In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel Max doles out discounts, which means Miracleman, Alias, Punisher and… Conan? Thanos is also on sale, and is James Bond and seemingly the whole Kondansha line if you’re in a manga kind of mood.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

In case you’re having troubles with the new UIX (a LOT of people have been):

A little housekeeping first. We’re going to be travelling the rest of the week, so we’re posting on Tuesday. We’ll see you next week at the usual spatio-temporal coordinates.  Also, there doesn’t appear to be a new DC sale this week. They seem to be standing pat with the Sandman sale (see: still on sale at the end of the column or the last couple weeks’ columns).

Is THAT Where HBO Max Got the Name?

The Marvel Max Sale runs through Thursday 9/8.

In this case, “Marvel Max” refers to Marvel’s old, on and off, mature readers line. (Yes, that does mean a lot of Garth Ennis material.) They generally only float this one once or twice year, so let’s have a look.

Since it looks like new material is finally getting back on the schedule, there’s a couple Miracleman runs that are a little more topical.

First 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.)

So then Neil Gaiman and Mark Buckingham got passed the torch when Moore finished his story. “The Golden Age” shows an age where Miracleman sits atop Olympus, presiding over an “age of miracles,” like a god over the mere mortals on the ground. This is where the story will picked up from after all these years.

Miracleman   Miracleman by Gaiman & Buckingham

We have no idea what a Conan book is doing in this sale, but… we like the material. Conan Chronicles: Return to Cimmeria is from the Dark Horse era and features the endcap to the Kurt Busiek/Cary Nord run and the beginning of the Tim Truman/Tomas Giorello run.  Can’t complain about a Conan sale and we’re a little fuzzy what’s going to be happening with the reprints after the new material switches over to Titan.

Aliaswhich made it to Netflix as “Jessica Jones” is the Brian Bendis/Michael Gaydos hard drinking superpowered private eye series, now conveniently in 2 volumes.

Conan Chronicles   Alias

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

If you were expecting Thanatos…

The Marvel Thanos and the Infinity Gauntlet Sale runs through Monday, 8/22.

Thanos has become a saga, at least with the Starlin-driven material.

Avengers Vs. Thanos is a meaty ~470 page collection of the original ’70s appearances that were centered in Captain Marvel and Warlock.  You could make an argument that this is where “cosmic” Marvel was born. (It’s one of a handful of candidates.) Recommended.

And then Thanos was mostly on the shelf for ~13 years until Jim Starlin started writing Silver Surfer (with Ron Lim drawing… oh yes, those two would do some collaborating).  The Rebirth of Thanos arc was the “oh, snap” moment (pun intended) where Thanos resurfaced and the wheels were set in motion for The Infinity Gauntlet (with art by George Perez and Ron Lim).  And both of those are recommended, too.

There were two more Infinity sequels:

And a ton of supporting material.  “Infinity” and Adam Warlock were practically a sub-imprint for a couple years.

Starlin did more Thanos follow-ups over the years, culminating in a graphic novel trilogy:

Avengers Vs. Thanos   Rebirth of Thanos   Infinity Gauntlet

Bondage

The Dynamite James Bond Sale runs through Monday, 8/29.

There is one 007 comic we recommend above all others. Kill Chain by Andy Diggle and Luca Casalanguida is a great updating of the literary James Bond.  SMERSH is back and trying to undermine NATO… and assassinate a few people. This may be the best executing of melding the current political situation with Bond’s Cold War roots.  Highly recommended if you’re into this sort of thing.

While we’ve been waiting for the collected edition and can’t review, we have been really curious about James Bond: Himeros which has Rodney Barnes from Killadelphia and HBO’s Winning Time putting 007 up against sex traffickers. The single issues are $0.99.

James Bond Kill Chain   James Bond: Himeros

All-In Manga

The Kodansha End of Summer Line-Wide Sale runs through Monday, 8/22.

Cards upfront, we’re not as familiar with manga as we could be.  That said, (along with the rest of the world), we’ve really enjoyed Attack on Titana surprisingly complex series combining elements of horror and political thriller with a little bit of steampunk around the edges. It’s a little hard to discuss without a steady stream of spoilers. But it lives up to the hype.

$1.99 for the first volume of old school classic Ghost in the Shell strikes us as a good deal.

Although, in this case, it might be expensive. Most of the first volumes in the sale are $0.99.  So if you have a manga itch, it would behoove you to browse this one.

Attack on Titan   Ghost in the Shell

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Still On Sale