Comixology (at Amazon) Sales – Batman; Adam Warlock; Fables; Squirrel Girl; Avatar: the Last Airbender

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, DC discounts some Batman and Fables (among others);  Marvel serves up Adam Warlock and Squirrel Girl; Dark Horse slashes prices on The Witcher, Avatar the Last Airbender and Legend of Korra; and Caliber goes 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):

Bats and Such

The DC Memorial Day Sale runs through Monday, 5/29.

This is one of DC’s thematically unlinked sales… which happens to have some good prices mixed into a 460 item list.

If you like ’80s/early ’90s Batman comics, the Caped Crusader (Batman) and Dark Knight Detective (Detective Comics) collections are $3.99 each, which is less than they’re sometimes offered. You’ll need to scroll down a little in the links, but Caped Crusader will take you from the Starlin/Aparo era through Alan Grant & Norm Breyfogle.  Dark Knight Detective takes you from Mike W. Barr / Alan Davis through Peter Milligan/Jim Aparo.

Also $3.99 each, the “Deluxe” (i.e., larger) edition of Fables by Bill Willingham and Mark Buckingham. The classic fantasy about the characters of fables and fairy tales fleeing to our world as a despot conquers their worlds.

Batman: The Caped Crusader   Batman: The Dark Knight Detective   Fables

A more recent book, but still at a good price, that’s been getting a little cheap attention is Batman: Killing Time by Tom King and David Marquez for $3.99.

Batman: Killing Time

The Artist Formerly Known as Him

The Marvel Adam Warlock and the Infinity Watch Sale runs through Monday, 5/22.

A small, but interesting sale, since Warlock is a through point for much of Jim Starlin’s Marvel work.  With the original “main” title, you can pretty much pick your packaging of the Starlin work. Masterworks V.1 is the pre-Starlin original solo run of the character. Everything else is basically the same material in slightly different formats.

And then Warlock returned for the Infinity series of Events

George Perez is the initial artist on these titles, with Ron Lim tagging in after a few issues. We found Infinity Gauntlet to be one of Marvel’s most enjoyable Events. War and Crusade start to dilute a bit from the original, but are a notch above most of the recent events.

It’s also worth noting the Aftermath volumes are a little more germane to the overall story arc than with some others. They’re absolutely not required reading, but Starlin and company do tend to the garden of plot developments between Events in places like the Adam Warlock titles and Silver Surfer.

Warlock Masterworks   Infinity Gauntlet   Infinity War

The Rodent of the Trees

The Marvel Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Sale is running through Monday, 5/22.

In the inimitable Marvel Way, this is one is a little goofy because of how many different editions of the same comics there are.

  • Unbeatable Squirrel Girl series “2015A” and “2015B” by Ryan North and Erica Henderson. This is where everything starts and the original Squirrel Girl appearances are in the first volume.  These are omnibus editions and take you up to #31 of the “2015B” series.
  • To get the rest of the series, switch over to the single volumes and V.9 – 12 will take you from issue #32 to the end. Coincidentally, this is where Derek Charm pops in as artist.

That’s the easy way. Now, if you want the absolute cheapest way, you want to sub in these two alternate packaging volumes for V.2 and V.3 of those omnibuses above (i.e. #1-21 of “2015B”).

Don’t worry, they’ll inevitably add another layer of repackaging to further confuse the situation.

Squirrel Girl

Magical Bounty Hunting

The Dark Horse Witcher Sale runs through Monday, 5/29.

While it’s usually presented as a video game adaptation, since these pre-date the TV series, we usually thing of The Witch as a series of novels.  We’re reasonably sure Andrzej Sapkowski would agree with that assessment.

You can partake here in three formats:

  1. $0.99 single issues
  2. The “regular” collected editions
  3. The omnibuses

The first omnibus is pretty good deal. And the second “Library Edition” omnibus is still cheaper than single issues, though it’s a bit pricier.

Witcher Omnibus

Throw Another Nickel In

The Dark Horse Avatar/Korra Digital Sale runs through Monday, 5/29.

Nickelodeon comics adapting the animated features. For these comics, what Amazon refers to as “issues” is generally an 80 page comic and the omnibuses are collecting three of those, with the omnibus being more bang for your buck.

There’s a bit more to the longer-lived Avatar series, which feature Gene Yang and Faith Erin Hicks among its writers.

The Legend of Korra is a bit newer property and has fewer volumes.

Avatar: The Last Airbender   Legend of Korra

But Is It 9mm or .45?

The Caliber Digital Comics Sale runs through Thursday, 6/15.

There are a few titles here that were notable in the ’80s indie boom.

Deadworld   The Realm    Jazz Age Chronicles

And plenty of Don Lomax war comics.

But if you want something a little more recent, Ageless might be of interest. It’s written by Torunn GrØnbekk, who’s been recently been writing Thor, with art by San Espina.

Ageless

Still On Sale

Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Green Lantern, Carnage, Cyberpunk 2077; Grimm Fairy Tales

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, DC discounts Green Lantern, Marvel’s Carnage sale stops being stealth, DH throws Cyberpunk 2077 into the arena and Zenescope goes line wide with Grimm Fairy Tales.

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):

Night Lights

The DC Green Lantern Sale runs through Monday, 1/15.

Green Lantern’s been rebooted a LOT over the years (especially post-New 52), so let’s start out by listing the major titles involved here.

  • Green Lantern (’60-’86) – The original, although only certain stretches are collected.
  • Green Lantern Corps (’86-’88) – The original title changed to Corps to wrap up the Steve Englehart/Joe Staton era. We consider this the last stretch of the original series.
  • Green Lantern (’90 – ’04) – Only some of the Kyle Rayner material is collected from this era.
  • Green Lantern (’05 – ’11) – The Geoff Johns era (and one of the character’s best periods), but this is complicated to get the best deal. The omnibus editions  aren’t complete yet and are broken up into different sets than the single volumes though the single volumes are mostly cheaper.  You also should get Blackest Night to go with that volume of the series. There are all sorts of tie-ins for Blackest Night, but the omnibus of that does not seem to be offered in digital.
  • Green Lantern Corps Recharge (’05 – ’06) – Geoff Johns / Dave Gibbons / Patrick Gleason set up the GLC ongoing
  • Green Lantern Corps (’06-’11) – The companion book to Green Lantern, initially by Dave Gibbons / Patrick Gleason
  • Green Lantern (’11-’16) – New 52 relaunch. Starts out with Geoff Johns / Doug Mahnke, then Robert Venditti/Billy Tan start a long run.
  • Green Lantern: New Guardians (’11-’15)-The New 52 Kyle Raynor series
  • Green Lantern Corps (’11-’15) – The New 52 John Stewart / Guy Gardner / Kilowog series
  • Red Lanterns (’11-’15) – Yes, even the Red Lanterns had a New 52 book!
  • Sinestro (’14-’16) – Cullen Bunn / Dale Eaglesham / Brad Walker
  • Green Lantern/New Gods: Godhead (’14-’15) – Event crossing over with the entire GL line
  • Green Lantern Corps: Lost Army (’15) Cullen Bunn / Jesus Saiz
  • Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps (’16-’18) – The DCU Rebirth relaunch, initially by Robert Venditti and Rafa Sandoval
  • Green Lanterns (’16-’18) – Rebirth title starring Simon Baz and Jessica Cruz
  • Green Lantern (’19) – Also known as “Season One” by Grant Morrison and Liam Sharp
  • Green Lantern: Season Two (’20-’21) – finishing the Morrison/Sharp storyline
  • Green Lantern (’21-’22) – More of a John Stewart / Jo Mullein / Teen Lantern series by Geoffrey Thorne and Tom Raney

