In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel celebrates the Fantastic Four movie with some discounts. Plus, slashed prices on Loki and Ms. Marvel, should you be in a cinematic mindset. For dessert, Dark Horse has a line-wide sale for Comic-Con.
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 new releases page is here.
- The “Comics Deals” page is here.
- The Kindle Deals comics page is here.
Four Play
Marvel’s Fantastic Four Sale runs through Monday, 7/28.
A cynical person might think there was a movie coming out… but surely you’re not cynical?
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
- But it’s easier to get the Hickman era here, where FF is included.
- Fantastic Four ’12-’14 – The Matt Fraction / Mark Bagley era
- Fantastic Four ’14-’15 – The James Robinson/Leonard Kirk run
- Fantastic Four: Fate of the Four (Marvel Two-in-One) ’17-’18 – Chip Zdarsky / Jim Cheung; Zdarsky’s MTIO run has been rebranded as FF… which is probably fair – not in this sale, but included for the sake of completeness
- Fantastic Four ’18-’22 – The Dan Slott run with a rotating cast of artists
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- Also in omnibus format
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- Fantastic Four ’22 – Ryan North / Iban Coello / Carlos Gomez
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 #191 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 7 volumes of Masterworks on sale (V. 21-27) or you can hop on to Fantastic Four Visionaires: John Byrne. These comics really ought to be in an Epic Collections, 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?)
Move ahead a bit and Walt Simonson had a stint that may be a little more notable for being an early appearance of the Time Variance Authority (which actually debuted in his Thor run). This is most easily grabbed across Epic Collections V.20 and V.21.
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.
Dwayne McDuffie and Paul Pelletier jumped in for an arc with Black Panther and Storm briefly joining the team.
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.
Kamala Sale
The Ms. Marvel Sale runs through Monday 7/21.
Thank goodness they’re not calling this “The Marvel Ms. Marvel Sale!” This would be Ms. Marvel as in Kamala Khan, not the current Captain Marvel, Carol Danvers. 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
- Even cheaper in Omnibus format
- 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.
- Also cheaper in Omnibus format
- 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
- Also cheaper in Omnibus format
- Ms. Marvel: Beyond the Limit – The mini-series by Samira Ahmed and Andrés Genolet.
- Ms. Marvel: The New Mutant – Iman Vellani / Sabir Pirzada / Carlos Gomez; Yes, that’s right, the actress who plays Ms. Marvel is co-writing this with the show’s supervising producer
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.
God of Mischief
The Marvel Loki Sale runs through Monday, 7/21.
The interesting thing about a Loki sale? These days you have “post-TV” Loki, which is to say Loki as the lead and not the villain (as in Thor or something like X-Men / Alpha Flight).
If you’re looking for Loki as the lead, the closest you’re likely to get to the TV show (thus far) is probably looking for either Loki, Agent of Asgard by Al Ewing, Lee Garbett and Jorge Coelho or the Loki run in the revived Journey Into Mystery by Kieron Gillen, Doug Braithwaite, Richard Elson (and a few more artists).
Unannounced Sales
Dark Horse is having a “Comic-Con @Home digital sale” and has most of their collected editions discounted, but not the newest material and not the single issues. Here’s a link that will *eventually* get you through their catalog in a very laborious way and with the single issues mixed in. (It’s not perfect, but we’re trying.) Figure this will be around 50% off, but it might vary a little from book to book.
Here are some direct links to various series:
- 300
- Abe Sapien
- Air
- Aleister & Adolf
- All Eight Eyes
- The Amazing Screw-On Head and Other Curious Objects
- American Gods –
- Apache Delivery Service
- Appleseed
- Astro Boy
- Baltimore – Mike Mignola / Christopher Golden / Ben Stenbeck
- Beasts of Burden – Evan Dorkin / Jill Thompson / Ben Dewey
- Berserk – Kentaro Miura
- Big Man Plans
- Black Hammer
- Black Hammer / Justice League: Hammer of Justice
- Black Magic
- Blade of the Immortal
- Blood Blockade Battlefront
- B.P.R.D.
- Brilliant
- Cat + Gamer
- Cover
- Count Crowley
- Creepy Archives
- Creepy Presents
- Crying Freeman
- Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done?
- The E.C. Archives
- Eerie Archives
- Elfen Lied
- Elfquest
- Finder
- Fortune & Glory
- Four Gathered on Christmas Eve
- Frank Miller’s Sin City
- Ghost
- Goldfish
- The Goon
- Grandville
- Grendel
- Groo
- Gunsmith Cats
- Halo: Legacy Collection
- Halo: Fall of Reach
- Halo Initiation
- Halo Escalation
- Halo: Collateral Damage
- Halo: Rise of Atriox
- Halo: Lone Wolf
- Hard Boiled
- Harrow County
- The Hellboy Omnibuses
- Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.
- Hillbilly
- Jinx
- Joy Operations
- Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!
- The Life and Times of Martha Washington in the Twenty-First Century
- Lone Wolf and Cub
- Minor Threats
- Mob Psycho 100
- Murder, Inc.
- for unknown reasons, you need to go here for V. 2
- Nexus
- The Oddly Pedestrian Life of Christopher Chaos
- Oh My Goddess!
- Old Boy
- The Ones
- Path of the Assassin
- Pearl
- Powers
- Pros and (Comic) Cons
- Resident Alien
- Scarlet
- Spook House
- Stranger Things
- Takio
- Tarzan
- Torso
- Umbrella Academy
- Usagi Yojimbo Saga
- Wandering Island
- Witchfinder
- World of Black Hammer
Additionally, it looks like most of the Captain America, Wolverine and Ghost Rider 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.
Still on Sale
- The DC Summer of Superman 2025 Sale runs through Tuesday 7/22
- The Kodansha Manga Starter Packs Sale runs through Monday, 7/28
- The Zenescope Year 20 Robyn Hood 99 cent Sale runs through Sunday, 7/27