Tag: Black Friday

Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: DC’s Very Short Black Friday Sale

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, DC will only give you four days for Black Friday/Cyber Monday this year, so pay attention.

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: We’re going to leave the unannounced Dark Horse sale up. Our best guess is we won’t see anything from Marvel earlier than Monday evening, but we’d love to be wrong about that.

Tick Tick Tick

Absolute Batman  Absolute Wonder Woman  Justice League Unlimited

The DC Seasonal Savings Sale runs through 12/1.

We’ve noted how recalcitrant DC has seemed about throwing a sale in recent months. Only having 4 days (maybe 3.5 – Amazon is cutting off these sales earlier in the day, so don’t be surprised if it disappears by 7pm or 8pm ET on Monday) of a Black Friday sale seems in character for 2025.

What’s on sale? This one is interesting and unlike their corporate synergy sales since March, it actually has some new material! Absolutely, you might say.

The Absolute Section

Absolute Batman

Absolute Wonder Woman

Absolute Superman

Absolute Martian Manhunter

Absolute Flash

Absolute Green Lantern

The Lead-Ins

There are two books that loosely lead into the Absolute run:

  • Absolute Power – Mark Waid / Dan Mora; This sets up All-In and various things in the main DCU moving forward.
  • All-In Special – Joshua Williamson/ Scott Snyder / Daniel Sampere / Dan Mora / Wes Craig; This one explains how the Absolute universe came into existence and they things are such a *cough* “dark mirror” of the DCU. It’s a useful table setting, so it’s possibly poor planning from DC not to have it included in the sale. We’ll just leave the link here. We didn’t totally need it for the opening collected editions we read, but we DO think it will be key before things get too far along.

What do we recommend? We’ve read the V.1’s of Absolute Batman and Absolute Wonder Woman. If you’re only going to pick up one collected edition? Absolute Wonder Woman. This is one of those happy occasions where there is no hype, only facts. Heavy use of mythology to the point it’s more urban fantasy than superhero and it’s as good as you’ve heard.

We’ve also heard nothing but love for Absolute Martian Manhunter, but we have read V.1 yet. (Next thing in the queue when we’re done with the JLU/World’s Finest crossover.)

Current DC Series / Newly Discounted

We haven’t read everything on the list, but things we’ve read and will vouch for? We’ll put the Spurrier/Campbell Hellblazer up against any other run (and we know what we just said). If you like the Waid/Mora World’s Finest, you’ll like Justice League Unlimited (and if you don’t like World’s Finest, you probably hate having fun). The Ram V / Cagle The New Gods is a really interesting take on what appears to be a post-Darkseid New Gods (although we’re highly suspicious of his demise).

And We’d Be Remiss Not To Mention a New Edition of:

Best Jimmy Olsen ever? Quite possibly. It’s a great book.

Unannounced Sales

Blacksad  Money Shot  Scarlet

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

Dark Horse appears to have an unannounced Black Friday sale. They have a LOT of their collected editions on sale, but not the newest material and not the single issues.  Here’s a link that will *eventually* get you through their catalog in a very laborious way and with the single issues mixed in. (It’s not perfect, but we’re trying.)

Here are some direct links to various series:

Recommendations? Sure.

Scarlet by Bendis and Alex Maleev is a political thriller about a Portland woman rebelling against a corrupt police department/government. Bendis back in his original pre-capes Thriller mode and it might be having a Long Tail moment right now.

Nexus by Mike Baron & Steve Rude – It looks like a superhero comic, but it’s a science fiction epic about a man appointed as the executioner of mass murderers. A job he doesn’t want and can’t escape.

B.P.R.D. (mostly) by Mike Mignola / John Arcudi / Guy Davis is not as widely read as Hellboy, but it’s the real backbone of the Hellboy universe’s story.

Blacksad by by Juan Diaz Canales / Juanjo Guarnido is very good detective series in the Raymond Chandler tradition… except the characters are anthropomorphic. Nothing “kiddie” about it and the art is as good as it gets.

Also on sale:

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Black Friday Arrives. DC’s Cyber Monday Sale; The Best of Marvel Omnibuses; Dark Horse Line-Wide Sale

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, the actual Black Friday is upon us. DC drops a Cyber Monday sale. We look at the best of Marvel’s omnibus discounts. Dark Horse cuts prices line-wide.

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):

The Best of the Marvel Omnibus Sale

Avengers Omnibus  Captain Britain Omnibus  Miracleman Omnibus

The Marvel Omnibus Sale runs through Monday, 12/2.

Last week, we looked at what’s new in this year’s Omnibus Sale. This time, we’re going to look at the best volumes available. After all, not all omnibuses are created equal and this is about great runs and low duds.

  • The Amazing Spider-Man Omnibus Vol. 1 – Stan Lee / Steve Ditko; Amazing Spider-Man was a rock solid title for a very long time, so it’s hard to go wrong with the available omnibuses, but V.1 is the complete Lee/Ditko run and that’s a really nice package.
  • Avengers Omnibus Vol. 5 – Steve Englehart / Sal Buscema / George Perez / George Tuska; Arguably the best run of the original Avengers is here, with the Giant-Size issues that were integral. The Celestial Madonna Saga. Kang. Ultron. The Squadron Sinister/Supreme. The Serpent Crown. There are other great runs, but this is at or near the top for most people.
  • Avengers by Busiek & Perez – Kurt Busiek & George Perez, with a little Roy Thomas / Roger Stern / Carlos Pacheco / Alan Davis / Jerry Ordway; Another one of the top runs is when Busiek & Perez took over after the Heroes Reborn experiment ended. The 2-volume set also includes Avengers Forever, The Ultron Imperative and Maximum Security
  • Black Panther by Christopher Priest – Christopher Priest / Mark Texeira/Sal Velluto; You’ll want both volumes for Priest’s brilliant run. Smaller volumes (this _almost_ could have been compressed into a single volume), but one of the best of the late 90s/early 00s.
  • Captain America Omnibus Vol. 3 – Steve Englehart / Sal Buscema / Frank Robbins; A few issues into this volume and Englehart’s legendary run begins. Contender for best Cap run overall (along with Waid/Garney and Brubaker/Epting/Lark). The return of the 50s Cap. The Viper. The Secret Empire. The Red Skull. Good stuff.
  • Captain Britain Omnibus – You’re looking at this for the back half with Alan Moore / Alan Davis and Jamie Delano / Alan Davis; This has all the UK material, but once Moore shows up, it turns into something special and also debuts the designation “616” for the Marvel Universe. Which is to say, a highly influential run that ended up absorbed into the X-books and is very infrequently reprinted.
  • Daredevil by Frank Miller & Klaus Janson Omnibus – Roger McKenzie / Frank Miller / Klaus Janson; The full original Miller run in one volume. (Folks often forget McKenzie wrote the first portion of the run.) Legendary for a reason.
    • Daredevil by Frank Miller Omnibus Companion – Frank Miller / John Romita, Jr./ David Mazzucchelli / Bill Sienkiewicz; More Miller tales, including Born Again (possibly his finest DD moment), The Man Without Fear and Love and War.
  • Defenders Omnibus V. 2 – (Mostly) Steve Gerber / Sal Buscema. This is a smaller page count that most omnibuses, but it’s a very strategic selection: all of the Steve Gerber run. Which is to say, Nebulon, The Guardians of the Galaxy and The Headmen all turn up. Classic run that’s over the top strange as only Gerber could do it.
  • Fantastic Four Omnibus Vol. 2 – Stan Lee / Jack Kirby; Look, you can’t really go wrong with V.1-4 (Lee/Kirby wraps up ~1/3 of the way into V.4), but V.2 is roughly where things kick into second gear. The Frightful Four lead into The Inhumans, which leads into Galactus, then Black Panther debuts, followed by more Inhumans and Victor Von Doom. Great slice of Lee/Kirby.
  • Fantastic Four by John Byrne Omnibus Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 – John Byrne; Generally considered the next classic take on the FF, Bryne’s run (plus crossover issues and related items like The Last Galactus Story) is collected across two volumes.
  • Immortal Hulk Omnibus – (Mostly) Al Ewing / Joe Bennet; The modern classic complete in one volume. Listed as 1480 pages of this horror take on Hulk and the secret of the Green Door. Excellent series.
  • The Incredible Hulk by Peter David: Vol. 1, Vol. 2, Vol. 3, Vol. 4 and Vol. 5 – Peter David / Todd McFarlane / Jeff Purves / Dale Keown / Sam Keith / Gary Frank / Liam Sharp / Angel Medina / Mike Deodato, Jr ; Yes, when you’re on a title for as many years as PAD was, you end up working with a lot of artists and he had a better roster than most! It’s also a high quality run that’s a pain to collect in the “normal” volumes. 1-4 collect the actual Hulk run. V. 5 collects some side titles and PAD’s brief return to the main title.
  • Miracleman Omnibus – Alan Moore / Garry Leach / Alan Davis / John Totleben / Rick Veitch; One of the key post-modern revivals of the early 80s as Moore and company revive a 50s UK knock-off of Captain Marvel (as in Shazam!) and remake it into something special as a middle-aged man discovers his past has been hidden from him and superheroics take on horrific aspects. Highly influential work that was out of print for years, due to court battles
  • Thor by Walt Simonson Omnibus – Walt Simonson / Sal Buscema; An awful lot of folks (most?) consider this the best Thor run for a reason: it’s pretty great. All in a single tome
  • Uncanny X-Men Omnibus Vol. 2 – Chris Claremont / John Byrne / Dave Cockrum; The Phoenix Saga is probably the high point of the “New” X-Men. This also gives you the introduction of Kitty Pryde, Days of Future Past, and an encounter with Doctor Doom. Honestly, we think that once Claremont has a couple issues to settle in, starting with issue #97 or so, it’s consistent excellence and a big story arc that comes to a natural breaking point with #200 (which is maybe 2/3 of the way through V.5), so Omnibus 1-5 are all a big thumbs up from us.

