As Black Friday approaches, the Comixology sales continue to have that flavor.  DC favors graphic novels.  Marvel favors Luke Cage and… “Brute Force.” Valiant’s showcasing their early titles.

(Disclosure: If you buy something we link to on our site, we may earn commission.)

DC’s Graphic Novel Sale Marches On

Last time we looked at Part 1 of DC’s Black Friday runup sale for Graphic Novels, so this time we’ll have a look at some overlooked gems from “DC Road to Black Friday – Graphic Novels II.” (We do not know who comes up with these catchy names…)

While it’s not the best value in terms of price per pages, the ’07 version of Justice Society  has 3 volumes where Alex Ross joins Geoff Johns and Dale Eaglesham for “They Kingdom Come,” Ross’s follow up to Kingdom Come.  DC never really pushed it when it was coming out and not everyone knows it exists.

Legion of Super-Heroes: The Curse might be the best value of this batch.  It contains “The Great Darkness Saga” where Darkseid pops up to…. well, that would be telling. It also has the material on either side of that classic arc.  It’s the beginning of the Paul Levitz/Keith Giffen run and one of the very best Legion of Super-Heroes periods.  It’s also a fat 544 pages for $6.99.  Great stories and great bang for your buck.

Night Force by Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan has the Tomb of Dracula creative team reuniting at DC for a horror series about a mansion that’s a portal to different times and places with the mysterious Baron Winter inhabiting it like the spider controlling its web.  Marv told me it’s his favorite work and it really should be better known.  I’ve always enjoyed it and it always comes back for another round every decade or so.  This is the original run.

     

This runs through Monday (11/23) so there’s still a little time to browse.  If you don’t mind the elevated price and packing the Steve Gerber/Michael Golden/Russ Heath pairing on Mr. Miracle is pure gold that was entirely too short lived.

Marvel’s Offerings

Marvel leads with a Brute Force Sale. It’s animal-centric and… you need to see this one for yourself.

Then it’s on to the Luke Cage Sale. The traditionalist view would be the original Hero for Hire / Power Man series. For an alternate take, perhaps Cage! by animation legend Genny (Samurai Jack) Tartakovsky?

        

Both sales run through Sunday (11/22).

Valiant Origins

I might quibble that The Best of Valiant Sale doesn’t include any Britannia, but Valiant has some nice offerings.  To pick three?

Archer & Armstrong by Fred Van Lente with Clayton Henry and Pere Perez as the main artists is a hilarious romp with a cult escapee and a drunken immortal trying to foil a conspiracy by “The 1%.”  It’s great.

Bloodshot, particularly the first 3 volumes by Duane Swierczynski , Manuel Garcia and Barry Kitson, is a rare creature.  An action shoot ’em up with some genuinely interesting subtext.  Bloodshot isn’t completely sure who he is… or rather who he was.  His current existence is as a nano-tech enhanced supersoldier, but his employers are rewriting his memory.  So as he escapes from his less than equitable terms of employment, he also has to figure out who he is and who he was.  It’s an action epic that’s also about personal identity.

Harbinger by Joshua Dysart and Khari Evans is sort of the mutant title for the start of the Valiant universe.  Except they’re “psiots” at Valiant. It’s a psychologically dark tale of a particularly powerful psiot trying to stay out of the system and a group of psiot friends that assemble around him as the clash with the mysterious billionaire psiot who’d really like to have them in his charitable foundation / school / indoctrination center from which conspiracies spring forth.

    

And yes, the Bloodshot and Harbinger conspiracies are most definitely on a collision course.  Bottom line?  The first volumes are all $0.99 (cheap) and that’s hard to beat.

Still on Sale

Miles Morales: Spider-Man  through Sunday, 11/22

The Witcher through Monday, 11/23

Doctor Who through Monday, 11/23