Tag: Flash Gordon

Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: The Shadow, Red Rising, Flash Gordon, The Hedge Knight

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Dynamite kicks off the holiday sale season. Plus, The Black Hammer, Hedge Knight and unannounced sales.

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):

Housekeeping: This month’s Marvel sales are still active, but expiring on Monday. Something we found amusing. With Amazon starting it’s Black Friday promotions, you may see some of the Marvel and Kodansha comics marked as “Black Friday Deals.” They’ve been for a couple weeks and will be theoretically gone by the time the true Black Friday rolls around. How did Guns ‘n’ Roses put it… Use Your Illusion?

We are, however, happy to report that Dynamite has stepped up with what we consider the first Holiday Sale.

Starting the Holidays with a Bang

The Shadow  Flash Gordon  Green Hornet Year One

The Dynamite Year End Sale runs through  Wednesday, 12/31.

If this isn’t a line-wide sale, it’s awfully close, so let’s run through some of the interesting things that are less frequently on sale. We trust you can identity Red Sonja and Vampirella on your own after their recent sales.

The Shadow

Dynamite’s always had a feel for the pulp traditions that preceded comic books and they’ve got a bunch of interesting material featuring what was probably the pulp world’s most preeminent dark avenger of the night.

  • The Shadow (’12-’14) – Starts out with Garth Ennis / Aaron Campbell, then Victor Gischler tags in for Ennis,  then Chris Roberson / Giovanni Timpano finish it out
  • The Shadow: Year One – Matt Wagner / Wilfredo Torres; An origin tale
  • The Shadow: Midnight In Moscow – Howard Chaykin; Chaykin returns for a ’50s Cold War tale
  • The Shadow Now – David Liss / Colton Worley; The Shadow returns to NYC in 2015
  • The Shadow: The Death Of Margot Lane – Matt Wagner; Wagner goes deep into the pulps as writer/artist on this one
  • The Shadow: The Last Illusion – Cullen Bunn / Giovanni Timpano; This one might just be our favorite of the bunch. The Shadow crosses paths with the spirit of Harry Houdini as a secret society of illusionists seek to steal Houdini’s “Last Illusion” – an escape from death. We could have done with Bunn/Timpano getting a longer run

And then there’s some collections of pre-Dynamite Shadow material, which is all top notch:

  • The Shadow: Blood & Judgment – Howard Chaykin; Chaykin’s science fiction-tinged, mature reader revival of The Shadow for DC.
  • The Shadow Master Series – Andy Helfer / Bill Sienkiewicz / Kyle Baker / Marshall Rogers / Joe Orlando; Helfer followed up on the Chaykin series with a more subversive set of stories that grew increasingly absurdist with dark, dark humor. Conde Nast was said to have been repulsed by it, but we think it was straight up brilliant. Definitely not the traditional Shadow, but a real gem.
  • The Shadow 1941: Hitler’s Astrologer – Dennis O’Neil / Michael William Kaluta / Russ Heath; The team that originally brought The Shadow to comics at DC, returned in the late ’80s for Marvel Graphic Novel. O’Neil writing. Kaluta inked by Heath. The Shadow turning his .45s on a Nazi plot. What more do you really need to know?

Everything here is recommended.

Flash Gordon

Jeff Parker and Doc Shaner are an excellent pairing if you want a fun book. Flash Gordon Omnibus Vol. 1: The Man From Earth is their Flash Gordon run. Fun, action-forward Science Fantasy with a hearty endorsement.

The Spider

The Spider is a pulp contemporary of The Shadow. To be charitable, a rival publisher’s attempt to get a piece of The Shadow’s audience. To call it a more over-the-top Shadow would accurate as the originals tended to have more flamboyant villains and immense body counts. Novelist David Liss stepped in for a new spin on The Spider that we thought really captured the flavor and spirit of the original. “Terror of the Zombie Queen” is the opening act and that’s pure Spider. The art takes a hit when Colton Worley leaves, but the writing is strong throughout.

