Tag: Zenescope

Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: X-Men, DC Black Label, Deadpool, Attack on Titan

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel discounts X-Men and Deadpool. DC drops deals on Black Label. Plus, Attack on Titan and Wonderland.

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):

Paint It Black

The DC Black Label Sale runs through Monday, 11/6.

What is Black Label? Something of a cross between Vertigo and Elseworlds. Stories of DC characters that are… not necessarily in continuity. (We say not necessarily because  things like Batman: The Three Jokers might end up in continuity.) A little more on the mature reader side. Sometimes fantasy or horror that has nothing to do with the DCU.

What’s good? An awful lot of it. A few highlights (and yes, Tom King does do some of his best work for this imprint):

We’re not listing the Spurrier/Campbell Hellblazer because only the first volume is on sale. A oversight we disapprove of for a wonderful comic.

Best o’ the best?

If you’re looking for a Vertigo replacement at DC, direct your attention to The Nice House on the Lake. Tynion and Bueno deliver an excellent SF/Horror fusion series about the end of the world. The bestselling horror comic DC’s seen in quite a while, too.

The Human Target by King and Smallwood is a very unique comic. One part hardboiled noir as Christopher Chance tries to figure out who poisoned him before he died. One part loving homage to the Bwa Ha Ha era Justice League. Amazingly the JL cast is mostly in goofy character, despite popping up in a noir. Quite a feat. Well written and you really can’t say enough about Smallwood’s art.

Rorschach by Tom King & Jorge Fornés is even more unusual than The Human Target. It’s a Watchmen sequel that we actually like and don’t think is a cash grab. OK, it’s not so much a sequel as a tale that takes place in the same universe and in the aftermath of the original graphic novel. It’s a detective story about conspiracy, identity, mythology and… Frank Miller?  Yes, Frank Miller. It’s a keeper.

Nice House on the Lake   The Human Target   Rorschach

Brand X

The Marvel Uncanny X-Men Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 11/6.

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

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

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

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

So, recommendations with that in mind.

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

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

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

We assume you already know about the Morrison run.

And if you were looking for the Events that started after #200… well, that’s next.

X-Men Epic Collection: The Sentinels Live   

No, Not the Dirty Harry Film

The Marvel Deadpool Vs. the Marvel Universe Sale runs through Monday, 11/6.

Deadpool has always had a lot of fairly short run titles swapping around at any given time, this is a collection of those secondary titles.

The longest running of the set is Deadpool & Cable, Fabian Nicieza and Patrick Zircher being the team most associated with it. Amusingly, the monthly comic was called Cable & Deadpool, but the character popularity has flipped since then.

Spider-Man / Deadpool also ran 50 issues. Joe Kelly / Ed McGuinness was the early creative team with Robbie Thompson / Chris Bachalo tagging in later.

Deadpool Corps maybe of heightened interest with Rob Liefeld joining writing Victor Gischler for it.

Deadpool & Cable    Spider-Man / Deadpool    Deadpool Corps

Attaaaaaaack of the Killer Tomatoes

The Kodansha Attack on Titan Sale runs through Monday, 11/13.

By cosmic coincidence, this is what we’ve been reading here at the Tower of Cheap. 2/3 of the way through V. 33 as this is being typed.

Attack on Titan by Hajime Isayama is a genre-bender and a half. It starts out as more of a horror story with people living inside a barrier of giant walls, besieged by “Titans.” Mindless giants who roam around eating people. And since the technology level in this world is roughly ~1920, there’s a touch of steampunk around the edges. Then some Titans appear who aren’t mindless. As the heroes try to solve the mystery of the Titans, it turns into a political conspiracy. Then the applecart gets turned over and there’s more political conspiracy on a wider scale, Titans as weapons of mass destruction and ethnic cleansings. This one really is something else and is operating on a very wide scale as it wraps up. It goes to some very dark places and doesn’t really back away from them, either.

There are also several spin-offs in the sale.

Attack on Titan

You’re a Wonder

The Zenescope Return to Wonderland Digital Sale runs through Wednesday, 11/22.

