Tag: Infinity Gauntlet

Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: X-Men and Daredevil (nearly) Full Runs; Batman; Infinity Gauntlet; Usagi Yojimbo

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel puts nearly all the Daredevil and Uncanny X-Men collections on sale. And an Infinity (Gauntlet / War / Crusade) sale on top of that. DC does another installment of their “Epic” sale and Dark Horse slips in Usagi Yojimbo.

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):

X Marks the Price Tag

X-Men Epic Collection: The Sentinels Live  X-Men Epic Collection  X-Men: The Fate of the Phoenix

The Marvel Uncanny X-Men Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 3/11.

It’s a legacy sale, so it’s the Uncanny X-Men core… although this may shorter list than some of the legacy sales. For instance,  X-Men wasn’t part of Heroes Reborn, so no relaunch there.

As is our custom, let’s run through the key series included, first:

  • Uncanny X-Men ’63-’11 – The original X-Men, the “new” X-Men, Morrison… it’s a long run.
  • Uncanny X-Men  ’11-’12 – The original Kieron Gillen era
  • Uncanny X-Men ’13-’15 – The Brian Bendis / Chris Bachalo era (Battle of the Atom fits in with this run as a crossover)
  • Uncanny X-Men ’16-’17 – The Cullen Bunn / Greg Land / Ken  Lashley era
  • Uncanny X-Men ’18-’19 – The Mathew Rosenberg era

And you might be asking yourself, “aren’t there usually more than one X-Men title and don’t they cross over a lot?” Yes, that would be a potential issue… pun intended. Not so much with the Epic Collections and the Masterworks as with the later series, and there are some Event collections in the sale, too.

You should know our general advice right now. There’s a slight preference for the value of Epic Collections over Masterworks collections, but it depends on the exact price point and the Epic Collections sometimes have gaps.  That still applies here.  The wild card with X-Men is that it can get impenetrable with continuity and all the characters floating around. You can’t always just jump in.

So, recommendations with that in mind.

If you’ve never tried the original X-Men, we’d say go with The Sentinels Live Epic Collection. It’s at the very tail end of the original run that the original X-Men run is at its best: a bit of Jim Steranko and then a Roy Thomas / Neal Adams sequence that ended all too quickly.

For the “new” X-Men, we’re cool with the theory that Giant-Sized X-Men #1 / Uncanny X-Men #94 through #200 is one big arc. That’s where we’d start if we were new. The Epic Collections that are discounted only take you to #153, at which point you need to start cutting in the Masterworks editions with V. 7 through 12. (The next Epic with a discount only takes you to #198, which is short of the finish line!)

For an alternate jumping on point, perhaps the Ed Brubaker era, which is collected in three volumes starting with Rise and Fall of the Shi’ar Empire.

We thought the Bendis era was better than it’s reputation, but aware that it runs parallel with All-New X-Men, which isn’t in this sale.

If you were wondering, Grant Morrison is filed under New X-Men and not part of this sale.

Also be aware that X-Men: Reload is effectively the omnibus version of Uncanny X-Men: The New Age, where Chris Claremont returned to the book with Alan Davis.

Hornhead

Daredevil  Daredevil Epic Collection  Daredevil by Zdarsky

The Marvel Daredevil Sale runs through Monday, 3/11.

Let’s break this down by series. Like X-Men, Daredevil has had fewer relaunches than some titles.

  • Daredevil ’64-’98 – The original run. Oddly, as we type this up, the Epics are on sale and the Masterworks mostly aren’t?
  • Daredevil ’98-11 – The Marvel Knights relaunch. Kevin Smith / Brian Bendis / Ed Brubaker
    • For the Bendis and Brubaker runs, you want the Omnibus section and scroll down for their respective “Ultimate Collections”
  • Daredevil ’11-15 – This was really two volumes with an arbitrary relaunch in the middle, but the excellent run by Mark Waid / Chris Samnee / Paolo Rivera / Javier Javier Rodriguez is a better buy in this 5 volume set that collects both volumes and treats it like the single run it was.
  • Daredevil ’15-’18 – The Charles Soule era with Ron Garney as the main artist.
  • Daredevil ’19-’21 – Chip Zdarsky’s breakout title as a writer. Marco Checcetto is the primary artist.
  • Daredevil: Woman Without Fear ’22 – Zdarsky / Rafael de Latorre; Sort of a bridge title during the Devil’s Reign event, but part of the ongoing plot. Note: this is included in the final DD omnibus for the ’19-’21 run.
  • Daredevil ’22-’23 – Also known as Daredevil & Elektra. The final act to the Zdarsky/Checcetto era

