Month: June 2025

Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Ghost Rider, Ultron, Skottie Young, The Magic Order

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel slaps a discount on Ghost Rider, Ultron and the Skottie Young catalog. Plus, The Magic Order and Manor Black.

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):

Shouldn’t He Be “In the Sky?”

Ghost Rider  Ghost Rider  Ghost Rider

The Marvel Ghost Rider Sale runs through Monday, 6/30.

That’s right, it’s Craig Ferguson’s favorite superhero.

As a bonus, the absurdity of Cosmic Ghost Rider:

The Other AI

Avengers: Bride of Ultron  Age of Ultron  Avengers: Ultron Forever

The Marvel Ultron Sale runs through Monday, 6/30.

Oh, sure… you’ve got Chat GPT and you’ve got Google Gemini and you’ve got Microsoft Co-Pilot…  but Marvel has Ultron, the AI that Microsoft and Google probably would rather you didn’t have in the front of your mind while thinking about such things. Which probably means it’s a good time for the sale.

Let’s hit some highlights:

The first Ultron arc, which culminates in the debut of The Vision, is a highlight of the original Roy Thomas / John Buscema Avengers run and is actually split across two Epic Collections: Masters of Evil has Ultron debuting near the end and Behold… The Vision finishes off his first arc and contains his second arc several issues later.

The Bride of Ultron is largely by Jim Shooter, with George Perez and John Byrne tagging in and out for most of it. The runup to the titular Ultron tale is the re-introduction of Wonder Man, which plays into the whole Vision/Simon Williams/Ultron triangle of intrigue.

Avengers: West Coast Avengers – Family Ties – Steve Englehart / Al Milgrom / Richard Howell; Ultron returns with some allies for the opening arc of West Coast Avengers.

Avengers: Rage of Ultron – by Rick Remender / Jerome Opena / Pepe Larraz; An OGN that… shall we say, reset the dynamic between Hank Pym and Ultron?

Ultron Forever is primarily by Al Ewing and Alan Davis, with a few older issues included for background. Avengers of various eras are plucked out of the timestream and brought to the future to face down a triumphant Ultron. (If you think this sounds like Ewing’s  Ant-Man sequence, there are similarities.)

The title Marvel would probably like you to purchase here is Age of Ultron, with the core by Brian Bendis, Bryan Hitch, Brandon Peterson and Carlos Pacheco. We’d put this one towards the bottom of the Ultron pile, but that’s just us.

The Young Ones

Oz: The Complete Collection  Rocket Raccoon  Strange Academy

The Marvel Skottie Young Sale runs through Monday, 6/30.

We’re just going to let you guess who the subject of this sale is.

Highlights:

Unannounced Sales

The Magic Order  Manor Black  Kill Them All

As always, we see discounts, but we don’t know how long they’ll last.

Additionally, it looks like most of the Iron Man, Black Widow and Old Man Logan material from recent weeks is still on sale. The Under $5 Page has the lower priced volumes. Go back a couple columns for the links to find the Epic Collections.

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Old Man Logan; Emma Frost; Groo

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel celebrates the Old Man Logan flavor of Wolverine and Emma Frost. Plus, Groo and Shirley Jackson.

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):

Wolverine… and the Sea?

Wolerine: Old Man Logan   Wolverine: Old Man Logan  Old Man Hawkeye

The Marvel Old Logan and the Wasteland Sale runs through Monday, 6/23.

Yes, the Old Man Logan storyline has spawned a series of miniseries set in “The Wasteland” setting from the original… and that before they brought back the Old Man Logan character after Wolverine’s “death.”

That’s what the real spread is here with the rest of the sale being side attractions you may or may not be into.  The original storyline of a cranky, aged (“Old Man”) version of Wolverine living in a dystopic future came off as a sort of Elseworlds tale and is fairly well regarded as a standalone tale.

It was popular enough that the “Old Man Logan” version of the character was contrived to appear in the present (his past… before the disaster that spawned a dystopia) in the period when Wolverine was supposed to be “dead.” It even lasted 50 issues. We’d say give the Jeff Lemire issues a look if it sounds interesting, particularly the Lemire/Sorrentino issues. This was one of their pre-Image collaborations and it’s much more entertaining than the editorial premise sounds.