Temporal Displacement Sale
The Flash Kamandi  Wonder Woman

The DC Cyber Monday Sale runs through Monday, 12/2.

Which day is Cyber Monday this year? If the Black Friday Sale ran last week, wouldn’t that mean this past Monday was Cyber Monday, even though this sale didn’t appear until Tuesday morning? Well, if this coming Monday is Cyber Monday be warned that these sales can come down mid-evening if you’re on the West Coast. Timey-wimey, indeed!

Let’s run through this sale, which has some recent items and not so recent items. If you’re looking at a series page, keep an eye on the prices, which are a little all over the place this week. Yes, even within the same series.

That said, here are some things we found interesting:

  • Action Comics – The Warworld sequence in Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 – Phillip Kennedy Johnson / Daniel Sampere / Riccardo Federici; Mongul baits a trap for an ailing Superman in a darker than usual tale that has a little Spartacus in it; Under most radars, but quite good
  • The Flash Vol. 1: Strange Attractor – Si Spurrier / Mike Deodato, Jr.; Flash is recast as a cosmic horror book as Grodd tries to pierce the veil between dimensions and all is NOT well in the Speed Force; (Also maybe read Beast World first, as there’s an interlude that’s VERY confusing otherwise and also not part of the main story)
  • The Human Target – Tom King / Greg Smallwood; A noir mystery with the bwa ha ha Justice League as suspects… that’s still noir while servicing the bwa ha ha ha elements? Yes, it is. And Smallwood gets special praise, too
  • Justice League: Last Ride – Chip Zdarsky / Miguel Mendonca; $1.99 – cheap
  • Kamandi: The Last Boy on Earth – Jack Kirby; Kirby’s riff on Planet of the Apes yielded a more fully realized world of animal men, is a ton of fun, and was his most successful DC work in the ’70s. Sure, Darkseid is bigger now, but not in the 70s.
  • Nightwing – The series page has the excellent Tom Taylor / Bruno Redondo series buried at the end, so let’s simplify it. The ones on sale are  Vol. 1, Vol. 2, Vol. 3, Vol. 4
  • One-Star Squadron – Mark Russell / Steve Lieber; A biting satire of the gig economy as Red Tornado tries run a hero-on-demand app. (Hey, Luke Cage is busy being mayor, so somebody had to step up.) Recommended
  • Prez: Setting a Dangerous President – Mark Russell / Ben Caldwell; When the vagaries of the Electoral College place the subject of a viral social media video in the White House, all hell breaks loose. Yes, this is from ’15. No, it hasn’t gotten less relevant since then. Also… the line about how one should select a VP is killer
  • Sandman – Neil Gaiman and a rotating cast of artists; You’ve probably heard of this one
  • Shazam! Vol. 1: Meet the Captain! – Mark Waid / Dan Mora; In another of their Justice League warm-ups (collect them all), Waid & Mora do us all a favor and start steering Captain Marvel/Shazam back towards the original tone and concepts of the feature; Emphasis on pure fun
  • Shazam and the Monster Society of Evil – Jeff Smith; That’s right, the man behind Bone updates the classic 1940s Monster Society serial from Captain Marvel Adventures. It’s Jeff Smith, so you should have a decent idea what it’ll be like
  • Superman – Josh Williamson / Jamal Campbell; The current Superman series is a much needed and well executed return to the classic Superman format that was missing for a few years
  • Superman: Camelot Falls – Kurt Busiek / Carlos Pacheco; Superman encounters a prophecy fingering him as the agent of the apocalypse
  • Swamp Thing – Ram V. / Mike Perkins; The origin of the new, current incarnation of Swampy… and his family problems
  • Swamp Thing by Rick Veitch Book One: Wild Things – Rick Veitch / Alfredo Alcala; The entire series is on sale, but Veitch’s “restored” run is a more recent collection
  • Titans Vol. 1: Out of the Shadows – Tom Taylor / Nicola Scott
  • Titans: Beast World – Tom Taylor / Ivan Reis / Travis Moore; The recent Event was definitely a Titans story and you kinda have to love a character named “Dr. Hate” who resembles Dr. Fate. For all practical purposes, you should treat this as Titans V.2.
  • Wonder Woman  Vol. 1: Outlaw – Tom King / Daniel Sampere; An Amazon is fingered for murder and the situation spirals out of control amidst a possible coverup. As Wonder Woman is declared an enemy of the state, Amanda Waller and Sarge Steel lie in wait
  • World’s Finest: Teen Titans – Mark Waid / Emanuela Lupacchino; Much like “regular” World’s Finest, this is an early tale of the Silver Age original Teen Titans and traffics in fun

The Marvel “Maybe” Sales

X-Men '97  Avengers  Immortal Thor

The trend continues. New releases at lower than expected price points and discounted pre-orders. Is this the new normal? We’re not sure, but let’s run them down.

Dropping This Week

Pre-Order for Next Week

Unannounced Sales

Hellboy  Martha Washington  Minor Threats

It appears that Dark Horse has most of their collected editions on sale, but not the newest material and not the single issues.  Here’s a link that will *eventually* get you through their catalog in a very laborious way and with the single issues mixed in. (It’s not perfect, but we’re trying.)

Here are some direct links to various series:

Under the radar alert: you don’t hear about this much anymore, butThe Life and Times of Martha Washington in the Twenty-First Century is a Frank Miller / Dave Gibbons collaboration with a different tone than Miller’s commonly associated these days. It’s a lot closer to Halo Jones than it is to Sin City or the later Dark Knight volumes.

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Black Friday Sales, Part 2: DC’s “Black Friday Sale” w/ Batman, Birds of Prey and John Stewart; Plus, The Black Hammer

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Black Friday sales are early this year. In Part 2, DC offers up its “Black Friday Sale” with plenty of Batman. Dark Horse plays along with theme by extending The Black Hammer sale.

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):

Important Black Friday Administrative Notes:

This week, the Black Friday sales are out a week before Black Friday. (Everyone’s doing it!) There were some problems with the sale prices that were posted the morning of Tuesday, 11/19. If you bought something off the Deals page On Tuesday, double check and make sure the price isn’t a little lower right now. All the new sales were removed from the deals page Tuesday evening and reposted a few hours later. The new prices should be correct.

We also covered all of this year’s new entries in the Marvel Omnibus Sale in the previous post.

I See a Red Friday and I Want It Painted Black

Batman '89  Green Lantern War Journal  World's Finest

The DC Black Friday Sale runs through Monday, 11/25.

“But… if the Black Friday Sale is this week, what’s happening next week?” You ask.

We’ll all find out together.

