Tag: Dark Horse

Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Unannounced Sales on Wolverine, Dark Horse and a few DC titles, too

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, unannounced sales on Wolverine, Dark Horse and a few DC titles, too.

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 note: With the exception of the Kodansha sale that’s going on, all of the usual suspects have unannounced sales this week. If you hadn’t heard, there were some irregularities with the Amazon/Comixology New Releases page this week. We suspect this is a “formal” Wolverine sale and the sale page never got linked to the deals page in the ensuing chaos. If so, this sale probably runs through Monday or a week from Monday. Which is to say, we REALLY don’t know when any of these sales are ending! (And yes, we did turn up some randomly better-priced DC volumes.)

Invisible Killer

Wolverine: Spore  Wolverine: Enemy of the State  

As we type this early on Friday morning, there’s no link yet… but we can see the lowered prices. If an overall sale link becomes available, we’ll update the page.

This is the sale on the “main” Wolverine titles. Let’s start out by listing the various titles involved. This time out, the Epic Collections are on sale, but Wolverine Classic does not. These days, you never know about the Epics and Masterworks from sale to sale… except there aren’t any Wolverine Masterworks. And pay attention, because not every volume in a given series is discounted. (Yes, it’s been that kind of week.)

  • Wolverine (’82) – Chris Claremont / Frank Miller / Paul Smith; The miniseries that kicked off the solo stories and an X-Men 2-parter that’s a sort of follow-up
  • Wolverine (’88-’03) – The original ongoing solo title. Yes, it took six years after the mini… it was a different time
  • Wolverine (’03-’09) – Greg Rucka / Darick Robertson; Mark Millar / John Romita, Jr.; Jason Aaron/Ron Garney… among others (mostly Millar getting discounts)
  • Wolverine: Origin (’06-’10) – Daniel Way / Steve Dillon
  • Wolverine: Weapon X (’09) – Jason Aaron / Ron Garney
  • Wolverine (’10-’12) – Jason Aaron / Renato Guedes / Ron Garney; “Wolverine Goes to Hell” was not a metaphor
  • Wolverine (’13-’14) – Paul Cornell / Alan Davis
  • Wolverine: Savage Land (’14) – Frank Cho
  • Old Man Logan (’16-’18) – Jeff Lemire / Andrea Sorrentino; While Logan is “dead,” his future dystopian self journeys to the present day. (And it’s actually pretty good, despite the wonky premise.)
  • Return of Wolverine (’18-’19) – Charles Soule / Steve McNiven; “They always come back”
  • Wolverine (’20-’24) – Ben Percy / Adam Kubert; The Krakoan era Logan. The first link is the “omnibus” page, here’s the individual collections page, which are discounted a little further into the series.

So, what’s actually good?

The  original miniseries is generally regarded as a classic.

With the original series, you’re pretty good from the beginning through the end of the Larry Hama run (a bit after #100), though towards the end of that, the X-Events get annoying. We’re particularly fond of the Archie Goodwin / John Byrne arc from #17-23.

Mark Millar did two great runs:

  • Enemy of the State w/ John Romita, JR introduces Gorgan and has Wolverine up against an unholy alliance of the Hand and Hydra
  • Old Man Logan w/ Steve McNiven has an aging Logan trying to keep to himself in a dystopian future when trouble comes looking. Yes, this should sound an awful lot like one of the films!

The Krakoan era, while it almost merged with X-Force (kind of like the triangle era Superman line), was quite enjoyable.

“Normal” Unannounced Sales

Hellboy  Martha Washington  Minor Threats

It’s last call for Dark Horse’s “Comic-Con @Home digital sale” and has most of their collected editions discounted, 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.) Figure this will be around 50% off, but it might vary a little from book to book. Our understanding is that this will run through August 4th.

Here are some direct links to various series:

Dark Nights: Metal  Titans  Wonder Woman

Also on sale, and we’re not clear on when these will stop being discounted:

Additionally, it looks like most of the Captain America and Deadpool material from recent weeks is still on sale. The Under $5 Page has the lower priced volumes. Go back a couple columns for the links to find the Epic Collections.

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales, SDCC Edition: Deadpool, She-Hulk

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel deals some discounts on Deadpool and She-Hulk. Plus, the Dark Horse Comic-Con sale marches on.

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 note: For those of you wondering if the Superman sale at the beginning of the month meant that DC was back to offering regular sales: as of Friday afternoon, the answer would appear to be no. We found a couple minor price drops that we’ve thrown into the unannounced section, but the Superman sale currently looks like a one-off corporate synergy promotion. If you’re thinking this is a small number of sales for Comic-Con week, you’re correct. There’s a possibility most of the usual suspects are distracted by all the shenanigans in the Diamond Bankruptcy saga. (Something that doesn’t directly affect you as a digital reader, but is a seismic problem in the print world.)

$20 on Uncle Ben
Deadpool Classics Deadpool by Posehn and Duggan Deadpool by Joe Kelly

The Marvel Deadpool Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 7/28.

Deadpool is… oddly collected. There have been a lot of titles and lot of relaunches. Most of these (except Cable/Deadpool and the Daniel Way era) are absorbed into the Deadpool Classics line of collected editions.  Some, but not all, of the series, have omnibus editions and those are the cheaper way to collect those runs… which means, if you’re a completist and you’re cheap, you’re going to want to be wanting to fill in the Classics volumes around the omnibuses.  And Deadpool Classics V. 1 collects the various miniseries that kicked things off.  In a sense, the easiest way (but perhaps not cheapest – and certainly not the most current) to keep things chronological is to follow the Classics line.

