Month: May 2023

Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Captain America (It Is Memorial Day Weekend, After All)

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, it’s a Captain America sale for Memorial Day Weekend, plus a look at some of the more recently discounted DC titles.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

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

Super Soldier Sale

The Marvel Captain America Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 5/30.

A Captain America Sale for Memorial Day? Can’t argue with that.

There’s a lot of material to cover here, so we’ll go with the usual format and start by breaking out the major series involved

So… do you think Captain America gets relaunched enough? Don’t worry, they’ll relaunch him again.

First the usual general advice: The Masterworks and Epic Collections tend to be the best buys, but keep an eye on price points. Some of the newer Epic Collections are pricier and make the Masterworks more appealing.

Some recommendations? Absolutely.  Just the way the collections are currently rolled out, the highlights seem to flow more with the Masterworks than the Epics.

For Silver/Bronze Age adventures,  Captain America Masterworks V. 3 gets you some late Stan Lee/Jack Kirby and the influential Jim Steranko Sequence.  You then jump forward to Masterworks V. 7 for the beginning of the Steve Englehart/Sal Buscema era and stay on through Masterworks V.10, which is the return of Jack Kirby and his entirely too timely “Madbomb” arc. (There’s more Kirby in V.11, but Madbomb is a hard act to follow.) There’s also much to recommend with the Mark Gruenwald era which probably peaked with “The Captain” Epic Collection. In general, earlier Gruenwald is better and the art takes a nose dive before his run is over.

Aside from that, your best of the best is anything written by Mark Waid or Ed Brubaker, and know that Brubaker, first run is basically one long and epic story – and be sure to get Reborn or you’re missing a piece.

Captain America   Captain America   Captain America

We’ve also been enjoying the current set of Captain America books. Set? Yes, Symbol of Truth (Sam) and Sentinel of Liberty (Steve) start out on separate paths, but eventually converge. Symbol of Truth comes out of the gate hot. Sentinel of Liberty is slowly unspooling a conspiracy retcon and takes a little longer to get moving, but it gets there. We’ve heard some references to these titles being underappreciated, so now’s a decent time to sample.

Captain America: Symbol of Truth   Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty

Bats and Such

The DC Memorial Day Sale runs through Monday, 5/29.

Yes, this is the same sale as last week. If you scroll down to the “Still on Sale” section, you’ll find that most of what was on last week is still on sale this week… with a couple new manga editions.

But since this is a larger sale and it’s a slow week, we’re going to highlight the more recent releases, several of which haven’t been on sale that many times previously. Most of these collections came out between December and February, so browse the newer material:

Batman / Catwoman   Catwoman: Lonely City   Swamp Thing V.3 - The Parliament of Gears

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales – Batman; Adam Warlock; Fables; Squirrel Girl; Avatar: the Last Airbender

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, DC discounts some Batman and Fables (among others);  Marvel serves up Adam Warlock and Squirrel Girl; Dark Horse slashes prices on The Witcher, Avatar the Last Airbender and Legend of Korra; and Caliber goes line wide.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

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

Bats and Such

The DC Memorial Day Sale runs through Monday, 5/29.

This is one of DC’s thematically unlinked sales… which happens to have some good prices mixed into a 460 item list.

If you like ’80s/early ’90s Batman comics, the Caped Crusader (Batman) and Dark Knight Detective (Detective Comics) collections are $3.99 each, which is less than they’re sometimes offered. You’ll need to scroll down a little in the links, but Caped Crusader will take you from the Starlin/Aparo era through Alan Grant & Norm Breyfogle.  Dark Knight Detective takes you from Mike W. Barr / Alan Davis through Peter Milligan/Jim Aparo.

Also $3.99 each, the “Deluxe” (i.e., larger) edition of Fables by Bill Willingham and Mark Buckingham. The classic fantasy about the characters of fables and fairy tales fleeing to our world as a despot conquers their worlds.

Batman: The Caped Crusader   Batman: The Dark Knight Detective   Fables

A more recent book, but still at a good price, that’s been getting a little cheap attention is Batman: Killing Time by Tom King and David Marquez for $3.99.

Batman: Killing Time

The Artist Formerly Known as Him

The Marvel Adam Warlock and the Infinity Watch Sale runs through Monday, 5/22.

A small, but interesting sale, since Warlock is a through point for much of Jim Starlin’s Marvel work.  With the original “main” title, you can pretty much pick your packaging of the Starlin work. Masterworks V.1 is the pre-Starlin original solo run of the character. Everything else is basically the same material in slightly different formats.

And then Warlock returned for the Infinity series of Events

George Perez is the initial artist on these titles, with Ron Lim tagging in after a few issues. We found Infinity Gauntlet to be one of Marvel’s most enjoyable Events. War and Crusade start to dilute a bit from the original, but are a notch above most of the recent events.

