Tag: DC

Comixology Sales: MARVEL BOGO! Plus, Doctor Strange, Neil Gaiman, X-Men’s Inferno and World War Hulk

This week in Comixology sales, Marvel has a Buy One, Get One Free Sale, plus there’s deep dive into the worlds of Doctor Strange and Neil Gaiman, plus World War Hulk and the X-Men’s plunge into Inferno.

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

BOGO!

Yes, Marvel Buy One, Get One Free is back. Click that link, get that code and stack the BOGO on top of the current sales.  The sale ends on Monday, 9/27 at 11PM ET.  Fine print says the offer is no good on comics that came out after 8/25/21, pre-orders or Max titles, among other things.  So have at it… and those Doctor Strange discounts are looking twice as good.

The Doctor is In

The Marvel Doctor Strange Legacy Sale runs through Thursday, 9/30.

Doctor Strange is a character where we very much recommend the original run through the 80s.  He’s also one of the characters to find his legs the quickest.

As always, we find the Epic Collections to be slightly better values, but the Masterworks go all the way through the series, where the Epic’s tend to jump around.  So either look at the listing in the sale link or follow through the sequence of titles and look in the collected editions section there.

Doctor Strange debuts in Strange Tales. This is the Stan Lee / Steve Ditko run and the original clashes with Baron Mordo and the Dormammu. (And that Lee/Ditko Epic Collection is a good one.)

Doctor Strange in Strange Tales

Then there was the late ’60s Doctor Strange solo series that (along with the first half of the Marvel Premiere run) is collected across two Masterworks editions.

Doctor Strange '68 series

And then there’s “main” Doctor Strange series of the 70’s and 80’s.  The second half of Marvel Premiere run is lumped in here, as that where Steve Englehart enters the picture.  The Englehart/John Brunner run is considered a classic, right up there with Lee/Ditko’s psychedelic masterpiece.  Gene Colan hops on for a long tenure after Brunner leaves (with the odd artist switch) and then Marv Wolfman, Roger Stern and Chris Claremont tag in and out as writers, until Peter Gillis jumps in at the very end of the run.  It’s a strong series and the later Stern issues with Marshal Rogers and Paul Smith on the art are a particular joy.

Doctor Strange by Englehart

You say you want the more recent Jason Aaron / Donny Cates era?  Mark Waid era? It’s all on sale too, just remember to grab the BOGO code and apply it to your shopping cart for Maximum Cheap.

Burning Love

The Marvel X-Men Inferno Sale runs through Thursday, 9/30.

This one takes us back to the beginning of the age of X-Men crossovers as Mister Sinister and the demons of Limbo converge to cause all sorts of problems for the X-Men (and Spidey… and Daredevil… and the Avengers).

X-Men: Inferno

The War of Smash

The Marvel World War Hulk Sale runs through Sunday 9/26.

It’s a small sale with the Event spin-offs available… but the “main event,” World War Hulk by Greg Pak and John Romita, Jr., is one of the classic Hulk stories.

World War Hulk

Neil’s Limelight

The DC Spotlight on Neil Gaiman and Sandman Sale runs through Monday, 9/27.

We’re going to assume you haven’t been living under the Rock of Eternity and are familiar with Sandman already. That said, there are a couple less famous items here. (We say less famous, because Neil’s too popular for much of his catalog to truly be obscure.)

Black Orchid is a very early piece by the now celebrated team of Neil and Dave McKean. Originally pitched in ’87 and coming out at the end of ’88, it actually pre-dates Sandman. The series is an origin of sorts for the ’70s character (Why of sorts?  Therein lay spoilers.) Batman, Swamp Thing and Lex Luthor are involved in this tangled web.

DC Universe by Neil Gaiman is a collection of several non-Vertigo projects. The best known ones are probably the “Whatever Happened to the Cape Crusader?” Batman project, the Superman/Green Lantern “Legend of the Green Flame” sequence from Action Comics Weekly and the Metamorpho strip from Wednesday Comics.

Black Orchid   DC Universe by Neil Gaiman

Still on Sale

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Comixology Sales: Batman Day, Iron Man, Uncle Scrooge by Carl Barks and Don Rosa

This week in Comixology Sales, it’s Batman Day and there’s a whole lot of Batman floating around, Marvel has a big run of Iron Man on sale and if you like Disney, especially Carl Barks and Don Rosa Uncle Scrooge, that’s at a discount, too.

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

Batman Day

The DC Batman Day Sale runs through Monday, 9/20 and it comes in three parts: Graphic Novels, Single Issues I and Single Issues II.  Yes, that means a couple thousand single issues, including some oddities like Batman Family and the usually excellent – and mostly uncollected: Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight  (the original run, not the later digital-first edition).  Oddly enough, no Detective Comics single issues.

Batman Family   Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight

For collected editions, well… it’s mostly all there, from the current Tynion run (through Joker War) all the way back.  You can easily pick your own flavor of Batman, but we’d point out a couple things…

Legends of the Dark Knight: Norm Breyfogle V. 1 is a nice thick volume containing the beginning of Alan Grant/Norm Breyfogle run. Early enough the John Wagner was involved. You get the debuts of The Ventriloquist and The Ratcatcher, a Clayface reunion and a tale of The Demon, among other things.  Strong collection.

If you’d like something a little lighter on the wallet, while it’s included in the larger Archie Goodwin collection, Batman: Night Cries by Goodwin and Scott Hampton is a mere $1.99 for the standalone graphic novel.

