Groo Archives - Comics.Cheap

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel revisits “Heroes Return” with discounts. DC drops a 750 book “MAX” sale with Flash, Superman and the Suicide Squad. In unannounced sales, we find Groo, Stranger Things, Dune and… Quentin Tarantino?

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

Is That a Streaming Pun?

The DC to the MAX Sale runs through Monday, 7/15.

This is a large (750 items) and fairly wide-ranging sale, so it’s perhaps worth a bit of browsing time, but here are some highlights we noticed:

DMZ – Brian Wood / Riccardo Burchielli; During a second Civil War, an embedded reporter becomes stranded in the DMZ that Manhattan has become and promptly gets embroiled in local political/warlord scene.
The Flash (’59-’85) – The Silver Age volumes highlight this section
The Flash (’87 – ’09) – The prices on the Geoff Johns run are good.
The Flash (’16-’23) – Initially, Josh Williamson / Carmine Di Gianmenico. Later, Jeremy Adams / Roger Cruz
Hawkworld – Tim Truman leans into the science fiction side of the character in this excellent Hawkman reboot
Jonah Hex (’06 – ’11) – Jimmy Palmiotti & Justin Gray write a very fun Western with what turns into a jaw dropping parade of artists like Darwyn Cooke, Paul Gulacy, Jordi Bernet, Russ Heath, Phil Winslade, Eduardo Risso and so on…
Rorschach – Tom King /Jorge Fornés; A very well done follow up to the ideas of Watchmen
Suicide Squad (’87-’92) – John Ostrander / Luke McDonnell / Geoff Isherwood; There’s been some comments lately about how Amanda Waller was a much more nuanced character in the original incarnation… and we’d have to agree. This is a classic.
Suicide Squad: Blaze – Si Spurrier / Aaron Campbell; A darker than dark take on the Squad various DC mythos in this Black Label edition.
Superman Vol. 1: Supercorp (2023-)- Josh Williamson / Jamal Campbell; The opening to the quite enjoyable current Superman run.
Superman/Batman (’03 – ’11) – Initially Jeph Loeb / Ed McGuinness; These double-volumes are a good value
Unstoppable Doom Patrol – Dennis Culver / Chris Burnham; First time discounted?
Y: The Last Man – Brian K. Vaughan / Pia Guerra; The last man on Earth (and his monkey) navigates a dystopian landscape and tries to piece together what happened.

Come Again?

Marvel’s Heroes Reborn Sale runs through Monday, 7/15.

This is the 90s experiment when Marvel outsourced some of their titles to Image and then took them back. “Heroes Reborn” is the Image experiment and “Heroes Return” was when Marvel resumed production. Now, for our money, the gems here are from the “Heroes Return” period.

Heroes Reborn: The Return is the Peter David / Salvador Larroca tale that brings the heroes back to the “normal” Marvel Universe.

Iron Man: Heroes Return – The Complete Collection V. 1 has Kurt Busiek, Roger Stern and Sean Chen as the primary creative team, re-establishing shell head back in the Marvel Universe. You get some Mandarin, there’s a side trip with Captain America and MODOK. This collects the first portion of one of our favorite Iron Man periods.

And speaking of high points, this sale also has Captain America: Heroes Return – The Complete Collection, which is the Mark Waid/Ron Garney run resuming. (It had just started, and was abruptly halted, for Heroes Reborn.) A little Hydra, a lost shield… that MODOK tale from Iron Man is also reprinted here (a shared Annual). It’s a solid run.

Fantastic Four: Heroes Return – The Complete Collection Vol. 1 takes a longer view of the Heroes Return timeframe than the other do. This was starts out with a Chris Claremont/Alan Davis run and ends up with an underrated Carlos Pacheco run. Essentially, Heroes Return is deemed to stop right before the Mark Waid / Mike Wieringo run.

Why the Kurt Busiek / George Perez Avengers run isn’t included here… that’s a good question. In some ways it was the flagship of the returning titles.

Marvel revisited it in ’21 with the minor Event Heroes Reborn, headlined by a Jason Aaron / Ed McGuinness miniseries.

The Image-produced Heroes Reborn titles were:

Heroes Reborn: Avengers; Rob Liefeld / Jim Valentino / Jeph Loeb / Chap Yaep
Heroes Reborn: Captain America; Rob Liefeld / Jeph Loeb
Heroes Reborn: Iron Man; Jim Lee / Scott Lobdell / Whilce Portacio

And, to be complete, it’s not in the sale for inexplicable reasons, but Heroes Reborn: Fantastic Four by Jim Lee & Brandon Choi.

The Marvel “Maybe” Sales

The trend we noticed last week is still moving forward. New releases at lower than expected price points and discounted pre-orders. Is this the new normal? We’re not sure, but let’s run them down.

Released this week

Thor Modern Era Epic Collection: Reborn From Ragnarok – J. Michael Straczynski / Olivier Coipel; Another week, another “Modern” Epic Collection being floated for pre-order at what sure looks like a sale price to us. The beginning of the JMS Thor run for $8.99.

Pre-Order for Next Week

White Widow: Welcome To Idylhaven – Sarah Gailey / Alessandro Miracolo; At this new $6.99 price point we’re starting to see.

We’re not quite sure what’s going on with these prices, but we’ll give you a heads up if it looks like it’s cheaper than it would normally be.

Unannounced Indie Sales

Over at Dark Horse, everyone’s favorite stupid barbarian is on sale. Yes, that’s right… it’s Groo by Sergio Aragones and Mark Evanier! Yes, this includes Groo Meets Tarzan with Thomas Yeates.

Also from Dark Horse, the Stranger Things line of graphic novels.

Plus, further removed from the Direct Market:

1984: The Graphic Novel – Fido Nesti
Calling Dr. Laura: A Graphic Memoir – Nicole J. Georges
DUNE: The Graphic Novel, Book 1 – Kevin J. Anderson / Brian Herbert / Raul Allen
Quentin Tarantino: A Graphic Biography – Michele Botton / Bernardo Santiago Acosta

Still on Sale

The Marvel Wolverine & The Marvel Universe Sale runs through Monday, 7/15
The Marvel Deadpool Vs. the Marvel Universe Sale runs through Monday, 8/5
The Kodansha Attack on Con Season 24 Sale runs through Wednesday, 7/17
The Zenescope Wonderland $5 Graphic Novel Sale run through Sunday, 7/21

Like Moose & Squirrel… but with Tree

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.

Suicide Sale

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.)

Groo is Getting OLD

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.

Oni Opens the Vault

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.)

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.