Excalibur Archives - Comics.Cheap

This week’s Comixology sales include Marvel throwing the mutant gate open for Wolverine and Excalibur, plus New Avengers. DC puts the spotlight on The Joker. Dark Horse drops a discount on Hellboy and Viz has a My Hero Academia sale.

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

The Best at What He Does

The Marvel Wolverine Legacy Sale runs through Sunday, 11/14.

We’re not entire sure when Logan became “Legacy” Wolverine, instead of just “Wolverine,” but this is a sale on the original material. Some highlights:

Here’s the original ’88-’03 series. Yes, it’s probably best known for the Larry Hama/Marc Silvestri run, but we’d draw your attention to the “Basic to Basics” Epic Collection, which has a nice arc by Archie Goodwin & John Byrne AND includes Wolverine: The Jungle Adventure by Walt Simonson & Mike Mignola.

From the reboot that followed, we’ll offer two more recommendations: Wolverine by Greg Rucka is a low-key, ditch the costume, anti-hero run by Rucka, Leandro Fernandez and Darick Robertson that doesn’t get talked about as much. Wolverine: Enemy of the State is much better known. Mark Millar and John Romita, Jr. drag Logan through the wringer with a brainwashing by The Hand and Hydra, it also features the debut of Gorgon. The polar opposite of the Rucka run, this is the high octane action movie version.

I’ve Got To See a Man About a Sword

The Marvel Excalibur Sale runs through Sunday, 11/7.

We’ve said it before, but when it comes to Excalibur (and Captain Britain, for that matter), you want to look for the stories where Alan Davis is involved – artist or writer, it doesn’t matter. He’s there for the best. If you pop over to the original series, the Epic Collections of The Sword is Drawn and The Cross-Time Caper cover the Chris Claremont/Alan Davis collaboration. Skip ahead to Curiouser and Curiouser to start the Alan Davis writer/artist run and then finish that run with V. of Excalibur Visionaries: Alan Davis. All that Davis goodness will keep you out of trouble.

Bendis Assemble

The Marvel New Avengers Sale runs through Sunday, 11/7.

Brian Bendis revamped Avengers as New Avengers as stayed on it longer than some people realize. Nearly 100 issues worth across two volumes of the title… and that’s before the specials, aligned miniseries and so forth. That’s a pretty long run. As you might expect, lots of artists passed through the run. Steve McNiven and David Finch early on. Frank Cho, Mike Deodato, Jr., Leinil Francis Yu – all sorts of A-listers.

The simplest way to read this is with New Avengers by Brian Michael Bendis: The Complete Collection, which pulls in some of the spin-off material, specials and minis. Otherwise, it can all get a little complicated to keep track of.

The Joke’s on You

The DC The Joker’s Greatest Joke’s Sale runs through Monday, 11/8.

And no, The Joker doesn’t appear to be in EVERY comic that’s on sale here. We don’t get it, either. But what we will tell you is if you want a single volume Joker anthology, The Joker: 80 Years of the Clown Prince of Crime – Deluxe Edition is a bit under 1/2 the price of the 75 year collection at the top of the sale and has ~40 more pages. And Mad Love is included! Listed at 441 pages, this is a good bang for your buck.

For something recent, there’s The Joker War Saga. This would be the James Tynion IV Batman saga, but with the tie-in issues included. Alas, the discount is based on HC pricing, but that’s how it goes with DC’s system.

And for something a little more off-beat, there’s Superman: Emperor Joker by Joe Kelly, Jeph Loeb, Doug Mahnke and Ed McGuinness. This is essentially House of M, five years BEFORE House of M. Superman awakens trapped in Arkham Asylum as the Joker has somehow gained the ability to remake the world in his own image and rule over it as Emperor. It’s a slapstick world of dark humor and Superman has to figure out how it has happened before he can do much about it. An odd and influential story arc we’ve always liked.

Go Straight to Hellboy

The Dark Horse Hellboy Sale runs through Monday, 11/8.

The centerpiece of the Mignola-verse and occasional film franchise, the core of Hellboy is collected in 2 places: The Hellboy Omnibus collections and Hellboy: The Complete Short Stories. (scroll down to the Omnibus section for both)

There’s plenty of material filling in around the edges, but you should read the core first. It’s great fun.