Legends of the Dark Knight Norm Breyfogle   Batman: Night Cries

Not the Ozzy Version

The Marvel Iron Man: Massive Golden Avenger Sale runs through Sunday, 9/19.

This one is a real jumbled mess to browse, so we’re going to break this down by series.  The rule of thumb is that Epic Collections tend to be slightly better values than the Masterworks, but pick your format.  Masterworks are released in order, Epics are… a little eclectic in their releases.

Iron Man’s story starts in Tales of Suspense. Call us heretics, but we don’t think Shellhead really soars until Archie Goodwin shows up at the end of this run and takes Tony into the solo title.  That would be By Force of Arms if you go Epic or Masterworks V. 4.

So then the long running Iron Man series is one of eras. The opening run with Archie Goodwin is pure gold. While it’s not bad after Goodwin, it next takes a bit leap with David Michelinie and Bob Layton turn up.  Both runs, really.  The first run with John Romita, Jr. brings the classic “Demon in a Bottle” and the later run with Mark Bright brings “Armor Wars.” You can’t lose when those two are on Iron Man.  And, honestly, the Denny O’Neil/(mostly) Luke Mc Donnell run in between the Michelinie/Layton runs is under-rated.  The “Iron Monger” final arc ending in #200 is a good one that Hollywood embraced.

Iron Man: The Man Who Killed Tony Stark

The next superlative run was dubbed Iron Man: Heroes Reborn. This is Kurt Busiek and Sean Chen. For inexplicable reasons, only about 1/2 of the series has been collected, but you can get all that has been in one volume. (Sorry Kurt, you can protest all you want, but your run is a highlight.)

Iron Man: Heroes Reborn

And the final entry on the highlights list is the Matt Fraction/Salvador Larroca run. This run gets special recognition for the “World’s Most Wanted” arc. When Dark Reign’s “non-event” event dropped, Fraction put the story arc on pause and delivered a KILLER self-contained epic about Tony Stark on the run.  And then popped back to what he was planning on doing a year later. Great run.  You can save a little money by getting the omnibus edition that collects the first 3 volumes.

Iron Man

*The first volume of the current Christopher Cantwell/Cafu Iron Man is $2.99. We’re enjoying it, but we’re not ready to put it on the wall before the first arc is over.  😉

Iron Man: Big Iron

If It Walks Like a Duck…

The Fantagraphics Disney Sale runs through Thursday, 9/23.

And with Disney, we’d point you to the Duck masters.  Carl Barks and Don Rosa. They rule the roost.

Uncle Scrooge   The Don Rosa Library

Still on Sale

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Comixology Sales: Star Wars, Y: The Last Man, Garth Ennis, Killadelphia, Red Sonja, Hercules and a LOT of Image

Highlights of this week’s Comixology Sales include a Star Wars sale, discounts on a wide range of Image’s crime-related comics, Hercules, Red Sonja… and you might have heard a Y: The Last Man TV show is approaching, so of course that’s on say.

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

Nothing But Star Wars

The Marvel Star Wars by Aaron & Gillen Sale runs through 9/16.

In one of the most straight forward sales we’ve ever seen at Comixology, this is simply the Marvel Star Wars run that begins with Jason Aaron/John Cassady and ends with Kieron Gillen/Andrea Broccardo, with Salvador Larroca handling much of the art in the middle of the run.  Let’s face it, you already know if you want this or not.

Star Wars

Prince of Power

The Marvel Hercules Sale runs through Sunday, 9/12.

Hercules: Price of Power by Bob Layton is pretty much where Herc starts as a solo character.  It’s something of a space opera centuries in the future and has gained something of a cult following over the years.

For something a hair more recent, we thought the Dan Abnett/Luke Ross Hercules never really got a fair shake.  It was fun and creative with the character.

Now speaking of cult runs, The Thing: Project Pegasus shows up in this sale.  Arguably the best arc from Marvel Two-in-One, Ben Grimm finds himself embroiled in suspicious dealing at Project Pegasus, an alternate energy research facility. (Or is it something more sinister?)  A classic from Gruenwald & Macchio on the writing side, with art by Sal Buscema, John Byrne and George Perez.

Hercules: Prince of Power   Hercules   Project Pegasus

Crime Time

The Image Crime Sale runs through Thursday, 9/16 and comes in two flavors: Graphic Novels and Single Issues.  The single issues are mostly $0.99 and there are a few older titles in there that don’t have their collected editions in digital, so worth a browse. We’ll be looking a bit more at the graphic novels.

To start out with a bit of an oddity, we hadn’t realized Bloody Mary had resurfaced at Image. If that sounds familiar, but you can’t place it, that’s because it’s a Garth Ennis/Carlos Ezquerra dystopian assassin comic that originally saw print at Helix.  Helix?  Yes, Helix – DC’s short lived attempt to create a science fiction-centric version of Vertigo.

Joshua Williamson is having a turn as the focus of attention at DC and will be taking over Batman soon. We always liked Nailbiter, a series he did with Mike Henderson about a small town that produces a highly suspicious number of serial killers and the secret behind it. [Note: it’s slightly less expensive to get the regular collections than the omnibus/deluxe editions.]

Bloody Mary   Nailbiter

About a month back, we finally got around to cracking open Killadelphia and it would be hard to be happier about the first two volumes.  This Rodney Barnes/Jason Shawn Alexander vehicle is a neo-noir detective thriller about a vampire conspiracy over-running Philly. There’s a historical twist we won’t spoil and some VERY good one-liners pop up.  Very highly recommended.

