Comixology Sales: Batman, Punisher, Road to Perdition, Spider-Gwen

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, DC launches a midsummer sale with Batman, while Marvel discounts The Punisher and Spider-Gwen.

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):

Wait a Minute… Wasn’t This a Sandman Issue?

The DC Midsummer Sale runs through Monday, 7/31.

This would be a DC non-themed sale, and let’s start this off differently. With a recommendation from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. That’s right. Kareem talks about comics he reads over on his Substack and says of Batman: Killing Time (Tom King/David Marquez), “This is the best Batman graphic novel I have read in years.” Which we suppose means that Celtics fans will be avoiding it? But there you go. Kareem has spoken.

A couple things we like at the $3.99 price point:

First, there’s the first two volumes of The Road to Perdition. Yes, that film was a comic book movie. Max Allan Collins is the writer. Richard Piers Rayner is the artist on the first book, from which the film is adapted. Jose Luis Garcia Lopez and Steve Lieber are the artists on the second book, which takes place during the six months of the original story that the O’Sullivans are on the run. Good stuff.

Batman: Venom originally ran in Legends of the Dark Knight and is the story of Batman’s first encounter with the drug that amps up Bane. It’s written by Denny O’Neil (always a good sign) and the unusual artist combination of Trevor Von Eden and Russel Braun pencilling and Jose Louis Garcia Lopez inking. It’s a nice combo, but not something you see just a ton of. Legends of the Dark Knight had many arcs that were gems.

Over at the $4.99 price point, we’re big fans of One-Star Squadron. The plot is about Red Tornado running an app that provides heroes on demands… but it’s a pretty savage satire of the gig economy and tech startups/mergers & acquisitions. A seriocomic affair by Mark Russell and Steve Leiber that we give a big thumbs up to.

We also dearly love the Si Spurrier / Aaron Campbell / Matias Bergara John Constantine, Hellblazer series. It’s right up there with the best of the character’s cannon, which is saying a lot. Remember, that’s effective a single, two volume story. In for a penny, in for a pound.

Crime and Punishment

Marvel’s Punisher Sale runs through Monday, 7/31.

Seems like the Punisher sales in recent years have been more focused on the various Max imprint titles. This one is on the various mainstream Marvel titles and… there have been a few. Let’s start out by running through the highlights.

The Punisher ’87-’95 – Note that the first Epic Collection here collects the ’86 Steven Grant/Mike Zeck Circle of Blood mini-series that kicked off the Punisher’s rise to prominence. Yes, Whilce Portacio drew Punisher before X-Men
Punisher War Journal ’88-’95 – This volume is notable for the Carl Potts / Jim Lee work. Yes, Jim Lee drew Punisher War Journal before X-Men.
Punisher War Zone ’92-’95 – Yes, Frank Castle was holding down three titles/month in the early ’90s! Collected here are a pair of Chuck Dixon tales with John Buscema and Joe Kubert as the respective artists.
Punisher War Journal ’06-’09 – Probably best known for Matt Fraction and Ariel Olivetti
Punisher: The Resurrection of Ma Gnucci (Punisher War Zone) ’08-’09 – Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon team for a sequel to Welcome Back, Frank
Punisher ’09-’10 – The Rick Remender run, for which the third volume is Franken-Castle
The Punisher ’11-’12 – The Greg Rucka / Marco Checchetto (now more associated with Daredevil) run
The Punisher ’14-15 – Nathan Edmondson / Mitch Gerads. Yes, Mitch Gerards as in Mister Miracle and Sheriff of Babylon
The Punisher ’16-18 – Starts out with Becky Cloonan / Steve Dillon
The Punisher ’18-’19 – Matthew Rosenberg / Szymon Kudranski
Punisher ’22-’23 – Jason Aaron / Jesus Saiz / Paul Azaceta
Punisher War Journal ’22-’23 – Torunn GrØnbekk / Djibril Morissette-Phan

What’s good? Actually, we like the original Marvel Super Action magazine version by Archie Goodwin and Tony DeZuniga, but that’s not on the menu.

Our favorite run of the above is probably the Ennis/Dillon Ma Gnucci sequel. We also were pretty fond of the Rucka / Checchetto run when it was coming out. It’s also worth going back and seeing where all the fuss started with the Grant/Zeck mini and the Baron/Janson/Portacio ongoing.

Ghosted

The Marvel Spider-Gwen Sale runs through Monday, 7/31.

