Comixology Sales – Jason Aaron gets the discount spotlight from Marvel, plus Black Hammer

This week’s Comixology sale highlights include Marvel putting the spotlight on Jason Aaron, plus Jeff Lemire’s and Dean Ormston’s Black Hammer.

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

Jason Aaron’s Spotlight Begins

The Marvel Jason Aaron Sale runs through Thursday, 7/1.

Perhaps best described as the regular Marvel U Jason Aaron, this covers a lot of territory.

If you want a value buy, there’s the nice thick volumes of Thor by Jason Aaron: The Complete Collectionwhich starts with the “God Butcher” material and features art by the likes of Nic Klein, Ron Garney, Esad Ribic and Russell Dauterman (among others) as the saga unfolds and Jane Foster moves to center stage.

There’s also the entire “Life and Death of Conan” run by Aaron and Mahmud Arsar from Conan the Barbarian, now in one volume.

And quite a bit more, since Aaron’s had a long run at Marvel.

Thor by Jason Aaron   Conan the Barbarian

Ultimate Aarons?

The Marvel Ultimate Universe  Sale runs through Sunday, 6/27.

You already know about the original flagship titles of the Ultimate run, so let’s look at a couple things from a bit later in the universe from names you might just find familiar.

How about Ultimate Captain America by Jason Aaron (him again?) and Ron Garney, which we enjoyed back in the day.

And before was the X-Men showrunner, Jonathan Hickman had a run on Ultimate Comics – The Ultimates with Esad Ribic as the primary artist. Most people would consider that an interesting creative pair, we think.

Ultimate Captain America   Ultimate Comics - The Ultimates

Getting Hammered

The  Dark Horse Black Hammer Sale runs through Monday, 6/28.

This critical darling by Jeff Lemire and Dean Ormston is very much a world building experience.  Start with the core series and then branch to the spin-offs as the spotlighted characters catch your fancy.  There’s plenty of imagination to go around.

Black Hammer

Still on Sale

Comixology Sales: Hulk, Secret Invasion, Spotlight on James Tynion IV, Image Graphic Novels

Highlights of this week’s Comixology Sales include Hulk smashing prices, Secret Invasion, a James Tynion IV spotlight and Image’s OGN line.

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

Hulk Smash Prices

The Marvel Hulk: Incredible Legacy Sale runs through Sunday, 6/20.

Here are the Tower of Cheap, we’re huge fans of the Al Ewing / (mostly) Joe Bennett Immortal Hulk run. It’s a horror-flavored Hulk that takes the multiple personality disorder version of the character to new depths and it really works.  The first 8 collected editions are on sale for $2.99. Highly recommended.

There’s a lot on sale for the original Incredible Hulk series (Comixology lumps the real original series with the second series). Pick your poison between Masterworks editions or Epic Collections (Epic is a better value, but those jump around a little).  If you’re interested in the Peter David run, this is how it works right now.  There’s an Epic Collection that collects the Byrne run and the Al Milgrom run that leads up to PAD’s run. There are 8 volumes of the Peter David “Visionaries” series and then it switches over to Epic Collections for #397 on.  No overlap, they just haven’t converted the Visionaries to Epic Collections yet. (One presumes this will eventually happen, but it is what it is.)  The 3 volumes of Bill Mantlo Hulk are in between Masterworks and Epic, in terms of page count.

Plenty to browse for this one.

Immortal Hulk   Hulk

Not So Secret Now…

The Marvel Secret Invasion Sale runs through Thursday, 6/24.

Secret Invasion is a challenging story to read in collected editions. Parts of it are told in  flashbacks. It jumps from title to title. Marvel hasn’t always been consistent about a recommended reading order, either.  The Secret Invasion mini-series is the spine. If you want the full story, pretty much anything with Avengers in the title, especially written by Bendis, will be key. The Captain Marvel collection is also relevant in ways that are not immediate apparent.

Secret Invasion

And By “Something,” We Mean Monsters…

The BOOM! Creator Spotlight: James Tynion IV sale runs through Thursday, 7/1.

Yes, Tynion seems to be having himself a moment. His BOOM! backlist is on sale here. We can happily recommend Something Is Killing the Children by Tynion and Werther Dell’Edera, an urban fantasy monster hunter tale. It’s getting to be a bit of a bandwagon with the speculators jumping on the print issues, but everyone once in a while, the bandwagon is for a good title.

Something is Killing the Children

So Much For Serialization

The Image Original Graphic Novel Sale runs through Thursday, 7/1.

Yes, Image has been doing more OGNs in recent years and this is well worth a browse. Highlights?  Not a problem.

Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips are a pretty darn reliable pairing, but Pulp is a high water mark for them. A writer of pulp westerns in ’30s NYC finds himself with declining prospects, a nest of Nazi spies and the ghosts of the past. Oh, it’s a crime thriller, but it’s a very philosophical one where the meditations only serve to enhance the mayhem.

