Tag: Amazon

Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: X-Factor, The Hulk vs. The Thing, and Mickey Mouse

Recent additions to the Comixology (at Amazon) sales include – the many incarnations of X-Factor, the ongoing slugfest between The Hulk and The Thing and Disney’s Mickey Mouse across the years… and continents.

Since the dates the sales are getting announced have been shuffled, we’re playing this week a little differently and will be back Friday to talk about the new DC sale and what else pops up during the week.

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):

Mutations

The Marvel X-Factor Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 6/13.

This one can basically be defined as the actual “X-Factor” titles and various crossovers, Events and guest appearances.  Let’s focus on the X-Factor titles.

  • X-Factor ’86-’98 – The first run, and a long one in the days before constant relaunches. The two things highlighted by the collections are Louise & Walt Simonson run and Peter David’s first run with Joe Quesada and Larry Stroman.
  • X-Factor ’05-’13 – commonly referred to as the Peter David era, and yes, he’s written a ton of X-Factor. This is where Madrox the Multiple Man steps in with the detective agency motif.   (You can save a couple bucks on the early volumes with the X-Factor by Peter David: The Complete Collection omnibuses)
  • All-New X-Factor ’14-’15 – I’m sure you’ll be shocked to know X-Factor was relaunched in Marvel’s “All-New” era. Still Peter David.
  • X-Factor ’20-’21 – The House of X / Powers of X era run by Leah Williams and David Baldeon

And then all manner of X-Men family Event/Crossover collections.

Recommendations? It depends on what you’re looking for.  The first two Epic Collections of the original run are more of the traditional X-Men school (and since it’s reuniting the original team, it should be). When Peter David pops up later in that run, things get quirky in a hurry.  It’s not like David is exclusively a humorist, but there’s a lot more humor in his work. His second run is a completely different creature than the how X-Factor began.

X-Factor   X-Factor by Peter David

The Classic Marvel Punch-Up

The Marvel Hulk Vs. Thing Sale runs through Thursday, 6/9.

Oh, yes… this is a reoccurring confrontation that goes back to the EARLY days of Marvel: Ben Grimm facing off with the Hulk. More often than not, this would happen in the pages of Fantastic Four and the various writers would go back to it every so often.

What you’re looking at here depends on whether you’re more of a Hulk person or FF person. After all that first Hulk Epic Collection is duplicating content from the FF Epic Collection and we personally find FF to be the stronger feature at the time.  And actually, that’s probably what we’d recommend here if you were only picking one – Fantastic Four Epic Collection Book 2, which also gives you some early Doctor Doom, Namor and X-Men, in addition The Hulk.

Fantastic Four

House of Mouse

The Fantagraphics Disney Masters and Mickey Mouse Sale runs through Wednesday, 6/22.

This is really two sales under one umbrella:

First, it’s a sale on the Floyd Gottfredson Mickey Mouse comic strip. While perhaps not as heralded as Dick Tracy or Terry and the Pirates, Gottfredson’s Mickey Mouse was an influential adventure strip and he stayed on it for decades.

Second, it’s a sale on the “Disney Master’s” line, which probably needs a word of explanation. It’s not clear that ALL of these titles are from the international markets, but certainly a number of them are Disney comics produced for the European markets (where Disney is very popular) and are making a US market debut.

Mickey Mouse   Mickey Mouse

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Shang Chi, Ms. Marvel, Captain Marvel, Superman, Green Lantern and Elfquest

This week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales include Marvel’s transmedia heroes: Shang Chi and Ms. Marvel (Kamala Khan), plus the original Kree Captain Marvel. DC highlights include Superman, Green Lantern and Jimmy Olsen, while Dark Horse discounts Elfquest.

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):

(Former) Master of Kung Fu

The Marvel Shang Chi Sale runs through Monday, 6/6.

Shang Chi has a… complicated story at Marvel that involves a lot of “inside Baseball” maneuvering behind the scenes.  There are basically three periods to the character:

Period #1 is what we’ll call the “classic” period, for lack of a better term. Master of Kung Fu started out as a licensing deal for the old Fu Manchu novels.  In original run, Shang is the son of Fu Manchu, who’s rejected his ways and is working with an elderly Sir Dennis Nayland Smith (protagonist of the novels) and British Intelligence against Fu Manchu’s schemes. When Doug Moench settled in as writer, especially with Paul Gulacy, Mike Zeck and/or Gene Day on art duties, it settled into a sort of pulpy espionage comic with touches of fantasy around the edges.  It’s also widely considered one of Marvel’s best works of the ’70s.  The series technically lasted past Doug Moench leaving for DC, but only by a couple issues.  Moench would eventually return for a Marvel Comics Presents serial (alongside a revival of another 70s cult star, Man-Thing) and a special.

There are two Epic Collections of this run, though the second is probably more representative of the series.

Eventually, Marvel decided to revive the character a little more actively, but in the 00’s, they no longer had the Fu Manchu license, so they updated Shang’s costume to more of a track suit (*cough* Bruce Lee *cough*) and just didn’t talk about his father and/or tried to switch his father to The Yellow Claw, a 50s Marvel Fu Manchu knock-off that appeared every once in a while. In this period, Shang was usually popping up in team books, like Secret Avengers.

Then, a bit more recently (and likely influenced by Marvel Studios), Marvel decided maybe it wasn’t such a good thing to have one of their most prominent Asian characters rooted in the most famous Yellow Peril franchise.  So they pulled in heavy hitter Gene Lueng Yang, Dike Ruan and Phillip Tan to relaunch Shang Chi as more of a fantasy adventure hero. An ongoing series followed shortly thereafter.  It’s a pretty big shift between eras. If you’re familiar with the character from the films, this is the version you’re looking for.

Master of Kung Fu   Secret Avengers   Shang-Chi

You Look Marvelous

The Marvel Ms. Marvel Sale runs through Monday 6/20.

This would be Ms. Marvel as in Kamala Khan, not the current Captain Marvel, Carol Danvers. Hmm… it’s like there was a TV show coming out or something?  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
  • 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.
  • 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
  • Ms. Marvel: Beyond the Limit – The most recent mini-series (only single issues are on sale) by Samira Ahmed and Andrés Genolet.

There’s a selection of Champions, where Ms. Marvel was a member, also on sale.

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.

Ms. Marvel

Speaking of Marvelous…

The Marvel Captain Mar-Vell Sale runs through Monday, 6/6.

Yes, things have gotten complex enough that Marvel is calling him by his Kree name of Mar-Vell. This would be Marvel’s original Captain Marvel, who’s title Carol Danvers took up in recent years… yet, only one of the two series comprising the bulk of the sale is of the original Marvel.

