Tag: X-Men

Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: X-Men; New Teen Titans; Aztec Ace; Geiger; Air

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel contemplates Mister Sinister, DC celebrates teamwork, Image does science fiction and Dark Horse discounts fantasy.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

In case you’re having troubles with the new UIX (a LOT of people have been):

New sales did post this week, so that’s good… but make sure you eyeball the displayed prices to see if it looks like it’s really on sale. A number of things did not pass the eye test, although at least the DC sale got fixed. As we type this, not everything did. Speaking of DC:

Fight and Then Team Up

The DC Super Teams Sale runs through Monday, 1/30.

There’s a 2-Omnibus set of 52 that’s a good deal. 52 issues for $20 works out to $0.38/issue, better than you usually see. 52 was a weekly comic co-written by Mark Waid, Greg Rucka, Grant Morrison and Geoff Johns. Keith Giffen did the layouts and then a whole bunch of artists finished those. The story is a set of plot threads telling the aftermath of Infinite Crisis, with arcs for Booster Gold, Black Adam, Elongated Man, Adam Strange, Will Magnus (the Metal Men’s creator) and The Question, among others.

This World’s Finest is the 1990 Prestige/Dark Knight format version from Dave Gibbons and Steve Rude. Not something we’ve heard discussed in awhile, this is an attempt to recapture the Silver Age mojo as Lex Luthor and The Joker team-up to bedevil Superman and Batman. As pretty a comic as you’ll find.

The New Teen Titans by Marv Wolfman and George Perez essentially pulled DC back from the brink at a low point in the company’s sales history. It’s a classic and it’s $4.99 per volume.

52   World's Finest   New Teen Titans

It’s a Sin

The  Marvel X-Men: Sinister Stories Sale runs through Monday, 1/30.

A tie-in to the “Sins of Sinister” Event? Sure enough. And given that’s a Kieron Gillen outing, it seems like Uncanny X-Men by Kieron Gillen: The Complete Collection is probably good background reading, since it establishes Gillen’s take on Mister Sinister.

Also particularly relevant to the current incarnation of Sinster is the recent Hellions series by Zeb Wells and Stephen Segovia. We’re big fans of this one, which has Minster Sinister acting as Professor X for a unit of more… anti-social mutants. Is he using them as pawns in his greater schemes? Absolutely. One warning here, though. The middle volume of this doesn’t have much of a discount and we’re wondering if that’s an error? The omnibus edition is a tad more expensive and also a lot higher priced than you’d expect for a sale. Maybe it gets fixed and maybe it doesn’t. It’s still a highly entertaining run.

And while it’s not the first appearance of Sinister, we think one of the better values in the sale is X-Factor Epic Collection: All-New, All-Different X-Factor, which is the Peter David run. You’ve got a Mister Sinister arc, a Hulk crossover and art by Larry Stroman, Dale Keown… and some lad named Joe Quesada (whatever happened to him?)

Uncanny X-Men   Hellions by Zeb Wells   X-Factor Epic Collection

We Were Promised A Flying Purple People-Eater?!?

The Image Sci-Fi Sale runs through Tuesday, 1/31.

Fear Agent by Rick Remender, Tony Moore and Jerome Opeña is a pulp science fiction adventure of the hard-drinking final member of the Fear Agents, a force that handled alien threats. Spoiler: one of those alien threats is still active. It’s an old favorite around here.

Farmhand is a science fiction/horror/comedy series from Rob Guillory, who you might remember from Chew. This time out Rob’s doing full writer/artist duties and proving that Layman wasn’t the only pleasantly twisted person behind Chew. In Farmhand, Jedidiah Jenkins has an unusual cash crop – he grows replacement for human organs. Where did these crops come from? That would be telling, but strange things are happening around the farm at to some of the transplant recipients.

Geiger is a Geoff Johns / Gary Frank post-apocalyptical, traversing the wastelands adventure. We got some (darker) Kamandi/Ben Boxer vibes off it. Very much a post-modern take on the DC “Great Disaster” era science fiction tales of the 60s and 70s and in a good way.

Fear Agent   Farmhand   Geiger

No, Not That Kind of “Fantasy”

The Dark Horse Fantasy Sale runs through Monday, 1/30.

This is a VERY expansive sale and worth an extended browse it you have time. We’re going to point out three, somewhat under the radar books, two of which we don’t think have been on sale before.

Air by G. Willow Wilson and M.K. Perker was originally a Vertigo book that Karen Berger appears to have pulled over to Dark Horse and Berger Books.  We would very much like to see a continuation, but… first things first. This is a very unusual genre bender. A little science fiction, a little fantasy, a little thriller. It also takes a little while to start unfolding. What starts as a flight attendant getting pulled into a terrorist conspiracy takes a turn for the weird and lands in a much wider conspiracy involving teleportation, time lost celebrities and an Aztec god. This is not a comic that’s easily reduced to a tagline, but it’s a good one.

Alice in Sunderland by Bryan Talbot is your unabashedly intellectual comic of the week. An excellent work of art and truly unusual. The starting point is a history of Talbot’s hometown of Sunderland, which turns into a study of the influences on Lewis Carroll while writing Alice in Wonderland and then turns… where Talbot feels like going. A unique book!

Aztec Ace by Doug Moench, Dan Day, Michael Hernandez and Ron Harris is a time travel adventure. The most unusual thing about it might just be that Moench had never seen Doctor Who before writing it in the early 80s. This is a very Doctor Who-compatible series. Originally coming out from Eclipse and long out of print, Ace is a time traveler from the 23rd century who’s battling time paradoxes and the mysterious Nine-Crocodiles, who seems to be behind the paradoxes. He’s aided by Bridget Chronopolis, who wanders into his sphere very much like one of The Doctor’s companions would, and the floating head of Sigmund Freud. Not the lowest priced item, but it’s 15 issues + extras, so a better value than you might think at first glance. And a lot easier than trying to track down the single issues. (Just trust us on that, ’cause we did.)

Air   Alice in Sunderland   Aztec Ace

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sale: X-Men, X-Force, Greg Pak-a-Mania, Prelude to Lazarus Planet

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel has TWO flavors of X-books on sale, plus Greg Pak. DC’s prepping for the Lazarus Planet and Top Shelf is tossing some discounts around.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

In case you’re having troubles with the new UIX (a LOT of people have been):

Let’s Put the X in Sale

The Marvel Dawn of X/Reign of X Sale runs through Monday, 1/16.

