Tag: DC

Comixology (at Amazon) Sales – Rock Bottom “May the Forth” Star Wars Prices, Plus: Spider-Man, Batman, Doctor Fate and The Witchfinder

This week in Comixology (at Amazon) sales: Star Wars gets nice and cheap for the “May the Fourth” holiday, plus Spider-Man and his friends (OK, acquaintances), Batman, Doctor Fate and The Witchfinder (but not the Witchfinder General, that’s different).

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

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

Nothing But Star Wars

The Marvel Star Wars May the Fourth Sale runs through Monday, 5/16.

Let’s break this down by key series first (since Amazon can’t be bothered to organize things this way).  There are a lot more shorter runs included, too and the prices are GOOD. Lots of $0.99 first volumes and $1.99 after that.  This is the time of the year to go hog wild on Star Wars.

  • Darth Vader (’15-’16) – The AMAZING Kieron Gillen / Salvador Larroca run
    Vader Down – the Darth Vader / Star Wars crossover sequence that is KEY to this run.
  • Darth Vader (’17 – ’18) – The also great Charles Soule / Giuseppe Camuncoli run
  • Doctor Aphra (’16-’19) – Sort of an evil Indiana Jones in the Star Wars universe, spinning off from Darth Vader. The first three volumes are especially entertaining
    The Screaming Citadel – Star Wars/Aphra crossover with key plot points to the early sequence
  • Kanan: The Last Padawan – Star Wars Rebels prequel by by Greg Weisman and Pepe Larraz
  • Star Wars (’15-’19) – The Marvel flagship title amazingly went 4 years without a relaunch!
  • Star Wars: The High Republic ($0.99 for Vol. 1)

Recommendations? For whatever reason, Darth Vader seems to bring out the best in Marvel. Get both series first. Is is a coincidence Lucasfilm recently hired Charles Soule as a creative consultant?

Your under the radar title is Kanan. A very solid series from one the animated show’s producers and Pepe Larraz has since been promoted to X-Men.

Vader   Vader Series 2   Kanan - The Last Padawan

Team-Up

The Marvel Spider-Man and Friends Sale runs through Sunday, 5/1.

There have been a few Spidey team-up books over the years and the listed here include:

The OG title, however, was Marvel Team-Up. While we like the value of Masterworks editions in general, the standout sequence of this title is the too-short Chris Claremont/John Byrne run. Yes, the classic X-Men team did a Spidey run here. Masterworks V.6 catches the beginning of that, but Marvel also has Spider-Man: Marvel Team-Up by Claremont and Byrne that catches it all in one place.  And yes, that business with the Soul Catcher from issues 60-62 is a follow up to a Tigra story line.  (The more you know…)

Marvel Team-Up

Some of the Discounts Are Decent…

The DC Epic eBooks Sale runs through Monday, 5/9.

The usual DC disclaimers apply – Amazon and/or DC seem to screw up the sale prices, initially pricing many books at bizarre numbers like $9.32 or $24.87 before settling down to something like $5.99 or $7.99.  So if the price doesn’t end in $*.99, be aware it might not be the final sale price.  Then again, they might not get around to fixing it.  We wish we were making it up, but that’s the cold, hard reality of the situation.

Anyway, some things we saw and thought the “real” sale price was active for:

WE3 is a unusual and downright disturbing self-contained story by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely about about three house pets – a dog, a cat and a rabbit – who have been converted into cybernetically enhanced weapons systems by a government agency. They make a break for it and all hell breaks loose. Seriously, this is not The Secret of N.I.H.M. This is bloody. $5.99 is a good price, here.

Brave and the Bold: Batman and Wonder Woman is Liam Sharp’s tale of Batman & Wonder Woman investigating the murder of a Celtic god. $4.99 for a proper discount.

Doctor Fate in this case is the 2015-16 revival by Paul Levitz, with the amazing Sonny Liew as the primary artist. We don’t always like updates, but Levitz and Liew nailed this one. The helmet of Fate falls into the possession of an Egyptian American medical student for a series of adventures tied into Egyptian mythology and history.  An underappreciated gem that blends a sliver of classic Peter Parker into the Fate mythos.

There’s a LOT of collections to sort through here, we just wish it were easier to find a series that had ALL the volumes priced consistently.