Also known as Ghost-Spider, this is another one of those sales that benefits from a walk-through, since the volumes are a little messy.

The original Spider-Gwen run was Jason Latour writing with Robbie Rodriguez on art.

The first series is collected as Volume 0. Then the second series is collected as Vol. 1-6, but you can get Unmasked instead of V. 4&5 and save a little money. (We warned you this was messy!)

A bit later, famed fantasy novelist Seanan McGuire (sometimes known as Mira Grant) wrote some Spider-Gwen, as the feature was re-named Ghost-Spider. For unknown reasons, the first series of this is not on sale as we type this. The second series, with art by Takeshi Miyazawa and Ig Guara, is on sale. The McGuire era is capped by King in Black: Gwenom vs. Carnage.

And the most recent installment in the sale is Spider-Gwen: Gwenverse by Tim Seeley and Jodi Nishijima.

Still On Sale

The Dark Horse Everything Digital Sale runs through Monday, 7/31
The Kodansha Manga Summer School: P.E. Sale runs through Monday, 7/31
The Kodansha Burn the House Sale runs through Wednesday, 8/2

Posted on July 28, 2023July 28, 2023 by comics_p1pusl

Comixology at Amazon Sales, Comicon Edition: DC’s SDCC Sale, Spider-Man 2099, Blade, the Rest of Dark Horse’s Line Wide Sale

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, it’s San Diego Comic-Con time. While only DC has a formal SDCC, Marvel’s got Blade and Spider-Man 2099 on sale and Amazon remembered to display the rest of the titles in Dark Horse’s massive sale.

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):

You Say There’s a Convention This Weekend?!?

The DC SDCC Sale runs through Monday, 7/24.

Somebody had to have a San Diego Comicon sale and it looks like DC got elected. Let’s have a look around for some of the better prices and content.

Batman: The Adventures Continue for $2.99? Yes, please! For the uninitiated, this is Batman: The Animated Series writers/executives Alan Burnett & Paul Dini returning to continue where the cartoon left off. Ty Templeton is that artist and the whole this is pretty great. This one brings The Red Hood into the animated continuity. (Yes, think about that for a moment…)

A few more gems for $2.99 a pop

Superman Smashes the Klan – Gene Yang and Gurihiru
Gotham Central – Ed Brubaker, Greg Rucka, Michael Lark, Stefano Gaudiano, Jason Alexander and Kano. (Currently alternating between $2.99 volumes and $4.99 volumes.)
Superman: Red Son – Mark Millar, Dave Johnson and Kilian Plunkett
Superman: Man of Tomorrow: Hero of Metropolis – Robert Venditti and Paul Pelletier

Jonah Hex: Shadows West is now an oddity we don’t always see highlighted. It collects the three excellent Jonah Hex mini-series by Joe R. Lansdale and Tim Truman. These stories put the “weird” in weird western and could accurately be called western horror. 387 pages for $3.99 is a steal.

A few more books we think highly of at the $3.99 price point:

Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen: Who Killed Jimmy Olsen – Matt Fraction / Steve Lieber
Wonder Woman: Dead Earth – Daniel Warren Johnson
Hellblazer: Rise and Fall – Tom Taylor and Darick Robertson
Nightwing V.2: Get Grayson – Tom Taylor and Bruno Redondo

If you’re looking for big chunks of comics, here are a couple things at the $5.99 price point:

Doom Patrol: The Silver Age V.1 – is an Arnold Drake / Bruno Premiani experience. We don’t see this one at the $5.99 level so often (check on Saturday to see if V.2 has dropped, as well… it currently has an odd price point). This is where the Doom Patrol started. Lots of similarities to early X-Men (which started independently at roughly the same time), but more pathos. 374 pages.

Legion of Super-Heroes: The Great Darkness Saga is one of the more iconic DC tales of the 80s and shows up highly on “best stories” lists to this day. Elevator pitch: The Legion vs. Darkseid. This collection starts with the runup to the tale with some Paul Levitz/Pat Broderick stories and then Keith Giffen tags in as artist and collaborator for the famous ride. It’s a good one. 414 pages of mayhem.

Because “Stake” Would Be Too on the Nose

The Marvel Blade Sale runs through Monday, 7/24.

That would be the Daywalker and vampire slayer who’s better known through the films than the comic.

