part of 17 years because the Surfer was considered to be Stan’s character in a similar way to how Sandman is Neil Gaiman’s. That changed in ’87 when Silver Surfer relaunched under the team of Steve Englehart & Marshall Rogers. (Yes, the Batman pairing.) Predictably, it was excellent. The next team was Jim Starlin and Ron Lim, another great run. Starlin used this run to bring back Thanos (mostly unused since he finished his Warlock run) and set up the Infinity Gauntlet.  We think very highly of the first 50 or so issues of this run. The first four Epic Collections will take you through #50 (that would be through Thanos Quest).

Then next major addition to the cannon was 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.

For something that ends up being off the radar because of it’s short length, there’s always Parable, which is Stan Lee teaming up with Metal Hurlant (Heavy Metal) legend Moebius for an adventure.

And if you’re interested in cherry picking the Surfer’s original appearances in Fantastic Four, the very definition of classic, there’s an Epic Collection that does just that.

Who Exactly Did the Knighting Ceremony?

Daredevil Marvel Knights   Punisher  Spider-Man

The Marvel Knights Sale runs through Monday 6/10.

It’s probably best to put this in historical context. Prior to becoming Marvel EIC, Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti were co-running an imprint at Marvel called “Marvel Knights.” This started when Marvel was not exactly at a high point and Quesada & Palmiotti reinvigorated several titles. Eventually, Quesada got promoted.

The flagship title for Marvel Knights was probably Daredevil. It started out with Kevin Smith and Quesada as the creators, which was a hit. Then Brian Bendis & Alex Maleev had a storied run on it.

Garth Ennis wrote The Punisher for Marvel Knights, both the comedic series and the later series crime version that eventually moved over the MAX imprint.

Very little of it is in the sale, but the Christopher Priest version of Black Panther is still hugely influential.

Grant Morrison did a Fantastic Four mini-series with Jae Lee and Marvel Boy with J.G Jones.

Mark Millar and Terry & Rachel Dodson did a Spider-Man run.

There was also the infamous “we’re just going to pretend that never happened” Punisher miniseries where Frank returns from the grave as an angel of vengeance. No, really.

There’s a bit more there, but those are the highlights (and the famous misfire). It was a pretty influential imprint.

X Marks the Event

X-Men: The Dark Phoenix Saga  X of Swords  Sins of Sinister

The Marvel X-Men Crossovers sale runs through Monday, 6/17.

This is really a sale on the various Events in the X-family of books. Some of them mostly internal to the X-line, some of them crossing over outside.

The bulk of the sale is the X-Men Milestones line which collects Events from Dark Phoenix through  Age of X.

For something like Onslaught, you can simply get the Milestone edition or you can go whole hog:

Ditto for the slightly earlier Age of Apocalypse:

And then a couple more recent events are too new for the Milestones:

What’s good? We’d go back to that original “Milestone” – The Dark Phoenix Saga. There’s a reason it’s a classic and sent the X-Men into a legendary surge of popularity. Hard to go wrong with Claremont & Byrne. We also think extremely highly of the two most recent events: X of Swords & Sins of Sinister.

Pride

Batwoman  The Invisibles  Wonder Woman by George Perez

The  DC Pride Sale runs through Monday, 6/10.

This is a 288 book set of books related to Pride Month. (Some of them more closely related than others.) A few things we saw that were interesting, including some off the more beaten path:

  • Batwoman by Greg Rucka and J.H. Williams III – Rucka /Williams; The excellent solo series from Detective
  • Batwoman (’11) – W. Haden Blackman / J.H. Williams III / Amy Reeder; Blackman & Williams mount a good follow-up to the above Detective run, but an editorial decision to nix the wedding hampers the ending
  • Doom Patrol – Grant Morrison / Richard Case; The classic… although it’s a shame there’s no Rachel Pollack Doom Patrol in this sale. It would be appropriate.
  • The Invisibles – Grant Morrison / Steve Yeowell / Jill Thompson / Chris Weston; An underground society battles a conspiracy to keep humanity in it’s place.
  • Seven Soldiers of Victory – Grant Morrison’s series of interlocking mini-series isn’t always mentioned, when Morrison’s name is brought up, but we thought it was the execution was on the money.
  • Shade: The Changing Man – Peter Milligan / Chris Bachalo; Early Vertigo as Milligan & Bachalo retool the Ditko hero. The original marketing description of “mind-bending” is apt.
  • Wonder Woman (’87) – There’s a lot to like about this run – George Perez. Phil Jimenez. The first Greg Rucka run. Even a Walt Simonson / Jerry Ordway collaboration. Be aware you need to toggle between the Omnibus page and Volumes page to see all the material

