In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Dynamite kicks off the holiday sale season. Plus, The Black Hammer, Hedge Knight and unannounced sales.

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: This month’s Marvel sales are still active, but expiring on Monday. Something we found amusing. With Amazon starting it’s Black Friday promotions, you may see some of the Marvel and Kodansha comics marked as “Black Friday Deals.” They’ve been for a couple weeks and will be theoretically gone by the time the true Black Friday rolls around. How did Guns ‘n’ Roses put it… Use Your Illusion?

We are, however, happy to report that Dynamite has stepped up with what we consider the first Holiday Sale.

Starting the Holidays with a Bang

The Shadow  Flash Gordon  Green Hornet Year One

The Dynamite Year End Sale runs through  Wednesday, 12/31.

If this isn’t a line-wide sale, it’s awfully close, so let’s run through some of the interesting things that are less frequently on sale. We trust you can identity Red Sonja and Vampirella on your own after their recent sales.

The Shadow

Dynamite’s always had a feel for the pulp traditions that preceded comic books and they’ve got a bunch of interesting material featuring what was probably the pulp world’s most preeminent dark avenger of the night.

  • The Shadow (’12-’14) – Starts out with Garth Ennis / Aaron Campbell, then Victor Gischler tags in for Ennis,  then Chris Roberson / Giovanni Timpano finish it out
  • The Shadow: Year One – Matt Wagner / Wilfredo Torres; An origin tale
  • The Shadow: Midnight In Moscow – Howard Chaykin; Chaykin returns for a ’50s Cold War tale
  • The Shadow Now – David Liss / Colton Worley; The Shadow returns to NYC in 2015
  • The Shadow: The Death Of Margot Lane – Matt Wagner; Wagner goes deep into the pulps as writer/artist on this one
  • The Shadow: The Last Illusion – Cullen Bunn / Giovanni Timpano; This one might just be our favorite of the bunch. The Shadow crosses paths with the spirit of Harry Houdini as a secret society of illusionists seek to steal Houdini’s “Last Illusion” – an escape from death. We could have done with Bunn/Timpano getting a longer run

And then there’s some collections of pre-Dynamite Shadow material, which is all top notch:

  • The Shadow: Blood & Judgment – Howard Chaykin; Chaykin’s science fiction-tinged, mature reader revival of The Shadow for DC.
  • The Shadow Master Series – Andy Helfer / Bill Sienkiewicz / Kyle Baker / Marshall Rogers / Joe Orlando; Helfer followed up on the Chaykin series with a more subversive set of stories that grew increasingly absurdist with dark, dark humor. Conde Nast was said to have been repulsed by it, but we think it was straight up brilliant. Definitely not the traditional Shadow, but a real gem.
  • The Shadow 1941: Hitler’s Astrologer – Dennis O’Neil / Michael William Kaluta / Russ Heath; The team that originally brought The Shadow to comics at DC, returned in the late ’80s for Marvel Graphic Novel. O’Neil writing. Kaluta inked by Heath. The Shadow turning his .45s on a Nazi plot. What more do you really need to know?

Everything here is recommended.

Flash Gordon

Jeff Parker and Doc Shaner are an excellent pairing if you want a fun book. Flash Gordon Omnibus Vol. 1: The Man From Earth is their Flash Gordon run. Fun, action-forward Science Fantasy with a hearty endorsement.

The Spider

The Spider is a pulp contemporary of The Shadow. To be charitable, a rival publisher’s attempt to get a piece of The Shadow’s audience. To call it a more over-the-top Shadow would accurate as the originals tended to have more flamboyant villains and immense body counts. Novelist David Liss stepped in for a new spin on The Spider that we thought really captured the flavor and spirit of the original. “Terror of the Zombie Queen” is the opening act and that’s pure Spider. The art takes a hit when Colton Worley leaves, but the writing is strong throughout.

The Green Hornet

Technically a radio character that draws on the pulp hero tradition, you have some interesting options here:

  • Green Hornet: Year One – Matt Wagner / Aaron Campbell; This is a 1930s origin story
  • Green Hornet –Mark Waid / Daniel Indro / Ronilson Freire; A tale late in the original Hornet’s continuity as The Green Hornet starts to buy his own hype and it comes back to bite him. A particular favorite, although as we type this, Amazon is showing the wrong preview for V. 2, so keep an eye on that.
  • Green Hornet Omnibus Vol. 1 – Kevin Smith / Phil Hester / Jonathan Lau; Kevin Smith turned his Green Hornet screenplay – a modern affair with the Hornet as a legacy hero – into a comic w/ Lau and then Hester ran with format.

Project Superpowers

Project Superpowers is a little complicated to explain. This is Alex Ross show running a series that’s bringing back classic 40s characters like the original Daredevil, Black Terror, Green Lama and The Fighting Yank. At the time, this is what you read if you wanted a “classic Marvel” feel while Marvel was caught up in the extended “Dark Reign” storyline. Ross does covers, character design, art direction and co-plotting with Jim Krueger. There were a few different artists involved, including Doug Klauba, Stephen Sadowski, Carlos Paul and Edgar Salazar. There were also a few miniseries spinoffs that are collected in that omnibus set. Black Terror was the longest running, but we seem to recall having a jones for the Death Defyin’ Devil.

Quentin Tarrantino

Yes, Quentin Tarantino co-wrote a Django / Zorro crossover with Matt Wagner. It’s true.

Django/Zorro – Quentin Tarantino / Matt Wagner / Esteve Polls

Red Rising

Yes, Howlers, we see you. Pierce Brown’s Red Rising: Sons Of Ares is a 3 volume series by Mr. Brown / Rik Hoskin / Eli Powell / Kewber Baal

Garth Ennis

Mr. Ennis has a following and he’s done a wide range of work for Dynamite. Included in the sale:

Eduardo Risso

Borderline is a post-apocalyptic dystopian SF series Risso was doing with Carlos Trillo in Italy, prior to 100 Bullets. We liked it.

Plenty more to browse, including the usual suspects.

Unannounced Sales

Black Hammer Omnibus  The Hedge Knight  The Secret to Superhuman Strength

As always, we really don’t know how long these will last.

Dark Horse has the world of Black Hammer on sale this week, which probably needs a walk-through.

This would be — we think it’s OK to call it a superhero universe at this point — the indie superhero saga by Jeff Lemire, Dean Ormston and friends. There are a couple branches to how this saga unfurls.

The main Black Hammer series is here and that’s where you should start the journey. But, as with many long running titles, there are a few different editions to it and this is what we think the cheapest (if messy to sort) way to read the series is.

There are currently 9 volumes under the main series + a collection of specials + 2 volumes of “Visions” with guest creators playing in the Black Hammer standbox.

So what you want to do to cheap out is go to the omnibus page first.

The Omnibus and Library Editions are essentially the same thing with a different binding in print. If you stick with the Omnibus version, then you can pick up again with V.5 of the regular editions. Since there are three Library Editions, you’d pick up with V.8 of the regular editions.

Then you’ve got the World of Black Hammer collections, which are solo tales about the various heroes and villains like Barbalien and Sherlock Frankenstein. There are also Library Editions, but the pricing is a little higher per series in that format.

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