Past Logan, there have been a couple other attempts to spin-off new titles in this settings, notably:

A Touch of Frost

Emma Frost  New X-Men  Astonishing X-Men

The Marvel Emma Frost Sale runs through Monday, 6/23.

Yeah, there was an Emma Frost series from Karl Bollers / Randy Green, but the emphasis here is a little more on the X-Men.

The Grant Morrison X-Men run (with an artist rotation including Frank Quitely, Igor Kordey, Phil Jimenez and Marc Silvestri) is probably the centerpiece. The “Ultimate Collections” are here. There’s also an  that appears to be the first Ultimate Collection with a different trade dress, so it looks like you can mix and match if you like?

While the entirety of Astonishing X-Men is on sale, this title is most remembered for the opening arcs by Joss Wheedon / John Cassaday and you can get their full run a little more cheaply in this set of Double Volumes.

Finally, there’s Generation X, which was sort of Scott Lobdell’s take on New Mutants. Most remember it most for the Lobdell/Chris Bachalo team that opened the series.

Unannounced Sales

Groo  Let's Make Ramen  Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery": The Authorized Graphic Adaptation

As always, we see discounts, but we don’t know how long they’ll last.

Additionally, it looks like most of the Black Widow and Strange Academy material from recent weeks is still on sale. The Under $5 Page has the lower priced volumes. Go back a couple columns for the links to find the Epic Collections.

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Iron Man; Strange Academy; Umbrella Academy; Dark Horse Manga

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, nearly the entire run of Iron Man gets a discount. So does Strange Academy. DC may or may not be having unlisted sales. Plus, Umbrella Academy, Dark Crystal and Dark Horse manga.

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: The Mystery of the Missing Masterworks

You will recall it’s been hit and miss whether Marvel Masterworks are included in Marvel sales for… perhaps a bit over a year? We might have a clue.

The Near Mint Condition live stream claims to have some inside information that the (print) Masterworks line is on indefinite hiatus and is asking people who want more to write David Gabriel at Marvel and ask for it.

See for yourself:

Has a phasing out been planned for quite some time and that’s why the digital versions aren’t always in sales? We can’t say for certain, but we’re awfully suspicious. Moreover, the Epic Collections haven’t quite duplicated the depth of the Masterworks. We understand how Marvel likes to reissue new editions in print, but it usually just makes things more confusing in the digital world.

Does Whatever An Iron Can…

Iron Man: The Man Who Killed Tony Stark  Iron Man: Heroes Reborn  Iron Man: Big Iron

The Marvel Iron Man Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 6/23

This would be one of those sales where most of the hero’s run is on sale, so we’re going to follow our usual protocol and start out by breaking out the primary titles and volumes. Iron Man isn’t as goofy to follow as, say, Spider-Gwen… but there are “quirks.” As is frequently the case (as discussed above), no Masterworks this time out.

  • Tales of Suspense – Iron Man debuted here in what was a split book with Captain America for most of the run.
  • Iron Man ’68-’96 – The original solo run in the era before constant relaunch gimmicks

OK, sit tight. The ’98 -’04 run is collected in VERY odd ways and poorly cataloged for browsing.  The truly excellent Kurt Busiek/Sean Chen/Patrick Zircher run lasts from 1-25. We can’t find 15-25 collected? (That entire run should be!)  You can catch 1-14  in cheap omnibus form here.  (No idea why the Mike Grell omnibus isn’t on sale.) You can catch Joe Quesada’s scripting run (26-32) and the Avengers: Disassembled tie-in late in this run in single volumes here. (But get the omnibus version for Busiek.)