Zenescope’s Wonderland titles were their buzziest titles when Raven Gregory was writing them.

The original trilogy was

Beyond that (pun intended)

Tales from Wonderland will fit in-between various volumes and the rough order of the rest is:

Return to Wonderland   Beyond Wonderland   Escape From Wonderland

Additionally, we think the unlisted Dark Horse sale from last week is still in effect, but we’re unsure for how much longer.

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

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

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

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

DC’s Halloween Sale

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

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

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

Things that caught our eye as interesting:

What’s good here? All of the above.

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

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

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

John Constantine, Hellblazer   Batman - Haunted Knight   DCeased

Poison

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

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

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

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

Eventually Venom gets his own series:

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

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

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

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

Venom by Remender   Venom by Cates   Venom

Miles To Go Before I Sleep

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

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

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

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

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

  Miles Morales: Spider-Man   Miles Morales

You Have the Right to Remain Green

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

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

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

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

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

Zenescope’s Halloween Sale

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

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

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

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Daredevil (All of It); Gotham Central; OMAC; Masters of the Universe

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel’s big Daredevil sale and DC’s Labor Day Sale return… with actual sale prices! Plus, Masters of the Universe and Van Helsing.

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):

The Daredevil Sale Returns

Well, well, well… look who showed up Thursday morning:

The Marvel Daredevil Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 9/11.

Yes, they fixed last week’s sale.  The usual discounts now apply. So first, let’s run through the various series. Believe it or not, Daredevil hasn’t been relaunched as many times as, say, Hulk has.

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

Since it’s been a couple years since this sale was run, let’s have a look at the Epics and Masterworks that might not have been in the last one, shall we?

New(ish) Epic Collections:

  • Going Out West – #87-107; Gerry Conway era ends; Steve Gerber begins
  • Watch Out For Bullseye – #108-132; Gerber era ends; Then Tony Isabella, and enter Marv Wolfman and Bullseye debuts
  • It Comes With Claws – #234 – 252; Ann Nocenti’s run begins. John Romita, Jr. arrives to start that famous pairing towards the end of the volume.
  • Dead Man’s Hand – #301-11, plus some crossover/event issues; The D.G. Chichester / Scott McDaniel era

New(ish) Masterworks:

Oh, look… this is when they got to the Frank Miller run!

What’s good? Honestly, Daredevil has been one of the best curated characters of the last 40 years. There haven’t been very many bad issues since Frank Miller showed up. (Some people complained about the Chichester/McDaniel/Weeks run and the new armor, but we like that run and “Last Rites” seems to be more popular now than at the time.)

The usual advice on Epics & Masterworks – you need to check the page counts, but the Epics are usually a little longer and more bang for your buck, but not all Epics are priced the same.

For $5.99 for ~300-ish pages/~12 issues, it’s hard to beat these collections of the Waid/Samnee(/Rivera/Rodriguez) run. A side thread to this run. It starts out with “Daredevil wasn’t originally such a dark book” and then it proceeds to go to dark places after a bit! Seriously, an excellent run.

Currently not in a larger collection, Daredevil: Born Again by Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli is a very, very effective story and maybe Miller’s high point on the character. It doesn’t have the page count of some these other collections, but at $4.99, it’s still a truly classic 8-parter for the price of a new single issue.

The Last Rites Epic Collection is 500 pages for for $6.99. It’s the end of the Ann Nocenti run and the beginning of the D.G Chichester era. Lots of art by the always under-rated Lee Weeks. Bullseye, The Hand, Typhoid Mary and The Kingpin all show up. Plus some Punisher and Ghost Rider, so there’s something for pretty much everyone in this.

(If A Touch of Typhoid was $5.99, it would go to the head of the line. That’s the meat of the Nocenti/JRjr run and earned its rep.)

Still, plenty of good reads in this sale and we’re glad it got fixed!

Daredevil by Mark Waid   Daredevil: Born Again   Daredevil: Last Rites

Speaking of Sales That Got Fixed…

The DC Labor Day Sale runs through Monday, 9/11.

