Tag: Hellblazer

Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: DC’s Halloween Sale; Venom; Miles Morales: Spider-Man; She-Hulk

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, DC launches its Halloween sale. Marvel drops a discount on Venom, Miles Morales and She-Hulk.

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):

DC’s Halloween Sale

The DC Horror and Mystery Sale runs through Monday, 10/30.

We’re not sure why this isn’t being called a Halloween sale. If looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck and it’s October, it’s probably a vampire duck.

That said, this a quality sale with lots of $2.99 collected editions to satisfy your thrifty needs. It’s worth a browse. Since there’s so much good stuff and it’s a two week sale, we’ll go over the highlights of A-Hellblazer this week and hit the back half of the alphabet next week.

Things that caught our eye as interesting:

What’s good here? All of the above.

A bit of recent news you might not have heard of yet. Regular readers will know the high esteem we hold the  Spurrier/Campbell Hellblazer run in. It seems DC has come to their senses (or the collected edition sales finally got high enough to get their attention) and Spurrier & Campbell will get another 8 issues of Hellblazer in ’24. (And the original run for $2.99/$3.99 per volume is a good deal, too.)

We’d highlight Batman: Haunted Knight, which are what really established the Loeb/Sale creative pairing before Long Halloween blew up and raised their collective profile.

If you’ve never tried DCeased, this is a good time of the year to try it. Leave it to Tom Taylor to take a potentially silly high concept like “superheroes vs. zombies,” tie it in with the Anti-Life Equation & Darkseid, then add in enough character work to make it a must-read.

John Constantine, Hellblazer   Batman - Haunted Knight   DCeased

Poison

The Marvel Venom Sale runs through Monday, 10/23.

This is a fairly scattered sale, with multiple formats and a lot of random early miniseries floating around. Browse for a better accounting of the listings.

For the early stuff, the better values are the somewhat scattered Epic Collections.

The early (mostly) Spider-Man appearances can be found in Venom Epic Collection: Symbiosis. That’s largely the David Michelinie / Todd McFarlane / Erik Larsen material.  That’s followed by Venom Epic Collection: Lethal Protector which has a few more villainous appearances and the original Lethal Protector mini. And then Venom Epic Collection: Carnage Unleashed continues the 90s appearances.

Eventually Venom gets his own series:

  • Venom  (2003-4) – The Daniel Way era
  • Venom  (2011-3) – Rick Remender/Tony Moore, then Cullen Bunn/Declan Shalvey
  • Venom (2016-8) – Mike Costa / Tradd Moore / Mark Bagley
  • Venom (2018-21) – Donny Cates / Ryan Stegman
  • Venom (2021-present) – Al Ewing / Ram V / Bryan Hitch

Let’s talk about the last 12 years or so. The ’11-’13 series is more interesting than you might think. That’s when Flash Thompson has the symbiote and uses it (among other things) to replace the legs his lost in the war. There are some interesting pathos floating around, particularly in the Remender/Moore run.

The Cates/Stegman run is probably the most famous right now. That’s where Venom gets Cosmic and leads into the King In Black Event.

The current Ewing / V / Hitch run, Ewing is wrapping up and Ram V has moved on from… but it’s something else. Al Ewing drives the Cosmic elements, which are the most interesting part. Eddie Brock is dead. But he isn’t. He’s separated from his body and he’s bouncing around in time as his son becomes Venom in the present. It’s a much, much stranger take on Venom than most others and really dives into the King in Black mythos and timeline.

Venom by Remender   Venom by Cates   Venom

Miles To Go Before I Sleep

The Marvel Miles Morales Sale runs through Monday, 10/23

Way too many editions of the same content for this one. Here’s our cheat sheet:

For the first Brian Bendis/David Marquez/Sara Pichelli run, you’re probably best off with the Miles Morales: Ultimate Spider-Man Ultimate Collection set.

Then jump to the Miles Morales: Spider-Man, Vol. 2 collection for the ’16 Bendis/Pichelli/Nico Leaon run. (Do not ask us why the first omnibus isn’t on sale…)

And after that wraps, it’s time for Miles Morales by Saladin Ahmed and Javier Garron.