It’s  been just long enough since Criminal wrapped up, not everyone remembers that’s where Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips used to put their crime stories. All sorts of thoroughly enjoyable mayhem in these, but if you have to choose just one, that’s an easy choice. V. 6, “The Last of the Innocent” is a film noir pastiche of the Archie comics and it is straight up brilliant.

Killadelphia  Criminal

We’ve liked Chew for a long time and consider the first issue an absolute textbook on how to launch a series. This John Layman / Rob Guillory series concerns Tony Chu. In a world where an avian flu has outlawed the consumption of chicken, Chu is an agent of the FDA. He also has the strange ability to know the past of anything he eats. Want to know who killed that corpse? Chomp. Oh, yes… this is beyond absurd and has it all — chicken speakeasies, rogue chefs, aliens, vampires, criminal conspiracies and a death-dealing secret agent rooster named Poyo.

Recently, Chew spawned a spin-off.  Chu is the story of Tony’s sister Saffron, who operates on the opposite side of the law. And their mysterious grandfather. If you like Chew, Chu basically an old friend coming back to visit. John Layman returns and Dan Boultwood handles the art.

Chew   Chu

Y: The Last Sale

The DC Spotlight: Y The Last Man Sale runs through Monday, 9/13.

You may recall that a pre-Saga Brian K. Vaughan teamed with Pia Guerra for Y: The Last Man about the sole male survivor of a mysterious plague. It’s got a TV adaptation that drops on 9/13.  The first 5 items in the sale, “Book One” through “Book Five” are the omnibus editions and better deal for this classic series.

Y the Last Man

Paint the Sale Red

The  Dynamite Red Sonja Sale runs through Thursday, 9/16.

When it comes to Red Sonja, come people want Gail Simone. Some people want Frank Thorne.  And both are on sale, but the Mark Russell / Mirko Colak / Bob Q run is the one that really floored us.  Equal parts military adventure and a satire of pretentious sword & sorcery narratives, the two sides blend together incredibly well for a unique experience.

Red Sonja

Still on Sale

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Comixology Sales: DC’s Huge Discounts Continue, Plus Ka-Zar vs. Thanos and X-Men

This week in Comixology Sales, we look at the back half of DC’s 70+% off Labor Day sale, plus Ka-Zar and X-Men get the discount treatment at Marvel.

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

DC Has STRONG Discounts

No, you’re not hallucinating. DC broke out of their slump with some of the best discounts they’ve had in months. 73-77% off. It’s better than a BOGO sale.

The “DC Labor Day Sale” comes in two parts.  Part One contains 100 Bullets though John Constantine, Hellblazer. (We looked at that last time out.) Part Two contains John Constantine, Hellblazer through Zero Hour.  There’s a ton of material here, including some semi-recent offerings so be sure to have a good browse.  That said, here’s some things that caught our eye in Part Two, but might not be at the top of your mind.

Let’s start out with Hellblazer. The adventures of anti-hero John Constantine were a pretty consistently good read from Vertigo for a very long time before internal politics killed the original series.  22 volumes are on sale, ranging from $2.99 – $4.99, depending on the volume.

Hellblazer

Not so long ago, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves revisiting the Paul Levitz/Keith Giffen era of Legion of Superheroes (which starts out as Levitz/Pat Broderick).  The Great Darkness Saga and The Curse – read in that order – are two thick volumes of prime material for $3.99/$4.99.  Outstanding buys.

Legion of Super Heroes The Great Darkness Saga    Legion of Superheroes: The Curse

And if we’re talking Levitz/Giffen Legion, we should probably also be talking Marv Wolfman and George Perez on New Teen Titans, DC’s other defining book of the pre-crisis era.  Fortunately, the sale is accommodating us and there are 11 volumes on sale for $2.99 a pop. (Cheap.) That takes you into the early Baxter series era. A very influential series to this day.

New Teen Titans

Preacher by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon certainly raised its already large profile when it got a TV adaption. Definitely not a comic for the easily offended, it concerns a disillusioned preacher, his girlfriend and his vampire buddy looking for God, who’s gone missing.  That’s safe for work version anyway.  Watch out for the New Orleans vampire sequence, it’s… but that would be spoiling. At $2.99 a pop for the 350+ page collections, this is another off the chart value.

Preacher

Speaking of large page counts for $2.99, remember when Gail Simone was writing the Secret Six? This is one of those title that Comixology splits up a little strangely, Volume 1 contains Villains United and the first Secret Six’s 6 issues. That was all in the run-up to Infinite Crisis. Volume 2 is where the second series starts and this is where we think it hits its stride as dark exploration of DC’s ne’er-do-wells.

Secret Six: Villains United   Secret Six

This might not be the consensus opinion, but we lean towards Omega Men being Tom King’s best DC writing. It’s also probably his least known. He was way under the radar when it started. You want this for $3.99, ignore the other link that’s the more expensive digital version of a print hard cover. (We always chuckle at HC prices for digital.)

And we end with another spectacular buy.  You may recall that a pre-Saga Brian K. Vaughan teamed with Pia Guerra for Y: The Last Man about the sole male survivor of a mysterious plague. It’s got a TV adaptation that drops on 9/13.  The omnibus editions are $2.99, same price as the regular (thinner) collections.  We’re not sure how much more you could ask for.  Click here, scroll down to “Omnibuses” and have at it.

Y the Last Man

There’s a ton more on sale and these discounts are unusual for DC, so carve out some time to browse this sale on your own.

