Comixology Sales: The Joker, Transformers, War of the Realms, Vintage Jim Starlin, Young Avengers and Image gets Romantic(ish)

This week’s Comixology Sales highlights start with a celebration of the Joker. Then Marvel highlights the Young Avengers and Ware of the Realms. Valentine’s Day is over, but we look at what’s notable in Image’s romance sale anyway. Plus, Transformers galore and that the glory that is Dreadstar.

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

The Joke’s on who?

DC’s The Joker’s Greatest Jokes Sale runs through Monday (3/1).

If you’re going to get one “Best of” Joker collection, you’re going to want The Joker: A Celebration of 75 Years. Being a thicker collection makes it more complete, but moreover, we don’t think you can have a “Best of” that doesn’t include the Englehart/Rogers “Laughing Fish” storyline.

For something that doesn’t necessarily come immediately to mind, there’s the Joker arc of Gotham Central, the classic GPD series by Ed Brubaker & Greg Rucka with Michael Lark as the artist for this arc.

There’s a lot more Bat-family material in this one, though we weren’t sure the Joker is integral to (or even appearing in) all the titles in this sale.

Joker: Celebration of 75 Years   Gotham Central

No love for the Old Avengers

The Marvel Young Avengers Sales runs through Sunday 2/28.

Young Avengers by Allen Heinberg and Jim Cheung: The Complete Collection is the original, formative run. And for as short as it actually was, this is a fairly influential comic with everything from the recent Empyre Event to WandaVision on streaming having echoes of it.  Oh, there’s more Young Avengers material on sale, but this is one of the times to start at the beginning.  And yes, Young Avengers: Children’s Crusade is conspicuous by its absence.

Young Avengers

Why can’t The Realms just get along?

Marvel’s  War of the Realms Sale runs through Thursday (3/4).

This was a Thor-centric Jason Aarons event. As a Marvel Event, there were a ton of spin-off mini-series that tied in. Explore those at your leisure, but this War of the Realms is the tentpole series around which the Event revolved.

War of the Realms 

More off-kilter romance

The Image Romance Sale runs through Monday (3/8).

No, Image really isn’t a bastion of traditional romance, but they do have a few things that fall vaguely into that territory.

Twisted Romance is an anthology of, well… twisted romantic tales built around a set of Alex de Campi stories with some prose and shorter comics filling in around them. Notably, there’s some intergalactic space pirate romance with Carla Speed McNeil on the art.

My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies might not be the most romantic title in the sale, but it’s good book. A entry in Ed Brubaker / Sean Phillips crime catalog (as consistent a catalog as you’ll find these days), this one concerns murder and mayhem at a high end rehab clinic.  As always, recommended if you have an itch for crime comics.

Sex Criminals is the recently completed Matt Fraction / Chip Zdarsky off-color comedy about a couple who can freeze time when they have sex and use their ability to rob banks.  OK, there’s a bit more to it, but that’s the tried and true tagline.  All but the still-new final volume are on sale.

Twisterd Romance   My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies   Sex Criminals

All Hail Megatron has transformed into an omnibus

The IDW Transformers Sale runs through Thursday (3/4).

IDW has effectively treated the Transformers line as a saga. The original run of that is The Transformers: The IDW Collection series of omnibuses and is probably a good place to start here.

Fans of a certain age might also be interested in Transformers: Classics, which is the original Marvel Comics run.

Transformers: The IDW Collection   Transformers: Classics

Thicker editions

The Dynamite Select Omnibus Sale runs through Sunday (2/28).

Dreadstar Omnibus is the first 12 issues (and story arc) of Jim Starlin’s Dreadstar. Dreadstar was Starlin’s major work between wrapping up the original Captain Marvel / Warlock / Thanos saga and returning to Marvel (proper) for Silver Surfer and Infinity Gauntlet. (Sure, he did some Batman before returning, but Dreadstar is just on another level.) It’s the tale of the last survivor of the Milky Way taking on the corrupt Church of the Instrumentality as a rebel insurgency of sorts. An absolute classic of the first wave of creator owned comics in the ’80s.

The Shadow: Year One – Omnibus is an origin tale for The Shadow and Margo Lane, written by Matt Wagner (who’s done a lot with ’30s era heroes over the years) with art by Wilfredo Torres.

