Month: September 2023

Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Darth Vader; Far Sector; X-23; Rorschach; Usagi Yojimbo

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel drops some discounts on Darth Vader and X-23; DC has a top 100 sale and DH cuts prices on Usagi Yojimbo.

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):

Is That Like a 100 Countdown?

The  DC Top 100 Sale runs through Monday, 10/2.

Lots of things with decent pricing this week. Let’s start with a highlights list and then underline a few:

The Legion and SSOSV volumes are there for fans of those franchises because the prices are significantly lower than we’ve seen them lately.

Best of the best here?  Hmmm…

Far Sector was a bit of a revelation. N.K. Jemisin has won just about every SF/F prose award out there, but you do NOT always see a prose author jump to comics so smoothly. Great worldbuilding and character work in this one. Great art, too. Just a really nice series and we wish they’d have a sequel.

Manhunter probably falls in the “legendary runs” category. Archie Goodwin and a very young Walt Simonson collaborate on one of, if not the, best adventure strips of the ’70s. An espionage-ish tale that ends in Batman team-up. If you like adventure strips, this is a must.

We’ll give Rorschach a slight edge over One-Star Squadron because we aren’t predisposed to Watchmen sequels. Quite the opposite. That said, Tom King and Jorge Fornés manage to pull off a very engaging mystery/conspiracy in the Watchmen universe without trampling on any toes. Which is quite an accomplishment. And it has a few things to say about conspiracies and identity.

Far Sector   Manhunter   Rorschach

Sith-Tober?

The Marvel Darth Vader Sale runs through Monday, 10/2.

Yes, this means Marvel is back on the old sale schedule, if you were keeping score on that.

First, let’s count down what all’s here, since it includes some of the old Dark Horse material.

We still haven’t read a Darth Vader comic that tops the Kieron Gillen / Salvador Larroca run.  It’s slow clap territory, especially the scene at the end of the opening arc when Vader figures out he’s been lied to.  This series picks up right after A New Hope and follows Vader as he goes rogue, looking for that rebel pilot who blew up the Death Star.  Note: The larger volumes we link to include a couple issues of Star Wars and Vader Down that make for a complete read.

The second best Vader series we’ve read is the Charles Soule / Giuseppe Camuncoli run. It might be the favorite series at the Lucasfilm offices, seeing as how they gave Soule a promotion. This run really hits second gear in arc #2 when the librarian of the Jedi Temple turns up.

Darth Vader    Darth Vader

X’d Out

The Marvel X-23 Sale runs through Monday, 10/2.

Laura Kinney is X-23. She’s also the clone daughter of Wolverine. Eventually, she’ll take up the mantle of Wolverine, but these are the adventures prior to that. This can all be grouped into three titles to simplify your browsing.

  • X-23: The Complete Collection – These two volumes contain everything through the 2010 series.
  • New X-Men – The “Childhood’s End” Complete collection gets you issues #16-32; then skip ahead to V.4 & 5 to actually complete the run.
  • X-23 (2018-19) – Mariko Tamaki / Juann Cabal / Diego Olortegui

X-23: The Complete Collection   New X-Men   X-23

Have Rabbit, Will Travel

The Dark Horse 2023 Usagi Yojimbo Digital Sale runs through Monday, 10/16.

This is Stan Sakai’s long-running (it started in 1984) saga of a samurai/ronin rabbit. It’s got a pretty nice collection of awards, too.

And this is one where there’s a CLEAR winner in format: $6.99 Omnibus Editions that are usually over 600 pages.

Usagi Yojimbo

Watch for the Image sale to flip to Part 4 Friday night/Saturday morning.

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Fantastic Four; another Batman sale; World War Hulk; The Witcher

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, it’s a nearly full run of Fantastic Four with discounts, plus another Batman sale, World War Hulk and The Witcher.

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):

Four Play

Marvel’s Fantastic Four Legacy Sale runs through Tuesday, 9/26.