School for Super Heroes

The Viz My Hero Academia sales runs through Sunday, 11/7.

This Kohei Horikoshi manga is the tale of a high school for superheroes in a world where 80% of the population manifests super powers. Yes, it’s one of the those weak Viz 29% discounts, but if you want to get a look at one of the most popular comics out there (it really performs outside the Direct Market), it’s on sale right now.

Still on Sale

The Marvel Eternals Sale runs through Sunday, 11/14.

The highlights of this week’s Comixology sales include all manner of Justice League comics, a birthday for Deadpool, James Bond, Tini Howard’s Marvel work and some gaming properties over at Dark Horse.

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

Wade Wilson is how old?

The Deadpool 30th Anniversary Sale runs through Sunday, 3/7. And there’s all kinds of Deadpool on sale. That said, there’s one thing that really took us by surprise:

Did you realize there are 23 volumes of Deadpool Classic? Some of the more recent runs of the flagship series are listed as their own sets, but that’s a lot of Deadpool!

Marvel’s writer of the week

The Marvel Tini Howard Sale runs through Thursday, 3/11.

We’re happy to recommend Excalibur by Howard and (primarily) Marcus To. The first two collections feature the mechanizations of Apocalypse and shenanigans in Otherworld. The pair will take you right to the precipice of X of Swords. And yes, you’ll eventually want to read X of Swords. That was the best comics crossover Event in recent memory.

And by “teamwork,” they mostly mean Justice League

The DC Teamwork Sale runs through Monday, 3/8. It also is divided into three sections – Graphic Novels, Single Issues I and Single Issues II. You’ll want to keep a close eye on prices for this one. Some of the offerings, particularly the ones that are hardcover in print are not at particularly good prices for a digital sale. Pretty much everything in the graphic novels will be available for 99-cents/issue and the single issues might be cheaper. There are also more single issues available that haven’t been collected as graphic novels, so the single issue sections are worth a browse if you have the time.

JLA is the ’97 series that launched with the Grant Morrison/Howard Porter run. The collections are priced lower than the singles here and there are some more unusual runs later in the series you can cherry pick as singles if you don’t like what they’re packaged with in the graphic novels: #94-99 is a Chris Claremont/John Byrne arc. (We wouldn’t say it’s quite up to their X-Men run, but it’s sure a novelty.) #107-114 is a Kurt Busiek/Ron Garney run.

Justice League of America is the original ’60s into ’80s title. The “Silver Age” collections offer a better rate per issue, but the entire run is available as single issues. You can cherry pick some 100 page spectaculars or pick up the Steve Englehart/Dick Dillon run (starting with #139).

JLA Year One doesn’t seem to have a graphic novel edition available in digital right now. This is a 12-part series written by Mark Waid and Brian Augustyn with art by Barry Kitson. It’s a fun 90s take (yes, there were comics embracing fun in the 90s… just not that many) on the Justice League’s origin.

The Brave and the Bold in this case refers to the recent Liam Sharp series teaming Batman with Wonder Woman in an adventure through Celtic mythology. This one is cheaper to pick up the single issues.

Games people read

The Dark Horse Video Game Sale runs through Monday, 3/15.

This might really be more of a gaming sale than strictly a video game sale. A few things of note:

Critical Role is the adaption of the popular streaming show of a Dungeons & Dragons campaign. The digital issues were some of the best selling comics on Comixology while it was being serialized.

The Guild is an adaption of the Felicia Day web comedy about a group of gamers. Day does the writing and Jim Rugg provides the art for Volume 1.

The Witcher Omnibus… you could say this is a comic based on a game or you could say its a comic based on a series of books. The Witcher is as transmedia as a property can get these days. Paul Tobin is your scribe with a rotating cast of artists.

007

The Dynamite James Bond Sale runs through Thursday, 4/1.

Dynamite has several 007 titles, but there’s one that stands above the others for our dollar: Kill Chain by Andy Diggle and Luca Casalanguida. It might just be the perfect repositioning of Bond for the modern era. Finding himself in the middle of a “Kill Chain” of assassinations, Bond discovers his old foes at SMERSH have reemerged and are trying to draw MI6 and the CIA into conflict.

Still On Sale

The Image Romance Sale through Monday, 3/8.

Comics.Cheap

The Best of Comixology Sales and Cheap Digital Comics