WE3   The Brave and the Bold   Doctor Fate

Lost and Found

The Dark Horse Witchfinder Sale runs through Monday, 5/2.

This is another entry in the extended Mignolaverse, a staple of Dark Horse’s horror efforts. Sir Edward Grey is a witchfinder in Victorian England, who hunts things that go bump in the night while in the service of the Queen. And yes, of course Saucy Jack eventually turns up.  Mike Mignola with John Arcudi and Chris Robeson. Ben Stenbeck is the primary artist, but the some of other artists popping include John Severin, Tyler Crook, D’Israeli and Christopher Mitten.

This series of mini-series is now conveniently collected in  two omnibus editions on sale for $6.99 each and that’s a lot of bang for your buck.

Witchfinder

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

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

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

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

Hulk Smash Prices

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

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

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

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

As for “the best of” Hulk…

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

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

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

Hulk Epic Collection   Hulk Dogs of War   Hulk - Past Perfect

I Am… Rocket?

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

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

Guardians of the Galaxy

Batman Family

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

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

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

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

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

Batman & Robin   Robin: Reborn   Grayson

Rabbit Rabbit

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

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

Usagi Yojimbo

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

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

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

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

Son of X

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

! = ?

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

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

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

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

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

  The Manhattan Projects   C.O.W.L.

DC’s Current Partial Sale

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lobo   Batman by Ed Brubaker

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Batman, Civil War and… No, Not West Coast Avengers?

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) Sales, we attempt to sort through the mis-priced DC Starter sale, Marvel offers up a Civil War Sale and… say, that’s not a West Coast Avengers sale, is it? Oh, Amazon…

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

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

Maybe They Should Start With the Right Prices?

The DC Start Here Sale runs through Monday, 4/11.

The usual “some of the prices are off” warning still applies. $12.43 for Batman: The Golden Age does not seem like the right price and most of those weird prices have changed to something that ends in .99.  Much of it being $5.99/$6.99/$7.99. So if you see a weird and kind of high price, move on.

That out of the way, this is effective a first volume sale and they’re hoping you’ll get the rest at full price. (Don’t they know how cheap you are?) In the spirit of not overspending, we’ll also look at things that are a bit more self contained, like…

Swamp Thing: The Bronze Age, Vol. 1 by Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson with a bit of Nestor Redondo and Mike Kaluta. Len Wein doesn’t always get listed high on the pantheon of 70s writers and we think that’s a combination of his not have particularly long runs on many comics and some of his very best work being on smaller titles like Swamp Thing and Phantom Stranger. Well, here’s what just might be Wein’s best work – the original Swamp Thing run (the House of Secrets debut and then 1-13 of the regular series). Does anything need to be said about Wrightson’s art?  You already know it’s great.

Batman: The Adventures Continue Season One is a continuation of Batman: The Animated Series by Alan Burnett and Paul Dini (you, know… from the show) writing and Ty Templeton on art.  And it is wonderful. Like and old friend dropping by out of the blue. In this case it involves a giant robot causing trouble in Gotham right around when Lex Luther shows up.  Surely, that couldn’t be a coincidence.

And for a change of pace, it’s hard to go wrong with with The Flintstones as re-imagined by Mark Russell and Steve Pugh. It’s just a great comic. Funny, oddly bittersweet and sometimes dark… yet still the Flintstones.

Have a browse, but beware of the flaky, non-final sale prices. Things that end in .99 only.  The “Golden Age” / “Silver Age” / “Bronze Age” editions (like Swamp Thing) that have been properly marked down to $6.99 are a good chunk of pages for the price.

Swamp Thing   Batman: The Adventures Continue  The Flintstones

Incivility

The Marvel Civil War: The Complete Collection Sale runs through Thursday, 4/14.

Yes, Civil War is one of those Events we really believe Marvel needs to rethink its collection strategy for.  All these various and sprawling collections need to be integrated. Or at least SOME of them need to be integrated.

So here’s our take on it:

Civil War the main mini-series by Mark Millar and Steve McNiven – is the action movie version of the story.

Civil War: Front Line – written by Paul Jenkins with art by Ramon Bachs, Steve Lieber and Lee Weeks – is about WHY the Civil War is happening as Ben Urich tries to get to the bottom of things. This title is much more of the Event’s actual plot and motivations than the more famous flagship series and Marvel really need to have a collection that integrates the two.