We’re not sure those $4.65 price points are supposed to be there, but there’s plenty of graphic novels for $2.99 (and $4.65 is a considerably better price than we were seeing last week).

Some items of possible interest:

Gotham Central for $2.99 per (double) volume? Um, yes!  GREAT comic. Ed Brubaker, Greg Rucka, Michael Lark, Stefano Gaudiano and Kano on tales of the Gotham PD trying to handle things when Batman is otherwise occupied.

OMAC: One Man Army Corps by Jack Kirby. You might have run into this concept in a movie recently. This is Kirby’s original dystopian satire. It’s… well, you kind of need to experience this one for yourself. Describing it doesn’t do it justice, just know that it’s REALLY over the top. $2.99

Final Crisis by Grant Morrison, J.G. Jones and Doug Mahnke. The Event itself, plus the Batman and Superman tie-ins (which are important to the plot). 391 pages for $2.99? From Morrison/Jones/Mahnke?  That’s a good buy!

Gotham Central   OMAC   Final Crisis

Deadman – The 60s/70s cult series in 5 volumes. The first two are the Neal Adams run, then a volume that’s largely Paul Levitz/Jim Aparo picking up the reigns and popping in and out of various titles. V.4 is largely the Len Wein/Jim Aparo/Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez Adventure run. V.5 is the Andy Helfer/Garcia-Lopez miniseries and the Challengers of the Unknown appearances. $2.99 a pop.

Creature Commandos – We’re not sure when the cartoon is coming out or if the strike affects it, but this is the original material from Weird War Tales. Lots of people worked on this, including J.M. DeMatties, Robert Khaniger, Fred Carillo, Jerry Ordway and even Dan Spiegel.

And for something under the radar: Lobo: Portrait of a Bastich. In the mid-90s, Lobo had a series of miniseries and specials that were the gold standard for rude humor. Keith Giffen, Alan Grant and Simon Bisley were the original team and this collects the first two mini’s. It is, as MTV used to say about Monty Python, an effective tool for the offending of the easily offendable.

This sale is worth a deep browse over the weekend. There are a lot of good runs with a single $4.65 volume in the middle of $2.99 ones.

Deadman   Creature Commandos   Lobo

Masters and Servants

The Dark Horse 2023 Masters of the Universe Digital Sale runs through Monday, 9/25.

Yes, that would be He-Man. Two sections to the sale:

Classic material

Current Comics

He-Man Newspaper Comic Strip   Masters of the Universe: Masterverse   Masters of the Universe: Revelation

Grimm Vampire Tales

Zenescope’s Van Helsing Character Spotlight Sale runs through Sunday, 9/24.

This would be the daughter of Professor Van Helsing doing battle with the forces of darkness. You expect to see Zenescope regulars Pat Shand and Raven Gregory here, but Chuck Dixon also shows up for a few runs.

We’re looking at 99 cent single issues (with the odd higher price for things like #50) and $5.99 collected editions, which means the single issues will likely be a little cheaper or a wash.

Also in the sale 99-cent issues of the spin-off Hellchild.

Helsing   Van Helsing   Hellchild

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Star Wars Epic Collections; She-Hulk; Aquaman

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel cuts prices on Star Wars Omnibuses and Epic Collection, as well as She-Hulk.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

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

Cue the Vocal Stylings of Bill Murray

The Marvel Star Wars: Epic Collections and Omnibuses Sale runs through Monday, 8/28

Nothing but Star Wars in this sale. Most of them, BIG collections for $4.99.

Now, MOST of this sale is the original Marvel material or the Dark Horse Star Wars material. But let’s cover the exceptions to the rule, first:

Darth Vader by Gillen Omnibus   Darth Vader by Soule Omnibus   Doctor Aphra Omnibus

There really aren’t title-specific links here, which is super annoying.  The original Dark Horse format omnibuses are here. If you want to get the entire original Marvel run, that’s the cheaper format. They do in in one fewer volume.