Hey, when was getting Marvel collected editions in the proper order ever easy?

So let’s run down the main titles:

  • Deadpool Classics (’93 – as far as they’ve gotten)
  • Deadpool (’97-’02) – Known as the Joe Kelly era (with Priest and Gail Epic Collections expanding the section)
  • Cable and Deadpool (’04-’08) – Fabian Nicieza / Mark Brooks / Patrick Zircher
  • Deadpool (’08-’12) – The Daniel Way Era
  • Deadpool Team-Up (’09 – ’11) – all sorts of creators for this Deadpool variant on Marvel Two-In-One (and selectively discounted this time)
  • Deadpool Max (’10-’11) – David Lapham / Kyle Baker
  • Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe (’12) – Cullen Bunn / Dalibor Talajic
  • Deadpool (’12-15) – The Brian Posehn and Gerry Duggan Era
  • Deadpool (’15-’17) – Gerry Duggan and many, many artists
  • Despicable Deadpool (’17-’18) – Duggan/Mike Hawthorne
  • Deadpool (’18-’19) – Skottie Young / Nic Klein
  • King Deadpool (’19-’21) – Kelly Thompson / Chris Bachalo
  • Deadpool (’22-’23) – Alyssa Wong / Martin Coccolo
  • Deadpool & Wolverine: WWIII (’24) – Joe Kelly / Adam Kubert
  • Deadpool (’24 – present ) Cody Ziglar / Rogê Antônio

Pick your preferred creator and go to town.

Hulk File Injunction

The Marvel She-Hulk Sale runs through Monday, 7/28.

Sensational She-Hulk   She-Hulk by Dan Slott   She-Hulk

  • The Savage She-Hulk (’80-’82) – mostly by David Anthony Kraft and Mike Vosburg
  • Sensational She-Hulk (’89-’94) – John Byrne, then the unlikely team of Steve Gerber & Bryan Hitch
  • She-Hulk (’04-’05) – Dan Slott / Juan Bobillo
  • She-Hulk (’05 – ’09) – Initially Dan Slott / Juan Bobillo, then Peter David takes over.
  • She-Hulk (’14-’15) – Charles Soule & Javier Pulido in one omnibus
  • She-Hulk (’16-’18) – Mariko Tamaki / Nico Leon in one omnibus
  • She-Hulk (’22-’23) – Rainbow Rowell / Roge Antonio / Luca Maresca

If you’re coming into She-Hulk through the TV show, the legal angle for the character really started getting emphasized with the Dan Slott era and then was followed up on by Charles Soule (who just might be a lawyer in his secret identity). Rainbow Rowell’s also picking up a pretty dedicated following with her current runs.

Unannounced Sales

Hellboy  Martha Washington  Minor Threats

Dark Horse is still  having a “Comic-Con @Home digital sale” and has most of their collected editions discounted, 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.) Figure this will be around 50% off, but it might vary a little from book to book. Our understanding is that this will run through August 4th.

Here are some direct links to various series:

Also on sale, and we’re not clear on when these will stop being discounted:

Additionally, it looks like most of the Captain America and Wolverine material from recent weeks is still on sale. The Under $5 Page has the lower priced volumes. Go back a couple columns for the links to find the Epic Collections.

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Fantastic Four; Loki; Ms. Marvel; Dark Horse Line-Wide

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel celebrates the Fantastic Four movie with some discounts. Plus, slashed prices on Loki and Ms. Marvel, should you be in a cinematic mindset. For dessert, Dark Horse has a line-wide sale for Comic-Con.

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):

Four Play

Fantastic Four - The Coming of Galactus    Fantastic Four by Waid   Fantastic Four by Hickman

Marvel’s Fantastic Four Sale runs through Monday, 7/28.

A cynical person might think there was a movie coming out… but surely you’re not cynical?

First let’s break down the various FF titles/volumes on sale:

Yes, Fantastic Four has been relaunched less than other Marvel titles.  As to what’s good, the gold standard has always been the Stan Lee/Jack Kirby run. (And yes, we do think you can draw a straight line from Kirby’s Challengers of the Unknown at DC to Fantastic Four.) We’d say they start to hit their stride a few issues before Galactus shows up – V.3 of the Epic Collections (“The Coming of Galactus“) or V.4/5 of the Masterworks editions and you can ride a very fun train from there to the end of Lee/Kirby.

And at this point, we should talk about the “pick your poison” of Epic vs. Masterworks.  The Masterworks are built out straight into the Byrne era. We think the $6.99 Epic Collections are the best value here, though some of the newer ones are priced higher. The discounted Epics are now a little past the Lee/Kirby era, but stop with #191 and then pick up again after Byrne’s run. Pick the format that works for you and has the issues you’re looking for.

Speaking of Byrne’s run, that’s the next highpoint that everyone agrees on.  How to read Byrne? Well, there are 7 volumes of Masterworks on sale (V. 21-27) or you can hop on to Fantastic Four Visionaires: John Byrne. These comics really ought to be in an Epic Collections, but Marvel doesn’t seem in any hurry to roll the Visionaires up into a more economical package. (Or should we say, economical when it’s on sale?)