What’s good here? Honestly, with the exception of the “Shadowlands” Event at the end of the Marvel Knights run, DD has been consistently good to great since Frank Miller showed up. You don’t hear us saying that about every title! We will say that Gene Colan’s return to DD (with Joe Kelly writing) seems to be under the radar these days.  But starting with Miller, just pick a run (Miller / O’Neil / Nocenti / Chichester / Kessel / Kelly / Smith / Bendis / Brubaker / Waid / Soule / Zdarsky) and dig in.

Infinite Jest

The  Marvel Infinity Sale runs through Monday, 3/11.

On the one hand, this sale would seem to be a continuation of last week’s Cosmic sale, which naturally segues into The Infinity Guantlet. On the other hand, they’re throwing in anything else with “Infinity” in the title, so we’re going to have to separate this out a little more than we normally would.

Starlin’s Infinity Saga

As you may recall from last week, Jim Starlin returned to Marvel and re-introduced Thanos in Silver Surfer, which lead up to Thanos getting his hands on the Infinity Gems and kicking off a series of Event mini-series.

Alongside those titles, Warlock & the Infinity Watch (Starlin / Angel Medina / Tom Grindberg and others) ran parallel and filled some gaps between Events.

And then some more Thanos/Infinity mini’s and graphic novels:

Avengers

Not part of the Starlin Infinity world, but thrown in for… reasons (?)

Avengers Infinity by Roger Stern / Sean Chen is a cosmic/Avengers in space tale.

Infinity is roughly the middle act of Jonathan Hickman’s massive Avengers run. That volume pulls in all the various parts and is how you want it, although we’ve said in before and we’ll say it again – Hickman’s Avengers is one long epic and if you’re going to sample, read the whole thing. The sheer scope of it adds to the experience when you start at the beginning.

Sounds Like a Marvel Brand – Week Two

Batman: Venom   Manhunter  Jimmy Olsen

The  DC Epic eBooks Part 2 Sale runs through Monday, 03/11.

This time out it’s a seriously eclectic set of volumes. Occasionally just one or two from the middle of a run.  Some things that jumped out at us?

  • Batman: Venom – Denny O’Neil / Jose Luis Garcia Lopez / Russ Braun;  Long before Knightfall, or even Vengeance of Bane, O’Neil and company did a Legends of the Dark Knight arc to introduce “Venom,” the drug that originally fueled Bane’s strength.
  • DCeased – which they really ought to file together, but don’t. It’s still entertaining stuff (and, of course, the opening volume isn’t included):
  • Fables – Bill Willingham / Mark Buckingham; the first half of the series is on sale (in double-volume format) for the classic tales of fairy tale creatures hiding out in Manhattan after their worlds are overrun by invaders.
  • Freedom Fighters: Rise of a Nation – Robert Venditti / Eddy Barrows – in a world where the Nazis discovered the payload of a certain rocket from Krypton and over-ran the world, the Freedom Fighter form up as the resistance. A vastly overlooked take on the original concept.
  • Manhunter – Archie Goodwin and Walt Simonson tell a superb tale of spies, ninjas, clone and a certain caped crusader. One of the best adventure comics of all-time.
  • The Road to Perdition – Max Allen Collins / Richard Piers Rayner – A mob enforcer and his son go into hiding after a betrayal. You may have seen the film version.
  • Superman: The Phantom Zone – Steve Gerber / Gene Colan / Rick Veitch – Leave it to Gerber to come up with a creepy, horror-tinged take on Superman. There are much stranger things in the Phantom Zone that you realized. (Big thumbs up.)
  • Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen: Who Killed Jimmy Olsen? – Matt Fraction / Steve Lieber – Jimmy wakes up hungover and married in Gorilla City… and that’s not even the silliest part. One of the funniest comics of the last few years. A+

Rabbit Rabbit

Usagi Yojimbo

We have an unannounced Dark Horse sale on Usagi Yojimbo.