We feel pretty strongly that Blade is best experienced in his original context – a supporting character in Tomb of Dracula. It’s not clear you can call Tomb of Dracula an under-the-radar 70s classic anymore, since it’s gotten a fair amount of exposure since the Essentials line (finally) collected it ~20 years ago, but now it’s in color reprints. One note, though – you need to give the series six or seven issues to get moving. There were some false starts until Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan were paired up… but after they’ve got a couple issues under their belt, this one really takes off.

Blade: Black & White is a collection of… that’s right, the black & white adventures over the years and is built around some magazine appearances in Vampire Tales and Marvel Preview. Wolfman and Chris Claremont are the primary writers for that period. Colan and Tony DeZuniga are the primary artists.

If you’re looking for something has resembles the film franchise a bit more, there’s Blade: The Complete Collection by Marc Guggenheim (with Howard Chaykin as artist).

76 Years Away

The Marvel Spider-Man 2099 Sale runs through Monday, 7/24.

Yes, 2099 was a line for Marvel in ’90s. Spider-Man 2099 was the flagship and longest lasting of the bunch. Peter David wrote it and Rick Leonardi is the artist most associated with it. Note: the omnibus is a better value.

What else was in the line (that’s been collected and is on sale?)

Doom 2099 – This collection is the Warren Ellis run with Pat Broderick and Steve Pugh as the main illustrators
X-Men 2099 – The beginning arc with John Francis Moore and Ron Lim
Deadpool 2099 – What? You don’t remember this? Ha ha! Marvel is slipping in a collection of a few Gerry Duggan / Scott Koblish issues from the ’15 run of Deadpool!
Amazing Spider-Man: 2099 – The 2099 arc from the Nick Spencer run with Patrick Gleason on art duties

No Ravage 2099 / Punisher 2099 / Ghost Rider 2099 collections to be seen, if you were wondering.

They Fixed It

The Dark Horse Everything Digital Sale runs through Monday, 7/31. And now it’s showing the old catalog. Filed under “better late than never.” So let’s look at some less trendy, yet interesting items from the back catalog that we haven’t seen in a while.

Looking for something that’s filed under “classic?” Look no further than The Complete Elfquest by Richard and Wendy Pini. Yes, Elfquest had a 40-year run with that original quest. Very few comic books hang on to their creators for that kind of a run. No two ways about that!

Another classic is Nexus by Mike Baron and Steve Rude (with notable guest artists like Paul Smith, Adam Hughes, Rick Veitch and Jose Luis Garcia Lopez). We revisited this one during lockdown and enjoyed it. This is an odd book. There are superhero trappings, but Nexus is a reluctant assassin and this is a science fiction adventure. There are cold war trappings and a bit of satire around the edges. Plenty of world building. 6 omnibuses of the original run and two more of the new material after Dark Horse liberated the rights from the defunct First Comics.

Something that was probably under your radar? Nobody seems to remember The Light Brigade when it came out from DC. This would be a Peter J. Tomasi/Peter Snejbjerg historical/urban fantasy about a WWII platoon tasked by a higher power to retrieve the Sword of God before an unkillable Nazi unit can lay hands on it. A highly entertaining adventure that’s worth a little more attention.

And a few more things that might not be at the top of the mind that we’ve enjoyed over the years:

Luther Arkwright – Bryan Talbot
The E.C. Archives
Powers – Brian Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming

Still On Sale

The Marvel X-Men: Epic Collections & Milestones Sale runs through Monday, 7/24.
Kodansha Manga Summer School Social Studies Sale runs through Monday, 7/24
The Zenescope $5 Graphic Novel Sale runs through Sunday, 7/23
The Media Do Romance and Fantasy Sale runs through Sunday, 7/23

Posted on July 21, 2023 by comics_p1pusl

Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: X-Men, Deadpool and Ms. Marvel

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, it’s Marvel on parade with X-Men, Deadpool and Ms. Marvel getting the discount treatment.

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: Looks like our projections from last week were off. The DC sale was extended a week — so we’re not sure if DC’s sales are now going to be bi-weekly or not. The Dark Horse sale was also not updated, so… maybe they’re just not going to display the rest of the alphabet? It’s bad form. As far as we know, everything is on sale, not just what’s displayed.

X-Sale

The Marvel X-Men: Epic Collections & Milestones Sale runs through Monday, 7/24.

Our appreciate for an Epic Collection sale is well documented, and we like the value of 400-500 pages for $4.99, as some of these are priced. But let’s do some cherry picking for the more interesting things.