The new Marvel Epic Collections are _all_ in this link.

A few things we’ll call out as particularly good.

The original Marvel Star Wars, #49-69, the under appreciated, post-Empire period with Walt Simonson and/or David Michelinie.  Most of it is in this DH Omnibus.

John Ostrander’s “Agent of Empire” is collected in this Epic. Think “what if James Bond spied for the Empire.” It’s fun.

Tom Veitch and Cam Kennedy reinvigorated the franchise in the 90s when they did Dark Empire. That and Dark Empire II are collected in this Epic.

Also fun, the Ostrander/Jan Duursema “Legacy” series, wherein the down and out last heir to the Skywalker legacy finds himself embroiled with a resurgent Sith Empire. 4 volumes, starting here.

And finally, there’s nothing quite like Archie Goodwin and Al Williamson on the Star Wars newspaper strip. Yes, that’s Russ Manning who comes first. 2 volumes starting here.

Agent of Empire   Dark Empire   Star Wars Newspaper Strip

And finally a list of Epics we don’t think were on sale the last time these prices rolled around:

We Keep Reading About Lawyers…

The Marvel She-Hulk Sale runs through Monday, 8/28.

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

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

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

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

Flashes of Water

The  DC to the MAX Sale runs through Monday, 8/28.

Three more points of interest from DC’s two-week sale.

In the mid-90s, Peter David wrote a fairly popular Aquaman run that made the King of Atlantis a little edgy (In the ’90s? Surely not!) and had him losing a hand. $6.99 is a decent price for double-length volumes.

The Flash: The Silver Age collects the adventures of Barry Allen going back to the initial Showcase appearances. ~400 page volumes for $5.99/$6.99

Batman: Year One by Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli for $3.99? Yes, that is cheaper than a new issue of Batman. Plus, it’s a beautifully illustrated, highly influential tale of Batman’s first year on the job.

Aquaman by Peter David   The Flash: The Silver Age   Batman: Year One

Grimm Singles

The Zenescope Grimm Fairy Tales #75 Spectacular Sale runs through Sunday, 8/27.

It’s a $0.99 single issue sale built around three titles:

Grimm Fairy Tales   Grimm Spotlight   Grimm Universe Presents Quarterly

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Hulk and Nick Fury – ALL the GNs; Plus Oh My Goddess and Zenescope

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel discounts The Hulk and Nick Fury… nearly the whole catalog for each. Dark Horse Slashes Oh My Goddess and Zenescope has a graphic novel 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):

A Hulking Hunk of Burning Discounts

The Incredible Hulk Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 7/10.

Oh, yes. There is a LOT of Hulk on sale.  Most of it, really.  So we’re going to start out by doing what we do (and what Amazon can’t be bothered to do) and break it down by series.

  • Incredible Hulk (1962 – 1999) The original run and then the long running series that picked up a few years later.
  • Tales to Astonish (1964-68) In between the two Hulk solo runs above, Hulk was splitting Tales to Astonish with Ant-Man/Giant Man and then Namor. A lot of the foundational work was really in this run, with Stan Lee/Steve Ditko responsible for a lot of it.
  • Incredible Hulk (1999-2007) – Best known for the Bruce Jones / Lee Weeks/ Mike Deodato run towards the beginning and the Greg Pak / multi-artist “Planet Hulk” and “World War Hulk” epics at the end… though World War Hulk is at this different link.
  • Hulk (2008-13) This is the Red Hulk run (and the title changes to that after awhile). It starts out with the better known Jeph Loeb/Ed Mc Guiness run and then Jeff Parker takes over with Gabriel Hardman, Dave Eaglesham and Patrick Zircher in the artist rotation.
  • Incredible Hulk by Jason Aaron (2011-12) – Lots of artists rotating through here, Marc Silvestri, Steve Dillon and Carlos Pacheco among them
  • Indestructible Hulk (2012 – 14) – Mark Waid’s the writer with an artist rotation including Leinil Francis Yu, Matteo Scalera and Walt Simonson draws the Thor team-up.
  • Hulk by Waid and Duggan (2014-15) – That would be Mark Waid and Gerry Duggan with Duggan doing the bulk of the run. Mark Bagley is the main artist here.
  • The Totally Awesome Hulk (2015-17) – This would be Amadeus Cho’s turn as Hulk, which mean Greg Pak is you primary writer with an artist rotation including Frank Cho, Alan Davis and Luke Ross
  • Immortal Hulk (2018-21) – Al Ewing’s masterpiece as the Hulk slides over towards horror and find a green door that leads to Hell.
  • Hulk (2021-23) – The Donny Cates / Ryan Ottley run
    • Hulk Vs. Thor: Banner of War – The Cates/Martin Coccolo cross-over that’s 100% part of this run, but listed separately.