Take note that the end date is now Tuesday. (And let’s double check that on Tuesday, too.) Does this mean Marvel sales are now starting on Wednesday?  Wait and see. After the last few weeks, we haven’t a clue.

So, first let’s break down the various FF titles/volumes on sale

  • Fantastic Four ’61-’96 – The original run
  • Fantastic Four ’98-’12 – Heroes Return era through Hickman
  • Fantastic Four ’12-’14 – The Matt Fraction / Mark Bagley era
  • Fantastic Four ’14-’15 – The James Robinson/Leonard Kirk run
  • Fantastic Four ’18-’22 – The Dan Slott run with a rotating cast of artists
  • (The current North/Coello run is too recent to be discounted, if you were wondering.)

Yes, Fantastic Four has been relaunched less than other Marvel titles.  As to what’s good, the gold standard has always been the Stan Lee/Jack Kirby run. (And yes, we do think you can draw a straight line from Kirby’s Challengers of the Unknown at DC to Fantastic Four.) We’d say they start to hit their stride a few issues before Galactus shows up – V.3 of the Epic Collections (“The Coming of Galactus“) or V.4/5 of the Masterworks editions and you can ride a very fun train from there to the end of Lee/Kirby.

And at this point, we should talk about the “pick your poison” of Epic vs. Masterworks.  The Masterworks are built out straight into the Byrne era. We think the $6.99 Epic Collections are the best value here, though some of the newer ones are priced higher. The discounted Epics are now a little past the Lee/Kirby era, but stop with #146 and then pick up again after Byrne’s run. Pick the format that works for you and has the issues you’re looking for.

Speaking of Byrne’s run, that’s the next highpoint that everyone agrees on.  How to read Byrne? Well, there are 4 volumes of Masterworks on sale (V. 21-24) or you can hop on to Fantastic Four Visionaires: John Byrne. You’d need to cut over to the Visionaries run at V. 5 to pick up where the discounted Masterworks leave off.  These comics really ought to be in an Epic Collection, but Marvel doesn’t seem in any hurry to roll the Visionaires up into a more economical package. (Or should we say, economical when it’s on sale?)

Fast forward a bit to the Heroes Reborn era and there is a LOT to love about the Mark Waid / Mike Wieringo run. They brought back the “explorer” vibe from Lee/Kirby era that isn’t always there and upped the sense of wonder. You’d want the four Ultimate Collection volumes that start here. The “regular” collections don’t go all the way to the end.

And then, of course, there’s the the Hickman era. A long storyline that laid the groundwork for his Avengers run and you can certainly argue that his Secret Wars endcap to that is a Fantastic Four / Doctor Doom story. The omnibus editions we highlighted above include his FF spin-off comic that frequently crossed over with Fantastic Four, much like the Avengers titles flowed together. That packaging will be a better experience.

Fantastic Four - The Coming of Galactus    Fantastic Four by John Byrne   Fantastic Four by Waid

Behind the War Door

The  Marvel World War Hulk sale runs through Tuesday, 9/26.

Again, note the Tuesday end date.

So, this was quite an enjoyable Hulk event from that magical run Greg Pak had. (This followed Planet Hulk.)

The main event is Hulk: World War Hulk by Pak and John Romita, Jr. Hulk is back and he’s a little mad about getting shot out into space (the run-up to Planet Hulk). Someone is likely to get hurt as Hulk looks for revenge.

It’s an Event. You’ve got a few tie-ins available and those are at your discretion if you’re feeling into them. If you wanted to pick one, we’re probably start with World War Hulk: Frontline. The “Frontline” books were a tradition in this Event-driven era and Paul Jenkins would always spin a tale of Ben Urich in the middle of the action as a reporter, sometimes tracking down a conspiracy, sometimes documenting the effects of the Event on common folk. Ramon Bachs joint Jenkins on artist for this one.

Finally, there’s the sequel: Hulk: World War Hulk II by Pak and Carlos Barberi. This time it’s the Amadeus Cho Hulk returning from Planet Hulk (2) and going on a rampage.

