Sean Phillips Archives - Comics.Cheap

Hulk Smash Prices

Here are the Tower of Cheap, we’re huge fans of the Al Ewing / (mostly) Joe Bennett Immortal Hulk run. It’s a horror-flavored Hulk that takes the multiple personality disorder version of the character to new depths and it really works. The first 8 collected editions are on sale for $2.99. Highly recommended.

There’s a lot on sale for the original Incredible Hulk series (Comixology lumps the real original series with the second series). Pick your poison between Masterworks editions or Epic Collections (Epic is a better value, but those jump around a little). If you’re interested in the Peter David run, this is how it works right now. There’s an Epic Collection that collects the Byrne run and the Al Milgrom run that leads up to PAD’s run. There are 8 volumes of the Peter David “Visionaries” series and then it switches over to Epic Collections for #397 on. No overlap, they just haven’t converted the Visionaries to Epic Collections yet. (One presumes this will eventually happen, but it is what it is.) The 3 volumes of Bill Mantlo Hulk are in between Masterworks and Epic, in terms of page count.

Plenty to browse for this one.

Not So Secret Now…

Secret Invasion is a challenging story to read in collected editions. Parts of it are told in flashbacks. It jumps from title to title. Marvel hasn’t always been consistent about a recommended reading order, either. The Secret Invasion mini-series is the spine. If you want the full story, pretty much anything with Avengers in the title, especially written by Bendis, will be key. The Captain Marvel collection is also relevant in ways that are not immediate apparent.

And By “Something,” We Mean Monsters…

Yes, Tynion seems to be having himself a moment. His BOOM! backlist is on sale here. We can happily recommend Something Is Killing the Children by Tynion and Werther Dell’Edera, an urban fantasy monster hunter tale. It’s getting to be a bit of a bandwagon with the speculators jumping on the print issues, but everyone once in a while, the bandwagon is for a good title.

So Much For Serialization

Yes, Image has been doing more OGNs in recent years and this is well worth a browse. Highlights? Not a problem.

Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips are a pretty darn reliable pairing, but Pulp is a high water mark for them. A writer of pulp westerns in ’30s NYC finds himself with declining prospects, a nest of Nazi spies and the ghosts of the past. Oh, it’s a crime thriller, but it’s a very philosophical one where the meditations only serve to enhance the mayhem.

Dracula, Motherf**ker! by Alex de Campi and Erica Henderson is an absolute delight. It’s a 70s exploitation style take on the Dracula mythos. It’s 1974 Los Angeles and Dracula’s brides are out for revenge, following the tropes of that sort of film. Henderson shows us a KILLER new side and it’s a true showcase for her. We just wish there was more of it, the pace accelerates a quick read. A really fun book for horror fans who crossover with 70s cinema and/or Tarantino.

And for something clear out of left field, Last of the Independents has returned. This Matt Fraction/Kieron Dwyer crime story actually predates Criminal and we were pleasantly surprised that it returned to print (or digital in this case). Keeping in the theme here, this is also a love letter to 70s cinema, but more crime flicks than the exploitation/revenge genres. A bank heist goes terribly wrong and our antiheroes find that someone’s come looking for them. It’s all in the execution.

This week’s Comixology Sales highlights start with a celebration of the Joker. Then Marvel highlights the Young Avengers and Ware of the Realms. Valentine’s Day is over, but we look at what’s notable in Image’s romance sale anyway. Plus, Transformers galore and that the glory that is Dreadstar.

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

The Joke’s on who?

DC’s The Joker’s Greatest Jokes Sale runs through Monday (3/1).

If you’re going to get one “Best of” Joker collection, you’re going to want The Joker: A Celebration of 75 Years. Being a thicker collection makes it more complete, but moreover, we don’t think you can have a “Best of” that doesn’t include the Englehart/Rogers “Laughing Fish” storyline.

For something that doesn’t necessarily come immediately to mind, there’s the Joker arc of Gotham Central, the classic GPD series by Ed Brubaker & Greg Rucka with Michael Lark as the artist for this arc.

There’s a lot more Bat-family material in this one, though we weren’t sure the Joker is integral to (or even appearing in) all the titles in this sale.

No love for the Old Avengers

The Marvel Young Avengers Sales runs through Sunday 2/28.

Young Avengers by Allen Heinberg and Jim Cheung: The Complete Collection is the original, formative run. And for as short as it actually was, this is a fairly influential comic with everything from the recent Empyre Event to WandaVision on streaming having echoes of it. Oh, there’s more Young Avengers material on sale, but this is one of the times to start at the beginning. And yes, Young Avengers: Children’s Crusade is conspicuous by its absence.

Why can’t The Realms just get along?

Marvel’s War of the Realms Sale runs through Thursday (3/4).

This was a Thor-centric Jason Aarons event. As a Marvel Event, there were a ton of spin-off mini-series that tied in. Explore those at your leisure, but this War of the Realms is the tentpole series around which the Event revolved.

More off-kilter romance

The Image Romance Sale runs through Monday (3/8).

No, Image really isn’t a bastion of traditional romance, but they do have a few things that fall vaguely into that territory.

Twisted Romance is an anthology of, well… twisted romantic tales built around a set of Alex de Campi stories with some prose and shorter comics filling in around them. Notably, there’s some intergalactic space pirate romance with Carla Speed McNeil on the art.

My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies might not be the most romantic title in the sale, but it’s good book. A entry in Ed Brubaker / Sean Phillips crime catalog (as consistent a catalog as you’ll find these days), this one concerns murder and mayhem at a high end rehab clinic. As always, recommended if you have an itch for crime comics.

Sex Criminals is the recently completed Matt Fraction / Chip Zdarsky off-color comedy about a couple who can freeze time when they have sex and use their ability to rob banks. OK, there’s a bit more to it, but that’s the tried and true tagline. All but the still-new final volume are on sale.

All Hail Megatron has transformed into an omnibus

The IDW Transformers Sale runs through Thursday (3/4).

IDW has effectively treated the Transformers line as a saga. The original run of that is The Transformers: The IDW Collection series of omnibuses and is probably a good place to start here.

Fans of a certain age might also be interested in Transformers: Classics, which is the original Marvel Comics run.

Thicker editions

The Dynamite Select Omnibus Sale runs through Sunday (2/28).

Dreadstar Omnibus is the first 12 issues (and story arc) of Jim Starlin’s Dreadstar. Dreadstar was Starlin’s major work between wrapping up the original Captain Marvel / Warlock / Thanos saga and returning to Marvel (proper) for Silver Surfer and Infinity Gauntlet. (Sure, he did some Batman before returning, but Dreadstar is just on another level.) It’s the tale of the last survivor of the Milky Way taking on the corrupt Church of the Instrumentality as a rebel insurgency of sorts. An absolute classic of the first wave of creator owned comics in the ’80s.

The Shadow: Year One – Omnibus is an origin tale for The Shadow and Margo Lane, written by Matt Wagner (who’s done a lot with ’30s era heroes over the years) with art by Wilfredo Torres.

There’s a lot of Red Sonja and Vampirella on sale, too, if that floats your boat.