There are obviously a lot of tie-in books here. You can dip in where you feel like, but Civil War: Wolverine by Marc Guggenheim and Humberto Ramos is a little more relevant than most and has Logan (hellbent on vengeance) tracking down the people responsible for the Stamford incident.

Yes, there is a lot more to the story than the main Millar/McNiven book, it’s just not really emphasized.

Civil War   Civil War: Front Line V. 1   Civil War: Wolverine

What West Coast?

So you may have seen this on the Deals Page:

And you may have thought to yourself, “That sure doesn’t look like West Coast Avengers?”

That’s because if you click through, you’ll find it’s really the Marvel Ironheart Sale and it runs through Sunday, 4/10.

We’re not going to be good guides for this series… but know what you’re really looking at. (Amazon’s not having a good week, are they?)

Spider-Sale

The big sale of the week continues to be the Amazing Spider-Man sale.  We broke it down by title in our last column.

Spider-Man Brand New Day

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: A Big Spider-Man Sale, Trouble With DC’s Sale Prices (Again) and a Secret Vault Sale

The big Comixology (at Amazon) Sale of the moment is on Amazing Spider-Man. As in practically all of it. So we try to make that a little easier to navigate. Plus a warning about Amazon screwing up the latest DC sale (again) and an unannounced Vault sale.

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

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

Catches Discounts Just Like Flies

Marvel’s Spider-Man Legacy Sale runs through Sunday, 4/17.

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) – This is the volume that wrapping up right now. It starts with the Nick Spenser run and then ends with the “Beyond” storyline.

And there are a few more Slott era omnibus editions floating around.  There are too many editions of this material and nobody seems to be particularly paying attention to how this is being displayed for the prospective readers.  We’re getting used to it. <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. 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.

Inexplicably NOT included in the link for the V.1 of Amazing is the Kraven’s Last Hunt Epic Collection, so 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.

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

Not Conan

We’ve got an unannounced sale for you.  The first collected edition of Barbarbic from Vault Comics by Mike Moreci and Nathan Gooden is on sale for a mere $1.99. (Cheap.)  A barbarian with a bloodthirsty axe is cursed by witches to do good… so you know it probably isn’t going to end well. We haven’t read it, but it seemed to be doing pretty well on what’s left of the Direct Market sales charts and it’s hard to beat that price. We are 100% unsure how much longer that price is going to hold, BTW.

Barbaric

Beware the DC Sale

So DC has a sale right now, but we want you to be wary of it.  As we type this Tuesday evening, they don’t have the right prices up.  Let’s give some examples:

DC Prices

$13.98? $9.32? History says these are not the REAL sale prices. Sometime – maybe Wednesday, maybe Thursday – the real prices will pop up and they’ll likely be something closer to the $5.99 you see on that Wonder Woman volume. (Wonder Woman was already on sale, so that price _might_ change, too.)  Now, if Batman: The Adventures Continue drops down to, say, $4.99… jump on that. It’s a wonderful comic.  We’ll probably revisit this sale on Friday and see if it’s normalized.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anyway, back to the Cheap.

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

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

The End of the Immortal

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

Easily the sale of the week.

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

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

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

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

Immortal Hulk

LoX?

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

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

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

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

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

X-Men Legacy

Not A Big Red Cheese?

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

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

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

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

Speaking of Complex Relaunches

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

A Late Addition

That  Image Omnibus sale running through 3/31?

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

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

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: A Big Wonder Woman Sale, plus… The Invaders

A mid-week look at Comixology (at Amazon) Sales. Why? Because there’s a very large Wonder Woman sale that takes quite a bit of effort to break down into digestible sections.  Plus, The Invaders are on sale, including a recent run that was largely ignored and is worth reading.

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

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

Golden Age Avengers

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

This would be the WWII super team built around Captain America & Bucky, the original Human Torch & Toro and Namor, the Sub-Mariner. They invaded Europe and fought the likes of the Red Skull, Master Man, Warrior Woman, Baron Blood and U-Man.

