The Comixology sales this week include Marvel slashing prices on Dan Slott’s lengthy run on Spider-Man, The Vision & the Scarlet Witch as their show drops, DC revisits Rebirth, Dark Horse has Neil Gaiman at a discount and Fantagraphics has their digital catalog on sale.
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Spidey Gets Slotted Ahead of WandaVision
Running through Sunday (1/17) is the Spider-Man by Dan Slott Sale. This is not the easiest sale to navigate because Marvel has relaunched Spidey several times and during the “Brand New Day” era, weren’t even sequentially numbering all the collected editions. Seriously, it’s a mess. The rule of thumb is it’s easier to read the omnibus editions, which tend to be slightly better deals anyway.
We’d tell you to start at the beginning with the Spider-Man: Brand New Day omnibuses. For context, this starts back when Marvel decided to publish Amazing Spider-Man three times each month and cancel the secondary titles, so you’ve got a rotating cast of creators including Slott, Mark Waid, Joe Kelly and Zeb Wells (among others) as writers and the likes of John Romita, Jr., Barry Kitson, Phil Jimenez, and Marcos Martin (among a wide cast) as artists. It’s a fun era and Slott eventually ends up helming Spidey. It also ends with a certain Doctor Octopus storyline that sets up what might be Slott’s pinnacle: Superior Spider-Man. That’s the run where Doc Ock takes over Peter’s body. It sure sounded strange when first announced, but Slott made it work very well.
If those two runs didn’t keep you busy, they’re followed by The Amazing Spider-Man by Dan Slott and Spider-Man: Worldwide. Yes, Slott wrote a lot of Spidey AND Marvel can’t help themselves when it comes to relaunches. Those last two series are really separate because the monthly relaunched.
Probably because there’s a TV show debuting, Marvel also has a Vision & The Scarlet Witch Sale running through Thursday (1/21).
If you want the actual couple, the Steve Englehart/Richard Howell Vision & The Scarlet Witch: A Year in the Life, which sets up a lot of mythology, include the birth of their children.
If you’d like to see where the suburban setting reared it’s head, there’s the superb Tom King/Gabriel Walta Vision series, which is paced a lot like a horror tale as The Vision experiments with having a wife and children. (What could go wrong? Plenty.)
DC Gets Born Again (and again)
DC has their Rebirth Sale running through Monday (1/18), which is to say a big chunk of the titles from the previous relaunch.
We’re firm in the pick of the litter being Deathstroke. (You’ll also need The Lazarus Contract, which crossed over with Titans.) At first glance, that’s an unlikely pick, but Priest and a rotating cast of artists including Carlo Pagulayan, Denys Cowan, Joe Bennett and Larry Hama. Yes, it’s a comic about an assassin, but Deathstroke has intricate plotting, emotional depth and one of the best treatments of Damian Wayne.
After that, we’d direct you to Greg Rucka’s return to Wonder Woman conveniently collected as Volume 1 and Volume 2. With Liam Sharp, Nicola Scott and Bilquis Evely sharing art duties, this is where Rucka resets Wonder Woman after the New 52 era and has Wonder Woman and The Cheetah searching for the truth behind what’s happened to Paradise Island and Diana’s past.
Dark Horse Gets The Bends
The Dark Horse Mind Benders Sale runs through Monday (1/18) and is dominated by two titles.
American Gods is the Neil Gaiman/P. Craig Russell/Scott Hampton adaption of the the novel of the same name. Yes, that IS an interesting creative cast and yes, we’ve been to the House on the Rock — it’s real.
Mind MGMT is Matt Kindt’s psychic espionage tale that got quite a bit of critical acclaim back in ’12-’15. The omnibuses are the best deal for Mind MGMT.
The Fantagraphics Linewide Sale runs through Thursday (1/28). Fantagraphics doesn’t do sales quite this wide vary often, so it’s well worth giving this an extended browse. There’s everything from EC to imports to classic comic strips. Here are a few highlights:
Remember Harold & The Purple Crayon? Before switching to children’s books, Crockett Johnson wrote Barnaby, a delightful strip about a boy, his talking dog and his fairy godfather. Even Dorothy Parker was a big fan.
You could make a case for calling Love & Rockets by Gilbert and Jaime Hernendez the flagship title of Fantagraphics and few comics have been been as critically acclaimed over the years.
And if you really want to go classic, there’s the Carl Barks Library. Barks set the gold standard for Disney ducks (and arguably for all Disney comics) with his Donald Duck work and especially Uncle Scrooge McDuck.