Unlisted Manga + Dragons

Astro Boy  Blade of the Immortal Lone Wolf and Cub

Dark Horse is having an extensive manga sale. By the numbers:

Also on sale, Dark Horse’s comics adaptations of BioWare’s Dragon Age line of video games:

Dragon Age

Even More Unannounced Stephen King Comics
Stephen King's Dark Tower

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Grant Morrison’s X-Men; Superman; Squirrel Girl; Fear Itself; Richard Corben

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel cuts prices on Grant Morrison’s X-Men run, Squirrel Girl and Fear Itself. DC discounts the most recent Superman volume, amongst its “spring break” specials. Plus, an unannounced Richard Corben sale.

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):

Everything New is Old Again

New X-Men

The Marvel New X-Men by Gran Morrison Sale runs through Monday, 4/15.

Marvel does use “New” in their titles a lot, don’t they? Tells you the emphasis on this month’s single issues vs. collected editions.

What’s this one about? Grant Morrison did a highly celebrated run on the rebranded New X-Men from ’01-’04 with Frank Quitely, Igor Kordey, Chris Bachalo and Marc Silvestri, among others on art duty.  Highly celebrated enough to get its own sale. (Hey, we enjoyed it!)

Conveniently available in three volumes.

Fear… the Deer?
Fear Itself Invincible Iron Man: Fear Itself

The Marvel Fear Itself Sale runs through Monday, 4/15.

Fear Itself was a Marvel crossover Event we always thought should have just been a Thor/Iron Man crossover.

Fear Itself is the main series and on the Thor-centric side as the Asgardian god of fear escapes and marches Midgard towards an apocalypse. Matt Fraction and Stuart Immonen are your creators.

The tie-in we liked for this was Invincible Iron Man: Fear Itself from the excellent Matt Fraction / Salvador Larocca Iron Man run. Tony Stark doesn’t think he’s surviving this one, so he joins the dwarves in boozing while making weapons. One of the better “drinking with dwarves” sequences in literature.

Go for the Nuts
Squirrel Girl

The Marvel Squirrel Girl Sale is running through Monday, 4/15.

In the inimitable Marvel Way, this is one is a little goofy because of how many different editions of the same comics there are.

  • Unbeatable Squirrel Girl series “2015A” and “2015B” by Ryan North and Erica Henderson. This is where everything starts and the original Squirrel Girl appearances are in the first volume.  These are omnibus editions and take you up to #31 of the “2015B” series.
  • To get the rest of the series, switch over to the single volumes and V.9 – 12 will take you from issue #32 to the end. Coincidentally, this is where Derek Charm pops in as artist.

That’s the easy way. Now, if you want the absolute cheapest way, you want to sub in these two alternate packaging volumes for V.2 and V.3 of those omnibuses above (i.e. #1-21 of “2015B”).

Don’t worry, they’ll inevitably add another layer of repackaging to further confuse the situation.

Also, if you’re looking for Squirrel Girl’s earliest appearances, there’s Squirrel Girl & the Great Lakes Avengers.

Spring Break Bodysnatchers From Dayton – The Sequel

Superman  The Human Target  One-Star Squadron

The DC Spring Break Sale runs through Monday, 4/15.

It’s another DC sale with an eclectic selection of books, so we’ll go through some highlights (and assume you’re mostly all Batman’d out after the last couple weeks… that’s OK, the Superman selections are interesting).

  • DC Meets Looney Tunes – You’re getting this for the absolutely astonishing Batman / Elmer Fudd by Tom King and Lee Weeks (who cannot be praised enough for how he makes this work). Yes, a noir interpretation of Elmer Fudd heads to Gotham and the less you know past that, the better.
  • The Human Target – Tom King and Greg Smallwood send Christopher Chance investigating who poisoned him and it looks like the bwa ha ha era Justice League was involved… yet it’s a still pure noir. Great book.
  • The Joker – James Tynion IV / Guillem March
  • Justice League: Last Ride – You knew Chip Zdarsky did a Justice League story, right?  Zdarksy / Miguel Mendonca
  • The Nice House on the Lake – James Tynion IV & Alvaro Martinez Bueno with the most successful horror series in recent memory. (Wither Vertigo, DC?)
  • One-Star Squadron – Mark Russell & Steve Lieber (such an obvious pairing, it’s odd they haven’t done more together) present a dark satire of the gig economy as Red Tornado attempts to run a hero-on-demand app. Good stuff!
  • Rogues – Josh Williamson and Leomacs present a Black Label take on the Flash’s Rouges Gallery.
  • Superman V.1: Supercorp – This is the first volume of the current Josh Williamson / Jamal Campbell Superman series. This was definitely a buzz book that we’ll vouch for.
  • Superman: Son of Kal-El – The Jon Kent series by Tom Taylor / John Timms / Cian Tormey
  • Superman: For All Seasons – The Jeph Loeb / Tim Sale take on Superman

Lucky 13
Doctor Who

The Titan The Thirteenth Doctor Sale runs through Monday, 5/20.