So what’s good? As a consequence of there not being that much reprinted, what’s available of the  original run is pretty solid. The early Broome/Kane. O’Neil/Adams. Wein/Gibbons. Englehart/Staton. All good stuff.

The Geoff Johns era is particularly good. We’d put Sinestro Corps War as the best sequence, if we had to pick.

The Morrison / Sharp run is also interesting. It starts out as more of a police procedural in space and then progressively gets stranger, with Sharp embracing the fantastical elements and leaning into that with the art. But remember, the two seasons (One and Two) form a single story.

Green Lantern   Green Lantern by Geoff Johns   Green Lantern

Deja Vu

The Marvel Carnage Sale runs through Monday, 5/15.

What’s this, you say? Wasn’t this at the bottom of the Star Wars sale last week?

Sure enough, it’s back and… got a promotion to its own sale? Umm… we have no good explanation.

If you want old school Spidey vs. Carnage, our recommendation would be the Carnage: Born in Blood Epic Collection. This gets you the first Carnage arc, as well as Maximum Carnage.

While we’re not seeing Ram V’s current horror (and Asgard) tinged Carnage title in the sale, we’re fans (the few, the proud) of the Gerry Conway / Mike Perkins Carnage run that took it in a definite horror direction with an almost Tomb of Dracula-like vibe.

Carnage  Carnage

Cheap Punks

The Dark Horse Cyberpunk 2077 sale runs through Monday, 5/15.

This video game adaption comes in two flavor – collected editions and single issues.

Guess what? 4 issues @ $0.99 each is cheaper than $5.99 for the collected edition. Choose wisely.

Cyberpunk 2077   Cyberpunk 2077

Another Fine Myth

The Grimm Universe Line Wide Digital Sale runs through Sunday, June 4th.

For those of you who’ve been clamoring for a few more independent publishers on the deals page, we now see a Zenescope sale for the first time in a while.

Unfortunately, we’re not that familiar with Zenescope’s output and the thing we most often hear about, Raven Gregory’s Wonderland saga, isn’t well represented in the sale

The flagship title for this sale is Grimm Fairy Tales.

It breaks down this way (for easier browsing):

2007-16 series

Collected Editions and Omnibus Editions work out to roughly the same price and are cheaper than single issues. The Omnibuses only take you to issue 75, the Collected Editions go further.

2016 series

Grimm Fairy Tales   Grimm Fairy Tales 2016 series

Still On Sale

Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Guardians of the Galaxy; Green Arrow; Injustice: Gods Among Us; Creepy and Eerie

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, The Guardian of the Galaxy get discounts at Marvel. DC cuts prices on Green Arrow and video game titles (like Injustice), while Dark Horse slashes Creepy and Eerie.

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):

Note: we covered the Marvel May the Fourth Star Wars Sale on May 4th, so click there for Darth Vader & Co.

Groot is the Word

The Marvel Guardians of the Galaxy Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 5/15.

You’d think there was movie coming out or something?

Original Guardians of the Galaxy

New GoG (The DnA cast or movie version if you must)

What’s good here?  Well, we’ve always liked the original. Particularly the Steve Gerber bits. We also loved the recent Al Ewing / Juan Cabal run. And if you like the current incarnation, you should probably go back to the source with the DnA run.

Guardians of the Galaxy: Tomorrow's Avengers   Guardians of the Galaxy by Al Ewing   Guardians of the Galaxy Omnibus

The Bow’s Green, Too

The DC Green Arrow Sale runs through Monday, 5/8.

They have a couple anthologies of Green Arrow over the years (the 80 years version is cheaper), but the bulk of this sale are the solo titles from Longbow Hunters onward.

What’s good? While you’ll certainly have your Lemire/Sorrentino proponents, we prefer the earlier solo material. Mike Grell had an impressive run between The Longbow Hunters and the ongoing series. The ongoing was a bit less violent than Longbow Hunters and widely known for being both an enjoyable and quick read. We’d also give a look to the Kevin Smith / Phil Hester run, which was a fun time.

Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters   Green Arrow    Green Arrow by Kevin Smith

Shall We Play a Game?

The DC Video Game Tie-In Sale runs through Monday, 5/8

And if we are honest, there is a star in this sale. Injustice: Gods Among Usa video game adaptation that had more legs than anyone ever would have guessed. It’s good! It’s written by Tom Taylor and, later, Brian Buccellato. Art is by Bruno Redondo and Mike S. Miller.  Hmmm… Tom Taylor and Bruno Redondo. Wherever have we heard that pairing before?

Other things in a little more palatable browsing order:

Injustice: Gods Among Us

Mysterious and Spooky

The Dark Horse – 2023 Creepy Eerie Digital Sale runs through Monday, 5/15.

These would be the classic Warren horror magazines that had some pretty big names attached to them over the years.

Creepy was the first one and is available in both omnibus  format and “Creepy Presents” volumes spotlighting individual artists (Alex Toth, Bernie Wrightson, Richard Corben, Steve Ditko).

Eerie was the companion series. By halfway through it’s run, it had evolved into something a little different with multi-part stories and characters who returned, the breakout character being The Rook (a time traveler with some western elements baked in). It’s also available in omnibus format and “Eerie Presents” for collecting individual features (El Cid and Hunter).

Creepy   Eerie

🤞 Don’t miss these tips!