What is this sale? Following House of X/Power of X, the X-Men line of comics has a suggested reading order in the back of the books. If you read from issue to issue, particularly during the Dawn of X era, you really did get an additive experience and more of a view of the X-universe.  These two runs collect the individual issues of ALL the X-titles in a reading order for the line.

Dawn of X picks up after HoX/PoX and runs up to X of Swords (which isn’t on sale). Reign of X picks up after X of Swords and ends just before Trial of Magneto and Inferno.

Dawn of X   Reign of X

An Extra X Sale

The Marvel X-Force Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 1/16

Uncanny X-Force by Rick Remender with art by Jerome Opeña, Phil Noto, Esad Ribic and a whole bunch of others would be our top choice. A particularly dark take on X-Force as black ops, much of it weaving in and out of the labyrinthian plans of Apocolypse.

The original X-Force has come Epic Collections available and we always like the value of those. You can pick your era here.

The X-Force portion of Peter Milligan & Mike Allred’s run that would soon become X-Statix is conveniently available as a single volume. 

X-Force   X-Force   X-Force

Send Them Pak-ing

The Marvel Greg Pak Sale runs through Monday, 1/16.

Pak’s been over in the Star Wars universe lately, and that’s on sale, but we always associate him very strongly with Hulk.

Planet Hulk, written by Pak with art by Carlo Pagulayan, Aaron Lopresti and Gary Frank was where Pak really broke wide. This one has Hulk exiled to a planet where he effectively becomes that world’s Conan. It’s now a classic.

For unknown reasons, World War Hulk is not in the sale. (Yes, that seems boneheaded to us, too.)

But Pak was on Hulk for the ’09-’11 series with Paul Pelletier as the lead artist.

A bit less remembered, Pak returned to Hulk in ’17 with Greg Land and Carlo Barberi to revisit the Planet Hulk and World War Hulk storylines.

Planet Hulk   Incredible Hulk   Hulk

Resurrecting A Sale From the Dead

The DC Journey to Lazarus Planet Sale runs through Monday, 1/16.

That’s a mouthful of a sale title, but DC’s got an event in the offing that will raise some things from the dead like Lazarus… or a Lazarus Pit.

Scroll down a bit here and you’ll find the James Tynion 4.0/Jorge Jiménez and first volume of the Josh Williamson (and so many different artists) run of Batman on sale. Here’s a quirk for you. The collected editions started a new Volume 1 for Tynion’s run, but because the single issues didn’t renumber, the collected editions are on the same page as the Tom King run.  And they wonder why it confuses the bookstore managers?

Nightwing looks to have a big role in DC’s next wave, so the current volume is mostly on sale. (A couple volumes in the middle aren’t for whatever reason.) The current Tom Taylor/Bruno Redondo run being one of DC’s most celebrated offerings.

And for something off the beaten path, that’s also interesting to see in the runup to an Event, there’s Zatana by Paul Dini. Yes, after marrying a magician, you’d think Dini would have a feel for the material, wouldn’t you? The artists on this include Stephanie Roux, Jamal Igle and Cliff Chiang.

Batman: Abyss   Nightwing   Zatana by Paul Dini

Also of potential interest, $0.99/$1.99 single issues. Highlights include:

Shelving Sale

The Top Shelf Sale runs through Monday, 1/23.

Top Shelf is an imprint of IDW and much of it is on sale right now.

They Called Us Enemy is probably the de facto flagship title for Top Shelf and it’s won a lot of Awards. That would be the graphic novel adaption of George Takei’s memoir and play of growing up in an internment camp by Justin Eisinger, Steven Scott and Harmony Becker.

For something a little more out of left field, The Bojeffries Saga is Alan Moore and Steve Parkhouse from the early 80s doing a darker, more horror-forward riff on The Adams Family/Munsters spliced with Monty Python. The originals mostly ran in Warrior and A1. It’s a entertaining series from a different side of more than you usually see.  (The March of the Sinister Ducks side.)

They Called Us Enemy   The Bojeffries Saga

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: A.X.E. Judgement Day, Conan, Spider-Man, DC on TV and Boom!’s Tynion Catalog

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel discounts the recent A.X.E Judgement Day, plus Conan, Spidey and the X-Men. DC slashes prices on the source material for its TV adaptations and Boom! opens the James Tynion, IV catalog.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

In case you’re having troubles with the new UIX (a LOT of people have been):

Lest Ye Be Judged…

The Marvel A.X.E. Judgment Day Sale runs through Thursday,  12/8

If you have been pining for single issue Marvel comics on sale, here we are with this very recent event.  There are a few more single issues in the sale, but here are the broad strokes:

The Event itself ($0.99/$1.99 single issues):

And from the lead-in titles:

The Eternals:

Avengers

A.X.E. Judgement Day   Avengers by Jason Aaron   Eternals

By Crom!

The Marvel Conan Sale runs through Thursday, 12/29.

We weren’t expecting this one, but we suppose we should have, considering Conan is moving over to Titan soon. (We’re still unsure how this is going to work for the older material.) Here, we’d like to highlight the omnibus editions of the original Marvel material, which goes further then the Epic Editions and… we’re not sure if the omnibuses have been on sale before?

Conan the Barbarian: The Original Marvel Years is the monthly color comic that most people think of by default when they think of Marvel at Conan. 600-800(ish) pages per volume, although V.5 is a 1000 page monster.

King Conan (we’ll call it by the original title) is the spin-off book taking place when an older Conan has captured the throne. Yes, you get some John Buscema art here, but it was also an early stop for Marc Silvestri.

Savage Sword of Conan is the black & white magazine version of Conan. As such, it operated outside the comics code and is little darker than the regular comic. Still lots of John Buscema, plus some Neal Adams, a little Barry Windsor-Smith, Ernie Chan, Gil Kane, Alfredo Alcala… let’s face it, more often than not, the Conan books had good artists.

There’s some of the current Marvel version on sale two, but those ominibuses, particularly King Conan and Savage Sword are a little more unusual to see discounted.

Conan the Barbarian   King Conan   Savage Sword of Conan

Spiders and Mutants

The Marvel X-Men/Spider-Man: Crossovers and Events Sale runs through Monday, 1/2.

This one is somewhat of an Event/”landmark storyline” sale and you can pick your flavor, therein. Some things that caught our eye?

