Tag: Iron Man

Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Iron Man, Punisher, X-Men, Cyberpunk 2077, My Friend Dahmer

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel drops another 7 sales. Plus, Cyberpunk 2077 and more Calvin and Hobbes.

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]: We’re not sure how long that Marvel early Prime Day sale is running, but check out last week for a rundown.

Does Whatever An Iron Can…

Iron Man: The Man Who Killed Tony Stark  Iron Man: Heroes Reborn  Iron Man: Big Iron

The Marvel Iron Man Sale runs through Monday, 6/29.

This would be one of those sales where most of the hero’s run is on sale, so we’re going to follow our usual protocol and start out by breaking out the primary titles and volumes. Iron Man isn’t as goofy to follow as, say, Spider-Gwen… but there are “quirks.” Oddly, this time out, titles with a word other than “Invincible” in front of “Iron Man” are omitted. (Infamous, International, etc.) Intentional or the new digital guy is from a film background and unfamiliar with the catalog? We’re not sure.

  • Tales of Suspense – Iron Man debuted here in what was a split book with Captain America for most of the run. (The Epic Collections have been redirected to the next link)
  • Iron Man ’68-’96 – The original solo run in the era before constant relaunch gimmicks. This is now the Epic Collection link and all other collections from this run appeared to be floating on Amazon, untethered to a series.

OK, sit tight. The ’98 -’04 run is collected in VERY odd ways and poorly cataloged for browsing.  The truly excellent Kurt Busiek/Sean Chen/Patrick Zircher run lasts from 1-25. We can’t find 15-25 collected? (That entire run should be!)  You can catch 1-14  in cheap omnibus form here.  (No idea why the Mike Grell omnibus isn’t on sale.) You can catch Joe Quesada’s scripting run (26-32) and the Avengers: Disassembled tie-in late in this run in single volumes here. (But get the omnibus version for Busiek.)

  • Iron Man ’04-07 – Best known for launching with the “Extremis” storyline
  • Invincible Iron Man ’08-’12 – The excellent Matt Fraction / Salvador Larroca run. Save some money with the omnibus collecting the first 3 volumes.
  • Iron Man ’12-’14 – The Kieron Gillen run with Greg Land as initial artist
  • Invincible Iron Man ’15-’16 – Brian Bendis and David Marquez/Mike Deodato, Jr. start out with Tony Stark in the armor
  • Invincible Iron Man ’16-’18 – Brian Bendis and Stefano Caselli with Riri Williams/Ironheart filling Tony Stark’s shoes (yes, parallel substitute Iron Man runs)
  • Iron Man ’20-’22 – The Christopher Cantwell / Cafu run.
  • Invincible Iron Man ’22-’24 – Gerry Duggan / Juan Frigeri
  • Iron Man ’24-’25 – Spencer Ackerman / Julius Ohta

So what’s good?  We haven’t read ALL the Iron Man out there, but we’ve read a lot of them.

In our opinion Iron Man starts hitting it’s stride when Archie Goodwin arrives toward the end of the Tales of Suspense run and then is pure gold through issue 28 of the ’68 Iron Man series. Artists for this run include Gene Colan and George Tuska. Iron Man Epic Collection: The Man Who Killed Tony Stark collects most of that.

The next “all-star” run is #116-157 of the original Iron Man, that’s the David Michelinie / John Romita, Jr. / Bob Layton run that’s most famous for the “Demon in a Bottle” alcoholism arc, but there’s more to the run than just that arc.  The Denny O’Neil / Luke McDonnell run that follows is solid (make sure you get a collection that includes #200!!!), then Michelinie & Layton return for #215-250 with a few artists, including Mark Bright and Jackson Guice… with Layton even switching to penciller, instead of his usual inking post, for parts of it.  This second run is most famous for “Armor Wars” (originally known as Stark Wars).

When Heroes Return hits, Kurt Busiek and Sean Chen are pop in for the excellent 1998 run, of which only 1-14 are currently collected.

The ’08 – ’12 run by Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca is particularly good. You know how modern Marvel titles can get sidetracked by Events? Fraction and Larroca lean into it and produce a lengthy and self-contained arc with Tony Stark on the run and attempting to overwrite his brain to keep everyone’s secrets out of the hands of Norman Osborn. Yes, an honest to goodness great Event tie-in arc. It’s a rare thing.

We were quite happy with the  Christopher Cantwell/Cafu run. Tony Stark chases Korvac into outer space and meditates on the nature of godhood, good intentions and addictions. Lots of character work and action.

Crime and Punisher-ment

Punisher: Circle of Blood   Punisher: The Resurrection of Ma Gnucci  Punisher

The Marvel Punisher Sale runs through Monday, 6/29.

Gosh, you’d think Frank Castle had been on streaming or something…

First, the “general audience” Punisher:

  • The Punisher ’87-’95 – Note that the first Epic Collection here collects the ’86 Steven Grant/Mike Zeck Circle of Blood mini-series that kicked off the Punisher’s rise to prominence. Yes, Whilce Portacio drew Punisher before X-Men
  • Punisher War Journal ’88-’95 – This volume is notable for the Carl Potts / Jim Lee work. Yes, Jim Lee drew Punisher War Journal before X-Men.
  • Punisher War Zone ’92-’95 – Yes, Frank Castle was holding down three titles/month in the early ’90s! Collected here are a pair of Chuck Dixon tales with John Buscema and Joe Kubert as the respective artists.
  • Punisher War Journal ’06-’09 – Probably best known for Matt Fraction and Ariel Olivetti
  • Punisher ’00 – Garth Ennis / Steve Dillon; Collects the immortal “Welcome Back, Frank”
  • Punisher: The Resurrection of Ma Gnucci (Punisher War Zone) ’08-’09 – Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon team for a sequel to Welcome Back, Frank
  • Punisher ’09-’10 – The Rick Remender run, for which the third volume is Franken-Castle
  • The Punisher ’11-’12 – The Greg Rucka / Marco Checchetto (now more associated with Daredevil) run
  • The Punisher ’14-15 – Nathan Edmondson / Mitch Gerads. Yes, Mitch Gerards as in Mister Miracle and Sheriff of Babylon
  • The Punisher ’16-18 – Starts out with Becky Cloonan / Steve Dillon
  • The Punisher ’18-’19 – Matthew Rosenberg / Szymon Kudranski
  • Punisher ’22-’23 – Jason Aaron / Jesus Saiz / Paul Azaceta
  • Punisher War Journal ’22-’23 – Torunn GrØnbekk / Djibril Morissette-Phan

What’s good? Actually, we like the original Marvel Super Action magazine version by Archie Goodwin and Tony DeZuniga, but that’s not on the menu.

Our favorite run of the above is probably the Ennis/Dillon “Welcome Back, Frank.” We also were pretty fond of the Rucka / Checchetto run when it was coming out. It’s also worth going back and seeing where all the fuss started with the Grant/Zeck mini and the Baron/Janson/Portacio ongoing.

Then there’s the Max line. “Mature Readers” Punisher, if you will.

Punisher Max: The Complete Collection is the ’04-’09 run that’s most associated with Garth Ennis returning to the character (with art by Darick Robertson, Leandro Fernendez, Doug Braithwaite and Goran Parlov, among others). This is Ennis doing the serious Punisher, as opposed to the hilarity of Welcome Back, Frank. Mike Benson, Victor Gischler and Jason Aaron pop up at the end of the run. There’s also an omnibus available.

Ultimate… Everything?

Ultimate Spider-Man The Ultimates Ultimate Black Panther

The  Marvel Ultimate Universe Sale runs through Monday 6/29.

Yes, this is pretty much EVERYTHING Ultimate – old and new universes. Perhaps it’s less clunky if we break this into segments?

The New Ultimate Universe

The setup for the new Ultimate Universe is Ultimate Invasion by Jonathan Hickman & Bryan Hitch. The original Ultimate Universe was destroyed, but not everyone from that dimension was destroyed. Miles Morales survived and moved over the “616” or main Marvel universe. As did Reed Richards… except the Ultimate Reed Richards went bad and has been calling himself “The Maker.” That’s the setup before Invasion where The Maker escapes captivity, escapes into the multiverse and causes the origins of a new world’s heroes not to happen. Peter Parker is never bitten by a radioactive spider for instance. He’s just a photographer with a family by the time this series hits and this sets up the new line of titles.

Ultimate Spider-Man is a definite contender for the best thing Marvel’s putting out right now and we’re big on Ultimates, too.

Ultimate Spider-Man

Ultimate Spider-Man   Ultimate Comics Spider-Man   Ultimate Comics Spider-Man: Death of Spider-Man Fallout

This is the original Brian Bendis/Mark Bagley Ultimate Spider-Man. The first Ultimate title and (along with Daredevil) what originally made Bendis his reputation at Marvel.  And it’s a good run, too. Afterwards… enter Miles Morales, who’s become celebrated in his own right.

Ultimate X-Men

Ultimate X-Men  Ultimate Comics X-Men

Over on the mutant side of the street, the spread looks like this:

The original Ultimate X-Men run has a very interesting writer rotation. Mark Millar begins and ends it. In between are runs by Brian K. Vaughan (Saga / Y – The Last Man) and Robert Kirkman (Walking Dead). The artist rotation includes Adam Kubert, Andy Kubert, Chris Bachalo, David Finch, Brandon Peterson, Stuart Immonen, Tom Raney and Salvador Larocca… among others.