Lord of the Jungle… er, Savage Land

The Marvel Ka-Zar Sale runs through Thursday, 9/9.

The best known Ka-Zar might be the 80’s Bruce Jones/Brent Anderson run, the first off of which is collected in Ka-Zar: Savage Dawn.

If you’d like something a bit more unexpected, Mark Waid and Andy Kubert had Ka-Zar squaring off against Thanos.  Yes, that Thanos.

And if you’re particularly old school, you’ll remember that Ka-Zar goes back all the way to the original 40s run of Marvel Mystery Comics.

There’s a bit more here, including some random Epic Editions where Ka-Zar appeared, for you to browse.

Ka-Zar Savage Dawn   Ka-Zar vs. Thanos   Marvel Mystery Comics

X-Men Event Editions

The X-Men Milestones Sale runs through Thursday, 9/9.

It’s a set of collections of X-family crossover events and it pretty self-explanatory. Looking to catch up on the original Inferno before Jonathan Hickman does his version?  This is where you can do that.

Inferno

Still on Sale

 

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Comixology Sales – DC Resumes “Real Discounts” (73-77% off across the board)… of course we have suggestions

It’s a Labor Day Miracle! After months of mostly subpar discounts, DC’s got very large selection their graphic novels at 73%-77% off. (Mostly 77%.)  Let’s have a look at what’s on sale, shall we?

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

The DC Labor Day Sale runs through Monday, 9/6 and is in two parts – Part 1 (100 – Bullets to John Constantine, Hellblazer) and Part 2 (John Constantine, Hellblazer to Zero Hour).

We were wondering if we were going to see these kind of discounts again before Black Friday, so it’s a Labor Day surprise and it gets it’s own post.  77% off beats a BOGO, so let’s take a little closer look at the catalog.

100 Bullets by Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso.  The classic crime/revenge series about untraceable guns and ammos that eventually turns into a conspiracy thriller.  Take the link, scroll down to the Omnibuses section and you can get the whole thing in 5 volumes for $3.99 a pop. An exceptional value.

100 Bullets

You say you like James Tynion IV’s Batman?  Were you around for his Detective Comics run? Tynion writes V. 1-7.  $2.99/volume.  Similar deals for the Snyder and King Batman runs, too.

Detective Comics by Tynion

Remember when Bendis showed up at DC and you wanted him to write Batman?  Well he did write Batman… for the Walmart editions. The Direct Market version never really took off, but you know what?  Batman: Universe with Nick Derington on the art was a ton of fun and we’d be up for more. Again, a lousy $2.99.

Batman Universe

The DC Universe by Len Wein is a retrospective that might have flown under your radar.  Yes, Wein did more than just create Swamp Thing and Wolverine.  (Although that would be enough for most people.) Of particular note is a section of his *excellent* Phantom Stranger run with Jim Aparo that has never gotten the appropriate respect.  The original Mongul story arc from DC Comics Presents with Jim Starlin is in there, as is the more often reprinted JLA/JSA team-up that reintroduced the Seven Soldiers of Victory.

DC Universe by Len Wein

If you like the Flash, check out the  Ominbuses section of the ’87-09 series.  Here you will find The Flash by Mark Waid, which was then followed by The Flash by Geoff Johns.  Two great runs at good discounts.

The Flash

The 90s JLA series is most famous for the Grant Morrison / Howard Porter run.  While that was a classic run, there’s more that followed… including a Mark Waid/Bryan Hitch run, Chris Claremont and John Byrne reuniting and Kurt Busiek/Ron Garney.

JLA

We’ll be back at our regularly scheduled time at the end of the week to look at the back half of the sale and the rest of the week’s deals, but we thought we’d give you a head start on your browsing to celebrate DC offering decent discounts this week.

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Comixology Sales: Spider-Man, Guardians of the Galaxy, Shang-Chi, SHIELD, Kingdom Come, Red Son and Matt Kindt

This week’s Comixology sales include a bunch of Marvel with Spidey, Guardians of the Galaxy, Shang-Chi and SHIELD getting discounts. DC has a “Top 100” Sale and Matt Kindt’s Dark Horse work gets slashed.

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

Why Not “Fabulous Spider-Man?”

The  Marvel Spectacular Spider-Man Sale runs through Thursday, 9/2.

This sale is so small and organized, we don’t have to link to the individual series, you can just look at the sale page, no sweat.

We’re looking at 4 things here. In order of presentation:

  1. The more recent Spectacular Spider-Man, mostly by Chip “I have a Substack now” Zdarsky and Adam Kubert.  You should already know if that sounds good.
  2. Masterworks editions of Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man. Masterwork editions tend to be good value and we’d point out that V.2 has Frank Miller’s first Daredevil work and the Carrion storyline would turn out to be an important one, if controversial.
  3. The ’03-’05 Spectacular Spider-Man. We’ve always found Paul Jenkin’s Spidey to be under-appreciated. He writes the first 4 volumes with Humberto Ramos as the primary artist… with some early Paolo Rivera in V. 3. Feel free to skip the Sins Remembered tie-in in V. 5 and then Jenkins is back for V.6
  4. And the last thing listed is a collection of the 1968 magazine version of Spectacular Spider-Man by Stan Lee and John Romita, Sr.

If you like Spidey, it’s a decent menu.

Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man

Who Guards the Guardians?

The Marvel Guardians of the Galaxy Sale runs through Sunday, 8/29.