What we’re looking at:

  • Captain Marvel ’68-’79 – This being the original run most people think of.
  • Captain Marvel ’02-’04 – This being the adventure of the orginal Mar-Vell’s son, Genesis. Written by Peter David with seemingly a different artist for each arc.

Recommendations? If you’re not looking to get the full run of Masterworks for the original run, we’d point you towards two volumes:

  1. Captain Marvel by Jim Starlin: The Complete Collection – Get this in place of Masterworks V. 3. It also contains the Death of Captain Marvel graphic novel and some other material for a slightly high page count.  This is the first Thanos storyline and Starlin’s Captain Marvel is the character’s high point.
  2. Captain Marvel Masterworks V. 4 – This volume is largely forgotten, but a friend made this magically appear in our Comixology account a couple years back and we enjoyed it. Steve Englehart and Al Milgrim pick up where Starlin leaves off and run with it for a bit. The Supreme Intelligence schemes and Ronan accuses. Not quite to the legendary level of Starlin, but these two volumes are effectively the “Best of.”

Captain Marvel by Jim Starlin   Captain Marvel

Crisis On the Road To Utopia

The DC Road To Dark Crisis eBook Sale runs through Monday, 6/13.

These “Road To” titles always make us think the marketing departments are Bob Hope/Bing Crosby fans…

So, while this is supposed to be a Dark Crisis lead-in sale, the 1000-ish comics in it suggest that might be hyperbole.  Or perhaps DC will prove us wrong and the Meg (Princess Diaries) Cabot / Cara McGee Black Canary: Ignite YA OGN is really leading into Dark Crisis?

There’s obvious a LOT on sale, so it’s worth a browse.  Recommendations? Sure.

Superman: Man of Tomorrow, Vol. 1: Hero of Metropolis is a bona fide hidden gem. Completely under most radars as a digital first comic, this is a string of connected “classic” Superman tales as a conspiracy unfolds in the background… with the Parasite, Metallo and a giant ape in the mix. It also has a strong sense of humor with a subplot about how hard it is to stash your clothes when changing into costume. Robert Venditti writes it, Paul Pelletier is the primary artist.  Probably our favorite Superman in at least a couple years. (Plus, $5.99 is one of the lower price points, here.)

While a little more expensive at $8.99 (but at least you’re getting 12 issues, here), Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen: Who Killed Jimmy Olsen by Matt Fraction and Steve Leiber is an instant classic. This is a surprisingly densely plotted screwball adventure that simultaneously calls back to the over-the-top silliness of the Silver Age. As Jimmy Olsen tries to stay alive long enough to solve his own murder, we witness: a drunken marriage in Gorilla City, an ancestral feud between the Luthors and the Olsens, podcast pranks and… look, OF COURSE there’s a giant turtle. A masterpiece.

The first two volumes/season are priced a little lower, but the entirety of the Grant Morrison/Liam Sharp Green Lantern run is now on sale.  Morrison explores a lot of tropes in what starts out as exploring the “space cop” aspect of GL. Sharp varies the art with the themes for a different experience than you typically get with a mainline DC character, too.  This is essentially one extended story told across two “seasons.”

Season One
Season Two (Note: the 80th Anniversary book is NOT part of the story, despite how it’s displayed.)

Superman: Man of Tomorrow   Jimmy Olsen   Green Lantern

Wolf Riders

The Dark Horse Elfquest Sale runs through Monday, 6/13.

This is the classic and pioneering fantasy tale of Elves fleeing when the humans burn down their forest by Wendy and Richard Pini.

The saga, except for the current installment, is collected in very thick omnibus volumes as The Complete Elfquest and 500-600 pages for $5.99 is a good deal!

The current installment is Elfquest: Stargazer’s Hunt, of which the second book isn’t out, but the first is on sale.

Elfquest   Elfquest: Stargazer's Hunt

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Captain America, Star Wars, Ultimate Spider-Man (and Miles Morales), Suicide Squad and Road to Perdition

This week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales include the majority of Captain America comics, a whole bunch of Star Wars material, Ultimate Spider-Man (and Miles Morales) and the rest of DC’s Memorial Day Sale.

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):

Super Soldier Serum

The Marvel Captain America Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 5/30.

There’s a lot of material to cover here, so we’ll go with the usual format and start by breaking out the major series involved

  • Captain America Comics ’40-’50 – The original Golden Age series
  • Tales of Suspense ’59-’68 – Cap’s Silver Age solo stories were in a title shared with Iron Man
  • Captain America ’68-’96 – The original Silver/Bronze Age solo series.
  • Captain America ’98-’02 – The second Mark Waid / Ron Garney run with some Andy Kubert and Lee Weeks art, too. Smaller volumes here, plus the underrated Dan Jurgens run that followed.
  • Captain America ’02-’04 – The Marvel Knights era
  • Captain America ’04-’11 – The main Winter Soldier/Death of Captain America Ed Brubaker run with Steve Epting, Michael Lark, Mike Perkins and Butch Guice in the artistic rotation. Note: you can pick up chunks of it cheaper in these omnibuses
  • Captain America: Reborn – The actual end to the “Death of Captain America” sequence by Ed Brubaker, Bryan Hitch and Butch Guice
  • Captain America ’11-’12 – Brubaker sticks around for a relaunch, post-Death/Reborn
  • Captain America ’12-’14 is the Rick Remender run with John Romita, Jr, Carlos Pacheco, Pascal Alixe and Nic Klein in the artistic rotation.
  • All-New Captain America ’14-’15 – Sam Wilson picks up the shield by Rick Remender and Stuart Immonen
  • Captain America: Sam Wilson ’15-17 – Nick Spencer with Daniel Acuna as the primary artist. The seeds of “Secret Empire,” which was a long game, start here.Note: There’s a Complete Collection omnibus set of the Sam Wilson material that’s a bit cheaper.
  • Captain America: Steve Rogers ’16-’17 – The main runup to Secret Empire by Nick Spencer with Jesus Saiz and Javier Pina as the primary artists.
  • While not on sale, you can’t talk about the Spencer era without mentioning Secret Empire, the controversial “Hydra Cap” arc that Spencer’s entire run builds towards.
  • Captain America ’17-’18 – AKA Captain America by Mark Waid and Chris Samnee (and Leonardo Romero)
  • Captain America ‘18-’21 – The Ta-Nehisi Coates run with art by Leinil Francis Yu, Adam Kubert, Jason Masters and Leonard Kirk

So… do you think Captain America gets relaunched enough? Don’t worry, they’ll relaunch him again.

First the usual general advice: The Masterworks and Epic Collections tend to be the best buys, but keep an eye on price points. Some of the newer Epic Collections can be $8.99+ and make the Masterworks more appealing.