Ultimate Comics X-Men was written first by Nick Spencer and later Brian Wood. Artists included Paco Medina, Carlo Barberi, Mahmud Asrar and Alvaro Martinez.

The Ultimates, Ultimate FF and the greater Ultimate Universe

Ultimates Ultimate Fantastic Four Ultimate Comics - The Ultimates

There a bit more to the sale, but that’s the bulk of the highlights. What’s good? The Millar/Hitch Ultimates are hugely influential (especially to the film world). Ultimate FF absolutely has it’s moments. Not everybody realizes that the Marvel Zombies debuted in V. 3 (omnibus version) and are not played for laughs.  Now, we don’t often issue “avoid” warnings around here, but there are a couple things here that we’ll advise against. The Orson Scott Card Ultimate Iron Man? Don’t bother. It’s awful. Ultimatum? Nope! That very nearly killed the line. There are MUCH better things to read in this imprint than those two.

Red… Like a Valentine

Red Hulk Scorched Earth  Fall of the Hulks - Red Hulk  U.S.Avengers

The Marvel Red Hulk sale runs through Monday 6/29.

The main title is the ’08 – ’13 Hulk series. 17 years after the series launched, we’ll risk the spoiler of the opening arc and say this is where Thunderbolt Ross becomes the Red Hulk. (There’s also an Epic Collection available.)

You might want to add Fall of the Hulks: Red Hulk and read it before you get to issue #18. It’s part of the larger “Fall of the Hulks” event that’s not totally collected in the Hulk series. This is by Jeff Parker and Carlos Rodrigues.

After Loeb leaves, Jeff Parker takes over writing and we actually prefer the Parker take on the character. The artists move around a little (it’s that era of Marvel) but Gabriel Hardman / Patrick Zircher / Dale Eaglesham is a pretty good rotation. (And you should have a look at Zircher’s Solomon Kane over in the recent Savage Sword of Conan.)

The more recent title is Red Hulk by Benjamin Percy &Geoff Shaw.

The Hela You Say…

Thor Modern Epic Collection  Journey Into Mystery  Thor Epic Collection: The Fall Of Asgard

The Marvel Hela Sale runs through Monday, 6/29

Hela as in Marvel’s version of Hel, the Norse goddess of death. What we have here is largely a set of Thor collections (a ton of those between this sale and the Pride sale).

Some highlights:

Living in the Past

X-Factor  X-Force  X-Factor by Peter David

The Marvel X-Men ’97 Sale runs through Monday, 6/29.

This… is perhaps a misnamed sale. X-Men ’97 is a continuation of the ’90s cartoon. In this sale we find everything for the ’24-’25 X-Factor by Mark Russell & Bob Quinn (which we liked) to the first adventures of The New Mutants from the early 80s. It’s worth browsing for your mutant fix.

Also of note:

Kitty’s Name Is Spelled Differently

The Marvel Pride Sale runs through Monday 6/29.

Unusual to see Marvel having a Pride Month sale and DC not. My, how the times are changing.

This is a wide-ranging sale and not everything in it is particularly Pride-centric (like every appearance of Hercules going back to the 60s). There’s a LOT of books here, so take a browse at your leisure. We’ll be pointing out some books that are a little more appropriate for the sale and are good reads.

Unannounced Sales

Cyberpunk 2077 Big City Dreams  My Friend Dahmer Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat: A Calvin and Hobbes Collection

As always, it isn’t clear when the unannounced sales will end.

Looks like there’s an unannounced sale on Dark Horse’s Cyberpunk 2077. A video game adaptation with an interesting award to its credit.

The first five collections can be found here.

After which, the property went to the album format Dark Horse sometimes uses for titles with a higher bookstore profile, which are listed with the single issues:

There’s also The World of Cyberpunk 2077.

Masters of the Universe (otherwise known as He-Man) is still on sale.

Also on sale:

And have a look at the $5 and under page.

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Still on Sale

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Batman; Marvel Omnibuses and Epic Collections; Groo

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, DC has a Batman sale. Marvel adds some random Omnibuses and Epic Collections to the discount pile. Plus, Groo.

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):

Holy Mixed Bag Batman!

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns  Batman: Knightfall  Tales of the Batman: Archie Goodwin

The Lego Batman Sale runs through Monday, 6/1.

It’s a DC sale, so you might expect it to be a corporate synergy event. And it would appear you’re right as the Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight video game launches.

Not all of these prices are great. We would also hasten to remind you that DC typical drops the recent digital collections to $9.99 after a few months… or to mimic the stylings of Frank Gorshin: “Riddle me this: when is a sale, not a sale?” We’re also not fond of some of the prices on the Tales of the Batman volumes, but will concede some of those $9.99 prices could be the best we’re getting (as we curse the phenomenon of HC pricing for digital). The rest of them… well, judge for yourself.

That being said, here are a few things where we were OK with the prices:

Epics and Omnibi and Marvel, Oh My!

Invincible Iron Man Omnibus  Rom: The Original Marvel Years Omnibus  Power Man and Iron Fist

Marvel has an unnamed sale with no dates attached to it. We’re double-not-sure how long it’s going to last, but there are a few worthwhile things we would draw your attention to:

What’s good?

Invincible Iron Man Omnibus V. 2 will get you the bulk of the Archie Goodwin run, which is where Iron Man really takes off, as far as we’re concerned.

Rom is not always on sale and these licensed books sometimes disappear, so if it’s your jam, consider getting it while available at a better price.

The full run isn’t discounted, but Miracleman Vol. 1: A Dream Of Flying is the beginning of a classic run.

There’s a bit more to the sale than the above, should you care to browse.

Unannounced Sales

Groo Meets Tarzan Groo These Savage Shores

As always, it isn’t clear when the unannounced sales will end.

Yes, it’s still going strong, AND it’s on sale: Groo by Sergio Aragonés and Mark Evanier. Also included:

Dark Horse is still having a sale on their Mark Millar line of comics, AKA Millarworld, including:

For our money, Starlight is way under appreciated. The Hollywood elevator pitch would be along the lines of “Flash Gordon’s retirement isn’t going well.”

Also on sale:

And have a look at the $5 and under page.

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Spider-Man, Avengers, Iron Man, X-Force, Rogue

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel continues their recent trend of dropping a bundle of discounts toward the top of the month.

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):

A Spider a Day Keeps Doc Ock Away

Amazing Spider-Man  Amazing Spider-Man  Amazing Spider-Man - Kraven's Last Hunt

Marvel’s Amazing Spider-Man Sale runs through Monday, 1/26.

There’s a lot of ground to cover here, so let’s break it down by series.

  • Amazing Spider-Man (1963-98) – The original run before Marvel became quite so obsessed with rebooting titles.
  • Amazing Spider-Man (1998 – 2013) – This run starts out with the controversial J. Michael Straczynski/John Romita, Jr./Mike Deodato, Jr. run, then goes into the excellent Brand New Day era with rotating creative teams and segues into the beginning of the Dan Slott era. (Slott’s written a LOT of Spidey.)
  • Amazing Spider-Man (2014 – 15) – Peter’s back in control and the Slott era continues.
  • Amazing Spider-Man(2015-2018) – It’s a relaunch. (Hey, Spidey’s been relaunched a lot less than Captain Marvel!) This is the end run of the Slott era, culminating in the Red Goblin affair. The “Worldwide Collection” omnibuses are the better buy.
  • Amazing Spider-Man (2018 – 22) – The Nick Spenser era is here, PLUS the 4 volumes of Spider-Man Beyond with Ben Reilly stepping in that take place prior to the next series (and set up portions of it)
  • Amazing Spider-Man (2022 – 25) – The recent Zeb Wells / John Romita, Jr. / Ed McGuinness run. (And then Joe Kelly at the end.)

Recommendations?  Well, first off Amazing Spider-Man doesn’t really have very many BAD periods until the excesses of the Clone Saga (which some would argue are highlights). Oh, some runs are definitely better than others, but there aren’t huge swaths of duds.

You can definitely pick your poison between the $5.99 Masterworks and $6.99 – $8.99 Epic Collections for the original run. The Epics are typically much larger collections for only a buck more, but it depends on which format you started buying and which era you’re interested in. Some stretches are only in Masterworks, some are only in Epic.

Of possible interest, but NOT included in the link for the V.1 of Amazing is the Kraven’s Last Hunt Epic Collection, so we’ll call that one out directly. You get the J.M. DeMatteis/Mike Zeck classic, plus the issues of Amazing around it, plus Spider-Man Vs. Wolverine for about the price of just getting the regular Kraven collection.

And yes, we did enjoy the recently completed Zeb Wells / (mostly) John Romita, Jr. series. It’s a little more somber than we were expecting from Wells, but it largely a good ride. And this is a series that plays the long game resolving subplots. Not everyone agrees with that, but so be it.

Avengers Assemble

Avengers Assemble

The Marvel Avengers Sale runs through Monday, 1/26

And this as pretty much everything.