This is Stan Sakai’s revered and long running series about a samurai/ronin rabbit. “Beloved” is a good word for it.

The real bargain is the $6.99 “Saga” omnibus editions.

Filed separately, is the  Saga “Legends” volume, which includes things like Space Usagi.

If you’re in the market for single volumes, those are $4.99… but only for Vol. 8 and higher. (Hey, don’t look at us! We think that’s peculiar, too… but the Saga volumes are a better buy.)

Also Unannounced…

BAKEMONOGATARI

Vertical’s manga series BAKEMONOGATARI is on sale for $3.99/volume (although we can’t tell you where V. 1 went to…)

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Still on Sale

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Comixology Sales – Jason Aaron gets the discount spotlight from Marvel, plus Black Hammer

This week’s Comixology sale highlights include Marvel putting the spotlight on Jason Aaron, plus Jeff Lemire’s and Dean Ormston’s Black Hammer.

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

Jason Aaron’s Spotlight Begins

The Marvel Jason Aaron Sale runs through Thursday, 7/1.

Perhaps best described as the regular Marvel U Jason Aaron, this covers a lot of territory.

If you want a value buy, there’s the nice thick volumes of Thor by Jason Aaron: The Complete Collection, which starts with the “God Butcher” material and features art by the likes of Nic Klein, Ron Garney, Esad Ribic and Russell Dauterman (among others) as the saga unfolds and Jane Foster moves to center stage.

There’s also the entire “Life and Death of Conan” run by Aaron and Mahmud Arsar from Conan the Barbarian, now in one volume.

And quite a bit more, since Aaron’s had a long run at Marvel.

Thor by Jason Aaron   Conan the Barbarian

Ultimate Aarons?

The Marvel Ultimate Universe  Sale runs through Sunday, 6/27.

You already know about the original flagship titles of the Ultimate run, so let’s look at a couple things from a bit later in the universe from names you might just find familiar.

How about Ultimate Captain America by Jason Aaron (him again?) and Ron Garney, which we enjoyed back in the day.

And before was the X-Men showrunner, Jonathan Hickman had a run on Ultimate Comics – The Ultimates with Esad Ribic as the primary artist. Most people would consider that an interesting creative pair, we think.

Ultimate Captain America   Ultimate Comics - The Ultimates

Getting Hammered

The  Dark Horse Black Hammer Sale runs through Monday, 6/28.

This critical darling by Jeff Lemire and Dean Ormston is very much a world building experience.  Start with the core series and then branch to the spin-offs as the spotlighted characters catch your fancy.  There’s plenty of imagination to go around.

Black Hammer

Still on Sale

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Comixology Sales: Loki; Great Discounts on Green Arrow; Luke Cage; Marvel Infinity Events; Frank Miller, Dave Gibbons and Bryan Talbot

This week’s Comixology Sales include DC finally returning to GOOD discounts with a Green Arrow sale; Marvel offers up Loki, Luke Cage and Infinity Events; and Dark Horse has a most singular history sale.

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

The Emerald Archer – On the Cheap

The DC Green Arrow Sale runs through Monday, 6/14 and this time DC is being a bit more generous with the discounts.  $1.99 collected editions.  80% off and up.  CHEAP.

Once ejected from Green Lantern, Green Arrow was floating around as a backup feature in World’s Finest and Detective Comics. It was Mike Grell who created the breakout for the character, first with The Longbow Hunters prestige mini-series and then the long-running Green Arrow solo title with Ed Hannigan, Dan Jurgens and Rick Hoberg taking turns on the art for the regular series.

Jump ahead to 2001 and there’s another major relaunch. Kevin Smith (yes, ‘ole snootchie bootchies himself) wrote the first two arcs with Phil Hester and Ande Parks on art, with novelist Brad Meltzer and Judd Winnick following as writers.  The Green Arrow by Kevin Smith omnibus is a pretty good buy here, collecting both the Quiver and Sounds of Violence books.

Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters   Green Arrow   Green Arrow by Kevin Smith

The Prince of Lies

The Marvel Loki Sale runs through Sunday, 6/20. (You’d think there was a TV show or something?)

