Month: August 2022

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

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

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

Let’s Put the X in Hickman

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You’re Not Yourself, Have a SNIKT!

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

This can pretty much be narrowed down to two titles:

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

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

Wolverine by Jason Aaron   Wolverine and the X-Men

Hawkguy

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

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

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

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

Hawkeye   Hawkeye   Hawkeye

Is That a Radio Format?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Marvel Max (Miracleman / Punisher / Alias), Thanos, James Bond 007 and a Metric Ton of Kodansha Manga

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel Max doles out discounts, which means Miracleman, Alias, Punisher and… Conan? Thanos is also on sale, and is James Bond and seemingly the whole Kondansha line if you’re in a manga kind of mood.

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):

A little housekeeping first. We’re going to be travelling the rest of the week, so we’re posting on Tuesday. We’ll see you next week at the usual spatio-temporal coordinates.  Also, there doesn’t appear to be a new DC sale this week. They seem to be standing pat with the Sandman sale (see: still on sale at the end of the column or the last couple weeks’ columns).

Is THAT Where HBO Max Got the Name?

The Marvel Max Sale runs through Thursday 9/8.

In this case, “Marvel Max” refers to Marvel’s old, on and off, mature readers line. (Yes, that does mean a lot of Garth Ennis material.) They generally only float this one once or twice year, so let’s have a look.

Since it looks like new material is finally getting back on the schedule, there’s a couple Miracleman runs that are a little more topical.

First is the Alan Moore / Gary Leach / Alan Davis / John Totleben run. Originally started WAY pre-Watchmen, this is an early and influential post-modern superhero reconstruction with Moore resurrecting a 50s era UK superhero that’s a bit a of Captain Marvel (Shazam) clone and taking things to their logical conclusion with a mad scientist foe, a conspiracy and a sidekick gone wrong.  It’s been half-forgotten after being out of print for a long time and Marvel botched the initial rollout of the reprints. (Don’t ask about the pricing on their original reprints.)

So then Neil Gaiman and Mark Buckingham got passed the torch when Moore finished his story. “The Golden Age” shows an age where Miracleman sits atop Olympus, presiding over an “age of miracles,” like a god over the mere mortals on the ground. This is where the story will picked up from after all these years.

Miracleman   Miracleman by Gaiman & Buckingham

We have no idea what a Conan book is doing in this sale, but… we like the material. Conan Chronicles: Return to Cimmeria is from the Dark Horse era and features the endcap to the Kurt Busiek/Cary Nord run and the beginning of the Tim Truman/Tomas Giorello run.  Can’t complain about a Conan sale and we’re a little fuzzy what’s going to be happening with the reprints after the new material switches over to Titan.

Alias, which made it to Netflix as “Jessica Jones” is the Brian Bendis/Michael Gaydos hard drinking superpowered private eye series, now conveniently in 2 volumes.

Conan Chronicles   Alias

Oh, you want Ennis Punisher?  Well, browse the main link for some of his one-offs (there are several), but here’s an overview:

If you were expecting Thanatos…

The Marvel Thanos and the Infinity Gauntlet Sale runs through Monday, 8/22.

Thanos has become a saga, at least with the Starlin-driven material.

Avengers Vs. Thanos is a meaty ~470 page collection of the original ’70s appearances that were centered in Captain Marvel and Warlock.  You could make an argument that this is where “cosmic” Marvel was born. (It’s one of a handful of candidates.) Recommended.

And then Thanos was mostly on the shelf for ~13 years until Jim Starlin started writing Silver Surfer (with Ron Lim drawing… oh yes, those two would do some collaborating).  The Rebirth of Thanos arc was the “oh, snap” moment (pun intended) where Thanos resurfaced and the wheels were set in motion for The Infinity Gauntlet (with art by George Perez and Ron Lim).  And both of those are recommended, too.

There were two more Infinity sequels:

And a ton of supporting material.  “Infinity” and Adam Warlock were practically a sub-imprint for a couple years.

Starlin did more Thanos follow-ups over the years, culminating in a graphic novel trilogy:

Avengers Vs. Thanos   Rebirth of Thanos   Infinity Gauntlet

Bondage

The Dynamite James Bond Sale runs through Monday, 8/29.

There is one 007 comic we recommend above all others. Kill Chain by Andy Diggle and Luca Casalanguida is a great updating of the literary James Bond.  SMERSH is back and trying to undermine NATO… and assassinate a few people. This may be the best executing of melding the current political situation with Bond’s Cold War roots.  Highly recommended if you’re into this sort of thing.