Move ahead a bit and Walt Simonson had a stint that may be a little more notable for being an early appearance of the Time Variance Authority (which actually debuted in his Thor run). This is most easily grabbed across Epic Collections V.20 and V.21.

Fast forward a bit to the Heroes Reborn era and there is a LOT to love about the Mark Waid / Mike Wieringo run. They brought back the “explorer” vibe from Lee/Kirby era that isn’t always there and upped the sense of wonder. You’d want the four Ultimate Collection volumes that start here. The “regular” collections don’t go all the way to the end.

Dwayne McDuffie and Paul Pelletier jumped in for an arc with Black Panther and Storm briefly joining the team.

And then, of course, there’s the the Hickman era. A long storyline that laid the groundwork for his Avengers run and you can certainly argue that his Secret Wars endcap to that is a Fantastic Four / Doctor Doom story. The omnibus editions we highlighted above include his FF spin-off comic that frequently crossed over with Fantastic Four, much like the Avengers titles flowed together. That packaging will be a better experience.

Kamala Sale

Ms. Marvel  Ms. Marvel: The New Mutant

The Ms. Marvel Sale runs through Monday 7/21.

Thank goodness they’re not calling this “The Marvel Ms. Marvel Sale!” This would be Ms. Marvel as in Kamala Khan, not the current Captain Marvel, Carol Danvers. 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 mini-series by Samira Ahmed and Andrés Genolet.
  • Ms. Marvel: The New Mutant – Iman Vellani / Sabir Pirzada / Carlos Gomez; Yes, that’s right, the actress who plays Ms. Marvel is co-writing this with the show’s supervising producer

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.

God of Mischief

Loki: Agent of Asgard   Journey Into Mystery  

The Marvel Loki Sale runs through Monday, 7/21.

The interesting thing about a Loki sale? These days you have “post-TV” Loki, which is to say Loki as the lead and not the villain (as in Thor or something like X-Men / Alpha Flight).

If you’re looking for Loki as the lead, the closest you’re likely to get to the TV show (thus far) is probably looking for either Loki, Agent of Asgard by Al Ewing, Lee Garbett and Jorge Coelho or the Loki run in the revived Journey Into Mystery by Kieron Gillen, Doug Braithwaite, Richard Elson (and a few more artists).

Unannounced Sales

Hellboy  Martha Washington  Minor Threats

Dark Horse is having a “Comic-Con @Home digital sale” and has most of their collected editions discounted, 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.) Figure this will be around 50% off, but it might vary a little from book to book.

Here are some direct links to various series:

Additionally, it looks like most of the Captain America, Wolverine and Ghost Rider material from recent weeks is still on sale. The Under $5 Page has the lower priced volumes. Go back a couple columns for the links to find the Epic Collections.

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Ghost Rider, Ultron, Skottie Young, The Magic Order

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel slaps a discount on Ghost Rider, Ultron and the Skottie Young catalog. Plus, The Magic Order and Manor Black.

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):

Shouldn’t He Be “In the Sky?”

Ghost Rider  Ghost Rider  Ghost Rider

The Marvel Ghost Rider Sale runs through Monday, 6/30.

That’s right, it’s Craig Ferguson’s favorite superhero.

As a bonus, the absurdity of Cosmic Ghost Rider:

The Other AI

Avengers: Bride of Ultron  Age of Ultron  Avengers: Ultron Forever

The Marvel Ultron Sale runs through Monday, 6/30.

Oh, sure… you’ve got Chat GPT and you’ve got Google Gemini and you’ve got Microsoft Co-Pilot…  but Marvel has Ultron, the AI that Microsoft and Google probably would rather you didn’t have in the front of your mind while thinking about such things. Which probably means it’s a good time for the sale.

Let’s hit some highlights:

The first Ultron arc, which culminates in the debut of The Vision, is a highlight of the original Roy Thomas / John Buscema Avengers run and is actually split across two Epic Collections: Masters of Evil has Ultron debuting near the end and Behold… The Vision finishes off his first arc and contains his second arc several issues later.

The Bride of Ultron is largely by Jim Shooter, with George Perez and John Byrne tagging in and out for most of it. The runup to the titular Ultron tale is the re-introduction of Wonder Man, which plays into the whole Vision/Simon Williams/Ultron triangle of intrigue.

Avengers: West Coast Avengers – Family Ties – Steve Englehart / Al Milgrom / Richard Howell; Ultron returns with some allies for the opening arc of West Coast Avengers.

Avengers: Rage of Ultron – by Rick Remender / Jerome Opena / Pepe Larraz; An OGN that… shall we say, reset the dynamic between Hank Pym and Ultron?

Ultron Forever is primarily by Al Ewing and Alan Davis, with a few older issues included for background. Avengers of various eras are plucked out of the timestream and brought to the future to face down a triumphant Ultron. (If you think this sounds like Ewing’s  Ant-Man sequence, there are similarities.)

The title Marvel would probably like you to purchase here is Age of Ultron, with the core by Brian Bendis, Bryan Hitch, Brandon Peterson and Carlos Pacheco. We’d put this one towards the bottom of the Ultron pile, but that’s just us.

The Young Ones

Oz: The Complete Collection  Rocket Raccoon  Strange Academy

The Marvel Skottie Young Sale runs through Monday, 6/30.

