I'm totally stoked about this one...
Marvel Comics Online
My favorite Christmas gift from Slick this year is my year-long subscription to Marvel Comics Online. I've been holding off writing about it because I felt rather FanBoy about the whole thing and didn't want to gush. After 3 days of reading, I'm ready to make some comments.
First the good:
Marvel has digitized a portion of their collection in an easy interactive format. It even "turns" the pages.
The collection really is extensive with lots of familiar titles spanning the entire Marvel time-line. There are a lot of #1's available and there are a lot of short-run specials. There is so much content that I've literally had trouble deciding what to read next. Thankfully, the flow of search process is intuitive and recommended titles lead you to stuff you might have missed. You can also populate a personal "must read" list that I've already filled with over 100 issues.
Here are a things from my list, just to give you an idea of what I'm reading:
Defenders (4-issue story)
Amazing Spiderman (starting at issue 509)
Ultimate Spiderman (ongoing)
Secret Wars (Original 8-part story)
Thor: Son of Asgard (New Thor title)
X-Men: Age of Apocalypse (main story)
X-Men: Kitty Pryde - Shadows & Flames (5-issue story)
X-Treme X-Men (46 issues of a new ongoing re-take)
Now for the stuff that needs improvement: (Can't bring myself to call it bad)
There are gaps. Mostly it's not a problem. They tend to whole story-arcs. Ultimate Spiderman (for example) has the first several issues where they redo his backstory, then there's a gap before it picks up another arc. However, this is not always the case. Whole sections of Marvel Civil War* are missing. You can not read the story where Captain America is killed and this is probably intentional.Marvel has already added titles (new and old) in the few days I've been a member, so there's hope.
Another frustration is the difficulty in tracking "cross-over" titles. I've already relied on a few Google searches to help me determine what (if any) issues are available for past "whole universe" events like House of M. Not surprisingly, the gaps do occasionally sync up with these cross-over events.
I also don't see a way to watch for new issues of favorite titles. Marvel is probably riding a difficult line here. They want the online service to draw readers into the print service. (Not gonna do it!) The online service clearly has specific running titles that are getting updated, but it's up to me to track them.
Closing Comments:
Overall, it's totally money well-spent. I'm still spending more time skimming titles than reading titles (sad, I know) but this is because of the choices. I've discovered that they like to publish whole 3-5 part collections of beloved lesser characters like my favorite Kitty Pryde. (Yes, bring on the Weezer song jokes.) I'm really interested to see how the service holds up after this initial burst of reading.
I love that I'm getting to read comics again. I love that it's reasonably priced and a fixed budget. I love that I'm not killing trees to do it. I love that I don't have to store the books OR worry about someone else damaging my collection. I seriously need to sell some of that damned collection but every time I take them out of the boxes to organize I get sucked in.
*Marvel Civil War: The backdrop here is a "terrorist-style" event involving superpowered people. The government passes an act saying that all superhumans must register and show their identities or be put in jail. When Captain America is told to go arrest heroes, he says that the orders infringe on civil liberties & an insult to their patriotic sacrifice and then rebels. He's later martyred. They are doing a fantastic job asking questions about civil liberties. (This is my favorite think about Marvel. They do morality plays and asking tough questions.) I admit that much of my own moral code about equality and understanding prejudice comes from such titles as the X-Men. Moses might have brought us the Ten Commandments but Stan Lee taught me about personal responsibility, integrity & always doing the right thing even when it's hard. Wow, it must be really late for me to says something like that.
No comments:
Post a Comment