Dracula, Motherf**ker! by Alex de Campi and Erica Henderson is an absolute delight. It’s a 70s exploitation style take on the Dracula mythos. It’s 1974 Los Angeles and Dracula’s brides are out for revenge, following the tropes of that sort of film. Henderson shows us a KILLER new side and it’s a true showcase for her. We just wish there was more of it, the pace accelerates a quick read.  A really fun book for horror fans who crossover with 70s cinema and/or Tarantino.

And for something clear out of left field, Last of the Independents has returned. This Matt Fraction/Kieron Dwyer crime story actually predates Criminal and we were pleasantly surprised that it returned to print (or digital in this case). Keeping in the theme here, this is also a love letter to 70s cinema, but more crime flicks than the exploitation/revenge genres. A bank heist goes terribly wrong and our antiheroes find that someone’s come looking for them. It’s all in the execution.

Pulp   Dracula, Motherf**cker!   Last of the Independents

Another Generic DC Sale

You know how DC keeps running the same sale with the same copious sub-50% discounts?  It’s back. This time they’re calling it the “DC June Start of Summer Sale.” It runs through Monday, 6/28 in Part 1 and Part 2.

There are much better discounts to be found in  DC’s Pride Sale.

Still on Sale

Comixology Sales: Loki; Great Discounts on Green Arrow; Luke Cage; Marvel Infinity Events; Frank Miller, Dave Gibbons and Bryan Talbot

This week’s Comixology Sales include DC finally returning to GOOD discounts with a Green Arrow sale; Marvel offers up Loki, Luke Cage and Infinity Events; and Dark Horse has a most singular history sale.

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

The Emerald Archer – On the Cheap

The DC Green Arrow Sale runs through Monday, 6/14 and this time DC is being a bit more generous with the discounts.  $1.99 collected editions.  80% off and up.  CHEAP.

Once ejected from Green Lantern, Green Arrow was floating around as a backup feature in World’s Finest and Detective Comics. It was Mike Grell who created the breakout for the character, first with The Longbow Hunters prestige mini-series and then the long-running Green Arrow solo title with Ed Hannigan, Dan Jurgens and Rick Hoberg taking turns on the art for the regular series.

Jump ahead to 2001 and there’s another major relaunch. Kevin Smith (yes, ‘ole snootchie bootchies himself) wrote the first two arcs with Phil Hester and Ande Parks on art, with novelist Brad Meltzer and Judd Winnick following as writers.  The Green Arrow by Kevin Smith omnibus is a pretty good buy here, collecting both the Quiver and Sounds of Violence books.

Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters   Green Arrow   Green Arrow by Kevin Smith

The Prince of Lies

The Marvel Loki Sale runs through Sunday, 6/20. (You’d think there was a TV show or something?)

The obvious things people are talking about with Loki are the Al Ewing / Lee Garbett Loki: Agent of Asgard and the Kieron Gillen/Doug Braithwaite Journey Into Mystery.

A deep cut that not enough people know about?  Thor: The Might Avenger by Roger Langridge and Chris Samnee is a really strong take on the Thor mythos with a Silver Age flavor to it.  This came out before many people knew who Samnee was and we’re not sure Langridge has ever quite gotten his due. This is an under the radar gem.

If you’re looking to add to your set of Epic Collections, there are several Thor editions on the second page of the sale.

Loki: Agent of Asgard   Journey Into Mystery   Thor: The Mighty Avenger

To Infinity and Beyond

The Marvel Infinity Sale runs through Thursday, 6/17.

While the Hickman Infinity event is a good one, we still maintain that Hickman’s Avengers is one loooooong story and trying to cherry pick the middle is a futile exercise. By all means, read the _whole_ thing. Just don’t start in the middle.

The original Infinity trilogy, that’s another story.  Infinity Gauntlet by Jim Starlin, George Perez and Ron Lim? A classic that’s spawned a LOT of stuff. Infinity War is the next volume by Starlin & Lim, with additional art by Tom Raney, Angel Medina and Shawn McManus.  Infinity Crusadeagain written by Starlin with art (primarily) by Lim and Raney wraps up the original trilogy.

We haven’t read the “Aftermath” volumes as books, but our recollection is they have some relevance to the overall saga, particularly the Starlin-written issues. Probably more for completists, but not pure cashgrabs.

Infinity Gauntlet  Infinity War  Infinity Crusade

Sweet Christmas

The Marvel Luke Cage Sale runs through Sunday, 6/13.

If we’re honest, our favorite Luke Cage run is the Power Man & Iron Fist era of “Heroes for Hire.” It’s quirky and you get quite the parade of talent on this across the Epic Collections on sale.  You get a little Claremont & Byrne as it kicks off.   Mary Jo Duffy, Denny O’Neil, Archie Goodwin, Steven Grant and some early Kurt Busiek is a pretty solid range of writers. Artists include Kerry Gammill, Denys Cowan, Keith Pollard and Ernie Chan.  Solid packages, plus the value of Epic Collections.