As for this week, there’s no real theme (and the Deals page display is as jumbled as it gets), so here are a few things that caught our eye:

  • Batman Vol. 1: Failsafe – Chip Zdarsky / Jorge Jiménez; The start of the Zdarksy run for $2.99
  • Batman ’89 – Sam Hamm / Joe Quinones; The writer of the Tim Burton Batman films returns with what he had planned for Harvey Dent
  • Batman: The Adventures Continue – Alan Burnett / Paul Dini / Ty Templeton; A continuation of the ’90s animated series by people qualified to do so. Good stuff
  • Batman: Killing Time – Tom King / David Marquez; A noir caper as The Penguin, Riddler and Catwoman try to double cross each other while Batman keeps getting closer
  • Batman: Reptilian – Garth Ennis / Liam Sharp; Guess who’s running amok in the Gotham sewers? $1.99
  • Birds of Prey – Kelly Thompson / Leonardo Romero; The new series has Black Canary recruiting some heavy hitters for a raid on Paradise Island; Alternates between suspense and quirky
  • Crisis on Multiple Earths Book 3 – There’s more Justice League on sale, but this one gets you three of the better Justice Society team-ups, featuring the influential return of Darkseid, a Secret Society of Supervillains encounter and the All-Star Squadron team-up
  • Detective Comics Vol. 1: Gotham Nocturne: Overture – Ram V / Rafael Albuquerque; We’re enjoying this slow burn, gothic horror take on Batman a lot
  • Danger Street – Tom King / Jorge Fornés; Decidedly odd series tying together all the characters from the ’70s First Issue Special series. You already know if this is for you or not, based on that and the creators
  • Death: The High Cost of Living – Neil Gaiman / Chris Bachalo; Dream’s sister gets a spin-off miniseries
  • Gotham City: Year One – Tom King / Phil Hestor; A superior and dark noir private eye tale leading up to Gotham’s decline as Slam Bradley searches for a kidnapped baby with the last name of Wayne
  • Green Arrow (’23) – Josh Williamson /  Sean Izaakse; The current series, emphasizing a “Green Arrow Family,” similar to the “Flash Family” of recent years
  • Green Lantern: War Journal – Phillip Kennedy Johnson / Montos; John Stewart finds himself the target of a particularly horrific extra-dimensional incursion
  • World’s Finest – Mark Waid / Dan Mora; The early adventures of the Batman/Superman pairing; Lots of fun (with occasional patches of darkness) and a must-read if you enjoy Silver Age mythos

The Marvel “Maybe” Sales

Amazing Spider-Man  Deadpool  X-Men '97

The trend continues. New releases at lower than expected price points and discounted pre-orders. Is this the new normal? We’re not sure, but let’s run them down.

Dropping This Week

Pre-Order for Next Week

Unannounced Sales

Black Hammer Omnibus  The Art of Daniel Clowes  Dramacon

Dark Horse still has the world of Black Hammer on sale this week.

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 7 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.

Black Hammer Omnibus V.1 is basically the same thing as the first Library edition. That gets you the first two “regular” volumes (issues 1-13) + the Annual.

Black Hammer Library Edition V. 2 gets you the equivalent of “regular” volumes 3 &4 (“Age of Doom”) plus the Streets of Spiral material not in the Ominbus.

Then you can pick up again with V.5 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.

And finally, there’s Black Hammer / Justice League: Hammer of Justice, the Lemire / Michael Walsh team up between… well, that’s in the title, isn’t it? This one offers savings in the single issue format.

Also on sale, Dark Horse’s comics adaptations of BioWare’s Dragon Age line of video games:

Also on sale (and branded as “Black Friday” sales, though we’re not sure if that’s out of mere convenience or not):

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Black Friday Sales, Part 1 – The Annual Marvel Omnibus Sale

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Black Friday sales are early this year. In Part 1, it’s the annual Marvel Omnibus Sale and we break out what’s new to the sale since last year.

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):

Important Black Friday Administrative Notes:

This week the Black Friday sales are out a week before Black Friday. (Everyone’s doing it!) There were some problems with the ones that were posted the morning of Tuesday, 11/19. If you bought something off the deals page On Tuesday, double check and make sure the price isn’t a little lower right now. All the new sales were removed from the deals page Tuesday evening and reposted a few hours later. The new prices should be correct (although we need to take a closer look at the reposted DC sale).

Because of the size and all the hubbub around the (now) Annual Marvel Omnibus Sale, we’re looking at that right away and will come back at the usual time for the DC sale and anything else that pops up.

The Annual Marvel Omnibus Sale (Omni-Man is Elsewhere)

Avengers Omnibus  Daredevil Omnibus  Spider-Man Brand New Day Omnibus

The Marvel Omnibus Sale runs through Monday 12/2.

The Marvel omnibuses will run as long as ~1200 pages / 50 issues, although page and issue counts vary per issue. They’re mostly running in the $10-$15 range, instead of the $30-40-ish range, so the prices are slashed and 50 issues for $15 would be $0.30/issue.

There are a few things here that aren’t in other collections, but the reason we keep hearing that folks like the digital versions is that they’re easier to sort. That is to say, fewer items in your digital library.

So first, let’s run down the list of what we think are all the Omnibuses released since last year’s sale (or rather, getting discounted the first time since then). Did you think Marvel was releasing quite a few Omnibus editions in the last year? Yeah, you might be surprised. And this doesn’t include Rom or Micronauts, neither of which appear to be discounted. Annotations added when appropriate:

Is that enough Omnibus activity for one year? Only David Gabriel’s opinion of that matters! At any rate, the omnibuses have historically gone on sale once a year and that’s now, so it’s worth your time to have a browse through the actual sale at some point before 12/2. The official page is NOT well organized, so you can also use the above list to get quicker access to some of the series, just click on the series link on the book page.

A few “older” items we would make sure you’re aware of:

  • Captain Britain Omnibus – This has everything from the beginning of the 70s UK run through Captain Britain Magazine and the early X-Men appearances. What you’re really getting this for are the excellent and groundbreaking Alan Moore/Alan Davis and Jamie Delano/Alan Davis runs from the end of this period, which we’re not currently seeing available elsewhere. The rest is a bonus.
  • Incredible Hulk by Peter David Omnibus 1-5. That would be Hulk by David with that ridiculous sequence of artists he had, including Todd McFarlane, Gary Frank, Dale Keown, Angel Medina and Liam Sharp. 1-4 collect his original run and V. 5 collects some of the many times he’s revisited Hulk since the original run ended. Why the omnibus? Because this is a weird run to pick up in collected editions. It starts out in “Marvel Visionary” editions and eventually switches over to Epic Collections. This is just a drastically easier way to grab an exceptionally long run and probably cheaper than waiting to score the Visionary editions on sale. We also don’t mind tipping our hat to Peter David when he’s recovering from some health problems.
  • Knights of Pendragon Omnibus was out of the Marvel UK office. Knight of Pendragon was a Captain Britain-adjacent title. Dai Thomas, the supporting character from the main strip, is more of the central character with Captain Britain and Union Jack along for the ride. This was largely a Dan Abnett/John Tomlinson/Garry Erksine feature. You get some Brian Hitch art from Mys-Tech Wars and Carlos Pacheco art from Dark Guard. This is another where if you want the comics, it’s Omnibus or the back issue bins.
  • Miracleman Omnibus is the 80s revival of the British character Marvelman by Alan Moore, Gary Leach, Alan Davis, John Totleben and Rick Veitch. Another of Moore’s pre-Watchmen superhero deconstructions with a Captain Marvel (Shazam)-like character rediscovering his magic word after years of a normal life and very bad things following that. A landmark book that fell to the wayside after years and years of legal battles over who held which rights. This one isn’t on sale very often and it’s roughly as cheap as you’ll find it.

The Marvel “Maybe” Sales

Amazing Spider-Man  Deadpool X-Men '97

The trend continues. New releases at lower than expected price points and discounted pre-orders. Is this the new normal? We’re not sure, but let’s run them down.

Dropping This Week

Pre-Order for Next Week

🤞 Don’t miss these tips!

We don’t spam! Read more in our privacy policy

Still on Sale

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Black Friday / Cyber Monday Part 2 – More DC $1.99 Books (w/ More Batman), Plus Dark Horse

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, it’s the second half of DC’s $1.99 Black Friday/Cyber Monday blowout… now with more Batman. Plus, Dark Horse has a Black Friday sale.

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):

DC’s Cyber Monday… AKA Black Friday Part 2 – Happy Holidays

The DC Cyber Savings Sale runs through Monday, 12/4.

Let’s call this what it is, the second half of the CRAZY sale that started last week.  This installment is Justice League through Zero Hour.  Lots of $1.99 collected editions and a few more expensive volumes that finally have a reasonable price. We’re going with annotation format again to cover more ground, but we’ll try and organize it a little better than Amazon does. As you can tell by the unusual length, we’re impressed with the deals and there’s a lot of good stuff here. And yes… we’re shocked something as recent as The Human Target is $1.99.

Batman

Tales of the Batman: Steve Englehart  Tales of the Batman: Archie Goodwin  Legends of the Dark Knight Norm Breyfogle 2

Yes, there’s a little more Batman this week and it’s those “Legends of” and “Tales of” volumes that usually have lousy discounts. We hate to say “this week only,” but these aren’t usually at friendly prices and there are some particularly choice bits.

Justice League

Justice League of America  Justice League Quarterly  Justice League by Priest

Everything’s there except the Grant Morrison run, but here are our highlights.