That’s the 13th Doctor as in Jodie Whittaker’s run on Doctor Who.

Mostly done by Jody Houser / Rachael Stott / Roberta Ingranata, you get your choice of formats:

Also available The Road to the Thirteenth Doctor is available in single issues or a collected  edition.

Unannounced
Den Edgar Allan Poe's Spirits of the Dead

It appears Dark Horse has a Richard Corben sale with a wider set of items than you might expect:

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: X-Men: The Krakoan Age; Power Man and Iron Fist; Civil War; Stephen King’s The Dark Tower; Critical Role

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel waves goodbye to the Krakoa Age of X-Men with a sale… and some discounts on Power Man & Iron Fist and Civil War, too. Plus, an unannounced Critical Role sale from Dark Horse.

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):

X-Going-Away-Party

House of X / Powers of X  Dawn of X  Sins of Sinister

The Marvel X-Men: The Krakoan Age Sale runs through Monday, 4/29.

Marvel seems to has settled on “The Kakoan Age” for what we’ve been calling the Hickman Era or the HoX/PoX Era.

As things are winding down, ahead of editor Tom Brevoort leading a line wide reset, theoretically helmed by Gail Simone and/or Jed MacKay, the “Krakoan Age” is on sale. And honestly, it was very good for quite a while and some of it stayed good, too.

Let’s talk about the overall arcs and “… of X” editions first. These are the collected editions that approximate reading the Hickman era as single issues. Roughly speaking they cycle through X-Men, Wolverine, X-Force, Marauders, etc. etc.

While this effect dissipates after time, we think this is the better way to read the Hickman X-Men titles. Story elements originally floated between books and their sum was greater than their parts. The order does something like this:

Inferno is the last arc for Hickman before leaving and it fits in roughly after The Trial of Magneto ends, so you can read it somewhere between Trials of X V.3-6.

We’re not as adamant about reading this in issue-to-issue format after Hickman leaves… although X-Force and Wolverine are certainly intertwined at times. Through Inferno, though? Yes.

The next “act” of the Krakoa age was “Destiny of X,” but that’s apparently only available in this format in French?

Our recommendations for your optimal Destiny of X reading is clustered around two tracts:

Track One: the Axis of Gillen/Spurrier/Ewing – the writers of the three “big concept” X-titles that eventually converge in the truly X-cellent Sins of Sinster Event that we might even put ahead of the also X-cellent X-of Swords.

These books are:

  • Immortal X-Men by Kieron Gillen / Lucas Werneck; we’d personally consider this the flagship title for the Destiny of X sequence
  • Legion of X by Si Spurrier / Jan Bazaldua / Rafael Pimentel; The explorations of Legion and Nightcrawler’s crews
  • X-Men: Red – Al Ewing / Stefano Caselli / Juann Cabal; Storm’s adventures leading Arakko (Mars) as Ewing keeps a finger in the cosmic side of Marvel

Track two: Ben Percy continues to keep X-Force and Wolverine intertwined in interesting ways, particularly as the long-running saga of Hank McCoy comes to a head.

Pick up X-Force starting with Vol. 5.

Pick up Wolverine starting with Vol. 4.

A mini-series worth mentioning in the “Destiny” period: X-Terminators by Leah Williams / Carlos Gomez manages to be lighthearted with really dark and occasionally off-color humor as Dazzler, Boom Boom, Laura Kinney and Jubilee get mixed up with vampires in the most humiliating ways.

Now, there’s more to the sale and you can always pull them by individual title… but we really think the “of X” format is additive for the world building while Hickman is running the show.

Sweet Christmas!

Iron Fist  Power Man and Iron Fist  Immortal Iron Fist

The Marvel Luke Cage and Iron Fist Sale runs through Monday, 4/8.

Once upon a time there were two series: Luke Cage, Hero for Hire / Power Man and Iron Fist.

You can get the first 23 issues of Hero for Hire/Power Man in an Epic Collection.  There were several creators involved, including Archie Goodwin, Steve Englehart, Tony Isabella, George Tuska and Billy Graham. There’s a certain amount of camp to it, but the early tale of Doctor Doom trying to skip out on his bill is what we’d call a heart-warming favorite.