For something more off the beaten path (and yet more mainstream in that way peculiar to superhero comics), there’s always Cage by Genndy Tartakovsky.  You know, the guy behind Samauri Jack, Clone Wars and Hotel Transylvania? 

Power Man and Iron Fist   Cage!

But then our history was never quite like this…

The Dark Horse History Sale runs through Monday, 6/14… although some of our favorite collections from the sale require a very open-minded definition of “history.”

Grandville by the illustrious and illustrative Bryan Talbot is an anthropomorphic steampunk series in a world where France won the Napoleonic Wars. An inspector from Scotland Yard faces all manner retro pulp-ish foes. It’s a very good sequence of graphic novels.

It’s been awhile since we’ve heard anyone mention Give Me Liberty  or Martha Washington. The Life and Times of Martha Washington in the Twenty-First Century (Second Edition) by Frank Miller and Dave Gibbons collects the entire Martha Washington sequence by two comics legends – Miller writing and Gibbons on the art. A near future science fiction tale when released in the ’90s, it follows the life of Martha Washington who escapes a detention-facility version of Chicago’s Cabrini Green housing projects, joins the army and eventually makes it to space.  A pretty notable series in it’s day.

Grandville   Martha Washington

Still on Sale

Comixology Sales – Jeff Lemire’s Sweet Tooth and Gideon Falls; Batwoman; 50% off Oni and Humanoids for CU Subscribers

This week’s Comixology sales highlights: Jeff Lemire gets TWO sales as Sweet Tooth hits Netflix, DC has a Pride sale and Comixology Unlimited subscribers get 50% off at Oni _and_ Humanoids.

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

Sweet Tooth

The DC Spotlight Jeff Lemire and Sweet Tooth Sale runs through Monday, 6/7.

You may have noticed that Lemire’s Sweet Tooth is starting up on Netflix.  The omnibus editions are better buy by a smidge.

Our favorite Lemire DC work was always Trillium. Just a single volume here with a tale of star-crossed lovers in different timelines and an expertly crafted parallel narrative structure.

Sweet Tooth   Trillium

Another Mr. Lemire

The Image Jeff Lemire Sale runs through Sunday, 6/13.

Is it a coincidence that Image also has a Jeff Lemire sale as Sweet Tooth makes it’s streaming debut?  We don’t think so, but that’s OK – we often prefer Image Lemire to DC Lemire.

Perhaps start with Descender by Lemire and Dustin Nguyen. It’s a space opera involving a little boy robot searching for his family… and a robot uprising.  Great stuff.

Gideon Falls recently wrapped up and all but the final volume are on sale. This one with Andrea Sorrentino is an extra creepy horror tale involving missing persons, a phantom barn and time hopping.

Descender   Gideon Falls

DC Pride

The DC Pride Month sale runs through Wednesday, 6/30.

We loves the Greg Rucka / J. H. Williams III Batwoman run. LOVES, we say.

That was followed by a W. Haden Blackman / J.H. Williams III Batwoman series that we liked… although DC editorial absolutely gutted the ending of the arc. It’s a good ride and then a forced ending.

Good discounts on the Batwoman material, too. 60% and up.

Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles by Mark Russell and Steve Pugh styles Snagglepuss as a gay playwright in 1953 NYC as the House Un-American Activities Committee rears its ugly head. Worth it for the Dorothy Parker sequence alone!

All kinds of Hellblazer, too.

Batwoman    Batwoman    Snagglepuss

50% off Oni

Yes, the 50% off sales for Comixology Unlimited subscribers are back in force.  This runs through 11PM ET on Monday, 6/7. First up, it’s half-off for the Oni line.  There’s a lot more here than just Scott Pilgrim.  Our favorites are the dark fantasy/horror western The Sixth Gun by Cullen Bunn and Brian Hurtt and the espionage saga Queen & Countrywhich is written by Greg Rucka and switches out artists every time.

Since the discount stacks, that means CU subscribers can see 75% discounts with the Oni Pride Sale.

The Sixth Gun  Queen & Country

50% off Humanoids

Also running through 11PM ET on Monday, 6/7 – Comixology Unlimited subscribers get half-off at Humanoids.  PLENTY to browse here.  We really liked the autobiographical tale of working in Afghanistan: Kabul Disco by Nicolas Wild.

Geoff Johns fans might be interested in Olympuswritten by Johns and Kris Grimminger with art by Butch Guice. (First volume is a mere $0.50 -CHEAP.)  So yes, we mean there’s plenty to browse here and more variety than Humanoids sometimes gets credit for.

Also, for more stupid cheap stacked discounts, check out the Humanoids Fantasy Supernatural Sale and the Humanoids Big Sale.

Kabul Disco    Olympus

Still On Sale