Month: January 2021

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

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

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

Marvel Comics Presents: Stars, Fists and Force

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

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

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

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

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

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

Star Wars Newspaper Strip   Star Wars

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

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

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

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

Iron Fist   Power Man and Iron Fist   Immortal Iron Fist

Let’s talk about non-cape DC books

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

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

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

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

Ronin   Marshal Law   Sheriff of Babylon

Indie Science Fiction Comics

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

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

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

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

Atomic Robo   Captain Ginger   Testament

Cops and Robbers… but mostly Robbers

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

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

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

Blacksad   Crime SuspenStories  EC Crime SuspenStories

Still on Sale

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Comixology Sales: DC’s Vertigo (The Whole Thing), Alpha Flight, Hawkeye and Excellent Deals from TKO

This week’s Comixology sales include some big value in a surprising place as TKO takes a bow. DC puts Vertigo in the discount category for the week and Marvel goes for a wide thematic spread.

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

A Marvel Comics Variety Pack

Marvel’s Alpha Flight Sale runs through Sunday (1/24). For Alpha Flight, we recommend the original series, Alpha Flight “Classic”  as they’re calling it for the reprints.  That’s the John Byrne run currently available. There’s nothing wrong with the unreprinted Bill Mantlo/Mike Mignola run that this catches the tail end of, either.

Alpha Flight

Marvel’s Hawkeye Sale runs through Thursday (1/28).  And if you’re going to do Hawkeye, then you want the Matt Fraction/David Aja Hawkeye.  It’s an odd run that’s off in its own little corner of the Marvel universe and not necessarily consistent characterization with, say, Avengers… but it’s awfully entertaining. <insert Pizza Dog reference here>

Hawkeye

The Marvel Dark Reign Sale runs through Sunday (1/24). Dark Reign was an attempt to do a thematic event, as opposed to a mini-series and tie-in books.  This was effectively an event that was all tie-ins, without that central mini-series.  The premise is that after Secret Invasion, Norman Osborn manages to take over SHIELD, which he remakes in his own image and he starts to try and track down the various heroes  and expand his power base.

There is one Dark Reign sequence that stands high above the others.  Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca stopped their Iron Man storyline and moved over the “World’s Most Wanted” storyline.  Osborn wants the information in Tony Stark’s brain. Stark’s on the run and attempting to overwrite his brain so Osborn can’t get at everyone’s secret identity.  It’s a self-contained story within the Dark Reign framework and it’s available in two volumes: Iron Man: World’s Most Wanted V.1 and Iron Man: World’s Most Wanted V. 2

.Iron Man   Iron Man

Vertigo Lives On In Sales

DC’s Vertigo Sale runs through Monday (1/25).  DC cancelled Vertigo, but son of a gun if it doesn’t keep popping up as a dedicated category when things go on sale. It’s almost like people like Vertigo or something…

Since the whole thing is here, let’s highlight some of the foundational Vertigo comics.

  • Saga of the Swamp Thing – Alan Moore lit the inspirational fuse with Swamp Thing and took him on a tour of America and to the stars. Along the way, a certain Mr. Constantine was introduced.
  • Hellblazer – The Swamp Thing spin-off has been through a LOT of hands and it was the longest lived Vertigo title. Sometimes the de facto flagship, sometimes not. You can dive into pretty much any era and enjoy it.
  • Sandman – Neil Gaiman’s breakthrough project started out being grounded in the DC superhero universe and horror anthologies, then broke out into it’s own mythologies. We’ll see on TV soon enough.  This was probably the most influential title.  Sandman: The Dream Hunters with P. Craig Russel is listed separately.

If you want to throw in Doom Patrol and Shade as OG Vertigo titles, I’m probably not going to argue with those, either.  Lots of history with the imprint.

