Tag: X-Men

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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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: X-Men, Iron Man, Heroes Reborn and DMZ

This week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales include: The Dawn of X segment of X-Men comics, Heroes Reborn (OK, for our purposes, Heroes Return), Iron Man and the DMZ, now as seen on TV.

Side comments about the nature of reprinting cross-over Events included at no extra charge!

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

X-Hijinks

Marvel’s X-Men: Dawn of X Sale runs through Thursday, 3/20.

To put this in the context of the Hickman era of X, you start out with the House of X / Powers of X mini’s, then you go into the “regular” X-Men family of titles. This post HoX/PoX era is what’s being called “Dawn of X” and it basically stops just before the X of Swords crossover Event.

Dawn of X is a series of trade paperbacks (or digital TPBs for our purposes) that collect the issues of the _entire_ X-Men line of books, to more properly approximate reading the line in release order. Oh, they’ll fudge the exact release order here and there for 2-parters, but you get the idea.

Essentially, particularly early on in the line, the ideas of the X-family floated between titles. Ben Percy’s Wolverine and X-Force cross-pollinated a fair amount, too. We’ve felt that you do get a more out of the X-line by reading it as a whole. It enhances the scope and the worldbuilding aspects. Oh, there’s a dud of an issue here and there, but on the whole, it’s a strong line. (We didn’t think the line was quite as uniformly strong post-X of Swords, but that’s for a different time.)

Marvel has been getting better about going back and collecting stories that bounced between titles (like Hickman’s Avengers saga) in the actual reading order, as opposed tpbs of the individual titles that you need to bounce between. In general, this is a good thing.

We wish we could get you this listed in numerical order, but Amazon’s sorting routines aren’t very good here… but we can give you the list in reverse order! <rolls eyes>

Dawn of X

We’ll Stick with the Return

Marvel’s Heroes Reborn Sale runs through Thursday, 3/24.

This is the 90s experiment when Marvel outsourced some of their titles to Image. Now, for our money, the gems here are from the “Heroes Return” period, when those title came back to Marvel:

Iron Man: Heroes Return – The Complete Collection V. 1 has Kurt Busiek, Roger Stern and Sean Chen as the primary creative team, re-establishing shell head back in the Marvel Universe. You get some Mandarin, there’s a side trip with Captain America and MODOK. This collects the first portion of one of our favorite Iron Man periods.

And speaking of high points, this sale also has Captain America: Heroes Return – The Complete Collection,  which is the Mark Waid/Ron Garney run resuming. (It had just started, and was abruptly halted, for Heroes Reborn.) A little Hydra, a lost shield… that MODOK tale from Iron Man is also reprinted here (a shared Annual). It’s a solid run.

Iron Man: Heroes Reborn   Captain America Heroes Return

We Forget… Is It Still 2020?

The last couple years really are a blur and this sale is confusing us!

The Marvel Iron Man 2020 and Other Stories Sale runs through Sunday, 3/20.

First off, the Heroes Return sale for Busiek/Chen Iron Man is by far the better deal, so ignore the shorter collections here.

Now here’s a comic we haven’t seen mentioned in quite a while: Iron Man: The Inevitable by Joe Casey and Frazier Irving. We liked that one when it was coming out. Stark tries to rehabilitate the Living Lazer, while Spymaster and the Ghost plot his downfall. Introspection, espionage and then some things blow up. We think the audience may have been expecting more slam-bang when it came out, but we recall this as a slower build up… and it likely benefits from a collected edition.

Iron Man: Iron Monger is the end of the Denny O’Neil/Luke McDonnell era… although McDonnell bows out a little early, so you get some Rich Buckler and Mark Bright starts his run with #200.  And #200 is a helluva ride. O’Neil runs Tony Stark through the ringer and this sees him dragging himself up from the gutters after an alcoholic relapse to deal with Obadiah Stane and his Iron Monger armor. That finale has proven very influential over the years!

Iron Man: The Inevitable   Iron Man: Iron Monger

Feudal Warlords of Manhattan

The Stream DC: DMZ Sale runs through Monday, 3/28.