While we’ve been waiting for the collected edition and can’t review, we have been really curious about James Bond: Himeros,  which has Rodney Barnes from Killadelphia and HBO’s Winning Time putting 007 up against sex traffickers. The single issues are $0.99.

James Bond Kill Chain   James Bond: Himeros

All-In Manga

The Kodansha End of Summer Line-Wide Sale runs through Monday, 8/22.

Cards upfront, we’re not as familiar with manga as we could be.  That said, (along with the rest of the world), we’ve really enjoyed Attack on Titan, a surprisingly complex series combining elements of horror and political thriller with a little bit of steampunk around the edges. It’s a little hard to discuss without a steady stream of spoilers. But it lives up to the hype.

$1.99 for the first volume of old school classic Ghost in the Shell strikes us as a good deal.

Although, in this case, it might be expensive. Most of the first volumes in the sale are $0.99.  So if you have a manga itch, it would behoove you to browse this one.

Attack on Titan   Ghost in the Shell

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Sandman, Spider-Verse, She-Hulk, Locke and Key, DCeased

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, lots of comics with streaming shows and films based on them: Sandman Universe, She-Hulk, The Spider-Verse and Locke & Key all get discounts. Plus, DCeased for the sake of variety!

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):

Like Sands in the Hourglass…

The DC Sandman Universe Sale runs through Monday, 8/22.

Wait, didn’t we just have a Sandman sale and a Vertigo sale?  Yes, but the Sandman Netflix show is doing well, so they’re effectively extending the party.  So let’s break this down:

And that’s going to be the bulk of it. There’s a sprawling mess of unsorted single issues presented in pretty much the least professional way possible, but if you want the singles, most of them are $0.99 (so keep this in mind when comparing with collected editions).

What’s good that we haven’t talked about in the last couple weeks?

John Constantine: Hellblazer by Si Spurrier, Aaron Campbell and Matias Bergara is one of our favorite reads of the last few years.  A classic Constantine conspiracy/con, some absolutely hilarious interludes… Grade A Hellblazer.  We’re still grumpy it didn’t go longer. Get both volumes, they comprise one story.

Sandman Mystery Theater is a fairly tangential cousin to Gaiman’s Sandman. It’s the pulp flavored adventures of the Golden Age Sandman – prior to the Simon & Kirby redesign. Sort of of a gentler, more introspective flavor of The Shadow.  Matt Wagner starts out as writer, Steven T. Seagle joins him a bit later and eventually assumes solo duties. Guy Davis is the main artist.  At 70 issues, this is one of the longer running Vertigo titles, though they’ve never really gotten the collected editions going for it.  You can save a couple bucks on the two collected editions, but it’s single issues after that.

John Constantine, Hellblazer   Sandman Mystery Theater

Dead Again

The DC DCeased Sale runs through Monday, 8/15.

I think the standard set of reactions to DCeased went something like:

  1. Oh, DC’s doing their version of Marvel Zombies
  2. Wait… this is actually good?!?
  3. Ah, it’s a Tom Taylor project.

That Taylor guy has a pretty darn good track record with this sort of thing.  The high concept here is the Anti-Life Equation gets unleashed and turns MOST of the world, including many of those with superpowers, into a sort of zombie. The surviving superheroes and villains are making shaky alliances to keep themselves and the what’s left of the masses alive as the look for a cure or a way off the planet.

Trevor Hairsine is the initial artist and then there’s some switching up later on as things progress.

The publication order is

All recommended. And yes, it’s no coincidence that all the previous material is on sale the week that the FINAL series, DCeased: War of the Undead Gods, debuts. (Far too early for discounts on that one.)

DCeased   DCeased: Hope at the World's End   DCeased - Dead Planet

Itsy Bitsy

The Marvel Spider-Verse Sale runs through Thursday, 8/18.

Much like the comic Event and the film, this is a sale highlighting a few different incarnations of Spidey in the various dimensions/realities of “The Spider-Verse.”

Spider-Verse is the 600+ page monster volume collecting the original event across the various Spidey-family titles.

The Miles Morales: Ultimate Spider-Man Ultimate Collection volumes by Brian Bendis, Sara Pichelli and David Marquez are good values as ~300 page collections.

And for off-the wall, there’s always Spider-Ham, which we’ve always sort of thought of as Marvel’s answer to Captain Carrot.  Silly YA stuff, but not without a punny appeal.

Spider-Verse   Miles Morales - Spider-Man   Spider-Ham

Gama Nepotism

The Marvel She-Hulk Sale runs through Monday, 8/29.

Gosh, you’d think there was a streaming show on Disney+ or something?  Is streaming STILL a theme for what’s on sale?  Could be.