World War Hulk   World War Hulk: Frontline   World War Hulk II

Bat-Sale Returns

The DC Batman Universe Sale runs through Monday, 9/25.

This is basically a reshuffled version of last week’s Batman Day sale, but with the Batman Family characters added in (so you’ll find Batgirl, Nightwing and Robin in this version) and a few more of the artist-specific collections.

What we’re going to highlight here, since they can be a pain to locate in the listings, are the 90s/00s Event collections. The Batman family of titles was crossing over so much, you’d think they were the X-Men for a few years!

Batman: Knightfall   Batman Contagion   Batman: No Man's Land

Toss a Coin for Recasting…

The Dark Horse 2023 The Witcher Digital Sale runs through Monday, 10/9.

While it’s usually presented as a video game adaptation, since these pre-date the TV series, we usually think of The Witcher 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. Looks like you might be a couple bucks better off with single issues over the “Library Edition” of V.2, though.  (If the second Omnibus were on sale… but it’s not even released quite yet.)

Witcher Omnibus

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: The Unannounced Black Widow Sale; Updated with Batman

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, we’re stepping in to clue you in on what appears to be an unannounced Black Widow 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):

UPDATE:

Adding some Batman links, since those were removed this morning.

Housekeeping

We’re stepping in with a special Tuesday morning edition of .cheap because of the Marvel sale situation. No, there wasn’t one last week. We _think_ there was supposed to be some form of Wolverine sale last week. (For example, if you look at the listings for Old Man Logan, you’ll see that some, but not all of the volumes are discounted or at least still are when we’re typing this way early on Tuesday morning.)

What we’re seeing right now is a Black Widow sale. No, there’s no Black Widow listing on the deals page, yet. We surely hope there will be in a day or two, but since everyone we talk to is pretty salty about the Daredevil Legacy sale being broken (and we’re very glad it was fixed and re-run) and the lack of a sale on Deals page last week, we’re going to just jump in and list the sales we were able to locate:

Trick or Treat, Said the Widow to her Mate

No overall link for the sale, just individual series/volume links.

  • Black Widow: Marvel Team-Up – Mostly ’70s & ’80s appearances
  • Daredevil/Black Widow: Abattoir (’82) – OGN by Jim Starlin and Joe Chiodo
  • Black Widow (’10) – Duane Swierczynski, Marjorie Liu, Manuel Garcia, Daniel Acuña
  • Black Widow (’14-’15) – Nathan Edmondson/Mitch Gerads (Yes, the Mitch that now works with Tom King.)
  • Black Widow (’16-17) – Mark Waid / Chris Samnee, complete in one volume.
  • Web of the Black Widow (’19-20) – Jody Houser / Stephen Mooney
  • Black Widow (’20-’22) – Kelly Thompson/Elena Casagrande – Currently the first volume is much cheaper, then 2&3, but that might change. An Eisner winner.

What do we like here?  Waid/Samnee & Thompson/Casagrande jump out at us.

Black Widow by Mark Waid and Chris Samnee   Black Widow

Now… there may be more sale prices hitting later and we truly hope Amazon puts up a formal sale page for this that we can link to on Friday… but if not, the above are definitely on sale and now you now about them.

The Morning After the Bat-Sale

This one’s going to take minute to explain. On the evening of Monday, 9/18, the Batman Day Sale was extended through Monday 9/25.  On the morning of Tuesday, 9/19, the Batman Day Sale page was deleted. *Some* of the discounts are still there, some items are raised by about $1 and some are back to normal price. The older, pre-Crisis material is more likely to still be on sale.  And this could all have changed if you’re reading it later in the week, too. But here are the series links where we’re still seeing some kind of discounts:

  • Batman (1940-2011)
  • Detective Comics (1939-2011)
  • Batman: Shadow of the Bat – Alan Grant’s title, w/Norm Breyfogle, early on. (Get more of them in Dark Knight Detective/Caped Crusader)
  • Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight – standalone arcs by different creative teams, but consistently good
  • Batman: Streets of Gotham – Paul Dini’s in-continuity series w/Dustin Nguyen
  • The Brave & The Bold – Batman team-ups. Bob Haney, Neal Adams and Jim Aparo were notable creators here. Haney/Aparo was the team on a LOT of comics. (Now if we could get a Nemesis collection…)
  • Batman: The Dark Knight Returns – Frank Miller’s classic that upset the card table. $2.99 and your life will be fine if you miss the sequels.
  • Batman (’11-’16) – The Scott Snyder/Greg Capullo run
  • Batman (’16-current) – starts with the Tom King era and the discounts run through Joshua Williamson’s run
    • Save a couple bucks on the Tom King run with the “Deluxe” editions
  • Detective Comics (’11-’16) – originally Tony Daniels (how many printings did his first issue have?)
  • Detective Comics (’16-current) – Starts out with James Tynion’s first (and we’d say better) Batman run.
  • Batman: The Detective – Tom Taylor (sorta “Mr. DC” right now) and Andy Kubert take Batman to Europe where his past rears its head and some actual detection is performed. $2.99

There have been a lot of odd things happening on that deals page for the last ~6-8 weeks, so add the Mystery of the Disappearing Bat-Sale to the list.  We’ll see if something has changed at the end of the week at our usual time. It’s quite possible something will have.

So, until Friday:

 

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales – The Batman Day Sale

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, it’s the Batman Day 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):

Housekeeping

A couple things to be aware of this week:

#1 – The current Image sale is scheduled to end Friday. This means there will probably be a new sale of Image first volumes on Saturday, so you might want to hit the main link and look for it. We’ll likely cover that next week, since these sales have been running for multiple weeks. Warning: Amazon has been putting these Image sales on the same link, so you might have to reload 2-3 times before the new one shows up. That’s just how it’s been working for the last month or so.

And yes, it’s unusual for sales to start on a Saturday.

#2 – No Marvel this week. This happens every once in a while and we’ll see if something pops up over the weekend, since it looks like they might have a new Image sale scheduled.

Wouldn’t “Batman Night” Be More Appropriate?

The DC Batman Day Sale runs through Monday, 9/18.

Surprise, surprise – the prices look correct on this one. (Forgive us some cynicism after the last month.) Which is to say most, not quite all, of the Batman material is discounted.

Let’s break down some of the highlights by series/volume.

Your classic / pre-New 52 material is largely going to be in:

Now… you sorta need to browse both, because with how the two titles started crossing over from the 80s on up, you’re never quite sure which title a collection/story arc/Event will be filed under. And yes, we do like the 80s collections of Caped Crusader and Dark Knight Detective for $3.99 – $5.99@ (mostly $4.99). And yes, Knightfall, No Man’s Land, and the like are all in there.

Some more pre-Crisis ongoing titles:

  • Batman: Shadow of the Bat – Alan Grant’s title, w/Norm Breyfogle, early on. (Get more of them in Dark Knight Detective/Caped Crusader)
  • Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight – standalone arcs by different creative teams, but consistently good
  • Batman: Streets of Gotham – Paul Dini’s in-continuity series w/Dustin Nguyen
  • The Brave & The Bold – Batman team-ups. Bob Haney, Neal Adams and Jim Aparo were notable creators here. Haney/Aparo was the team on a LOT of comics. (Now if we could get a Nemesis collection…)

And some pre-Crisis one-offs of note:

  • Batman: The Dark Knight Returns – Frank Miller’s classic that upset the card table. $2.99 and your life will be fine if you miss the sequels.
  • Batman/Spawn – We’ll confess preferring the Chuck Dixon/Alan Grant/Doug Moench/Klaus Janson tale to the Frank Miller/Todd McFarlane one, but this collects both. $2.99
  • Trinity – Matt Wagner’s Batman/Superman/Wonder Woman team-up. $2.99

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns   Batman/Spawn   Trinity

New 52 and forward, your main titles are:

  • Batman (’11-’16) – The Scott Snyder/Greg Capullo run
  • Batman (’16-current) – starts with the Tom King era and the discounts run through Joshua Williamson’s run
    • Save a couple bucks on the Tom King run with the “Deluxe” editions
  • Detective Comics (’11-’16) – originally Tony Daniels (how many printings did his first issue have?)
  • Detective Comics (’16-current) – Starts out with James Tynion’s first (and we’d say better) Batman run.