Saga of the Swamp Thing   Hellblazer   Sandman   Sandman: The Dream Hunters

TKO Has the Best Value of the Week

The TKO Linewide Sale runs through (Sunday 1/31).  You may not be familiar with TKO.  That’s OK, here at the Tower of Cheap, we hadn’t really read of their titles until last week… but we came away impressed and at $1.99/$2.99 for full graphic novels, there are great values here.

Sentient by Jeff Lemire and Gabriel Walta is the best value of the week! The solicitation is about a ship’s AI having to raise the children left on the ship after the adults perish.  You might read this and expect it to be some kind of sweet, kindly YA story. And you’d be wrong. This is a DARK, blunt and brutal science fiction tale that still fits the same description. It’s also excellent all the way around. Sentient earned it’s Eisner nomination.  Just don’t go into when you’re craving a light fluffy read.  It’s almost trigger-warning level dark.  Highly recommended.

The Fearsome Doctor Fang is written by TV writer Tze Chun and Mike Weiss with art by Dan McDaid, who’s done some Judge Dredd work over at IDW. This one is a steampunk adventure that takes the old Fu Manchu trope and inverts its it. Our mysterious science villain is actually a hero. Tech suits, missing siblings and deadly ancient treasures. Something of a steampunk Indiana Jones romp, it’s a fun comic.

Sara is by Garth Ennis and Steve Epting. While we haven’t read this one yet, it’s not really being flip when we say that you’ll already know whether or not you’ll like Ennis & Epting on a book about Russian women snipers in World War II.  Ennis WWII books are a known quantity.

Sentient   The Fearsome Doctor Fang   Sara

Still on Sale

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Comixology Sales: Spider-Man, Vision & The Scarlet Witch, DC’s Rebirth and Fantagraphics Goes Linewide

The Comixology sales this week include Marvel slashing prices on Dan Slott’s lengthy run on Spider-Man, The Vision & the Scarlet Witch as their show drops, DC revisits Rebirth, Dark Horse has Neil Gaiman at a discount and Fantagraphics has their digital catalog on sale.

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

Spidey Gets Slotted Ahead of WandaVision

Running through Sunday (1/17) is the  Spider-Man by Dan Slott Sale.  This is not the easiest sale to navigate because Marvel has relaunched Spidey several times and during the “Brand New Day” era, weren’t even sequentially numbering all the collected editions.  Seriously, it’s a mess.  The rule of thumb is it’s easier to read the omnibus editions, which tend to be slightly better deals anyway.

We’d tell you to start at the beginning with the Spider-Man: Brand New Day omnibuses. For context, this starts back when Marvel decided to publish Amazing Spider-Man three times each month and cancel the secondary titles, so you’ve got a rotating cast of creators including Slott, Mark Waid, Joe Kelly and Zeb Wells (among others) as writers and the likes of John Romita, Jr., Barry Kitson, Phil Jimenez,  and Marcos Martin (among a wide cast) as artists.  It’s a fun era and Slott eventually ends up helming Spidey.  It also ends with a certain Doctor Octopus storyline that sets up what might be Slott’s pinnacle: Superior Spider-Man. That’s the run where Doc Ock takes over Peter’s body.  It sure sounded strange when first announced, but Slott made it work very well.

If those two runs didn’t keep you busy, they’re followed by The Amazing Spider-Man by Dan Slott and Spider-Man: Worldwide.  Yes, Slott wrote a lot of Spidey AND Marvel can’t help themselves when it comes to relaunches.  Those last two series are really separate because the monthly relaunched.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day   Superior Spider-Man

Probably because there’s a TV show debuting, Marvel also has a Vision & The Scarlet Witch Sale running through Thursday (1/21).

If you want the actual couple, the Steve Englehart/Richard Howell Vision & The Scarlet Witch: A Year in the Life, which sets up a lot of mythology, include the birth of their children.

If you’d like to see where the suburban setting reared it’s head, there’s the superb Tom King/Gabriel Walta Vision series, which is paced a lot like a horror tale as The Vision experiments with having a wife and children. (What could go wrong?  Plenty.)