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

Still On Sale

Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Superman, Doctor Strange, New Mutants, Black Hammer

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Superman gets the discount spotlight from DC; Doctor Strange and New Mutants Sales return and Dark Horse offers up Black Hammer.

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):

A quick word before getting into this week’s sales. No, you’re not imagining things: The Marvel sales DID run towards the end of March. The current Doctor Strange sale added a handful of items that were missing from the last one, though. We have no clue what’s up with that. If you happened to look at the sales page Tuesday morning, you would have seen the Dark Horse Valentine’s Day Sale return, but that got swapped out for Black Hammer. We’re used to seeing the pricing take a couple days to get fixed, but this week was definitely odder than most.

Super-Sale

The DC Superman Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 5/1.

An All-Superman, all-the-time sale. Now, DC’s digital depth doesn’t really go as deep as Marvel, despite having been around longer, so it’s a little smaller than the Marvel Legacy sales. Everything before the John Byrne/Man of Steel era is a little spotty… but you know what? Byrne’s run ushered in a pretty entertaining period.

The slightly better buy for the early portion of that Byrne-initiated period is the larger Man of Steel collections. This is the post-Crisis relaunch spearheaded by John Byrne, but also with Marv Wolfman, Jerry Ordway, Roger Stern and Dan Jurgen showing up early on. Solid runs and we’re particularly fond of Ordway’s work.

After Byrne left, but still firmly in what we’d consider this period of Superman, there’s a good run by George Perez with Roger Stern and Kerry Gammill collected in The Adventures of Superman by George Perez.

Man of Steel   Adventures of Superman

Some more random recommendations? Sure.

One of the more unusual Superman titles from the Pre-Crisis era is Superman: Phantom Zone by Steve Gerber, Gene Colan and Tony DeZuniga. Yes, it’s about the Phantom Zone and Zod… but it veers into horror territory and gets pretty wild and metaphysical. We’d have loved to see more Superman from this team, but ’twas not to be. This also includes the (much later) wrap up story from DC Comics Presents by Gerber and Rick Veitch.

Emperor Joker was something that got some serious word of mouth in 2000, when it took over the Superman titles for a couple months. It’s a Jeph Loeb / Joe Kelly / J. M. DeMatties / Mark Schultz / Ed McGuinness / Doug Mahnke / Mike Miller / Kano tale of the Joker gaining the power to reshape the world in his image and reigning as Emperor. And no, it’s not an Elseworlds tale. A highlight of the early 00’s for Superman.

And for something more recent that was completely overlooked, there’s Batman/Superman: The Archive of Worlds.  This is a fun-forward romp by Gene Yang and Ivan Reis that has Superman and Batman hopping parallel world with classic cinema themes… to put it in a way to avoid spoilers. Silver age themes with modern sensibilities.

Superman: Phantom Zone   Superman: Emperor Joker   Batman / Superman: The Archive of Worlds

And let’s give a shout out to a couple of our favorite Jimmy Olsen collections (both of them?) that happen to be collected here:

Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen by Jack Kirby is one of the “Forth World” titles, but it’s also effectively Kirby’s Superman book. What do we get here? The debut of the Cadmus Project and the DNAliens, the return of the Guardian and the Newsboy Legion, Intergang… and a clone saga that predates Spidey’s first encounter with the Jackyl. Very fun stuff.

Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen: Who Killed Jimmy Olsen? is the more recent Jimmy Olsen 12-parter by Matt Fraction and Steve Leiber. We’ve raved about this one before and we’ll doing it again: this is one of the funniest comics of modern times. Jimmy Olsen wakes up in Gorilla City hungover and married… to an intergalactic jewel thief and that’s far from the strangest part of story (nor is the alien cat that pukes up buckets of blood over everyone). Somebody, lots of somebodies, are trying to kill him. Jimmy’s on the run, trying to stay one step ahead of the killers, maintain his career and figure out who’s behind this. It’s a homage to the 50’s/60’s series and it’s transformations. There’s an actual mystery underneath the humor and it goes out of its way to explore some of the odder corners of the DC Universe. A bit of a masterpiece in our opinion. We’re eager for a proper sequel.

Jimmy Olsen by Jack Kirby   Jimmy Olsen

The Doctor Is In – Redux

The  Marvel Doctor Strange Sale runs through Monday, 3/28.

And it’s most of the Doctor Strange material that’s been collected in book form… and a couple more titles than when this run a few weeks back (see: The Peter Gillis Strange Tales, for instance.)

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

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

Strange isn’t included, so somebody considers it a Clea title, perhaps?

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

Another personal favorite that wasn’t in the previous sale, Doctor Strange: The Oath by a pre-Saga Brian K. Vaughan and Marcos Martin.

Something under the radar?  The final Waid/Walker run is also a lot more under the radar than it should be.

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

Mutations – Redux

The Marvel New Mutants Sale runs through Monday, 4/24

Let’s break this one down by the series highlights first:

  • New Mutants (’83 – ’91) – The original run
  • New Mutants (’09 – ’11) – Zeb Wells / Diogenes Neves; DnA / Leandro Fernandez & David Lopez
  • New Mutants (’03 – ’04) – Nunzio DeFilippis / Christina Weir / Keron Grant / Khary Randolph
  • New Mutants: Dead Souls (’18) – Matthew Rosenberg / Adam Gorham
  • New Mutants (’19-’22) – The HoX/PoX (Hickman) era with rotating creators

What’s the best run of New Mutants? That’s a question that runs to personal preference more than most series. We’d say, #18-31 is the core with Chris Claremont and Bill Sienkiewicz that stands above the rest. Demon Bear. The introduction of Warlock. A good Legion arc. And it’s conveniently packaged in an Epic Collection. It’s still an interesting run after Sienkiewicz moves on, but he’s so good at setting mood and tone.

Another thing we’d throw out as particularly interesting is specifically the Jonathan Hickman installments of the most recent series. These are also conveniently collected in a single volume… and his issues didn’t always run sequentially.

Past that, this is one where you browse and see if something strikes your fancy.

New Mutants: The Demon Bear Saga   New Mutants

Hammered

The  Dark Horse 2023 Black Hammer Sale runs through Monday, 5/1.

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.

Black Hammer Omnibus   Sherlock Frankenstein   Black Hammer / Justice League

🤞 Don’t miss these tips!

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

Still On Sale

Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: New Mutants, Batman, B.P.R.D and Hellboy Spin-Offs, Arrowsmith

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel has discounts on New Mutants, DC has a potpourri of titles with lots of Batman mixed in, Dark Horse discounts Hellboy-adjacent comics and then there’s the new mystery category.