And yes, that would be the old Vertigo series, DMZ by Brian Wood and Riccardo Burchielli. And it’s a good one. The premise? There’s been a militia uprising. The rebels have captured the coast and New Jersey. The US Army holds Long Island. Manhattan is a no-man’s land between the armies. A demilitarized zone, i.e. DMZ. A rookie photojournalist pulls an assignment in the DMZ, but things go pear-shaped and he finds himself stranded… but also with a unique opportunity as an embedded reporter, so he attempts to navigate a strange landscape of neighborhood-based warlords and the strange society that’s popped up around the Manhattanites who could get out… while both armies jockey for position in the shadows.

You can read a few volumes on Comixology Unlimited to test drive it, but if you’re buying, you want the larger deluxe editions for your lowest tab.

DMZ

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Comixology Sales: Wolverine and the X-Men, Watchmen, Doctor Strange, Doomsday Clock, Avengers and Grendel

This week’s Comixology Sales include Marvel dropping the price on Wolverine and the X-Men, Doctor Strange team-ups and alternate versions of the Avengers. DC discounts Watchmen and Doomsday Clock, while Dark Horse slashes prices on Grendel.

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

Strange Bedfellows

The Marvel Doctor Strange Team-Up Sale runs through Thursday, 12/16. (Amazon link)

Hmmm… you’d think there was a movie about that or something? At any rate, this is an odd set of books and Stephen Strange isn’t exactly at the center of much of them. Are there a few we like? Yes. Yes, there are.

As we’ve said before, Tom “I just signed an exclusive with DC” Taylor and David Lopez do a wonderful job with All-New Wolverine.  That would be X-23 / Laura, not Logan, but it’s a genuinely fun book and their run hits all over the emotional spectrum by the end.  Plus, not unlike Spidey, there’s a bunch of clones.

Another thing that stands out are a couple of volumes of Marvel Two-In-One from the Mark Gruenwald/Ralph Macchio era of the title.  Project Pegasus,  with George Perez, Sal Buscema and John Byrne along for the ride, has Ben Grimm running security for a super villain lock-up, but all is not as it seems.

The Serpent Crown Affair with George Perez, Jerry Bingham and Ron Wilson is a sprawling adventure as The Thing teams with Stingray, Triton, Scarlet Witch, Spidey, Quasar and Doctor Strange as Roxxon (and their catspaws, The Serpent Squad) try to get their hands on the Serpent Crown in a sequel of sorts to the Avengers storyline. This is the better-priced, if shorter, of the two Thing volumes.

All-New Wolverine   Project Pegasus   The Serpent Crown Affair

Snikt and Friends

The Marvel Wolverine & the X-Men Sale runs through Sunday, 12/13. (Amazon link)

This sale is pretty straightforward: the Wolverine & the X-Men run written by Jason Aaron with Nick Bradshaw and Chris Bachalo as the main artists.

Wolverine and the X-Men

Alternate Avengers

The Marvel Avengers of the Multiverse Sale runs through Sunday, 12/12. (Amazon link)

We’re so glad they didn’t call this “Avengers of the Metaverse.”

Our favorite of this selection of Avengers incarnations is definitely Avengers Forever. This collection of a twelve issue series by Kurt Busiek, Roger Stern and Carlos Pacheo is one big epic about the war between Kang and Immortus… with callbacks to the Kree/Skrull War, as Rick Jones summons up a team of Avengers from throughout the timestream to save him from Immortus.

The Ultimates seems to be a love it or hate it book. This Mark Millar/Bryan Hitch title is a reimagined Avengers for Ultimate Marvel line (as Ultimate Comics was originally called). This time around it’s the government assembling the heroes and the heroes are a little rougher around the edges. A very influential run, especially for the film division. You can go ahead and get Ultimates 2 if this floats your boat, be we’d advise against Ultimates 3.

Avengers Forever   Ultimates

Watchmen and Spinoffs

The DC Spotlight: Watchmen & Doomsday Clock Sale runs through Monday, 12/13. (Amazon link)

Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons is one of the most famous comics of the last 40 years. Technically, Marvelman/Miracleman preceded it as a post-modern deconstruction of superheroes (and Moore’s Captain Britain was heading in that general direction), but this is title that gets the credit for that particular mid-80s revolution. It’s a milestone and basically part of cultural literacy at this point.

Now… for the rest of the sale…

Here at the Tower of Cheap, we don’t really take a kind view of the cash grab nature of some of the Watchmen brand extensions. (Pardon us for using the marketing department’s lingo, but we feel it’s the reality of the situation.) Oh, there’s A-list talent involved, but we’d have preferred it if things were left well enough alone.