Vision and the Scarlet Witch   The Vision

DC Gets Born Again (and again)

DC has their Rebirth Sale  running through Monday (1/18), which is to say a big chunk of the titles from the previous relaunch.

We’re firm in the pick of the litter being Deathstroke. (You’ll also need The Lazarus Contract, which crossed over with Titans.) At first glance, that’s an unlikely pick, but Priest and a rotating cast of artists including Carlo Pagulayan, Denys Cowan, Joe Bennett and Larry Hama.  Yes, it’s a comic about an assassin, but Deathstroke has intricate plotting, emotional depth and one of the best treatments of Damian Wayne.

After that, we’d direct you to Greg Rucka’s return to Wonder Woman conveniently collected as Volume 1 and Volume 2. With Liam Sharp, Nicola Scott and Bilquis Evely sharing art duties, this is where Rucka resets Wonder Woman after the New 52 era and has Wonder Woman and The Cheetah searching for the truth behind what’s happened to Paradise Island and Diana’s past.

Deathstroke  Titans: The Lazarus Contract  Wonder Woman x Wonder Woman

Dark Horse Gets The Bends

The Dark Horse Mind Benders Sale runs through Monday (1/18) and is dominated by two titles.

American Gods is the Neil Gaiman/P. Craig Russell/Scott Hampton adaption of the the novel of the same name.  Yes, that IS an interesting creative cast and yes, we’ve been to the House on the Rock — it’s real.

Mind MGMT is Matt Kindt’s psychic espionage tale that got quite a bit of critical acclaim back in ’12-’15.  The omnibuses are the best deal for Mind MGMT.

American Gods   Mind MGMT

 

The Fantagraphics Linewide Sale runs through Thursday (1/28).  Fantagraphics doesn’t do sales quite this wide vary often, so it’s well worth giving this an extended browse.  There’s everything from EC to imports to classic comic strips.  Here are a few highlights:

Remember Harold & The Purple Crayon? Before switching to children’s books, Crockett Johnson wrote Barnaby, a delightful strip about a boy, his talking dog and his fairy godfather.  Even Dorothy Parker was a big fan.

You could make a case for calling Love & Rockets by Gilbert and Jaime Hernendez the flagship title of Fantagraphics and few comics have been been as critically acclaimed over the years.

And if you really want to go classic, there’s the Carl Barks Library.  Barks set the gold standard for Disney ducks (and arguably for all Disney comics) with his Donald Duck work and especially Uncle Scrooge McDuck.

Barnaby   Love & Rockets  Uncle Scrooge

 

 

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

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

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

Darth Vader = Good Comics

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

Two things to pay attention to:

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

This sale runs through Sunday (1/10).

Vader  Vader Series 2  Vader Down

“The Original Writer” and Marvel Max Titles

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

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

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

Miracleman   Miracleman by Gaiman & Buckingham

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

Punisher Max

A Trail of Infinity Events

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

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

Avengers Vs. Thanos   Infinity Gauntlet

DC Goes Dark

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

Dark Nights: Metal

Import Goodness

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

Jazz Maynard

DH Transmedia Options

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

Astro Boy   Hellboy   Umbrella Academy

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Comixology Sales: Holiday Sale Roundup – even more Marvel, Image, BOOM!, Dark Horse and Archie

If you thought the holiday Comixology sales were over, think again.  Those sales don’t *start* ending until Sunday.  Joining our last batch are even more Marvel titles, wide sales from Image and BOOM!

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

Remember, a lot of publisher listed sales before Christmas that are still going on, including that ridiculously good $0.99 Marvel Masterworks sale – everything we covered last time is still on sale.

Even More Marvel Sales

The “Marvel 2020 Instant Classics Sale” is perhaps a bit overstating what’s in it, but there a bit of interesting material… even if some of it looks like random volumes of ongoing series.