Invaders Classics: The Complete Collection is the best pricing for the run and we’d put the first volume as slightly stronger than the second. V.1 is Roy Thomas and mostly Frank Robbins on art. Yes, Robbins on superhero comics is a divisive thing, but Invaders is where he fits best.  Don Glut joins in the writing fray in V. 2 and the art rotates a bit more, notably with Alan Kupperberg. The early sequence introducing Baron Blood is particularly good.

Invaders

The most recent Invaders flew under most radars, but it was a personal favorite here at the Tower of Cheap. Chip Zdarksy, Butch Guice and Carlos Magno. That book launches today, it gets a little more attention, but Zdarsky was not yet at his current profile level in ’19. This is a modern day tale of Cap, Winter Soldier and the original Torch trying to figure out what’s going on with aggressive military stances in Atlantis. Of course, there’s palace intrigue under the sea, but this also serves as a Sub-Mariner series, providing some explanations for different characterizations of Namor over the years and wrapping up some of his subplots across various titles. It’s a really solid comic and we were sad it ended.  This is one extended story, so you need to get both volumes.

Invaders

We also liked the Stern/Epting collection and Avengers/Invaders, but those are the top picks here.

It Makes You Wonder…

DC’s Wonder Woman and the Amazons Sale runs through Monday, 4/4.

This is another one of those extra hard to navigate, jumbled up sales. We’re going to do what we did with the Batman sale and break this down into the individual titles, so you can browse little easier.

  • Sensation Comics – these are the “Golden Age” archive editions and have the early issues of Wonder Woman in them, too.
    Sensation Comics (Single Issues) – If you prefer the Mr. Terrific and Wildcat backups be included, the single issues are $0.99. That might be the everyday price, too.
  • Wonder Woman (’42-’86) – The early issues are filed under Sensation Comics, so this listing is “Best of” collections and the collected “12 Labors” from the 70s.
    Wonder Woman (Single Issues) – The original run is not complete, but a lot of the single issues are available and most of them are $0.99. Again, looks like $0.99 is the everyday price, too.
  • Wonder Woman (’87 – ’06).  OK, this is odd. Amazon has TWO DIFFERENT collected edition pages for this run.  That’s… not real efficient.  At any rate, this is the series that starts out with George Perez, then Messner-Loebs/Deodato, John Byrne,  Phil Jimenez and finally the first Greg Rucka run. (With a few creators in between those entries.)

Page #1 – this is the main page

Page #2 – click here for V. 5 and 6 of Perez and V.2 of Messner-Loebs

If I were working at DC, I’d probably ask Amazon what’s up with this link structure.

Wonder Woman (Single Issues ’87-’06) – again, mostly $0.99 and that seems like the everyday price.

OK, that was kind of exhausting.  Recommendations? Sure. Go back to Sensation Comics (either version) and get a look at how strange and subversive the original comics by Moulton and Peters were. Lotsa bondage in a kids’ comic setting.

Go to the ’87 series and get some Perez. For a lot of people Wonder Woman started with Perez. The Rucka + multiple artists run at the end of that series is also excellent.

The return of Rucka with Nicola Scott and Liam Sharp is also excellent, but you can save a little money if you get that in the first two volumes here.

And a couple one-offs we can also recommend:

Wonder Woman: Dead Earth by Daniel Warren Johnson is a helluva fun ride. Diana awakens in post-apocalyptical hellscape, fighting off the monsters trying to eat the human survivors and trying to remember why and how long she was unconscious. Listen to metal while you read it!

Wonder Woman: The True Amazon is Jill Thompson’s award winning OGN and it is absolutely gorgeous to behold.

Wonder Woman: Dead Earth   Wonder Woman - True Amazon

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

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

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

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

X-Hijinks

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dawn of X

We’ll Stick with the Return

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

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

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

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

Iron Man: Heroes Reborn   Captain America Heroes Return

We Forget… Is It Still 2020?

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

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

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

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

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

Iron Man: The Inevitable   Iron Man: Iron Monger

Feudal Warlords of Manhattan

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

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

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

DMZ

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Comixology Sales – Batman, Avengers, Spawn, Thanos and Blacksad

This week in Comixology (at Amazon) Sales, we break down that big Batman sale by titles and maybe that makes it easier to parse. Marvel has deals on (almost) all things Avengers and their Cosmic wing of the universe, while we keep an eye on the Image Omnibuses.