That said, Doomsday Clock might be of interest to some. This was the Geoff Johns / Gary Frank attempt to bring the Watchmen into the DC Universe and set up the next era of storylines. Those grander ambitions did not quite come of, partially due to how behind schedule the single issues were.  We enjoyed the first… maybe 2/3 of it, but didn’t think they nailed the ending. Lovely art, but you’d expect nothing less from Frank. So put this one down as a partial recommendation with reservations.

Watchmen   Doomsday Clock

Not Beowulf

The  Dark Horse Grendel Sale runs through Monday, 12/13.

Grendel is a very old school indie comic character/saga that goes back to the early ’80s… and is still going. Matt Wagner started the saga back at Comico with an assassin anti-hero. It grew to include new characters taking up the mask and mantle. It grew a little more to reveal Grendel is a sort of spirit of violence and aggression that possesses hosts over the years. And it becomes a science fiction epic as it goes on. Wagner is the writer and guiding force. Sometimes he draws, sometimes its other folks like the Pander Brothers or Tim Sale

This is one of the rare instances where the sale page is laid out well and easy to navigate. Here’s what you need to know:

  • Grendel Omnibus V. 1-4 are the core story. Definitely start with V. 1, which is the original Hunter Rose character across the years.
  • Grendel Tales Omnibus is the tribute album series – other creators doing… Grendel tales.
  • Grendel: Behold the Devil is collected in Grendel Omnibus V. 1, so don’t get it twice
  • Grendel: Devil’s Odyssey is the the most recent series (wrapped up in July) and the $0.99 single issues are the cheapest way to get it.

Grendel Omnibus

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Comixology Sales: Spider-Man and the Spider-Verse; X-Men and Phoenix; Wonder Woman and IDW Horror

This week’s Comixology Sales highlights include Spider-Man and X-Men from Marvel, good discounts on Wonder Woman from DC and an IDW horror sale for Halloween.

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

The Spiders From Another Dimension

The Marvel Spider-Verse Sale runs through Sunday, 10/24.

Which is to say, the Spidey family, as built around a couple Events that you go into prelude and post-Event volumes, because… Marvel’s sales department.

The center of the activity here is the titular Spider-Verse omnibus.  Morlun’s up to his old tricks and ALL the Spider-Men across the various dimension must act.  The omnibus contains the Amazing issues and the crossovers, so you’re looking at Dan Slott, Christos Gage (yes, Gage covering deadlines — it’s a thing!), Peter David, “Hopeless” Dennis, Adam Kubert, Olivier Copiel, Mark Brooks and a ton of others.  Roughly 600 pages of Spidey to keep you out of trouble.

And the follow-up to that is Spider-Geddon.  This one has a little smaller scope than Spider-Verse.

Now, if you’re talking the extended Spider-family, Miles Morales is the character we most associate with the phrase “Spider-Verse.” The omnibus editions are the ones on sale here and you can do a lot worse than the Bendis / Marquez /Pichelli run.  Some would say this (particularly Spider-Men, which followed) was top of the final Marvel years for Bendis.

Spider-Verse   Spider-Geddon   

Shot Down in Flames

The Marvel Phoenix Sales runs through Sunday 10/24.

This is a fairly straightforward and small sale. X-Men Epic Collection: The Fate of the Phoenix is a classic of medium.  Accept no substitute and go for the Epic Collection.

X-Men: The Fate of the Phoenix

Sappho Suffered For This Sale, Part 2

The Wonder Woman 80th Anniversary Sale runs through Monday, 10/25.

Last time out, we looked at earlier Wonder Woman titles, this time we’ll take a look at New 52 on.

Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang (with Tony Akins and Goran Sudžuka drawing a few issues) launched the New 52 edition of Wonder Woman. It’s a darker, alternate take on Wonder Woman’s origins. Some would prefer you treat this one like an Elseworlds story. A sacrilegious a take on the mythos as it maybe be, it’s also one of the best comics to come out of the New 52.  That said, when the Azzarello/Chiang era stops with Volume 6, we would advise you to stop there.

For the Rebirth Era of Wonder Woman, we love the first arc(s) where Greg Rucka returns to undo the Azzarello run (no, really) with Liam Sharp and Nicola Scott alternating parallel stories.  Save a couple bucks with the first omnibus editions in the run or get the first 4 regular collections for this.