  • Iron Man ’04-07 – Best known for launching with the “Extremis” storyline
  • Invincible Iron Man ’08-’12 – The excellent Matt Fraction / Salvador Larroca run. Save some money with the omnibus collecting the first 3 volumes.
  • Iron Man ’12-’14 – The Kieron Gillen run with Greg Land as initial artist
  • Superior Iron Man ’14-’15 by Tom Taylor / Yildiray Cinar / Laura Braga
  • Invincible Iron Man ’15-’16 – Brian Bendis and David Marquez/Mike Deodato, Jr. start out with Tony Stark in the armor
  • International Iron Man ’16 – Brian Bendis and Alex Maleev (And yes, we’re in the thick of the relaunches now)
  • Infamous Iron Man ’16-’17 – Brian Bendis / Alex Maleev; Victor Von Doom steps in as Iron Man… hey, dude is familiar with wearing armor
  • Invincible Iron Man ’16-’18 – Brian Bendis and Stefano Caselli with Riri Williams/Ironheart filling Tony Stark’s shoes (yes, parallel substitute Iron Man runs)
  • Tony Stark: Iron Man ’18-’19 – The Dan Slott era with Valerio Schiti as the principle artist in the rotation.
  • Iron Man ’20-’22 – The Christopher Cantwell / Cafu run.
  • Invincible Iron Man ’22-’24 – Gerry Duggan / Juan Frigeri

So what’s good?  We haven’t read ALL the Iron Man out there, but we’ve read a lot of them.

In our opinion Iron Man starts hitting it’s stride when Archie Goodwin arrives toward the end of the Tales of Suspense run and then is pure gold through issue 28 of the ’68 Iron Man series. Artists for this run include Gene Colan and George Tuska. (That’s collected in both Masterworks and Epic formats, but only the Epic is discounted right now..)

The next “all-star” run is #116-157 of the original Iron Man, that’s the David Michelinie / John Romita, Jr. / Bob Layton run that’s most famous for the “Demon in a Bottle” alcoholism arc, but there’s more to the run than just that arc.  The Denny O’Neil / Luke McDonnell run that follows is solid (make sure you get a collection that includes #200!!!), but Michelinie & Layton return for #215-250 with a few artists, including Mark Bright and Jackson Guice… with Layton even switching to penciller, instead of his usual inking post, for parts of it.  This second run is most famous for “Armor Wars” (originally known as Stark Wars).

When Heroes Return hits, Kurt Busiek and Sean Chen are pop in for the excellent 1998 run, of which only 1-14 are currently collected.

The ’08 – ’12 run by Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca is particularly good. You know how modern Marvel titles can get sidetracked by Events? Fraction and Larroca lean into it and produce a lengthy and self-contained arc with Tony Stark on the run and attempting to overwrite his brain to keep everyone’s secrets out of the hands of Norman Osborn. Yes, an honest to goodness great Event tie-in arc. It’s a rare thing.

We were quite happy with the  Christopher Cantwell/Cafu run. Tony Stark chases Korvac into outer space and meditates on the nature of godhood, good intentions and addictions. Lots of character work and action.

Up the Academy

Avengers Academy  Avengers Arena  Strange Academy

The Marvel Academy Sale runs through Monday, 6/16.

We’re not sure if this is Marvel making a play for the “Dark Academia” literary sub-genre, but we’ve got a few different flavors of young adults in various forms of learning institutions for those with super powers or magical powers. Strange Academy is probably the most “Dark Academia” of the bunch.

  • Avengers Academy – Christos Gage / Mike McKone / Sean Chen; Hank Pym runs an Avengers training program
  • Avengers Arena –  Dennis Hopeless / Christos Gage / Kev Walker / Alessandro Vitti; Arcade sets up Murder World on an island and tries to recreate Lord of the Flies with the Runaways and Avengers Academy
  • New X-Men – Nunzio DeFilippis / Christina Weir / Randy Green / Staz Johnson / Michael Ryan; It’s easier to describe this as the ’04 rebranding of New Mutants
  • Strange Academy (’20-’23) – Skottie Young / Humberto Ramos; Doctor Strange establishes a magical academy (definitely not Hogwarts, should the lawyers be asking) with Doctor Voodoo, Damien Hellstrom and the Scarlet Witch amongst the instructors

The DC Sorta/Kinda Discount Shuffle

Absolute Power  Batman by Doug Moench & Kelley Jones  Starfire

We have noticed a few DC titles popping up with “Best Price in 30 Days” tags on them. They aren’t necessarily on sale.