Let’s start about by breaking down the major series/titles on sale:

The Jonathan Hickman era

Avengers by Jonathan Hickman

The Hickman era is a little complicated, because his Avengers and New Avengers titles run together, so the Avengers by Jonathan Hickman collections are what we’d recommend for a more natural reading experience. Those collect both titles, plus tie-ins… and this is something were reading order counts.

But, this being Marvel collections, it get more complicated. The Avengers/New Avengers material (whichever format you read it in) is just one segment of Hickman’s tale. The story is continued in Avengers: Time Runs Out, which is the real last arc of Avengers and New Avengers. (And it’s in the “by Hickman” omnibuses.)

And all this funnels into Secret Wars, the true endgame of Hickman’s Avengers run… which, of course, is not included in the sale…

The Hickman era really is it’s own beast. A lot of comics talk about having an “epic scale.” This one’s scope is staggering and the sheer size of the scope means it gets better and better as things progress in a way few comics really do. So just know that the entire era is effectively one extended story and it’s a real “in for a penny, in for a pound” thing.

The Jason Aaron era

Avengers

While not necessarily as complex as the Hickman era, there are a few different ways to read it:

Enter Jed MacKay

Avengers

And that brings us to the current Jed MacKay / C.F. Villa Avengers run.

West Coast Avengers

Avengers West Coast

It’s close enough to it’s own franchise, let’s give it a sub-category. (I mean even DC moved to the West Coast. It’s a thing.)

Let’s run down the highlights of the rest of it:

We’re partial to the original Englehart / Milgrim West Cost Avengers. There’s a case to be made for the Byrne run, but that one is a lightning rod for strong opinions.

What’s at the top of the list for recommendations?

For the classic series, there are a lot of good runs. The first Roy Thomas/John Buscema run, particularly around the introduction of The Vision. The Kree-Skrull War. Steve Englehart’s Run. Jim Shooter’s run. Roger Stern’s run, particularly when the team of John Buscema and Tom Palmer return. There is a ton of good stuff to look at. When we factor in price point and page count (some of the newer Epic Collections are a little more expensive), we keep coming back to The Final Threat. Steve Englehart/ Gerry Conway / Jim Shooter / George Perez / John Byrne / John Buscema / Sal Buscema. You get the return of Wonder Man, “The Private War of Doctor Doom,” and “Bride of Ultron” for the major arcs. It’s a nice cross-section of creators and stories for $6.99.  But really, it’s hard to go wrong with the Kree-Skrull War through ~#200, and then pick it up again for Roger Stern, particularly Stern/John Buscema/Tom Palmer. Stick around for Walt Simonson.

We’re also major fans of the Kurt Busiek / George Perez run that begins here. A second golden age that stands up with the best runs.  Avengers Forever, which runs somewhat in parallel with this run, is a great stand-alone adventure.

We also thought the Dan Slott Mighty Avengers run was a fun slice of “traditional” Avengers in the middle of the Bendis “New Avengers” era.

The real under the radar one here is the Gerry Duggan Savage Avengers run. If you’ve had an itch for some classic Defenders, this (of all things) might scratch it. It’s offbeat, fun and the sequence where Conan humiliates/shames Doctor Doom while having dinner with him has to be experienced to be believed.

Let’s face it, there have been a lot of good Avengers runs.

Does Whatever An Iron Can…

Iron Man: The Man Who Killed Tony Stark  Iron Man: Heroes Reborn  Iron Man: Big Iron

The Marvel Iron Man Sale runs through Monday, 1/26

This would be one of those sales where most of the hero’s run is on sale, so we’re going to follow our usual protocol and start out by breaking out the primary titles and volumes. Iron Man isn’t as goofy to follow as, say, Spider-Gwen… but there are “quirks.” Oddly, this time out, titles with a word other than “Invincible” in front of “Iron Man” are omitted. (Infamous, International, etc.) Intentional or the new digital guy is from a film background and unfamiliar with the catalog? We’re not sure.

  • Tales of Suspense – Iron Man debuted here in what was a split book with Captain America for most of the run.
  • Iron Man ’68-’96 – The original solo run in the era before constant relaunch gimmicks

OK, sit tight. The ’98 -’04 run is collected in VERY odd ways and poorly cataloged for browsing.  The truly excellent Kurt Busiek/Sean Chen/Patrick Zircher run lasts from 1-25. We can’t find 15-25 collected? (That entire run should be!)  You can catch 1-14  in cheap omnibus form here.  (No idea why the Mike Grell omnibus isn’t on sale.) You can catch Joe Quesada’s scripting run (26-32) and the Avengers: Disassembled tie-in late in this run in single volumes here. (But get the omnibus version for Busiek.)

  • Iron Man ’04-07 – Best known for launching with the “Extremis” storyline
  • Invincible Iron Man ’08-’12 – The excellent Matt Fraction / Salvador Larroca run. Save some money with the omnibus collecting the first 3 volumes.
  • Iron Man ’12-’14 – The Kieron Gillen run with Greg Land as initial artist
  • Invincible Iron Man ’15-’16 – Brian Bendis and David Marquez/Mike Deodato, Jr. start out with Tony Stark in the armor
  • Invincible Iron Man ’16-’18 – Brian Bendis and Stefano Caselli with Riri Williams/Ironheart filling Tony Stark’s shoes (yes, parallel substitute Iron Man runs)
  • Iron Man ’20-’22 – The Christopher Cantwell / Cafu run.
  • Invincible Iron Man ’22-’24 – Gerry Duggan / Juan Frigeri
  • Iron Man ’24-’25 – Spencer Ackerman / Julius Ohta

So what’s good?  We haven’t read ALL the Iron Man out there, but we’ve read a lot of them.

In our opinion Iron Man starts hitting it’s stride when Archie Goodwin arrives toward the end of the Tales of Suspense run and then is pure gold through issue 28 of the ’68 Iron Man series. Artists for this run include Gene Colan and George Tuska.

The next “all-star” run is #116-157 of the original Iron Man, that’s the David Michelinie / John Romita, Jr. / Bob Layton run that’s most famous for the “Demon in a Bottle” alcoholism arc, but there’s more to the run than just that arc.  The Denny O’Neil / Luke McDonnell run that follows is solid (make sure you get a collection that includes #200!!!), then Michelinie & Layton return for #215-250 with a few artists, including Mark Bright and Jackson Guice… with Layton even switching to penciller, instead of his usual inking post, for parts of it.  This second run is most famous for “Armor Wars” (originally known as Stark Wars). If you want a slightly bigger chunk for the same price, try Iron Man Masterworks V. 13. (Their first run goes through Masterworks V. 15.)

When Heroes Return hits, Kurt Busiek and Sean Chen are pop in for the excellent 1998 run, of which only 1-14 are currently collected.

The ’08 – ’12 run by Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca is particularly good. You know how modern Marvel titles can get sidetracked by Events? Fraction and Larroca lean into it and produce a lengthy and self-contained arc with Tony Stark on the run and attempting to overwrite his brain to keep everyone’s secrets out of the hands of Norman Osborn. Yes, an honest to goodness great Event tie-in arc. It’s a rare thing.

We were quite happy with the  Christopher Cantwell/Cafu run. Tony Stark chases Korvac into outer space and meditates on the nature of godhood, good intentions and addictions. Lots of character work and action.

You’ve got your choice of Epic or Masterworks here, but the more recent Masterworks can get up to $9.99.

Forced Entry

X-Force X-Force X-Force

The Marvel X-Force Sale runs through Monday, 1/26.

Yes, the mutant black ops team, as originally established by Cable (and morphing out of New Mutants). There absolutely have a been a few incarnations and relaunches over the years. Let’s start out with an overview of that:

  • X-Force ’91-’02 – Originally Rob Liefeld & Fabian Nicieza with Greg Capullo tagging in early on. The first edition, if you will.
    • Counter-X: X-Force – From the period when Warren Ellis was showrunning some of the X-titles, by Ian Edgington & Jorge Lucas
  • Uncanny-Force ’10-’12 – Rick Remender and rotating roster of Raphael Albuquerque, Esad Ribic, Jerome Opena, Billy Tan and Phil Noto
  • Uncanny X-Force ’13-’14 – Sam Humphries / Ron Garney / Dalibor Talajic
  • Deadpool vs. X-Force ’14 – Duane Swierczynski / Pepe Laraz
  • X-Force ’19-’24 – Ben Percy / Joshua Cassara / Robert Gill
  • X-Force ’24-’25 – Geoffrey Thorne / Marcus To

What’s good? Our top pick is the Remender Uncanny-Force. Black ops and a wide ranging, but complete story unit when taken as a whole. We’re also fans of the Ben Percy / Krakoa era X-Force  and recent Geoffrey Thorne / Marcus To X-Force.  If you want something off-beat, start here for the Milligan/Allred run, which is a satire.

You Were Expecting Moulin?

X-Men: Raid On Graymalkin  Mr. and Mrs. X  Rogue

The Marvel Rogue Sale runs through Monday, 1/26.

Quite a lot of random X-titles here, but let’s look at the highlights:

And from the current incarnation:

Unannounced Sales

The Art of Harvey Kurtzman  Money Shot

It seems Dark Horse’s holiday sale is still with us, but we wouldn’t expect it to last very far into next week.