And for something a little different, do you remember Matt Wagner’s Trinity? Wonder Woman, Batman and Superman get together to thwart a Ra’s al Ghul plot. Save yourself a buck and get the original (prestige format) issues for $0.99 each.

Wonder Woman New 52   Wonder Woman  Trinity

Revenge of the Trick or Treaters

The IDW Horror Sale runs through Thursday, 11/4.

Yes, it’s the most magical time of the year… for the undead.  There’s plenty for your Halloween appetite rite now, er… right now.  Two things that spring to mind are:

From Hell – Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell collaborate on a very dark exploration of the tale of Jack Ripper. It’s a thick volume and has garnered a veritable ton of accolades over the years. The current edition is in color, “with pictorial revisisions for color by Eddie Campbell, as the cover says.” Be aware, in League of Extraordinary Gentleman, Alan Moore does more of a Victorian pastiche.  The tone here is way different.  This is a horror sale.

30 Days of Night is an important book for IDW.  Never mind the movies, this Steve Niles/Ben Templesmith comic was an important early hit that helped put IDW on the map.  The premise is one so obvious, you’ll hate yourself for not thinking of it first. (Those are always the best ones.) Bad Things happen when a group of vampires realize that in rural Alaska, the sun goes down for a whole month at a time.

From Hell   30 Days of Night

Still on Sale

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Comixology Sales: Wolverine, Venom/Carnage, (Solo) X-Men, Justice League, Spawn and Cursed Pirate Girl

This week in Comixology Sales, Marvel discounts Wolverine’s demise and the solo X-Men adventures, DC cuts the Justice League pricing, we have a look at some under-the-radar Image titles in their large Fall sale and… Cursed Pirate Girl!

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

Dead Again

The Marvel  Death of Wolverine Sale runs through Sunday, 10/3.

Spoilers: he gets better.

This sale is pretty straight forward. If you want the full Event experience, Death of Wolverine: The Complete Collection gets you a little more bang for your buck.

Death of Wolverine

Mutants Without Partners

The Marvel X-Men Solo Series Sale runs through Thursday, 10/7.

This would be a collection of some of the mini-series and otherwise short lived titles featuring the various members of the X-family off on their own.

Of the set, Legion (or Legion: Legacy as it’s sometimes referred to) by Si Spurrier and Tan Eng Huat is probably the one with the most lasting influence.  You might also be interested in a bit of Chris Claremont.  Everyone once in a while, Marvel will give him the greenlight and this 2014 Nightcrawler series drawn by Todd Nauck is one of those.

Legion   Nightcrawler

Symbiotes

The Marvel Venom-Carnage Sale runs through Sunday, 12/17.

Gosh, it’s like there was a movie out or something…

The Venom saga starts with this Amazing Spider-Man Epic Collection. That puts you in the David Michelinie/Todd McFarlane era of the book.

Maximum Carnage isn’t the first appearance of Carnage, but it’s the BIG story arc where Carnage really gets the spotlight, a few years after Venom debuted.

Amazing Spider-Man - Venom   Maximum Carnage

Justice over the Years

The DC Spotlight: Justice League Sale runs through Monday, 10/4.

This is one of those mezzanine level, 50% off sales that are becoming the norm for DC.  What’s on sale?  A whole bunch of Justice League, naturally.  And the older single issues are $0.99, so make sure it’s not cheaper to get single issues than the collected edition. (It’s usually cheaper to get the collected edition if it’s on sale, but not always.)

The original Justice League of America run is here.  You can get the first 41 issues or so in collected editions and another batch in the #80s-#90s, but this is mostly a single issue affair.  We always thought the Steve Englehart/Dick Dillin era was Peak JLA: #139-146; 149-150. The Gerry Conway/Dick Dillin/George Perez era that followed has it’s fans, too.  Conway was on the title a looooooong time.

For an oddity, long before he was doing Deathstroke and Vampirella, Priest did a run on Justice League Task Force. A title you really don’t hear the name of very often. The cleanest place to start (darn those pesky cross-overs) is probably #17, which Mark Waid writes and Priest pops back in with the next issue.

For pure Bang For The Buck, it’s hard to beat Justice League Quarterly. The ’90-’94 series is eclectic as all get out for creators (see for yourself) and it’s 70+ pages for $0.99/pop.  Definitely cheaper getting the single issues on this one. If you see a creator lineup you like on an issue, it’s cheap!

The more recent material is also available, but we figure you’re already familiar with that.