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 Grab Bag

The  DC Essential Books Sale runs through Monday, 4/3

This is another one of those particularly eclectic DC sales. Let’s start with the obligatory Batman breakout, because most of Batman & Detective from New 52 on are on sale.

  • Batman (’11-’16) – The Scott Snyder / Greg Capullo era
  • Batman (’16 – current) – Tom King, James Tynion IV, Josh Williamson -Zdarksy’s run isn’t on sale yet.
  • Detective Comics (’11-’16) – Tony Daniels, John Layman, Francis Manapul
  • Detective Comics (’16 -current) – James Tynion IV, Peter Tomasi, Mariko Tamaki

A couple things we think are on sale for the first time:

DC Vs. Vampires   Detective Comics

And a couple things we’d recommend that aren’t new:

Wonder Woman: Dead Earth by Daniel Warren Johnson is a comic that can accurately be described as “metal.” Loud, fun and full of action. This Black Label tale has Wonder Woman waking from a coma in a dystopian, apocalyptical future. She’s having trouble remembering what happened and there are a lot of monsters to slay if things are to be put right. Good stuff!

Multiversity is one of our favorite Grant Morrison Events and this one stands out because, while there is a through-plot, much of it is just Grant Morrison building new Earths, that is do say alternate dimensions – a pulp character Earth, a variation on the old Earth-S (Shazam) and, of course, President Superman. Along for the ride are a ridiculous set of artists, including Frank Quitely, Doug Mahnke, Chris Sprouse and Ivan Reis.

Wonder Woman: Dead Earth   Multiversity

Mutations

The Marvel New Mutants Legacy Sale runs through Tuesday, 4/4

Let’s break this one down by the series highlights first:

  • New Mutants (’83 – ’91) – The original run
  • New Mutants (’09 – ’11) – Zeb Wells / Diogenes Neves; DnA / Leandro Fernandez & David Lopez
  • New Mutants (’03 – ’04) – Nunzio DeFilippis / Christina Weir / Keron Grant / Khary Randolph
  • New Mutants: Dead Souls (’18) – Matthew Rosenberg / Adam Gorham
  • New Mutants (’19-’22) – The HoX/PoX (Hickman) era with rotating creators

What’s the best run of New Mutants? That’s a question that runs to personal preference more than most series. We’d say, #18-31 is the core with Chris Claremont and Bill Sienkiewicz that stands above the rest. Demon Bear. The introduction of Warlock. A good Legion arc. And it’s conveniently packaged in an Epic Collection. It’s still an interesting run after Sienkiewicz moves on, but he’s so good at setting mood and tone.

Another thing we’d throw out as particularly interesting is specifically the Jonathan Hickman installments of the most recent series. These are also conveniently collected in a single volume… and his issues didn’t always run sequentially.

Past that, this is one where you browse and see if something strikes your fancy.

New Mutants: The Demon Bear Saga   New Mutants

Friends in Warm Places

The Dark Horse – World of Hellboy Sale runs through Monday, 4/10.

Not a Hellboy sale, but rather the related titles. But that’s fine, since B.P.R.D is actually even more of a saga than Hellboy proper. There are two big arcs in omnibus format, mostly written by Mike Mignola and John Arcudi with art by the inimitable Guy Davis.

The first sequence is The Plague of Frogswherein the Bureau – i.e., the scientists and soldiers (and Abe Sapien & Liz Sherman)  Hellboy works with – go down a rabbit hole, trying to figure out what’s up with all these frog creatures that keep turning up. Hint: BAD things are up. Important note: with that link, skip the ones marked “omnibus” and scroll down to Plague of Frogs V. 1-4. Same material at a lower price.

The second sequence is Hell on Earth. And that title is no joke. Things take a turn for the worst.

We revisited these sequences during lockdown and it’s an extremely well done epic. There are some false starts early on as Mignola settles on a creative team, but once Arcudi and Davis arrive, buckle up… things start moving fast and you’ll be flipping pages.

For a very different side of the Hellboy verse, there’s Lobster Johnson. The Lobster is a pulp vigilante from the Shadow/Spider school, operating in the 1930s. The tone is all over the place from a straight pulp thriller to farce to over-the-top adventure with some Spy-Fi and occult touches. Very fun series. Mike Mignola and John Arcudi are your writers. There’s quite a rotation of artists here, but Tonci Zonjic is the most frequent contributor. You can get the first the volumes in an omnibus and then there are three more “single” collections.

BPRD - Plague of Frogs   BPRD - Hell on Earth   Lobster Johnson

The “Maybe” Sale

It has come to our attention that Amazon now has a sort of  $5 and under section for comics. We’re not quite sure what to make of it or how permanent it is.  Some of the listings are this week’s sales. Some of the listings are things that aren’t discounted… like single issues that are normally under $5. And a few things might be unannounced sales?

Some highlights:

Arrowsmith V.1 by Kurt Busiek and Carlos Pacheco for $1.99. The high concept here is World War I being fought with mages and dragons. This would be the original run. Six issues for $1.99? For Busiek & Pacheco? That just might be the bargain of the week.

Queen & Country is on the shortlist for the best espionage comic of all time. An homage, of sorts, to the old UK TV show “The Sandbaggers,” it’s a spy comic that also shows the politics that the spies’ handler must suffer through. Greg Rucka writes and the artists rotate by arc, but you’ll recognize a few of the names: Chris Samnee, Jason Shawn Alexander, Carla Speed McNeil and Mike Norton. Great series. Volumes run from $3.99 to $5.99. We think this is an unannounced sale, but we’re not positive about that.

And we have no idea what kind of time frame any unannounced sales in this section will stick around. It is, as they say, a mystery.

Arrowsmith   Queen & Country

🤞 Don’t miss these tips!

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

Still On Sale

Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Thor, Cable & Berger Books

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel has discounts on a LOT of Thor titles, and Cable, too. Dark Horse favors dropping the price on the Berger Books line.

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):

Hammer Time

Marvel’s Thor Legacy Sale runs  through Tuesday, 3/21.

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 present – The current Donny Cates run with Nic Klein as the primary artist

Of your point of reference for Thor is the most recent 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 Jane is a big topic right now. It’s also a $6.99 Epic Collection note: the Epic Collection prices vary a bit and the newer ones a little more expensive, so keep an eye on that and compare with the Masterworks editions.

Thor by Jason Aaron   Thor by Walt Simonson   Thor - The Wrath of Odin

No, This is Not a Spectrum Sale

The Marvel Cable Sale runs through Tuesday, 3/21

There really have been a lot of Cable titles over the years.