God Loves, Man Kills is a classic X-Men story by Chris Claremont and Brent Anderson (originally from the old Marvel Graphic Novel program). It’s also very much a stand alone unit, which is nice.

X-Men: Deadly Genesis is the launch of the Ed Brubaker era of X, with Trevor Hairsine providing the art. A bit of a retcon/embellishment on the origin of the new X-Men, it features the full story of the X-Men’s trip to a certain mutant-eating island (that shall become more prominent later) and debuts Vulcan, the lost Summers brother you may have recently been reading about in X-Men Red.

With Spidey… you ever notice the Event-type stories tend to be darker than the rest of the Spidey stories? Well, if you’re going dark, Kraven’s Last Hunt by J.M. DeMatties and Mike Zeck is one of the best.

X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills   X-Men: Deadly Genesis   Spider-Man: Kraven's Last Hunt

As Seen on TV

The DC on TV Sale runs through Monday, 12/5.

And yes, there is a reasonable amount here… particularly if you count the supporting cast. DC’s been hitting things like Sandman pretty hard over the last few months, so here are a couple other suggestions.

We’re really big fans of the Christopher Priest era of Deathstroke. There was a bit of artist rotation on that title, with the primary artists being Carlo Pagulayan and Diogenes Neves. Deathstroke contemplates changing his ways amidst conspiracies and family drama… and also includes a very big wink to Priest’s Black Panther run. Note: While it’s listed as a Titans book, The Lazarus Contract is really a crossover and integral to the storyline.

We’re also big on the Grant Morrison / Richard Case Doom Patrol, which is a big influence on the current streaming show.

Deathstroke   Titans: The Lazarus Contract   Doom Patrol

And since we know a lot of .cheap readers pine for $0.99 single issues, here are some highlights of the batch all the way at the bottom of the sale. Remember it’s the most recent batch of issues on sale, so you’ll need to get all the way to the bottom of the list for the longer running titles. That said, Nightwing is on sale through the October issue, so this really is a good catch up.

Boning a Sale

The Bone and RASL Sale runs through Monday, 12/19.

Now there’s something you don’t see on sale all that often! The works of Jeff Smith. If you prefer, the excellent works of Jeff Smith, since they are.

His best known work is, of course Bone. This fantasy series entered the “classics” category really fast. We’re kind of traditional about this and thing the $9.99 for 1300 pages in one volume of the original black & white comics is the way to go and MASSIVE bang for your buck. The smaller color volumes will run you $4.99 a pop.

Not as famous, but something we thoroughly enjoyed, is RASL, a dimension hopping conspiracy comic as an art thief attracts the wrong kind of attention and the chase is on for the technology he possesses. A little science fiction, a little crime, a little noir and unlike Bone, this one isn’t for the kids.

Bone   RASL

Something Is Discounting Tynion

The Boom! James Tynion Sale! runs through Thursday, 12/15.

You can flip through the entire Tynion catalog – at least the Boom! catalog – with this sale.

His big hit over there, and our favorite of his Boom! work, is Something Is Killing the Children. And if you prefer your monster-hunting goodness in $0.99 single issues, you might even find that’s a cheaper way to read the series.

Something is Killing the Children

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales – Marvel’s Black Friday Sale! $3.99/$4.99 Epic Collections (and a List of What’s New This Year)

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, it’s Marvel’s Black Friday Sale! $3.99/$4.99 Epic Collections… and we keep track of what’s new to this year’s version of the sale.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

In case you’re having troubles with the new UIX (a LOT of people have been):

Cheap Marvel Epic Collections

The Marvel Epic Collection Sale runs through Thursday 12/1.

The holiday sale season is officially here. Call it a pre-Black Friday sales if you like. The majority of Marvel’s Epic Collections are $3.99/$4.99 and this is an good time to fill in gaps in your collection. This is one of Marvel two best sales of the year, so we’re popping in early to give you the rundown on it.

First we’re going to give a quick overview of what’s in it (for quicker browsing).

Then we’re going to try and root out what’s new in the sales since last year — yes, we know some of you stock up on your Epic Collections every year when this sale drops and this ought to save you some time.

Then some recommendations.

What’s On Sale

Here’s a list of the series involved in the sale. You may need to scroll down past the Masterworks editions to the Epics in some of the links… and that’s OK, because you should remember the Masterworks are usually on sale in December! The material from the mid-80s to present, tends to be in Epic Collections only. (So this is the time to get Avengers West Coast, Conan, Silver Surfer, New Mutants and the more recent material and discounts for those will dry up on the 1st. You have more sale options with material in both formats.)

What’s New Since Last Year’s Black Friday Sale

Near as we can tell, these are the new releases since last year’s Black Friday Epic Collection sale dropped. Compare them to what you’ve already purchased, just in case, but this is what it’s looking like to us, and yes, Marvel was almost averaging 4 Epics/month:

What’s Good?

A lot’s good, really. But with an eye on things that don’t have Masterworks version yet, this is what comes to mind:

Since one of the last year’s new releases plugged major hole, if you were to pull the first four Silver Surfer volumes here, you’d get the Steve Englehart/Marshal Rogers run, followed by the Jim Starlin/Ron Lim run, which re-introduces Thanos and takes you into Infinity Gauntlet. A very good run of cosmic Marvel!

New Mutants Epic Collection: The Demon Bear Saga gets you the entire Chris Claremont/Bill Sienkiewicz run, probably the high point of the franchise, for a lousy $3.99.

Captain America Epic Collection: Man Without A Country is the first Mark Waid / Ron Garney run, widely considered a highlight of the franchise (and we’d agree about that).

Silver Surfer - Englehart   New Mutants: The Demon Bear Saga  Captain America: Man Without a Country

And we’ll be back at the end of the week for the rest of the holiday sales that are starting to drop.

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: X-Men, Captain America, Nova, Swamp Thing, Legion of Super-Heroes

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Mutants get the “monthly” nod from Marvel, plus Captain America and Nova. Over at DC the Labor Day sale had deals on Swamp Thing and Deadman.

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):

X-Month

The Marvel Monthly Sale – X-Men: Grand Design & Other Stories Sale runs through Monday, 10/3. (And we see they took the listing on the Deals page down after this morning… but the link still works, so get a jump on it.)