Example #1: Absolute Power by Mark Waid and Dan Mora. The last big Event. It’s now $9.99, marked as being down from a digital list price of $19.99. A digital list price based on it having been a hardcover release in print, we hasten to add.

Is that really a discount? Maybe not. Here’s the thing: when they stopped having the weekly sales, a lot of the slightly older digital collections dropped to $9.99. (Is the calculus to slightly lower the line-wide price and see if they make more money with that and no sales? We have questions…)

Example #2: Batman: Urban Legends V.6  is also listed at $9.99 with that “Best Price in 30 Days” tag. It does not list what the previous price was. HOWEVER, should one look at the Batman: Urban Legends series page, one would find everything is $9.99. Everything except V.2, which is $6.99. Strangely, V.2 is not showing the “Best Price in 30 Days” tag, so while it looks like it might be the one sporting a discount, but it apparently isn’t.

Real discounts:

And DC may have some of their signature broken prices floating around. Batman by Doug Moench & Kelley Jones Vol. 2 is listed at $19.24 as we type this. To paraphrase Ghostbusters, that price point is as unnatural as dogs and cats living together and it’s not the only book priced like that.

We have a lot more questions than answers when it comes to DC’s current pricing philosophy (and their ability to fill out Amazon pricing forms). Now you know what we know.

Unannounced Sales

Lone Wolf and Cub  Nowhere Men  Umbrella Academy

As always, we have no idea how long these will last:

Speaking of academies, Dark Horse wants a piece of that action and is discounting      Umbrella Academy by Gerard Way & Gabriel Ba.

It also appears Dark Horse is having a manga sale. Some titles we noticed:

Also on sale:

Additionally, it looks like most of the Hulk and Doctor Strange material from recent weeks is still on sale. The Under $5 Page has the lower priced volumes. Go back a couple columns for the links to find the Epic Collections.

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Doctor Strange; Black Widow; Predator; Nancy; Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, nearly the entire run of the collected Doctor Strange gets a discount, as does the Black Widow and Marvel’s recent work with Predator. Plus, Nancy and Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer.

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 Doctor Will See You Now

Doctor Strange in Strange Tales  Doctor Strange by Englehart  The Death of Doctor Strange

The  Marvel Doctor Strange Sale runs through Monday, 6/9.

And it’s most of the Doctor Strange material that’s been collected in book form. Alas, the Masterworks are not in this sale, though the “primary” 70s/80s series is very nearly all available here.

  • Strange Tales – This is a cluttered series page, but its the original Lee/Ditko run, but it breaks down to  Epic Edition 1.
  • Doctor Strange ’68-’69 – Epic Edition 2 catches the rest of the original Strange Tales and most of the first solo series (Some next level Gene Colan art in the solo run.)
  • Doctor Strange ’74-’87 – The Epics pick up with the tale end of the ’68 series, catch the Marvel Premiere issues (enter: Englehart & Brunner) and then into the regular series, then you’ll need “regular” collections for the Stern/Smith run.
  • Strange Tales ’87-’88 – The rest of the Peter B. Gillis run from Strange Tales with art by Chris Warner, Kevin Nowlan, Terry Shoemaker and Richard Case.
  • Doctor Strange ’88-’96 – Probably best known for the Roy & Dann Thomas run with Butch Guice and Geoff Isherwood as notable artists.
  • Doctor Strange ’15-’18 – Initially Jason Aaron/Chris Bachalo with Donny Cates tagging in towards the end. (The omnibuses here are the better buy)
  • Doctor Strange and the Sorcerers Supreme ’16-’17 – Robbie Thompson / Javier Rodriguez
  • Doctor Strange ’18-’19 – The Mark Waid / Jesus Saiz / Barry Kitson era with Strange in space.
  • Doctor Strange, Surgeon Supreme (’19) – the very much under-rated and too short Mark Waid / Kev Walker run. Walker knocks it out of the park here.
  • Doctor Strange: Fall Sunrise – Tradd Moore
  • Jed McKay’s saga, which needs to be read in order
    • The Death of Doctor Strange – Jed MacKay / Lee Garbett; No, really… he actually dies and it’s clever
    • Strange – Jed MacKay / Marcelo Ferreira; With Stephen dead, Clea assumes the mantle of Sorceress Supreme… and she’s feeling a little tetchy
    • Doctor Strange (’23-’24) – Jed MacKay / Pasqual Ferry; How can a dead man not be dead? The answer is complicated…

