Tag: Suicide Squad

Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: It’s Villains Week – Thanos, Deathstroke, Superior Spider-Man, Suicide Squad

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, it’s villains week. DC’s discounts are on their “Villains” sale, while Marvel offers up Thanos and Super Spider-Man (Dr. Octavius, if you’re nasty).

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):

They’re Just Drawn That Way…

The DC Villains Sale runs through Monday, 10/16.

Spotlighting villains? Sure. It’s not like giving villains their own comics is common or anything.

We’d put the best villain comic in recent memory as the Priest/Carlo Pagulayan run on Deathstroke. Oh, there’s talk of reforming… but there’s a lot more scheming and a bit of philosophy as Deathstroke runs slightly wild through the DCU.

Note: Deathstroke crosses over with Teen Titans a couple time for key plot points (and Priest writes a better Damien Wayne than most), so you absolutely need The Lazarus Contract  and The Terminus Agenda to get the complete series.

One of the bigger villains in DC’s world is Darkseid, so naturally, The New Gods by Jack Kirby is included in the sale. The original run is definitely an impressive feat.

You really couldn’t have this sale without The Joker. While there’s plenty of that, we’ll point out one of the more offbeat offerings: Emperor Joker. That’s a Joe Kelly / Jeph Loeb / Doug Mahnke / Ed McGuinness tale that has Superman running up against a Joker who’s somehow gained the power to reshape reality in his image.

Deathstroke   New Gods by Jack Kirby   Superman: Emperor Joker

Now, if we go back to that concept of villains taking more of a heroic turn there a couple other things that come to mind.

Gail Simone, Nicola Scott and Jim Calafiore had a memorable run on Secret Six –featuring Deadshot (moving over from Suicide Squad) Catman, Ragdoll and even Bane towards the end.  (The preceding Secret Six miniseries is here.)

Did we just say Suicide Squad? Good, because the original villains pressed into service series by John Ostrander, Luke McDonnell and Geoff Isherwood is also on sale. Amanda Waller assembles a team of imprisoned super villains and offers them a deal… if they go on what’s effectively a suicide mission. This is where the format was set.

For a more recent take on this, there’s Suicide Squad: Bad Blood by the team of Tom Taylor and Bruno Redondo, not too long before they landed on Nightwing.

Secret Six   Suicide Squad   Suicide Squad Bad Blood

The OG Marvel Cosmic Sale

The Marvel Thanos and the Infinity Gauntlet Sale runs through Monday, 10/16.

Thanos has become a saga, at least with the Starlin-driven material.

Avengers Vs. Thanos is a meaty ~470 page collection of the original ’70s appearances that were centered in Captain Marvel and Warlock.  You could make an argument that this is where “cosmic” Marvel was born. (It’s one of a handful of candidates.) Recommended.

And then Thanos was mostly on the shelf for ~13 years until Jim Starlin started writing Silver Surfer (with Ron Lim drawing… oh yes, those two would do some collaborating).  The Rebirth of Thanos arc was the “oh, snap” moment (pun intended) where Thanos resurfaced and the wheels were set in motion for The Infinity Gauntlet (with art by George Perez and Ron Lim).  And both of those are recommended, too.

There were two more Infinity sequels:

And a ton of supporting material.  “Infinity” and Adam Warlock were practically a sub-imprint for a couple years.

Starlin did more Thanos follow-ups over the years, culminating in a couple graphic novel trilogies:

and

And, for good measure, while not really part of the above – Avengers: The Legacy of Thanos by Roger Stern, John Buscema and John Byrne is a highly entertaining tale of Nebula (yes, the Granddaughter of Thanos who’d later be in Guardians of the Galaxy) attempting to conquer the Skrulls.

Avengers Vs. Thanos   Rebirth of Thanos   Infinity Gauntlet

Superiority Complex

The Marvel Superior Spider-Man Sale runs through Monday, 10/16.

Yes, that would be the run when Doctor Octopus took over Peter Parker’s body. One of the great moments of “wait… this is actually good” in recent history. (Everyone we knew winced at the high concept, but the execution was on the money!)