What’s good? We like the value of the Epic Collections in the original series (and Tales to Astonish) for $6.99.  The Masterworks editions for $5.99 aren’t bad either, so pick your period and format.

As for “the best of” Hulk…

We think this Epic Collection of the Tales to Astonish run is a good introduction to the Hulk. A rock solid creator rotation of Lee/Kirby/Ditko/Kane/Everett/Buscema/Severin. The introductions of The Leader and the Abomination (among others). Cold war paranoia and you get to the the original evolution of the Hulk as a character that changes formats and approaches every so often.

Immortal Hulk is a high water mark and well worth your time, though not really what you’d call a traditional Hulk tale.  Peter David’s lengthy run is a classic (and we’re not going to divide it up by artist periods – it’s all good). Greg Pak has gone big like few others with Planet Hulk and World War Hulk.

Something under the radar?  There’s a Paul Jenkins/Ron Garney/John Romita Junior run that preceded the better known Bruce Jones era. It’s collected with some other things, but the two volumes are The Dogs of War and Past Perfect. It goes darker than a lot of the Hulk tales, but we sure liked it.

Hulk Epic Collection   Hulk Dogs of War   Hulk - Past Perfect

Spy Games

The Marvel Nick Fury and Agents of SHIELD sale runs through Monday, 7/10.

It’s a Nick Fury sale (both of him) and a SHIELD sale, because the two aren’t always the same thing. Let’s start with breaking this down by series:

  • Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos (’63-’74) – Nick Fury started out fronting a WW II war book (as interpreted by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby)
  • Strange Tales (’51-’68) – originally splitting the book with Doctor Strange, Nick Fury started off with Lee/Kirby and ended up with the classic Jim Steranko run.
  • Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. (’68-’71)  – this Masterworks edition catches the last of Steranko and then the creators rotate a bit. Highlights include some Archie Goodwin stories and a bit of early Barry Windsor-Smith (pre-Windsor, technically)
  • Nick Fury Vs. S.H.I.E.L.D. (’88) – Bob Harras and Paul Neary restarted the franchise with a bang in what was originally published as a Prestige/Dark Knight format mini-series
  • Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. (’88-’92) – Spinning out of the hit mini-series, this had a few different teams. We associated it most with Bob Harras/Bob Hall and D.G. Chichester / Jackson Guice.
  • Wolverine & Nick Fury: Scorpio  (’89) – A collection of three Prestige format tales teaming up Logan & Nick. Archie Goodwin / Howard Chaykin; Tom DeFalco/John Buscema; Howard Chaykin / Shawn McManus
  • Secret Warriors (’08-’11) – Bendis is in on the beginning, but this is really a Jonathan Hickman series with Stefano Caselli and Alessandro Vitti as primary artists
  • S.H.I.E.L.D. (’10-’11) – Jonathan Hickman/Dustin Weaver, and this series is listed in a very confusing way. Here’s how you need to look at it:
  • Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (’16) – Based on the TV show with Marc Guggenheim writing and German Peralta as the primary artist.
  • Secret Warriors (’16-’17) – Matthew Rosenberg / Javier Garron
  • Nick Fury: Deep Cover Capers (’17) – James Robinson / ACO

What’s good?  For many, the definitive Nick Fury is the Steranko run and if you only want that, the  whole thing is in one edition. (It’s unevenly split across the three masterworks.)