  • Justice League of America (1960 – 87) – The biggest highlight here is the set of $1.99 Silver Age collections of the earliest stories. The JSA/JLA team-ups are also deep discounted. This series hasn’t really been collected often.
  • Justice League of America (1987 – 96) – This is the Justice League International era, as started by Keith Giffen/J.M. DeMatteis/Kevin Maguire. Bwa ha ha. And that’s the best place to start.
  • Justice League of America (2006 – 11) – The gems here are the 4 volumes written by Dwayne McDuffie (from the animated series): V1 / V2 / V3 / V4
  • Justice League (2016 -18) – The gem here is the Priest / Pete Woods arc.
  • The Nail – Alan Davis weaves a masterpiece in this pair of Elseworlds about a world where the Kents don’t find baby Kal-El in his spaceship and Superman does not emerge. A+

Legion of Super-Heroes

Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes   Legion of Super Heroes The Great Darkness Saga  Legion of Superheroes: The Curse

Not as much of the Legion run is in digital or currently in print as you might think. Of what is, here are some highlights and recommendations.

  • Legion of Super-Heroes: The Silver Age – The earliest appearances, through the first 10 issues of their Adventure Comics feature.
  • Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes – These two volumes pick up roughly where Paul Levitz starts writing and takes you through where Superboy leaves the Legion (which is the Gerry Conway run). Artists include Mike Grell, James Sherman, Joe Staton and a bit of Jim Starlin. Included are the wedding of Lightning Lad & Saturn Girl and the Earthwar sequence.
  • Legion of Super-Heroes (1980-85) – What you’re really looking at here are the last two volumes where Paul Levitz returns and starts to hit his stride, which Keith Giffen joining him fairly quickly.
    • The Great Darkness Saga  – Levitz/Giffen with their all-time classic arc in the middle of it. 414 pages for $1.99? A steal.
    • The Curse – Levitz/Giffen continue to deal with the fallout from The Great Darkness. 544 pages for $1.99? Very hard to beat for value.
  • Legion of Super-Heroes (1985-89) – Only one volume available and they really need to get on the stick about collecting the rest of the Levitz run.
  • Legion Lost – The entertaining (if controversial) Dan Abnett / Andy Lanning / Oliver Copiel run. The setup and then the actual Legion Lost.
  • Legion of Super-Heroes (2005-09) – Starts out with the now familiar team of Mark Waid and Barry Kitson. Ends with a flawed, but interesting run by Jim Shooter, returning to the feature he started out on.
  • Legion of Super-Heroes (2010-11) – Paul Levitz returns.
  • Legion of Super-Heroes (2011 – 13) – The Levitz run is relaunch for New 52… and Keith Giffen returns for the final volume in the set.

Jack Kirby

New Gods by Jack Kirby  Jimmy Olsen by Jack Kirby  Kamandi

Most of his DC material is included (in the back half of the alphabet)

Fourth World:

Non-Fourth World DC work:

“At-Large” gems:

Kingdom Come  Manhunter  Mister Miracle

  • Kingdom Come – Mark Waid and Alex Ross paint a dystopian future (and comment on the 90s grim ‘n’ gritty trend) – $1.99
  • Lobo by Keith Giffen and Alan Grant – With art by Simon Bisley, until the editors realized what he was sneaking into the cover. The rude, crude humor version that screams “Jason Momoa” to everyone. Much fun, but not for puritans.
  • Manhunter – Archie Goodwin and Walt Simonson did an absolute classic as a backup in Detective. Spies, ninjas, a secret society and Batman crosses over in the end. Highest recommendation.
  • Marshal Law– Pat Mills and Kevin O’Neill do a satire of superheroes as a Judge Dredd like vehicle. If you like The Boys, this is worth a look for $3.99. Darker and more violent, not for kids.
  • Mister Miracle by Steve Englehart & Steve Gerber – A few years after Kirby left, DC revived Mister Miracle, only to have it fall in the “DC Implosion.” That’s actually Englehart/Marshall Rogers and Gerber/Michael Golden/Russ Heath. Yes, Heath inking Golden and it’s GREAT. The Gerber/Golden/Heath run is the star and you’ll be mad it was cancelled. Totally under the radar for years.
  • Mister Miracle (2017-19) – The Tom King / Mitch Gerads Eisner-Winning revival. $1.99?!?
  • Night Force – Marv Wolfman & Gene Colan (as in Tomb of Dracula) reunite at DC for horror/time travel series that flew under too many radars.
  • Nightwing – Tom Taylor / Bruno Redondo – the series that could be the current center of the DCU. Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, $1.99@. (We think it hits its stride in V.2)
  • The Omega Men: The End – Tom King and Barnaby Bagenda turn the Omega Men into a study of fanaticism and terrorism. Also a Green Lantern take as Kyle Rayner is abducted. Near the top of the King cannon.  Yes, $1.99.
  • One-Star Squadron – The “wait… why haven’t they collaborated before?” team of Mark Russell and Steve Leiber pit Red Tornado and Power Girl against the gig economy! Yes, it’s a pitch black satire.
  • Orion by Walt Simonson – Walt at the top of his game exploring the Kirby mythos. We’d put it up with his Thor, but DC didn’t market it very well and hardly anyone remembers it. Recommended.
  • Planetary – Warren Ellis & John Cassaday. Yes, you can get the whole deconstruction of pulp heroes in 2 volumes for ~$4, all-in.
  • Plastic Man: Rubber Banded – Very few people have really done Plastic Man right since Jack Cole shuffled off the mortal coil. Kyle Baker is one of them. Hilarious and silly book.
    Road to Perdition  Sandman Mystery Theater  Sheriff of Babylon
  • Prez: Corndog-in-Chief – Mark Russell & Ben Caldwell. We wish this book wasn’t so darn relevant. An accurate satire of election law and political horse trading finds a teen becoming president after a video of her mishap with a corn dog deep fryer goes viral. It’s a winner, especially as we approach an election year.
  • Promethea – Alan Moore & J.H. Williams explore mythology and symbolism as a college student becomes the latest incarnation of the avatar of imagination… and tries to head off a looming apocalypse. Smart and beautifully illustrated book.
  • The Road to Perdition – Max Allan Collins & Richard Piers Rayner – this is where the film came from.
  • Sandman Mystery Theater – Matt Wagner / Steven T. Seagle / Guy Davis (main artist) – A wonderful pulp detective series from Vertigo with the Golden Age Sandman (pre-teen sidekick). Pulp with more introspection. 300+ page installments for $1.99. Great series.
  • Scalped – Jason Aaron & R.M. Guéra – A Vertigo crime series. An FBI agent goes undercover at the casino on the reservation he grew up in and thought he’d escape. Nobody does rural noir like Aaron.
  • Secret Society of Super Villains – For the completists, at a better price.
  • Seven Soldiers of Victory – Grant Morrison’s self-contained series of mini-series/Event in two volumes for ~$4 total.
  • Shade, The Changing Man – Peter Milligan and Chris Bachalo reimagine the Ditko character for Vertigo.
  • The Sheriff of Babylon – Tom King & Mitch Gerads explore murder and crime in Baghdad’s Green Zone. The full series for $1.99
  • Starman – James Robinson & Tony Harris reinvent the legacy superhero (and legacy villain) with one of the best things to come out of DC in the 90s. DC really needs to finish collecting this one.
  • Stormwatch – The original Warren Ellis / Tom Raney / Brian Hitch run
  • Strange Adventures – Tom King & Mitch Gerads with a political/deconstructionist take on Adam Strange
  • Suicide Squad – John Ostrander / Luke McDonnell – the original ’80s Dirty Dozen riff that spawned the current franchise. Some genius forgot to discount V. 1, but that will be on sale again at some point. The rest are $1.99
  • Suicide Squad: Get Joker – Brian Azzarello & Alex Maleev did a Black Label version
    Jimmy Olsen  Green Lantern  The Human Target
  • Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen: Who Killed Jimmy Olsen? – Matt Fraction & Steve Leiber drop a joke bomb disguised as a murder mystery. HILARIOUS. Highly recommended.
  • Tales of the Green Lantern Corps, V.3  – Bizarrely mislabeled, this is the first six issues of the Steve Englehart/Joe Staton Green Lantern Corps
  • The Authority – Warren Ellis & Bryan Hitch revamp Stormwatch, then Mark Millar & Frank Quitely tag in.
  • The Brave & The Bold – Liam Sharp teams Batman and Wonder Woman against Celtic gods.
  • The Flash by Mark Waid – The volumes that weren’t on sale last week are on sale this week. No, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to us either, but there it is.
  • More Flash – Also from the original Wally West run – the Mike Baron and Grant Morrison runs.
  • The Green Lantern by Grant Morrison & Liam Sharp – One of the more imaginative Lantern stories in a while, especially as illustrated, this is really one long story in four volumes, broken up as Season One  and Season Two (even though the first series was never referred to as a season… that or DC is actively trying to confuse you, which is not beyond the realm of possibility).
  • The Hawk and the Dove: The Silver Age – Steve Ditko’s original run for $1.99
  • The Human Target – One of the most recent releases listed, Tom King & Greg Smallwood craft a noir mystery about Christopher Chance investigating who poisoned him and it looks like one of the BWA HA HA era Justice League did the deed. Noir and slapstick intermingling? YES. Very well done and especially great art. Both volumes for ~$4, total.
  • The Huntress: Origins – Paul Levitz and (mostly) Joe Staton with The Huntress’s adventures from Batman Family and Wonder Woman.
  • The Invisibles – Grant Morrison / Jill Thompson / Phil Jimenez – The one with the letter column request. If you know, you know.
    Multiversity  Nice House on the Lake  
  • Multiversity – Grant Morrison’s tale of parallel worlds. One volume/$1.99.
  • The Nice House on the Lake – James Tynion IV and Alvaro Martinez Bueno spin a horror table in what was a pretty big hit.
  • The Spectre – John Ostrander and Tom Mandrake’s under the radar classic about a man who isn’t alive and the force of destruction he’s bound to.
  • The Unwritten – Mike (M.R.) Carey and Peter Gross in a tale of fiction shaping reality (with a mild Harry Potter satirical element in the premise).
  • The Wild Storm – Warren Ellis and John Davis-Hunt reimagine the Wildstorm universe.
    • The Wild Storm: Michael Cray – Bryan Hill / N. Stephen Harris companion book where an assassin goes after funhouse mirror versions of the DC heroes.
  • Top 10 – Alan Moore / Gene Ha / Zander Cannon – What if Alan Moore wrote Hill Street Blues, but the police were superheroes? That’s essentially what this is and it’s wonderful.
  • Transmetropolitan – Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson present the absurdist adventures of a Hunter S. Thompson-esque journalist in a dystopian future, butting heads against a corrupt president. The interesting thing is how many different presidents/prime ministers/etc. have been compared to “The Smiler.”
  • Watchmen – Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. We figure you’ve heard of it by now. $1.99. We do find it a little offensive this is listed as “Media Tie-in / Adaptation,” though…