What’s good?  The original Lee/Ditko run is great and you can get that in the first Epic Collection. Things pick up again when Englehart and Brunner show up towards the end of the Marvel Premiere run and the whole ’74-’87 run is solid, though we have a particular soft spot for the Roger Stern / Marshall Rogers / Paul Smith material towards the end.  Yes, Doctor Strange had A list creators most of the time.  That’s your core.

The Jed MacKay sequence is very good and Marvel’s best death and rebirth sequence in quite some time, but you really need to start with The Death of Doctor Strange. We seldom give a big thumbs up to this kind of arc, but sometimes the needle gets threaded.

Another personal favorite is Doctor Strange: The Oath by a pre-Saga Brian K. Vaughan and Marcos Martin. They’ve both moved on to bigger things, but a long run by those two would have been a real highlight.

Something under the radar?  The final Waid/Walker run is also a lot more under the radar than it should be.

Apex Predation

Predator versus Wolverine  Predator vs Black Panther  Predator: The Last Hunt

The Marvel Predator Sale runs through Monday, 6/9.

Yes, Marvel has Predator comics. One of them even knocked our socks off:

Predator Vs. Wolverine by Ben Percy / Ken Lashley / Greg Land / Andrea Di Vito is everything the title sounds like… except it’s good. Such a pleasant surprise and excellence of execution counts! Over the decades, a Predator with a grudge periodically returns to stalk Wolverine. Things eventually come to a head. All hunter and prey, all the time. Recommended.

Predator Vs. Black Panther by Ben Percy / Chris Allen / Sean Damien Hill; A Predator visits Wakanda looking for some Vibranium. Body count ensues. This is in our “to read” pile.

And then there’s the Ed Brisson series, for Predators without superheroes:

Beware the Bite

Black Widow - Welcome to the Game  Black Widow by Mark Waid and Chris Samnee  Black Widow

The Marvel Black Widow sale runs through Monday, 6/16.

Let’s walk through the highlights.

There are two Black Widow Epic Collections that collect what were largely guest or co-starring spots (with a couple notable exceptions) through the early 80s.

Black Widow: Marvel Team-Up takes place mostly between those two Epic Collections, strangely enough. It’s primarily Spidey team-ups, including a 4-part Spidey / Black Widow / Nick Fury / Master of Kung Fu serial by Chris Claremont and Sal Buscema.

Marvel Knights Black Widow by Grayson & Rucka: The Complete Collection – the end of the 90s saw Yelana enter the Widow’s world. It’s a trilogy of mini-series from Devin Grayson / Greg Rucka / J.G Jones / Scott Hampton / Igor Kordey,

Flash forward to 2004 and the highlight of a series of miniseries was a pair written by Richard K. Morgan with an art rotation of Bill Sienkiewicz, Sean Phillips and Goran Parlov. Conveniently collected in a single volume. (We hold this sequence in high regard.)

A decade later, the team of Mark Waid & Chris Samnee (a known quantity) did their own Black Widow run. Predictably, another highlight. (Also conveniently collected in a single volume.)

Shortly after that, the Eisner winning Black Widow run of Kelly Thompson and Elena Casagrande kicked off. Yes, we enjoyed this run, too… and were kind of thinking there might be a follow up, but we haven’t seen one yet. One of these days?

Unannounced Sales

Gris Grimly's Frankenstein  Star Trek: Year Four - The Enterprise Experiment  A Thief Among the Trees: An Ember in the Ashes

Additionally, it looks like most of the Thor, Hulk, Spider-Man Team-Up and Spidey/Deadpool material from recent weeks is still on sale. The Under $5 Page has the lower priced volumes. Go back a couple columns for the links to find the Epic Collections.

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Still on Sale

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