Some shorter runs of note in the New 52 era:

  • Batman: Universe (’19) – Brian Bendis and Nick Derington go against the current trend and deliver and light and fun Batman romp across the DCU that has a certain old school The Brave & the Bold vibe to it… but with more snark. Recommended. $2.99
  • Batman: The Adventures Continue – The Animated Series brain trust of Alan Burnett & Paul Dini continue where the cartoon left off with Ty Templeton on art. 2 volumes @$2.99
  • Batman: The Detective – Tom Taylor (sorta “Mr. DC” right now) and Andy Kubert take Batman to Europe where his past rears its head and some actual detection is performed. $2.99

Batman Universe   Batman: The Adventures Continue   Batman: The Detective

And above the $2.99 level?

Tales of the Batman: Steve Englehart – Englehart’s Detective run with Marshall Rogers and Walt Simonson is one of the “definitive runs” of all-time and in a contender for best run. This has the sequel runs, plus the Aquaman (with some Batman) sequel to “The Laughing Fish” with Trevor Von Eeden. 452 pages for $7.99

Batman: Killing Time – Tom King and David Marquez get their noir on with Batman following the trail of a heist gone bad as his rogues gallery double-cross each other. We read this recently and liked it a lot. $4.99

Batman: Tales of the Demon – Denny O’Neil / Neal Adams / Don Newton. This would be a collection of the original Ra’s al Ghul. Which is to say, the more famous original arc in the early ’70s and when O’Neil revisited the character a few years later in DC Special and the dollar-sized run of Detective. Ideally, we’d like to see a lower price than $7.99 for this page count, but its a good collection with one of the key villains in the Bat-mythos.

Tales of the Batman: Steve Englehart   Batman: Killing Time   Batman: Tales of the Demon

Plenty more here and worth a weekend browse.

Do Not Meddle in the Affairs of Dragons…

The Dark Horse 2023 Dragon Age Digital Sale runs through Monday, 10/2.

This one’s pretty straightforward. The comics come in 3 formats and the omnibus is the best value of the bunch.

Dragon Age

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Daredevil (All of It); Gotham Central; OMAC; Masters of the Universe

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel’s big Daredevil sale and DC’s Labor Day Sale return… with actual sale prices! Plus, Masters of the Universe and Van Helsing.

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):

The Daredevil Sale Returns

Well, well, well… look who showed up Thursday morning:

The Marvel Daredevil Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 9/11.

Yes, they fixed last week’s sale.  The usual discounts now apply. So first, let’s run through the various series. Believe it or not, Daredevil hasn’t been relaunched as many times as, say, Hulk has.

  • Daredevil ’64-’98 – The original run. Plenty o’ Epics and Masterworks on sale.
  • Daredevil ’98-11 – The Marvel Knights relaunch. Kevin Smith / Brian Bendis / Ed Brubaker
    • For the Bendis and Brubaker runs, you want the Omnibus section and scroll down for their respective “Ultimate Collections”
  • Daredevil ’11-15 – This was really two volumes with an arbitrary relaunch in the middle, but the excellent run by Mark Waid / Chris Samnee / Paolo Rivera / Javier Javier Rodriguez is a better buy in this 5 volume set that collects both volumes and treats it like the single run it was.
  • Daredevil ’15-’18 – The Charles Soule era with Ron Garney as the main artist.
  • Daredevil ’19-’21 – Chip Zdarsky’s breakout title as a writer. Marco Checcetto is the primary artist.
    • Omnibus formats (the final omnibus is not on sale)
  • Daredevil: Woman Without Fear ’22 – Zdarsky / Rafael de Latorre; Sort of a bridge title during the Devil’s Reign event, but part of the ongoing plot.
  • Daredevil ’22-’23 – Also known as Daredevil & Elektra. The final act to the Zdarsky/Checcetto era

Since it’s been a couple years since this sale was run, let’s have a look at the Epics and Masterworks that might not have been in the last one, shall we?