You’ll want to browse this one yourself. Last week’s first half of the sale was good, but this week’s back half is even better.

Black/Cyber/Holiday Horsefeathers Sale

The Dark Horse 2023 Black Friday Digital Sale runs through Monday, 12/4.

And it’s pretty much the entire Dark Horse catalog, as near as week can tell, so this is another one you might want to browse between now and Monday night.  Yes, Hellboy and BPRD are in there, but we’ll look a bit more off the beaten path for our overview.

Air by G. Willow Wilson and M.R. Perker. Berger Books is re-issuing Wilson’s pre-Ms. Marvel Vertigo series. It’s a good one, though a bit hard to describe. A flight attendant finds herself caught up in a far-ranging conspiracy that involves jihadists, dimension-hopping and… Amelia Earhart? This one came out around the time DC started micromanaging Vertigo and got wrapped up before it connected with it’s audience (or Wilson’s name became a selling point). We liked it quite a bit and would love a continuation.

Blacksad by Juan Diaz Canales and Juanjo Guarnido is something fairly unique. Private detective stories in the vein of Philip Marlowe, except the cast is anthropomorphic animals. No, absolutely not funny animals and not a bit of camp to it. Hardboiled detective stories. Good ones and some of the best art in comics. Manga is not the only import.

The Eltingville Club by Evan Dorkin is a parody of obnoxious fanboys run amok. Or is it actually a parody? We’re not sure how far fetched it is and it might be on the pointed side, but that’s why everyone loves Dorkin.

Air   Blacksad  Eltingville Club

Finder by Carla Speed McNeil is one of the smarter science fiction comics out there and it’s been popping up since the ’90s. Sometimes referred to as “aboriginal science fiction,” Finder spends more time building worlds and, more importantly, cultures than most comics. The nominal lead, Jaeger, is a “Finder” – an uncanny tracker with mysterious abilities related to healing and travel. He’s also a Sin Eater, which causes him no end of trouble. This one has never really popped above the radar like it should.

Grandville by Bryan Talbot is a different flavor of anthropomorphic comic – steampunk. In a world where Britain fell to Napoleon and France is the center of Europe, a badger named Detective-Inspector LeBrock, based out of Scotland Yard, pursues scoundrels. Unlike Blacksad, Grandville does have a sense of humor.

Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan: The Complete Joe Kubert Years – Joe Kubert is generally acknowledged as one of the masters of the artform. Tarzan was always a favorite for him and when DC was able to get the Tarzan license, a passion project ensued. This just might be Kubert’s finest art.

Finder  Grandville  Joe Kubert's Tarzan

Plenty of things still on sale, and then a big turnover on Tuesday.

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Black Friday Sales Part 2 – DC’s $1.99 Collected Editions(!); Star Wars; The Orville

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, it’s more Black Friday Sales as DC has a ridiculous amount of great comics for $1.99 – $2.99. Plus, Dark Horse discounts Star Wars and The Orville.

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):

Earlier in the week, we looked at the Marvel Black Friday Sales. Given the holiday, we’re back a little bit earlier than usual to look at DC and Dark Horse. Take your time and browse this through the weekend. You will want to have a close look at the DC sale.

DC Gets CHEAP for the Holidays

The DC Black Friday Sale runs through Monday, 11/27.

$1.99 collected editions cheap enough for you? Including some double volumes. How about 52? 26 issues per volume, ~570 pages & ~600 pages for $2.99 each. That’s cheap, all right.

We’ll be breaking format and just going down the list with some quick annotations. There is a LOT we like here for the prices and/or think is notable.  Not as much Batman/Superman… but that sale was last week. You’ll also note this only goes from A-J. We expect L-Z will follow.

Without further adieu:

  • 100 Bullets – Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso spin a tale about the intersection of revenge, crime and espionage. A classic from Vertigo. Double volumes for $1.99? Yup.
  • 52 – Grant Morrison, Mark Waid, Greg Rucka, Geoff Johns and Keith Giffen got together to produce a weekly comic that spanned the DC universe for a year. 52 issues, 2 volumes (collecting 26 issues each) for $2.99/volume.
  • All-Star Superman – Grant Morrison & Frank Quitely write a love letter to Silver Age Superman tales. A classic we hear James Gunn is a big fan of. All 12 issues for $1.99
  • Batman and Robin – The Grant Morrison / Frank Quitely / Cameron Stewart / Frazier Irving material
  • Batman/Spawn – both of the 90s crossovers for $1.99
  • Batman: Arkham Asylum – The Grant Morrison / Dave McKean classic for $1.99
  • Camelot 3000 – Mike W. Barr / Brian Bolland – King Arthur returns to repel an alien invasion… as was foretold. ~300 pages / $1.99
  • Challengers of the Unknown – Jack Kirby’s late ’50s, pre-Marvel SF/F adventurer team. Not quite superheroes, but you’ll be shocked how Fantastic Four it feels. ~300 pages / $1.99
  • Clean Room – A lesser-known Gail Simone / Jon Davis-Hunt horror tale from Vertigo
  • Creature Commandos – soon to be an animated series, these are the originals
  • The Scott Snyder / Greg Capullo “Metal” crossover Events:
  • DC: The New Frontier: Darwyn Cooke’s must-read classic about the dawn of the Silver Age characters
  • Deadman – Collecting the appearance from Neal Adams in Strange Adventures through the ’80s mini-series.
  • Dial H – The China Mieville / Alberto Ponticelli / Mateus Santolouco “weird fiction” take on the dial that gives it’s wearer new powers each time. A bizarre delight. ~400 pages / $2.99
  • The Doomsday Clock – The Geoff Johns / Gary Frank crossover Event that brought Watchmen into the DC Universe. 455 pages/$2.99
  • Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepus Chronicles – Mark Russell’s and Mike Feehan’s dark satire casts the cartoon character as a gay playwright facing off against the House Un-American Activities Committee in the 1950s. No, really. It’s good.
  • Fables – Bill Willingham’s / (mostly) Mark Buckingham’s series about the characters from fairy tales hiding out in New York City as refuges after their worlds have been conquered. A classic.
  • Far Sector – N.K. Jemisin / Jamal Campbell take a new Green Lantern to the edge of the universe to solve a mystery. Absolutely wonderful book. ~300 pages / $1.99 – no excuses
  • Final Crisis – The celebrated crossover Event by Grant Morrison / J.G. Jones / Doug Mahnke / Carlos Pacheco. 456 pages / $1.99 (!)
  • The Flash (’87 – ’09) – $1.99/$2.99 omnibuses of the Mark Waid run. Watch to see if the Geoff Johns volumes prices get better in a couple days…
  • The Flash: The Silver Age – The early stories, ~400 pages / $1.99
  • Gotham Central – Ed Brubaker / Greg Rucka / Michael Lark / Stefano Gaudiano / Jason Alexander / Kano – The Gotham PD handles things without Batman. EXCELLENT series and $1.99 for double volumes. Just get it.
  • Grayson – The Tim Seeley / (early) Tom King / Mikel Janin series with Dick Grayson as a spy/double agent
  • Green Lantern (’60 – ’86)
  • Green Lantern (’05 – ’11) – The Geoff Johns run… and this is more complicated than is should be, but it really is an excellent run.
  • Hard Time: The Complete Series – Steve Gerber / Mary Skrenes / Brian Hurtt in a criminally below the radar of super powered teen who gets (shafted) sent to prison. 458 pages / $2.99
  • Hardware: The Man in the Machine -Dwayne McDuffie and Denys Cowan gave this Milestone book a great opening arc.
  • Hitman – The Garth Ennis / John McCrae bloody farce
  • Infinite Frontier – The crossover Event. 392 pages / $1.99
  • Jack of Fables – The Bill Willingham / Lilah Sturges/ Tony Akins / Russ Braun Fables companion book. (i.e., fun) – 16 issues/volume – $2.99
  • JLA (’97-’06) – Starts with the Grant Morrison/Howard Porter Justice League run. Then some Mark Waid, Joe Kelly… even Chris Claremont / John Byrne. Double volumes for the most part / $1.99
  • Jonah Hex: Shadows West – All of the Joe R. Lansdale / Tim Truman horror take on Jonah Hex for $1.99. Great stuff that started a lawsuit!