Nick Fury Vs. S.H.I.E.L.D. is the definitive “there’s something wrong at SHIELD and Fury is on the run” story. It’s emulated for a reason.

Nick Fury: Deep Cover Capers is your under the radar pick. Fun, breezy spy hijinks with a ’60s Bond/UNCLE/Avengers vibe and great art.

SHIELD by Steranko   Nick Fury vs. SHIELD   Nick Fury Deep-Cover Capers

Not Periscope, Not Necroscope…

The Zenescope $5 Graphic Novel Sale runs through Sunday, 7/23.

Portions of this have been in previous Zenescope sales, but one thing that stood out to us in this one that hadn’t been in the previous sales is the Wonderland material. We’re not particularly familiar with it, but back in the day, the Zenescope title that seemed to have the most positive comments was always the Raven Gregory revival of Wonderland with Alice’s daughter venturing back down the rabbit hole.  We think this is the reading order for that:

And several more mini-series/collections sprinkled in as the ongoing series progresses.

Return to Wonderland   Tales From Wonderland

Is This a Veiled George Takei Reference?

The  Dark Horse Oh My Goddess Sale runs through Monday, 7/3.

What we have here is a repeat of last week… only this time, the Lone Wolf & Cub sale is sharing the same URL with the Oh My Goddess Sale. Yes, two weeks in a row. (And the Viz sale is also doubled up, although by the time you see this, it will probably be over.)

Instead of linking to the sale page and telling you to reload a few times until the right page turns up, we’re just going to link directly to the actual Oh My Goddess series page and save you some time. Who knows? Maybe this won’t happen next week?

Oh My Goddess

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: The Flash (and Batman); Ultimate Spider-Man; Black Panther; and Avatar

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, it’s a movie week – comics with The Flash, Black Panther (with a screen writer pedigree), Spider-Man and Avatar.

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):

The Flash (Featuring Batman)

DC’s Flash Sale runs through Monday, 6/19.

It’s like there’s a movie coming out!  And that means there’s a ton of Batman and Supergirl in the sale, too.

Let’s start with the two most obvious things here:

The Flash film is based on the Flash-centered crossover Event, Flashpoint. That Geoff Johns / Adam Kubert series has The Flash altering the timeline with very unexpected effects and leads into the New 52 relaunch. (Our acquaintance saw a preview of the film, liked it and thought it improved on the comic.)

And since Michael Keaton returns to the Batman role in the film, the obvious tie-in here is Batman ’89.  Sam Ham, the original 80s Batman screenwriter, joins artist Joe Quinones to tell the tale he had in mind for the third Keaton Batman film, had the franchise not had a creative shuffle. And that’s Bill Dee Williams as Two-Face. We enjoyed this one.

Flashpoint   Batman '89

There’s plenty of Batman on sale here at good prices (particularly the 80s material), but let’s have a look at the Flash material, since this is theoretically a Flash sale.

Perhaps the most interesting thing here is the ’87 – ’09, post-Crisis Wally West Flash. It starts out with a collection of the Mike Baron / Butch Guice / Mike Collins run (with William Messner-Loebs tagging in for Baron towards the end of the collection).

Then pop over to the omnibus page of that series for some of the better prices we’ve seen on The Flash by Mark Waid (with Greg Larocque, Mike Collins and Salvador Larocca, among others); the Grant Morrison / Mark Millar / Paul Ryan run; and The Flash by Geoff Johns (with Scott Kolins and Howard Porter, among others). Those are some classic runs and the Flash runs we prefer by Waid and Johns.

The current run of Flash is here, and it starts with a lengthy Josh Williamson run. (It’s a little cheaper to get these three double-volumes which are the equivalent of the first 6 at the first link.)

The Flash   The Flash   Flash

Ultimate Spider-Bendis

The Marvel Ultimate Spider-Man Sale runs through Monday, 6/12.

