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In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, we have a look at some of the best bets in the Marvel Masterworks Sale.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

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

The Best of the Marvel Masterworks Sale

As you may recall, The Marvel Masterworks Sale runs through Monday, 1/8.

One of the things you’ll notice about the Masterworks line is they started with relatively thin volumes – around 10 issues/~225-250 pages per book. And then as things got further along, they got bigger. Some of them being effectively the same size as an Epic Collection. So let’s start out by looking at that and the biggest bang for your buck by page count.

I Like Big Page Counts

Masterworks with 400+ pages!

Amazing Spider-Man Masterworks Vol. 22 – 410 pages – Roger Stern / John Romita, Jr. era, including THAT Juggernaut story
Amazing Spider-Man Masterworks Vol. 23 – 468 pages – Roger Stern / John Romita, Jr. era… and the Hobgoblin debuts in this volume
Avengers Masterworks Vol. 21 – 386 pages (close enough) – Effectively the end of the Jim Shooter/Bob Hall run, plus the first Vision & the Scarlet Witch mini and, notably, a 2-part Steven Grant/Greg Laroque Black Knight storyline.
Avengers Masterworks Vol. 23 – this appears to be mislabeled on Amazon and should be closer to 380 pages (close enough) – Roger Stern / Al Milgrom / Mark Gruenwald. Includes the Hawkeye mini-series.
Champions Masterworks Vol. 1 – 460 pages – The whole ’70s series + crossovers – Bill Mantlo/Tony Isabella/George Tuska/John Byrne and others.
Doctor Strange Masterworks Vol. 10 – 394 pages (close enough) – Roger Stern/Paul Smith (and the Doctor Strange vs. Dracula sequence)
Incredible Hulk Masterworks V. 17 – 393 pages (close enough) – Bill Mantlo / Sal Buscema – Includes the Contest of Champions mini-series.
Killraven Masterworks Vol. 1 – 471 pages – Don McGregor / P. Craig Russell – the entire Amazing Adventures run plus the OGN follow up
Uncanny X-Men Masterworks Vol. 9 – 471 pages – OK, get this line-up: Chris Claremont writing all of… Uncanny X-Men w/ Paul Smith; the God Loves, Man Kills OGN w/ Brent Anderson and the original Wolverine mini-series w/ Frank Miller.
Uncanny X-Men Masterworks Vol. 10 – 458 pages – the beginning of the Claremont/John Romita, Jr. era with the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and Morlocks, plus the Magik mini-series w/ John Buscema
Uncanny X-Men Masterworks Vol. 11 – 457 pages – Claremont writing: X-Men with John Romita, Jr. (including the Kulan Gath issues), X-Men/Alpha Flight with Paul Smith and Kitty Pride & Wolverine with Al Milgrim
Uncanny X-Men Masterworks Vol. 12 – 466 pages – Claremont writes X-Men w/ John Romita, Jr. (culminating in the trial of Magneto and the end of a big arc); the “Asgardian Wars” crossover with New Mutants w/Art Adams; and then Dave Cockrum’s Nightcrawler mini.
Uncanny X-Men Masterworks Vol. 13 – 449 pages – Claremont & John Romita, Jr. on X-Men, plus and Ann Nocenti and Art Adams on Longshot.
Uncanny X-Men Masterworks Vol. 14 – 485 pages – Enter the Mutant Massacre, plus Psylocke joins the X-verse in New Mutants and Fantastic Four Vs. X-Men.
Uncanny X-Men Masterworks Vol. 15 – 508 pages (!) – Chris Claremont / Marc Silvestri / Roger Stern. Includes the “Fall of the Mutants” arc and the Avengers vs. X-Men mini-series.

Other notable runs (that aren’t Lee/Kirby, since those go without saying).

We’ll link to the first volume in the set on these.

Avengers V. 10 – 18; V. 10 is the Kree/Skrull War. V.11 starts the Englehart run through V.15. V. 16 & V.17 are the Jim Shooter run w/ George Perez & John Byrne; V. 18 is David Michelinie/John Byrne -a prime chunk of Avengers
Black Panther Masterworks Vol. 1 – The original, classic Jungle Action run with Don McGregor / Rich Buckler / Billy Graham / Gil Kane – a LOT of things get established here.
Captain America V. 7 – 11; V.7-9 is the classic Steve Englehart/ (mostly) Sal Buscema run with the Secret Empire, the Red Skull and a snake of an ad man. V.10-11 is Jack Kirby’s return and V.10’s Madbomb is more relevant today than it should be. Also good – V.14 contains the brief, but classic, Roger Stern/John Byrne run
Captain Marvel V.3 -4; V. 3 is Jim Starlin’s run, which is the first Thanos arc. Utter classic. V.4 is the half-forgotten, yet quite entertaining Steve Englehart/Al Milgrom run.
Daredevil V. 15-17; Frank Miller’s first run. (V. 14 ends with the first issue he drew, but it’s not particularly connected to the rest of the run.) Yes, the whole thing is now in Masterworks and it’s a decent price for the material.
Defenders V. 3-5; The inspired strangeness of Steve Gerber’s run. Headmen! Elf With a Gun!
Doctor Strange V.5-10; Once Steve Englehart and Frank Brunner show up the 70s and 80s were a strong time for Doctor Strange. Consistently A-list writers and artists. Almost amazingly so for a bi-monthly title.
Fantastic Four V. 21-25; The John Byrne era in thick slices
Iron Man V.5-7; The meat of Archie Goodwin’s Iron Man run with Gene Colan and George Tuska
Iron Man V. 13-15 – V. 13 has David Michelinie, Bob Layton and John Romita, Jr. arrive. They start with “Demon in a Bottle,” the famous arc, but Iron Man is very good for a long time, starting here.
Marvel Two-In-One V. 5-6; In V.5 Mark Gruenwald and Ralph Macchio arrive for a fun run that’s not always remembered. George Perez and Ron Wilson handle most of the art. “Project Pegasus” and “The Serpent Crown Affair” are two of the major arcs.
Sub-Mariner V. 7 – Something different? Namor’s creator, Bill Everett returns to his creation as writer/artist.
Warlock V. 2 – Jim Starlin’s first run on Adam Warlock, complete in one volume. A continuation of his Captain Marvel run, Thanos is back and this one really lays the groundwork for the eventual Infinity Gauntlet.