But that’s just our take on the highlights. At these prices, you should have a scroll through the sale yourself between now and Monday.

All-Star Superman   Far Sector   Gotham Central

Nothing But Star Wars

The Dark Horse 2023 Star Wars Digital Sale runs through Monday, 12/25.

That’s right Dark Horse has Star Wars again. They have the YA license. Rule of thumb with this sale: the $0.99 single issues are cheaper than the collected editions when available.  What’s in this sale?

Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures   Star Wars Hyperspace Stories    Star Wars: Tales from the Rancor Pit

It Only Looks Like Star Trek

The  Dark Horse 2023 The Orville-Space Job Digital Sale runs through Monday, 12/18.

Again, you want the $0.99 single issues here for maximum cheap.

The Orville   Space Job

Enjoy the holiday and we’ll be back next week.

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Black Friday Sales Part 1 – Marvel Omnibuses, Star Wars: The High Republic; Heroes Reborn

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Black Friday has arrived with Marvel’s Omnibus Sale, plus discounts on Heroes Reborn and Star Wars: The High Republic.

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):

Surprise, surprise… normally we expect to see Marvel having an Epic Collection Sale the week of Black Friday.  Apparently, that’s not the case this year. They whipped out an Omnibus sale instead.  As we go into holiday sale season, we’ll be looking at the Marvel sale today and the rest of the sale at the end of the week.

Omni-Man?

The Marvel Omnibus Sale runs through Monday, 12/4.

What we’re looking at here, for the most part, are $19.99 Omnibus editions. How good a deal are these? Depends on the age on the material and what kind of sales you see on it during the year. These editions tend to run in the roughly 800-1000 page range, 40-ish issues. This may be a better deal on newer material and there are a few things you’re only getting in the Omnibus format.

One observation we’ll make. With the print omnibuses, some people complain they’re a little to big to comfortably handle and read. Nobody makes that complaint with digital.

What’s catching our eye, here?

Incredible Hulk by Peter David Omnibus 1-5. That would be Hulk by David with that ridiculous sequence of artists he had, including Todd McFarlane, Gary Frank, Dale Keown, Angel Medina and Liam Sharp. 1-4 collect his original run and V. 5 collects some of the many times he’s revisited Hulk since the original run ended. Why the omnibus? Because this is a weird run to pick up in collected editions. It starts out in “Marvel Visionary” editions and eventually switches over to Epic Collections. This is just a drastically easier way to grab an exceptionally long run and probably cheaper than waiting to score the Visionary editions on sale. We also don’t mind tipping our hat to Peter David when he’s recovering from some health problems.

Aliens: The Original Years – Dark Horse had the Aliens license a really long time and had a lengthy and popular run with the franchise. If you want it, there’s an Epic Collection that contains about half of the first omnibus. Otherwise, if you want these tales, it’s either the omnibuses or back issues.

Captain Britain Omnibus – This has everything from the beginning of the 70s UK run through Captain Britain Magazine and the early X-Men appearances. What you’re really getting this for are the excellent and groundbreaking Alan Moore/Alan Davis and Jamie Delano/Alan Davis runs from the end of this period, which we’re not currently seeing available elsewhere. The rest is a bonus.

Incredible Hulk by Peter David   Aliens: The Original Years   Captain Britain Omnibus

Knights of Pendragon Omnibus was out of the Marvel UK office. Knight of Pendragon was a Captain Britain-adjacent title. Dai Thomas, the supporting character from the main strip, is more of the central character with Captain Britain and Union Jack along for the ride. This was largely a Dan Abnett/John Tomlinson/Garry Erksine feature. You get some Brian Hitch art from Mys-Tech Wars and Carlos Pacheco art from Dark Guard. This is another where if you want the comics, it’s Omnibus or the back issue bins.

Miracleman Omnibus is the 80s revival of the British character Marvelman by Alan Moore, Gary Leach, Alan Davis, John Totleben and Rick Veitch. Another of Moore’s pre-Watchmen superhero deconstructions with a Captain Marvel (Shazam)-like character rediscovering his magic word after years of a normal life and very bad things following that. A landmark book that fell to the wayside after years and years of legal battles over who held which rights. This one isn’t on sale very often it’s roughly as cheap as you’ll find it.

Predator: The Original Years – Much like Aliens (and where do you think the movie people got the idea for Aliens vs. Predator?) Dark Horse had the Predator license for a really long time. These are the original Predator comics. Some of them you can get digital single issues of for $1.99@ and some of them you’d need to dive into the back issue bins for.

Knights of Pendragon   Miracleman Omnibus   Predator: The Original Years

And, NOT LISTED on the sale page:

Planet Of The Apes Adventures: The Original Marvel Years

Planet of the Apes Adventures

Rebirth

The  Marvel Heroes Reborn sale runs through… Tuesday 11/21?!?

OK, we’re thinking there was a typo and it’s running through Monday, 11/27?

At any rate, Heroes Reborn was when (spinning out of the X-Men storyline of Onslaught), Marvel’s frontline heroes were relocated to a different dimension/incarnations and Marvel outsourced those titles to Image.

Those books were:

  • Heroes Reborn: Avengers – originally Jim Valentino/Rob Liefeld, with Jeph Loeb, Ian Churchill, Walter Simonson and Michael Ryan all having turns.
  • Heroes Reborn: Iron Man – originally Jim Lee / Scott Lobdell / Whilce Portatco with Ryan Benjamin and Jeph Loeb tagging in later.
  • Heroes Reborn: Captain America – Rob Liefeld w/Jeph Loeb, later James Robinson/Joe Bennett
  • Heroes Reborn: Fantastic Four – *WARNING* as we type this, somebody forgot to put this on sale. Maybe the sale price is adjusted, maybe not. This was originally Jim Lee w/ Brandon Choi, with Brett Booth and Ron Lim eventually tagging in on art duties

All the heroes returned to their old forms in the Marvel Universe in Heroes Reborn: The Return. 

And then the titles relaunched. Not everything relaunched is in the sale (notably the WONDERFUL Kurt Busiek/George Perez Avengers) but we loved both “Captain America: Heroes Return” – better known as the second Mark Waid / Ron Garney run and “Iron Man: Heroes Return,” which was Kurt Busiek / Sean Chen. Top runs for both characters, really.

Captain America Heroes Return   Iron Man: Heroes Reborn

How High?

The Marvel High Republic Sale runs through… 11/21?

Again, we think this is a typo and it’ll run through Monday, 11/27, but I guess we’ll find out?

What’s this, it’s the new Star War initiative taking place during the “height” of the Galactic Republic, prior to the rise of the Empire. Which is to say, the Golden Age of the Jedi.

What’s on sale?

Star Wars: The High Republic   Star Wars: The High Republic - Season 2   Star Wars: The High Republic - The Blade

What else is newly on sale (that we’ll look at later in the week)?