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Iron Man; Strange Academy; Umbrella Academy; Dark Horse Manga

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, nearly the entire run of Iron Man gets a discount. So does Strange Academy. DC may or may not be having unlisted sales. Plus, Umbrella Academy, Dark Crystal and Dark Horse manga.

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: The Mystery of the Missing Masterworks

You will recall it’s been hit and miss whether Marvel Masterworks are included in Marvel sales for… perhaps a bit over a year? We might have a clue.

The Near Mint Condition live stream claims to have some inside information that the (print) Masterworks line is on indefinite hiatus and is asking people who want more to write David Gabriel at Marvel and ask for it.

See for yourself:

Has a phasing out been planned for quite some time and that’s why the digital versions aren’t always in sales? We can’t say for certain, but we’re awfully suspicious. Moreover, the Epic Collections haven’t quite duplicated the depth of the Masterworks. We understand how Marvel likes to reissue new editions in print, but it usually just makes things more confusing in the digital world.

Does Whatever An Iron Can…

Iron Man: The Man Who Killed Tony Stark  Iron Man: Heroes Reborn  Iron Man: Big Iron

The Marvel Iron Man Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 6/23

This would be one of those sales where most of the hero’s run is on sale, so we’re going to follow our usual protocol and start out by breaking out the primary titles and volumes. Iron Man isn’t as goofy to follow as, say, Spider-Gwen… but there are “quirks.” As is frequently the case (as discussed above), no Masterworks this time out.

  • Tales of Suspense – Iron Man debuted here in what was a split book with Captain America for most of the run.
  • Iron Man ’68-’96 – The original solo run in the era before constant relaunch gimmicks

OK, sit tight. The ’98 -’04 run is collected in VERY odd ways and poorly cataloged for browsing.  The truly excellent Kurt Busiek/Sean Chen/Patrick Zircher run lasts from 1-25. We can’t find 15-25 collected? (That entire run should be!)  You can catch 1-14  in cheap omnibus form here.  (No idea why the Mike Grell omnibus isn’t on sale.) You can catch Joe Quesada’s scripting run (26-32) and the Avengers: Disassembled tie-in late in this run in single volumes here. (But get the omnibus version for Busiek.)

  • Iron Man ’04-07 – Best known for launching with the “Extremis” storyline
  • Invincible Iron Man ’08-’12 – The excellent Matt Fraction / Salvador Larroca run. Save some money with the omnibus collecting the first 3 volumes.
  • Iron Man ’12-’14 – The Kieron Gillen run with Greg Land as initial artist
  • Superior Iron Man ’14-’15 by Tom Taylor / Yildiray Cinar / Laura Braga
  • Invincible Iron Man ’15-’16 – Brian Bendis and David Marquez/Mike Deodato, Jr. start out with Tony Stark in the armor
  • International Iron Man ’16 – Brian Bendis and Alex Maleev (And yes, we’re in the thick of the relaunches now)
  • Infamous Iron Man ’16-’17 – Brian Bendis / Alex Maleev; Victor Von Doom steps in as Iron Man… hey, dude is familiar with wearing armor
  • Invincible Iron Man ’16-’18 – Brian Bendis and Stefano Caselli with Riri Williams/Ironheart filling Tony Stark’s shoes (yes, parallel substitute Iron Man runs)
  • Tony Stark: Iron Man ’18-’19 – The Dan Slott era with Valerio Schiti as the principle artist in the rotation.
  • Iron Man ’20-’22 – The Christopher Cantwell / Cafu run.
  • Invincible Iron Man ’22-’24 – Gerry Duggan / Juan Frigeri

So what’s good?  We haven’t read ALL the Iron Man out there, but we’ve read a lot of them.

In our opinion Iron Man starts hitting it’s stride when Archie Goodwin arrives toward the end of the Tales of Suspense run and then is pure gold through issue 28 of the ’68 Iron Man series. Artists for this run include Gene Colan and George Tuska. (That’s collected in both Masterworks and Epic formats, but only the Epic is discounted right now..)

The next “all-star” run is #116-157 of the original Iron Man, that’s the David Michelinie / John Romita, Jr. / Bob Layton run that’s most famous for the “Demon in a Bottle” alcoholism arc, but there’s more to the run than just that arc.  The Denny O’Neil / Luke McDonnell run that follows is solid (make sure you get a collection that includes #200!!!), but Michelinie & Layton return for #215-250 with a few artists, including Mark Bright and Jackson Guice… with Layton even switching to penciller, instead of his usual inking post, for parts of it.  This second run is most famous for “Armor Wars” (originally known as Stark Wars).

When Heroes Return hits, Kurt Busiek and Sean Chen are pop in for the excellent 1998 run, of which only 1-14 are currently collected.

The ’08 – ’12 run by Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca is particularly good. You know how modern Marvel titles can get sidetracked by Events? Fraction and Larroca lean into it and produce a lengthy and self-contained arc with Tony Stark on the run and attempting to overwrite his brain to keep everyone’s secrets out of the hands of Norman Osborn. Yes, an honest to goodness great Event tie-in arc. It’s a rare thing.

We were quite happy with the  Christopher Cantwell/Cafu run. Tony Stark chases Korvac into outer space and meditates on the nature of godhood, good intentions and addictions. Lots of character work and action.

Up the Academy

Avengers Academy  Avengers Arena  Strange Academy

The Marvel Academy Sale runs through Monday, 6/16.

We’re not sure if this is Marvel making a play for the “Dark Academia” literary sub-genre, but we’ve got a few different flavors of young adults in various forms of learning institutions for those with super powers or magical powers. Strange Academy is probably the most “Dark Academia” of the bunch.

  • Avengers Academy – Christos Gage / Mike McKone / Sean Chen; Hank Pym runs an Avengers training program
  • Avengers Arena –  Dennis Hopeless / Christos Gage / Kev Walker / Alessandro Vitti; Arcade sets up Murder World on an island and tries to recreate Lord of the Flies with the Runaways and Avengers Academy
  • New X-Men – Nunzio DeFilippis / Christina Weir / Randy Green / Staz Johnson / Michael Ryan; It’s easier to describe this as the ’04 rebranding of New Mutants
  • Strange Academy (’20-’23) – Skottie Young / Humberto Ramos; Doctor Strange establishes a magical academy (definitely not Hogwarts, should the lawyers be asking) with Doctor Voodoo, Damien Hellstrom and the Scarlet Witch amongst the instructors

The DC Sorta/Kinda Discount Shuffle

Absolute Power  Batman by Doug Moench & Kelley Jones  Starfire

We have noticed a few DC titles popping up with “Best Price in 30 Days” tags on them. They aren’t necessarily on sale.

Example #1: Absolute Power by Mark Waid and Dan Mora. The last big Event. It’s now $9.99, marked as being down from a digital list price of $19.99. A digital list price based on it having been a hardcover release in print, we hasten to add.

Is that really a discount? Maybe not. Here’s the thing: when they stopped having the weekly sales, a lot of the slightly older digital collections dropped to $9.99. (Is the calculus to slightly lower the line-wide price and see if they make more money with that and no sales? We have questions…)

Example #2: Batman: Urban Legends V.6  is also listed at $9.99 with that “Best Price in 30 Days” tag. It does not list what the previous price was. HOWEVER, should one look at the Batman: Urban Legends series page, one would find everything is $9.99. Everything except V.2, which is $6.99. Strangely, V.2 is not showing the “Best Price in 30 Days” tag, so while it looks like it might be the one sporting a discount, but it apparently isn’t.

Real discounts:

And DC may have some of their signature broken prices floating around. Batman by Doug Moench & Kelley Jones Vol. 2 is listed at $19.24 as we type this. To paraphrase Ghostbusters, that price point is as unnatural as dogs and cats living together and it’s not the only book priced like that.

We have a lot more questions than answers when it comes to DC’s current pricing philosophy (and their ability to fill out Amazon pricing forms). Now you know what we know.

Unannounced Sales

Lone Wolf and Cub  Nowhere Men  Umbrella Academy

As always, we have no idea how long these will last:

Speaking of academies, Dark Horse wants a piece of that action and is discounting      Umbrella Academy by Gerard Way & Gabriel Ba.

It also appears Dark Horse is having a manga sale. Some titles we noticed:

Also on sale:

Additionally, it looks like most of the Hulk and Doctor Strange material from recent weeks is still on sale. The Under $5 Page has the lower priced volumes. Go back a couple columns for the links to find the Epic Collections.

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Black Friday Sales, Part 1 – The Annual Marvel Omnibus Sale

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Black Friday sales are early this year. In Part 1, it’s the annual Marvel Omnibus Sale and we break out what’s new to the sale since last year.

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):

Important Black Friday Administrative Notes:

This week the Black Friday sales are out a week before Black Friday. (Everyone’s doing it!) There were some problems with the ones that were posted the morning of Tuesday, 11/19. If you bought something off the deals page On Tuesday, double check and make sure the price isn’t a little lower right now. All the new sales were removed from the deals page Tuesday evening and reposted a few hours later. The new prices should be correct (although we need to take a closer look at the reposted DC sale).

Because of the size and all the hubbub around the (now) Annual Marvel Omnibus Sale, we’re looking at that right away and will come back at the usual time for the DC sale and anything else that pops up.