We’re just going to let you guess who the subject of this sale is.

Highlights:

Unannounced Sales

The Magic Order  Manor Black  Kill Them All

As always, we see discounts, but we don’t know how long they’ll last.

Additionally, it looks like most of the Iron Man, Black Widow and Old Man Logan material from recent weeks is still on sale. The Under $5 Page has the lower priced volumes. Go back a couple columns for the links to find the Epic Collections.

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Old Man Logan; Emma Frost; Groo

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel celebrates the Old Man Logan flavor of Wolverine and Emma Frost. Plus, Groo and Shirley Jackson.

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):

Wolverine… and the Sea?

Wolerine: Old Man Logan   Wolverine: Old Man Logan  Old Man Hawkeye

The Marvel Old Logan and the Wasteland Sale runs through Monday, 6/23.

Yes, the Old Man Logan storyline has spawned a series of miniseries set in “The Wasteland” setting from the original… and that before they brought back the Old Man Logan character after Wolverine’s “death.”

That’s what the real spread is here with the rest of the sale being side attractions you may or may not be into.  The original storyline of a cranky, aged (“Old Man”) version of Wolverine living in a dystopic future came off as a sort of Elseworlds tale and is fairly well regarded as a standalone tale.

It was popular enough that the “Old Man Logan” version of the character was contrived to appear in the present (his past… before the disaster that spawned a dystopia) in the period when Wolverine was supposed to be “dead.” It even lasted 50 issues. We’d say give the Jeff Lemire issues a look if it sounds interesting, particularly the Lemire/Sorrentino issues. This was one of their pre-Image collaborations and it’s much more entertaining than the editorial premise sounds.

Past Logan, there have been a couple other attempts to spin-off new titles in this settings, notably:

A Touch of Frost

Emma Frost  New X-Men  Astonishing X-Men

The Marvel Emma Frost Sale runs through Monday, 6/23.

Yeah, there was an Emma Frost series from Karl Bollers / Randy Green, but the emphasis here is a little more on the X-Men.

The Grant Morrison X-Men run (with an artist rotation including Frank Quitely, Igor Kordey, Phil Jimenez and Marc Silvestri) is probably the centerpiece. The “Ultimate Collections” are here. There’s also an  that appears to be the first Ultimate Collection with a different trade dress, so it looks like you can mix and match if you like?

While the entirety of Astonishing X-Men is on sale, this title is most remembered for the opening arcs by Joss Wheedon / John Cassaday and you can get their full run a little more cheaply in this set of Double Volumes.

Finally, there’s Generation X, which was sort of Scott Lobdell’s take on New Mutants. Most remember it most for the Lobdell/Chris Bachalo team that opened the series.

Unannounced Sales

Groo  Let's Make Ramen  Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery": The Authorized Graphic Adaptation

As always, we see discounts, but we don’t know how long they’ll last.

Additionally, it looks like most of the Black Widow and Strange Academy material from recent weeks is still on sale. The Under $5 Page has the lower priced volumes. Go back a couple columns for the links to find the Epic Collections.

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Iron Man; Strange Academy; Umbrella Academy; Dark Horse Manga

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, nearly the entire run of Iron Man gets a discount. So does Strange Academy. DC may or may not be having unlisted sales. Plus, Umbrella Academy, Dark Crystal and Dark Horse manga.

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: The Mystery of the Missing Masterworks

You will recall it’s been hit and miss whether Marvel Masterworks are included in Marvel sales for… perhaps a bit over a year? We might have a clue.

The Near Mint Condition live stream claims to have some inside information that the (print) Masterworks line is on indefinite hiatus and is asking people who want more to write David Gabriel at Marvel and ask for it.

See for yourself:

Has a phasing out been planned for quite some time and that’s why the digital versions aren’t always in sales? We can’t say for certain, but we’re awfully suspicious. Moreover, the Epic Collections haven’t quite duplicated the depth of the Masterworks. We understand how Marvel likes to reissue new editions in print, but it usually just makes things more confusing in the digital world.

Does Whatever An Iron Can…

Iron Man: The Man Who Killed Tony Stark  Iron Man: Heroes Reborn  Iron Man: Big Iron

The Marvel Iron Man Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 6/23

This would be one of those sales where most of the hero’s run is on sale, so we’re going to follow our usual protocol and start out by breaking out the primary titles and volumes. Iron Man isn’t as goofy to follow as, say, Spider-Gwen… but there are “quirks.” As is frequently the case (as discussed above), no Masterworks this time out.

  • Tales of Suspense – Iron Man debuted here in what was a split book with Captain America for most of the run.
  • Iron Man ’68-’96 – The original solo run in the era before constant relaunch gimmicks

OK, sit tight. The ’98 -’04 run is collected in VERY odd ways and poorly cataloged for browsing.  The truly excellent Kurt Busiek/Sean Chen/Patrick Zircher run lasts from 1-25. We can’t find 15-25 collected? (That entire run should be!)  You can catch 1-14  in cheap omnibus form here.  (No idea why the Mike Grell omnibus isn’t on sale.) You can catch Joe Quesada’s scripting run (26-32) and the Avengers: Disassembled tie-in late in this run in single volumes here. (But get the omnibus version for Busiek.)