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales – Marvel’s Black Friday Sale! $3.99/$4.99 Epic Collections (and a List of What’s New This Year)

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, it’s Marvel’s Black Friday Sale! $3.99/$4.99 Epic Collections… and we keep track of what’s new to this year’s version of the sale.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

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

Cheap Marvel Epic Collections

The Marvel Epic Collection Sale runs through Thursday 12/1.

The holiday sale season is officially here. Call it a pre-Black Friday sales if you like. The majority of Marvel’s Epic Collections are $3.99/$4.99 and this is an good time to fill in gaps in your collection. This is one of Marvel two best sales of the year, so we’re popping in early to give you the rundown on it.

First we’re going to give a quick overview of what’s in it (for quicker browsing).

Then we’re going to try and root out what’s new in the sales since last year — yes, we know some of you stock up on your Epic Collections every year when this sale drops and this ought to save you some time.

Then some recommendations.

What’s On Sale

Here’s a list of the series involved in the sale. You may need to scroll down past the Masterworks editions to the Epics in some of the links… and that’s OK, because you should remember the Masterworks are usually on sale in December! The material from the mid-80s to present, tends to be in Epic Collections only. (So this is the time to get Avengers West Coast, Conan, Silver Surfer, New Mutants and the more recent material and discounts for those will dry up on the 1st. You have more sale options with material in both formats.)

What’s New Since Last Year’s Black Friday Sale

Near as we can tell, these are the new releases since last year’s Black Friday Epic Collection sale dropped. Compare them to what you’ve already purchased, just in case, but this is what it’s looking like to us, and yes, Marvel was almost averaging 4 Epics/month:

What’s Good?

A lot’s good, really. But with an eye on things that don’t have Masterworks version yet, this is what comes to mind:

Since one of the last year’s new releases plugged major hole, if you were to pull the first four Silver Surfer volumes here, you’d get the Steve Englehart/Marshal Rogers run, followed by the Jim Starlin/Ron Lim run, which re-introduces Thanos and takes you into Infinity Gauntlet. A very good run of cosmic Marvel!

New Mutants Epic Collection: The Demon Bear Saga gets you the entire Chris Claremont/Bill Sienkiewicz run, probably the high point of the franchise, for a lousy $3.99.

Captain America Epic Collection: Man Without A Country is the first Mark Waid / Ron Garney run, widely considered a highlight of the franchise (and we’d agree about that).

Silver Surfer - Englehart   New Mutants: The Demon Bear Saga  Captain America: Man Without a Country

And we’ll be back at the end of the week for the rest of the holiday sales that are starting to drop.

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Still On Sale

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Comixology Sales: The Final Black Friday Deals Roundup and Recommendations

It’s Black Friday time at Comixology, so we’re pulling all of the week’s posts into this master list, so you can have all the recommendations in one place. Since Comixology keeps threatening to merge their site into Amazon, we’ll toss in an Amazon link for the sales that Amazon has provided one. Amazon is not good about linking to individual sales.

Yes, there’s a lot of things to look at… as you’d expect on Black Friday.

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

Marvel Has the Best Deals

The Marvel Epic Collection Sale runs through Sunday, 12/05. (Amazon link for the sale)

$3.99 Epic Collections.  Figure all of them that are older than ~6 months from debut. Since most of those collect around 20 issues, we’re serious about that 20 issues for the price of 1 headline.  ~80%-89% off, depending on list price.  If you like Marvel, this is a SPLENDID time to fill in the holes in your collection, so do some browsing.

Some suggestions?

Conan is on sale less often than other Marvel titles, so if you like the Cimmerian, you might want to grab these first. Two runs are here: The Conan Chronicles is the title for the collections of Dark Horse material. That starts out with a very strong Kurt Busiek/Cary Nord run, followed by Tim Truman tagging in as writer and adding Paul Lee and a few other to the artist rotation. Recommended for barbarian fans!  Conan the Barbarian is the classic Marvel run. Scroll down to the Collected editions on the series page for the Roy Thomas/Barry Windsor-Smith/John Buscema/Gil Kane/Neal Adams classic. This one needs no introduction.

Conan Chronicles   Conan the Barbarian

Seriously, take a good browse through this sale.  It’s hard to go wrong with ~400-500 pages for $3.99. We will make one small suggestion: you can get the widely-loved, yet under-hyped Ann Nocenti/John Romita, Jr./Al Williamson Daredevil run across three volumes and that’s sure worth a look. (This is where Typhoid Mary debuts, among other things.

Daredevil Epic Collection   Daredevil Epic Collection

Slings and Arrows…

The Marvel Hawkeye Sale also runs through Sunday, 12/5. (Amazon link for the sale)

This one is of a similar flavor to the Epic sale. You remember the Matt Fraction/David Aja (with special guest appearance by Steve Lieber) Hawkeye series that was all the rage a few years back an inspired the Disney+ series that’s about to debut? $0.99 for the first collection, $1.99 each for the rest.  It’s good AND it’s cheap. What more do you want?

We also particularly recommend the Steve Englehart Avengers West Coast run, but you’re better off with the Epic Collections with those (and the rest of the run, where available.)

Hawkeye   Avengers West Coast

Marvel has two other sales that fall into the more common ~60-67% off range, Both running through Sunday, 11/18.  We’d say hit the Epics and Hawkeye before you venture further — those are the holiday discounts!

  • The Marvel Latest and Greatest Sale (Amazon link)is an eclectic set of releases. There is a little bit of Conan – old and current – sprinkled in at random, if you’re seeking that.
  • The Champions Sale is for both the 70s and current incarnations of Champions. To illustrate our point about where the deals lie this week, The Champions Classic: The Complete Collection is the same size as an Epic Collection, but will run you $3 more.

Lowest Prices for Indie Comics ($0.99 Collected Editions)

Yes, comics reader – we know you love the race to the bottom when it comes to sale prices and there are some publishers that are catering to that love for $0.99 digital trade paperback collections.  Those same publishers are offering the next few volumes in a series for $1.99 each. That’s a really good, coming close to the Marvel Epic deal.  We even have some favorites to look for as we wade through this.

Hasbro and Friends

The IDW Best of Sale (Amazon version) runs through Monday, 11/29 and features some of the usual suspects (Dungeons & Dragons, GI Joe, Transformers, My Little Pony, Sonic the Hedgehog and Star Wars) at $0.99 for the first Volume and $1.99 for subsequent volumes.

Transformers: Classics

Spies & Monsters

The Best of Oni & Lion Forge Sale follows the same pricing formula and runs through 12/3.  Among the handful of feature titles are some that we hold in very high regard at The Tower of Cheap. (Amazon link)

Queen & Country by Greg Rucka and a new artist every storyline is probably the best American spy comic… even if it’s set in the UK and is an homage of sorts to an old UK TV show called “The Sandbaggers.” Highly Recommended

Kaijumax by Zander Cannon is a tale about a supermax prison for giant monsters. Think Godzilla and his foes. Does this sound cute and campy? It’s actually quite the opposite. It’s gritty with prison gangs, smuggled drugs and assassination attempts… with giant monsters.  A unique comic that’s also Highly Recommended.

We wouldn’t sleep on Stumptown or Letter 44 either.

Queen & Country   Kaijumax 

Prices Go BOOM!

The Best of BOOM! Sale runs through Thursday, 12/2.

We’re big fans of Once and Future, a paradoxically light and breezy horror/dark fantasy adventure by Kieron Gillen and Dan Mora wherein old myths and legends are arising to herald the return of Arthur… who’s not a fan of all the foreign blood floating around modern Britain. It’s hard to make such a dark premise fun-first, but Gillen and Mora do it with aplomb.

Dune: House Atreides has seen a bump with the movie release. This is Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson adapting their prequel novel with Dev Parmanik on the art. This would be the tale of young Leto Atreides and the secret origin of Duncan Idaho.

Once & Future   Dune: House Atreides

A Universe

The Best of Valiant Sale runs through Thursday, 12/2 and – that’s right – $0.99 for V.1 and $1.99 for the rest. (Amazon link)

This is also a bit of a starter sale as the early years are highlighted here. Lucky you, these are all solid SF/F adventure comics with superhero trappings.  Harbinger is very similar to X-Men with a teens on the run twist… but much darker. We’d probably call it the center of the Valiant Universe’s beginnings. X-O Manowar‘s elevator pitch is “what if Conan was abducted by aliens, stole Iron Man’s armor and then returned to Earth in modern times?” It’s the flagship book and fun.