The Green Hornet

Technically a radio character that draws on the pulp hero tradition, you have some interesting options here:

  • Green Hornet: Year One – Matt Wagner / Aaron Campbell; This is a 1930s origin story
  • Green Hornet –Mark Waid / Daniel Indro / Ronilson Freire; A tale late in the original Hornet’s continuity as The Green Hornet starts to buy his own hype and it comes back to bite him. A particular favorite, although as we type this, Amazon is showing the wrong preview for V. 2, so keep an eye on that.
  • Green Hornet Omnibus Vol. 1 – Kevin Smith / Phil Hester / Jonathan Lau; Kevin Smith turned his Green Hornet screenplay – a modern affair with the Hornet as a legacy hero – into a comic w/ Lau and then Hester ran with format.

Project Superpowers

Project Superpowers is a little complicated to explain. This is Alex Ross show running a series that’s bringing back classic 40s characters like the original Daredevil, Black Terror, Green Lama and The Fighting Yank. At the time, this is what you read if you wanted a “classic Marvel” feel while Marvel was caught up in the extended “Dark Reign” storyline. Ross does covers, character design, art direction and co-plotting with Jim Krueger. There were a few different artists involved, including Doug Klauba, Stephen Sadowski, Carlos Paul and Edgar Salazar. There were also a few miniseries spinoffs that are collected in that omnibus set. Black Terror was the longest running, but we seem to recall having a jones for the Death Defyin’ Devil.

Quentin Tarrantino

Yes, Quentin Tarantino co-wrote a Django / Zorro crossover with Matt Wagner. It’s true.

Django/Zorro – Quentin Tarantino / Matt Wagner / Esteve Polls

Red Rising

Yes, Howlers, we see you. Pierce Brown’s Red Rising: Sons Of Ares is a 3 volume series by Mr. Brown / Rik Hoskin / Eli Powell / Kewber Baal

Garth Ennis

Mr. Ennis has a following and he’s done a wide range of work for Dynamite. Included in the sale:

Eduardo Risso

Borderline is a post-apocalyptic dystopian SF series Risso was doing with Carlos Trillo in Italy, prior to 100 Bullets. We liked it.

Plenty more to browse, including the usual suspects.

Unannounced Sales

Black Hammer Omnibus  The Hedge Knight  The Secret to Superhuman Strength

As always, we really don’t know how long these will last.

Dark Horse has the world of Black Hammer on sale this week, which probably needs a walk-through.

This would be — we think it’s OK to call it a superhero universe at this point — the indie superhero saga by Jeff Lemire, Dean Ormston and friends. There are a couple branches to how this saga unfurls.

The main Black Hammer series is here and that’s where you should start the journey. But, as with many long running titles, there are a few different editions to it and this is what we think the cheapest (if messy to sort) way to read the series is.

There are currently 9 volumes under the main series + a collection of specials + 2 volumes of “Visions” with guest creators playing in the Black Hammer standbox.

So what you want to do to cheap out is go to the omnibus page first.

The Omnibus and Library Editions are essentially the same thing with a different binding in print. If you stick with the Omnibus version, then you can pick up again with V.5 of the regular editions. Since there are three Library Editions, you’d pick up with V.8 of the regular editions.

Then you’ve got the World of Black Hammer collections, which are solo tales about the various heroes and villains like Barbalien and Sherlock Frankenstein. There are also Library Editions, but the pricing is a little higher per series in that format.

Also on sale:

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Best of the Marvel Masterworks Sale, Plus Image and Dynamite

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, we look at the best of the Marvel Masterworks sale plus holiday sales from Image and Dynamite.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

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

We’re in the home stretch for the holiday sale season and this time out, we’ll be looking at a couple sales that dropped a little later than the rest. (OK, technically the Image sale had been up… but the discounts took several days to show up on the listing.) But first, let’s have a look at the cream of the crop for our favorite sale of the year.

The Best of the Marvel Masterworks Sale

As you may recall, The Marvel Masterworks Sale runs through Monday, 1/2. $0.99 for V.1’s and $1.99 for V.2+.

There are bargains and there are bargains. Let’s have a look at what the best volumes are, both for stories contained and page count – because a few of these books are as big as the Epic Collections.