The primary Superior Spider-Man series by Dan Slott and Ryan Stegman is best packaged in the 2-volume Complete collection, that also includes the “Dying Wish” arc that sets up the run.

Superior Spider-Man Companion gets you the first 12 issues of Superior Spider-Man Team-Up and some tie-in issues.

Superior Spider-Man (’18-’19) is the Christos Gage / Mike Hawthorne revival that returns Otto Octavious to his Spidey persona.

Superior Spider-Man   Superior Spider-Man Companion   Superior Spider-Man

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Wolverine, Suicide Squad, DC Villains and Red Sonja

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel slaps some discounts on Wolverine, DC’s villains are on sale (with lots of Batman) and Red Sonja chops her prices.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

Born to be Bad

The DC Villains Sale runs through Monday, 10/17

The sale page is laid out a little oddly. Batman family titles first, then everything else… including more Batman. (You may have gotten the impression that Batman is popular. We can confirm that.)

Naturally, this is going to make you think of Suicide Squad. Two things you might want to look at:

Azrael V. 1: Fallen Angel – While Denny O’Neil is more strongly associated with Batman and The Question, he wrote a 100 issue run of Azrael. By far, his longest run on a title. This collection has the Batman: Sword of Azrael mini-series, with Joe Quesada inked by Kevin Nowlan on the art. Then you get the first seven issues of that ongoing series with art by Barry Kitson. Remember, Azrael started out as a villain!

Suicide Squad   Suicide Squad Bad Blood x Azrael

Clawing For Deals

The Marvel Wolverine: Weapon X And Other Tales Sale runs through monday, 10/17.

This sale is mostly about the specials, miniseries and b-series over the years. Which is not to say there aren’t some interesting bits.

Weapon X by Barry Windsor-Smith shares the name of this sale and it earns the hype. This is the original origin of Wolverine, but after the Origin books, is now more the origin of his adamantium implants and torture under a shadowy government program.

Wolverine is the original solo adventure/mini-series by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller.  Logan heads to Japan and meets his love’s family. And then The Hand show up. Claws, ninjas, and hurt feels ensue, if you want to be reductive about it. It sets the tone for what’s to follow.

Loosely speaking, Kitty Pride & Wolverine was a sequel to the original Wolverine series. Kitty travels to Japan, only to run into ninjas and some folks from Logan’s path. Vengeance ensues. Chris Claremont returns with Al Milgrom

Wolverine: Weapon X   Wolverine  Kitty Pride & Wolverine

Seeing Red

The Dynamite Red Sonja Sale runs through Monday, 10/31.

Our favorite Red Sonja run is the Mark Russell/Bob Quinn run. On one level, it’s an adventure with Sonja trying to save a kingdom from a conquering monarch’s army. On another level, it’s a satire of the tropes involved with such stories… and honestly, you can read it from either angle, which is a little unusual, but enjoyable.

Killing Red Sonja is a Mark Russell / Bryce Ingman / Craig Rousseau series is a spin-off of the Russell/Quinn main series.

And for those comics from the old school perspective, the Roy Thomas/Frank Thorne 70s comics are collected in The Adventures of Red Sonja, with the Savage Sword of Conan material collected in The Further Adventures of Red Sonja.

Red Sonja   Killing Red Sonja  The Adventures of Red Sonja

Plus, all the Halloween sales we’ve talked about the last two installments are still running. (See below for quick links or hit the homepage and scroll down.)

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Captain America, Star Wars, Ultimate Spider-Man (and Miles Morales), Suicide Squad and Road to Perdition

This week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales include the majority of Captain America comics, a whole bunch of Star Wars material, Ultimate Spider-Man (and Miles Morales) and the rest of DC’s Memorial Day Sale.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

Super Soldier Serum

The Marvel Captain America Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 5/30.