The Annual Marvel Omnibus Sale (Omni-Man is Elsewhere)

Avengers Omnibus  Daredevil Omnibus  Spider-Man Brand New Day Omnibus

The Marvel Omnibus Sale runs through Monday 12/2.

The Marvel omnibuses will run as long as ~1200 pages / 50 issues, although page and issue counts vary per issue. They’re mostly running in the $10-$15 range, instead of the $30-40-ish range, so the prices are slashed and 50 issues for $15 would be $0.30/issue.

There are a few things here that aren’t in other collections, but the reason we keep hearing that folks like the digital versions is that they’re easier to sort. That is to say, fewer items in your digital library.

So first, let’s run down the list of what we think are all the Omnibuses released since last year’s sale (or rather, getting discounted the first time since then). Did you think Marvel was releasing quite a few Omnibus editions in the last year? Yeah, you might be surprised. And this doesn’t include Rom or Micronauts, neither of which appear to be discounted. Annotations added when appropriate:

Is that enough Omnibus activity for one year? Only David Gabriel’s opinion of that matters! At any rate, the omnibuses have historically gone on sale once a year and that’s now, so it’s worth your time to have a browse through the actual sale at some point before 12/2. The official page is NOT well organized, so you can also use the above list to get quicker access to some of the series, just click on the series link on the book page.

A few “older” items we would make sure you’re aware of:

  • Captain Britain Omnibus – This has everything from the beginning of the 70s UK run through Captain Britain Magazine and the early X-Men appearances. What you’re really getting this for are the excellent and groundbreaking Alan Moore/Alan Davis and Jamie Delano/Alan Davis runs from the end of this period, which we’re not currently seeing available elsewhere. The rest is a bonus.
  • Incredible Hulk by Peter David Omnibus 1-5. That would be Hulk by David with that ridiculous sequence of artists he had, including Todd McFarlane, Gary Frank, Dale Keown, Angel Medina and Liam Sharp. 1-4 collect his original run and V. 5 collects some of the many times he’s revisited Hulk since the original run ended. Why the omnibus? Because this is a weird run to pick up in collected editions. It starts out in “Marvel Visionary” editions and eventually switches over to Epic Collections. This is just a drastically easier way to grab an exceptionally long run and probably cheaper than waiting to score the Visionary editions on sale. We also don’t mind tipping our hat to Peter David when he’s recovering from some health problems.
  • Knights of Pendragon Omnibus was out of the Marvel UK office. Knight of Pendragon was a Captain Britain-adjacent title. Dai Thomas, the supporting character from the main strip, is more of the central character with Captain Britain and Union Jack along for the ride. This was largely a Dan Abnett/John Tomlinson/Garry Erksine feature. You get some Brian Hitch art from Mys-Tech Wars and Carlos Pacheco art from Dark Guard. This is another where if you want the comics, it’s Omnibus or the back issue bins.
  • Miracleman Omnibus is the 80s revival of the British character Marvelman by Alan Moore, Gary Leach, Alan Davis, John Totleben and Rick Veitch. Another of Moore’s pre-Watchmen superhero deconstructions with a Captain Marvel (Shazam)-like character rediscovering his magic word after years of a normal life and very bad things following that. A landmark book that fell to the wayside after years and years of legal battles over who held which rights. This one isn’t on sale very often and it’s roughly as cheap as you’ll find it.

The Marvel “Maybe” Sales

Amazing Spider-Man  Deadpool X-Men '97

The trend continues. 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.

Dropping This Week

Pre-Order for Next Week

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: DC’s First Holiday Sale w/ Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman; Iron Man; X-Men

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, DC has the first holiday sale of the season with their “Trinity” sale of Batman/Superman/Wonder Woman… as low as $1.99/book. Plus, Marvel puts almost the entire Iron Man catalog on sale, as well as some X-Men and Storm titles. Dark Horse chips in with an Erik Powell sale.

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 First Holiday Sale Is Here

Batman: The Detective  Superman: The Man of Steel  Wonder Woman

The DC Trinity Sale runs through Monday, 11/11.

This sale is often the first holiday sale. Why are we saying it this year? $1.99 collected editions. The rule of them is if a collected edition is $2.99, go ahead a pull the trigger. $1.99? Yeah, that’s rock bottom for DC in recent years.

As such we’re going to be taking a look here at the vast swatch of $1.99 and $2.99 books. (This is comics.CHEAP, after all.) There are definitely newer books on the sale, but they might be — gasp — $3.99 or $4.99.

Batman

  • All-Star Batman (’16 – ’17) – Scott Snyder / John Romita, Jr. / Jock / Rafael Albuquerque
  • Batman (’40 – ’11) – mixed pricing
  • Batman (’11 – ’16) – Scott Snyder / Greg Capullo; That’s right, you can stick the full Snyder/Capullo run in somebody’s stocking for $1.99@
  • Batman (’16 – present) – Most of the Tom King and James Tynion IV runs are $1.99@
  • Batman: The Dark Knight Returns – Frank Miller
  • Batman: The Detective – Tom Taylor / Andy Kubert; (yes, the first Taylor run for $1.99. Happy holidays.)
  • Batman: The Killing Joke – Alan Moore / Brian Bolland
  • Batman: Three Jokers – Geoff Johns / Jason Fabok
  • Batman: Year One – Frank Miller / David Mazzucchelli
  • Batman/Superman (’13 – ’16) – Greg Pak / Jae Lee
  • Detective Comics (’37 – ’11) – Mixed pricing
  • Detective Comics (’11-’16) – Tony Daniel, then John Layman / Jason Fabok
  • Detective Comics (’16 – present) – James Tynion IV / Eddy Barrows through Mariko Tamaki / Dan Mora (before the price starts inching up)

Superman

Wonder Woman

  • Wonder Woman ’87 – ’06 – Mixed pricing. Perez is one of the definitive runs, though not as cheap. The first Greg Rucka run is cheap, though, and it’s great.
  • Wonder Woman (’11-’16) – You want the first 6 volumes of the Brian Azzarello / Cliff Chiang / Goran Sudzuka run. It’s a divisive take on the character (see: Azzarello, Brian), but it’s a solid yarn. Treat it like an Elseworlds, if you like.
  • Wonder Woman (’16 – ’20) – You want the *excellent* first four volumes by Greg Rucka, Nicola Scott and Liam Sharp

This is one you want to take some time and browse. Some interesting things in these lower price points? Sure.

Trinity by Matt Wagner teams up Batman / Superman / Wonder Woman as Ra’s al Ghul has a plot involving Bizarro, a rogue Amazon and some nukes. Also… it’s Matt Wagner. $2.99

Wonder Woman: The Hiketeia by Greg Rucka and J.G. Jones finds Wonder Woman and Batman having a little trouble agreeing to disagree. $2.99

Batman: Venom – Denny O’Neil / Trevor Von Eeden / Russ Braun / Jose Luis Garcia Lopez; About a year before Bane appeared, this was the Legends of the Dark Knight arc that introduced “venom,” the super-steroid that bulked up Bane. (With as good a creative lineup as you could reasonably ask for.) $1.99 – cheap.

Does Whatever An Iron Can…

Iron Man: The Man Who Killed Tony Stark  Iron Man: Heroes Reborn  Iron Man: Big Iron

The Marvel Iron Man Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 11/11.

This would be one of those sales where most of the hero’s run is on sale, so we’re going to follow our usual protocol and start out by breaking out the primary titles and volumes. ‘Ole Shellhead hasn’t had as many relaunches as some titles, but there is a volume where the collection options are a little… odd. Note: the Masterworks aren’t included in this sale, so you’re looking at Epic Collections and “regular” collections for the classic material.

  • Tales of Suspense – Iron Man debuted here in what was a split book with Captain America for most of the run.
  • Iron Man ’68-’96 – The original solo run in the era before constant relaunch gimmicks

OK, sit tight. The ’98 -’04 run is collected in VERY odd ways and poorly cataloged for browsing.  The truly excellent Kurt Busiek/Sean Chen/Patrick Zircher run lasts from 1-25. We can’t find 15-25 collected? (That entire run should be!)  You can catch 1-14 and the Mike Grell run (50-59)  in cheap omnibus form here.  You can catch Joe Quesada’s scripting run (26-32) and the Avengers: Disassembled tie-in late in this run in single volumes here. (But get the omnibus version for Busiek.)

  • Iron Man ’04-07 – Best known for launching with the “Extremis” storyline
  • Invincible Iron Man ’08-’12 – The excellent Matt Fraction / Salvador Larroca run. Save some money with the omnibus collecting the first 3 volumes.
  • Iron Man ’12-’14 – The Kieron Gillen run with Greg Land as initial artist
  • Superior Iron Man ’14-’15 – Tom Taylor / Yildiray Cinar
  • Invincible Iron Man ’15-’16 – Brian Bendis and David Marquez/Mike Deodato, Jr. start out with Tony Stark in the armor
  • International Iron Man ’16 – Brian Bendis and Alex Maleev (And yes, we’re in the thick of the relaunches now)
  • Invincible Iron Man ’16-’18 – Brian Bendis and Stefano Caselli with Riri Williams/Ironheart filling Tony Stark’s shoes (yes, parallel substitute Iron Man runs)
  • Tony Stark: Iron Man ’18-’19 – The Dan Slott era with Valerio Schiti as the principle artist in the rotation.
  • Iron Man ’20-’22 – The Christopher Cantwell / Cafu run.
  • Invincible Iron Man ’22-current – Gerry Duggan / Juan Frigeri

If you’re keeping score at home, you’ll have notice Infamous Iron Man are not on sale. Why? We cannot say. Too close to Doom assuming the mantle of Sorcerer Supreme?