Some recommendations? Absolutely.  Just the way the collections are currently rolled out, the highlights seem to flow more with the Masterworks than the Epics.

For Silver/Bronze Age adventures,  Captain America Masterworks V. 3 gets you some late Stan Lee/Jack Kirby and the influential Jim Steranko Sequence.  You then jump forward to Masterworks V. 7 for the beginning of the Steve Englehart/Sal Buscema era and stay on through Masterworks V.10, which is the return of Jack Kirby and his entirely too timely “Madbomb” arc. (There’s more Kirby in V.11, but Madbomb is a hard act to follow.) There’s also much to recommend with the Mark Gruenwald era which probably peaked with “The Captain” Epic Collection. In general, earlier Gruenwald is better and the art takes a nose dive before his run is over.

Aside from that, your best of the best is anything written by Mark Waid or Ed Brubaker, and know that Brubaker, first run is basically one long and epic story – and be sure to get Reborn or you’re missing a piece.

Captain America   Captain America   Captain America

Nothing But Star Wars

The Marvel Star Wars Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 5/30.

While not the rock bottom prices of the May the 4th sale, this one does have a wider selection of Star Wars material that isn’t limited to the current Marvel titles.  Some titles that may be of interest:

You get a little more material per volume (and they finished the run) getting the original Marvel Star Wars series with the “A Long Time Ago…” omnibus editions.

A lot of the Epic Collections of the older material have been lumped together under an Epic Collections page, to make finding individual series hard, so refer to that link for the bigger picture, but within that link:

  • Dark Empire – Tom Veitch and Cam Kennedy played a BIG part in bringing the Star Wars franchise back to life with their Dark Horse mini-series and it’s sequel. This is the most economical package for the Dark Empire-related titles. It’s a classic.
  • Agent of Empire – John Ostander, Stéphane Roux and Davidé Fabbri did a couple mini-series that effectively answered the question, “what if James Bond worked for The Empire?” Those are the backbone of this collection.
  • Legacy – Far in the Star Wars timeline’s future, the Sith have returned and are stalking the last Skywalker heir. There are three volumes of this fun John Ostrander / Jan Duursema series that might not be cannon anymore, but is better than a lot of things that came after it.

Original Marvel Star Wars   Dark Empire   Agent of Empire

This Time, the Other Peter Isn’t a Clone

The Marvel Ultimate Spider-Man Sale runs through Monday, 5/30.

A Bendis Sale! And Ultimate Spidey might just the the crowning achievement for Brian Bendis in the world of superheroes. (We might like his Daredevil a little more, but Ultimate Spidey and then Miles have had so much impact.)

So let’s break this one down into parts.

  1. The original Ultimate Spider-Man with Mark Bagley, reimaging Peter for a new era. You get a better deal with these larger collections and ignore the omnibus that starts the list.
  2. Ultimate Comics Spider-Man, the relaunch with David Lafuente.
  3. Ultimate Comics Spider-Man, the Miles Morales version with art by Sara Pichelli, Chris Samnee, David Marquez and Pepe Larraz

Ultimate Spider-Man   Ultimate Comics Spider-Man   Ultimate Comics Spider-Man (Miles Morales)

The Other Memorial Day Sale

The DC Memorial Day eBook Sale Part 2 runs through Monday, 5/30.

It would appear that last week’s confusion was caused by Amazon prematurely post this week’s sale last week, then removing it in the US while leaving it online in the UK.  Stranger and stranger.

But this is essentially the back half of the alphabet on sale and worth a browse. Some highlights?

The rock bottom price pick: Dead Boy Detectives for $3.99. Something of a departure for Vertigo as we generally remember it (although there was a similar “Death” volume and My Faith In Frankie wasn’t necessarily far removed), the multi-award-winning Jill Thompson takes the ghost detective children from Sandman and plops them into a manga-style detective comedy.  Yes, Jill is versatile.

From the “Yes, DC published that” division, do you remember Road to Perdition? Yes, before Tom Hanks was a mob enforcer, this was a comic. As usual, these are cataloged strangely.  Listed under “Return to Perdition,” are the original Road to Perdition  and Road to Perdition: On the Road. Both are written by Max Allan Collins with Richard Piers Rayner illustrating Road to Perdition and Jose Luis Garcia Lopez, Steve Leiber and Joseph Rubenstein sharing duties for On the Road. The actual Return to Perdition, a sequel set in the 1970s by Collins and his Ms. Tree partner, Terry Beatty is list separately (for $3.99). Go figure…

For the uninitiated, Road to Perdition can be likened to Lone Wolf and Cub setting against the backdrop of the Capone era Chicago mob. A mob enforcer goes on the lam with his son after the boss of the local mob outpost orders a hit on his family.  Excellent material that’s largely ignored these days.

And if you’d like some supervillains in your life, the John Ostrander/Luke McDonnell Suicide Squad run is available for $5.99 a pop. This is the run that spun off the films.

Dead Boy Detectives   Road to Perdition   Suicide Squad

 

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: DC Classics w/ New Teen Titans, What If?, Cullen Bunn and Tyler Crook, Peanuts

This week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales include DC “Classics,” which includes the Marv Wolfman/George Perez New Teen Titans run, so we’ll have to agree with the sale’s title. Marvel offers up What If? Fantagraphics discounts Peanuts and Dark Horse celebrates Cullen Bunn & Tyler Crook.  We would also remind you that there’s a very cheap Star Wars sale and a Doctor Strange sale that aren’t quite finished yet.

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 “Classical” Education

The DC Classics Sale runs through Monday, 5/16

This one is a DEEP dive into the DC backlist. And since the sale prices seem to have normalized, we’re happy to be able to point you to a few title that now have each volume on sale, which wasn’t happening in the last couple months.

Point in case: New Teen Titans by Marv Wolfman and George Perez now has the first 10 volumes (coincidentally, the Perez years) for $4.99 each. Previously several volumes would be at those bizarre prices that appeared to be in error. Well, no more of that.  New Teen Titans was effectively DC’s answer to X-Men in the early 80s (along with the Levitz/Giffen-era LSH, whose reprinting is more convoluted). It’s supposed to be a “classics” sale and this one is more classic than most.

Fast forward a few years and you get the “Man of Steel” era of Superman. Some people call it the John Byrne era, but this time frame also brings Marv Wolfman and Jerry Ordway into the fold. $4.99 – $5.99 per volume is also good pricing.