  • Iron Man ’04-07 – Best known for launching with the “Extremis” storyline
  • Invincible Iron Man ’08-’12 – The excellent Matt Fraction / Salvador Larroca run. Save some money with the omnibus collecting the first 3 volumes.
  • Iron Man ’12-’14 – The Kieron Gillen run with Greg Land as initial artist
  • Superior Iron Man ’14-’15 by Tom Taylor / Yildiray Cinar / Laura Braga
  • Invincible Iron Man ’15-’16 – Brian Bendis and David Marquez/Mike Deodato, Jr. start out with Tony Stark in the armor
  • International Iron Man ’16 – Brian Bendis and Alex Maleev (And yes, we’re in the thick of the relaunches now)
  • Infamous Iron Man ’16-’17 – Brian Bendis / Alex Maleev; Victor Von Doom steps in as Iron Man… hey, dude is familiar with wearing armor
  • Invincible Iron Man ’16-’18 – Brian Bendis and Stefano Caselli with Riri Williams/Ironheart filling Tony Stark’s shoes (yes, parallel substitute Iron Man runs)
  • Tony Stark: Iron Man ’18-’19 – The Dan Slott era with Valerio Schiti as the principle artist in the rotation.
  • Iron Man ’20-’22 – The Christopher Cantwell / Cafu run.
  • Invincible Iron Man ’22-’24 – Gerry Duggan / Juan Frigeri

So what’s good?  We haven’t read ALL the Iron Man out there, but we’ve read a lot of them.

In our opinion Iron Man starts hitting it’s stride when Archie Goodwin arrives toward the end of the Tales of Suspense run and then is pure gold through issue 28 of the ’68 Iron Man series. Artists for this run include Gene Colan and George Tuska. (That’s collected in both Masterworks and Epic formats, but only the Epic is discounted right now..)

The next “all-star” run is #116-157 of the original Iron Man, that’s the David Michelinie / John Romita, Jr. / Bob Layton run that’s most famous for the “Demon in a Bottle” alcoholism arc, but there’s more to the run than just that arc.  The Denny O’Neil / Luke McDonnell run that follows is solid (make sure you get a collection that includes #200!!!), but Michelinie & Layton return for #215-250 with a few artists, including Mark Bright and Jackson Guice… with Layton even switching to penciller, instead of his usual inking post, for parts of it.  This second run is most famous for “Armor Wars” (originally known as Stark Wars).

When Heroes Return hits, Kurt Busiek and Sean Chen are pop in for the excellent 1998 run, of which only 1-14 are currently collected.

The ’08 – ’12 run by Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca is particularly good. You know how modern Marvel titles can get sidetracked by Events? Fraction and Larroca lean into it and produce a lengthy and self-contained arc with Tony Stark on the run and attempting to overwrite his brain to keep everyone’s secrets out of the hands of Norman Osborn. Yes, an honest to goodness great Event tie-in arc. It’s a rare thing.

We were quite happy with the  Christopher Cantwell/Cafu run. Tony Stark chases Korvac into outer space and meditates on the nature of godhood, good intentions and addictions. Lots of character work and action.

Up the Academy

Avengers Academy  Avengers Arena  Strange Academy

The Marvel Academy Sale runs through Monday, 6/16.

We’re not sure if this is Marvel making a play for the “Dark Academia” literary sub-genre, but we’ve got a few different flavors of young adults in various forms of learning institutions for those with super powers or magical powers. Strange Academy is probably the most “Dark Academia” of the bunch.

  • Avengers Academy – Christos Gage / Mike McKone / Sean Chen; Hank Pym runs an Avengers training program
  • Avengers Arena –  Dennis Hopeless / Christos Gage / Kev Walker / Alessandro Vitti; Arcade sets up Murder World on an island and tries to recreate Lord of the Flies with the Runaways and Avengers Academy
  • New X-Men – Nunzio DeFilippis / Christina Weir / Randy Green / Staz Johnson / Michael Ryan; It’s easier to describe this as the ’04 rebranding of New Mutants
  • Strange Academy (’20-’23) – Skottie Young / Humberto Ramos; Doctor Strange establishes a magical academy (definitely not Hogwarts, should the lawyers be asking) with Doctor Voodoo, Damien Hellstrom and the Scarlet Witch amongst the instructors

The DC Sorta/Kinda Discount Shuffle

Absolute Power  Batman by Doug Moench & Kelley Jones  Starfire

We have noticed a few DC titles popping up with “Best Price in 30 Days” tags on them. They aren’t necessarily on sale.

Example #1: Absolute Power by Mark Waid and Dan Mora. The last big Event. It’s now $9.99, marked as being down from a digital list price of $19.99. A digital list price based on it having been a hardcover release in print, we hasten to add.

Is that really a discount? Maybe not. Here’s the thing: when they stopped having the weekly sales, a lot of the slightly older digital collections dropped to $9.99. (Is the calculus to slightly lower the line-wide price and see if they make more money with that and no sales? We have questions…)

Example #2: Batman: Urban Legends V.6  is also listed at $9.99 with that “Best Price in 30 Days” tag. It does not list what the previous price was. HOWEVER, should one look at the Batman: Urban Legends series page, one would find everything is $9.99. Everything except V.2, which is $6.99. Strangely, V.2 is not showing the “Best Price in 30 Days” tag, so while it looks like it might be the one sporting a discount, but it apparently isn’t.

