Not content with dominating the summer blockbuster lineups, Marvel Comics has branched out into the online world as well, creating Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited, which offers hi-res scans of classic and contemporary Marvel books for $60 a year.
Subscribers will be able to access the first hundred issues of key
titles, turn pages with a click of the mouse or navigate a battle
against Dr. Doom frame-by-frame with a "Smart Panel" viewing feature.
The user can zoom in on details of art by Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko
from the 1960s or catch up with today's The Ultimates and New Avengers.
This
sounds great for dedicated fanboys and comic art enthusiasts, but for
all y'all casual comics lovers out there, here's a little tip: you can
get lo-res versions of a lot of this stuff on Amazon already.
How does this all this stack up to DC's Zuda Comics,
which are entirely new digital comics rather than classic titles like Batman and Superman? Who can say. It's hard to handicap a race
when the horses are roughly five years late making it to the gate. In
any event, let's hope that Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited manages to
satisfy all the kids and
men-children that will be disappointed to learn that the Marvel
Universe Online -- a similar-sounding venture with Microsoft which was
basically meant to be World of Marvel Warcraft -- is most likely cancelled. We were so hoping to run a virtual strip club as Howard the Duck, too.
[Full
disclosure: we once interviewed for a job at a then-unnamed DC
subsidiary which we assume to now be Zuda, and were fantastically
bummed not to get the gig. Did you know that at DC's New York offices,
a statue of Superman bursts from a phone booth in the reception area? Great Caesar's Ghost!]