  Miles Morales: Spider-Man   Miles Morales

You Have the Right to Remain Green

The Marvel She-Hulk Sale runs through Monday, 10/23.

Why yes, Jennifer Walters is a lawyer. Let’s first run down the series involved here.

  • The Savage She-Hulk (’80-’82) – mostly by David Anthony Kraft and Mike Vosburg
  • Sensational She-Hulk (’89-’94) – John Byrne, then the unlikely team of Steve Gerber & Bryan Hitch
  • She-Hulk (’04-’05) – Dan Slott / Juan Bobillo
  • She-Hulk (’05 – ’09) – Initially Dan Slott / Juan Bobillo, then Peter David takes over.
  • She-Hulk (’14-’15) – Charles Soule & Javier Pulido in one omnibus
  • She-Hulk (’16-’18) – Mariko Tamaki / Nico Leon
  • She-Hulk (’22-’23) – Rainbow Rowell / Roge Antonio / Luca Maresca

If you’re coming into She-Hulk through the TV show, the legal angle for the character really started getting emphasized with the Dan Slott era and then was followed up on by Charles Soule (who just might be a lawyer in his secret identity). Rainbow Rowell’s also picking up a pretty dedicated following with her current runs.

She-Hulk by Dan Slott   She-Hulk   She-Hulk

Zenescope’s Halloween Sale

Zenescope’s Tales of Terror Halloween Sale runs through Sunday, 11/5.

This is essentially the Zenescope version of Tales from the Crypt and it comes in three formats:

Grimm Tales of Terror   Grimm Tales of Terror   Grimm Tales of Terror Quarterly

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Batman and The Joker, Black Panther, Venom, World War Hulk and Eight Billion Genies

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, DC cuts prices on Batman, The Joker and the 90s, Marvel discounts Black Panther, Venom and World War Hulk, and Image goes a little more recent with their sale.

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):

Bat-Sale

DC’s Batman and The Joker Recent Hits Sale runs through Monday, 11/7

What does recent mean? On the Collected Edition side of things, it means Tom King’s Batman run through James Tynion, IV’s run  (you can save a little on King’s run with the Deluxe Editions, which are double volumes.), plus the Joker War Saga collection. If you prefer the single issues ($1.79 each), you can get most of the way through the Josh Williamson era.

Speaking of single issues, there two title a bit more current:

For this era, we have a soft spot for the Tom King / Mikel Janin War of Jokes and Riddles.

Batman   Joker War Saga   Batman: The War of Jokes and Riddles

Children of the 90s

The DC 90s Rewind Sale runs through Monday, 11/28.

Here’s a 90s book that had a bit of a following, but has perhaps faded from the fan consciousness a bit: Gotham By Gaslight. Brian Augustyn and Mike Mignola but a Victorian era Batman on the trial of Jack the Ripper and then “Master of the Future,” the sequel, does a Jules Verne / Master of the World riff with Eduardo Barreto tagging in for Mignola.

While the prices bounce around a little, $2.99 volumes of the original run of Hellblazer are always a good deal.

The Flash by Mark Waid can certainly be characterized as a quintessential 90s DC run. The first 4 omnibus-sized volumes are $5.99. (Volume 2 being the one with the famous “Return of Barry Allen” storyline.) If your memory is hazy, Greg Larocque is the initial art on the run with Mike Wieringo starting in Volume 3.

Batman: Gotham by Gaslight   Hellblazer   Flash by Mark Waid

Wakanda Month

The Marvel Monthly Black Panther Sale runs through Monday, 11/28.

As much as we love the Don McGregor / Billy Graham, we’d say wait and see if there’s a better Masterworks sale as the holidays hit. Unless you’re burning to see the original run (and it’s good).

The first big Black Panther revival is the  Christopher Priest run. (Which cycled through a ton of artists.) Originally a Marvel Knights book, it’s actually an expansion on the old Jungle Action run with a few new characters added and it’s very, very good.

The next big run is the Reginald Hudlin era. (Again, lots of artists here, starting out with John Romita, Jr.) Time was, this run was probably best known for T’Challa marrying Storm, but now it’s probably better known for introducing Shuri into the mythos.