So what’s good?  We haven’t read ALL the Iron Man out there, but we’ve read a lot of them.

In our opinion Iron Man starts hitting it’s stride when Archie Goodwin arrives toward the end of the Tales of Suspense run and then is pure gold through issue 28 of the ’68 Iron Man series. Artists for this run include Gene Colan and George Tuska. (That’s collected in both Masterworks and Epic formats, but only the Epic is discounted right now..)

The next “all-star” run is #116-157 of the original Iron Man, that’s the David Michelinie / John Romita, Jr. / Bob Layton run that’s most famous for the “Demon in a Bottle” alcoholism arc, but there’s more to the run than just that arc.  The Denny O’Neil / Luke McDonnell run that follows is solid (make sure you get a collection that includes #200!!!), but Michelinie & Layton return for #215-250 with a few artists, including Mark Bright and Jackson Guice… with Layton even switching to penciller, instead of his usual inking post, for parts of it.  This second run is most famous for “Armor Wars” (originally known as Stark Wars).

When Heroes Return hits, Kurt Busiek and Sean Chen are pop in for the excellent 1998 run, of which only 1-14 are currently collected.

The ’08 – ’12 run by Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca is particularly good. You know how modern Marvel titles can get sidetracked by Events. Fraction and Larroca lean into it and produce a lengthy and self-contained arc with Tony Stark on the run and attempting to overwrite his brain to keep everyone’s secrets out of the hands of Norman Osborn. Yes, an honest to goodness great Event tie-in arc. It’s a rare thing.

We were quite happy with the  Christopher Cantwell/Cafu run. Tony Stark chases Korvac into outer space and meditates on the nature of godhood, good intentions and addictions. Lots of character work and action.

The Calm Before?

X of Swords  X-Men: Red  Resurrection of Magneto

The Marvel Storm Sale runs through Monday, 11/11.

It might be better to break up the highlights as pre-Krakoa and Krakoa era.

Pre-Krakoa

  • X-Men: Magik – Storm & Illyana – Chris Claremont / Brent Anderson / John Buscema; extra dark tale of Illyana’s abduction by demons
  • Storm (’06) – Eric Jerome Dickey / David Yardin; prequel to her marriage to T’Challa
  • Storm (’14-15) – Greg Pak / Victor Ibenez

Krakoa Era

  • Marauders (’19-’22) – Gerry Duggan / Matteo Lolli / Stefano Caselli; Kitty becomes a pirate captain w/ Storm in tow
  • Giant-Size X-Men by Jonathan Hickman (’20) – Jonathan Hickman / Russell Dauterman / Alan Davis
  • X of Swords (’20) – Hickman showrunning the full creative staff
  • X-Men: Red (’22-’23) – Al Ewing / Stefano Caselli; Storm rules Arrako (Mars)
  • Resurrection of Magneto (’24); Al Ewing / Luciano Vecchio; An X-Men: Red end cap of sorts, as it’s time for Magneto to return from the dead

What’s good? We’re partial to the Krakoa era. X of Swords is a satisfying Event – yes, that’s possible, it just doesn’t happen often enough. X-Men: Red was a highlight of the late-stages of Krakoa and Resurrection of Magneto was interesting… although if you’re a regular reader, you’ll know we’re usually in the bag for Al Ewing. (Mmm… ZOMBO!)

Villains of the Atom

X-Men: Dark Phoenix Saga Complete Collection  Mystique  X-Men: Age of Apocalypse

The  Marvel X-Men Villains Sale runs through Monday, 11/11.

It’s true. The X-Men have villains and sometimes the villains eventually become friends. And sometimes friends become villains and then become friends.

The best thing here is the utter classic X-Men: Dark Phoenix Saga Complete Collection by Chris Claremont & John Byrne. Yes, the comic is definitely better than the film in this case and that edition has some extra issues that are worthwhile.  (For Jean Grey’s initial resurrection, there’s also X-Men: Phoenix Rising)

Best thing under most radars? Mystique, where she’s repurposed as Xavier’s spy. The first Brian K. Vaughan / Jorge Lucas / Michael Ryan omnibus is particularly good.

You have a couple options for the Age of Apocalypse arc. X-Men: The Complete Age of Apocalypse does appear to be slightly more complete.

The sequel is filed under the two volume X-Men Vs. Apocalypse.

Also under the radar: Magneto (’14-’15 ) by Cullen Bunn & Gabriel Hernandez Walta goes to some dark places.

The Marvel “Maybe” Sales

Ms. Marvel  Ghost Rider

The trend continues. 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.

Dropping This Week

Pre-Order for Next Week

Unannounced Sales

Big Man Plans  1984  Godzilla: The Half-Century War

Dark Horse has a sale on Eric Powell’s comics:

Also on sale:

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales – Flash, Iron Man, Suicide Squad, Thor, Groo, Dune

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?

(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):

Is That a Streaming Pun?

The Flash  Superman Y the Last Man

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?

Iron Man: Heroes Reborn  Captain America Heroes Return

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:

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

Thor Modern Epic Collection White Widow

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

Pre-Order for Next Week

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

Groo Meets Tarzan  Dune  Quentin Tarantino

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:

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Iron Man; DC in the ’90s; Absolute Carnage; Powers

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel discounts most of their Iron Man catalog, plus Absolute Carnage. DC revisits the 90s. Dark Horse cuts prices on the many works of Bendis & Oeming.

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):

Does Whatever An Iron Can…

Iron Man: The Man Who Killed Tony Stark  Iron Man: Heroes Reborn  Iron Man: Big Iron

The Marvel Iron Man Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 5/27

This would be one of those sales where most of the hero’s run is on sale, so we’re going to follow our usual protocol and start out by breaking out the primary titles and volumes. Iron Man isn’t as goofy to follow as, say, Spider-Gwen… but there are “quirks.”

  • Tales of Suspense – Iron Man debuted here in what was a split book with Captain America for most of the run.
  • Iron Man ’68-’96 – The original solo run in the era before constant relaunch gimmicks

OK, sit tight. The ’98 -’04 run is collected in VERY odd ways and poorly cataloged for browsing.  The truly excellent Kurt Busiek/Sean Chen/Patrick Zircher run lasts from 1-25. We can’t find 15-25 collected? (That entire run should be!)  You can catch 1-14 and the Mike Grell run (50-59)  in cheap omnibus form here.  You can catch Joe Quesada’s scripting run (26-32) and the Avengers: Disassembled tie-in late in this run in single volumes here. (But get the omnibus version for Busiek.)

  • Iron Man ’04-07 – Best known for launching with the “Extremis” storyline
  • Invincible Iron Man ’08-’12 – The excellent Matt Fraction / Salvador Larroca run. Save some money with the omnibus collecting the first 3 volumes.
  • Iron Man ’12-’14 – The Kieron Gillen run with Greg Land as initial artist
  • Invincible Iron Man ’15-’16 – Brian Bendis and David Marquez/Mike Deodato, Jr. start out with Tony Stark in the armor
  • International Iron Man ’16 – Brian Bendis and Alex Maleev (And yes, we’re in the thick of the relaunches now)
  • Invincible Iron Man ’16-’18 – Brian Bendis and Stefano Caselli with Riri Williams/Ironheart filling Tony Stark’s shoes (yes, parallel substitute Iron Man runs)
  • Tony Stark: Iron Man ’18-’19 – The Dan Slott era with Valerio Schiti as the principle artist in the rotation.
  • Iron Man ’20-’22 – The Christopher Cantwell / Cafu run.
  • Invincible Iron Man ’22-current – Gerry Duggan / Juan Frigeri

If you’re keeping score at home, you’ll have notice Superior Iron Man and Infamous Iron Man are not on sale. Why? We cannot say.

So what’s good?  We haven’t read ALL the Iron Man out there, but we’ve read a lot of them.

In our opinion Iron Man starts hitting it’s stride when Archie Goodwin arrives toward the end of the Tales of Suspense run and then is pure gold through issue 28 of the ’68 Iron Man series. Artists for this run include Gene Colan and George Tuska. (That’s collected in both Masterworks and Epic formats, but only the Epic is discounted right now..)

The next “all-star” run is #116-157 of the original Iron Man, that’s the David Michelinie / John Romita, Jr. / Bob Layton run that’s most famous for the “Demon in a Bottle” alcoholism arc, but there’s more to the run than just that arc.  The Denny O’Neil / Luke McDonnell run that follows is solid (make sure you get a collection that includes #200!!!), but Michelinie & Layton return for #215-250 with a few artists, including Mark Bright and Jackson Guice… with Layton even switching to penciller, instead of his usual inking post, for parts of it.  This second run is most famous for “Armor Wars” (originally known as Stark Wars).

When Heroes Return hits, Kurt Busiek and Sean Chen are pop in for the excellent 1998 run, of which only 1-14 are currently collected.