The obvious things people are talking about with Loki are the Al Ewing / Lee Garbett Loki: Agent of Asgard and the Kieron Gillen/Doug Braithwaite Journey Into Mystery.

A deep cut that not enough people know about?  Thor: The Might Avenger by Roger Langridge and Chris Samnee is a really strong take on the Thor mythos with a Silver Age flavor to it.  This came out before many people knew who Samnee was and we’re not sure Langridge has ever quite gotten his due. This is an under the radar gem.

If you’re looking to add to your set of Epic Collections, there are several Thor editions on the second page of the sale.

Loki: Agent of Asgard   Journey Into Mystery   Thor: The Mighty Avenger

To Infinity and Beyond

The Marvel Infinity Sale runs through Thursday, 6/17.

While the Hickman Infinity event is a good one, we still maintain that Hickman’s Avengers is one loooooong story and trying to cherry pick the middle is a futile exercise. By all means, read the _whole_ thing. Just don’t start in the middle.

The original Infinity trilogy, that’s another story.  Infinity Gauntlet by Jim Starlin, George Perez and Ron Lim? A classic that’s spawned a LOT of stuff. Infinity War is the next volume by Starlin & Lim, with additional art by Tom Raney, Angel Medina and Shawn McManus.  Infinity Crusade, again written by Starlin with art (primarily) by Lim and Raney wraps up the original trilogy.

We haven’t read the “Aftermath” volumes as books, but our recollection is they have some relevance to the overall saga, particularly the Starlin-written issues. Probably more for completists, but not pure cashgrabs.

Infinity Gauntlet  Infinity War  Infinity Crusade

Sweet Christmas

The Marvel Luke Cage Sale runs through Sunday, 6/13.

If we’re honest, our favorite Luke Cage run is the Power Man & Iron Fist era of “Heroes for Hire.” It’s quirky and you get quite the parade of talent on this across the Epic Collections on sale.  You get a little Claremont & Byrne as it kicks off.   Mary Jo Duffy, Denny O’Neil, Archie Goodwin, Steven Grant and some early Kurt Busiek is a pretty solid range of writers. Artists include Kerry Gammill, Denys Cowan, Keith Pollard and Ernie Chan.  Solid packages, plus the value of Epic Collections.

For something more off the beaten path (and yet more mainstream in that way peculiar to superhero comics), there’s always Cage by Genndy Tartakovsky.  You know, the guy behind Samauri Jack, Clone Wars and Hotel Transylvania? 

Power Man and Iron Fist   Cage!

But then our history was never quite like this…

The Dark Horse History Sale runs through Monday, 6/14… although some of our favorite collections from the sale require a very open-minded definition of “history.”

Grandville by the illustrious and illustrative Bryan Talbot is an anthropomorphic steampunk series in a world where France won the Napoleonic Wars. An inspector from Scotland Yard faces all manner retro pulp-ish foes. It’s a very good sequence of graphic novels.

It’s been awhile since we’ve heard anyone mention Give Me Liberty  or Martha Washington. The Life and Times of Martha Washington in the Twenty-First Century (Second Edition) by Frank Miller and Dave Gibbons collects the entire Martha Washington sequence by two comics legends – Miller writing and Gibbons on the art. A near future science fiction tale when released in the ’90s, it follows the life of Martha Washington who escapes a detention-facility version of Chicago’s Cabrini Green housing projects, joins the army and eventually makes it to space.  A pretty notable series in it’s day.

Grandville   Martha Washington

Still on Sale

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Comixology Sales Roundup: Darth Vader, Miracleman, Punisher, Metal, Astro Boy, Umbrella Academy and Imports

This week in Comixology sales finds Marvel opening some slightly different vaults, DC venturing to dark place, Dark Horse being media-friendly and the joy of Jazz Maynard.

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

Darth Vader = Good Comics

Let’s start with the good stuff: the Marvel  Darth Vader Sale.  Darth Vader has been the best Star Wars title.  We’re mainly looking at two runs here: the all-caps EXCELLENT Kieron Gillen / Salvador Larroca run and the very good Charles Soule / Giuseppe Camuncoli run.