Iron Fist had a shorter run and you can get the entire solo series (Marvel Premiere and Iron Fist) in an Epic Collection. The run is most associated with the team it finished with: an early pairing of Chris Claremont and John Byrne. You may have heard of them.

The two books then merged into the longer-running Power Man & Iron Fist. Now here’s something we don’t always say: this one’s in Epic Collections, but not Masterworks format. Claremont & Byrne left shortly thereafter, paving the way for Jo Duffy, who might be most associated with it. Among the creators working on it were Duffy, Denny O’Neil, (a very young) Kurt Busiek, Christopher Priest, Kerry Gammil, Denys Cowan, Greg Larocque and Mark Bright. A stronger lineup than you might have guessed and a comic that remembered to be goofy at times.

It was revived as Heroes for Hire by John Ostrander and Pasqual Ferry in ’97. We also have a soft spot for the David Walker / Sanford Greene Power Man & Iron Fist in ’16.

But the best of the bunch? The Immortal Iron Fist. People are most familiar with the first half of the series, with the celebrated team of Ed Brubaker/Matt Fraction/David Aja. We’re here to tell you that the back half by Duane Swierczynski/Travel Foreman is also pretty darn good. Plus, more Fat Cobra! Don’t sleep on the back half. Good value with those collected editions, too!

A Polite Disagreement Among Capes

Civil War  Civil War: Front Line V. 1  Civil War: Wolverine

The Marvel Civil War Sale runs through Monday, 4/8.

One of these days, Marvel is going to quit leaving money on the table and give Civil War the treatment it gives something like Hickman’s Avengers saga or Aaron’s Thor saga: an edition (or series of additions) that integrate the main parts in reading order. After all these years, it’s still piecemeal.

So here’s our take on it:

Civil War the main mini-series by Mark Millar and Steve McNiven – is the action movie version of the story.

Civil War: Front Line – written by Paul Jenkins with art by Ramon Bachs, Steve Lieber and Lee Weeks – is about WHY the Civil War is happening as Ben Urich tries to get to the bottom of things. This title is much more of the Event’s actual plot and motivations than the more famous flagship series and Marvel really need to have a collection that integrates the two.

There are obviously a lot of tie-in books here. You can dip in where you feel like, but Civil War: Wolverine by Marc Guggenheim and Humberto Ramos is a little more relevant than most and has Logan (hellbent on vengeance) tracking down the people responsible for the Stamford incident.

Yes, there is a lot more to the story than the main Millar/McNiven book, it’s just not really emphasized.

Always Specify .22 or .38
Deadworld   The Realm    Jazz Age Chronicles

The Caliber Comics Library Spring Sale runs through Tuesday, 4/30.

There are a few titles here that were notable in the ’80s indie boom.

And plenty of Don Lomax war comics.

But if you want something a little more recent, Ageless might be of interest. It’s written by Torunn GrØnbekk, who’s been recently been writing Thor, with art by San Espina.

Ageless

Unannounced Sales
Critical Role Stephen King's the Dark Tower

Comixology has not announced that Critical Role from Dark Horse is currently on sale. That would be the comics based on the campaigns from the popular web series about Dungeons & Dragons campaigns.

There’s an omnibus format that’s a little better value and a “regular”  collected edition sale.

Then, formerly from Marvel / currently from Gallery 13, Stephen King’s The Dark Tower: Beginnings by Robin Furth / Peter David / Jae Lee and overseen by King is on sale for $1.99 a pop. It’s the backstory/coming of age for a gunslinger name Roland.

Last Call on Batman

A reminder that the Batman anniversary sale ends on Monday. Some of the material likely won’t be at these prices again until the end of year holiday sales zone. Our notes for the sale are here.

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: The New X-Men Writers; Batman; Patton Oswalt

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel discounts the work of the three new X-Men writers… plus, Ghost Rider. DC has an essential sale (read: Batman) and Patton Oswald experiences unannounced price slashing.

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):

X-Writers of the Future

With the initial X-Men relaunch announcements dropping at SXSW, it looks like Marvel is inviting you to get to know the new writers of the X-line with 3 sales (and perhaps more to come as announcements continue).

Jed MacKay

Moon Knight  The Death of Doctor Strange  Taskmaster

The Marvel Jed MacKay Sale runs through Monday, 3/25.

Of the three announced writers, MacKay’s written the most material for Marvel and most of it in the last ~6 years or so. If you want to see him on a team book, the first volume of his Avengers with C.F. Villa is on sale.