Real discounts:

And DC may have some of their signature broken prices floating around. Batman by Doug Moench & Kelley Jones Vol. 2 is listed at $19.24 as we type this. To paraphrase Ghostbusters, that price point is as unnatural as dogs and cats living together and it’s not the only book priced like that.

We have a lot more questions than answers when it comes to DC’s current pricing philosophy (and their ability to fill out Amazon pricing forms). Now you know what we know.

Unannounced Sales

Lone Wolf and Cub  Nowhere Men  Umbrella Academy

As always, we have no idea how long these will last:

Speaking of academies, Dark Horse wants a piece of that action and is discounting      Umbrella Academy by Gerard Way & Gabriel Ba.

It also appears Dark Horse is having a manga sale. Some titles we noticed:

Also on sale:

Additionally, it looks like most of the Hulk and Doctor Strange material from recent weeks is still on sale. The Under $5 Page has the lower priced volumes. Go back a couple columns for the links to find the Epic Collections.

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Spider-Girl, Black Hammer, Monstress

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel applies a discount to Spider-Girl’s catalog. Plus, Barbaric, The Black Hammer, Monstress and Terminal Hero.

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):

It’s 8PM, Do You Know Where Your Spider-Daughter Is?

Spider-Girl  Spider-Girl  Spectacular Spider-Girl

The Marvel Spider-Girl Sale runs through Monday, 6/2.

This would be the adventures of MayDay Parker, Peter Parker’s daughter in an alternate timeline. Tom DeFalco and (primarily) Ron Frenz had a roughly 12 year run on the character across the obligatory relaunches, which is a much longer run that most creators manage.

Unannounced Sales

Black Hammer Omnibus  Monstress  Terminal Hero: The Death And Life Of Rory Fletcher

As usual, we’re not 100% sure how long this discounts will stick around.

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

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

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

There are currently 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.

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

Then you’ve got the World of Black Hammer collections, which are solo tales about the various heroes and villains like Barbalien and Sherlock Frankenstein.

Also on sale:

Additionally, it looks like most of the Thor, Hulk, Spider-Man Team-Up, Captain Marvel and Thunderbolts material from recent weeks is still on sale. The Under $5 Page has the lower priced volumes. Go back a couple columns for the links to find the Epic Collections.

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Spider-Man Team-Up; Scarlet Witch and The Vision; Titan’s MCM London Sale; Monkey Vs. Robot

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Spider-Man teams up with all sorts of people. Marvel drops a discount on the Scarlet Witch and the Vision. Titan has a convention sale. Plus, Elfquest, Monkey Vs. Robot and The Dark Crystal.

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):

Spider-Friends

Marvel Team-Up  Spider-Man / Deadpool  Uncanny Spider-Man

The Marvel Spider-Man Crossovers and Team-Ups Sale runs through Monday, 5/26.

What’s this? A collection of various Spidey team-up titles and a few Events he appeared in.

What’s interesting?

Which Witch?

Vision and the Scarlet Witch   Avengers West Coast  The Vision

The Marvel Scarlet Witch and Vision Sale runs through Monday, 5/26.

Hey, they’re a couple again… at least for this sale.

First: Wanda-centric comics:

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.

Avengers West Coast Epic Collection: Vision Quest has Wanda’s original heel-turn in John Byrne’s run that was an influence on the TV show. (It also has the end of the Englehart run and that counts for something, too.) This apparently replaces House of M in this sale for Wanda heel-turns?

The current Steve Orlando / Sarah Pichelli / Lorenzo Tammetta / Jacopo Camagni run got a relaunch (yes, we’re shocked a Marvel book relaunched with minimal to no changes), so it’s listed in two places:

Yes, a relaunch so deeply meaningful, they didn’t bother restarting the numbering for the collected editions. One run, as far as we’re concerned.

Over the Vision side of the aisle, there is a CLASSIC tome you should read if you have any interest in the character:

Vision: The Complete Series – Tom King / Gabriel Hernandez Walta. After his split with Wanda, The Vision moves to the suburbs with a synthezoid wife and two synthezoid kids in tow? What could go wrong? Plenty, as his new world slowly unravels. Probably the best early King book.

Avengers Epic Collection: Behold… The Vision – starts out with the classic two-part debut of The Vision (ending in “Evan an Android Can Cry). This volume is essentially the middle third of the Roy Thomas run. John Buscema / Barry Windsor Smith / Gene Colan / Sal Buscema are. Plenty of Ultron and the debuts of the Squadron Sinister and Invaders towards the end.

Avengers: Absolute Vision – Book One and Book Two – Roger Stern / Al Milgrom / Bob Hall; contain a long arc (that mostly executes in the second volume) where the Vision goes slightly mad and tries to take over the world’s computers.

Con Adjacent

A Call To Cthulhu  Death Sentence: London  Killtopia

The Titan Comics MCM London 2025 Sale runs through Friday, 5/30.

MCM London is a British comic convention. (We’ll let you guess which city it’s in.) No, no Conan in this one, but what we do have is:

Unannounced Sales

As usual, we’re not 100% sure how long this discounts will stick around.

Additionally, it looks like most of the Star Wars, Thor and Thunderbolts material from recent weeks is still on sale. The Under $5 Page has the lower priced volumes. Go back a couple columns for the links to find the Epic Collections.