Justice League of America   Justice League Task Force   Justice League Quarterly

Hidden Treasure From Image

The Image Fall Reading Sale runs through Friday, 10/15.

Normally, we don’t recommend $20+ digital collections… but we’ll make an exception for Spawn Compendium V.1 because it’s a 50 issue collection and that comes out to roughly $0.48/issue, which is as cheap as it comes.  Spawn’s pretty hot right now and this is a good way to see how it started. Todd McFarlane is even penciling Spawn before Greg Capullo and Tony Daniel enter the picture. Plus all those early guest writers like Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman.

Speaking of things that are hot right now, Kyle Higgins seems to have a hit on his hands with Radiant Black, but not that many people remember his previous indie superhero vehicle, C.O.W.L. Co-written by Alec Seigel and drawn by Rod Reis concerns a labor union for superheroes in ’60s Chicago.

Spawn Compendium x C.O.W.L.

The Monolith, written by Jimmy Palmiotti & Justin Gray and illustrated by Phil Winslade is a comic that was originally published by DC, with the rights having returned to the creators. (Do not say that last part around the Marvel legal offices this week. Someone might get alarmed.) A troubled young woman discovers golem in her basement in this one. A very angry golem who thirsts for revenge. It’s something you may not have heard of and we’re saps for Phil Winslade’s art.

Another lesser-known series by a now more prominent creator is twenty-seven by Charles Soule and Renzo Podestá.  Yes, Soule is on the prolific side. This one explores why all those famous musicians die at the age of 27. An occult conspiracy?  That would be telling.

The Monolith   27

Curses!

The BOOM! YA All Day Sale runs through Friday 10/1.

We would draw your eye to a wonderfully idiosyncratic comic: Jeremy Bastian’s Cursed Pirate Girl. We’re not sure we’d necessarily call it YA, so much as living in it’s own space in sort of an surreal Alice in Wonderland kind of way… but with pirates and ghosts.  Such a unique work!

Cursed Pirate Girl

Still on Sale

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Comixology Sales: MARVEL BOGO! Plus, Doctor Strange, Neil Gaiman, X-Men’s Inferno and World War Hulk

This week in Comixology sales, Marvel has a Buy One, Get One Free Sale, plus there’s deep dive into the worlds of Doctor Strange and Neil Gaiman, plus World War Hulk and the X-Men’s plunge into Inferno.

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

BOGO!

Yes, Marvel Buy One, Get One Free is back. Click that link, get that code and stack the BOGO on top of the current sales.  The sale ends on Monday, 9/27 at 11PM ET.  Fine print says the offer is no good on comics that came out after 8/25/21, pre-orders or Max titles, among other things.  So have at it… and those Doctor Strange discounts are looking twice as good.

The Doctor is In

The Marvel Doctor Strange Legacy Sale runs through Thursday, 9/30.

Doctor Strange is a character where we very much recommend the original run through the 80s.  He’s also one of the characters to find his legs the quickest.

As always, we find the Epic Collections to be slightly better values, but the Masterworks go all the way through the series, where the Epic’s tend to jump around.  So either look at the listing in the sale link or follow through the sequence of titles and look in the collected editions section there.

Doctor Strange debuts in Strange Tales. This is the Stan Lee / Steve Ditko run and the original clashes with Baron Mordo and the Dormammu. (And that Lee/Ditko Epic Collection is a good one.)

Doctor Strange in Strange Tales

Then there was the late ’60s Doctor Strange solo series that (along with the first half of the Marvel Premiere run) is collected across two Masterworks editions.

Doctor Strange '68 series

And then there’s “main” Doctor Strange series of the 70’s and 80’s.  The second half of Marvel Premiere run is lumped in here, as that where Steve Englehart enters the picture.  The Englehart/John Brunner run is considered a classic, right up there with Lee/Ditko’s psychedelic masterpiece.  Gene Colan hops on for a long tenure after Brunner leaves (with the odd artist switch) and then Marv Wolfman, Roger Stern and Chris Claremont tag in and out as writers, until Peter Gillis jumps in at the very end of the run.  It’s a strong series and the later Stern issues with Marshal Rogers and Paul Smith on the art are a particular joy.

Doctor Strange by Englehart

You say you want the more recent Jason Aaron / Donny Cates era?  Mark Waid era? It’s all on sale too, just remember to grab the BOGO code and apply it to your shopping cart for Maximum Cheap.