For Excalibur, you’re better off when Alan Davis is attached, be it with Chris Claremont writing or Davis as writer/artist (and we might even put Davis higher while doing the full cartoonist).

The Sword is Drawn – w/Claremont
Cross-Time Caper – w/Claremont
Curiouser and Curiouser – Davis solo

For New Mutants, we’ve always thought The Demon Bear Saga‘s period, which paired Chris Claremont and Bill Sienkiewicz, as the high point of the whole series.

For X-Factor, two titles stand out:

Angel of Death – a big chunk of the Louise & Walt Simonson run, notable for Apocalypse, Cameron Hodge and Angel’s transformation into Death.
All-New, All-Different X-Factor – this collects the bulk of Peter David’s first run with art by Larry Stroman, Joe Quesada and Dale Keown

For X-Men… you can pick your poison.

We’d say the highlight of the original run would be Roy Thomas/Neal Adams (as well as Jim Steranko) sequences in The Sentinels Live.

For the “New” X-Men, we’d say the golden period starts somewhere around issue 100 and runs through 200, although you’ll hear a lot of opinions about the golden period of X-books. That would be:

Second Genesis – Len Wein/Chris Claremont/Dave Cockrum/John Byrne
Proteus – Claremont/Byrne
Fate of the Phoenix – Claremont/Byrne (Dark Phoenix / Days of Future Past)
I, Magneto – Claremont / Cockrum, Michael Golden
The Gift – Claremont / John Romita, Jr. / Paul Smith

No, they don’t have that full period complete in the Epic format yet. There are some as-yet uncollected volumes between I, Magneto and The Gift, and The Gift stops just short of 200, but that’s what we’d call the best period.

No-Prize Winning Sale Title

The Marvel Ms. Marvel Sale runs through Monday 7/17.

This would be Ms. Marvel as in Kamala Khan, not the current Captain Marvel, Carol Danvers. Is there a movie coming out in a few months? Hmm… Let’s break this down by volume, since there have been relaunches.

Ms. Marvel ’14-15 – The original run with G. Willow Wilson and Adrian Alphona as the primary artist
Ms. Marvel ’15-’19 – How silly is this relaunch? The collected edition number doesn’t even reset! It’s still Wilson and Alphona, although the artist rotate a bit as it goes on.
- Note: The better buy is the Ms. Marvel by G. Willow Wilson omnibus set, which also collects both series.
Magnificent Ms. Marvel ’91-’21 – Relaunched after Wilson’s departure, this is written by Saladin Ahmed with Minkyu Jung and Joey Vazquez as the lead artists
Ms. Marvel: Beyond the Limit – The most recent mini-series (only single issues are on sale) by Samira Ahmed and Andrés Genolet.

There’s a selection of Champions, where Ms. Marvel was a member, also on sale.

Recommendations? We thought Ms. Marvel was at its best early in the run, before it got too integrated into the Marvel universe, but that’s just us. Definitely start with Wilson’s run, though. It made quite the mainstream splash.

Not the Dirty Harry Movie

The Marvel Deadpool Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 7/17

Deadpool is… oddly collected. There have been a lot of titles and lot of relaunches. Most of these are absorbed into the Deadpool Classics line of collected editions. Some, but not all, of the series, have omnibus editions and those are the cheaper way to collect those runs… which means, if you’re a completist and you’re cheap, you’re going to want to be wanting to fill in the Classics volumes around the omnibuses. And Deadpool Classics V. 1 collects the various miniseries that kicked things off.

Hey, when was getting Marvel collected editions in the proper order ever easy?

So let’s run down the main titles:

Deadpool Classics (’93 – as far as they’ve gotten)
Deadpool (’97-’02) – Known as the Joe Kelly era (at least what’s collected here)
Cable & Deadpool (’04-’08) – Fabian Nicieza / Patrick Zircher / Mark Brooks (among others)
Deadpool (’08-’12) – The Daniel Way Era
Deadpool (’12-15) – The Brian Posehn and Gerry Duggan Era
Deadpool (’15-’17) – Gerry Duggan and many, many artists
Despicable Deadpool (’17-’18) – Duggan/Mike Hawthorne
Deadpool (’18-’19) – Skottie Young / Nic Klein
King Deadpool (’19-’21) – Kelly Thompson / Chris Bachalo

Still On Sale

Kodansha Manga Summer School History Sale runs through Monday, 7/17
The DC Summer Vacation Sale runs through Monday, 7/17
The Dark Horse Everything Digital Sale runs through Monday, 7/31
The Zenescope $5 Graphic Novel Sale runs through Sunday, 7/23
The Media Do Romance and Fantasy Sale runs through Sunday, 7/23

Posted on July 14, 2023July 15, 2023 by comics_p1pusl

Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: DC’s Summer Sale and Dark Horse Goes Line Wide

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, DC says school’s out for summer and Dark Horse discounts the whole line.