New Teen Titans   Superman: The Man of Steel

In general, the “Silver Age” collections tend to be a slightly larger page count and good bang for your buck.  However, you also might find yourself thinking that DC’s collected editions can be a little spotty and, gosh darn it, sometimes you’d just like to get some $0.99 single issues to fill in those series.  You’re in luck, there are a LOT of $0.99 single issues here, although it’s a royal pain to browse in Amazon sub-par user interface.  Here’s a cheat sheet for some of the single issues on sale:

If Not, Why Not?

The Marvel What If Sale runs through Monday, 5/16.

The interesting thing about What If is how often the modern age of Marvel has gone back to pilfer from it.  What If is where Jane Foster first took up the hammer of Thor. The first place Conan stalked the streets of the present. The first time the Hulk became a barbarian. Apparently, “there’s gold in them there hills!”  The larger collections are slightly more bang for your buck, BTW.

What If

The Fantagraphics Peanuts Sale runs through Monday, 5/16.

Yes, the classic Charles Schultz comic strip with Charlie Brown and Snoopy. Fantagraphics is reprinting it from the beginning. Strangely, there’s no series link on Amazon for this.

The Complete Peanuts

Tag Team?

The Dark Horse Bunn & Crook Sale runs through Monday, 5/23.

That would be Cullen Bunn & Tyler Crook, who’ve done quite a bit at Dark Horse over the years.  Their best known collaboration is probably Harrow County  (the omnibus editions are BY FAR the best buy).

If you’d like something a bit more recent, Parasomnia by Bunn and Andrea Mutti was a February release.  The Unbelievable Teens (part of the Black Hammer universe) by Jeff Lemire and Crook was released on 4/5… and this is as quickly as we’ve seen a collection go on sale!

Harrow County Omnibus 1   Parasomnia   Unbelievable Teens

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Doctor Strange, Justice League, Scarlet Witch, Constantine and Jeff Lemire

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales – Doctor Strange has pretty much his entire run on sale and the Scarlet Witch joins him with a sister sale of sorts. DC celebrates the death of the Justice League with (correct) discounts and Image celebrates the work of Jeff Lemire.

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

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):

Bibbidy Bobbidy Boo

The  Marvel Doctor Strange Sale runs through Sunday, 5/16.

And it’s most of the Doctor Strange material that’s been collected in book form. You’d almost think there was a movie out or something.

So first, as is our custom, we’ll walk you through the various series over the years… this is a little more complicated because the early Epic/Masterwork volumes aren’t on the same page. (We’ll let you you pick out the mini’s yourself, since those aren’t as convoluted.)

  • Strange Tales – This is a cluttered series page, but its the original Lee/Ditko run, so let’s break it down to Masterworks 1 and Masterworks 2 or Epic Edition 1
  • Doctor Strange ’68-’69 – the Masterworks listings are here and include the early Marvel Premiere run. The ’68 run is perhaps most notable for some amazing Gene Colan art, but the scripts don’t always live up to the art.
  • Doctor Strange ’74-’87 – The Masterworks here catch the end of the Marvel Premiere run and the Epics pick up with the back half of ’68 run. (Yes, it’s a confusing way to look at things.)
  • Strange Tales ’87-’88 – The Peter B. Gillis / Chris Warner era was back in Strange Tales in between the two “regular” Doctor Strange titles.
  • Doctor Strange ’88-’96 – Probably best known for the Roy & Dann Thomas run with Butch Guice and Geoff Isherwood as notable artists.
  • Doctor Strange ’15-’18 – Initially Jason Aaron/Chris Bachalo with Donny Cates tagging in towards the end. (The omnibuses here are the better buy)
  • Doctor Strange ’18-’19 – The Mark Waid / Jesus Saiz / Barry Kitson era with Strange in space.
  • Doctor Strange, Surgeon Supreme (’19) – the very much under-rated and too short Mark Waid / Kev Walker run. Walker knocks it out of the park here.
  • Death of Doctor Strange – Jed MacKay and Lee Garbett kill off Stephen Strange. For real. (OK, so far for real.) A clever series that delivers its titular promise in unexpected ways.
  • Strange (’22-?) – get the first couple issues of the new Sorcerer Supreme for $0.99

What’s good?  This is where we get into Masterworks vs. Epics… because the Masterworks are a LOT more complete right now, particularly through the 70s.  The original Lee/Ditko run is great and you can get that in the first Epic Collection. Things pick up again when Englehart and Brunner show up towards the end of the Marvel Premiere run and the whole ’74-’87 run is solid, though we have a particular soft spot for the Roger Stern / Marshall Rogers / Paul Smith material towards the end.  Yes, Doctor Strange had A list creators most of the time.  That’s your core.

Something under the radar?  The (as you’d expect with these creators) excellent Doctor Strange: The Oath by Brian K, Vaughan and Marcos Martin. The final Waid/Walker run is also a lot more under the radar than it should be.

Doctor Strange - The Oath    Doctor Strange in Strange Tales   Doctor Strange

Mutant Sorcery

The Marvel Scarlet Witch Sale runs through Sunday, 5/9.

The value buy here is Vision & The Scarlet Witch: The Saga of Wanda and Vision. It’s a sort of faux-Epic Edition, clocking in at 467 pages and including the wedding of Wanda and Vision from Giant-Size Avengers #4, the ’82 Bill Mantlo/Rick Leonardi mini-series and the ’85 Steve Englehart/Richard Howell 12-parter.

There’s a lot of West Coast Avengers in this sale, largely for Wanda’s heel-turn in the John Byrne Vision Quest/Darker than Scarlet era — the Epic Collections are the better buys here.

House of M by Brian Bendis and Olivier Coipel might be a little over-hyped at this point, but it’s the tent-pole “Wanda rewrites reality” story that’s central to the TV adaptation.

Vision and the Scarlet Witch   Avengers West Coast   House of M

Dead Again

The DC Justice League R.I.P. Sale runs through Monday, 5/16.

We’re actually not seeing the goofy $9.32 type prices on this sale that we’ve been seeing on other DC sales for the last couple months. Could the bug be fixed? That’s probably too much to ask for, but we’ll see what happens next week. In the meantime, some of these prices are a little higher than we’d like to see on a sale (part of that being the absurd practice of putting a hard cover list price on eBooks), but they seem like the intended sale prices for a change.

Anyway, this is DC’s celebrating killing off the Justice League as a lead-in to their next crossover event.  Let’s break down some of the major series here:

  • Justice League of America ’60-’87 – The original
  • Justice League of America ’87-’96 – This is, at least initially, the Justice League International / Justice League Europe run with Keith Giffen/J.M. DeMatteis / Kevin Maguire.  BWA HA HA HA HA HA
  • JLA ’97-’06 – Best known for launching with the the Grant Morrison / Howard Porter run
  • Justice League of America ’06-11 – Initially launched as Brad Meltzer / Ed Benes and eventually got Dwayne McDuffie (who was undercut by editorial)
  • Justice League ’11-’16 – The New 52 Geoff Johns era, initially with Jim Lee art.
  • Justice League ’16 – ’18 – The Bryan Hitch (as writer) era with rotating artists
  • Justice League ’18-22 – It’s probably easiest to call the most recent incarnation the Scott Snyder era, as he launched the volume. So many rotating artists here.