New(ish) Epic Collections:

  • Going Out West – #87-107; Gerry Conway era ends; Steve Gerber begins
  • Watch Out For Bullseye – #108-132; Gerber era ends; Then Tony Isabella, and enter Marv Wolfman and Bullseye debuts
  • It Comes With Claws – #234 – 252; Ann Nocenti’s run begins. John Romita, Jr. arrives to start that famous pairing towards the end of the volume.
  • Dead Man’s Hand – #301-11, plus some crossover/event issues; The D.G. Chichester / Scott McDaniel era

New(ish) Masterworks:

Oh, look… this is when they got to the Frank Miller run!

What’s good? Honestly, Daredevil has been one of the best curated characters of the last 40 years. There haven’t been very many bad issues since Frank Miller showed up. (Some people complained about the Chichester/McDaniel/Weeks run and the new armor, but we like that run and “Last Rites” seems to be more popular now than at the time.)

The usual advice on Epics & Masterworks – you need to check the page counts, but the Epics are usually a little longer and more bang for your buck, but not all Epics are priced the same.

For $5.99 for ~300-ish pages/~12 issues, it’s hard to beat these collections of the Waid/Samnee(/Rivera/Rodriguez) run. A side thread to this run. It starts out with “Daredevil wasn’t originally such a dark book” and then it proceeds to go to dark places after a bit! Seriously, an excellent run.

Currently not in a larger collection, Daredevil: Born Again by Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli is a very, very effective story and maybe Miller’s high point on the character. It doesn’t have the page count of some these other collections, but at $4.99, it’s still a truly classic 8-parter for the price of a new single issue.

The Last Rites Epic Collection is 500 pages for for $6.99. It’s the end of the Ann Nocenti run and the beginning of the D.G Chichester era. Lots of art by the always under-rated Lee Weeks. Bullseye, The Hand, Typhoid Mary and The Kingpin all show up. Plus some Punisher and Ghost Rider, so there’s something for pretty much everyone in this.

(If A Touch of Typhoid was $5.99, it would go to the head of the line. That’s the meat of the Nocenti/JRjr run and earned its rep.)

Still, plenty of good reads in this sale and we’re glad it got fixed!

Daredevil by Mark Waid   Daredevil: Born Again   Daredevil: Last Rites

Speaking of Sales That Got Fixed…

The DC Labor Day Sale runs through Monday, 9/11.

We’re not sure those $4.65 price points are supposed to be there, but there’s plenty of graphic novels for $2.99 (and $4.65 is a considerably better price than we were seeing last week).

Some items of possible interest:

Gotham Central for $2.99 per (double) volume? Um, yes!  GREAT comic. Ed Brubaker, Greg Rucka, Michael Lark, Stefano Gaudiano and Kano on tales of the Gotham PD trying to handle things when Batman is otherwise occupied.

OMAC: One Man Army Corps by Jack Kirby. You might have run into this concept in a movie recently. This is Kirby’s original dystopian satire. It’s… well, you kind of need to experience this one for yourself. Describing it doesn’t do it justice, just know that it’s REALLY over the top. $2.99

Final Crisis by Grant Morrison, J.G. Jones and Doug Mahnke. The Event itself, plus the Batman and Superman tie-ins (which are important to the plot). 391 pages for $2.99? From Morrison/Jones/Mahnke?  That’s a good buy!