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: The May the Fourth Star Wars Sale(s); Thor; Godzilla; Wool

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, it’s May the Fourth with Star Wars getting discounts at both Marvel and Dark Horse. Marvel also slashes prices on nearly the full run of Thor and unannounced sales ranging from Godzilla to Superman: Son of Kal-El.

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):

Nothing But Star Wars

Star Wars  Darth Vader Star Wars: The High Republic

The Marvel Star Wars May the 4th Sale runs through Monday, 5/12.

First, let’s run through the highlights. These are mostly the current Marvel Star Wars titles, not the Dark Horse or original Marvel runs.

Recommendations? For whatever reason, Darth Vader seems to bring out the best in Marvel. Those first two series with Gillen and Soule, especially. Is it a coincidence Lucasfilm hired Charles Soule as a creative consultant?

Your under the radar title is Kanan. A very solid series from one the Star Wars Rebels producers and we no longer have to introduce Pepe Larraz, do we?

Sturm und Hammer?

Thor - The Wrath of Odin  Thor by Walt Simonson  Thor Road to War of the Realms

Marvel’s Thor Sale runs  through Monday, 5/12.

Pretty much the full Thor line, with the caveat that the Marvel Masterworks volumes are not on sale, which is to say, Epic Collections are your friend.

As per our custom, here’s the breakdown by series/volume:

  • Journey Into Mystery ’52-’66 – The earliest Thor stories from Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
  • The Mighty Thor ’66-’96 – From Lee & Kirby until the relaunches started
  • The Mighty Thor ’96-’04 – The Heroes return Dan Jurgens era, initially with John Romita, Jr.
  • Thor ’07-’11 – Starts with J. Michael Straczynski & Olivier Coipel, ends with Matt Fraction & Pasqual Ferry. Gillen in the middle.
  • The Mighty Thor ’11-’12 – Fraction gets a relaunch with Coipel, Ferry and early Pepe Larraz
  • The Jason Aaron era ’12-’19 – It’s a LOT easer to look at the omnibuses across all the relaunches here
  • Thor ’20 to ’23 – The Donny Cates run with Nic Klein as the primary artist; Torunn GrØnbekk tags in towards the end while Cates was recovering from his accident (and filled in well, we might add).
  • Immortal Thor (’23 – current) – Al Ewing / Martin Coccolo;

If your point of reference for Thor is the last film, you want the Jason Aaron era. The God Butcher is the first arc. If you go with that set of omnibuses, Jane Foster picks up the hammer in V.2. We don’t think that starting with the first Jane Foster issues (and slimmer volumes) is a great jumping on point. It’s a saga and you’ll get a lot more out of it if you start at the beginning of Aaron’s run.

Past that, we’re all about the Walt Simonson Thor. It’s probably the most influential run since early days and it’s great. You’ll want the Thor Visionaries: Walter Simonson set that starts here. (The Thor by Walter Simonson version of the reprints seems to be missing the final volume, or at least the last few issues. *sigh* These things happen.)

We also like to go back to the original Lee/Kirby. Not too early. We’d say stay closer to where it changed from Journey Into Mystery to Thor. The first year of JIM was a little rough. The Wrath of Odin  Epic Collection is a good chunk of prime Lee/Kirby Thor and also features the first time Jane Foster was elevated to godhood, since it turns out to now be foreshadowing.

Something under the radar? Ignore this being marketed as a kid’s comic – Roger Langridge and Chris Samnee had a short run on Thor: The Mighty Avenger that was just a good Thor comic, full stop. And you might expect that from those two.

If you want to move in the opposite direction, Thor: Vikings is a seriously violent Marvel MAX title from Garth Ennis and Glenn Fabry that has Viking zombies invading Manhattan. (No, not Fleet Week. That’s different.)

We also have naught but love for the current Immortal Thor run.

Unannounced Sales

Star Wars: Tales from the Rancor Pit  Barbaric  Wool

First, the Dark Horse Star Wars section sticks around for May the Fourth.

And some more likely suspects:

The Marvel “Maybe” Sales

Fantastic Four Vs. Galactus  Kid Venom  Phases of the Moon Knight

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.

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Thunderbolts; Alien; Star Wars; Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel has discounts on Thunderbolts and Aliens. Dark Horse drops the prices on their current Star Wars line, and we talk a little about Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees.

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):

Thunder. Thunder. Thunderca… Whoops, Wrong Series!

Thunderbolts  Winter Soldier  Taskmaster

The Marvel Thunderbolts Sale runs through Monday, 5/19.

Since the character mix in the film is a little different than the mix in the comics, we’re going to break this down by character…

The Thunderbolts have been through several iterations since they began in ’97, originally having been the Masters of Evil laying the groundwork for nefarious deeds. Judging by the previews, the film will be a little different from the comic.

Thunderbolts

The original series was written by Kurt Busiek and drawn by Mark Bagley. Eventually Fabian Nicieza tagged in as writer and Patrick Zircher became the lead artist a bit after that. Alas, these volumes jump around a bit after issue #50. The  omnibus editions are more complete, but aren’t on sale right now.

New Thunderbolts was the ’04-’06 relaunch, and yes, it’s included in the third omnibus of the original. Fabian Nicieza/Tom Grummett is the creative team, here.