There’s a lot of Red Sonja and Vampirella on sale, too, if that floats your boat.

Dreadstar   The Shadow: Year One

Still on Sale

Comixology Sales: $0.99 Marvel Masterworks and Holiday Sales from DC, Dynamite and IDW

Looking for some Comixology sales?  Welcome to the holiday sale season.  All these new sales are running into January, too.  $0.99 Marvel Masterworks are good and Cheap. DC, IDW and Dynamite are also catering to your discount needs.  Many of these sales are “linewide,” which means pretty much everything is on sale from those publishers.  Been waiting for something to go on sale? It’s probably there.

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

Marvel gets CHEAP

Do you like classic Marvel?  If so you will LOVE the Marvel Masterworks sale (Amazon link) and might not get any further than this.  Volume 1’s are $0.99 and the rest are $1.99.  The page counts are always good and sometimes GREAT and you can’t beat the price.

The best buy here, and maybe the best buy on all of Comixology, is probably Black Panther Masterworks V. 1. That’s the entire Jungle Action run written by Don McGregor with art by Billy Graham, Rich Buckler and Gil Kane.  A truly excellent run that established a LOT of the character’s cast, especially Killmonger.  330 pages of excellence for $0.99?  If you haven’t tried it, this is the time.

You want a LOT of pages for your 99 cents?  Check out  Killraven (AKA War of the Worlds).  This post-apocalyptic band of freedom fighters throwing off the Martian yoke clocks in at 471 pages.  A lot of creators were involved with this, but it’s fondly remembered as a Don McGregor/P. Craig Russell feature.  And yes, it includes the graphic novel.

For something a little more off the radar, everyone remembers Jim Starlin’s Captain Marvel run. It was the first round with Thanos.  Hardly anyone remembers that Steve Englehart and Al Milgrom had an enjoyable run right after Starlin. That would be Captain Marvel Masterworks V. 4 and can be yours for a lousy $1.99 (V. 3 is the main Starlin run and grab that one if you haven’t read it.)

Black Panther Masterworks   Killraven  Captain Marvel

Head to the main link for an extended browse.  There’s a lot of very cheap classic comics and you don’t need me to tell you about Avengers and X-Men.  I will say that Doctor Strange is pretty solid the whole way through and if you like Golden Age Marvel and Atlas-era Marvel, pay close attention to the final two sections on the page.

Next up, we have the Marvel “Greatest Runs” sale.  Yes, it sounds like they need more fiber, but there are some superior deals here, too.

We’ve always been big fans of the Matt Fraction / Salvador Larroca run of Invincible Iron Man and the whole run is alternating $2.99 and $1.99 per volume.  Great prices.

Mark Waid’s superlative Daredevil run gets the omnibus treatment at $3.99 a pop.  This one starts out with Marcos Martin and Paolo Rivera as the main artists and then settles into Chris Samnee as the lead for the duration. It probably falls into the modern classic category.

Immortal Iron Fist is an incredibly fun series that’s collected in 2 omnibuses.  Volume 1 (482 pages) is primarily written by Ed Brubaker & Matt Fraction and primarily drawn by David Aja. Volume 2 (474 pages) is primarily written by Duane Swierczynski and drawn by the criminally under-rated Travel Foreman. Yes, you’ll want both volumes and you’ll probably want more Fat Cobra, too.

Iron Man  Daredevil  Iron Fist V. 1 Iron Fist V. 2

DC’s Holiday Sales

DC has a couple different sales conveniently located on one page.  And really, this one looks a lot like the Black Friday sale.

First up is a Wonder Woman sale… with 69 items!  <eye roll> Yes, DC… we see what you did there.  </eye roll>

For Wonder Woman, you can  click here and two classic runs begin and end the Omnibus section.  Wonder Woman by George Perez is the post-Crisis rebirth and actually wraps up with the War of the Gods volume.  Towards the end of the Perez run, you get some early Jill Thompson art, too.  That run really set the table for modern Wonder Woman.  At the end of the section is Wonder Woman by Greg Rucka, which is also an absolutely fantastic run.