Then comes the Ta-Nehisi Coates era, which starts out with Brian Stelfreeze and Chris Sprouse on art. We would be remiss if we didn’t point out the first two volumes here are a cheap $2.99

Black Panther by Priest   Black Panther by Reginald Hudlin   Black Panther by Ta-Nehisi Coates

This Means War

Marvel’s World War Hulk Sale runs through Monday, 11/7.

Yes, this is absolutely a highlight of the Hulk cannon (along with Planet Hulk that proceeded it). And what you need is the Greg Pak / John Romita, Jr. collection.

Take on the side series as interest dictates, they’re optional.

World War Hulk

You Were Expecting… Johnny Cash?

The Marvel Venom: King in Black Sale runs through Monday, 11/7.

The Event the sale is named after is sort of the finale to the Donny Cates/Ryan Stegman/Iban Coello run on the book. We like the middle portion where The Maker (aka Ultimate Universe Reed Richards) is scheming.

The current series is an Al Ewing/Ram V/Bryan Hitch collaboration which bounces between cosmic horror and more grounded incidents on Earth.

And for something more different than you might expect, we were surprised how enjoyable the old Rick Remender / Tony Moore / Tom Fowler run with Flash Thompson becoming the symbiote’s host.

Venom by Cates   Venom   Venom by Remender

No, Not That Kind of Hit

The Image Recent Hits Sale runs through Sunday, 11/20.

There are some collected editions here, but let’s have a look at some current buzz books that are still in single issues only:

Starhenge is Liam Sharp’s Arthurian space fantasy epic. Technically, this is the first act, but 4 of the 6 issues of it are here for $0.99 each. Sharp is really pushing the artistic envelope with this one and it looks more like a European album (with a little extra Sienkiewicz influence) than a run of the mill US comic. The art just feels big. (Amazon’s thumbnail previews don’t do it justice.)

Eight Billion Genies by Charles Soule and Ryan Browne (the team from the highly enjoyable Curse Words) really blew up at launch and we don’t think it was solely because speculators swooned over the media rights auction. In this one, every person on Earth gets their own genie. What could possibly go wrong? It might make one want to hide out in a bar…

Public Domain is Chip Zdarsky’s satire of the business side of comics. And he’s actually illustrating this one. We’ll even give you his description to set the tone properly: “a WILD ALTERNATE WORLD where comic book creators aren’t properly acknowledged or compensated for their creations!! Crazy, I know!!” No sarcasm in this comic… nope, none at all.

  Eight Billion Genies   Public Domain

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Sandman, Spider-Verse, She-Hulk, Locke and Key, DCeased

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, lots of comics with streaming shows and films based on them: Sandman Universe, She-Hulk, The Spider-Verse and Locke & Key all get discounts. Plus, DCeased for the sake of variety!

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

Like Sands in the Hourglass…

The DC Sandman Universe Sale runs through Monday, 8/22.

Wait, didn’t we just have a Sandman sale and a Vertigo sale?  Yes, but the Sandman Netflix show is doing well, so they’re effectively extending the party.  So let’s break this down:

And that’s going to be the bulk of it. There’s a sprawling mess of unsorted single issues presented in pretty much the least professional way possible, but if you want the singles, most of them are $0.99 (so keep this in mind when comparing with collected editions).

What’s good that we haven’t talked about in the last couple weeks?

John Constantine: Hellblazer by Si Spurrier, Aaron Campbell and Matias Bergara is one of our favorite reads of the last few years.  A classic Constantine conspiracy/con, some absolutely hilarious interludes… Grade A Hellblazer.  We’re still grumpy it didn’t go longer. Get both volumes, they comprise one story.

Sandman Mystery Theater is a fairly tangential cousin to Gaiman’s Sandman. It’s the pulp flavored adventures of the Golden Age Sandman – prior to the Simon & Kirby redesign. Sort of of a gentler, more introspective flavor of The Shadow.  Matt Wagner starts out as writer, Steven T. Seagle joins him a bit later and eventually assumes solo duties. Guy Davis is the main artist.  At 70 issues, this is one of the longer running Vertigo titles, though they’ve never really gotten the collected editions going for it.  You can save a couple bucks on the two collected editions, but it’s single issues after that.