Harbinger   X-O Manowar

The Rest of the Rock Bottom Pricing Club

The Dynamite Artbook Sale runs through Thursday, 12/2 and is $0.99/per book. These usually go for $25 or so. (Amazon link)

The Art of The Boys

The Best of Mad Cave Studios sale runs through Monday, 12/29.  We really aren’t familiar with Mad Cave, but $0.99 collected editions is a great way to get our attention. We can’t recommend anything specifically, though.

Honor and Curse

I See a Friday and I Want It Painted Black

The DC Black Friday Sale runs through Monday, 11/29.
(Amazon link if you prefer that)

Glancing through this sale, which is a smaller set of books than others, we’re seeing a discount range of 69%-75%, which is definitely on the high side for DC.  Not quite up to the Marvel standard or independent $0.99/$1.99 scheme, but up there for what they’re offering.

A lot of the usual suspects are on sale, but for some suggestions:

We always through Sinestro Corps War was the peak of the Geoff Johns era of Green Lantern.

Longtime readers know that we appreciate Tom Taylor around these parts. One of the first times he made us raise an eyebrow and say “this shouldn’t work as well it does — how did he do that?!?” was the video game adaption of Injustice: Gods Among Us. We especially like his Green Arrow. Mike S. Miller & Jheremy Raapack provide the art and later Bruno Redondo… yes, the same fellow on Nightwing with Taylor.  Comics work like that sometimes.

And finally, we’re a bit after that holiday, be Batman: The Long Halloween is still our favorite of the Jeph Loeb/Tim Sale collaborations. For those new to the series, it has Batman chasing a serial killer who strikes each month on a holiday, as DA Harvey Dent starts to spiral…

Green Lantern - Sinestro Corps War   Injustice: Gods Among Us   Batman: The Long Halloween

Image Organizes a Sale

The Image Graphic Novel Sale runs through Monday, 11/29.

This is pretty much their full digital catalog at half-off. If you’ve been meaning to try something and the tpb is at least a few months old, go digging for it.

Some recommendations?  Sure!

Fatale was the comic that brought Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips to Image. When it blew up, those two had a new trajectory. It was an important book for both the publisher and the creator. More importantly, it’s a good comic. A bit of a genre-bender adding horror to the noir formula as a reporter stumbles into a feud between immortals: a mysterious beauty who leaves a trail of dead suiters and mobster whose humanity is very much in question.

Another Image title we’d consider complimentary to Fatale is Ghosted by a pre-DC stardom Josh Williamson, Goran Sudzuka and Miroslav Mrva. Its first arc was promoted as “Ocean’s 11 meets The Shining,” with a team of thieves hired to steal a ghost from a haunted house. While the criminal element stays for the long haul (pun intended), this one dives into some deeper occult horror after the first volume and is a nice little package. We also like that the volumes of this one are a little cheaper than some of the current offerings.

Saga is due back soon and it occurs to us that it’s been on hiatus long enough, not everybody has read it.  If you haven’t yet, it’s probably time to get caught up. This Brian K. Vaughan / Fiona Staple title is a masterclass in worldbuilding. Let’s be clear – Staple’s design sense is a BIG part of how immerse Saga can be. The tale itself is not complex: star-crossed lovers of warring races have a child and go on the run, as both sides would like to destroy the evidence of what’s happened. It’s cast of characters that makes the book. Scientists, magicians and a lot of bounty hunters. The unusual… appetites of Prince Robot IV. A ghost. Spaceships that grow like trees.  Saga is its own beast and well worth your time.

And finally, one of Image’s recent hits. $3.99 for the first volume of The Department of Truth is worth taking a flier on if you haven’t already. James Tynion IV (no relation to Prince Robot IV) and Martin Simmonds spin an X-Files-ish tale about willing conspiracies into reality through the power of belief. Creepy and oddly current… but with historical through-lines.

    Saga   Department of Truth

Is It a Turkey?

The “Dark Horse Turkey Five Sale” runs through Monday, 11/29 and comes in three parts: 1 ( graphic novels, 300 – The Last of Us), 2 (graphic novels The Legend of Korra – Zombie World; single issues 47 Ronin – Hellboy) and 3 (single issues, Hellboy – Zodiac Starforce).

Graphic novels are 50% and single issues are $0.99.

What’s interesting? Let’s avoid the usual suspects this time.

Dark Horse has always been good at anthologies and Dark Horse Presents gets a lot more interesting when it’s $0.99 per issue. Good creators, real variety and those early issues are 80+ pages, so good value. We just wish we could figure out where they put the first issue!

If you want to go old school, there’s always The Complete Elfquest by Richard and Wendy Pini. One of the original Direct Market titles, it’s an acknowledged classic. The elves are burned out of their home by the humans and so begins the quest. (Which is to say nothing of the trolls.)

Finder by Carla Speed McNeil has been running under the radar for ~20 years, but the most recent graphic novel, Chase the Lady, came out in June. This is a very anthropological science fiction series where cultures play a central role. The lead character for most of the journey is Jeager, a sin eater and “Finder” whose abilities to track things and appear anywhere are almost as mysterious as the past he can’t remember.  It’s been around 20+ years for a reason and is worth a look.

Nexus by Mike Baron and (mostly) Steve Rude is a science fiction adventure with superhero trappings that dates back to the 80s, but still pops up once in awhile. The omnibus editions go back to the beginning and are definitely where you should start. Horation Hellpop dreams of murders and the nightmares won’t stop until he’s murdered the murderers. The alien Merk has granted him cosmic powers and the title of Nexus. This is set against a political backdrop as the independent planetoid where Hellpop lives struggles to remain free of the Sov Empire, the religious fanatics of the Elvonic Brotherhood and slave traders. Plus… Judah the Hammer.

Dark Horse Presents   Elfquest   Finder   Nexus

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Comixology Sales: Black Friday Starts Early – $3.99 Marvel Epic Collections and Silly Discounts on Hawkeye!

Heads up – Black Friday sale season has officially begun and we’re probably going to be posting a little more frequently this week.  First up at bat: Marvel has a couple STOOPID cheap sales on their Epic Collections and Hawkeye.

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

20 Comics For the Price of 1!

The Marvel Epic Collection Sale runs through Sunday, 12/05. (Amazon link for the sale)

$3.99 Epic Collections.  Figure all of them that are older than ~6 months from debut. Since most of those collect around 20 issues, we’re serious about that 20 issues for the price of 1 headline.  ~80%-89% off, depending on list price.  If you like Marvel, this is a SPLENDID time to fill in the holes in your collection, so do some browsing.

Some suggestions?

Conan is on sale less often than other Marvel titles, so if you like the Cimmerian, you might want to grab these first. Two runs are here: The Conan Chronicles is the title for the collections of Dark Horse material. That starts out with a very strong Kurt Busiek/Cary Nord run, followed by Tim Truman tagging in as writer and adding Paul Lee and a few other to the artist rotation. Recommended for barbarian fans!  Conan the Barbarian is the classic Marvel run. Scroll down to the Collected editions on the series page for the Roy Thomas/Barry Windsor-Smith/John Buscema/Gil Kane/Neal Adams classic. This one needs no introduction.

Conan Chronicles   Conan the Barbarian

Seriously, take a good browse through this sale.  It’s hard to go wrong with ~400-500 pages for $3.99. We will make one small suggestion: you can get the widely-loved, yet under-hyped Ann Nocenti/John Romita, Jr./Al Williamson Daredevil run across three volumes and that’s sure worth a look. (This is where Typhoid Mary debuts, among other things.

Daredevil Epic Collection   Daredevil Epic Collection

Slings and Arrows…

The Marvel Hawkeye Sale also runs through Sunday, 12/5. (Amazon link for the sale)

This one is of a similar flavor to the Epic sale. You remember the Matt Fraction/David Aja (with special guest appearance by Steve Lieber) Hawkeye series that was all the rage a few years back an inspired the Disney+ series that’s about to debut? $0.99 for the first collection, $1.99 each for the rest.  It’s good AND it’s cheap. What more do you want?

We also particularly recommend the Steve Englehart Avengers West Coast run, but you’re better off with the Epic Collections with those (and the rest of the run, where available.)

Hawkeye   Avengers West Coast

Marvel has two other sales that fall into the more common ~60-67% off range, Both running through Sunday, 11/18.  We’d say hit the Epics and Hawkeye before you venture further — those are the holiday discounts!

  • The Marvel Latest and Greatest Sale (Amazon link)is an eclectic set of releases. There is a little bit of Conan – old and current – sprinkled in at random, if you’re seeking that.
  • The Champions Sale is for both the 70s and current incarnations of Champions. To illustrate our point about where the deals lie this week, The Champions Classic: The Complete Collection is the same size as an Epic Collection, but will run you $3 more.

Happy browsing and we’ll be back when the next Black Friday sales drop.

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