Wonder Woman by George Perez Wonder Woman by Greg Rucka

For the general graphic novel sale — and this is linewide, so while almost everything is there, here are a some ideas of things that might not immediately jump out:

Y: The Last Man by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra is getting a TV show pretty soon and it’s a great series.  Make sure you scroll to the Omnibus section — they’re same price as the “regular” collections, so double up the page count!

Swamp Thing: The Bronze Age Vol. 1 is the original Len Wein/Bernie Wrightson run.  There’s a reason it’s a classic and it’s well worth your time.

We were always fans of Paul Levitz’s Doctor Fate and it sure didn’t hurt our feelings that Sonny Liew drew most of it.  Killer creators and an interesting way to get back to Fate’s Egyptian roots.

Y the Last Man   Swamp Thing  Doctor Fate

DC’s sales are running through Monday, 1/4.

Dynamite’s Holiday Sale

The Dynamite Linewide Sale comes in three parts: Graphic Novels and then single issues broken up into A-P, P-W and W-Z(Amazon link) It pretty much is the entire line.  When you’re looking at the graphic novels, remember that the majority of single issues are $0.99, so 6 single issues = $5.94. Be pure, be vigilant, be cheap!

As for what we’d draw your eye to, three things come to mind as we flip through the pages.  Howard Chaykin’s American Flagg! is a hugely influential science fiction series with liberal does of satire.

The Shadow Masters Series is the absurdist and subversive take on The Shadow from the late ’80s by Andy Helfer, Bill Sienkiewicz and Kyle Baker (with a an extra special appearance by Marshall Rogers that almost defies description… old vendettas, children acting out and a nurse who used to be a professional wrestler.  It’s really something else.

Here at the Tower of Cheap, we’ve been waiting… and waiting… on the collected edition of the Christopher Priest/Ergün Gündüz Vampirella run and it keeps getting pushed back.  We keep hearing good things and the ever-reliable Priest on Vampi is so counter-intuitive, it’s probably worth it.  Guess what?  The single issues are (mostly) $0.99 if you want to get a jump on the collections.

This sale runs through Monday 1/4.

American Flagg!    The Shadow   Vampirella

IDW Holiday Sale

The IDW Linewide Sale is broken into SIX parts: Graphic Novels I, Graphic Novels II and then single issues I, II, III and IV.  (Amazon link) Which is to say, a whole lot o’ stuff.  What might we point you at the might otherwise slip your mind?

Bloom County: The Complete Library  A classic comic strip by a classic cartoonist.  Essentially, the whole archive is on sale.

Like Walt Simonson’s Thor? Then you need to check out Ragnarok. Valhalla has fallen and the survivors of the realm are picking up the pieces.  Although not everyone who survived is necessarily alive. Walt returns to the Norse mythos and it’s some of his best work.  Possibly the best thing IDW’s published.

Richard Stark’s Parker is another contender for the best thing IDW’s published. Darwyn Cooke adapts the crime novels about a professional thief who takes double-crosses extra personal. You might know the source material from the films like Point Blank and Payback.

This sale runs until Tuesday, 1/5.

Bloom County   Ragnarok Richard Stark's Parker

Still on sale

Comixology Sales: Marvel has Buy One Get One Free and drops another 3 sales, plus Batman, Star Wars Adventures and Red Sonja

Comixology sales this week include Marvel dropping 3 new sales (including some prime Silver Surfer comics), Batman/Catwoman’s still running at DC, Red Sonja takes a digital discount at IDW and Star Wars Adventures visits the bargain zone.

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

Marvel’s Dropping Lots of Sales and BOGO

Marvel just started a Buy One Get One Free Sale through Monday (12/7) at 11pm ET.  Here’s what you do: go to this Comixology page and grab the Code, enter it in the cart and every other book is free (well, the lower priced of the two is free… but you know the drill).  And yes, that stacks on top of the sale books, so those get very cheap, very fast!

Let’s start the Marvel parade with the Silver Surfer Sale. Strangely, the Stan Lee / John Buscema series you automatically think of is not on sale.  An Epic Collection of the early Fantastic Four appearances is, however.