This time around, it’s a mix of side projects and events around the X-Franchise, although you might have guess that from the name.  Some things we’ve enjoyed:

Mystique by Brian K. Vaughan: The Complete Collection –All the way back in 2003, Marvel tried launching a new imprint called “Tsunami.” It didn’t last. The most notable thing about it, historically, was the debut of Runaways. Runaways was one of the first comics to really start getting a pre-Saga/Paper Girls Brian K. Vaughan noticed.  Vaughan, with art by Jorge Lucas/Michael Ryan/Manuel Garcia rotating by arc, also did an espionage-centric Mystique comic. Mystique gets coerced into running black ops for Charles Xavier, sort of a precursor to the current X-Force.

For something a bit more recent, X-Men/Fantastic Four: 4X by Chip Zdarsky and Terry & Rachel Dodson has Professor X offering Franklin Richards a place on Krakoa. Reed and Sue Richards are a little… apprehensive about that and sparks fly. Surely Doctor Doom wouldn’t insinuate himself into the middle of all this? He never has ulterior motives.

And finally, one of the more off the wall X-Men projects: Longshot. This was the first big project from Ann Nocenti and Art Adams. While it isn’t clear that it was originally intended to be part of the X-franchise, it was definitely absorbed into it shortly after the miniseries completed. This is also the debut of Mojo, whom Longshot rebels against.

Mystique   X-Men / Fantastic Four: 4X   Longshot

Time is Relative

The Marvel Captain America: Man out of Time Sale runs through Thursday, 9/8.

Let’s go under the radar for the picks from this eclectic sale, shall we?

Captain America: Forever Allies – now here’s one we haven’t heard mentioned in awhile. Roger Stern and Nick Dragotta weave a legacy tale of Bucky (who was bearing the shield as Captain America at the time) picking up the pieces of last case of the (WWII-era) Young Allies. A continuation of sorts for the Invaders and, since Lady Lotus is involved, of possible interest to reader of the current Busiek/Cinar The Marvels.

The Adventures of Captain America – Another collection that hasn’t hit our radar in some time. This is a sort of “Captain America – Year One” style story with Cap and Bucky back at the onset of WW II by Fabian Nicieza and Kevin Maguire. A prestige format release, originally.

Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty – Again, a lesser known title. This one was an anthology, vaguely similar to Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight, in that it would do one storyline at a time and the storyline could be from any time period. It ran for 12 issues and was mostly written by Mark Waid with Ron Garney being the artist with the most issues under his belt.

All things we’ve spent money on, long ago.

Captain America - Forever Allies   The Adventures of Captain America   Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty

No, Not a Chevy

The Marvel Nova Sale runs through Monday, 9/5.

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).

Nova Classic   Nova by Abnett & Lanning

DC Does the Holiday

The DC Labor Day Sale runs through Monday, 9/5.

~2K graphic novels are floating around in this one, so you can spend a lot of time browsing. Some highlights?

Alan Moore’s Saga of the Swamp Thing run with John Totleben, Steve Bissette, Stan Woch, Rich Veitch and co. for (mostly) $4.99 a volume? Yes, that’s a good deal for landmark run.

Speaking of ’80s classics, there are good prices on some extra long volumes of the Paul Levitz/Keith Giffen Legion of Superheroes.  The Great Darkness Saga is only $5.99. That’s the arc with the rep, but their whole run is good and DC needs to get on with reprinting the rest of the Levitz run. (And The Curse is an extra long volume.)

Going back a hair earlier, but keeping the $4.99 vibe going, there’s a 5-volume set of Deadman. The first two volumes are the Neal Adams material that’s the most famous, but you know what? Boston Brand has always been popular with creators and there are another 3 volumes of him hanging out in the ’70s, guest-starring or having a solo feature in the Adventure dollar comics, ending in an ’86 Andrew Helfer/José Luis García-López mini-series.

Swamp Thing   Legion of Super Heroes The Great Darkness Saga   Deadman

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: X-Men, Wolverine, Hawkeye and Batman

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel brings the mutants – Hickman era X-Men and Jason Aaron’s escapades with Wolverine. Plus Hawkeye and the DC “Hot 100” sale which has a lot of Batman to it.

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):

Let’s Put the X in Hickman

The Marvel X-Men From Dawn to Reign Sale runs until Thursday, 9/8.

And gosh golly, if that sale’s name isn’t an awful lot of contortion to avoid saying the Hickman showrunning era.  For those coming in late, Jonathan Hickman was a sort of creative director of the X-line for a very productive period. He wrote a few and gave guidance on the other titles. After the Inferno series, he moved on to other things when the rest of writers expressed interest in working with the current status quo a bit longer. Hickman had planned on moving on to the next phase of a longer story arc he’d mapped out, so… perhaps he’ll return to that at some point?

This is one of those sale pages where someone (it isn’t clear if it’s Marvel or Amazon) is trying to do us all a solid and separate out things, dividing things in to sections or tiers with scrolling carousels. We approve of the effort.

The first tier, “The Krakoa Era Begins Here,” is the spine of the era: the Hickman core, if you will.  You need to start with House of X / Powers of X, which establishes the new status quo.  You then continue into the Hickman-penned X-Men flagship title.  All the X-titles eventually flow into two events: first X of Swords (which is more of an Exaclibur story) and finally Inferno ends the era, at least in terms of Hickman’s writing and overall role.  So yeah, when they say “Krakoa Era,” they’re again dodging Hickman’s name and it kind of amuses us how awkward that is.  Hox/Pox is the beginning of the Krokoa era, sure enough. The rest? That’s stretching definitions.  So if you get everything listed in this tier you’ll get the “story of the universe” of the X-Men comics of that era. (Mind you, despite how comic book marketing works these days, “the story of the universe” is not the end-all/be-all of reading enjoying.)

This sale is on the collections of the individual titles (as opposed to the Dawn of X and Reign of X collections), so that lends itself to chery-picking. Do we have opinions on this? Of course, and we ended up liking some of the titles on the periphery best.

Hellions by Zeb Wells and Stephen Segovia is a demented delight. A dark, snarky and occasionally violent series that finds Mr. Sinister pulling the strings on a wetworks squad of broken toys (Psylocke, Havoc, Nanny, Wildchild, etc) to clean up some of his… side projects.