It’s also worth noting the Aftermath volumes are a little more germane to the overall story arc than with some others. They’re absolutely not required reading, but Starlin and company do tend to the garden of plot developments between Events in places like the Adam Warlock titles and Silver Surfer.

Warlock Masterworks   Infinity Gauntlet   Infinity War

The Rodent of the Trees

The Marvel Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Sale is running through Monday, 5/22.

In the inimitable Marvel Way, this is one is a little goofy because of how many different editions of the same comics there are.

  • Unbeatable Squirrel Girl series “2015A” and “2015B” by Ryan North and Erica Henderson. This is where everything starts and the original Squirrel Girl appearances are in the first volume.  These are omnibus editions and take you up to #31 of the “2015B” series.
  • To get the rest of the series, switch over to the single volumes and V.9 – 12 will take you from issue #32 to the end. Coincidentally, this is where Derek Charm pops in as artist.

That’s the easy way. Now, if you want the absolute cheapest way, you want to sub in these two alternate packaging volumes for V.2 and V.3 of those omnibuses above (i.e. #1-21 of “2015B”).

Don’t worry, they’ll inevitably add another layer of repackaging to further confuse the situation.

Squirrel Girl

Magical Bounty Hunting

The Dark Horse Witcher Sale runs through Monday, 5/29.

While it’s usually presented as a video game adaptation, since these pre-date the TV series, we usually thing of The Witch as a series of novels.  We’re reasonably sure Andrzej Sapkowski would agree with that assessment.

You can partake here in three formats:

  1. $0.99 single issues
  2. The “regular” collected editions
  3. The omnibuses

The first omnibus is pretty good deal. And the second “Library Edition” omnibus is still cheaper than single issues, though it’s a bit pricier.

Witcher Omnibus

Throw Another Nickel In

The Dark Horse Avatar/Korra Digital Sale runs through Monday, 5/29.

Nickelodeon comics adapting the animated features. For these comics, what Amazon refers to as “issues” is generally an 80 page comic and the omnibuses are collecting three of those, with the omnibus being more bang for your buck.

There’s a bit more to the longer-lived Avatar series, which feature Gene Yang and Faith Erin Hicks among its writers.

The Legend of Korra is a bit newer property and has fewer volumes.

Avatar: The Last Airbender   Legend of Korra

But Is It 9mm or .45?

The Caliber Digital Comics Sale runs through Thursday, 6/15.

There are a few titles here that were notable in the ’80s indie boom.

Deadworld   The Realm    Jazz Age Chronicles

And plenty of Don Lomax war comics.

But if you want something a little more recent, Ageless might be of interest. It’s written by Torunn GrØnbekk, who’s been recently been writing Thor, with art by San Espina.

Ageless

Still On Sale

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Green Lantern, Carnage, Cyberpunk 2077; Grimm Fairy Tales

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, DC discounts Green Lantern, Marvel’s Carnage sale stops being stealth, DH throws Cyberpunk 2077 into the arena and Zenescope goes line wide with Grimm Fairy Tales.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

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

Night Lights

The DC Green Lantern Sale runs through Monday, 1/15.

Green Lantern’s been rebooted a LOT over the years (especially post-New 52), so let’s start out by listing the major titles involved here.

  • Green Lantern (’60-’86) – The original, although only certain stretches are collected.
  • Green Lantern Corps (’86-’88) – The original title changed to Corps to wrap up the Steve Englehart/Joe Staton era. We consider this the last stretch of the original series.
  • Green Lantern (’90 – ’04) – Only some of the Kyle Rayner material is collected from this era.
  • Green Lantern (’05 – ’11) – The Geoff Johns era (and one of the character’s best periods), but this is complicated to get the best deal. The omnibus editions  aren’t complete yet and are broken up into different sets than the single volumes though the single volumes are mostly cheaper.  You also should get Blackest Night to go with that volume of the series. There are all sorts of tie-ins for Blackest Night, but the omnibus of that does not seem to be offered in digital.
  • Green Lantern Corps Recharge (’05 – ’06) – Geoff Johns / Dave Gibbons / Patrick Gleason set up the GLC ongoing
  • Green Lantern Corps (’06-’11) – The companion book to Green Lantern, initially by Dave Gibbons / Patrick Gleason
  • Green Lantern (’11-’16) – New 52 relaunch. Starts out with Geoff Johns / Doug Mahnke, then Robert Venditti/Billy Tan start a long run.
  • Green Lantern: New Guardians (’11-’15)-The New 52 Kyle Raynor series
  • Green Lantern Corps (’11-’15) – The New 52 John Stewart / Guy Gardner / Kilowog series
  • Red Lanterns (’11-’15) – Yes, even the Red Lanterns had a New 52 book!
  • Sinestro (’14-’16) – Cullen Bunn / Dale Eaglesham / Brad Walker
  • Green Lantern/New Gods: Godhead (’14-’15) – Event crossing over with the entire GL line
  • Green Lantern Corps: Lost Army (’15) – Cullen Bunn / Jesus Saiz
  • Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps (’16-’18) – The DCU Rebirth relaunch, initially by Robert Venditti and Rafa Sandoval
  • Green Lanterns (’16-’18) – Rebirth title starring Simon Baz and Jessica Cruz
  • Green Lantern (’19) – Also known as “Season One” by Grant Morrison and Liam Sharp
  • Green Lantern: Season Two (’20-’21) – finishing the Morrison/Sharp storyline
  • Green Lantern (’21-’22) – More of a John Stewart / Jo Mullein / Teen Lantern series by Geoffrey Thorne and Tom Raney