The Guardians have been around quite a while and were originally based in the future. We always recommend going back to the original Steve Gerber/Roger Stern/Al Milgrom run.  Guardians of the Galaxy: Tomorrow’s Avengers covers that.  Vol. 1 is the first appearance through the primary solo run in Marvel Presents. Vol. 2 covers the rest of their guest appearances, notably including the Korvac Saga in Avengers.

The Guardians popped up again in ’90 in a very popular (and very fun) series by Jim Valentino. Yes, we know everyone reading this is old school enough to associate Valentino more with Normalman, but GoG was the direct line leading him to co-found Image comics. This version of GoG spends quite a bit of time exploring the legacy of the Marvel universe… and some of the less mortal characters who are still floating around far in the future. Guardians of the Galaxy by Jim Valentino collects his run.

The current run start with Guardians of the Galaxy by Al Ewing with Juan Cabal on art, which finds the Guardians at war with the gods… and, as you might expect with Ewing, setting up a longer game.

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

SHIELD’s Up

The Marvel S.H.I.E.L.D. sale runs through Sunday, 8/29.

Many would still sale the best SHIELD is Jim Steranko’s SHIELD, which is conveniently collected in… can you guess the name?  Yes, S.H.I.E.L.D. by Steranko – the Complete Collection.  There’s nothing wrong with the Lee/Kirby material, and if you go the Masterworks route, there’s some Archie Goodwin to be read, but Steranko is still the bar for many.

Nick Fury Vs. SHIELD by Bob Harras and Paul Neary was the late 80s reappraisal and still the “SHIELD has been infiltrated compromised” arc that everyone apes. (This led to the ’89-’92 series.)

SHIELD by Steranko   Nick Fury vs. SHIELD

The Deadly Hands of Reboot

The Marvel Shang-Chi Sale runs through Sunday, 9/12.

Gosh, you’d think there was a movie coming out or something?

Shang-Chi is kind of an odd character in the world of Marvel. He essentially has had three lives:

First was the Master of Kung Fu era. This was originally a licensed comic and the license was Fu Manchu. Shang, an original creation (thus, owned by Marvel) was Fu Manchu’s virtuous, rebellious son who worked with MI-5 against his father. It was blend of espionage, pulp and Hong Kong cinema. Doug Moench was the writer for the bulk of the period. Paul Gulacy is the artist most associated with the feature, but Jim Craig, Mike Zeck and Gene Day had their runs.  This was considered one of Marvel’s finest comics of the 70s, but… let’s put it mildly and say Fu Manchu is a little out of favor.

The second life was when Marvel tried to revive the character, mostly intact, and just not mention who his father is. Or assign a different father.  This never went very far.

Right now, we’ve entered the third life where Shang-Chi is now more of a fantasy comic with a more mystical evil father, weapons/caste-based secret societies and the undead. Oh, there’s still some MI-5 around the edges, but it’s a very different comic than where it started.  Gene Yang, Dike Ruan and Philip Tan.  You can feel the influence from Jimmie Robinson’s Five Weapons, too!

Master of Kung Fu   Shang-Chi

We Thought The 100 Were Villains?

The DC Top 100 eBooks Sale runs through Monday, 8/30

DC’s back at the sub-50% discount game again.  You have been warned.  Items of interest include:

Kingdom Come is the 90s classic by Mark Waid and Alex Ross that defined the dystopian future sub-genre for a spell (and we still think it’s the true inspiration for the Injustice video game).

Superman: Red Son by Mark Millar, Dave Johnson and Killian Plunkett is the tale of infant Kal-El’s spacecraft landing in the Soviet Union instead of Kansas. It’s on the short list for Millar’s best work.

We’ve mentioned before how pleasantly surprised we were with DCeased, Tom Taylor’s and Trevor Hairsine’s Anti-Life Equation zombie(ish) epic. We’re not recanting.

Kingdom Come   Superman: Red Son   DCeased

Sale MGMT

The Dark Horse Matt Kindt Sale runs through Monday, 8/30.

Matt Kindt has done a fair amount of work for Dark Horse, but his opus there will likely always be the psychic espionage series, Mind MGMT.

Mind MGMT

Still On Sale

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Comixology Sales: Dawn of X, Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, Jim Starlin’s Dreadstar

This week’s Comixology sales include: Dawn of X from Marvel, DC loosing The Sandman (and Sandman Mystery Theater), Horror from Dark Horse and Omnibus editions from Dynamite.

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

Mutated Reading

The Marvel Dawn of X Sale runs through Thursday, 8/26.

Dawn of X is a different type of Marvel collected edition. This collects the titles of the Hickman X-Men line into a book format, but bounces between the various series in a manner similar to how one would read the issues as they came out. We’ve always felt that reading the  entire line was an additive experience and this is probably the best way to experience that in the collected edition format.  The 16 volumes of Dawn of X take you right up to the edge of X of Swords.

Dawn of X

The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of

The DC Spotlight: Sandman and the Sandman Universe Sales runs through Monday, 8/23.

We’re assuming you’re already heard of the  Neil Gaiman Sandman series. (Note: sub-50% discounts again)

So let’s talk a bit about the very loosely connect pulp spin-off Sandman Mystery Theater. It’s a pulp detective feature with a bit of subtext that’s primarily written by Matt Wagner and/or Steven T. Seagal. Guy Davis is the primary artist. It’s a lost classic from the ’90s as the Golden Age Sandman, replete with gas mask and gas gun stalks his prey.  This one DOES get you 50% off the collected editions (which will get you through issue#24) and 99-cent single issue.