Remember, New Year’s Day is last call for the DC Holiday Sale. Our extensive annotations for it are here.

Still on Sale

The Marvel Masterworks Sale runs through Monday, 1/8
The DC Holiday Sale runs through Monday, 1/1
The Marvel Star Wars Omnibus Sale runs through Monday, 1/8
The Marvel What If? Sale runs through Monday, 1/8
The Kodansha Season’s Givings Sale runs through Friday, 1/5
The Titan Ms. Tree Sale runs through Sunday, 12/31
Zenescope Cinderella Serial Killer Princess Digital Sale runs through Wednesday, 1/10
The Titan The Tenth Doctor Sale runs through 1/15
The Titan Dark Souls Sale runs through Sunday, 12/31
The Titan Life is Strange Sale runs through Sunday, 12/31
The Titan Robotech Sale runs through Sunday, 12/31

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, DC says school’s out for summer and Dark Horse discounts the whole line.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

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

Note: Since most of the sales are ending Monday, we _think_ things will be a little more normal, come Tuesday. We’ve been raising our eyebrow at how they’ve been timing the last few weeks of sales, too.

<Insert Alice Cooper Lyrics Here>

The DC Summer Vacation Sale runs through Monday, 7/10.

This is a standard DC misc. sale, so let’s look for the sweet spot of a lower price and better material on a few things.

American Vampire is where Scott Snyder first came to prominence over at DC (back when they still had Vertigo). Along with Rafael Albuquerque (and an opening with Stephen King), this is the story of a new breed of… that’s right American vampire, as something goes horribly wrong out West and sticks around. $4.99/volume for

Batman: Prey collects a pair of Hugo Strange arcs from Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight by longtime Batman writer Doug Moench and his old Master of Kung Fu partner, Paul Gulacy.

The Challengers of The Unknown by Jack Kirby is something of an oddity. This was a hit for DC in that brief period before Kirby left for Atlas/Marvel. The really interesting thing about this book is how much it feels like early Fantastic Four… except this was 1957 (instead of ’61) and isn’t quite superheroes. This was out of print long enough that most people don’t realize how similar the titles were.

The Omega Men by Tom King and Barnaby Bagenda was King’s DC debut. It’s a particularly dark tale where Kyle Rainer (operating as the White Lantern at this point in continuity) is kidnapped by the Omega Men, a group that might be terrorists, might be freedom fighters or perhaps both? In some ways, it’s closer to his Sheriff of Baghdad than his Batman.

New Teen Titans by Marv Wolfman and George Perez was one of DC’s shining lights of the early to mid-80s and is generally regarded as a classic. $4.99/volume through V.7, which happens to be “The Judas Contract.”

Anything Goes

The Dark Horse Everything Digital Sale runs through Monday, 7/31.

We should probably talk about this before diving in. This appears to be a line-wide sale. HOWEVER, only titles beginning with A-F are displayed on the sale page.

We know what you’re about to ask – is this another programmer error or are they going to change the page and display G-L next week? We don’t have an answer to that.

A few browsing options for the rest of the alphabet (Amazon doesn’t have an alphabetical sort available for normal listings, so we’re going to have to improvise):

Amazon’s “explore Dark Horse” page isn’t perfect, but you get some sorting options in the left hand column.
If you want to jump to the main Hellboy series.
Neil Gaiman titles
Umbrella Academy
Jeff Lemire titles

For the moment, we’re going to operate under the assumption that this was mislabeled and G-L (or a similar range) will appear next week for easier browsing.

So what’s good that’s on display in this chunk of titles?

Air – G. Willow Wilson and M.K. Perker collaborated on this criminally under-rated adventure into the unknown featuring an air hostess, terrorists, dimension hopping and celebrities who were supposed to be deceased.

Alice in Sunderland: An Entertainment – The very unusual masterpiece by Bryan Talbot that explores the origins of Alice in Wonderland and the English town of Sunderland. It’s a bit hard to describe, but it works very well.

Baltimore – Mike Mignola, Christopher Golden, Ben Stenbeck and Peter Bergting collaborate on an epic tale of how a plague is released at the end of WWI and the solider who’s hellbent on vengeance against the vampires behind it.

Blacksad – Juan Diaz Canales and Juanjo Guarnido bring you this jaw-dropping anthropomorphic hardboiled detective series about detective John Blacksad. These are tales from the Hammett/Chandler school with some of best art you’ll see. Click on the sample pages, don’t just take our word for it.

Concrete – Paul Chadwick’s old school, multi-award winning series about a man who becomes encased in a shell of alien rock (which he can’t escape) and the accidental celebrity that follows it.

Finder – Carla Speed O’Neil’s aboriginal science fiction series is all about world building. Much of it following Jaeger, a “Finder” who can most anything and navigate his way almost anywhere… as well as being a sin-eater. Another criminally underappreciated series. Note: Finder: Chase the Lady is mislabeled as a single issue and not listed with the graphic novels.