That the timeline of the main series.  There are plenty of mini’s and spin-off series in there for your browsing.  If you’d like some $0.99 single issues (you are heard), if you sort by lowest price, you’ll see them quickly. Yes, even JLA: Classified.

Best bets?  For pure bang for your buck, head to the original Justice League of America run and pick up the first two “Silver Age” collections. ~300 pages for $4.99.

The Morrison/Porter JLA  run isn’t nearly the price per page value, but there’s a reason everyone comes back to it. The Waid/Hitch bits aren’t bad, either.

Under the radar?  The Christopher Priest / Pete Woods arc from ~3 years back. It’s just good comics without silly crossovers.

Justice League of America   JLA   Justice League by Priest

Unadvertised Sale

We have an overlooked gem for you this week.  John Constantine, Hellblazer by Si Spurrier, Aaron Campbell and Matias Bergara. It’s not clear to us if these are random discounts or it’s just the wacky “Epic” sale discounts getting fixed on this one.  Either way, this is one of the best comics we’ve read in the last year.

This is a really an extended 12-issues arc, so you’re going to want both volumes. It starts at the end of the world and follows Constantine through a series of gangland skirmishes as he tries to perceive who or what is the strangely familiar entity pulling the strings. Sometimes straight horror, sometimes comedy (Constantine vs. the sensitive new age magician is priceless), this is quite possibly the best work of all the creators involved.

John Constantine, Hellblazer

Jeff Who?

The Image Jeff Lemire Sale runs through Monday, 5/16.

Yes, we’ll go ahead and say it: we think Jeff Lemire is at his best when he’s working on his own projects and Image has a few of them on sale. Of possible note and interest:

Gideon Falls with Andrea Sorrentino – A sort of horror/science fiction mashup that starts out rural and claustrophobic and then unfurls across a fairly epic canvas and multiple landscapes… while still managing to have that feeling of claustrophobic terror being ready to swallow up the heroes at any moment.  Rock solid dark adventure.

Descender with Dustin Nguyen is a science fiction epic about a little boy who happens to be a robot who’s looking for his family and falls into the middle of a robot rebellion. A beautiful book.

Ascender is the sequel as Lemire and Nguyen pivot for a space adventure with magic and vampires… and at least one killer robot. 😉

Gideon Falls   Descender   Ascender

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Hulk, Nightwing, Robin, Groot and Usagi Yojimbo

This week in Comixology (at Amazon) sales, the Hulk is on sale. As in, most of the Hulk comics. Groot gets a small sale, Nightwing and Robin get a larger sale and Usagi Yojimbo goes on sale ahead of next week’s Netflix debut.

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

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):

Hulk Smash Prices

The Incredible Hulk Legacy Sale runs through Thursday, 4/28.

Oh, yes. There is a LOT of Hulk on sale.  Most of it, really.  So we’re going to start out by doing what we do (and what Amazon can’t be bothered to do) and break it down by series.

  • Incredible Hulk (1962 – 1999) The original run and then the long running series that picked up a few years later.
  • Tales to Astonish (1964-68) In between the two Hulk solo runs above, Hulk was splitting Tales to Astonish with Ant-Man/Giant Man and then Namor. A lot of the foundational work was really in this run, with Stan Lee/Steve Ditko responsible for a lot of it.
  • Incredible Hulk (1999-2007) – Best known for the Bruce Jones / Lee Weeks/ Mike Deodato run towards the beginning and the Greg Pak / multi-artist “Planet Hulk” and “World War Hulk” epics at the end… though World War Hulk is at this different link.
  • Hulk (2008-13) This is the Red Hulk run (and the title changes to that after awhile). It starts out with the better known Jeph Loeb/Ed Mc Guiness run and then Jeff Parker takes over with Gabriel Hardman, Dave Eaglesham and Patrick Zircher in the artist rotation.
  • Incredible Hulk by Jason Aaron (2011-12) – Lots of artists rotating through here, Marc Silvestri, Steve Dillon and Carlos Pacheco among them
  • Indestructible Hulk (2012 – 14) – Mark Waid’s the writer with an artist rotation including Leinil Francis Yu, Matteo Scalera and Walt Simonson draws the Thor team-up.
  • Hulk by Waid and Duggan (2014-15) – That would be Mark Waid and Gerry Duggan with Duggan doing the bulk of the run. Mark Bagley is the main artist here.
  • The Totally Awesome Hulk (2015-17) – This would be Amadeus Cho’s turn as Hulk, which mean Greg Pak is you primary writer with an artist rotation including Frank Cho, Alan Davis and Luke Ross
  • Immortal Hulk (2018-21) – Al Ewing’s masterpiece as the Hulk slides over towards horror and find a green door that leads to Hell.

What’s good? We like the value of the Epic Collections in the original series (and Tales to Astonish) for $6.99.  The Masterworks editions for $5.99 aren’t bad either, so pick your period and format.

As for “the best of” Hulk…

We think this Epic Collection of the Tales to Astonish run is a good introduction to the Hulk. A rock solid creator rotation of Lee/Kirby/Ditko/Kane/Everett/Buscema/Severin. The introductions of The Leader and the Abomination (among others). Cold war paranoia and you get to the the original evolution of the Hulk as a character that changes formats and approaches every so often.

Immortal Hulk is a high water mark and well worth your time, though not really what you’d call a traditional Hulk tale.  Peter David’s lengthy run is a classic (and we’re not going to divide it up by artist periods – it’s all good). Greg Pak has gone big like few others.

Something under the radar?  There’s a Paul Jenkins/Ron Garney/John Romita Junior run that preceded the better known Bruce Jones era. It’s collected with some other things, but the two volumes are The Dogs of War and Past Perfect. It goes darker than a lot of the Hulk tales, but we sure liked it.

Hulk Epic Collection   Hulk Dogs of War   Hulk - Past Perfect

I Am… Rocket?

The Marvel Groot sale runs through Thursday, 4/28.

This is a fairly small sale. The real question here is one of direction. You can head for the Dan Abnett/Andy Lanning/Paul Pelletier/Brad Walker Guardians of the Galaxy run or in the Skottie Young direction with Rocket Raccoon and Groot.

Guardians of the Galaxy

Batman Family

The DC Spotlight: Nightwing & Robin Sale runs through Monday, 4/25.