Is this a companion piece to the Spider-Verse sale? It might as well be, because Miles Morales is the centerpiece of that sale and the saga of the Ultimate Peter Parker runs right into the origin of Miles.  And yes, the two Ultimate Spider-Men could be looked at as one really long Brian Bendis tale.

This sale is easily broken into three parts:

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

Black Pantherama

The Marvel Black Panther Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 6/12.

It’s a Legacy sale, which means the whole catalog, so first lets break down the highlights

  • The Don McGregor era (AKA, pre-Priest), where Don McGregor was primary author… with a notable Kirby interlude. The best way to navigate the multiple editions is:
  • The Chrisopher Priest era  – with art by Mark Texiera, M.D. Bright and Sal Velluto (among others)
  • The Reggie Hudlin era (yes, “House Party” / “Boomerang” Hudlin) – with art by John Romita, Jr., Scot Eaton and Denys Cowan (among others)
  • The Ta-Nehisi Coates era (yes, from The Atlantic) – while the volumes are numbered consecutively, it’s split into two listing
    • Part one – with art by Brian Stelfreeze and Chris Sprouse (among others)
    • Part two – with art by Daniel Acuna and Kev Walker (among others)
  • The John Ridley era (Yes, Oscar-winner Ridley from 12 Years a Slave) – with art by Juann Cabal and German Peralta

Honestly, most of the Panther pantheon is pretty good. If you haven’t read the original McGregor run, it’s truly the foundational work on the character and almost everyone calls back to it. (That’s also where Killmonger originates.)

The Priest run might be the most celebrated – and it is extremely good.

And while it’s lesser known (possibly because it’s new), we’ve been pretty happy with the Ridley run, in particular the second volume with its extra biting commentary on colonialism.

Black Panther Masterworks   Black Panther by Priest   Black Panther by John Ridley

Speaking of Movies…

The Dark Horse Avatar Sale runs through Monday, 6/26.

Yes, there are Avatar comics. And they’re displayed in a somewhat confusing way. (Yes, yes… we were shocked, too.)

This link is for the $0.99 single issues AND the three High Ground 88 page “graphic novels.”

The collected editions are here. 6 issues to a $5.99 collected edition, so there’s a 5-cent difference between the two formats, if you’re keeping count.

Avatar   Avatar

The Green Hood

The Zenescope Character Spotlight Sale runs through Saturday, 6/24.

And the character in question is Robyn Hood (the Grimm’s Fairy Tales version).

This is available in 3 formats:

And as we were looking at this, we saw a couple names we weren’t expecting to see.  The volumes “The Curse” and “Justice” are written by Chuck Dixon. “Outlaw” is written by Howard Mackie.

Robyn Hood x Robyn Hood x Robyn Hood

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Green Lantern, Carnage, Cyberpunk 2077; Grimm Fairy Tales

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, DC discounts Green Lantern, Marvel’s Carnage sale stops being stealth, DH throws Cyberpunk 2077 into the arena and Zenescope goes line wide with Grimm Fairy Tales.

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):

Night Lights

The DC Green Lantern Sale runs through Monday, 1/15.

Green Lantern’s been rebooted a LOT over the years (especially post-New 52), so let’s start out by listing the major titles involved here.