The two runs that will likely be the most recognizable if “She-Hulk, Attorney at Law” is your point of reference, would be

It’s also worth noting the current Rainbow Rowell / Roge Antonio She-Hulk series has the first three issues for $0.99 each.

She-Hulk by Dan Slott   She-Hulk

I am the Keymaster, are you the Gatekeeper?

The IDW Locke & Key Sale runs through Monday, 8/15.

Add another streaming sale to the pile.  This time for the “modern classic” Joe Hill / Gabriel Rodriguez horror tale of magical keys that open doors to the strangest places.  And the prices are cheap!  $0.99 for the first tpb, mostly $2.99 for subsequent volumes. $0.49 single issues for most of the run.

And all this for a superior series, too.  Hype is real for this one, folks.

  • The collected editions are here.
  • Except for “The Golden Age” collection, which also includes the crossover with The Sandman. Will that eventually be a streaming crossover? A bit early to tell.  This will run you $9.99 for being more recent.
  • The single issues for the regular series
  • The single issues for The Sandman crossover – $0.99 a pop (cheap)

Locke and Key   Locke & Key: The Golden Age   Locke & Key / Sandman

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Spider-Man, Thor, Daredevil, Hercules, Vertigo and Mike Mignola

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, the Vertigo catalog (or what’s left of it) is on sale, plus Spidey, Thor, Daredevil, Hercules and the Dark Horse works of Mike Mignola.

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):

“Where is the alleged dead man, sir?”

The DC/Vertigo eBook Sale runs through Monday, 8/8.

Yes, we just had to break out that quote from the old “Man in a Suitcase” show because Vertigo gets an awful lot of sales for an imprint that’s supposed to be defunct.

Let’s break down the highlights of titles involved here:

  • Preacher – Garth Ennis / Steve Dillon (TV version was on AMC)
  • Hellblazer – The original run (TV and Film as “Constantine” and the Fox TV version was better than it gets credit for)
  • Lucifer – a Mike Carey/Peter Gross series (TV version on Fox, then Netflix)
  • Lucifer (’18 version) – Dan Watters/Max Fiumara/Sebastian Fiumara
  • Y – The Last Man – Brian K. Vaughan/Pia Guerra/Jose Marzon, Jr. (TV version was on FX on Hulu)
  • The Losers – Andy Diggle/Jock (film)
  • Sweet Tooth – Jeff Lemire (TV version on Netflix)
  • DMZ – Brian Wood/Riccardo Burcchiell (TV version on HBO Max)
  • iZombie – Chris Roberson/Mike Allred (TV version on CW)
  • Stardust – Neil Gaiman/Charles Vess (Film, though that was probably from the novel)
  • Fables – Bill Willingham/Mark Buckingham (primary artist)
  • Fables: The Wolf Among Us – video game adaption
  • Unwritten – Mike Carey/Peter Gross
  • The Invisibles – Grant Morrison and rotating artists
  • 100 Bullets – Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso
  • American Vampire – Scott Snyder and Rafael Albuquerque
  • Scalped – Jason Aaron/R.M. Guera
  • Daytripper – Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon
  • Animal Man – ’88 to ’95 version
  • We3 – Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely (amazing this isn’t a movie yet)
  • Books of Magic (’18 version) – Kat Howard and Tom Fowler are the most frequent creators
  • The Wake – Scott Synder/Sean Murphy
  • Northlanders – Brian Wood / rotating artists
  • Global Frequency – Warren Ellis/rotating artists (we liked the TV pilot, but it wasn’t picked up)
  • Transmetropolitan – Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson

A lot of TV/film activity for a “dead” label, eh?

You can pretty much “pick your poison” with this sale.  That said, the 12-issue sized Preacher collections for $5.99 are a pretty good deal.  Same deal for the $5.99 double volumes of Y: The Last Man.

Preacher   Y the Last Man

Catches Your Money Just Like Flies

August’s “Marvel Monthly Sale” is The Spider-Man 60th Anniversary Sale, which runs through 9/5.

Yes, it cracks us up that the monthly sales always end in a different month.

This one is a little different from the last big Spidey sale in that it isn’t just Amazing Spider-Man it’s a 330-item selection across various titles.  They’re also using that scrolling carousel format on the main sale page that makes this a lot easier to parse.

A few ideas?

We always liked the Brand New Day  era of teams shuttling in and out for story arcs (it was all carefully coordinated) and you had all the usual suspects involved: Mark Waid, Dan Slott, Zeb Wells, John Romita, Jr., Phil Jimenez, Lee Weeks, etc., etc.