So what’s good? As a consequence of there not being that much reprinted, what’s available of the  original run is pretty solid. The early Broome/Kane. O’Neil/Adams. Wein/Gibbons. Englehart/Staton. All good stuff.

The Geoff Johns era is particularly good. We’d put Sinestro Corps War as the best sequence, if we had to pick.

The Morrison / Sharp run is also interesting. It starts out as more of a police procedural in space and then progressively gets stranger, with Sharp embracing the fantastical elements and leaning into that with the art. But remember, the two seasons (One and Two) form a single story.

Green Lantern   Green Lantern by Geoff Johns   Green Lantern

Deja Vu

The Marvel Carnage Sale runs through Monday, 5/15.

What’s this, you say? Wasn’t this at the bottom of the Star Wars sale last week?

Sure enough, it’s back and… got a promotion to its own sale? Umm… we have no good explanation.

If you want old school Spidey vs. Carnage, our recommendation would be the Carnage: Born in Blood Epic Collection. This gets you the first Carnage arc, as well as Maximum Carnage.

While we’re not seeing Ram V’s current horror (and Asgard) tinged Carnage title in the sale, we’re fans (the few, the proud) of the Gerry Conway / Mike Perkins Carnage run that took it in a definite horror direction with an almost Tomb of Dracula-like vibe.

Carnage  Carnage

Cheap Punks

The Dark Horse Cyberpunk 2077 sale runs through Monday, 5/15.

This video game adaption comes in two flavor – collected editions and single issues.

Guess what? 4 issues @ $0.99 each is cheaper than $5.99 for the collected edition. Choose wisely.

Cyberpunk 2077   Cyberpunk 2077

Another Fine Myth

The Grimm Universe Line Wide Digital Sale runs through Sunday, June 4th.

For those of you who’ve been clamoring for a few more independent publishers on the deals page, we now see a Zenescope sale for the first time in a while.

Unfortunately, we’re not that familiar with Zenescope’s output and the thing we most often hear about, Raven Gregory’s Wonderland saga, isn’t well represented in the sale

The flagship title for this sale is Grimm Fairy Tales.

It breaks down this way (for easier browsing):

2007-16 series

Collected Editions and Omnibus Editions work out to roughly the same price and are cheaper than single issues. The Omnibuses only take you to issue 75, the Collected Editions go further.

2016 series

Grimm Fairy Tales   Grimm Fairy Tales 2016 series

Still On Sale

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Guardians of the Galaxy; Green Arrow; Injustice: Gods Among Us; Creepy and Eerie

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, The Guardian of the Galaxy get discounts at Marvel. DC cuts prices on Green Arrow and video game titles (like Injustice), while Dark Horse slashes Creepy and Eerie.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

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

Note: we covered the Marvel May the Fourth Star Wars Sale on May 4th, so click there for Darth Vader & Co.

Groot is the Word

The Marvel Guardians of the Galaxy Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 5/15.

You’d think there was movie coming out or something?

Original Guardians of the Galaxy

New GoG (The DnA cast or movie version if you must)

What’s good here?  Well, we’ve always liked the original. Particularly the Steve Gerber bits. We also loved the recent Al Ewing / Juan Cabal run. And if you like the current incarnation, you should probably go back to the source with the DnA run.

Guardians of the Galaxy: Tomorrow's Avengers   Guardians of the Galaxy by Al Ewing   Guardians of the Galaxy Omnibus

The Bow’s Green, Too

The DC Green Arrow Sale runs through Monday, 5/8.

They have a couple anthologies of Green Arrow over the years (the 80 years version is cheaper), but the bulk of this sale are the solo titles from Longbow Hunters onward.

What’s good? While you’ll certainly have your Lemire/Sorrentino proponents, we prefer the earlier solo material. Mike Grell had an impressive run between The Longbow Hunters and the ongoing series. The ongoing was a bit less violent than Longbow Hunters and widely known for being both an enjoyable and quick read. We’d also give a look to the Kevin Smith / Phil Hester run, which was a fun time.