The ’08 – ’12 run by Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca is particularly good. You know how modern Marvel titles can get sidetracked by Events. Fraction and Larroca lean into it and produce a lengthy and self-contained arc with Tony Stark on the run and attempting to overwrite his brain to keep everyone’s secrets out of the hands of Norman Osborn. Yes, an honest to goodness great Event tie-in arc. It’s a rare thing.

We were quite happy with the  Christopher Cantwell/Cafu run. Tony Stark chases Korvac into outer space and meditates on the nature of godhood, good intentions and addictions. Lots of character work and action.

Be Kind, Please Rewind

Hellblazer  League of Extraordinary Gentlemen  The Nail

The  DC 90s Rewind Sale runs through Monday, 5/20.

Yes, it’s a 90s sale… with a little late 80s/early 00s around the edges. It’s worth a browse, particularly if you want to go wide on the Batman of that period, but let’s hit some highlights, shall we?

  • Animal Man – Initially Grant Morrison / Chas Truog, the full run is on sale this time.
  • The Authority – Ellis & Hitch, then Millar & Quitely; Hugely influential at the end of the ’90s, this is what effectively started the “widescreen comics” trend. (Pity the Stormwatch lead-in isn’t in the sale.)
  • Batman: No Man’s Land: The epic line-wide crossover Event, where Gotham is cut off from the rest of the country and the villains set themselves up as Warlords. (Yes, this predates DMZ by several years.) We thought this was the peak of the 90s Bat-Events.
  • Green Arrow (’88-’98) – Mike Grell / Ed Hannigan / Dan Jurgens – the Grell version that did away with most of the trick arrows.
  • Hellblazer – The first 13 volumes are on sale from the original Vertigo run. Delano / Ennis / Jenkins / Ellis.  Strong, strong run and for what it’s worth, we enjoyed the less-talked about Paul Jenkins/Sean Phillips issues. Don’t sleep on them.
  • The League of Extraordinary Gentleman – Alan Moore / Kevin O’Neil; Yes, DC (via Wildstorm) still has the first two volumes. And they’re good! It’s a literary team-up with satirical elements around the edges (pay attention to the ads…). Note: there is a demise in V. 2 that is very much NOT for kids.
  • The Nail – Alan Davis presents the tale of a world where the Kents didn’t find Kal-El’s rocket and the Justice League forms without Superman to bail them out.
  • Preacher – Garth Ennis & Steve Dillion; Since adapted for TV. God’s gone missing and Jesse Custer would like a word with him. A series as wrong as it is praised.
  • The Spectre – John Ostrander / Tom Mandrake; This would be on our best of the 90s list. Jim Corrigan is dead and tethered to the Wrath of God. He’s trying to work through that. It’s a lot.
  • Superman: The Death of Superman – The most famous line-wide Superman Event. The “Funeral for a Friend” and “Reign of the Supermen” sequences worked far better than one would have expected when solicited. This is also where John Henry Irons / Steel is introduced.
  • Transmetropolitan – Warren Ellis / Darick Robertson; The science fiction satire about a Hunter S. Thompson-esque future journalist and his war against a corrupt establishment. One of the more influential titles of the late 9os.

Absolute Hyperbole

Absolute Carnage  Venom: Absolute Carnage

The Marvel Absolute Carnage Sale runs through Monday, 5/20.

Absolute Carnage was, by Marvel standards, a small scope crossover between Donny Cates’s Venom run and the Nick Spencer era Amazing Spider-Man. Yes, in the context of an Event, only generating eight collected edition counts as restraint.

The Event miniseries holding it together is Absolute Carnage by Donny Cates & Ryan Stegman.

Venom: Absolute Carnage by Cates & Iban Coello collects the Venom tie-in issues.

Amazing Spider-Man: Absolute Carnage by Nick Spencer & Ryan Ottley collects, you guessed it, the Amazing Spider-Man tie-in issues.

From there, fill-in as your tastes dictate. We will say that the lead story in Absolute Carnage: Immortal Hulk And Other Tales is worthwhile, if not central to anything. Immortal Hulk being a high water mark in general.

Unannounced Sales

Powers  Goldfish  Fortune and Glory

Dark Horse has a big block of Brian Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming titles on sale. Let’s hit the numbers first:

We’d like to talk a little about the early Bendis, which doesn’t seem to be widely remembered after all his time at Marvel and DC. Bendis started out doing the full cartoonist and working on crime comics like Goldfish and Jinx.

He started getting a little more notice when he jumped over to Image for Powers w/ Oeming. Powers starts out as a police procedural in a world where super powers have to be registered (this is LONG before Marvel’s Civil War) and follows a police unit that handles “powers”-related crimes. There’s a lot of worldbuilding involved and things get quite a bit more complicated as the backstories of the main characters unfold.

Powers left Image for Marvel’s Icon imprint when Bendis blew up there and as he got deeper into Marvel, the shipping schedule got erratic. It’s relaunched a few times and seemingly lost a lot of audience momentum. Shipping schedules, have very little to do with the quality of the comic, however. It’s a good one and an influential one that’s worth dipping into the collected editions of. (And trust us, its so much easier with omnibuses where you don’t have to remember which relaunch a given issue is from!)

Also very worthwhile:  Fortune & Glory is Bendis recounting tales of interacting with Hollywood when Goldfish got optioned. It’s hilarious and multiple folks who work in TV/Film have assured us it’s frighteningly accurate.

We’d also point you to Scarlet as a more recent example of Bendis returning to that early crime vibe. It’s a strong comic.

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Iron Man, Justice League, Thunderbolts, Kingdom Come

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel puts full runs of Iron Man and Thunderbolts on discount duty. DC goes Justice League-centric 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 a commission.)

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

Does Whatever An Iron Can…

The Marvel Iron Man Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 8/14

This would be one of those sales where most of the hero’s run is on sale, so we’re going to follow our usual protocol and start out by breaking out the primary titles and volumes. Iron Man isn’t as goofy to follow as, say, Spider-Gwen… but there are “quirks.”

  • Tales of Suspense – Iron Man debuted here in what was a split book with Captain America for most of the run.
  • Iron Man ’68-’96 – The original solo run in the era before constant relaunch gimmicks

OK, sit tight. The ’98 -’04 run is collected in VERY odd ways and poorly cataloged for browsing.  The truly excellent Kurt Busiek/Sean Chen/Patrick Zircher run lasts from 1-25. We can’t find 15-25 collected? (That entire run should be!)  You can catch 1-14 and the Mike Grell run (50-59)  in cheap omnibus form here.  You can catch Joe Quesada’s scripting run (26-32) and the Avengers: Disassembled tie-in late in this run in single volumes here. (But get the omnibus version for Busiek.)

  • Iron Man ’04-07 – Best known for launching with the “Extremis” storyline
  • Invincible Iron Man ’08-’12 – The excellent Matt Fraction / Salvador Larroca run. Save some money with the omnibus collecting the first 3 volumes.
  • Iron Man ’12-’14 – The Kieron Gillen run with Greg Land as initial artist
  • Superior Iron Man ’14-’15 – The Tom Taylor / Yildiray Cinar run.
  • Invincible Iron Man ’15-’16 – Brian Bendis and David Marquez/Mike Deodato, Jr. start out with Tony Stark in the armor
  • International Iron Man ’16 – Brian Bendis and Alex Maleev (And yes, we’re in the thick of the relaunches now)
  • Infamous Iron Man  ’16-’17 – Brian Bendis and Alex Maleev have Doctor Doom step in as Iron Man
  • Invincible Iron Man ’16-’18 – Brian Bendis and Stefano Caselli with Riri Williams/Ironheart filling Tony Stark’s shoes (yes, parallel substitute Iron Man runs)
  • Tony Stark: Iron Man ’18-’19 – The Dan Slott era with Valerio Schiti as the principle artist in the rotation.
  • Iron Man ’20-’22 – The Christopher Cantwell / Cafu run.

Before we get into what’s good, a tweak on the general advice: The Masterworks and Epic Collections are both good deals and *in general* we like the Epic Collections as a slightly better buy. In this case, keep an eye on the Epic pricing. The $6.99 Epics are much better buys than the $8.99/$9.99 Epics.  We can all agree inflation sucks? And the over general caveat: the Masterworks run sequentially and the Epic collections have some gaps.  But you can still pick off some awfully nice material for $6.99.

So what’s good?  We haven’t read ALL the Iron Man out there, but we’ve read a lot of them.

In our opinion Iron Man starts hitting it’s stride when Archie Goodwin arrives toward the end of the Tales of Suspense run and then is pure gold through issue 28 of the ’68 Iron Man series. Artists for this run include Gene Colan and George Tuska. (That’s collected in both Masterworks and Epic formats.)

The next “all-star” run is #116-157 of the original Iron Man, that’s the David Michelinie / John Romita, Jr. / Bob Layton run that’s most famous for the “Demon in a Bottle” alcoholism arc, but there’s more to the run than just that arc.  The Denny O’Neil / Luke McDonnell run that follows is solid (make sure you get a collection that includes #200!!!), but Michelinie & Layton return for #215-250 with a few artists, including Mark Bright and Jackson Guice… with Layton even switching to penciller, instead of his usual inking post, for parts of it.  This second run is most famous for “Armor Wars” (originally known as Stark Wars).