While his Iron Man work is more celebrated and his Amazing Spider-Man work often overshadowed by the artists he worked with, David Michelinie had a pretty good and lengthy run, much of which is in Epic Collections.  You can start with Venom, which feature art from some guy named McFarlane.

And coming in from left field, while Marvel Team-Up was usually the third wheel Spidey title, we’ve got a lot of love for the Chris Claremont/John Byrne era of it. After their Iron Fist run and leading into their X-Men run… which a little bit of mutant mayhem here and there.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day x Amazing Spider-Man - Venom x Marvel Team-Up

You Were Expecting “Brave Ulysses?”

The Marvel Thor: Tales of Asgard Sale runs through Thursday, 8/11.

This is an odd sale. Not _all_ of Thor, but mostly because only parts of the original ongoing title are on sale. Epic Collections, yes. Masterworks, not so much.

The sale presentation leads with Thor by Jason Aaron: The Complete Collection and these not-quite Epic-sized large collections are a good value at $6.99. We also think this particular set of collections eliminates the problem of “what order do I read this in?” one gets when the story flips between titles.

You really can’t go wrong with $3.99 for the *actual* Thor: Tales of Asgard, which is a collection of the Stan Lee/Jack Kirby “Tales of Asgard” backups from Journey Into Mystery and Thor. 300 pages worth.

And for an off-the-radar pick, it’s been forever since we notice Thor: Godstorm, which was a Kurt Busiek/Steve Rude mini-series back in the day. We seem to remember liking it and Rude always shows the love on Kirby properties, too.

Thor by Jason Aaron x Thor: Tales of Asgard x Thor: Godstorm

He Doesn’t Get Along with Amazons…

The Marvel Hercules Sale runs through Monday, 8/8.

Your “classic” solo Hercules would be the “Prince of Power” era pair of miniseries by Bob Layton, now in once volume.

If you want something totally under the radar, we enjoyed the short lived Dan Abnett/Luke Ross run where Herc sobers up and attempts to get serious about his trade.

Hercules: Prince of Power   Hercules

DD Found His Discounts

Marvel has a Daredevil: The Man Without Fear sale running through Thursday, 8/11.

Last week, this sale was listed, but there weren’t any discounts on the books.  This week, the discounts arrived.  And this is a WEIRD sale with multiple collections of the same material and different formats with different discounts.

The real meat of the Marvel Knights era of Daredevil (what this mostly seems to be) is a set of two runs that blend together: Brian Bendis/Alex Maleev, followed by Ed Brubaker/Michael Lark.

Your best value for the Bendis/Maleev run is the 3-volume Daredevil by Bendis and Maleev Ultimate Collection towards the bottom of the page, here.

You’ll find the Brubaker/Lark volumes discounted over here, toward the bottom of the page.

And as we said last time, Daredevil: Love’s Labor Lost is the only thing currently reprinted from the Denny O’Neil run the bridged that gap between Frank Miller’s two stints. The rest of it isn’t even on Marvel Unlimited.  This is the tale end of that run, featuring art by David Mazzucchelli, who’d started 9 issues earlier. It’s worth a look, if the discounts show up (and we don’t know why the rest of this era is buried).

Daredevil

They Like Mike

The Dark Horse Mike Mignola Sale runs through Monday, 8/15.

Yes, you might say Mignola’s important to Dark Horse.

Your core Mignola experience is going to be Hellboy, but you probably already knew that.  It’s wonderful and the omnibus line is the way to go.

While it does suffer from the “hardcover pricing for digital” problem, the Lobster Johnson Omnibus is still cheaper than getting the single volumes. It’s a rotating creative cast and a rotating tone from farce to pulp thriller, but we’ve found the adventures in the 1930s Hellboy-verse highly entertaining.

And, of course, the primary companion piece to Hellboy is B.P.R.D., the first arc of which is in omnibus editions here. There are some false starts, but one the “Plague of Frogs” arc properly starts up, your creative team is Mignola/John Arcudi/Guy Davis and it’s a helluva ride… pun intended.

However… you know how sometimes unexpected things show up in a sale (we’ll see how long it takes them to correct this after the column goes live)?  How about three issues of Captain America?  Yes, issues #286, #287 and #288. That’s a J.M. DeMatteis/Mike Zeck Deathlok storyline.  As it happens, one of the best arcs… but we’ve no idea what it has to do with a Mignola sale.  $0.99 a pop, if you’re inclined.  There are a lot of random Marvel single issues scattered throughout this sale if you page through it.

Hellboy   Lobster Johnson   BPRD - Plague of Frogs

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