There’s also a lot to love with the 1987 Silver Surfer series. At that main link, the “Freedom” Epic Collection is built around some specials (including a Stan Lee/John Byrne issue) and the first 14 issues of the Steve Englehart / Marshall Rogers run that we just love. There’s a missing Epic Collection that hasn’t been issued yet that would contain the end of the Englehart run and the beginning of the Starlin run, but the “Thanos Quest” Epic Collection collects the back end of the Jim Starlin/Ron Lim run, plus the Thanos Quest mini-series and the beginning of Ron Marz’s long run.  There are more Marz volumes, we’d start with Englehart/Starlin since that establishes the ongoing arc, but you’ll get a lot of Infinity Gauntlet-related material if you continue with the Epic Collections for this run.

Strangely, Comixology and Marvel have filed the first part of the Starlin/Lim run away from the rest of that Silver Surfer title as “Silver Surfer: Rebirth of Thanos” and added Thanos Quest here, too.  Not exactly a unified publishing program, but good comics and a big part of what they’d call “The Road to Infinity Gauntlet” if this were being published today.

The more recent Silver Surfer are also on sale, as well as some more Stan Lee material, but those are some foundational works well worth your time. The sale runs through Thursday (12/10).

Silver Surfer by Lee/Kirby    Silver Surfer - Englehart   Rebirth of Thanos

Next up, running through Sunday (12/6) is the Spider-Girl Sale.  This series, across a few different titles (Marvel relaunching a comic?  *gasp*) ran from ’98-’10 and it’s about Mayday Parker, Spidey’s daughter from the future. Worth noting, especially for such a long run, almost everything in the sale is by a combination of at least 2 of Tom DeFalco, Ron Frenz and Pat Olliffe.  You don’t see creators that consistent on such long runs very often.

Spider-Girl

Marvel’s “Stormbreakers” Sale  has nothing to do with the Alex Rider novel of the same name and isn’t a political movement (though we’ll admit it kinda sounds like one), it’s just the new name they’re using to promote their new favored artists they way they used to call them “Young Guns.”

We’ve enjoyed Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man by Tom (“you keep mentioning that guy”) Taylor and Stormbreaker Juann Cabal, among other artists and the first volume is $2.99 for 6 issues.

You also really can’t go wrong with House of X/Powers of X by Jonathan Hickman, Pepe Larraz and Stormbreaker R.B. Silva. (And honestly, you shouldn’t need a promotion to know who Silva is.  Silva’s been working at DC and Marvel for over 10 years!)

This sale runs through Thursday (12/17).

Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man   House of X / Powers of X

And let’s not forget the Vision & the Scarlet Witch Sale (Wanda/Vision, if you prefer) is still running through Sunday (12/13).

Vision and the Scarlet Witch

The Bat and The Cat

DC’s “Batman Catwoman Sale” is still running through Monday (12/7).  We talked about this one last time, but we’d still like to point out Legends of the Dark Knight: Norm Breyfogle. It’s a little pricier than what we normally point out here (63% off is still $12.99), but it’s 522 pages of the Alan Grant / John Wagner / Norm Breyfogle Batman run that’s definitely an era unto itself.

Batman by Breyfogle

The She-Devil with a Sword

Also running through Monday (12/7) is the Red Sonja Sale. If you’d like some sword with your sorcery, we’d recommend going back to the very beginning of Dynamite’s run with the first omnibus. Mel Rubi is the lead artist. You start out Mike (M.R.) Carey writing, followed by Michael Avon Oeming and it’s a fun comic. If memory serves, that Omnibus ends with the return of Kulan Gath, who you might remember from some non-Robert E. Howard Marvel comics.

Red Sonja

The Force Happens

The IDW Star Wars Adventures Sale features the all-ages version of Star Wars and runs through Monday (12/14).  A place to start?  Vol. 1… or maybe take a trip to the Dark Side with Vader’s Castle?

Tales from Vader's Castle

Still On Sale

Comixology Sales: Big DC Sale, Batman, Spider-Man, James Bond, Fear Agent, Bendis’s Goldfish and More

This week’s Comixology sales include a wide ranging DC graphic novel sale, Spider-Man’s married years, James Bond and the end of the Image Science Fiction blowout.