The now standard warning on DC digital sales at Amazon – the pricing gets screwed up on these sales. A lot of prices initially get set at strange amounts like $9.32 and $13.98. Sometimes the prices get adjusted down to something more palatable like $5.99 or $7.99… but not always.  We don’t know if this is a problem on the Amazon side or the DC side, but it’s a problem. If the price ends in $*.99 (like $5.99), that’s probably the real sale price and you can proceed.  If not… the price might drop.  Yeah, it’s goofy in a bad way.  That said, what’s on sale?

The Grant Morrison era Batman & Robin for $5.99 per volume is not a bad deal. It’s a revolving door at artist, but when the revolving door is folks like Frank Quitely and Frazier Irving, one doesn’t mind as much…

Here’s another good deal, clocking in at around 300 pages for $5.99 – Robin: Reborn. This one starts out with the Alan Grant / Norm Breyfogle tales leading up to Tim Drake taking up the cape. Then it collects the first Robin solo mini-series by Chuck Dixon and Tom Lyle.  Tim Drake had a moment in the mid-90s (more volumes of his original solo run are here and here).

For Nightwing, we’re going to point you at Grayson, written by Tim Seeley & Tom King and drawn (mostly) by Mikel Janin. This ambitious series has Dick Grayson going undercover as a spy for a mysterious espionage agency called “Spyral,” which is spying on superheroes.

Batman & Robin   Robin: Reborn   Grayson

Rabbit Rabbit

And let’s not forget the Usagi Yojimbo Sale, running through Monday, 5/2.

Stan Sakai’s samurai rabbit is getting a cartoon adaptation and this is the odd sale with two different publishers under the same umbrella.  Fantagraphics comes first and then the Dark Horse material.

Usagi Yojimbo

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Legion (and X-Men), Batman, Lobo, Geiger and C.O.W.L.

This week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales include Legion (as in Professor X’s son), Image’s oddly named “!” sale and DC has a Spring Break sale… but the usual problems with the fluctuating discounts seem to still apply. Alas, it may be the new status quo.

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

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):

Son of X

The Marvel Legion Sale runs through Sunday, 4/17.

This would be Legion, as in Professor X’s son (David Haller).

X-Men: Legion – Shadow King Rising contains some early appearances, including the excellent original arc in New Mutants by Chris Claremont and Bill Sienkiewicz. Worth it just for the New Mutants arc.

If you’re mostly familiar with Legion through the wonder Noah Hawley TV show, the comic that will be most recognizable to you is probably going to be Legion: Son of X by Si Spurrier and Tan Eng Huat.

(Next in our ongoing series of eyerolls at Amazon’s sloppy curation of comics — no, we can’t explain why Amazon has “X-Men Legacy” and photoshopped retitling of the first tpbs cover as the header for the Legion series page. Then again, we frequently don’t know what Amazon’s thinking.)

Speaking of X-Men: Legacy, that’s also on sale. Mike Carey wrote the vast majority of the series, with a rotating cast of artists that notably included Scot Eaton, Daniel Acuna, Billy Tan, Clay Mann and Khoi Pham.

X-Men: Legion - Shadow King Rising   Legion: Son of X   X-Men Legacy

! = ?

The “Image ! Sale” runs through Monday, 5/2.

No, really… the “! Sale.” We’re sure somebody found that title terribly clever, as opposed to descriptive or recognizable.  We think that “!” is supposed to be evocative of recent buzz books, although not everything here is recent.  Have a browse, but here’s what was popping to the top.

Geiger V.1 by Geoff Johns and Gary Frank gave us very strong DC “Great Disaster” vibes. A little Kamandi/Ben Boxer here, some Atomic Knights there… even an out of left field GI Robot analogue. All this wrapped around a chase storyline. We enjoyed it and it definitely wasn’t what we were expecting.

We’ve always liked The Manhattan Projects by Jonathan Hickman and Nick Pitarra. It’s an alternate history where the brain trust of the Manhattan Project isn’t merely there to develop an atomic bomb. No, they’re working on mad science, space exploration and even exploring parallel worlds. Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it’s horrific, but it’s a good ride. We could go for another mini-series, truth be told.

While Radiant Black is the buzz book, there’s another Kyle Higgins comic we’d point you to that we liked better. C.O.W.L.  by Higgins, Alec Siegel and Rod Reis is the tale of the Chicago Organized Workers League – a union for superheroes. Established to combat organized crime and supervillains, it’s now staggering in a world of politics and corruption. (Politics and corruption in Chicago?  Surely not!)

  The Manhattan Projects   C.O.W.L.

DC’s Current Partial Sale

The DC Spring Break eBook Sale runs through Monday, 4/25.

The usual warning applies. The pricing has been screwed up on every DC sale for several weeks and that continues here. Do not touch comics that don’t end in .99. ($5.99, $7.99, etc.) There’s a lot of books in the sale with goofy prices like $13.98 or $9.32.  These are probably not the final sale price, but we have no idea when (or if) all the prices will get fixed.  Yes, it’s a problem and it would be a much better sale if Amazon and/or DC could get their act together.

Now, that said, there are still interesting things in this large sale.

Lobo by Keith Giffen & Alan Grant manages to have both volumes discounted. Largely drawn by Simon Bisley, this is the original Lobo run. It started a series of mini-series and specials… such as the Lobo’s Paramilitary Christmas Special where the Easter Bunny has taken a hit out on Santa. It’s an over-the-top parody of machismo with something to offend to everyone!

Another one where both volumes have been included is Batman by Ed Brubaker, Vol. 1  and Vol. 2. Yes, before Captain America, Fatale and Reckless, Brubaker had a run on Batman. Scott McDaniel was the primary artist on the run.

There’s a lot more I might come back and recommend later if the prices get fixed. So many titles where only part of the individual volumes have the corrected sale price. It’s astonishing. So browse, but pay close attention to the prices.

Lobo   Batman by Ed Brubaker

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Immortal Hulk, X-Men, Captain Marvel and Outcast

This week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales include, the wonder that is Immortal Hulk, X-Men Legacy, Captain Marvel (so many relaunches to keep track of) and a possible late addition to the Image Omnibus sale.

But first, we should probably talk about Amazon’s inability to get their sale prices right on the first iteration of a sale. This seems like it’s mostly a DC thing, but sale prices are dropping TWICE on some comics. The first time when the sale first appears and the second time a day or two after the sales are posted. It’s strange and the best advice we can give is that if the price doesn’t end in .99 or .49, it’s likely there’s an update that hasn’t happened yet.