Sandman   Sandman Mystery Theater

The Long, Hot… Halloween?

The Dark Horse Hot August Horror sale runs through Monday, 8/23.

Yes, we did hear it got a little warm in Portland.

You can’t have a Dark Horse Horror sale without the Mignolaverse. Rise of the Black Flame by Mike Mignola, Chris Roberson and Christopher Mitten is the tale of the Hellboy villain when the power was controlled by a cult.

In a different direction, there’s John Allison’s (Bad Machinery, Giant Days) Steeple.

And you ever notice that Steve Niles has done quite a bit of Criminal Macabre?

Rise of the Black Flame   Steeple   Criminal Macabre

Another One Rides the (Omni)Bus

The  Dynamite Omnibus Sale runs through Monday, 9/13.

We would draw your attention to two things here.

First, we’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, Jim Starlin’s Dreadstar is fantastic. It didn’t get quite as much attention when it came out from Epic and First, but it’s a large part of what he was working on between his first run at Marvel and when he returned for the run-up to Infinity Gauntlet.

Jeff Parker and Doc Shaner did an under the radar – and extremely fun – take on Flash Gordon a few years back that’s worth a look.

Dreadstar   Flash Gordon

Still on Sale

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Comixology Sales: Fantastic Four, Marvel Zombies, Star-Lord, Usagi Yojimbo, Derf and DC’s TV Sale

This week’s Comixology sales have a bit of variety. Marvel leads with Fantastic Four, Star-Lord and the Marvel Zombies. DC has a TV-themed selection. Dark Horse has “teen” titles on sale and the “Small Press” sales offers up some Kyle Baker, Ahoy and Kickstarter comics.

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

It’s Price Clobbering Time

The Marvel Fantastic Four: World’s Greatest Sale runs through Sunday, 8/15.

That’s a lot of FF and it’s a really, really cluttered sale because of how many different FF reprint volumes there are, so here’s how we’re going to do it: Click here for the original series that started in 1961. Scroll down to the Collected Editions section so we can look at this in roughly chronological order.  The Masterworks are not on sale, but the Epic Collections are, so Epics are your best buy and they start on the second screen. We think Lee/Kirby hits it stride with the Epics “The Coming of Galactus” and “Thy Name Is Doom,” but you can’t go wrong with anything by that team. As you move forward the next really notable period is John Byrne’s, which hasn’t gotten Epic treatment yet, just the “Visionaries” line. Remember, he didn’t write V. 0 for that.  We’d end up with the Walt Simonson run, which is in a couple Epics or smaller Visionaries volumes.

Now click here for the ’98 relaunch.  In the Omnibus section is the Hickman material, and that’s probably the best way to read that run.  Scroll down to the “Collected Editions” section and after V.5, the Fantastic Four by Mark Waid and Mike Wieringo volumes start. These are the omnibuses for that landmark run and the better pricing (good stuff). When you get past the Civil War volume, you come into 2 volumes of Dwayne McDuffie (Nuff said).

That’s a lot of FF and should keep you out of trouble.

Fantastic Four Epic Collection: The Name is Doom   FF by Waid and Ringo

A Solo Guardian

The Marvel Star-Lord Sale runs through Sunday, 8/15.

The bulk of the sale is the more recent incarnation, but we’d recommend going back to the original conception of Star-Lord in Star-Lord: Guardian of the Galaxy.  Al Ewing’s been revisiting some of this source material in the current GoG run. Peter Quill started out in the Marvel magazines of the ’70s before moving over to the normal comic line. You’ve got Steve Englehart, Chris Claremont and Doug Moench for writers and for artists, Carmine Infantino, John Byrne and Bill Sienkiewicz.  Not a bad set of talent.

Star-Lord

Marvel’s Walking Dead

The Marvel Zombies Sale runs through Thursday, 8/19.

Yes, when Robert Kirkman wrote for Marvel, he did a zombie comic. And it was a scream.  It’s technically a spin-off of Ultimate Fantastic Four, which was a more serious story than the very entertaining farce it involved into. We’d say to go with the Marvel Zombies Complete Collections. Vol. 1 gives the the Millar/Land Ultimate FF and Hudlin/Portela Black Panther lead-ins and the the original Marvel Zombies by Kirkman and Sean Phillips. (Yes, you might have vague feelings that Phillips is cheating on Ed Brubaker while reading this. It’s a natural reaction.)  Vol. 2 continues with the Marvel Zombie minis, Kirkman writes the first one before Fred Van Lente tags in and Seth Graeme-Green puts in an appearance. When Phillips leaves, Kev Walker tags in as the primary artist.  We’d say go for V.1 and V.2 initially. If you’re still wanting more, V. 3 is still there, but that might be a bit much for a single sitting.

Marvel Zombies

DC thinks about Television

The DC on TV sale runs through Monday, 8/16 and comes in 2 parts:  Part 1 is the collected editions and single issues through The Flash.  Part 2 finishes up The Flash through the end of the alphabet.

We’ll be straight with you: this isn’t a great sale for collected editions. Lots of lowball 45%-46% discounts. Lower than what you’re used to. $0.99 single issues are more what you’re used to and you’ll want to make sure it’s not cheaper to buy the single issues over collected editions.  Of possible note: we don’t always see the original Superman’s Girlfriend, Lois Lane on sale.

Lois Lane

The Rabbit

The Dark Horse Teen Sale runs through Monday, 8/16.