Way of X by Si Spurrier and Bob Quinn is about Nightcrawler and Legion trying to head off the re-emergence of Onslaught, but Nightcrawler trying to reconcile his religion with Krakoa’s resurrection protocols and his efforts toward synthesizing a mutant religion really steals the scenes.

S.W.O.R.D. by Al Ewing and Valerio Schiti is the cosmic title of the bunch. The mutants have been proactive establishing a space station to house an agency to protect Earth against extraterrestrial threats… and that’s before they establish Arakko on Mars. Cosmic adventures and more than a little political intrigue & deception.

Hellions by Zeb Wells   Way of X   S.W.O.R.D.

You’re Not Yourself, Have a SNIKT!

The Marvel Wolverine by Jason Aaron Sale runs through Monday, 8/29.

This can pretty much be narrowed down to two titles:

Wolverine by Jason Aaron collects several titles, including the end of the ’03 Wolverine, Wolverine: Manifest Destiny, Wolverine: Weapon X, Spider-Man & Wolverine and the ’10 version of Wolverine.  And yes, towards the end of the run is when Aaron sends Wolverine to Hell. Lots of artists over the course of this work, including Adam Kubert, Ron Garney and Howard Chaykin.

Wolverine & The X-Men is the post-Schism run where Logan heads back to Westchester to run the Jean Grey School. Aaron writes, the artists most associated with this run are Nick Bradshaw and Chris Bachalo (with some early Pepe Larraz towards the end).

Wolverine by Jason Aaron   Wolverine and the X-Men

Hawkguy

The Marvel Hawkeye Sale runs through Thusday, 9/1.

When people think of Hawkeye, they usually start thinking about the iconic and quirky Matt Fraction / David Aja run. Lucky you, Marvel’s put the whole thing in one volume as Hawkeye by Fraction & Aja: The Saga of Barton and Bishop.

Hawkeye Epic Collection: The Avenging Archer is the old school option. This has the original Iron Man appearances, some Avengers, some Marvel Team-Up, the original solo mini-series and so forth.

If you’re in a Kate Bishop mood, you’re probably looking for the Hawkeye run by Kelly Thompson and Leonardo Romero.

Hawkeye   Hawkeye   Hawkeye

Is That a Radio Format?

The DC Hot 100 Sale runs through Monday, 8/29.

It’s somewhat random set of DC books on sale this week.  Predictably, there’s a lot of Batman in there.

You want something good from the last couple years?  We highly recommend Batman: The Adventures Continue by Alan Burnett, Paul Dini and Ty Templeton. It’s a continuation of The Animated Series and it’s first rate Batman. Highly recommended if you have a fondness for the cartoon.

If you want something a little older No Man’s Land was probably our favorite Batman Event of the 90s. The first volume (of the regular set, not “Road to,” even has some work by Bob Gale. We’re always happy when he does some comics! The premise is Gotham has been cut off from the mainland by an earthquake. Things have gone a little feudal and the various villains are setting themselves up as warlords in various neighborhood as Batman and friends try to keep things under control until the situation improves. If you’re thinking this sounds a bit like the DMZ series, you’re not imagining things… but No Man’s Land came out ~5 years earlier.

The most recent book in this sale is the Mattson Tomlin/Andrea Sorrentino Batman: The Imposter.

Batman: The Adventures Continue   Batman: No Man's Land   Batman: The Imposter

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: SDCC ’22 Discounts Continue with X-Men, Nightwing, BOOM! and IDW Joining the Party

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Comic-Con 2022 has arrived and the sales came along for the ride. Added to the pile: lots of X-Men, Eisner nods from DC, BOOM!’s wide swath of books and last week’s IDW link got fixed.

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):

Just a heads up – there is a LOT of indie action at the “San Diego Graphic Novel Sales” page.  Or full annotations for the bulk of that are in last week’s column.

Brand X

The Marvel X-Men Legacy Sale runs through Thursday, 7/28.

It’s a legacy sale, so it’s the Uncanny X-Men core… although this may shorter list than some of the legacy sales. For instance,  X-Men wasn’t part of Heroes Reborn, so no relaunch there.

As is our custom, let’s run through the key series included, first:

And you might be asking yourself, “aren’t there usually more than one X-Men title and don’t they cross over a lot?” Yes, that would be a potential issue… pun intended. Not so much with the Epic Collections and the Masterworks as with the later series, and there are some Event collections in the set.

You should know our general advice right now. There’s a slight preference for the value of Epic Collections over Masterworks collections, but it depends on the exact price point and the Epic Collections sometimes have gaps.  That still applies here.  The wild card with X-Men is that it can get impenetrable with continuity and all the characters floating around. You can’t always just jump in.

So, recommendations with that in mind.

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 only take you to #153, at which point you need to start cutting in the Masterworks editions with V. 7 through 12.

For an alternate jumping on point, perhaps the Ed Brubaker era (# to # ) which is collected in three volumes starting with Rise and Fall of the Shi’ar Empire.

We assume you already know about the Morrison run.

And if you were looking for the Events that started after #200… well, that’s next.

X-Men Epic Collection: The Sentinels Live   

Did Somebody Say Crossover?

The Marvel X-Men Milestones Sale runs through Monday, 7/25.

And this would be a set of single volume collections of the big “Event” storylines where the various X-titles converge.  And maybe look at it in chronological view.

Dark Phoenix is the classic, but perhaps best enjoyed in the context of that #94-200 run we described above.  Past that, everyone has their favorite. We might go out on a limb and suggest that Messiah Complex is the best post-Claremont arc, but… opinions vary.

Messiah Complex

Award Bait

The DC Eisners Sale runs through Monday, 7/25.

This is a tiny, 9 item sale that originally included some single issues that don’t appear to be on sale. No clue what was up with that.

Of the contenders, Batman is the usual suspect, but the Tom Taylor / Bruno Redondo Nightwing is the critical belle of the ball, here.

A bit more under the radar is the Ram V / Mike Perkins Swamp Thing. We’re not so sure that shouldn’t have waited to package the entire story in one volume (V.2 drops in ~3 weeks), but this slight reimaging of the character as a new avatar for The Green emerges is definitely an interesting read.

Nightwing   Swamp Thing

Return to the Planet of the Comic-Con Sales

The Boom! SDCC Graphic Novel Sale runs through 8/4/22.

This one popped on the SDCC later than the rest, and you know what?  There are a few BOOM! titles we’re happy to share the love for.