This then turns back into (no adjective) Thunderbolts for ’06-’12, starting Nicieza/Grummett and then including runs by Warren Ellis / Mike Deodato and Jeff Parker/Kev Walker/Declan Shalvey

Thunderbolts relaunched for ’12-’14 with Daniel Way and then Charles Soule writing it. The artist rotation included Steve Dillon and Phil Noto.

Jim Zub and Jon Malin were behind the ’16-’17 Thunderbolts run.

’20 saw King in Black: Thunderbolts by Matthew Rosenberg/Gerry Duggan/Juan E. Ferreyra/Luke Ross.

’22 saw Thunderbolts: Back on Target by Jim Zub and Sean Izaakse.

The most recent volume in the sale is Thunderbolts: Worldstrike by Colin Kelly / Jackson Lanzing / Geraldo Borges.

With Thunderbolts, we feel pretty strongly you need to read the first sequence or two and get a flavor for the concept before jumping into the later evolutions.

Winter Soldier

The originating storyline runs in the 2004 series of Captain America by Ed Brubaker and a rotating squad of artists including Steve Epting, Michael Lark, Butch Guice and Mike Perkins. There are a couple omnibuses available, but this doesn’t really have a definitive larger collection like, say, the Hickman Avengers era. We’d probably point you to the Captain America Modern Era Epic Collection: The Winter Soldier volume. It’s a couple bucks more, but it gives you #1-19 straight through and that’s a very good run.

For solo series, the first choice is Winter Soldier by Ed Brubaker, which is Brubaker and Butch Guice in a spin-off.

Also of possible interest:

Taskmaster

    • Taskmaster: Anything You Can Do… – <all sorts of creators>; Taskmaster’s early villain appearances fighting the Avengers, Spidey, Daredevil, etc.
    • Taskmaster: The Rubicon Trigger – Jed MacKay / Alessandro Vitti; A very funny adventure finds Taskmaster blackmailed into doing a job for Nick Fury. Should he refuse, the Black Widow will likely hunt him down and kill him.

 U.S. Agent

    • Captain America Epic Collection: The Captain – Mark Gruenwald / Kieron Dwyer; The famous arc where former Super Patriot and soon-to-be U.S. Agent John Walker assumes the mantle of Captain America
    • U.S. Agent: American Zealot – Christopher Priest / Georges Jeanty; In something of a deadpan political satire, John Walker develops some issues with his handlers when sent to a small town threatened by a corporate entity… if only the optics matched reality. Smart, but you figured that with Priest involved.

The Sentry

The Sentry is a character that is not always used well in the comics. We’d stick to the original Paul Jenkins / Jae Lee series and the Paul Jenkins / John Romita, Jr. sequel.

Not of this Earth

The Marvel Aliens & Predators Sale runs through Monday, 4/28.

Alien  Aliens: What If...?  Aliens

It’s probably best to divide this into the Marvel section and the Dark Horse section.

On the Marvel side of the fence, we are big fans of the Philip Kennedy Johnson Alien sequence (V.1 & 2 here; then V. 3 here — yeah, we know… comics publishers need to work on the meta data) with Salvador Larroca, followed by Julius Ohta; is essentially one winding tale of Weyland-Yutani Corporation conspiracies that starts out with hiding a few of those eggs that couldn’t possibly get out of control, moves on to interstellar pioneers and religion, then comes back to the living conditions of rogue androids. Effective slow burn storytelling.

Also on the Marvel side:

  • Declan Shalvey’s Alien run
    • V.1 w/ Andrea Broccardo
    • V.2 w/Danny Earls
  • Aliens: What If…? –Paul Reiser /Leon Reiser / Adam F. Goldberg / Hans Rodionoff / Brian Volk-Weiss / Guiu Vilanova – Yes, that Paul Reiser (and son, and friends) returns to explore what would happen if his Aliens villain, Carter Burke, had survived the film

From the original Dark Horse material:

A Note on This One

Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees

“Amazon Book Sale: Limited time savings of up to 75% on select titles” – unknown duration.

This extra-eclectic sale appears to be intact for the time being and we should probably talk about Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees by Patrick Horvath. That was on this week’s reading list and it’s a very unusual book that lives up to the hype.

The elevator pitch is “Richard Scarry’s Dexter.” Which is to say, it’s drawn in an extra cute style reminiscent of children’s book legend Richard Scarry. A little more detail and fully rendered, but very Scarry. It (mostly) takes place in a happy little town, like the Scarry books. Except one of the residents is a serial killer who is alarmed when another serial killer turns up in town and goes on a very messy and public spree.

Hovarth even manages to get pacing and narrative style that’s similar to those children’s books… until it’s time to whip out the blood and swearing. This is from the Mouse Guard school of “it looks like a kid’s book until you get a little further in.” Is it a parody? Perhaps. It’s embracing the tradition more than mocking it, so we’d probably go with ironic pastiche.

This one isn’t going to be for everyone, but if that setup sounds appealing, you’ll probably love this. Excellence of execution and all. And we do mean execution. We hereby affirm the hype.

The discount could be better, but we just don’t see many discounts coming out of IDW these days.

Unannounced Sales

Star Wars: Tales from the Rancor Pit   Brandon Sanderson's Dark One  You Are Home

First, a Dark Horse Star Wars section. (May the Fourth is coming.)

And some more likely suspects:

The Marvel “Maybe” Sales

Deadpool Team-Up  Fantastic Four Vs. Galactus  Kid Venom

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

Dropping Next Week

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