We can’t tell if this is deliberate or a technical error, and if it’s a technical error, whether the problem is on the Amazon side or the DC side.  Regardless of why, this is really inconvenient. While Amazon (and even Comixology) have always had the odd title that lagged behind the rest of the sale, this has gotten ridiculous.

On a related note, we can’t really tell if all of the Dark Horse titles on the Deals page are really on sale.  You don’t sill the digital list price vs. sale price listed on those, just

Sold by: Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Price set by seller.

That’s not the most helpful thing in the world.

Now, if you go into the sale listings, *some* of the comics will have the “best price in 30 days” banner. Those are probably one sale. The rest? We’re just not sure.  We like things like Hellboy and Joe Kubert’s Tarzan, but we’re not sure those are great sale prices for everything listed.

Speaking of digital list price vs. sale price, if an individual book is enrolled in Comixology Unlimited, you need to be logged out of Unlimited to be able to see the original list price.  Yes, this is yet another inconvenience after Amazon’s attempted absorption of the Comixology site.

We’re so old, we remember when Amazon actually cared about the customer experience. It’s just not clear how much the care about their comics customers, since we keep having all sorts of new hiccups.

Anyway, back to the Cheap.

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

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):

The End of the Immortal

Marvel’s Immortal Hulk Sale runs through Thursday, 3/31.

Easily the sale of the week.

This is Al Ewing’s horror-tinged opus. The Hulk and other gamma-afflicted characters gather. It seems those dosed with gamma might not be able to die and it all seems tied to a mysterious green door that might lead to Hell. And there’s someone behind the door.

Now, there are two parallels sets of reprints here: the “regular” volumes (1-11) and the deluxe volumes (Book 1-4). The deluxe ones reprint 2 of the regular volumes, so you’d be waiting on V. 5. Otherwise, there’s not an appreciable price difference between formats.

Note: V. 11 collects various one-shots and is optional.  V.1-10 gets you the full story.

Other than that, just enjoy one of the best comics of the last decade.

Immortal Hulk

LoX?

Marvel’s X-Men Legacy Sale runs through Sunday, 3/27.

This would be the (largely) Mike Carey era of the X-Men: Legacy comic. You might know him from Lucifer and My Faith in Frankie or in his secret identity as M.R. Carey with The Girl With All the Gifts. Yes, he gets around a little.

It’s the X-Men, so there’s quite a few artists passing through – Scot Eaton, Khoi Pham and Clay Mann all figure prominently.

This picks up after Messiah Complex and runs into Avengers Vs. X-Men with Christos Gage penning the last couple volumes.

(The actual series page might be easier to navigate.)

X-Men Legacy

Not A Big Red Cheese?

The Captain Marvel: Earth’s Mightiest Hero Sale runs through Sunday, 3/27.

Hmmm… was somebody bending over backwards to riff on the original Captain Marvel being “The World’s Mightiest Mortal?” It does seem that way, doesn’t it?

OK… brace yourselves… this one has a ton of relaunches:

We think that’s the overly complicated chronology, anyway. For recommendations, we’re not really Captain Marvel experts, but we’re inclined to say go with the current Thompson run. Kelly Sue DeConnick has a very dedicated fanbase, so maybe browse the sample pages there and see if that catches your fancy, too?

Speaking of Complex Relaunches

The Wonder Woman sale was broken down in the last installment.

A Late Addition

That  Image Omnibus sale running through 3/31?

We’re not sure if this was a late addition to the sale or our eye skipped over it, but there’s an omnibus of the Robert Kirkman / Paul Azaceta series Outcast available. 48 issues for $27 is fractionally a lesser deal than the Spawn Omnibuses, but that’s about $3.38 per “normal” collection/ ~56 cents/issue.

We need to read the last volume, but this story that’s twist and subversion of demonic possession has been holding our interest.

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: X-Men, Iron Man, Heroes Reborn and DMZ

This week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales include: The Dawn of X segment of X-Men comics, Heroes Reborn (OK, for our purposes, Heroes Return), Iron Man and the DMZ, now as seen on TV.

Side comments about the nature of reprinting cross-over Events included at no extra charge!

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

X-Hijinks

Marvel’s X-Men: Dawn of X Sale runs through Thursday, 3/20.

To put this in the context of the Hickman era of X, you start out with the House of X / Powers of X mini’s, then you go into the “regular” X-Men family of titles. This post HoX/PoX era is what’s being called “Dawn of X” and it basically stops just before the X of Swords crossover Event.

Dawn of X is a series of trade paperbacks (or digital TPBs for our purposes) that collect the issues of the _entire_ X-Men line of books, to more properly approximate reading the line in release order. Oh, they’ll fudge the exact release order here and there for 2-parters, but you get the idea.

Essentially, particularly early on in the line, the ideas of the X-family floated between titles. Ben Percy’s Wolverine and X-Force cross-pollinated a fair amount, too. We’ve felt that you do get a more out of the X-line by reading it as a whole. It enhances the scope and the worldbuilding aspects. Oh, there’s a dud of an issue here and there, but on the whole, it’s a strong line. (We didn’t think the line was quite as uniformly strong post-X of Swords, but that’s for a different time.)

Marvel has been getting better about going back and collecting stories that bounced between titles (like Hickman’s Avengers saga) in the actual reading order, as opposed tpbs of the individual titles that you need to bounce between. In general, this is a good thing.

We wish we could get you this listed in numerical order, but Amazon’s sorting routines aren’t very good here… but we can give you the list in reverse order! <rolls eyes>

Dawn of X

We’ll Stick with the Return

Marvel’s Heroes Reborn Sale runs through Thursday, 3/24.

This is the 90s experiment when Marvel outsourced some of their titles to Image. Now, for our money, the gems here are from the “Heroes Return” period, when those title came back to Marvel:

Iron Man: Heroes Return – The Complete Collection V. 1 has Kurt Busiek, Roger Stern and Sean Chen as the primary creative team, re-establishing shell head back in the Marvel Universe. You get some Mandarin, there’s a side trip with Captain America and MODOK. This collects the first portion of one of our favorite Iron Man periods.

And speaking of high points, this sale also has Captain America: Heroes Return – The Complete Collection,  which is the Mark Waid/Ron Garney run resuming. (It had just started, and was abruptly halted, for Heroes Reborn.) A little Hydra, a lost shield… that MODOK tale from Iron Man is also reprinted here (a shared Annual). It’s a solid run.

Iron Man: Heroes Reborn   Captain America Heroes Return

We Forget… Is It Still 2020?

The last couple years really are a blur and this sale is confusing us!

The Marvel Iron Man 2020 and Other Stories Sale runs through Sunday, 3/20.

First off, the Heroes Return sale for Busiek/Chen Iron Man is by far the better deal, so ignore the shorter collections here.