We Only Find Them When They’re Dead is an absolutely bonkers delight from Al Ewing (who’s on a hot streak) and Simone Di Meo. It starts out as tale of smuggling around a salvage operation, scavenging the body parts of dead gods found floating in space. Then it gets into suppressive governments and cults. We’re not sure precisely where it’s going to end up, but we’re happy to be along for the ride.  It appears only V. 1 is on sale.

Once and Future by Kieron Gillen and Dan Mora is probably a little higher up on the BOOM! visibility scale. It’s a breezy adventure with a bit of humor and darkness around the edges at times concerning a fellow who’s been drafted into the family monster-hunting business by his grandmother (who isn’t as retired as she should be) and a plot to raise a decidedly unfriendly King Arthur from the grave. A really fun series.

And for a deeper cut that’s coming to the surface because of a Netflix film deal, there’s Irredeemable by Mark Waid, Peter Krause and Diego Barreto.  The high concept here is somewhere between “Superman has a psychotic break” and “Superman meets The Bad Seed.” The Plutonian, a sort of Superman-esque character finally snaps and decides he’s in charge.  The surviving heroes and villains must try to stay alive long enough to figure out how to stop him.  Interestingly, there seem to now be a lot of comparisons to The Boys, which you didn’t really hear when then two books were running. There is an “abuse of superpowers” theme in common, but the two series are nearly tonal opposites. The Boys, particularly the original comic, is slapstick and parody. Irredeemable plays it straight. We’ve always enjoyed it.

We Only Find Them When They're Dead   Once & Future   Irredeemable

How IDW Got Its Link Back

The IDW SDCC Sale runs through Monday, 7/25… and guess what?  Comixology/Amazon fixed the link from last week’s error, so now we can see the whole thing.

A buried bargain: $3.49 for Jeff Lemire’s Underwater Welder, a well regarded science fiction character study graphic novel.

$3.99 will get you Bermuda by John Layman and Nick Bradshaw. This fairly recent collection (came out in Feb.) concerns a region of the Atlantic Ocean that collects missing ships and planes. There’s an island in it, inhabited by pirates, dinosaurs and assorted monsters.  And a 16 year old girl named Bermuda running roughshod over the lot of them.  A little bit of Kamandi, a little bit of Land of the Lost. It’s a really fun book with great art, too. Seems like it flew under the radar.

And for the “classic” option, it’s sometimes hard to find enough praise to heap on Darwyn Cooke’s Richard Stark’s Parker series of graphic novels.  An absolutely brilliant adaptation of the Donald Westlake crime novels about a thief who believes in payback. Highly recommended.

Underwater Welder   Bermuda   Richard Stark's Parker

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: The Comic-Con Sales Arrive in Force: X-Men, House of M, Batman and Indies Galore

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, the Comic-Con sale arrive in force. Multiple indie sales. X-Men and House of M at Marvel. Another wide sampler from DC, too.

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):

The Comic-Con Run-Up Arrives in Force!

The “San Diego Graphic Novel Sales – Start Here” page is worth your time to look at.

How long does this grouping of sales last? No idea. They forgot to include dates. Figure it’s probably until the 25th (the Monday after SDCC)?  What particularly interesting is that the folks at… they’re still calling it the Comixology section for the moment… are continuing an attempt to make this a little more navigable by having more alphabetical carousels displaying covers on the various sales pages here.

This is a step in the right direction!

Anyway… lots of ground to cover, just with this section. Let’s hit some highlights… and remember, the Dark Horse sale listed on this page is something we covered last week.

From the “Recent Releases” category / carousel, we would draw your attention to Astro City Metrobook Vol. 1 by Kurt Busiek, Brent Anderson and Alex Ross. At $11.99, it’s at the higher end of price points we’ll recommend, but this is prime material from a LONG running series that’s relocating back to Image and you’re getting ~485 pages / ~19 issues for your troubles.  This is an examination of superhero genre – very much of the classic Silver Age concepts this early in the series. Busiek, Anderson and Ross are world building here and the viewpoint can switch from heroes to sidekicks to bystanders over the various series. Short version – it’s a distillation of everything good about superheroes and it can also be an excellent palette cleanser if Events are getting you down. Very highly recommended!

Astro City Metrobook

Omnibuses

The Omnibus link is something we heartily approve of.  It appears to be a gathering of omnibuses from the various sales currently running.  To quote the great Clay Davis, from the Wire: “sheeeeeeeeeeeee-” (you know the rest). That’s almost like something we’d do! And this is a place where flipping through the graphic carousels will save you a lot of time.

Highlights (we spoke of the joys of Hellboy-verse omnibuses last week):

Best buy: Saga Compendium One – the first 54 issues of the Brian K. Vaughan / Fiona Staples masterwork for a lousy $23.99.  Less than fifty cents per issues.  Cheap and a modern classic. You don’t get much better than that.

Runner up: Paper Girls: The Complete Story – all 30 issues on the Brian K. Vaughan/Cliff Chiang time travel caper for $19.99. The TV version will be hitting Prime shortly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-1cyNm7iAU

And since the third volume in the series is coming out, Luther Arkwright contains The Adventures of Luther Arkwright and Heart of Empire, the first two series in Bryan Talbot’s legendary series about a dimension hopping, empire tumbling adventurer.  Another real winner!

Saga   Paper Girls  Luther Arkwright

Oni / Lion Forge

In regards to the  Oni Press and Lion Forge sales – we don’t really know any more about the situation over at Oni/Lion Forge than you’ve already read. We can’t discount the possibility that some of their titles could end up off the market for a little while. Possibly resurfacing at different publishers. If you’re interested in something and like the price, maybe pull the trigger in the next week or two. (We’ve always liked Kaijumax and Sixth Gun, though we’ve seen better prices for Sixth Gun.)

IDW and the bad link

The IDW SDCC Sale appears to have a bad link.  Only 25 items at that link and there’s a LOT more in the carousel on the main sale page, so scroll through that. And who knows, maybe Amazon will fix the link?

The original 30 Days of Night by Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith for $0.99? Absolutely worth a look if you’ve never tried it. (After all, one could argue it’s the book that “made” IDW.) The high concept? Vampires in Alaska, so far north that the sun will set for 30 days and they’ll have free reign.

It’s not clear if GI JOE is on sale or not (we suspect those are sale prices we’re seeing) and that’s another one that might not be at IDW much longer, so if you like the prices, think about stocking up.