The original Cable series was the longest-lived. It starts out as Cable Classic with the original mini’s, but we might lean a little further down the page – Ladronn art and early stories by Joe Casey and James Robinson.

The other long-running title was Cable & Deadpool. Fabian Nicieza was the writer, with Patrick Zircher and Reilly Brown as the primary artists.

The most recent Cable was the HoX/PoX era series by Gerry Duggan and Phil Noto which finds Cable much younger, but still up to his neck in time paradoxes.

Cable   Cable & Deadpool   Cable

Karen Sale

The Dark Horse Berger Books Sale runs through Monday, 3/20.

As you may recall Berger Books is Karen Berger’s imprint. Karen basically was Vertigo at DC. Berger Books is a combination of new material and pulling in a few of the old DC titles. For example:

Air is a pre-Ms. Marvel series by G. Willow Wilson and M.K. Perker that ran at Vertigo awhile back. It’s an odd book about a flight attendant, terrorists, dimension hopping, missing celebrities and all manner of conspiracies. It’s a fun one that didn’t get the run it should have at Vertigo and we sure hope there’s a continuation.

Along those lines, Incognegro by Mat Johnson and Warren Pleece is the excellent tale of a New York-based reporter passing for white, in order to investigate accusations that his brother murdered a white woman in Mississippi… as the lynch mob assembles. In this case, there was a continuation. Technically a prequel. Incognegro: Renaissance has cub reporter Zane Pinchback investigating a murder in 1920s Harlem.

Air   Incognegro   Incognegro: Renaissance

Something totally new from the line? Seeds by Ann Nocenti and David Aja is a striking book. This one blends a lot of disparate elements: an extra-terrestrial occupation, ecological terraforming, terrorism, forbidden love and… well, you get the picture.

The Seeds

🤞 Don’t miss these tips!

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

Still On Sale

Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: A Trio of $0.99 Masterworks; Rogue and Gambit; Milestone Media; Resident Alien

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel sneaks some $0.99 Masterworks into their Women of Marvel sale, plus Rogue & Gambit. DC celebrates the anniversary of Milestone Media and Dark Horse discounts their aliens.

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):

McDuffie & Friends

The DC Milestone 30 Anniversary Sale runs through Monday, 3/6.

Yup, it’s been 30 years since Milestone debuted and we’re just going frame this as a Dwayne McDuffie tribute sale, whether that’s overstating things or not. He got enough grief from DC over the years, we’ll let the spotlight sit on him for a moment.

First, let’s just list out the content involved:

The first thing to say here is that most of the content is cheaper in single issues.  The original Icon and Hardware collected editions are slightly cheaper than single issues, as is the ’11 version of Static Shock. Other than that? Go with the singles. Especially with the current versions.

Favorites? We say start with the originals. McDuffie had a strong hand in most of the launches, though they gave a lot of people a few issues of various titles as it went on. Hardware‘s opening arc is a particular favorite and you get the McDuffie wit with Icon’s conservative nature. And we’ll also say Xombi is conspicuous by its absence.

Hardware   Icon

The Other Kind of X

The Women of Marvel Sale runs through Monday, 4/3.

Yes, this one will run all month. What’s good?

You may recall that Kelly Thompson and Elena Casagrande won an Eisner Award for their Black Widow run? It’s good. It starts out with Natasha getting abducted and then there’s a lot of revenge. We were a little surprised and sad this series wrapped up when it did and we keep expecting it to return in some form.

We have also sung the praises of the Tom Taylor / David Lopez / Marcio Takara / Leonard Kirk All-New Wolverine before and we’ll probably sing it again. Great series that runs the gamut of themes and moods. This is Laura / X-23’s debut as Wolverine (while Logan was “dead”).

Black Widow   All-New Wolverine

Did somebody say $0.99 Masterworks?

Oh, that’s not cheap enough for you? You want $0.99 Masterworks? Ordinarily, we’d say wait until December, but it appears we have some for you. Yes, this is unusual:

The original Carol Danvers Ms. Marvel which was largely written by Chris Claremont (with Gerry Conway starting it). Art by Jim Mooney, John Buscema, Sal Buscema, Carmine Infantino and Dave Cockrum.

The original (Jessica Drew) Spider-Woman. Authors include Marv Wolfman, Mark Gruenwald and Michael Fleisher . Artists include Carmine Infantino and (the beginning of an under-rated run by) Steve Leialoha.

Savage She-Hulk starts out with Stan Lee / John Buscema and then continues with David Anthony Kraft / Mike Vosburg

The first two volumes are $5.99, but Dazzler Masterworks V. 3 is $1.99. It’s largely by Jim Shooter and Frank Springer.

‘Til Death Do Us Discount

The Marvel Rogue and Gambit Sale runs through Monday, 3/6.

The series the best lives up to the sale’s theme is Mr. & Mrs. X by Kelly Thompson, Oscar Bazaldua and David Lopez. That would be Rogue and Gambit, if you missed the wedding.

While Gambit is the newer character, he’s had more exposure in solo titles. Gambit Classic collects the original Uncanny X-Men arc and the early mini’s, including the 1995 Rogue mini-series in V.2.

Gambit: The Complete Collection is the slightly better known 1999 series primarily by Fabian Nicieza / Steve Skroce / Yanick Paquette

Mr. and Mrs. X   Gambit Classic   Gambit: The Complete Collection

No… The “Other” Aliens

The Dark Horse – Aliens Digital Sale runs through Monday, 3/13.

Let us first pause to comment how jarring it is to see “Dark Horse” and “Aliens” without the film franchise being involved.

This is a media tie-in sale (a DH specialty), but Resident Alien by Peter Hogan and Steve Parkhouse was a comic before it was a TV show.

Resident Alien Omnibus collects the first three volumes.

You can pull V.4-6 here.

And the single issues are $0.99.

Resident Alien

🤞 Don’t miss these tips!

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

 

Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Spider-Man, Batman’s Valentines, Nova, New Warriors and Hellboy

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel chops prices on Amazing Spider-Man, Nova and New Warriors. DC and Dark Horse celebrate Valentine’s Day.

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):

So Many Spiders…

Marvel’s Spider-Man Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 2/20.

There’s a lot of ground to cover here, so let’s break it down by series.