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: Since most of the sales are ending Monday, we _think_ things will be a little more normal, come Tuesday. We’ve been raising our eyebrow at how they’ve been timing the last few weeks of sales, too.

<Insert Alice Cooper Lyrics Here>

The DC Summer Vacation Sale runs through Monday, 7/10.

This is a standard DC misc. sale, so let’s look for the sweet spot of a lower price and better material on a few things.

American Vampire is where Scott Snyder first came to prominence over at DC (back when they still had Vertigo). Along with Rafael Albuquerque (and an opening with Stephen King), this is the story of a new breed of… that’s right American vampire, as something goes horribly wrong out West and sticks around. $4.99/volume for

Batman: Prey collects a pair of Hugo Strange arcs from Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight by longtime Batman writer Doug Moench and his old Master of Kung Fu partner, Paul Gulacy.

The Challengers of The Unknown by Jack Kirby is something of an oddity. This was a hit for DC in that brief period before Kirby left for Atlas/Marvel. The really interesting thing about this book is how much it feels like early Fantastic Four… except this was 1957 (instead of ’61) and isn’t quite superheroes. This was out of print long enough that most people don’t realize how similar the titles were.

The Omega Men by Tom King and Barnaby Bagenda was King’s DC debut. It’s a particularly dark tale where Kyle Rainer (operating as the White Lantern at this point in continuity) is kidnapped by the Omega Men, a group that might be terrorists, might be freedom fighters or perhaps both? In some ways, it’s closer to his Sheriff of Baghdad than his Batman.

New Teen Titans by Marv Wolfman and George Perez was one of DC’s shining lights of the early to mid-80s and is generally regarded as a classic. $4.99/volume through V.7, which happens to be “The Judas Contract.”

Anything Goes

The Dark Horse Everything Digital Sale runs through Monday, 7/31.

We should probably talk about this before diving in. This appears to be a line-wide sale. HOWEVER, only titles beginning with A-F are displayed on the sale page.

We know what you’re about to ask – is this another programmer error or are they going to change the page and display G-L next week? We don’t have an answer to that.

A few browsing options for the rest of the alphabet (Amazon doesn’t have an alphabetical sort available for normal listings, so we’re going to have to improvise):

Amazon’s “explore Dark Horse” page isn’t perfect, but you get some sorting options in the left hand column.
If you want to jump to the main Hellboy series.
Neil Gaiman titles
Umbrella Academy
Jeff Lemire titles

For the moment, we’re going to operate under the assumption that this was mislabeled and G-L (or a similar range) will appear next week for easier browsing.

So what’s good that’s on display in this chunk of titles?

Air – G. Willow Wilson and M.K. Perker collaborated on this criminally under-rated adventure into the unknown featuring an air hostess, terrorists, dimension hopping and celebrities who were supposed to be deceased.

Alice in Sunderland: An Entertainment – The very unusual masterpiece by Bryan Talbot that explores the origins of Alice in Wonderland and the English town of Sunderland. It’s a bit hard to describe, but it works very well.

Baltimore – Mike Mignola, Christopher Golden, Ben Stenbeck and Peter Bergting collaborate on an epic tale of how a plague is released at the end of WWI and the solider who’s hellbent on vengeance against the vampires behind it.

Blacksad – Juan Diaz Canales and Juanjo Guarnido bring you this jaw-dropping anthropomorphic hardboiled detective series about detective John Blacksad. These are tales from the Hammett/Chandler school with some of best art you’ll see. Click on the sample pages, don’t just take our word for it.

Concrete – Paul Chadwick’s old school, multi-award winning series about a man who becomes encased in a shell of alien rock (which he can’t escape) and the accidental celebrity that follows it.

Finder – Carla Speed O’Neil’s aboriginal science fiction series is all about world building. Much of it following Jaeger, a “Finder” who can most anything and navigate his way almost anywhere… as well as being a sin-eater. Another criminally underappreciated series. Note: Finder: Chase the Lady is mislabeled as a single issue and not listed with the graphic novels.