30 Days of Night 

Image

And then there’s the  Image SDDC Graphic Novel Sale.

Seems like the final prices here might be a little higher than we’ve seen in the past? Definitely, we’re seeing the old problem of the Deluxe volumes being on sale. The Deluxe volumes are oversized for print, ergo a little more expensive than the single volumes and usually an inferior deal in digital when everything is based on the print price. After all, there is no hardcover in digital.  So be aware of that while browsing here.

That said, the Spawn Compendium is a similar deal to that giant Saga collection – for $23.99 each, you’ve got a couple 50 issue volumes available. If you want to read the first 100 issues of Spawn, you can get them for under $0.50/issue this way.

Spawn Compendium

Dynamite

The Dynamite SDCC Graphic Novel Sale. 

The first two volumes of Red Sonja by Mark Russell and Bob Quinn are $6.99. Yes, the same Mark Russell from Flintstones and Billionaire Island.  And it works. The main story is a “straight” adventure, but all around the edges satirical elements sink in… if you’re paying attention.  An unusual Red Sonja one, to be sure, but a good one.

Red Sonja

Let the X-Sales Begin…

Marvel’s Reign of X Sale runs through Thursday, 7/21.

Let’s back up a little here.  Reign of X is sort of the third Act of the Hickman-run X-Men era. Act one is House of X / Powers of X. Act two is Dawn of X, which is all the “regular” titles and culminates in the X of Swords Event. Reign of X picks up after X of Swords.

This is the format that collects the issues of the individual series in a preferred reading order. Not quite publication order (you’ll read a two-part in a single title back-to-back, here and there) but that’s the easiest way to think of it.  In general, we think this reading experience is a better way to read Hickman’s X-Saga and seeing the breadth of the world building unfurl is additive. That said, we found the quality of the line a little less consistent in Reign of X than Dawn of X.  (Which is to say, we’re not going to blame you if you skip the Children of the Atom bits.)

This link will show the volumes in order.

Reign of X

Not the Byrne “Generations”

The Marvel Generations of X Sale runs through Thursday, 7/21

This is a somewhat eclectic set of X-Men (and X-Men family) runs. You’re most likely to recognize Wolverine and the X-Men from Jason Aaron / Chris Bachalo / Nick Bradshaw and Generation X by Scott Lobdell and… Chris Bachalo again (at least on the main title in the collection).

Wolverine and the X-Men    Generation X

No More Mutants

Marvel’s House of M sale runs through Monday, 7/18.

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.

House of M

DC’s SDCC Run-Up

The DC at SDCC  Ebooks Sale runs through Monday, 7/25.

What we have here is another 2K ebook drop, should you have time for an extended browse.

If you’re looking for a lower price point per eBook, Jonah Hex is good candidate, alternating between $4.99 and $5.99 volumes.  Dark western tales of the disfigured and tortured bounty hunter written by Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray. The artists rotate quite a bit on this one and a certain point, Palmiotti & Gray seemed to be playing a game of “which legend can we get to draw the next issue?”  That is NOT a bad thing.

For $5.99, here’s something that’s under a lot of radars. Not everyone remembers, but prior to the more famous Long Halloween, Jeph Loeb and the late Tim Sale started out with Batman Halloween specials.  And let us assure you, that first one came out of nowhere and punched everyone right between the eyes. Batman: Haunted Knight collects the specials that got the Loeb/Sale ball rolling.

And for a value buy, DC Universe By Len Wein. $9.99 gets you 23 stories – not necessarily 23 issues, because some of the DC titles had backups back then, but you get an interesting mix here: a run of Wein’s under-appreciated Phantom Stranger run with Jim Aparo. The JLA/JSA team-up that reintroduced the Seven Soldiers of Victory. The DC Comics Presents run with Jim Starlin that introduces Mongul.

Jonah Hex   Batman - Haunted Knight   DC Universe by Len Wein

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Kieron Gillen’s Marvel Work (Eternals, Loki, X-Men); Original Sin; DC’s 2K Title Drop with Sandman, OMAC and Manhunter; Bloom County; Umbrella Academy

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, we’ve got discounts on Kieron Gillen’s Marvel work – Eternals / Uncanny X-Men / Journey Into Mystery / etc.; Marvel’s Original Sin Event; another big block of DC collections, including Sandman; IDW cuts the prices on some classic newspaper strip collections; and we couldn’t really have a new season of Umbrella Academy without a sale on the original material, could we?

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):

Journey into Gillen

The Marvel Kieron Gillen Sale runs through Monday, 6/27.

We find it really sad that a “Marvel” Gillen sale does not include our two favorite works of the bunch: Darth Vader and Doctor Aphra.  Yes, there will other Star Wars sales, but if you’re talking Gillen, that’s what we’d put at the top of the heap.

So let’s start out with a cleaner recap of the major items in this sale:

  • The Eternals with Eric Ribić.  $0.99 single issues only and the collected edition is NOT on sale for reasons known only to Amazon and/or Marvel.
  • War Hammer 40,000: Marneus Calgar with Jacen Burrows
  • Journey Into Mystery (i.e. Loki) with Doug Braithwaite and Richard Elson (among others) – omnibus editions
  • Uncanny X-Men – omnibus editions
  • Young Avengers with Jamie McKelvie – omnibus edition
  • Thor with Billy Tan / Richard Elson / Doug Braithwaite – omnibus edition
  • Iron Man with Greg Land / Dale Eaglesham / Joe Bennett / Luke Ross

What’s good?  This one’s going to be more personal preference than with many sales and to that end, we’d point out that we did read the War Hammer volume and it felt like that’s a book you’ll get a LOT more out of it if you’re a gamer.  (But if you’re already into War Hammer, you’ll probably love it.)  Past that, Journey Into Mystery is where Gillen really popped onto the Marvel radar, Young Avengers is the familiar team of Gillen/McKelvie and Gillen’s Mr. Sinister in Uncanny X-Men definitely has had influence.

Journey Into Mystery   Young Avengers   Uncanny X-Men

Casting the First Stone 

The Marvel Original Sin Sale runs through Monday, 6/27.

We’d probably call this a one book sale – Original Sin is a big Event by Jason Aaron and Mike Deodato. Someone’s killed the Watcher, dirty secrets are bubbling up from everyone’s past and… more would get into spoilers.  There are a few tie-in volumes also listed, but our recollection is that the tie-in volumes are not really necessary. While this is often the case with Events, it might be even more so here. Proceed with tie-ins only if they’re scratching an itch for you.