  • Green Lantern (’60-’86) – The original, although only certain stretches are collected.
  • Green Lantern Corps (’86-’88) – The original title changed to Corps to wrap up the Steve Englehart/Joe Staton era. We consider this the last stretch of the original series.
  • Green Lantern (’90 – ’04) – Only some of the Kyle Rayner material is collected from this era.
  • Green Lantern (’05 – ’11) – The Geoff Johns era (and one of the character’s best periods), but this is complicated to get the best deal. The omnibus editions  aren’t complete yet and are broken up into different sets than the single volumes though the single volumes are mostly cheaper.  You also should get Blackest Night to go with that volume of the series. There are all sorts of tie-ins for Blackest Night, but the omnibus of that does not seem to be offered in digital.
  • Green Lantern Corps Recharge (’05 – ’06) – Geoff Johns / Dave Gibbons / Patrick Gleason set up the GLC ongoing
  • Green Lantern Corps (’06-’11) – The companion book to Green Lantern, initially by Dave Gibbons / Patrick Gleason
  • Green Lantern (’11-’16) – New 52 relaunch. Starts out with Geoff Johns / Doug Mahnke, then Robert Venditti/Billy Tan start a long run.
  • Green Lantern: New Guardians (’11-’15)-The New 52 Kyle Raynor series
  • Green Lantern Corps (’11-’15) – The New 52 John Stewart / Guy Gardner / Kilowog series
  • Red Lanterns (’11-’15) – Yes, even the Red Lanterns had a New 52 book!
  • Sinestro (’14-’16) – Cullen Bunn / Dale Eaglesham / Brad Walker
  • Green Lantern/New Gods: Godhead (’14-’15) – Event crossing over with the entire GL line
  • Green Lantern Corps: Lost Army (’15) – Cullen Bunn / Jesus Saiz
  • Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps (’16-’18) – The DCU Rebirth relaunch, initially by Robert Venditti and Rafa Sandoval
  • Green Lanterns (’16-’18) – Rebirth title starring Simon Baz and Jessica Cruz
  • Green Lantern (’19) – Also known as “Season One” by Grant Morrison and Liam Sharp
  • Green Lantern: Season Two (’20-’21) – finishing the Morrison/Sharp storyline
  • Green Lantern (’21-’22) – More of a John Stewart / Jo Mullein / Teen Lantern series by Geoffrey Thorne and Tom Raney

So what’s good? As a consequence of there not being that much reprinted, what’s available of the  original run is pretty solid. The early Broome/Kane. O’Neil/Adams. Wein/Gibbons. Englehart/Staton. All good stuff.

The Geoff Johns era is particularly good. We’d put Sinestro Corps War as the best sequence, if we had to pick.

The Morrison / Sharp run is also interesting. It starts out as more of a police procedural in space and then progressively gets stranger, with Sharp embracing the fantastical elements and leaning into that with the art. But remember, the two seasons (One and Two) form a single story.

Green Lantern   Green Lantern by Geoff Johns   Green Lantern

Deja Vu

The Marvel Carnage Sale runs through Monday, 5/15.

What’s this, you say? Wasn’t this at the bottom of the Star Wars sale last week?

Sure enough, it’s back and… got a promotion to its own sale? Umm… we have no good explanation.

If you want old school Spidey vs. Carnage, our recommendation would be the Carnage: Born in Blood Epic Collection. This gets you the first Carnage arc, as well as Maximum Carnage.

While we’re not seeing Ram V’s current horror (and Asgard) tinged Carnage title in the sale, we’re fans (the few, the proud) of the Gerry Conway / Mike Perkins Carnage run that took it in a definite horror direction with an almost Tomb of Dracula-like vibe.

Carnage  Carnage

Cheap Punks

The Dark Horse Cyberpunk 2077 sale runs through Monday, 5/15.

This video game adaption comes in two flavor – collected editions and single issues.

Guess what? 4 issues @ $0.99 each is cheaper than $5.99 for the collected edition. Choose wisely.

Cyberpunk 2077   Cyberpunk 2077

Another Fine Myth

The Grimm Universe Line Wide Digital Sale runs through Sunday, June 4th.

For those of you who’ve been clamoring for a few more independent publishers on the deals page, we now see a Zenescope sale for the first time in a while.

Unfortunately, we’re not that familiar with Zenescope’s output and the thing we most often hear about, Raven Gregory’s Wonderland saga, isn’t well represented in the sale

The flagship title for this sale is Grimm Fairy Tales.

It breaks down this way (for easier browsing):

2007-16 series

Collected Editions and Omnibus Editions work out to roughly the same price and are cheaper than single issues. The Omnibuses only take you to issue 75, the Collected Editions go further.

2016 series

Grimm Fairy Tales   Grimm Fairy Tales 2016 series

Still On Sale

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