Now here’s a comic we haven’t seen mentioned in quite a while: Iron Man: The Inevitable by Joe Casey and Frazier Irving. We liked that one when it was coming out. Stark tries to rehabilitate the Living Lazer, while Spymaster and the Ghost plot his downfall. Introspection, espionage and then some things blow up. We think the audience may have been expecting more slam-bang when it came out, but we recall this as a slower build up… and it likely benefits from a collected edition.

Iron Man: Iron Monger is the end of the Denny O’Neil/Luke McDonnell era… although McDonnell bows out a little early, so you get some Rich Buckler and Mark Bright starts his run with #200.  And #200 is a helluva ride. O’Neil runs Tony Stark through the ringer and this sees him dragging himself up from the gutters after an alcoholic relapse to deal with Obadiah Stane and his Iron Monger armor. That finale has proven very influential over the years!

Iron Man: The Inevitable   Iron Man: Iron Monger

Feudal Warlords of Manhattan

The Stream DC: DMZ Sale runs through Monday, 3/28.

And yes, that would be the old Vertigo series, DMZ by Brian Wood and Riccardo Burchielli. And it’s a good one. The premise? There’s been a militia uprising. The rebels have captured the coast and New Jersey. The US Army holds Long Island. Manhattan is a no-man’s land between the armies. A demilitarized zone, i.e. DMZ. A rookie photojournalist pulls an assignment in the DMZ, but things go pear-shaped and he finds himself stranded… but also with a unique opportunity as an embedded reporter, so he attempts to navigate a strange landscape of neighborhood-based warlords and the strange society that’s popped up around the Manhattanites who could get out… while both armies jockey for position in the shadows.

You can read a few volumes on Comixology Unlimited to test drive it, but if you’re buying, you want the larger deluxe editions for your lowest tab.

DMZ

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Comixology Sales: Batman, Conan, GI Joe and where the new sale pages are

This week in Comixology Sales… can we still all it Comixology? Well, the logo’s still on the Amazon page. Anyway, we have a look at some discounts on Batman, Conan and GI Joe… plus some advice on navigating the new Amazon page.

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

We’re not sure how this whole “Comixology on Amazon” thing is going to go. We surely were not happy with the churlish and authoritarian forced updates to the app, so you’re not going to hear us complaining if you’re giving Amazon a “time out” over this — we sure did.

The format may get tweaked a little, but then again you’d expect that with the applecart getting upset. We’ll give it a try and see how it goes.

First things first, some navigational bits. We’ve been hearing a lot of complaints about the UIX, so here’s a cheat sheet for you.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

The new releases page is here. Bookmark it if you’ve been having trouble finding it.  You’re going to want to scroll down to the bottom of the page the see the real/full new releases. It’s similar, but perhaps a bit clunkier, than the old Comixology setup.  You can filter for major/mid-major publishers only.  Basically, the top list of filter options from the old version.

Since we know the Comixology folks read this – Comixology needs to consider AT MINIMUM adding an alphabetical sort to that new releases window. It isn’t clear what determines the order things are displayed in, but it comes off as haphazard and a lot more painful to use. You’re not doing your reputation any favors with the current state of things. We’d probably also add an option to display content in blocks by publisher… that might be overkill, but a lot of folks would use that.  (We’re so old, we remember when Amazon cared about customer opinions.)

The “Comics Deals” page is here. That’s the page for what’s on sale. Again, bookmark it if you’ve been having trouble finding it. We’re not sure about the rhythm of the updates yet – we were giving Amazon a time out. It isn’t clear the update pattern will exactly match the old Comixology site. Time will tell.  History suggests that ALL the sales may not turn up on the deals page and may start prior to showing up on the deals page, so… stay vigilant?

Something that made us laugh

Amazon/Comixology now has a “Graphic Novels” page. Maybe someone will come to their sense and fix this before you click, but right now we’re seeing X-Men #9, Saga #56, Batman #121 — which is to say, Comixology gets absorbed by Amazon and suddenly they can’t tell the difference between a single issue and a graphic novel.  Not inspiring much confidence there, sport!

So… anyway, what’s on sale right now that might be interesting?

Dark thoughts need a Dark Knight

There’s a Batman sale running through Monday, the 14th.

Yeah, it’s going to be a pain to click through 200+ pages, since Amazon doesn’t seem to have a grid display option for the complete sale, just their highlights.

What’s good?  $2.99 for Batman:Year One by Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli is a great value.

Call us crazy (you wouldn’t be the first), but we thought Batman: Universe by Brian Bendis and Nick Derington was a really fun ride. It’s a nice tour of the DCU, the snarkfest of Bruce’s and Alfred’s conversation is top notch and you don’t see the “fun” version of Batman that often. It’s just well done.

Batman: Shadow of the Bat V. 1 is the tail end of the Alan Grant / Norm Breyfogle era of Batman… and also comes with some Tim Sale art, which is never a bad thing. At $4.99, it’s the most cost effective entry in that era (which is well worth your time).

Batman: Year One   Batman Universe   Batman: Shadow of the Bat

The Cheap Barbarian

Marvel’s Conan Sale runs through Sunday, 3/6.

Conan, possibly because it’s a licensed property, doesn’t seem like it’s on sale as much as other titles, so it might be worth some attention if you’re barbarian friendly.

We’d put this in three buckets:

  1. The original Marvel run of Conan The Barbarian by Roy Thomas, Barry Windsor-Smith, John Buscema and friends. This is conveniently available in Epic Collections. It is a classic and one of the most popular titles of its time.
  2. The Dark Horse “Conan Chronicles“— also conveniently available in Epic Collections (some of the most recent material in Epic format, too?). We’re particularly fond of the early Kurt Busiek / Card Nord run.
  3. Savage Avengers by Gerry Duggan and Patrick Zircher (as the primary artist). OK, we had to be coaxed into this one, too. Conan, Venom, The Punisher, Elektra and Doctor Voodoo questing after Kulan Gath. “Savage Defenders” might be a more apt name for it, because it really reminded me of what you’d get if Conan was running the old “non-team,” instead of Nighthawk or Doctor Strange. Except more over the top and macho. A comic that’s entertaining, while not taking itself completely seriously… and you’ll know by the description if it’s for you.

Conan the Barbarian   Conan Chronicles   Savage Avengers

The Discount Egress

The IDW GI Joe Sale runs through Thursday, 3/24.

We bring this one up because the GI Joe license is going to be leaving IDW at the end of the year. Depending on the roll-out at the new publisher, that means some of the material might not be in digital for awhile. So if you’re interested in it, now is a good time to get current with that interest.

We’d say go with the Larry Hama run. (Which continues here.)

GI Joe

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