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

DC Graphic Novels

DC is having their 2-Part “Road to Black Friday” graphic novel sale, so here’s DC Road to Black Friday Sale – Graphic Novels I. (We’ll come back for a closer look at Part 2 of the sale on Friday.)  Part 1 is essentially Action Comics through Justice League and features a whole lot of Batman.

In fact, several of Part 1’s value buys involve Batman.  As you may recall, James Tynion IV is the current Batman writer.  When the “Rebirth” relaunch started, he was the writer for an extended run on Detective Comics and it was very much what I’d call a “Batman Family” affair.  The “deluxe editions” of that run are $7.99 a pop for roughly 12 issues of material per volume.  That’s a decent value and the volumes are linked below:

Detective Comics by Tynion   Detective Comics  Detective Comics  Detective Comics

Even you’d like even more bang for your buck, Tales of the Batman: Archie Goodwin gets you 471 pages of Batman written by one of the best writers (and editors) in comics for $7.99.  Tales of the Batman: Steve Englehart is a couple dollars more for roughly an issue less of material, but I believe it’s the complete collection of one of the most influential Batman scribes.  Plenty of Batman to sift through if you go to the main sale page.

Tales of the Batman: Archie Goodwin  Tales of the Batman: Steve Englehart

Stepping away from Batman, other titles of interest include: Boy Commandos V. 2 – That’s the second collection of the highly influential 1940’s Simon & Kirby comic about a kid gang that punches Nazis.  It seems highly unlikely you’d ever see the print edition for $5.99.  (85% off list)

Dial H is weird fiction legend China Miéville’s dark, quirky and surreal take on Dial H for Hero with Mateus Santolouco and Alberto Ponticelli on art.  This was criminally overlooked by most people when it came out and 398 pages for $7.99 is a good buy, too.

Before he ever set foot at DC or Marvel, Brian Bendis did crime comics.  He didn’t just write them, he drew them. Goldfish is the story of a con man returning to Cleveland looking for his son and it’s one of the tales that put Bendis on the map. You don’t hear about it much, these day, but it’s good one.  There’s over 900 graphic novels in part 1 of the sale, which runs through Monday (11/23)

Boy Commandos  Dial H  Goldfish

Spider-Man’s Married Life

Meanwhile, over at Marvel, the Amazing Spider-Man Renew Your Vows Sale is running through Thursday (11/19).  That would be the adventures of a married Peter and Mary Jane, along with their daughter, Annie.  It started out as a Secret Wars spin-off mini by Dan Slott and Adam Kubert.  Then it came back as a regular series, initially by Gerry Conway and Ryan Stegman.

Spider-Man Renew Your Vows   Spider-Man Renew Your Vows

Dynamite’s First Volumes

Also ending on Thursday (11/19) is the Dynamite Vol. 1’s Sale, which is Dynamite putting the first volumes in various series on sale. The Shadow, Vol. 1: Fire of Creation is Garth Ennis’s take on the pulp character with art by Aaron Campbell (who’s been killing on Hellblazer).

If you enjoy the original Ian Fleming  novels, James Bond: Kill Chain by Andy Diggle and Luca Casalanguida will put you in a happy place – it brings SMERSH back into the Bond equation and it’s old school in all the best ways.

Red Sonja: Scorched Earth by Mark Russell and Mirko Colak is a very unusual Red Sonja tale.  It works as a satire of the philosophy of kings and it also works as an adventure.  Who knew Mark Russell would adapt so well to sword & sorcery?  Worth a look.

The Shadow   James Bond: Kill Chain  Red Sonja

Image’s Science Fiction

Thursday (11/19) is also last call for the Image Science Fiction Sale.  Here are a couple more things of note from that sale.  

Fear Agent is a SF series from Rick Remender, Tony Moore and Jerome Opena about a booze-soaked alien exterminator that was a critical darling when it was coming out.

Casanova by Matt Fraction, Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon is trippy, dimension hopping espionage caper that has a certain Jerry Cornelius vibe to it.

Fear Agent  Casanova

Still on Sale:

Miles Morales: Spider-Man (through Sunday, 11/22)

Miles Morales - Spider-Man

Dark Horse Witcher Sale (through Monday, 11/23) Note: The Omnibus is the best deal by a lot.

Witcher