There’s some manga, a tone of Avatar: The Last Airbender and some Stranger Things, but we think this is a great excuse to highlight Usagi Yojimbo, Stan Sakai’s long running saga of a ronin rabbit.  When we say long running, we mean since the early 80s.

Usagi Yojimbo

Indie Comics on Parade

The Small Press Graphic Novel Mega Sale runs through Thursday, 9/9.

As usual, we wouldn’t call all of it “small press,” but there’s a lot here that really runs the gamut.  A few things we noticed in there:

The Cowboy Wally Show by Kyle Baker is a legendary graphic novel and a real riot. Always highly recommended. We’ll call a satire of the entertainment biz and save the spoilers.

Billionaire Island by Mark Russell and Steve Pugh is one of the best things we’ve read recently. A _dark_ satire where Billionaires create a mobile island to escape things like taxes, global warming and… laws. A dot com billionaire has done something especially heinous and the pigeons are coming home to roost.  This one takes the satire further than we’re accustomed to seeing.  Also highly recommended.

Punk Rock & Trailer Parks is Derf Backderf’s initial foray into graphic novels after years of The City strip in alt weekly papers and before going on to do My Friend Dahmer and Kent State. It’s about the punk scene in ’79 Akron, OH.

Leaving Megalopolis by Gail Simone and Jim Calafiore is a tale of super heroes gone berserk and an popular Kickstarted comic.

Cthulhu is Hard to Spell is actually two anthologies about the slumbering one that don’t take themselves particularly seriously.

The Cowboy Wally Show   Billionaire Island  Punk Rock and Trailer Parks   Leaving Megalopolis   Cthulhu is Hard to Spell

Still on Sale

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Comixology Sales: Rocket Raccoon and Groot, Suicide Squad, Groo, Whiteout, Kaijumax and a whole bunch of Oni GNs

This week in Comixology Sales, Marvel serves up Rocket & Groot; DC slashes the Suicide Squad (you’d think there was a movie coming out…); Sergio pops up with a Groo sale; and Oni has a very nearly line-wide graphic novel sale.

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

Like Moose & Squirrel… but with Tree

The  Marvel Rocket Raccoon & Groot Sale runs through Sunday, 8/1.

We’d say the Rocket Raccoon & Groot Complete Collection (Comixology says Ultimate Collection, but we’re going with what’s on the cover) is the place to start for the original appearances and some Annihilation-related material.  Then it’s time for that rascal Skottie Young’s Rocket Raccoon run.

Rocket Raccoon & Groot Complete Collection   Rocket Raccoon

Suicide Sale

The DC Suicide Squad Sale runs through Monday, 8/9.

DC didn’t exactly make it easy on the recommendations here. Our favorite runs are the original John Ostrander/Luke McDonnell and the recent Tom Taylor/Bruno Redondo runs. The Taylor/Redondo run is too recent to be on sale and DC just reissued V.1 of the Ostrander run, so this is an imperfect sale.

So here’s the Ostrander/McDonnell work around: go to the series page for their Suicide Squad run, get the $0.99 single issues for #1-8 and then proceed to the collected editions.  As we said, imperfect sale.  Good comics, though.  (We’ll ignore the comedy of putting the movie cast on the new cover for V.1 for the moment.  Might not be consistent with the contents.)

Suicide Squad

Groo is Getting OLD

The Dark Horse Feeling Groovy Sale runs through Monday, 8/2.

The title is a bit of a pun, since the object of the sale is Groo the Wander. How long have Sergio Aragonés and Mark Evanier been telling tales of the none-too-swift barbarian? It’ll be 40 years in 2022!  (And we have that issue of Destroyer Duck around here someplace.) This sale is for the Dark Horse material.  Groo is pretty darn portable, but if you want to start at the beginning of the Dark Horse run, then go with Sergio Aragones’ Groo: The Most Intelligent Man in the World. That’s where the Dark Horse era begins. The bottom line here: it’s Sergio and if you don’t love Sergio, we can’t help you.

Groo

Oni Opens the Vault

The  Oni Graphic Novel Sale runs through Monday, 8/9.

There’s a lot of territory to cover here and we’re going to assume you already know what a Scott Pilgrim is.  And we’ll go a little deeper here because the full monty seems to be on sale.

The Rucka Trilogy

Greg Rucka’s had a good run with Oni over the years. It starts with Whiteout with Steve Lieber, a outright classic about a murder at Antarctica. Yes, there was a film, but we don’t talk about that. The next title was a sidestep towards espionage with the long-running Queen & Country. Possibly the best spy comic of them all, this one rotates artists with each arc and you see everyone from Chris Samnee to Jason Shawn Alexander to Carla Speed McNeil. Q&C channels a cult UK spy show called The Sandbaggers, which is also worth your time. More recently, Rucka teamed with Matthew Southland and later Justin Greenwood for Stumptown, a Rockford Files-esque PI show set in Portland that has a TV adaptation. (We might like V.4’s stolen exotic coffee beans plot the best.)

Whiteout   Queen & Country   Stumptown

Normally, we’d be pushing The Sixth Guy, but Oni’s being a jerk about it with this sale. The “Deluxe” editions are on sale — as in hardcover pricing for digital.  The regular collected editions mostly aren’t on sale — and they’re still cheaper than the Deluxe sales price.  Great series, but this sale is not the one.