Black Bolt by Saladin Ahmed/Christian Ward/Frazier Irving/Stephanie Hans is the real deal.  It won an Eisner and was a Hugo finalist.  It opens as Black Bolt’s trying to figure out exactly how he got into this space prison and what happened to his powers.  That prison sequence is something else.

Doctor Doom by Christopher Cantwell and Salvador Larroca was another delightful title that seemingly came out of nowhere. Doom’s been framed, he’s on the run and his enemies are moving on Latveria.

As with all the Marvel sales right now, this one expires on Sunday 1/3.

Black Bolt   Doctor Doom

Image digital Graphic Novels are 1/2 off

Image has a graphic novel sale that’s broken up into two parts: A-N and O-Z. For the most part, this is 50% off the Image graphic novel catalog.  So if you were waiting on something, there’s a good chance it’s among the 1,473 items offered.

If you want some special deals, though… that’s where the omnibuses come into play.  Specifically the Robert Kirkman “Compendium” editions. (A lot of Image omnibuses are more expensive than getting the individual volumes, but Kirkman does it right.)  The Invincible Compendium 3 volume set is ~1000 pages/9 TPB per volume. And it’s the same story with The Walking Dead Compendium set.  Gets it down to roughly ~$2.25 per digital TPB.  Best bang for your buck at Image.

Invincible   Walking Dead

Invisible at Dark Horse

For the Dark Horse Best of 2020 Sale, we’d draw your attention to Invisible Kingdom,  which won a couple Eisner Awards. This G. Willow Wilson/Christian Ward SF vehicle concerns a the crew of a space freighter and a religious acolyte on the run from her order after discovering that said religious order has some very commercial interests. Suffice to say, the commercial interests aren’t particularly happy about being discovered and the tendrils reach to high places.  This is also where we feign shock that Berger Books has a winner. (Some of us occasionally miss Vertigo.)  This sale runs through Monday, 1/4.

Invisible Kingdom

Sabrina’s Slasher

The Sabrina and the Women of Archie Sale runs through Thursday (1/7) and we absolutely thing that the Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa/Robert Hack Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and it’s 70s horror take on Ms. Spellman is worth your time. We’re not holding our breath for this version to return with the Netflix version wrapping up, but we’d sure welcome it.

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina

Their whole line goes BOOM!

Boom’s linewide sale is broken into 3 parts, all of which run through Thursday, 1/7.  You’ve got the graphic novels, single issues I and single issues II.  You’ll want to pay attention that the $0.99 single issues aren’t less expensive than the collected edition, too.

For something that’s often overlooked, we really enjoyed the Planet of the Apes series by Daryl Gregory, Carlos Magno and Diego Barreto.  Yes, the same Carlos Magno Marvel has since snapped up. This series leads up to the events of the original film and also does a good job of reconciling the original Pierre Boulle novel with the film continuity. We’d elaborate, but… spoilers. The whole run in conveniently in a single omnibus.

So, we were talking about Carlos Magno? He was BOOM!’s secret weapon for awhile.  Deathmatch is a 12-parter written by Paul Jenkins and drawn by Magno.  You know the old trope about superheroes getting kidnapped and forced to fight to the death?  Well, this time Jenkins and Magno create their own cast of characters, so they can actually play out that concept. No backing off at the last minute.  It’s also nice to see Jenkins with the gloves off, not worried about tying into an Event.

Oh, you wanted something current?  Once & Future by Kierron Gillen and Dan Mora is a very fun series. Someone’s looking to resurrect King Arthur and… how to put this… Arthur never took kindly to foreigners.  Arthur might want to do a little ethnic housekeeping if it were.  A monster hunter must come out of retirement and coerce her grandson into the family business.  It’s actually a breezy page turner.

This sale ends on Thursday, 1/7.

Planet of the Apes   Deathmatch  Once & Future

 

 

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