There’s a lot of material to cover here, so we’ll go with the usual format and start by breaking out the major series involved

  • Captain America Comics ’40-’50 – The original Golden Age series
  • Tales of Suspense ’59-’68 – Cap’s Silver Age solo stories were in a title shared with Iron Man
  • Captain America ’68-’96 – The original Silver/Bronze Age solo series.
  • Captain America ’98-’02 – The second Mark Waid / Ron Garney run with some Andy Kubert and Lee Weeks art, too. Smaller volumes here, plus the underrated Dan Jurgens run that followed.
  • Captain America ’02-’04 – The Marvel Knights era
  • Captain America ’04-’11 – The main Winter Soldier/Death of Captain America Ed Brubaker run with Steve Epting, Michael Lark, Mike Perkins and Butch Guice in the artistic rotation. Note: you can pick up chunks of it cheaper in these omnibuses
  • Captain America: Reborn – The actual end to the “Death of Captain America” sequence by Ed Brubaker, Bryan Hitch and Butch Guice
  • Captain America ’11-’12 – Brubaker sticks around for a relaunch, post-Death/Reborn
  • Captain America ’12-’14 is the Rick Remender run with John Romita, Jr, Carlos Pacheco, Pascal Alixe and Nic Klein in the artistic rotation.
  • All-New Captain America ’14-’15 – Sam Wilson picks up the shield by Rick Remender and Stuart Immonen
  • Captain America: Sam Wilson ’15-17 – Nick Spencer with Daniel Acuna as the primary artist. The seeds of “Secret Empire,” which was a long game, start here.Note: There’s a Complete Collection omnibus set of the Sam Wilson material that’s a bit cheaper.
  • Captain America: Steve Rogers ’16-’17 – The main runup to Secret Empire by Nick Spencer with Jesus Saiz and Javier Pina as the primary artists.
  • While not on sale, you can’t talk about the Spencer era without mentioning Secret Empire, the controversial “Hydra Cap” arc that Spencer’s entire run builds towards.
  • Captain America ’17-’18 – AKA Captain America by Mark Waid and Chris Samnee (and Leonardo Romero)
  • Captain America ‘18-’21 – The Ta-Nehisi Coates run with art by Leinil Francis Yu, Adam Kubert, Jason Masters and Leonard Kirk

So… do you think Captain America gets relaunched enough? Don’t worry, they’ll relaunch him again.

First the usual general advice: The Masterworks and Epic Collections tend to be the best buys, but keep an eye on price points. Some of the newer Epic Collections can be $8.99+ and make the Masterworks more appealing.

Some recommendations? Absolutely.  Just the way the collections are currently rolled out, the highlights seem to flow more with the Masterworks than the Epics.

For Silver/Bronze Age adventures,  Captain America Masterworks V. 3 gets you some late Stan Lee/Jack Kirby and the influential Jim Steranko Sequence.  You then jump forward to Masterworks V. 7 for the beginning of the Steve Englehart/Sal Buscema era and stay on through Masterworks V.10, which is the return of Jack Kirby and his entirely too timely “Madbomb” arc. (There’s more Kirby in V.11, but Madbomb is a hard act to follow.) There’s also much to recommend with the Mark Gruenwald era which probably peaked with “The Captain” Epic Collection. In general, earlier Gruenwald is better and the art takes a nose dive before his run is over.

Aside from that, your best of the best is anything written by Mark Waid or Ed Brubaker, and know that Brubaker, first run is basically one long and epic story – and be sure to get Reborn or you’re missing a piece.

Captain America   Captain America   Captain America

Nothing But Star Wars

The Marvel Star Wars Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 5/30.

While not the rock bottom prices of the May the 4th sale, this one does have a wider selection of Star Wars material that isn’t limited to the current Marvel titles.  Some titles that may be of interest:

You get a little more material per volume (and they finished the run) getting the original Marvel Star Wars series with the “A Long Time Ago…” omnibus editions.