There’s a similar situation with Kaijumax by Zander Cannon. In this case, the regular collected editions are on sale, so avoid the Deluxe version in the Omnibus window and their HC pricing and stick with the normal ones.  So what is Kaijumax?  A criminally overlooked delight.  Oh, yes… it looks like a funny animal book, but it’s a DARK tale about an island that’s a supermax prison for giant monsters.  Think Godzilla goes to jail and you’re not far off. Prison gangs, contraband and breakout attempts. Cannon plays this one straight and the contrast between the art style and the subject matter is part of the fun. Seriously, your jaw will drop as you get used to the format.

And for something in a different direction, there’s Petrograd, Phillip Gelatt’s and Tyler Crook’s tale of a British spy sent to arrange Rasputin’s demise.

Kaijumax   Petrograd

Still on Sale:

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Comixology Sales: Old Man Logan; Ms. Marvel; V For Vendetta; Early Bendis and a LOT of Image Comics

Highlight of this week’s Comixology Sales include Marvel dropping prices on Old Man Logan and Ms. Marvel, DC having an “essential” sale (why yes, that includes Batman) and a ton of Image gets the discount treatment.

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

Ageism For Mutants?!?

The Old Man Logan Sale runs through Sunday, 7/25. If Jennifer Walters finds out they’re calling Logan that at the office, there might be a discrimination suit!

You’re mostly looking at two flavors here: The original post-apocalyptic Mark Millar / Steve McNiven Old Man Logan. While we’d probably call this a variation on Days of Future Past, in terms of the superheroes in a bleak future, this one really was a trend setter and has inspired a lot of imitators. “Old Man” is not an uncommon way to start a title at Marvel these days.

Then you’ve got the ongoing Old Man Logan series, initially by Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino. This one brings the older Logan back in time to the present and, frankly, was better than most people were expecting at the time.

Wolerine: Old Man Logan   Wolverine: Old Man Logan

You Look Mahvellous

The Ms. Marvel Sale runs through Thursday, 7/29.

This would be the Kamala Khan Ms. Marvel, as opposed to Carol Danvers, and we’re firm in thinking you need to start with the original G. Willow Wilson / Adrian Alphona series that caused quite a stir (especially on the Scholastic circuit).

Ms. Marvel

Essential Oils Minus the Oil

The DC Essentials Sales runs through Monday, 7/26.

For something relatively current, we’ve thoroughly enjoyed DCeased, the Tom Taylor / Trevor Hairsine / Stefano Gaudiano vehicle where the Anti-Life Equation gets lose and creates a zombie doomsday scenario. What can we say, as he often does, Taylor takes a pitch that sounds like “Marvel Zombies for DC” and creates something new with depth. (Mind you, Marvel Zombies was also a lot of fun for a few installments.)

Going back a bit further, Multiversity is one of Grant Morrison’s best vehicles for sheer world building fun. This one hops dimensions as we follow a conspiracy across the multiverse. And, being that rare self-contained event, Morrison’s got a murderer’s row of artists for the story, including Frank Quitely, Jim Lee, Chris Sprouse and Doug Mahnke.

And if you want to go back to the 80s, Alan Moore and David Lloyd did a project called V for Vendetta that started as a serial in Warrior magazine and finished up at DC. A very political tale of resistance to tyranny, it’s proven influential and was an early hit that crossed over to the mainstream.

DCeased   Multiversity   V for Vendetta

Image HumbleBrag Sale

The Image Eisner Sale runs though Monday, 8/2.

There’s some pretty strong and recent content here, so we’ll just highlight three things we particularly liked.

The Department of Truth by James Tynion IV and Martin Simmonds is the real deal. It’s an X-Files-esque tale of conspiracies theories become real and the power of belief. Tynion’s definitely having a moment right now. Simmonds’s art style is a good fit for the material, too.

The team of Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips have also been having a particularly strong run that’s represented here by two original graphic novels. We’d probably put Pulp slightly ahead, that would be the meditative tale of pulp writer in 1930s reliving his wild younger days with a hail of bullets.  That said, Reckless, the opener for a series about an ex-FBI undercover man turned underground fixer, is pretty darn good, too.

Department of Truth   Pulp  Reckless

Image Throws in the Kitchen Sink

The Image Mega Sale runs through Monday, 8/2. It might not be the entire Image library, but it’s close enough. Plenty to browse, but let’s highlight a few things that might not pop to the top of your mind.

Once upon a time, Bendis was not a big name creator. Yes, that really was quite a while ago, but back when he was an emerging writing, Todd McFarlane tapped him to write the Spawn spin-off Sam and Twitch.  Yes, the oddball detectives investigating dark things. Who was drawing it?  Names you’ll recognize: Angel Medina, Ashley Wood, Alex Maleev.  Yes, Bendis and Maleev go WAY back.

Lewis & Clark – Monster Hunters.  That’s the elevator pitch for Manifest Destiny by Chris Dingess, Matthew Roberts and Tony Akins. Lewis & Clark are sent to map out the Northwest Territory, but also to investigate unsettling supernatural questions and clear out the territory of monsters. It starts out light and fun before descending into madness. Usually under the radar, always enjoyable.

The Black Monday Murders by Jonathan Hickman and Tom Coker is a tale of an occult cartel controlling the world’s financial system and the power struggle an apparent murder sets off in it. One of our favorite things from Hickman and Coker knocks it out of the park with some downright haunting art.  Coker occasionally posts pages from his work on the third act, so we’re hoping it’s not too far away from being scheduled.

   Sam and Twitch   Manifest Destiny   The Black Monday Murders

Still on Sale

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