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

Shall We Play a Game?

The DC Video Game Tie-In Sale runs through Monday, 5/8

And if we are honest, there is a star in this sale. Injustice: Gods Among Us, a video game adaptation that had more legs than anyone ever would have guessed. It’s good! It’s written by Tom Taylor and, later, Brian Buccellato. Art is by Bruno Redondo and Mike S. Miller.  Hmmm… Tom Taylor and Bruno Redondo. Wherever have we heard that pairing before?

Other things in a little more palatable browsing order:

Injustice: Gods Among Us

Mysterious and Spooky

The Dark Horse – 2023 Creepy Eerie Digital Sale runs through Monday, 5/15.

These would be the classic Warren horror magazines that had some pretty big names attached to them over the years.

Creepy was the first one and is available in both omnibus  format and “Creepy Presents” volumes spotlighting individual artists (Alex Toth, Bernie Wrightson, Richard Corben, Steve Ditko).

Eerie was the companion series. By halfway through it’s run, it had evolved into something a little different with multi-part stories and characters who returned, the breakout character being The Rook (a time traveler with some western elements baked in). It’s also available in omnibus format and “Eerie Presents” for collecting individual features (El Cid and Hunter).

Creepy   Eerie

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: May the Fourth Be With You – Star Wars Sale (and Carnage, too)

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, it’s May the 4th, so that means a Star Wars Sale. And also… Carnage?

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

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

Yes, we know May 4th is a holy day for many of you, so we’re breaking down the Star Wars Sale today and then we’ll be back at the normal time for the rest of this week’s sales.

Nothing But Star Wars… except for Carnage

The Marvel May the Fourth Star Wars Sale runs through Monday, 5/8.

First, let’s run through the highlights. Where appropriate, we’ll be linking the the omnibus editions. You can toggle between “omnibuses” and “volumes” (i.e. the “regular,” thinner collected editions) using the drop down menu on the left hand side of the screen under the series picture/graphic.

  • Bounty Hunters (’20 – present) – Ethan Sacks / Paolo Villanelli
  • War of the Bounty Hunters (’21) – Charles Soule / Steve McNiven / Luke Ross, wherein Boba Fett tries to deliver a carbonite encased Han Solo to Jaba the Hutt
  • Darth Vader (’15-’16) – The AMAZING Kieron Gillen / Salvador Larroca run
    Vader Down – the Darth Vader / Star Wars crossover sequence that is KEY to this run if you’re getting the “regular” volumes – it’s in the omnibus editions.
  • Darth Vader (’17 – ’18) – The also great Charles Soule / Giuseppe Camuncoli run
  • Darth Vader (’20 – present) – Greg Pak and Raffaele Ienco step in.
  • Doctor Aphra (’16-’19) – Sort of an evil Indiana Jones in the Star Wars universe, spinning off from Darth Vader. The early Gillen/Walker run is particularly good.
    The Screaming Citadel – Star Wars/Aphra crossover with key plot points to the early sequence – it’s included in the Omnibus, but not the “regular” volumes. (Seeing a pattern?)
  • Doctor Aphra (’20 – present) – Alyssa Wong / Marika Cresta / Minkyu Jung
  • Kanan: The Last Padawan – Star Wars Rebels prequel by by Greg Weisman and Pepe Larraz
  • The Mandalorian (’22-’23) – Steven Barnes and Georges Jeanty adapt the first season
  • Star Wars (’15-’19) – The Marvel flagship title amazingly went 4 years without a relaunch!
  • Star Wars (’20 – present) – The relaunch! And, following protocol, Charles Soule moves from Darth Vader to Star Wars, like Gillen before him.
  • Star Wars: The High Republic (’21-’22)

Recommendations? For whatever reason, Darth Vader seems to bring out the best in Marvel. Those first two series with Gillen and Soule, especially. Is is a coincidence Lucasfilm hired Charles Soule as a creative consultant?

Your under the radar title is Kanan. A very solid series from one the Star Wars Rebels producers and Pepe Larraz has since been promoted to X-Men.

Darth Vader    Darth Vader    Kanan - The Last Padawan

And then, at the bottom of the Star Wars sales page, there are a bunch of Carnage comics on sale. We have absolutely no idea why this is. Then again, is it the first time we were baffled? That would be a big NOPE.

So, if you want old school Spidey vs. Carnage, our recommendation would be the Carnage: Born in Blood Epic Collection. This gets you the first Carnage arc, as well as Maximum Carnage.

While we’re not seeing Ram V’s current horror (and Asgard) tinged Carnage title in the sale, we’re fans (the few, the proud) of the Gerry Conway / Mike Perkins Carnage run that took it in a definite horror direction with an almost Tomb of Dracula-like vibe.

Carnage  Carnage

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