A lot of the Epic Collections of the older material have been lumped together under an Epic Collections page, to make finding individual series hard, so refer to that link for the bigger picture, but within that link:

  • Dark Empire – Tom Veitch and Cam Kennedy played a BIG part in bringing the Star Wars franchise back to life with their Dark Horse mini-series and it’s sequel. This is the most economical package for the Dark Empire-related titles. It’s a classic.
  • Agent of Empire – John Ostander, Stéphane Roux and Davidé Fabbri did a couple mini-series that effectively answered the question, “what if James Bond worked for The Empire?” Those are the backbone of this collection.
  • Legacy – Far in the Star Wars timeline’s future, the Sith have returned and are stalking the last Skywalker heir. There are three volumes of this fun John Ostrander / Jan Duursema series that might not be cannon anymore, but is better than a lot of things that came after it.

Original Marvel Star Wars   Dark Empire   Agent of Empire

This Time, the Other Peter Isn’t a Clone

The Marvel Ultimate Spider-Man Sale runs through Monday, 5/30.

A Bendis Sale! And Ultimate Spidey might just the the crowning achievement for Brian Bendis in the world of superheroes. (We might like his Daredevil a little more, but Ultimate Spidey and then Miles have had so much impact.)

So let’s break this one down into parts.

  1. The original Ultimate Spider-Man with Mark Bagley, reimaging Peter for a new era. You get a better deal with these larger collections and ignore the omnibus that starts the list.
  2. Ultimate Comics Spider-Man, the relaunch with David Lafuente.
  3. Ultimate Comics Spider-Man, the Miles Morales version with art by Sara Pichelli, Chris Samnee, David Marquez and Pepe Larraz

Ultimate Spider-Man   Ultimate Comics Spider-Man   Ultimate Comics Spider-Man (Miles Morales)

The Other Memorial Day Sale

The DC Memorial Day eBook Sale Part 2 runs through Monday, 5/30.

It would appear that last week’s confusion was caused by Amazon prematurely post this week’s sale last week, then removing it in the US while leaving it online in the UK.  Stranger and stranger.

But this is essentially the back half of the alphabet on sale and worth a browse. Some highlights?

The rock bottom price pick: Dead Boy Detectives for $3.99. Something of a departure for Vertigo as we generally remember it (although there was a similar “Death” volume and My Faith In Frankie wasn’t necessarily far removed), the multi-award-winning Jill Thompson takes the ghost detective children from Sandman and plops them into a manga-style detective comedy.  Yes, Jill is versatile.

From the “Yes, DC published that” division, do you remember Road to Perdition? Yes, before Tom Hanks was a mob enforcer, this was a comic. As usual, these are cataloged strangely.  Listed under “Return to Perdition,” are the original Road to Perdition  and Road to Perdition: On the Road. Both are written by Max Allan Collins with Richard Piers Rayner illustrating Road to Perdition and Jose Luis Garcia Lopez, Steve Leiber and Joseph Rubenstein sharing duties for On the Road. The actual Return to Perdition, a sequel set in the 1970s by Collins and his Ms. Tree partner, Terry Beatty is list separately (for $3.99). Go figure…

For the uninitiated, Road to Perdition can be likened to Lone Wolf and Cub setting against the backdrop of the Capone era Chicago mob. A mob enforcer goes on the lam with his son after the boss of the local mob outpost orders a hit on his family.  Excellent material that’s largely ignored these days.

And if you’d like some supervillains in your life, the John Ostrander/Luke McDonnell Suicide Squad run is available for $5.99 a pop. This is the run that spun off the films.

Dead Boy Detectives   Road to Perdition   Suicide Squad

 

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Comixology Sales: Rocket Raccoon and Groot, Suicide Squad, Groo, Whiteout, Kaijumax and a whole bunch of Oni GNs

This week in Comixology Sales, Marvel serves up Rocket & Groot; DC slashes the Suicide Squad (you’d think there was a movie coming out…); Sergio pops up with a Groo sale; and Oni has a very nearly line-wide graphic novel sale.

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

Like Moose & Squirrel… but with Tree

The  Marvel Rocket Raccoon & Groot Sale runs through Sunday, 8/1.