We’re just wondering if, by the time you read this, whether the Defenders sale is still listed on the Deals page. As we type this, the sale is over, the listing is still up and the link doesn’t really go anywhere.  Amazon is trying to keep you on your toes!

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

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

The Sale That Flaps in the Knight

So let’s revisit the big Batman Sale that’s still running through Monday (3/14). We’ve been hearing a LOT about how hard it is to navigate… and that’s no lie. We also heard one of our old habits is a little more helpful with the new Amazon consumer unfriendly layout, so we’re just going to give you a list of the various Batman series out there. Pretty much everything older is on sale, including $0.99 cent singles, so maybe this would be a little easier to parse?

Browse around those links and they might be easier to sift through and digest than the formal sale listings.

Now to throw out a suggestion that’s deeper cut, we were always a fan of the Greg Rucka / Shawn Martinbrough / Rick Burkett run that’s been collected under the banner of “New Gotham.  Great run, and $4.99 for 300+ page volumes is good bang for your buck, too. Volume 1 and Volume 2.

Batman: New Gotham   Batman: New Gotham

Bargains Assemble

Marvel has an Avengers sale running through St. Paddy’s Day (3/17).

No single issues on this sale, but let’s take the same approach… although we apologize for how unorganized the series pages on Amazon are presented. It’s poor craftsmanship.

What we’d recommend overall is to head to the original Avengers run and pick off some of the Epic Editions for $6.99.

Another excellent option is to head over to the ’98-’04 Avengers run and look at the Avengers Assemble volumes by Kurt Busiek and George Perez, which is a wonderful thing.

You might be thinking about the Hickman era, but we’re going to throw up a caution light here. Because of how that run bounced between various titles, you’re much better off reading it in the Avengers by Jonathan Hickman: The Complete Collection format and that one’s not on sale right now.

However, if you’re looking to get your Jason Aaron/Ed McGuinness on, their Avengers is most definitely in the sale.

Oh, you’re going to make us pick and choose?  Fine.

Since the best chunk of Englehart’s Avengers isn’t in Epic format, we’ll go with The Final Threat for the original run Epic Collection. For $6.99, you get the very end of Englehart, a skirmish with Doctor Doom and Namor, the return of Wonder Man and the Bride of Ultron arc. Plus the finale of the original Thanos/Warlock saga. So your parade of creators also includes Gerry Conway, Jim Shooter, George Perez, John Byrne and Jim Starlin. That ain’t shabby.

Then maybe Avengers Forever, a truly epic Kang story by Kurt Busiek, Roger Stern and Carlos Pacheco. That was it’s own maxi-series and sometimes get overlooked for not being in the main title.  But it’s GOOD.

(Honorable mention to Under Seige – the Epic Collection version, from the delightful Roger Stern / John Buscema / Tom Palmer era.)

Avengers   Avengers Forever

Image Lays It On THICK

Image’s Omnibus Sale runs through Thursday, 3/31. Now, you need to keep an eye on these Image omnibus sales because a lot of the pricing is for HC deluxe editions and such things don’t matter in digital.  That said,  things that caught our eye:

Paper Girls The Complete Story by Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang, i.e. 30 issues for $19.99? That’s a good deal on the time travel caper and you get the whole story in one piece.

Would you like to read the first 100 issues of Spawn for less than $0.50/issue? Because now there are TWO volumes of Spawn Compendium for $23.99 each. 50 issues per volume. Get your Todd McFarlane on, your Greg Capullo on and yes… your Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore, too (in the first volume).  That’s about as good a per issue price as you see outside of the holidays.

If you were wondering, the Saga omnibus that was on sale a few weeks back is not currently on sale.

Paper Girls   Spawn Compendium

No… Cosmic Boy is a DC Character…

The Marvel Cosmic Heroes Sale runs through Sunday, 3/13.

So what’s Cosmic at Marvel?  Strangely, Jim Starlin-inspired material, but not Starlin, himself. No Captain Marvel or Infinity Gems.

Thanos Wins was the introduction of Donny Cates and Geoff Shaw to the Marvel universe. It was never clear to us just how cannon this arc was (then again, we never thought Old Man Logan would turn up in the current timeline), but it’s also an entertaining, disturbing and sometimes funny jaunt that finds Thanos confronting his victorious future at the end of time. And Cosmic Ghost Rider.