  • Amazing Spider-Man (1963-98) – The original run before Marvel became quite so obsessed with rebooting titles.
  • Amazing Spider-Man (1998 – 2013) – This run starts out with the controversial J. Michael Straczynski/John Romita, Jr./Mike Deodato, Jr. run, then goes into the Brand New Day era with rotating creative teams and segues into the beginning of the Dan Slott era. (Slott’s written a LOT of Spidey.)  Now… this Amazon’s listings, so you knew something had to be messed
  • Superior Spider-Man – Possibly the high point of the Dan Slott era – Doc Ock takes over Peter’s body and life. The Complete Collections are the way to go here.
  • Amazing Spider-Man (2014 – 15) – Peter’s back in control and the Slott era continues.
  • Amazing Spider-Man (2015-208) – It’s a relaunch. (Hey, Spidey’s been relaunched a lot less than Captain Marvel!) This is the end run of the Slott era, culminating in the Red Goblin affair.
  • Amazing Spider-Man (2018 – 22) – The Nick Spenser era is here, PLUS the 4 volumes of Spider-Man Beyond with Ben Reilly stepping in that take place prior to:
  • Amazing Spider-Man (2022-Present) – The current Zeb Wells / John Romita, Jr. run. Also some 99-cent single issues if you prefer that format.

And there are a few more Slott era omnibus editions floating around.  That’s probably not getting cleaned up anytime soon.<sigh>

Recommendations?  Well, first off Amazing Spider-Man doesn’t really have very many BAD periods. Oh, some runs are definitely better than others, but there aren’t huge swaths of duds, here.

You can definitely pick your poison between the $5.99 Masterworks and $6.99 Epic Collections for the original run (although a few Epic’s run a little higher). The Epics are typically much larger collections for only a buck more, but it depends on which format you started buying and which era you’re interested in. Some stretches are only in Masterworks, some are only in Epic.

Of possible interest, since there’s a sequel mini-series out, but NOT included in the link for the V.1 of Amazing is the Kraven’s Last Hunt Epic Collectionso we’ll call that one out directly. You get the J.M. DeMatteis/Mike Zeck classic, plus the issues of Amazing around it, plus Spider-Man Vs. Wolverine for about the price of just getting the regular Kraven collection.

We’d also recommend a look at the Brand New Day collections. It’s not a run that’s immediately talked about, but we found it entertaining and a much better set of creators was assembled than Marvel was necessarily given credit for: Mark Waid, Bob Gale (we wish he did more comics), Marc Guggenheim, Joe Kelly, Dan Slott, John Romita, Jr., Steve McNiven, Salvador Larroca, Phil Jimenez, Barry Kitson, Marcos Martin, Paolo Rivera, Lee Week and… others. I’m not sure there are “hidden” gems with Spidey, just runs that get discussed less.

And yes, we are enjoying the current Zeb Wells / (mostly) John Romita, Jr. series. It’s a little more somber than we were expecting from Wells, but it’s been a good ride so far. Peter’s trying to get back on his feet after doing something to get everyone mad at him. Who should show up with a redemptive peace offering, but… Norman Osborn? And that’s before the Hobgoblin turns up.

Amazing Spider-Man - Kraven's Last Hunt   Spider-Man Brand New Day   Amazing Spider-Man

Nooooova, Come Out and Plaaaaaay…

The Marvel Nova and the New Warriors Sale runs through Monday, 2/20.

Let’s run down the contents here:

  • Nova (1976-78) – The original Marv Wolfman/John Buscema/Sal Buscema/Carmine Infantino run
  • Nova (2007-10) – The Dan Abnett/Andy Lanning/Paul Pelletier/Kev Walker/Andrea di Vito era – the Complete Collection is the better deal.
  • Nova (2013-15) – Gerry Duggan / Paco Medina was probably the longest tenured creative team of this volume.
  • Nova: Resurrection (2015) – Jeff Loveness / Ramon Perez
  • Nova: The Human Rocket (2015-16) – Sean Ryan / Cory Smith / John Timms

What’s good here?  We’d go with the original run or the DnA run (complete with a space station carved out of a Celestial’s head – yes, the concept predates Avengers Mountain).

For the New Warriors:

  • New Warriors Classic – The original Fabian Nicieza / Mark Bagley / Darick Robertson series
  • New Warriors ’07-’09 The Kevin Grevioux / Paco Medina / Reilly Brown series
  •  New Warriors ’14 – The Christopher Yost / Marcus To series

And here we’d absolutely go with the original run.

Nova Classic   Nova by Abnett & Lanning   New Warriors

Not the Safest Valentine…

The DC Valentine’s Day Sale runs through Monday, 2/20.

We’re not saying the DC universe is the safest place to celebrate a relationship… but there are a few things on sale.

The Batman Adventures: Mad Love is a classic of unhealthy relationships. This is the animated series origin story of Harley Quinn and Mister J. by Paul Dini and Bruce Timm. It is a romance, after all! Also falls under the category of “classic.” If you don’t need all the optional extras, you can get the original story in its original format for a lousy $0.99.

Speaking of Batman and unhealthy relationships, there’s always Batman: Birth of the DemonThis collects Batman: Son of the Demon by Mike W. Barr and Jerry Bingham, Batman: Bride of the Demon by Mike W. Barr and Tom Grindberg and Batman: Birth of the Demon by Denny O’Neil and Norm Breyfogle. Three original graphic novels about R’as al Ghul and Bruce’s relationship with Talia al Guhl. Indeed, Son of the Demon could be considered the origin of Damien, or at least a chunk of it. Originally, that tale wasn’t even supposed to be in continuity, except it was quite popular and things changed.

And for something a little more recent, there’s Mister Miracle by Tom King and Mitch Gerards. While the storyline is about Mister Miracle attempting to escape death, his relationship with his wife, Big Barda, is certainly at the core of the story. A series that did quite well for itself on the awards circuit.

Scroll down to the bottom of the sale for an eclectic selection of single issues. A lot of wedding issues, but… to be honest, we probably wouldn’t have suggested celebrating Valentine’s Day with the first issue of Longbow Hunters. That’s a bit much.

Mad Love   Batman: Birth of the Demon   Mister Miracle

Enough With the Romance

The Dark Horse Valentine’s Day Sale runs through Monday, 2/20.

OK, enough with mushy stuff, let’s talk about the usual suspects here.  It’s Dark Horse, so you know there’s going to be multiple Mike Mignola items on sale. The Hellboy Omnibus line continues to be a good value – excellent comics with high page counts (especially V.3). If you haven’t been keeping up, scroll through the sale and scan the newer releases. Hellboy is still coming out.