We’d say the Rocket Raccoon & Groot Complete Collection (Comixology says Ultimate Collection, but we’re going with what’s on the cover) is the place to start for the original appearances and some Annihilation-related material.  Then it’s time for that rascal Skottie Young’s Rocket Raccoon run.

Rocket Raccoon & Groot Complete Collection   Rocket Raccoon

Suicide Sale

The DC Suicide Squad Sale runs through Monday, 8/9.

DC didn’t exactly make it easy on the recommendations here. Our favorite runs are the original John Ostrander/Luke McDonnell and the recent Tom Taylor/Bruno Redondo runs. The Taylor/Redondo run is too recent to be on sale and DC just reissued V.1 of the Ostrander run, so this is an imperfect sale.

So here’s the Ostrander/McDonnell work around: go to the series page for their Suicide Squad run, get the $0.99 single issues for #1-8 and then proceed to the collected editions.  As we said, imperfect sale.  Good comics, though.  (We’ll ignore the comedy of putting the movie cast on the new cover for V.1 for the moment.  Might not be consistent with the contents.)

Suicide Squad

Groo is Getting OLD

The Dark Horse Feeling Groovy Sale runs through Monday, 8/2.

The title is a bit of a pun, since the object of the sale is Groo the Wander. How long have Sergio Aragonés and Mark Evanier been telling tales of the none-too-swift barbarian? It’ll be 40 years in 2022!  (And we have that issue of Destroyer Duck around here someplace.) This sale is for the Dark Horse material.  Groo is pretty darn portable, but if you want to start at the beginning of the Dark Horse run, then go with Sergio Aragones’ Groo: The Most Intelligent Man in the World. That’s where the Dark Horse era begins. The bottom line here: it’s Sergio and if you don’t love Sergio, we can’t help you.

Groo

Oni Opens the Vault

The  Oni Graphic Novel Sale runs through Monday, 8/9.

There’s a lot of territory to cover here and we’re going to assume you already know what a Scott Pilgrim is.  And we’ll go a little deeper here because the full monty seems to be on sale.

The Rucka Trilogy

Greg Rucka’s had a good run with Oni over the years. It starts with Whiteout with Steve Lieber, a outright classic about a murder at Antarctica. Yes, there was a film, but we don’t talk about that. The next title was a sidestep towards espionage with the long-running Queen & Country. Possibly the best spy comic of them all, this one rotates artists with each arc and you see everyone from Chris Samnee to Jason Shawn Alexander to Carla Speed McNeil. Q&C channels a cult UK spy show called The Sandbaggers, which is also worth your time. More recently, Rucka teamed with Matthew Southland and later Justin Greenwood for Stumptown, a Rockford Files-esque PI show set in Portland that has a TV adaptation. (We might like V.4’s stolen exotic coffee beans plot the best.)

Whiteout   Queen & Country   Stumptown

Normally, we’d be pushing The Sixth Guy, but Oni’s being a jerk about it with this sale. The “Deluxe” editions are on sale — as in hardcover pricing for digital.  The regular collected editions mostly aren’t on sale — and they’re still cheaper than the Deluxe sales price.  Great series, but this sale is not the one.

There’s a similar situation with Kaijumax by Zander Cannon. In this case, the regular collected editions are on sale, so avoid the Deluxe version in the Omnibus window and their HC pricing and stick with the normal ones.  So what is Kaijumax?  A criminally overlooked delight.  Oh, yes… it looks like a funny animal book, but it’s a DARK tale about an island that’s a supermax prison for giant monsters.  Think Godzilla goes to jail and you’re not far off. Prison gangs, contraband and breakout attempts. Cannon plays this one straight and the contrast between the art style and the subject matter is part of the fun. Seriously, your jaw will drop as you get used to the format.

And for something in a different direction, there’s Petrograd, Phillip Gelatt’s and Tyler Crook’s tale of a British spy sent to arrange Rasputin’s demise.

Kaijumax   Petrograd

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