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
  • 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)
  • Killraven Masterworks Vol. 1 – 471 pages – Don McGregor / P. Craig Russell – the entire Amazing Adventures run plus the OGN follow up… for a lousy $0.99
  • 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.

Best of the $0.99 V.1’s

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
  • 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.
  • 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. 15-16; 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.)
  • 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. 21-23; 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. 13-14 – V. 13 has David Michelinie, Bob Layton and John Romita, Jr. arrive. The 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.

There’s a ton more to the sale, including the more usual suspects… but we think the above will keep you out of trouble on a budget.

Defenders Masterworks   Black Panther Masterworks   Amazing Spider-Man Masterworks

Image Stuffs the Stocking

The Image Holiday Sale runs through Monday, 1/2.

This looks to us like a line-wide (or nearly line-wide… is Sea of Red not in digital?) 50% off sale, so we’re going to go slightly off the beaten path with our recommendations. If you’re looking for something specific, click through and it’s probably there. It’s a very deep sale.

The obligatory “front list” recommendation is the Saga Compendium. You should be familiar with Saga by now. Space fantasy about a refugee family who have both sides of a war looking for them? Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples? Yes, that Saga. Anyway, 54 issues for $23.99 is under $0.50 an issue and is as good a deal as you typically see from Image and it’s a wonderful series.

The Monolith is something we enjoyed when it came out from DC Comics back in the day. Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray and the underappreciated Phil Winslade tell the tale of a troubled young woman who inherits a house and finds a golem walled up in the basement. Once freed, the golem goes back about its mission of vengeance and punishment, as golems are wont to do. The Monolith explores the consequences of this a bit.

Shock Rockets by Kurt Busiek and Stuart Immonen was actually part of the far too short-lived Gorilla imprint at Image, back in the day. A very fun spin on the old anime theme of young pilots protecting the Earth from invading aliens.

Saga   The Monolith   shockrockets

Revival was a long running serial by Tim Seely and Mike Norton. It came out as zombie stories were getting hot, but it’s not really a zombie story. A town in Wisconsin has a strange day that sees the dead come back to life. Some of them seem perfectly normal. Some don’t. Naturally, the government declares a quarantine and the evangelists attempt to descend. This leaves the local sheriff’s department trying to figure out who or what caused the dead to rise and what’s happening to the dead afterwards. A bit of a slow burn as things continue to get stranger and bad things happen.

Criminal was Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips in their original crime series (or should we say crime series with no capes lurking in the background). Sometimes connected, sometimes not, we’d probably put V.6, “The Last of The Innocent” which is a whole lot like reimagining the Archie gang in a pulp noir. This is what Ed and Sean were doing just before they really blew up at Image and now Image has the publishing rights to it.

Casanova by Matt Fraction, Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon is a trippy as all get-out tale of a dimension hopping thief at odds with his other dimensional family of super-spies. Lots of backstabbing, identity theft and general skullduggery in a series that’s been compared to Moorcock’s Jerry Cornelius. (Yes, that level of trippy.)

Revival   Criminal   Casanova

Dynamite Stuffs the Stocking

The Dynamite Holiday Sale runs through Monday, 1/2.

This is also a line-wide or near line-wide 50% off sale, so we’ll once more go a little deeper into the pile for our picks.

Flash Gordon Omnibus by Jeff Parker and Evan “Doc” Shaner. What makes this Flash Gordon better than some of the other versions? When Parker and Shaner are doing it, it’s just more fun!

Borderline by Carlos Trillo and Eduardo Risso is something Risso drew prior to 100 Bullets. It’s a dark tale of a reluctant government enforcer in a bleak dystopian world with mutants in wasteland and the rich sequestered away in luxury.

The Shadow: The Last Illusion by Cullen Bunn, Colton Worley and Giovanni Timpano finds The Shadow drawn into a conflict with a secret society of illusionists seeking “The Last Illusion.” And The Last Illusion is Harry Houdini’s escape from the land of the dead. This is one of the best Dynamite Shadow tales and really fits in next to the original pulps.

Flash Gordon   Borderline   The Shadow: The Last Illusion

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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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