The real old school option here is Star-Lord: Guardian of the Galaxy, which collects the early Star-Lord tales. And when we say early, we mean starting with the old b&w Marvel magazines. We’ve got most of those and we like them. It’s a different Star-Lord than you see post-GoG movie, too… although Al Ewing has definitely been going back to basics. (Good on you, Al.) Who was working on these originals? Steve Englehart, Chris Claremont, Doug Moench, Timothy Zahn, Carmine Infantino, John Byrne… there was talent working on the character.

Thanos Wins   Star-Lord

And finally… you like hardboiled mysteries? If so, check out Blacksad. It’s anthropomorphic, but is is NOT funny animals. This PI comic is firmly in the Hammett/Chandler school and it is EXCELLENT.

Blacksad

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Comixology Sales: Black Panther, Falcon and The Winter Soldier/Captain America, Hardware and Neil Gaiman

This week’s Comixology sales include the world of the Black Panther, Falcon & the Winter Soldier, Hardware and the world of Neil Gaiman.

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

This is going to be a shorter run-through of the sales than normal because of the upcoming absorption of Comixology into the Amazon website.  Comixology’s communications on this have not been particularly helpful.  What do we officially know?

Pre-orders will be honored for next week’s books, if you’re in the US. If you’re not in the US, readers are getting notified their subscriptions are cancelled and they’ll need to buy the new comics off Amazon. (Have a look on  Twitter.  People are NOT happy.)

If the non-US folks are being told to go to Amazon to buy next week’s book, we strongly suspect the Comixology site is offline by Tuesday or Wednesday.

It would be nice if Comixology could actually put a date on their intentions, but ever since they first started teasing the changeover all the way back in September, they’ve been avoiding giving an actual date. Honestly, we didn’t post last week because we weren’t sure if the Comixology site would be up the next day. We’re pretty disappointed in the lack of communication at Amazon, up and down the tree.

So, a link to the Amazon version of the sale will follow the top level Comixology link. The Amazon links will be good longer than the Comixology ones will… at least that’s our understanding.

We’ll see what the landscape looks like next week.   The Amazon site has not been nearly as good at displaying what’s on sale as the Comixology site.

Paid For in Vibranium

The Marvel Black Panther and the World of Wakanda Sale runs through Sunday (2/27). (Amazon link)

The old Marvel Knights run, collected in omnibus form as Black Panther by Christopher Priest: The Complete Collection is our favorite of all the Panther runs.  High adventure and the comic relief of Everett Ross, befuddled diplomat. This run hits just about every note there is to hit. Much (but not all) of the film flows from here… even as the Priest run flows from the original Jungle Action run of Don McGregor and Billy Graham (also worth your time.)

Black Panther by Priest   Panther's Rage

Soldiering On

The Marvel Falcon and the Winter Soldier Sale runs through Thursday, 2/17

There’s a lot to like with this sale.  Love the Steve Englehart/Sal Buscema era of Captain America. We’ve always thought the Priest Captain America and the Falcon run was criminally under-rated.  But you know what? Madbomb is just too darn topical not to give it the nod today. Cap and the Falcon track down a conspiracy to topple the government using bombs that drive people crazy and cause riots.

A Cautionary Tale of the Tech Industry

The DC Black History Month Sale runs through Monday, 2/14. (Amazon Link)

Of all the original Milestone titles getting brought back right now, our favorite was Hardware. The opening arc by Dwayne McDuffie, Denys Cowan and J.J. Birch still rings true. Let’s face it, feeling trapped by an unscrupulous employer in the tech industry who lawyered up and wanting you to sign all sorts of paperwork is still a thing.

Always Check the Prices

The Dark Horse Neil Gaiman Sale runs through Monday, 2/14.

And we’re going to leave you on this note to illustrate how weird it can sometimes get swapping between the Comixology and Amazon versions of the sale.  We’re just going to list the prices we’re seeing and suggest if you want some Gaiman, you hit the Amazon version of the sale early.

The Neil Gaiman Library (any volume): Comixology – $12.49 / Amazon – $11.99
Snow, Glass, Apples: Comixology – $5.49 / Amazon – $4.99

Not everything is priced differently, but it’s always been goofy back and forth between the two sites.

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