Blacksad by Juan Díaz Canales and Juanjo Guarnido is an amazing body of work. Chandler-esque hardboiled detective stories in a world of anthropomorphic animals… but there’s nothing cartoony about it. Absolutely jaw-dropping art by Guarnido, too. Thick with detail and atmosphere. Click through and look at a couple preview pages.

Invisible Kingdom by G. Willow Wilson and Christian Ward has several rewards to it’s name. It’s a science fiction tale of what happens when an intergalactic corporation gets in bed with a religion.  All’s far in love and profit, after all. Note: The Library Edition is cheaper than getting the single volumes, which is not always the case.

Hellboy   Blacksad   Invisible Kingdom

🤞 Don’t miss these tips!

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

Still on Sale:

Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: X-Men; New Teen Titans; Aztec Ace; Geiger; Air

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel contemplates Mister Sinister, DC celebrates teamwork, Image does science fiction and Dark Horse discounts fantasy.

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):

New sales did post this week, so that’s good… but make sure you eyeball the displayed prices to see if it looks like it’s really on sale. A number of things did not pass the eye test, although at least the DC sale got fixed. As we type this, not everything did. Speaking of DC:

Fight and Then Team Up

The DC Super Teams Sale runs through Monday, 1/30.

There’s a 2-Omnibus set of 52 that’s a good deal. 52 issues for $20 works out to $0.38/issue, better than you usually see. 52 was a weekly comic co-written by Mark Waid, Greg Rucka, Grant Morrison and Geoff Johns. Keith Giffen did the layouts and then a whole bunch of artists finished those. The story is a set of plot threads telling the aftermath of Infinite Crisis, with arcs for Booster Gold, Black Adam, Elongated Man, Adam Strange, Will Magnus (the Metal Men’s creator) and The Question, among others.

This World’s Finest is the 1990 Prestige/Dark Knight format version from Dave Gibbons and Steve Rude. Not something we’ve heard discussed in awhile, this is an attempt to recapture the Silver Age mojo as Lex Luthor and The Joker team-up to bedevil Superman and Batman. As pretty a comic as you’ll find.

The New Teen Titans by Marv Wolfman and George Perez essentially pulled DC back from the brink at a low point in the company’s sales history. It’s a classic and it’s $4.99 per volume.

52   World's Finest   New Teen Titans

It’s a Sin

The  Marvel X-Men: Sinister Stories Sale runs through Monday, 1/30.

A tie-in to the “Sins of Sinister” Event? Sure enough. And given that’s a Kieron Gillen outing, it seems like Uncanny X-Men by Kieron Gillen: The Complete Collection is probably good background reading, since it establishes Gillen’s take on Mister Sinister.

Also particularly relevant to the current incarnation of Sinster is the recent Hellions series by Zeb Wells and Stephen Segovia. We’re big fans of this one, which has Minster Sinister acting as Professor X for a unit of more… anti-social mutants. Is he using them as pawns in his greater schemes? Absolutely. One warning here, though. The middle volume of this doesn’t have much of a discount and we’re wondering if that’s an error? The omnibus edition is a tad more expensive and also a lot higher priced than you’d expect for a sale. Maybe it gets fixed and maybe it doesn’t. It’s still a highly entertaining run.

And while it’s not the first appearance of Sinister, we think one of the better values in the sale is X-Factor Epic Collection: All-New, All-Different X-Factor, which is the Peter David run. You’ve got a Mister Sinister arc, a Hulk crossover and art by Larry Stroman, Dale Keown… and some lad named Joe Quesada (whatever happened to him?)

Uncanny X-Men   Hellions by Zeb Wells   X-Factor Epic Collection

We Were Promised A Flying Purple People-Eater?!?

The Image Sci-Fi Sale runs through Tuesday, 1/31.

Fear Agent by Rick Remender, Tony Moore and Jerome Opeña is a pulp science fiction adventure of the hard-drinking final member of the Fear Agents, a force that handled alien threats. Spoiler: one of those alien threats is still active. It’s an old favorite around here.

Farmhand is a science fiction/horror/comedy series from Rob Guillory, who you might remember from Chew. This time out Rob’s doing full writer/artist duties and proving that Layman wasn’t the only pleasantly twisted person behind Chew. In Farmhand, Jedidiah Jenkins has an unusual cash crop – he grows replacement for human organs. Where did these crops come from? That would be telling, but strange things are happening around the farm at to some of the transplant recipients.

Geiger is a Geoff Johns / Gary Frank post-apocalyptical, traversing the wastelands adventure. We got some (darker) Kamandi/Ben Boxer vibes off it. Very much a post-modern take on the DC “Great Disaster” era science fiction tales of the 60s and 70s and in a good way.

Fear Agent   Farmhand   Geiger

No, Not That Kind of “Fantasy”

The Dark Horse Fantasy Sale runs through Monday, 1/30.

This is a VERY expansive sale and worth an extended browse it you have time. We’re going to point out three, somewhat under the radar books, two of which we don’t think have been on sale before.

Air by G. Willow Wilson and M.K. Perker was originally a Vertigo book that Karen Berger appears to have pulled over to Dark Horse and Berger Books.  We would very much like to see a continuation, but… first things first. This is a very unusual genre bender. A little science fiction, a little fantasy, a little thriller. It also takes a little while to start unfolding. What starts as a flight attendant getting pulled into a terrorist conspiracy takes a turn for the weird and lands in a much wider conspiracy involving teleportation, time lost celebrities and an Aztec god. This is not a comic that’s easily reduced to a tagline, but it’s a good one.

Alice in Sunderland by Bryan Talbot is your unabashedly intellectual comic of the week. An excellent work of art and truly unusual. The starting point is a history of Talbot’s hometown of Sunderland, which turns into a study of the influences on Lewis Carroll while writing Alice in Wonderland and then turns… where Talbot feels like going. A unique book!

Aztec Ace by Doug Moench, Dan Day, Michael Hernandez and Ron Harris is a time travel adventure. The most unusual thing about it might just be that Moench had never seen Doctor Who before writing it in the early 80s. This is a very Doctor Who-compatible series. Originally coming out from Eclipse and long out of print, Ace is a time traveler from the 23rd century who’s battling time paradoxes and the mysterious Nine-Crocodiles, who seems to be behind the paradoxes. He’s aided by Bridget Chronopolis, who wanders into his sphere very much like one of The Doctor’s companions would, and the floating head of Sigmund Freud. Not the lowest priced item, but it’s 15 issues + extras, so a better value than you might think at first glance. And a lot easier than trying to track down the single issues. (Just trust us on that, ’cause we did.)

Air   Alice in Sunderland   Aztec Ace

🤞 Don’t miss these tips!