Burning Love

The Marvel X-Men Inferno Sale runs through Thursday, 9/30.

This one takes us back to the beginning of the age of X-Men crossovers as Mister Sinister and the demons of Limbo converge to cause all sorts of problems for the X-Men (and Spidey… and Daredevil… and the Avengers).

X-Men: Inferno

The War of Smash

The Marvel World War Hulk Sale runs through Sunday 9/26.

It’s a small sale with the Event spin-offs available… but the “main event,” World War Hulk by Greg Pak and John Romita, Jr., is one of the classic Hulk stories.

World War Hulk

Neil’s Limelight

The DC Spotlight on Neil Gaiman and Sandman Sale runs through Monday, 9/27.

We’re going to assume you haven’t been living under the Rock of Eternity and are familiar with Sandman already. That said, there are a couple less famous items here. (We say less famous, because Neil’s too popular for much of his catalog to truly be obscure.)

Black Orchid is a very early piece by the now celebrated team of Neil and Dave McKean. Originally pitched in ’87 and coming out at the end of ’88, it actually pre-dates Sandman. The series is an origin of sorts for the ’70s character (Why of sorts?  Therein lay spoilers.) Batman, Swamp Thing and Lex Luthor are involved in this tangled web.

DC Universe by Neil Gaiman is a collection of several non-Vertigo projects. The best known ones are probably the “Whatever Happened to the Cape Crusader?” Batman project, the Superman/Green Lantern “Legend of the Green Flame” sequence from Action Comics Weekly and the Metamorpho strip from Wednesday Comics.

Black Orchid   DC Universe by Neil Gaiman

Still on Sale

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Comixology Sales: DC’s Huge Discounts Continue, Plus Ka-Zar vs. Thanos and X-Men

This week in Comixology Sales, we look at the back half of DC’s 70+% off Labor Day sale, plus Ka-Zar and X-Men get the discount treatment at Marvel.

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

DC Has STRONG Discounts

No, you’re not hallucinating. DC broke out of their slump with some of the best discounts they’ve had in months. 73-77% off. It’s better than a BOGO sale.

The “DC Labor Day Sale” comes in two parts.  Part One contains 100 Bullets though John Constantine, Hellblazer. (We looked at that last time out.) Part Two contains John Constantine, Hellblazer through Zero Hour.  There’s a ton of material here, including some semi-recent offerings so be sure to have a good browse.  That said, here’s some things that caught our eye in Part Two, but might not be at the top of your mind.

Let’s start out with Hellblazer. The adventures of anti-hero John Constantine were a pretty consistently good read from Vertigo for a very long time before internal politics killed the original series.  22 volumes are on sale, ranging from $2.99 – $4.99, depending on the volume.

Hellblazer

Not so long ago, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves revisiting the Paul Levitz/Keith Giffen era of Legion of Superheroes (which starts out as Levitz/Pat Broderick).  The Great Darkness Saga and The Curse – read in that order – are two thick volumes of prime material for $3.99/$4.99.  Outstanding buys.

Legion of Super Heroes The Great Darkness Saga    Legion of Superheroes: The Curse

And if we’re talking Levitz/Giffen Legion, we should probably also be talking Marv Wolfman and George Perez on New Teen Titans, DC’s other defining book of the pre-crisis era.  Fortunately, the sale is accommodating us and there are 11 volumes on sale for $2.99 a pop. (Cheap.) That takes you into the early Baxter series era. A very influential series to this day.

New Teen Titans

Preacher by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon certainly raised its already large profile when it got a TV adaption. Definitely not a comic for the easily offended, it concerns a disillusioned preacher, his girlfriend and his vampire buddy looking for God, who’s gone missing.  That’s safe for work version anyway.  Watch out for the New Orleans vampire sequence, it’s… but that would be spoiling. At $2.99 a pop for the 350+ page collections, this is another off the chart value.

Preacher

Speaking of large page counts for $2.99, remember when Gail Simone was writing the Secret Six? This is one of those title that Comixology splits up a little strangely, Volume 1 contains Villains United and the first Secret Six’s 6 issues. That was all in the run-up to Infinite Crisis. Volume 2 is where the second series starts and this is where we think it hits its stride as dark exploration of DC’s ne’er-do-wells.