When Heroes Return hits, Kurt Busiek and Sean Chen are pop in for the excellent 1998 run, of which only 1-14 are currently collected.

The ’08 – ’12 run by Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca is particularly good. You know how modern Marvel titles can get sidetracked by Events. Fraction and Larroca lean into it and produce a lengthy and self-contained arc with Tony Stark on the run and attempting to overwrite his brain to keep everyone’s secrets out of the hands of Norman Osborn. Yes, an honest to goodness great Event tie-in arc. It’s a rare thing.

We were quite happy with the  Christopher Cantwell/Cafu run. Tony Stark chases Korvac into outer space and meditates on the nature of godhood, good intentions and addictions. Lots of character work and action.

Iron Man: The Man Who Killed Tony Stark  Iron Man: Heroes Reborn  Iron Man: Big Iron

Thunder. Thunder. Thunderca… Whoops, Wrong Series!

The Marvel Thunderbolts Sale runs through Monday, 8/14.

The Thunderbolts have been through several iterations since they began in ’97, originally having been the Masters of Evil laying the groundwork for nefarious deeds. And yes, there’s a film in the works.

The original series was written by Kurt Busiek and drawn by Mark Bagley. Eventually Fabian Nicieza tagged in as writer and Patrick Zircher became the lead artist a bit after that. The “regular” collected editions of this are a little spotty for the Nicieza/Zircher run and not everything is discounted, so we’d recommend the  omnibus editions.

New Thunderbolts was the ’04-’06 relaunch, and yes, it’s included in the third omnibus of the original. Fabian Nicieza/Tom Grummett is the creative team, here.

This then turns back into (no adjective) Thunderbolts for ’06-’12, starting Nicieza/Grummett and then including runs by Warren Ellis / Mike Deodato and Jeff Parker/Kev Walker/Declan Shalvey

Thunderbolts relaunched for ’12-’14 with Daniel Way and then Charles Soule writing it. The artist rotation included Steve Dillon and Phil Noto.

Jim Zub and Jon Malin were behind the ’16-’17 Thunderbolts run.

And then the most recent series was King in Black: Thunderbolts by Matthew Rosenberg/Gerry Duggan/Juan E. Ferreyra/Luke Ross.

With Thunderbolts, we feel pretty strongly you need to read the first sequence or two and get a flavor for the concept before jumping into the later evolutions.

Thunderbolts 

Wasn’t This a Comic Strip?

The DC World’s Greatest Super-Heroes Sale runs through Monday, 8/28.

Yes, The World’s Greatest Superheroes was definitely DC’s comic strip. And the strip isn’t even in the sale. (Did the person naming the sale realize it was a strip? Possibly not.)

This is sort of / kind of a Justice League sale. Let’s take a look at some of the better books with an eye on price, because not all discounts are created equal.

Kingdom Come is the classic mini-series by Mark Waid and Alex Ross. It’s a near-future showdown between a new generation and the old guard Justice League. Not quite post-apocalyptical, but close. If you’ve never run across it, the modern way to explain it is Injustice: Gods Among Us isn’t officially a reboot of Kingdom Come, but it sure feels like it at times.

A more under the radar pick is DC Universe: Legacies. This is a “history of the DC universe” type comic with an eye witness relating the broad strokes in a narrative. Len Wein does the writing along with a ridiculous set of artists: Brian Bolland, George Pérez, Joe Kubert, Andy Kubert, J.G. Jones, Scott Kolins and J.H. Williams III.

Also decent pricing on the landmark Grant Morrison / Howard Porter run of JLA (And yes, the prices go up when the creative teams tag off.)

Also of potential under the radar interest. Did you like the Justice League and Justice League Unlimited cartoons? Dwayne McDuffie had a run on JLA with Ed Benes on art. They didn’t really give him the full roster, but it’s still McDuffie on the Justice League.

Kingdom Come   DC Universe: Legacies   JLA

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Marvel Omnibuses; Miles Morales: Spider-Man; Dark Reign; DC Celebrates Black History Month; Image’s Discounted Romance

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel has a rare sale on their Omnibuses, plus Miles Morales and Dark Reign. DC celebrates Black History Month and Image puts a (discounted) price on romance.

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):

As we adjust to whatever’s going on behind the scenes at Amazon, the sales did post this week, but they trickled out in an unusual pattern. At least the pricing seemed to be correct when they sales appeared this week. There’s a reason we don’t always rush to post the sale.

Did Somebody Say Omnibus?

The Marvel Omnibus Sale runs through Monday, 2/13.

Well, here’s a sale you don’t see every day. These omnibuses contain _around_ 40 issues each, though it can vary a few hundred pages from volume to volume. Evaluate these as bundles of collected editions, but there are some volumes that caught our eye.

The Captain Britain Omnibus is a very interesting thing. It’s basically all the Captain Britain appearances through when he first starts turning up in the X-Men line, so just before Excalibur kicks off. You’ve got the original UK run, which does have a little bit of early Chris Claremont in it. The Marvel Team-Up appearances (Claremont/Byrne), the David Thorpe/Alan Davis reset and then the two crown jewels: the Alan Moore/Alan Davis run and the Alan Davis solo run in the magazine version of Captain Britain. These last two runs are fantastic and highly influential (although you might be surprised how many things Thorpe initiated). And then a couple X-verse annuals to cap it.  Some really good stuff in here and Marvel’s a little inconsistent about keeping all of this available.

The Incredible Hulk by Peter David Omnibus set is the entire run. Peter David was on that book a LONG time and had a pretty darn good set of artists to team with, including Todd McFarlane, Gary Frank, Dale Keown, Liam Sharp and several others. It’s a little more understandable with such a long run, but we’re under the impression this is the only collection of David’s entire run. The “Visionaries” series doesn’t go all the way and only sections of it are in Epic Collections. So, here’s the entirety of a landmark run in 1000-1100 page chunks.

Another meaty set of books is the Thunderbolts set. V.1 is 1100 pages of Kurt Busiek and Mark Bagley. V.2 is another 1100 pages as Fabian Nicieza tags in for Busiek and we don’t think the back half of V.2 is currently collected elsewhere, either.

We know you were thinking it, so we’re going to go ahead and say it out loud: omnibus editions are a lot more convenient to read in digital. Those hardcovers can top 6 pounds.

Captain Britain Omnibus   Incredible Hulk by Peter David   Thunderbolts

Spider-Verse

The Marvel Monthly Sale: Miles Morales: Spider-Man Sale runs through Monday, 2/27

This sale is… kind of a mess to navigate.

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

Make It Reign

The Marvel Dark Reign Sale runs through Monday, 2/6.

Dark Reign is a sort of background story that spun through a bunch of the Marvel titles, post-Secret Invasion.  Norman Osborn manages to get himself installed as Director of SHIELD and makes a power play. A lot of it involved declaring the various heroes to be enemies of the state and hunting them down. There wasn’t a mini-series driving this in the usual sense, but there were a ton of mini-series out there. A lot of this ran through the numerous Bendis Avenger titles.

The best thing to come out of Dark Reign was the “World’s Most Wanted” arc in Invincible Iron Man (Book 1 and Book 2) by Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca. Fraction and Larroca essentially paused their story for this arc where Norman Osborn is after the knowledge in Tony Stark’s brain – especially all the secret identities. Stark is a fugitive on the run and he’s trying to delete and overwrite his brain, like a hard drive, to keep all the sensitive information out of Osborn’s hands. A superior arc.

Iron Man   Iron Man

You can pop in on the other titles to see where Dark Reign takes them, but Iron Man was a class above.

February

The DC Black History Month Sale runs through Monday, 2/27.

Some picks? Sure. Justice League by Christopher Priest collects the Priest / Pete Woods wherein Batman has a lapse in judgement and a “fan” moves in for the kill.

A lesser known recent title is Michael Cray by Bryan Hill and N. Stephen Harris. This was part of the Wildstorm revival and the titular Cray is an assassin tasked with eliminating some funhouse mirror versions of the Justice League. Well done twisted fun.

And from clear out of left field, here’s something we don’t recall seeing on sale in a while: Steel single issues for $0.99. Yes, the Death of Superman spin-off about John Henry Irons that spawned a Shaq movie. Creators on this include Louise Simonson, David Michelinie, Christopher Priest, Chris Batista, Phil Gosier and Denys Cowan. Yes, that’s an early Priest/Cowan pairing at the end of the series.

Justice League by Priest   Michael Cray   Steel

Romance… Through The Mirror, Darkly…

The Image Romance Sale runs through Monday, 2/27.

Might modern “romance” comics be a little off-kilter? Could be!

A marque Image series popping up here is Sex Criminals by Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky (Mr. Romance, himself) has a high concept along the lines of “Make love. Stop time. Rob banks.” Why yes, it’s also a comedy. The “normal” collections are a better price than the “Big Hard” collections and that’s an instance of a fancier print edition translating to poor digital pricing, as is frequently the case.

My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips does have a romance in the middle of a tale about nefarious goings-on at a rehab facility. That’s a fair cop.

And a new title that might be of interest here: $0.99 single issues of Love Everlasting by Tom King and Elsa Charretier, featuring a woman caught in a series of bizarre romances bouncing around different time periods.

Sex Criminals   My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies   Love Everlasting

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