Our favorite work of his is the Doctor Strange sequence, which should absolutely be read in order:

  • The Death of Doctor Strange – w/ Lee Garbett… and yes, Stephen gets himself killed.
  • Strange – w/ Marcelo Ferreira & Garbett, where Clea becomes Sorcerer Supreme.
  • Doctor Strange – w/ Pasqual Ferry, where Stephen’s back (and there IS fallout)

The breakout title for him was probably Moon Knight w/Alessandro Cappuccio, which we’ve also enjoyed quite a bit. And let’s give some credit here: piecing together the various incarnations of Moon Knight of the last 10-15 years is not a small task! Yet, it was done well.

And for something a bit more off the radar… Taskmaster w/ Alessandro Vitti. Maria Hill has been murdered. Taskmaster has been framed. The Black Widow wants blood for said murder. Taskmaster finds himself on the trail of a doomsday weapon as he tries to extricate himself from a situation not of his making. And it’s a very witty farce.

Gail Simone

Domino  Deadpool Classic

The  Marvel Gail Simone Sale runs through Monday, 3/25.

Gail’s big break was Deadpool, but she’s written less Marvel over the years that you might realize. She’s not the main scribe for most of the volumes listed in the sale.

The closest you’re going to get to an X-Men preview is probably the Domino series she did with David Baldeon. (Note, there was a follow-up to this: Domino: Hotshots that is not part of the sale.)

Her Deadpool / Agent X run with art by Udon Studios & Alvin Lee is collected across Deadpool Classic V. 9 and Deadpool Classic V.10.

The final “solo” collection in this sale is The Variants, a Jessica Jones mystery with art by Phil Noto.

Eve Ewing

Black Panther  Ironheart  Champions

The Marvel Eve Ewing Sale runs through Monday, 3/25.

Eve Ewing has the smallest backlist of the three newly announced X-scribes.

Her current run on Black Panther w/ Chris Allen is probably her highest profile project.

Ironheart with Luciano Vecchio is probably the title Ewing is most strongly associated with.

If you’d like to see an example of Ewing on a team book, there’s Champions w/ Kim Jacinto.

Shouldn’t He Be In the Sky?

Ghost Rider  Ghost Rider  Ghost Rider / Wolverine

The Marvel Ghost Rider Sale runs through Monday, 3/25.

This one is similar to a legacy sale, with the recent caveat that most of the original series in only in Masterworks editions and those aren’t included in the sale, just the single Epic Collection.

Let’s run this one down by series… and yes, there have been a TON of relaunches and mini’s.

As a bonus, the absurdity of Cosmic Ghost Rider:

Essential Equals… Batman?

Batman: The Court of Owls  Detective Comics by Tynion  Watchmen

The DC Essentials Sale runs through Monday, 3/25.

What’s essential? Flipping through this sale, one gets the impression that New 52 (and forward) Batman titles are what DC considers it’s most essential product and there are a ton of them here.

Lets do a quick look at some notable items:

  • Batman ’11-’16 – The Scott Snyder / Greg Capullo era (You may have heard of them.)
  • Batman ’16 – present – Starts with the Tom King run, then James Tynion IV, currently Chip Zdarsky
  • DCeased – Tom Taylor / Trevor Hairsine; Kicking off the series of miniseries about the Anti-Life Equation getting loose, turning most of the population (including the metahuman community) into a sort of zombie and the survivors trying to stay alive.
  • Detective Comics ’11-’16 – Starts with Tony Daniel, then John Layman / Jason Fabok, then Francis Manapul/Brian Buccellato
  • Detective Comics ’16 – present – Starts with James Tynion IV’s run, then Peter Tomasi, then Mariko Tamaki (Ram V’s run isn’t yet on sale, it appears). And way too many artists to list.
  • Mister Miracle – Tom King / Mitch Gerads – The Eisner winner
  • Swamp Thing: The Bronze Age – Len Wein/Bernie Wrightson; A legit classic and trendsetter… even before Alan Moore showed up
  • Watchmen – Alan Moore / Dave Gibbons; this one needs no introduction
  • Wonder Woman: Dead Earth – Daniel Warren Johnson; Wonder Woman awakens in a post-apocalyptical hellscape and has some monsters to slay. “Heavy Metal” may be the best description. A great ride.

Unannounced…

Minor Threats

Minor Threats by Patton Oswalt / Jordan Blum / Scott Hepburn is an exercise in subverting tropes (subversion from that group… surely not…) as some low level supervillains go after the A-list villain who’s been bringing the heat down on them.

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