Gotham Central   OMAC   Final Crisis

Deadman – The 60s/70s cult series in 5 volumes. The first two are the Neal Adams run, then a volume that’s largely Paul Levitz/Jim Aparo picking up the reigns and popping in and out of various titles. V.4 is largely the Len Wein/Jim Aparo/Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez Adventure run. V.5 is the Andy Helfer/Garcia-Lopez miniseries and the Challengers of the Unknown appearances. $2.99 a pop.

Creature Commandos – We’re not sure when the cartoon is coming out or if the strike affects it, but this is the original material from Weird War Tales. Lots of people worked on this, including J.M. DeMatties, Robert Khaniger, Fred Carillo, Jerry Ordway and even Dan Spiegel.

And for something under the radar: Lobo: Portrait of a Bastich. In the mid-90s, Lobo had a series of miniseries and specials that were the gold standard for rude humor. Keith Giffen, Alan Grant and Simon Bisley were the original team and this collects the first two mini’s. It is, as MTV used to say about Monty Python, an effective tool for the offending of the easily offendable.

This sale is worth a deep browse over the weekend. There are a lot of good runs with a single $4.65 volume in the middle of $2.99 ones.

Deadman   Creature Commandos   Lobo

Masters and Servants

The Dark Horse 2023 Masters of the Universe Digital Sale runs through Monday, 9/25.

Yes, that would be He-Man. Two sections to the sale:

Classic material

Current Comics

He-Man Newspaper Comic Strip   Masters of the Universe: Masterverse   Masters of the Universe: Revelation

Grimm Vampire Tales

Zenescope’s Van Helsing Character Spotlight Sale runs through Sunday, 9/24.

This would be the daughter of Professor Van Helsing doing battle with the forces of darkness. You expect to see Zenescope regulars Pat Shand and Raven Gregory here, but Chuck Dixon also shows up for a few runs.

We’re looking at 99 cent single issues (with the odd higher price for things like #50) and $5.99 collected editions, which means the single issues will likely be a little cheaper or a wash.

Also in the sale 99-cent issues of the spin-off Hellchild.

Helsing   Van Helsing   Hellchild

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Marvel Max, Star Wars, a New Image Sale… and a couple sales where the prices are off

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel cuts prices on their MAX line, Image has more first volumes, Dark Horse’s new Star Wars line and a couple sales might not have the correct discounts.

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):

First, Some Housekeeping

This is the strangest set of Labor Day sales we’ve seen. Apparently, DC and Marvel don’t check up to see if the right prices have been posted? Here’s what we know:

1) The Daredevil Legacy Sale does not appear to have normal discounts. Or any discounts in a few cases. We type this at 6pm ET on the Friday of a holiday weekend, so we’re not hopeful it gets fixed before the sale ends (but maybe check anyway). It’s a shame, because it’s been a couple years since there was a Daredevil Legacy sale and ‘ole Hornhead has had some excellent runs over the years.

2) DC’s  Labor Day Sale? More of those odd and almost certainly broken $7.76 and $6.21 price points and very few prices have corrected to normal sale pricing… which has been the case for most of the month. Something’s wrong and it doesn’t look like anyone with the ability to fix it is paying much attention. Again, maybe this gets fixed after this post goes live, so have a look… just be aware of the situation. At least there are _some_ discounts here.  Books that have normalized at $2.99 that we’d recommend:

We hate to say “proceed with caution” on what should be the two flagship sales over Labor Day, but… it is what it is. No point in sugar coating it. A lot of people (DC/Marvel/Amazon) should’ve caught this and didn’t.

3) We’ve made an addition to the standard navigation links at the top of the column. There is a Kindle Deals page for comics that has sales you don’t see on the Comixology deals page. The current sale lineup is heavy with TokyoPop and this is worth keeping an eye on.

Extra Bloody Marvel

The Marvel Max Sale runs through Monday 9/4.

In this case, “Marvel Max” refers to Marvel’s mature readers line. (Yes, that does mean a lot of Garth Ennis material.) This sale generally only pops up once or twice year, so let’s have a look.

First up 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.)

