Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Doctor Strange (the whole thing); Vertigo's Anniversary Sale; Ultron and the Avengers

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel has discounts on most of the Doctor Strange titles out there, plus Ultron (i.e. Avengers). DC’s celebrates Vertigo’s anniversary.

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 Is In

The Marvel Doctor Strange Legacy Sale runs through Tuesday, 3/28.

And it’s most of the Doctor Strange material that’s been collected in book form.

So first, as is our custom, we’ll walk you through the various series over the years… this is a little more complicated because the early Epic/Masterwork volumes aren’t on the same page. (We’ll let you you pick out the mini’s yourself, since those aren’t as convoluted.)

Strange Tales – This is a cluttered series page, but its the original Lee/Ditko run, so let’s break it down to Masterworks 1 and Masterworks 2 or Epic Edition 1
Doctor Strange ’68-’69 – the Masterworks listings are here and include the early Marvel Premiere run. The ’68 run is perhaps most notable for some amazing Gene Colan art, but the scripts don’t always live up to the art.
Doctor Strange ’74-’87 – The Masterworks here catch the end of the Marvel Premiere run and the Epics pick up with the back half of ’68 run. (Yes, it’s a confusing way to look at things.)
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 ’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.
Death of Doctor Strange – Jed MacKay and Lee Garbett kill off Stephen Strange. For real. (OK, at least it lasted for a bit and served a plot point.) A clever series that delivers its titular promise in unexpected ways.

Strange isn’t included, so somebody considers it a Clea title, perhaps?

What’s good? This is where we get into Masterworks vs. Epics… because the Masterworks are a LOT more complete right now, particularly through the 70s. 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.

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

Life After Cancellation

The DC/Vertigo 30th Anniversary Sale runs through Monday, 3/27.

For something with a backlist that still warrants regular sales and media adaptations, you really have to wonder whether cancelling Vertigo was a Big Mistake? Lots of good stuff to browse here and we’re happy to say a decent chunk of it is going for $4.99 and under, which isn’t too bad by DC’s pricing conventions.

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

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

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

You can pretty much “pick your poison” with this sale. That said, the 12-issue sized Preacher collections for $4.99 are a pretty good deal. Same deal for the $4.99 double volumes of Y: The Last Man.

The Other AI

The Marvel Ultron Sale runs through Tuesday, 3/28.

Oh, sure… you’ve got Chat GPT and you’ve got Google Bard. 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.

We raised an eyebrow at the overly eclectic selection of Ultron stories (no “Even an Android Can Cry” or “Ultron: Unlimited?”), but here’s where we’d go:

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.

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 recent Ant-Man, yes, 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.

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