Original Sin

When they say “Multiverse,” they mean “Infinity”

The DC Multiverse and Beyond eBooks Sale runs through Monday, 7/4.

This is another entry in the new DC trend of dropping ~2000 collections without much noticeable curation, so you can pick through it at your leisure. Lowest prices are $4.99, but most non-YA doesn’t get below $5.99.

With the Netflix adaptation looming a little over a month away, they’re leading this sale off with Sandman.  And it’s certainly a classic series. The question is whether it will dip below $5.99 when the show drops and we don’t have an answer for that. DC’s been holding the line at $5.99 for most of their sales in the last couple months.

Of possible interest from the more recently published volumes (DC does wait awhile before applying discounts):

Jack Kirby’s OMAC: One Man Fighting Corps is listed at $5.99. If you’re not familiar with it, OMAC is a surprisingly subversive dystopian take on a future where billionaires/corporations are running amok. There are superhero trappings, but it’s really a science fiction adventure/satire.

And for something else out of left field in a good way, $5.99 will get Manhunter: The Deluxe Edition. This collects the Detective Comics serial by Archie Goodwin and Walt Simonson. An absolute classic run, it’s not as mainstream well-known because the Paul Kirk character wasn’t continued in his own title (for obvious reasons). It’s just an excellent stand-alone tale by two legends of the art form.

Sandman   OMAC   Manhunter

Where’s My Umbrella?

The Umbrella Academy Sale runs through Tuesday, 6/28.

Why yes, there’s a new season on Netflix and we might even start on that tonight. Funny how sales line up with such things…

This one’s a lot easier to define: it’s a series by Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba about an extremely dysfunctional family of superhumans who are more than a little scarred by their adoptive upbringing.  One series link for the collected editions and no fuss.  Good comic, too. We enjoyed it.

Umbrella Academy

Those Things in the Newspaper

The IDW Newspaper Classics Sale runs through Thursday, 6/30.

And by classics they mean comic strips.  In this case, we’re looking at:

Academia Waltz   Bloom County   For Better or For Worse

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Legion (and X-Men), Batman, Lobo, Geiger and C.O.W.L.

This week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales include Legion (as in Professor X’s son), Image’s oddly named “!” sale and DC has a Spring Break sale… but the usual problems with the fluctuating discounts seem to still apply. Alas, it may be the new status quo.

(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):

Son of X

The Marvel Legion Sale runs through Sunday, 4/17.

This would be Legion, as in Professor X’s son (David Haller).

X-Men: Legion – Shadow King Rising contains some early appearances, including the excellent original arc in New Mutants by Chris Claremont and Bill Sienkiewicz. Worth it just for the New Mutants arc.

If you’re mostly familiar with Legion through the wonder Noah Hawley TV show, the comic that will be most recognizable to you is probably going to be Legion: Son of X by Si Spurrier and Tan Eng Huat.

(Next in our ongoing series of eyerolls at Amazon’s sloppy curation of comics — no, we can’t explain why Amazon has “X-Men Legacy” and photoshopped retitling of the first tpbs cover as the header for the Legion series page. Then again, we frequently don’t know what Amazon’s thinking.)

Speaking of X-Men: Legacy, that’s also on sale. Mike Carey wrote the vast majority of the series, with a rotating cast of artists that notably included Scot Eaton, Daniel Acuna, Billy Tan, Clay Mann and Khoi Pham.

X-Men: Legion - Shadow King Rising   Legion: Son of X   X-Men Legacy

! = ?

The “Image ! Sale” runs through Monday, 5/2.

No, really… the “! Sale.” We’re sure somebody found that title terribly clever, as opposed to descriptive or recognizable.  We think that “!” is supposed to be evocative of recent buzz books, although not everything here is recent.  Have a browse, but here’s what was popping to the top.

Geiger V.1 by Geoff Johns and Gary Frank gave us very strong DC “Great Disaster” vibes. A little Kamandi/Ben Boxer here, some Atomic Knights there… even an out of left field GI Robot analogue. All this wrapped around a chase storyline. We enjoyed it and it definitely wasn’t what we were expecting.

We’ve always liked The Manhattan Projects by Jonathan Hickman and Nick Pitarra. It’s an alternate history where the brain trust of the Manhattan Project isn’t merely there to develop an atomic bomb. No, they’re working on mad science, space exploration and even exploring parallel worlds. Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it’s horrific, but it’s a good ride. We could go for another mini-series, truth be told.

While Radiant Black is the buzz book, there’s another Kyle Higgins comic we’d point you to that we liked better. C.O.W.L.  by Higgins, Alec Siegel and Rod Reis is the tale of the Chicago Organized Workers League – a union for superheroes. Established to combat organized crime and supervillains, it’s now staggering in a world of politics and corruption. (Politics and corruption in Chicago?  Surely not!)

  The Manhattan Projects   C.O.W.L.

DC’s Current Partial Sale

The DC Spring Break eBook Sale runs through Monday, 4/25.

The usual warning applies. The pricing has been screwed up on every DC sale for several weeks and that continues here. Do not touch comics that don’t end in .99. ($5.99, $7.99, etc.) There’s a lot of books in the sale with goofy prices like $13.98 or $9.32.  These are probably not the final sale price, but we have no idea when (or if) all the prices will get fixed.  Yes, it’s a problem and it would be a much better sale if Amazon and/or DC could get their act together.

Now, that said, there are still interesting things in this large sale.

Lobo by Keith Giffen & Alan Grant manages to have both volumes discounted. Largely drawn by Simon Bisley, this is the original Lobo run. It started a series of mini-series and specials… such as the Lobo’s Paramilitary Christmas Special where the Easter Bunny has taken a hit out on Santa. It’s an over-the-top parody of machismo with something to offend to everyone!

Another one where both volumes have been included is Batman by Ed Brubaker, Vol. 1  and Vol. 2. Yes, before Captain America, Fatale and Reckless, Brubaker had a run on Batman. Scott McDaniel was the primary artist on the run.

There’s a lot more I might come back and recommend later if the prices get fixed. So many titles where only part of the individual volumes have the corrected sale price. It’s astonishing. So browse, but pay close attention to the prices.

Lobo   Batman by Ed Brubaker

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