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. Definitely an influential series, not just for inspiring a show, either.

Here’s a brand new edition to the Max section: Aliens Epic Collection: The Original Years, Vol. 1. That’s a bit of a mouthful, isn’t it? Let’s translate that – it’s an Epic Collection of the Dark Horse adaptions of Aliens going back to the 80s. They were pretty influential, too.  It contains the first two “Aliens” miniseries, Aliens: Earth War some Dark Horse Presents stories. Ah, Mark Nelson drawing Aliens…

Miracleman   Alias   Aliens

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

Yes, he’s done a little Punisher. Good Punisher, too.

The Image… Countdown?

The Image Comics Discovery Sale Part 2 runs through Friday, 9/15

Remember when the last Image sale dropped and we were wondering where the rest of it was? Well, come to find out, that was actually “Part 3” of a sale. Part 2 is now up. The betting pool is now open for whether Part 1 or Part 4 will be the next installment.

This selection is the first volume of titles beginning with E through M.

[Warning: we’re seeing more “Nega-Bands” action on this link. If you click on it and see “Mage” at the beginning, you’re seeing the previous sale. Hit reload a couple times and Part 2 will come up. We don’t understand why they do it this way, but it’s a thing.]

Highlights? Glad you asked.

Geiger, V. 1 by Geoff Johns and Gary Frank wasn’t really what we were expecting from the description. And we weren’t offended that this post-apocalyptic tale had some fun to it and gave off Kamandi vibes. Warring tribes with theme park motifs, a mysterious and tragic radioactive figure, and a soldier robot? Yes, a good start and worth a look.

Ghosted by Joshua Williamson and Goran Sudzuka is one of our favorite Skybound offerings. It gets much stranger as it progresses, but the initial concept in V. 1 is “What if the Ocean’s 11 crew was sent to rob a haunted house?” Good stuff!

Gideon Falls by Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino is a little hard to describe without spoilers, since it starts bending genres and genre conventions when you get a little further along. In the beginning, it’s more of a straight horror tale. The “Black Barn” appears and disappears. It’s been doing that for a very long time. Likewise, people have disappeared around it in town that is keeping secrets about it as a new appearance of the Barn starts wheels in motion.

Geiger   Ghosted   Gideon Falls

Killadelphia by Rodney Barnes and Jason Shawn Alexander is right up there at the top of Image’s current lineup. We’d say “change our minds,” but there’s not really a point. A former Philly beat cop returns home to bury his murdered father, who happened to be a detective on the force. What he finds is a vampire uprising. What unfolds is a bizarre conspiracy across 250 years with some recognizable name popping up in the strangest contexts and some wicked one-liners. Highly recommended.

Lazarus by Greg Rucka and Michael Lark qualifies as a long running Image title, since it’s been around 10 years. It comes out in arcs these days. 15 minutes into the future, the world is divided into vast fiefdoms ruled by families. Think corporations with serfs. Each family has a genetically engineered super-soldier leading their troops, called a Lazarus. The Lazarus of the Carlyle family is starting to realize she’s being lied to…

Love Everlasting by Tom King and Elsa Charretier is one of the newer volumes in this sale. It’s a pastiche of 70s romance comics viewed through more of a Rod Serling lens as a woman lives through a series of lives and romances, scatter across the timeline.

Killadelphia   Lazarus   Love Everlasting

Nothing But Star Wars… Take 2

The Dark Horse 2023 Star Wars Digital Sale runs through Monday, 9/18.

Yes, Dark Horse has Star Wars again. We believe this to be the YA license that was most recently at IDW.  We’re heard some stories that this isn’t available in every country, so the links might not go anywhere, depending where you’re at. What’s on sale?

Star Wars: Tales from the Rancor Pit   Star Wars Hyperspace Stories   Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures

YouNeek

The Dark Horse 2023 YouNeek Digital Sale runs through Monday, 9/18

This is the Roye Okupe imprint.

E.X.O.   Iyanu: Child of Wonder   WindMaker

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