Secret Six: Villains United   Secret Six

This might not be the consensus opinion, but we lean towards Omega Men being Tom King’s best DC writing. It’s also probably his least known. He was way under the radar when it started. You want this for $3.99, ignore the other link that’s the more expensive digital version of a print hard cover. (We always chuckle at HC prices for digital.)

And we end with another spectacular buy.  You may recall that a pre-Saga Brian K. Vaughan teamed with Pia Guerra for Y: The Last Man about the sole male survivor of a mysterious plague. It’s got a TV adaptation that drops on 9/13.  The omnibus editions are $2.99, same price as the regular (thinner) collections.  We’re not sure how much more you could ask for.  Click here, scroll down to “Omnibuses” and have at it.

Y the Last Man

There’s a ton more on sale and these discounts are unusual for DC, so carve out some time to browse this sale on your own.

Lord of the Jungle… er, Savage Land

The Marvel Ka-Zar Sale runs through Thursday, 9/9.

The best known Ka-Zar might be the 80’s Bruce Jones/Brent Anderson run, the first off of which is collected in Ka-Zar: Savage Dawn.

If you’d like something a bit more unexpected, Mark Waid and Andy Kubert had Ka-Zar squaring off against Thanos.  Yes, that Thanos.

And if you’re particularly old school, you’ll remember that Ka-Zar goes back all the way to the original 40s run of Marvel Mystery Comics.

There’s a bit more here, including some random Epic Editions where Ka-Zar appeared, for you to browse.

Ka-Zar Savage Dawn   Ka-Zar vs. Thanos   Marvel Mystery Comics

X-Men Event Editions

The X-Men Milestones Sale runs through Thursday, 9/9.

It’s a set of collections of X-family crossover events and it pretty self-explanatory. Looking to catch up on the original Inferno before Jonathan Hickman does his version?  This is where you can do that.

Inferno

Still on Sale

 

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Comixology Sales: Dawn of X, Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, Jim Starlin’s Dreadstar

This week’s Comixology sales include: Dawn of X from Marvel, DC loosing The Sandman (and Sandman Mystery Theater), Horror from Dark Horse and Omnibus editions from Dynamite.

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

Mutated Reading

The Marvel Dawn of X Sale runs through Thursday, 8/26.

Dawn of X is a different type of Marvel collected edition. This collects the titles of the Hickman X-Men line into a book format, but bounces between the various series in a manner similar to how one would read the issues as they came out. We’ve always felt that reading the  entire line was an additive experience and this is probably the best way to experience that in the collected edition format.  The 16 volumes of Dawn of X take you right up to the edge of X of Swords.

Dawn of X

The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of

The DC Spotlight: Sandman and the Sandman Universe Sales runs through Monday, 8/23.

We’re assuming you’re already heard of the  Neil Gaiman Sandman series. (Note: sub-50% discounts again)

So let’s talk a bit about the very loosely connect pulp spin-off Sandman Mystery Theater. It’s a pulp detective feature with a bit of subtext that’s primarily written by Matt Wagner and/or Steven T. Seagal. Guy Davis is the primary artist. It’s a lost classic from the ’90s as the Golden Age Sandman, replete with gas mask and gas gun stalks his prey.  This one DOES get you 50% off the collected editions (which will get you through issue#24) and 99-cent single issue.

Sandman   Sandman Mystery Theater

The Long, Hot… Halloween?

The Dark Horse Hot August Horror sale runs through Monday, 8/23.

Yes, we did hear it got a little warm in Portland.

You can’t have a Dark Horse Horror sale without the Mignolaverse. Rise of the Black Flame by Mike Mignola, Chris Roberson and Christopher Mitten is the tale of the Hellboy villain when the power was controlled by a cult.

In a different direction, there’s John Allison’s (Bad Machinery, Giant Days) Steeple.

And you ever notice that Steve Niles has done quite a bit of Criminal Macabre?

Rise of the Black Flame   Steeple   Criminal Macabre

Another One Rides the (Omni)Bus

The  Dynamite Omnibus Sale runs through Monday, 9/13.

We would draw your attention to two things here.

First, we’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, Jim Starlin’s Dreadstar is fantastic. It didn’t get quite as much attention when it came out from Epic and First, but it’s a large part of what he was working on between his first run at Marvel and when he returned for the run-up to Infinity Gauntlet.

Jeff Parker and Doc Shaner did an under the radar – and extremely fun – take on Flash Gordon a few years back that’s worth a look.

Dreadstar   Flash Gordon

Still on Sale

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