Two things to pay attention to:

1)Vader Down is the real V. 3 of the Gillen/Larroca run, you’ll need it.
2)We’d say the Soule/Camuncoli doesn’t really hit it’s stride until V.2 and the Jedi librarian.  Remember, you want the 6-issue original tpbs of this run, much cheaper than the 12 issue collections.

This sale runs through Sunday (1/10).

Vader  Vader Series 2  Vader Down

“The Original Writer” and Marvel Max Titles

Then you’ve got the Marvel Max sale that runs through Thursday (1/14).  Marvel Max being theoretically for grownups and usually is more violent (although you have your odd adult situations and a childbirth scene).

Let’s start off with Miracleman – Parental Advisory Edition. Yeah, there’s a childbirth scene in there.  Sense 8 wasn’t the first to have one of those, even if they were, perhaps, a bit more fixated on it.  The “Original Writer” in the credits is Alan Moore. He doesn’t have the best relations with Marvel.  Artists on this include Gary Leach, Alan Davis, John Ridgeway, Rick Veitch and John Totleben. It’s an early more post-modern deconstruction where Miracleman (originally Marvelman, a UK knock-off of Captain Marvel after it Fawcett lost the DC lawsuit and ceased publication) awakens after a time… away and all sorts of unpleasantness follows.  Hugely influential comic that was out of circulation for quite some time.

This sequence is followed by Miracleman by Gaiman & Buckingham, Vol 1.: The Golden Age. Yes, that would be Neil Gaiman and Mark Buckingham. One day, there might be another volume in this series. It’s been talked about for a very long time.

Miracleman   Miracleman by Gaiman & Buckingham

The Garth Ennis Punisher runs have always been a big part of Marvel Max.  You can still get his excellent and hilarious “Welcome Back Frank” sequence with Steve Dillon in this sale, but we’d point out the more serious Punisher run Ennis did with Leandro Fernandez, Darick Robertson, Doug Braithwaite and Goran Parlov, among others.  It’s a quality, hard as nails run that doesn’t always get the fanfare of the lighter version.  Punisher Max: The Complete Collection V. 1-4 covers the Ennis run.

Punisher Max

A Trail of Infinity Events

The Infinity Gauntlet sale runs through Thursday (1/14). We say go back to the originals.  Avengers Vs. Thanos collects the original Captain Marvel and Warlock sequences by Jim Starlin, the father of this saga.  Infinity Gauntlet started the current cycle, written by Starlin with art by George Perez and Ron Lim.

If you’re looking at the Jonathan Hickman’s Avengers sequence – and it’s a true epic – know that you can’t do into it halfway.  It’s all or nothing.  Avengers, New Avengers, Infinity, Time Runs Out AND Secret Wars.  That’s one long, complex story.

Avengers Vs. Thanos   Infinity Gauntlet

DC Goes Dark

DC’s Darkest Hour Sale runs through Monday (1/11) and it’s a fairly small sale.  DCeased and the Dark Night: Metal titles.  It’s quick to browse, but we feel obliged to point out you can save a little money getting the DCeased and Dark Nights: Metal (the main book) as $0.99 single issues.

Dark Nights: Metal

Import Goodness

The Magnetic Press New Year’s Linewide Sale runs through Monday (1/11) and it’s filled with some absolutely lovely European imports.  Seriously, browse some of those books.  Top flight art.  What we’d really like to draw your attention to here is Jazz Maynard by Raule and Roger Ibanez Ugena.  Formally, it’s about an ex-con getting dragged back into his old world, but this comic is more about how the story is told.  A noir-ish tale of a rogue, it reminded us of a modern setting for Corto Maltese and we’re not ones to invoke a Corto Maltese vibe lightly.

Jazz Maynard

DH Transmedia Options

The  Dark Horse Screen to Comics Sale runs through Monday (1/11) and has a fair amount of comics to screen. It’s comics based on TV & movies AND comics that have been adapted.  Things like Osamu Tezuka’s Astro Boy manga.  (Note: the first bundle is really V.1 & 2 in the same package. $3.99 for 424 pages is good deal.)  Hellboy is one of Dark Horse’s flagship properties. Your best value there is the Omnibus editions, some of which have pretty generous page counts. Umbrella Academy is the current Dark Horse media adaption star over at Netflix.

Astro Boy   Hellboy   Umbrella Academy

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