John Constantine, Hellblazer   Sandman Mystery Theater

Dead Again

The DC DCeased Sale runs through Monday, 8/15.

I think the standard set of reactions to DCeased went something like:

  1. Oh, DC’s doing their version of Marvel Zombies
  2. Wait… this is actually good?!?
  3. Ah, it’s a Tom Taylor project.

That Taylor guy has a pretty darn good track record with this sort of thing.  The high concept here is the Anti-Life Equation gets unleashed and turns MOST of the world, including many of those with superpowers, into a sort of zombie. The surviving superheroes and villains are making shaky alliances to keep themselves and the what’s left of the masses alive as the look for a cure or a way off the planet.

Trevor Hairsine is the initial artist and then there’s some switching up later on as things progress.

The publication order is

All recommended. And yes, it’s no coincidence that all the previous material is on sale the week that the FINAL series, DCeased: War of the Undead Gods, debuts. (Far too early for discounts on that one.)

DCeased   DCeased: Hope at the World's End   DCeased - Dead Planet

Itsy Bitsy

The Marvel Spider-Verse Sale runs through Thursday, 8/18.

Much like the comic Event and the film, this is a sale highlighting a few different incarnations of Spidey in the various dimensions/realities of “The Spider-Verse.”

Spider-Verse is the 600+ page monster volume collecting the original event across the various Spidey-family titles.

The Miles Morales: Ultimate Spider-Man Ultimate Collection volumes by Brian Bendis, Sara Pichelli and David Marquez are good values as ~300 page collections.

And for off-the wall, there’s always Spider-Ham, which we’ve always sort of thought of as Marvel’s answer to Captain Carrot.  Silly YA stuff, but not without a punny appeal.

Spider-Verse   Miles Morales - Spider-Man   Spider-Ham

Gama Nepotism

The Marvel She-Hulk Sale runs through Monday, 8/29.

Gosh, you’d think there was a streaming show on Disney+ or something?  Is streaming STILL a theme for what’s on sale?  Could be.

The two runs that will likely be the most recognizable if “She-Hulk, Attorney at Law” is your point of reference, would be

It’s also worth noting the current Rainbow Rowell / Roge Antonio She-Hulk series has the first three issues for $0.99 each.

She-Hulk by Dan Slott   She-Hulk

I am the Keymaster, are you the Gatekeeper?

The IDW Locke & Key Sale runs through Monday, 8/15.

Add another streaming sale to the pile.  This time for the “modern classic” Joe Hill / Gabriel Rodriguez horror tale of magical keys that open doors to the strangest places.  And the prices are cheap!  $0.99 for the first tpb, mostly $2.99 for subsequent volumes. $0.49 single issues for most of the run.

And all this for a superior series, too.  Hype is real for this one, folks.

  • The collected editions are here.
  • Except for “The Golden Age” collection, which also includes the crossover with The Sandman. Will that eventually be a streaming crossover? A bit early to tell.  This will run you $9.99 for being more recent.
  • The single issues for the regular series
  • The single issues for The Sandman crossover – $0.99 a pop (cheap)

Locke and Key   Locke & Key: The Golden Age   Locke & Key / Sandman

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Ant-Man, DC Pride, Jeff Lemire’s Dark Horse Titles

Recent additions to the Comixology (at Amazon) sales include – DC’s Pride sale with Hellblazer, The Invisibles and Snagglepus; Ant-Man from Marvel and Dark Horse’s Jeff Lemire catalog.

Tuesday’s look at the X-Factor and Mickey Mouse sales are also still in effect.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

You’d Think This Sale Would Be All Month

The DC Pride eBook Sale runs through Monday, 6/13.

It’s Pride month and DC’s curated a bit under 400 titles for this sale.  Let’s look at the lower priced options first.

It’s always a good time for Hellblazer, with many of the earlier volumes going for $5.99. Hellblazer was consistently entertaining over it’s original run, too. (We also can’t say enough good things about the most recent series.)

Completely at $5.99/volume, you’ve also got Grant Morrison’s The Invisibles an ancient secret society that advances humanity through anarchy (read: freedom) clashes with the forces of order (read: the aristocracy); i.e. an urban fantasy about sticking it to The Man. All kinds of artists you’ll recognize on this: Steve Yeowell, Jill Thompson, Phil Jimenez, Chris Weston… even early Ivan Reis.

But perhaps the most Pride Month book of the lot is Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles. And an unusual book it is. Mark Russell and Mike Freehan recast Snagglepuss as Tennessee Williams-esque playwright in 1950s NYC. The House Unamerican Activities Committee is trolling showbiz for subversives and communists. Snagglepuss is not without his enemies and being gay only puts a bigger target on his back. Yes, Snagglepuss as a dark social and political satire. And it’s good! Worth it for the Dorothy Parker bits, alone.

Hellblazer   The Invisibles   Snagglepuss

What Did the Pink Panther Say To The Ant?

The Marvel Ant-Man Sale runs through Monday, 6/13.

Since there are multiple formats for much of this, we’re going to walk through the highlights in the cheapest formats (which means omnibus, if available).

Ant-Man/Giant-Man Masterworks is one of the occasions we’ll give Masterworks a nod over Epics. In this case, the Epic is a higher price point and isn’t complete. We will caution you that this wasn’t one of Marvel’s better known Silver Age strips for a reason, but you get Stan Lee, Larry Leiber, Jack Kirby, Don Heck, Dick Ayers, Carl Burgos and Bob Powell.  Still, it’s the Hank Pym run.

Ant-Man: Scott Lang is a compilation book of the early appearances of Scott Lang in the Ant-Man suit. i.e., Lang before Lang became more of a comedy character. This is a relatively David Michelinie-driven volume with the solo 2-parter in Marvel Premiere, an Avengers arc and an Iron Man arc.

Irredeemable Ant-Man is the Robert Kirkman / Phil Hester run with Eric O’Grady finding the Ant-Man suit. At this point, O’Grady’s an unethical SHIELD agent playing both sides against the middle and it’s a bit of a farce. And this is where Ant-Man starts being played as an action comedy. Something that’s still largely the case.

The Astonishing Ant-Man: The Complete Collection is the omnibus for the Nick Spencer era, with art by Ramon Rosanas, Anapaolo Martello and Brent Schoonover. This is where Ant-Man is reset closer to the films as more of an action-farce. Scott Lang has worse luck than Peter Parker and he tries to get his life together, get a job and start co-parenting his daughter… but things are seldom that easy.

Ant-Man: World Hive by new Spidey scribe Zeb Wells and Dylan Burnett finds Scott Lang forced to team up with Swarm. Yes, a Nazi scientist with a body made up of bees. There’s an honest-to-goodness invasion/conspiracy to create an insect uprising and he’s having the hardest time getting the Avengers… or Spidey… or even Black Cat to take him seriously. We particularly enjoyed this one.

Ant-Man Masterworks      Ant-Man: World Hive

Another Jeff (Collect Them All)

The Dark Horse Jeff Lemire Sale runs through Monday, 6.13.

As you might expect, this is dominated by the Black Hammer franchise, a superhero universe devised by Lemire and Dean Ormston.

The Black Hammer is the core series/story by Lemire and (mostly) Ormston.

The World of Black Hammer is the umbrella title for a series of mini-series that flesh out some of the characters and other corners of this universe. Lemire scripts and all sorts of artists pop up.

Note: the Library Editions tend to be a little more expensive than the regular volumes in digital and this sale.

And since Jeff Lemire is very capable of doing the illustrations himself, here are the single issues for Mazebook, a recently completed urban fantasy series where Lemire did what we like to call “The Full Cartoonist.”

Black Hammer   Unbelievable Teens   Mazebook

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Doctor Strange, Justice League, Scarlet Witch, Constantine and Jeff Lemire

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales – Doctor Strange has pretty much his entire run on sale and the Scarlet Witch joins him with a sister sale of sorts. DC celebrates the death of the Justice League with (correct) discounts and Image celebrates the work of Jeff Lemire.

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

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

Bibbidy Bobbidy Boo

The  Marvel Doctor Strange Sale runs through Sunday, 5/16.

And it’s most of the Doctor Strange material that’s been collected in book form. You’d almost think there was a movie out or something.

So first, as is our custom, we’ll walk you through the various series over the years… this is a little more complicated because the early Epic/Masterwork volumes aren’t on the same page. (We’ll let you you pick out the mini’s yourself, since those aren’t as convoluted.)

  • Strange Tales – This is a cluttered series page, but its the original Lee/Ditko run, so let’s break it down to Masterworks 1 and Masterworks 2 or Epic Edition 1
  • Doctor Strange ’68-’69 – the Masterworks listings are here and include the early Marvel Premiere run. The ’68 run is perhaps most notable for some amazing Gene Colan art, but the scripts don’t always live up to the art.
  • Doctor Strange ’74-’87 – The Masterworks here catch the end of the Marvel Premiere run and the Epics pick up with the back half of ’68 run. (Yes, it’s a confusing way to look at things.)
  • Strange Tales ’87-’88 – The Peter B. Gillis / Chris Warner era was back in Strange Tales in between the two “regular” Doctor Strange titles.
  • Doctor Strange ’88-’96 – Probably best known for the Roy & Dann Thomas run with Butch Guice and Geoff Isherwood as notable artists.
  • Doctor Strange ’15-’18 – Initially Jason Aaron/Chris Bachalo with Donny Cates tagging in towards the end. (The omnibuses here are the better buy)
  • Doctor Strange ’18-’19 – The Mark Waid / Jesus Saiz / Barry Kitson era with Strange in space.
  • Doctor Strange, Surgeon Supreme (’19) – the very much under-rated and too short Mark Waid / Kev Walker run. Walker knocks it out of the park here.
  • Death of Doctor Strange – Jed MacKay and Lee Garbett kill off Stephen Strange. For real. (OK, so far for real.) A clever series that delivers its titular promise in unexpected ways.
  • Strange (’22-?) – get the first couple issues of the new Sorcerer Supreme for $0.99

What’s good?  This is where we get into Masterworks vs. Epics… because the Masterworks are a LOT more complete right now, particularly through the 70s.  The original Lee/Ditko run is great and you can get that in the first Epic Collection. Things pick up again when Englehart and Brunner show up towards the end of the Marvel Premiere run and the whole ’74-’87 run is solid, though we have a particular soft spot for the Roger Stern / Marshall Rogers / Paul Smith material towards the end.  Yes, Doctor Strange had A list creators most of the time.  That’s your core.

Something under the radar?  The (as you’d expect with these creators) excellent Doctor Strange: The Oath by Brian K, Vaughan and Marcos Martin. The final Waid/Walker run is also a lot more under the radar than it should be.

Doctor Strange - The Oath    Doctor Strange in Strange Tales   Doctor Strange

Mutant Sorcery

The Marvel Scarlet Witch Sale runs through Sunday, 5/9.

The value buy here is Vision & The Scarlet Witch: The Saga of Wanda and Vision. It’s a sort of faux-Epic Edition, clocking in at 467 pages and including the wedding of Wanda and Vision from Giant-Size Avengers #4, the ’82 Bill Mantlo/Rick Leonardi mini-series and the ’85 Steve Englehart/Richard Howell 12-parter.

There’s a lot of West Coast Avengers in this sale, largely for Wanda’s heel-turn in the John Byrne Vision Quest/Darker than Scarlet era — the Epic Collections are the better buys here.

House of M by Brian Bendis and Olivier Coipel might be a little over-hyped at this point, but it’s the tent-pole “Wanda rewrites reality” story that’s central to the TV adaptation.

Vision and the Scarlet Witch   Avengers West Coast   House of M

Dead Again

The DC Justice League R.I.P. Sale runs through Monday, 5/16.

We’re actually not seeing the goofy $9.32 type prices on this sale that we’ve been seeing on other DC sales for the last couple months. Could the bug be fixed? That’s probably too much to ask for, but we’ll see what happens next week. In the meantime, some of these prices are a little higher than we’d like to see on a sale (part of that being the absurd practice of putting a hard cover list price on eBooks), but they seem like the intended sale prices for a change.

Anyway, this is DC’s celebrating killing off the Justice League as a lead-in to their next crossover event.  Let’s break down some of the major series here:

  • Justice League of America ’60-’87 – The original
  • Justice League of America ’87-’96 – This is, at least initially, the Justice League International / Justice League Europe run with Keith Giffen/J.M. DeMatteis / Kevin Maguire.  BWA HA HA HA HA HA
  • JLA ’97-’06 – Best known for launching with the the Grant Morrison / Howard Porter run
  • Justice League of America ’06-11 – Initially launched as Brad Meltzer / Ed Benes and eventually got Dwayne McDuffie (who was undercut by editorial)
  • Justice League ’11-’16 – The New 52 Geoff Johns era, initially with Jim Lee art.
  • Justice League ’16 – ’18 – The Bryan Hitch (as writer) era with rotating artists
  • Justice League ’18-22 – It’s probably easiest to call the most recent incarnation the Scott Snyder era, as he launched the volume. So many rotating artists here.

That the timeline of the main series.  There are plenty of mini’s and spin-off series in there for your browsing.  If you’d like some $0.99 single issues (you are heard), if you sort by lowest price, you’ll see them quickly. Yes, even JLA: Classified.

Best bets?  For pure bang for your buck, head to the original Justice League of America run and pick up the first two “Silver Age” collections. ~300 pages for $4.99.

The Morrison/Porter JLA  run isn’t nearly the price per page value, but there’s a reason everyone comes back to it. The Waid/Hitch bits aren’t bad, either.

Under the radar?  The Christopher Priest / Pete Woods arc from ~3 years back. It’s just good comics without silly crossovers.

Justice League of America   JLA   Justice League by Priest

Unadvertised Sale

We have an overlooked gem for you this week.  John Constantine, Hellblazer by Si Spurrier, Aaron Campbell and Matias Bergara. It’s not clear to us if these are random discounts or it’s just the wacky “Epic” sale discounts getting fixed on this one.  Either way, this is one of the best comics we’ve read in the last year.

This is a really an extended 12-issues arc, so you’re going to want both volumes. It starts at the end of the world and follows Constantine through a series of gangland skirmishes as he tries to perceive who or what is the strangely familiar entity pulling the strings. Sometimes straight horror, sometimes comedy (Constantine vs. the sensitive new age magician is priceless), this is quite possibly the best work of all the creators involved.

John Constantine, Hellblazer

Jeff Who?

The Image Jeff Lemire Sale runs through Monday, 5/16.

Yes, we’ll go ahead and say it: we think Jeff Lemire is at his best when he’s working on his own projects and Image has a few of them on sale. Of possible note and interest:

Gideon Falls with Andrea Sorrentino – A sort of horror/science fiction mashup that starts out rural and claustrophobic and then unfurls across a fairly epic canvas and multiple landscapes… while still managing to have that feeling of claustrophobic terror being ready to swallow up the heroes at any moment.  Rock solid dark adventure.

Descender with Dustin Nguyen is a science fiction epic about a little boy who happens to be a robot who’s looking for his family and falls into the middle of a robot rebellion. A beautiful book.

Ascender is the sequel as Lemire and Nguyen pivot for a space adventure with magic and vampires… and at least one killer robot. 😉

Gideon Falls   Descender   Ascender

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Comixology Sales: DC’s Vertigo (The Whole Thing), Alpha Flight, Hawkeye and Excellent Deals from TKO

This week’s Comixology sales include some big value in a surprising place as TKO takes a bow. DC puts Vertigo in the discount category for the week and Marvel goes for a wide thematic spread.

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

A Marvel Comics Variety Pack

Marvel’s Alpha Flight Sale runs through Sunday (1/24). For Alpha Flight, we recommend the original series, Alpha Flight “Classic”  as they’re calling it for the reprints.  That’s the John Byrne run currently available. There’s nothing wrong with the unreprinted Bill Mantlo/Mike Mignola run that this catches the tail end of, either.

Alpha Flight

Marvel’s Hawkeye Sale runs through Thursday (1/28).  And if you’re going to do Hawkeye, then you want the Matt Fraction/David Aja Hawkeye.  It’s an odd run that’s off in its own little corner of the Marvel universe and not necessarily consistent characterization with, say, Avengers… but it’s awfully entertaining. <insert Pizza Dog reference here>

Hawkeye

The Marvel Dark Reign Sale runs through Sunday (1/24). Dark Reign was an attempt to do a thematic event, as opposed to a mini-series and tie-in books.  This was effectively an event that was all tie-ins, without that central mini-series.  The premise is that after Secret Invasion, Norman Osborn manages to take over SHIELD, which he remakes in his own image and he starts to try and track down the various heroes  and expand his power base.

There is one Dark Reign sequence that stands high above the others.  Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca stopped their Iron Man storyline and moved over the “World’s Most Wanted” storyline.  Osborn wants the information in Tony Stark’s brain. Stark’s on the run and attempting to overwrite his brain so Osborn can’t get at everyone’s secret identity.  It’s a self-contained story within the Dark Reign framework and it’s available in two volumes: Iron Man: World’s Most Wanted V.1 and Iron Man: World’s Most Wanted V. 2

.Iron Man   Iron Man

Vertigo Lives On In Sales

DC’s Vertigo Sale runs through Monday (1/25).  DC cancelled Vertigo, but son of a gun if it doesn’t keep popping up as a dedicated category when things go on sale. It’s almost like people like Vertigo or something…

Since the whole thing is here, let’s highlight some of the foundational Vertigo comics.

  • Saga of the Swamp Thing – Alan Moore lit the inspirational fuse with Swamp Thing and took him on a tour of America and to the stars. Along the way, a certain Mr. Constantine was introduced.
  • Hellblazer – The Swamp Thing spin-off has been through a LOT of hands and it was the longest lived Vertigo title. Sometimes the de facto flagship, sometimes not. You can dive into pretty much any era and enjoy it.
  • Sandman – Neil Gaiman’s breakthrough project started out being grounded in the DC superhero universe and horror anthologies, then broke out into it’s own mythologies. We’ll see on TV soon enough.  This was probably the most influential title.  Sandman: The Dream Hunters with P. Craig Russel is listed separately.

If you want to throw in Doom Patrol and Shade as OG Vertigo titles, I’m probably not going to argue with those, either.  Lots of history with the imprint.

Saga of the Swamp Thing   Hellblazer   Sandman   Sandman: The Dream Hunters

TKO Has the Best Value of the Week

The TKO Linewide Sale runs through (Sunday 1/31).  You may not be familiar with TKO.  That’s OK, here at the Tower of Cheap, we hadn’t really read of their titles until last week… but we came away impressed and at $1.99/$2.99 for full graphic novels, there are great values here.

Sentient by Jeff Lemire and Gabriel Walta is the best value of the week! The solicitation is about a ship’s AI having to raise the children left on the ship after the adults perish.  You might read this and expect it to be some kind of sweet, kindly YA story. And you’d be wrong. This is a DARK, blunt and brutal science fiction tale that still fits the same description. It’s also excellent all the way around. Sentient earned it’s Eisner nomination.  Just don’t go into when you’re craving a light fluffy read.  It’s almost trigger-warning level dark.  Highly recommended.

The Fearsome Doctor Fang is written by TV writer Tze Chun and Mike Weiss with art by Dan McDaid, who’s done some Judge Dredd work over at IDW. This one is a steampunk adventure that takes the old Fu Manchu trope and inverts its it. Our mysterious science villain is actually a hero. Tech suits, missing siblings and deadly ancient treasures. Something of a steampunk Indiana Jones romp, it’s a fun comic.

Sara is by Garth Ennis and Steve Epting. While we haven’t read this one yet, it’s not really being flip when we say that you’ll already know whether or not you’ll like Ennis & Epting on a book about Russian women snipers in World War II.  Ennis WWII books are a known quantity.

Sentient   The Fearsome Doctor Fang   Sara

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