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

Still on Sale:

Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: The “Best of 2022” Sales drop with Spidey & Moon Knight; Plus, Dark Horse Superheroes

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, we look at the best of the Marvel Masterworks sale plus holiday sales from Image and Dynamite.

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):

The holiday sales have ended and the “regular” sales has resumed… except, DC seems to still have the holiday deep discount spirit.

Best of 2020 2022 – Marvel Edition

The Marvel Spotlight on 2022 Sale runs through Monday, 1/30.

Yes, we can speak to Marvel’s ’22, though we’ll keep it to series that have a V.1 on sale. (No sense sending you into the middle of something, the way these runs tend to work).

The Jed MacKay section, since he had a bit of a breakout year at Marvel:

Moon Knight is MacKay and Alessandro Cappuccio setting up a new status quo for Moon Knight, a character with so many drastically different takes on him, he’s sort of Marvel’s Hawkman in that respect. MacKay and Cappuccio are methodically incorporating and rationalizing the different versions. Moon Knight has opened a “Midnight Mission” to continue his work for Konshu… after a fashion. He’s seeing a therapist. There are vampires on the loose and a rival emissary of Konshu. A somewhat unpredictable ride, but that’s a definite plus.

The Death of Doctor Strange can function as a standalone, but it’s really the first act in a longer arc. MacKay and Lee Garbett kill off Stephen Strange, but not exactly the way you were expecting. A clever book.

Strange is the next act. Clea Strange has assumed the mantle of Sorcerer Supreme. She’s trying to find a way to resurrect Stephen, but keeps butting heads with a group of paranormal gangsters calling themselves “The Blasphemy Cartel.” MacKay is joined by Marcelo Ferreira on art.

Moon Knight x The Death of Doctor Strange x Strange

Also good:

The Marvels is Kurt Busiek and Yildiray Cinar (with Alex Ross covers) doing a story from more of a Marvels (the 90s painted series). The point of view here is an outsider who’s collected some superhero/villain technology and finds himself dragged along on an adventure. Lady Lotus, the Invaders villain is taking over the country of Siancong, in plot that has its origins back in World War II. The scope takes you from there to the present day for a big tour of the Marvel universe with an excursion to some… unusual corners. Basically, a showcase for classic Marvel. (Both volumes are on sale, so treat this like a 2-parter.)

The Defenders: There Are No Rules by Al Ewing and Javier Rodriguez find Doctor Strange and… The Masked Rider organizing an inter-dimensional posse of sorts. Very cosmic, very mind-bending and Rodriquez is really outdoing himself here.

Amazing Spider-Man by Zeb Wells and John Romita, Jr. is another recent title we’ve been enjoying. The first arc, with Tombstone, is a bit more serious than we were expecting, but the tone shifts a bit more Wells-like with arc two. Romita is as icon a Spidey artist as his father, so it’s good to see him back on the book.

Marvels   Defenders   Amazing Spider-Man

The Literary Roots of WandaVision

The Marvel Scarlet Witch Sale runs through Monday, 1/9.

Vison & The Scarlet Witch, as the pair were colloquially known for much of their time at Marvel are kind of a strange one to go looking for collections of, largely because most of their adventures were as supporting cast members in The Avengers.

Vision and the Scarlet Witch: The Saga of Wanda and Vision collects their Wedding from Giant-Sized Avengers #4, the ’82 mini-series by Bill Mantlo and Rick Leonardi and the ’85 maxi-series by Steve Englehart and Richard Howell. Usually, it’s that maxi-series that gets referenced the most, but this is as complete a set of early (ish) solo adventures as exists.

Now, it you want something a little closer to the TV show, there’s the John Byrne run of Avengers West Coast. “Vision Quest” is where Vision is disassembled and rebuilt with the white body and revelations are made about her children. “Darker than Scarlet” is the first time Wanda snaps.

If you want Wanda wholesale rewriting reality, that’s more House of M and the Avengers: Disassembled that leads into it and those aren’t in the sale.  WandaVision is a goofy fit with the comics in some ways.

Vision and the Scarlet Witch   Avengers West Coast

Best of 2020 2022 – DC Edition

The DC Best of 2022 sale runs through Monday, 1/30.

Oof! We hope you were taking advantage of DC’s unusually good discounts at their holiday sale, ’cause the collected editions we’re seeing this week are largely things that were on sale last week, too… except now they’re at least twice as expensive. We’re not going to highlight those.

All the way at the bottom of the sale page is a selection of (mostly) $1.99 single issues. Yes, we know… they’re not $0.99 anymore, but they did somewhat rotate the selection. Here are some highlights. You should know the drill by now… with longer running titles like Batman, you may need to scroll down a little to get to where things are on sale.

Dark Capes

The Dark Horse Superhero Sale runs through Monday, 1/30.

Yes, Dark Horse has a few superheroes. They even have their own line.

We did a re-read of Nexus over the last couple years and Omnibus line holds up. (We’d also forgotten how many issues Paul Smith drew.) Nexus is sort of a science fiction/superhero mash about a man who reluctantly becomes a superpowered assassin for a mysterious alien. Nexus has nightmares about the mass murderers he’s to kill and they won’t go away until the deed is done. Lots of world building in this one. Mike Baron writes the whole thing and Steve Rude is the primary artist. Omnibuses 1-6 are the original Capital City/First Comics run, V. 7 picks up when the license moved to Dark Horse. Yes, Nexus is still around.

For something way off the beaten path, there’s The Best of Milligan & McCarthyThat would be Peter Milligan (Shade, the Changing Man; Hellblazer; X-Statix) and Brendan  McCarthy (Judge Dredd, Strange Days, and believe it or not, the co-writer of Mad Max: Fury Road). These two collaborated a lot in their early days in the UK market with the best known bits in the US probably being the Strange Days mini-series from Eclipse. It fits in here because of their Paradax strip. Trippy would be the key term for these two.

With Brian Bendis moving his base of operations to Dark Horse, that means Powers is getting a new edition. Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming are the creators of this long running (on again, off again… with 4 relaunches as they’ve switched publishers) police procedural about the cops who investigate those with superhuman abilities. The police aren’t supposed to have powers, but… that would be getting ahead of ourselves. This was one of the early hits that eventually led Bendis to Marvel and it’s a quality series. Perhaps better read in collected edition, since you aren’t trying to figure out the publishing schedule (which has probably diluted the reputation of the series).

Nexus   The Best of Milligan and McCarthy   Powers

🤞 Don’t miss these tips!

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

Still on Sale: