Marvel redefines back issues with app access to comics

Fans of the X-Men, Iron Man, Dead Pool, The Incredibly Hulk, The Avengers, Captain America, Wolverine, Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, The Punisher, and the hundreds more comics that Marvel produces will now have an app they can call home, as Marvel has made its comics available for a flat rate.

Launched this week, Marvel’s “unlimited” service offers over 13,000 issues from the Marvel comics library for consumption across the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad devices, so pretty much anything that runs iOS.

The issues date back to near the beginning of the company, and we’re already seeing some of the franchise starts from the sixties exist on the platform for people to peruse.

From what we’re hearing, this is one of those apps that isn’t limited to Americans only, with the service being available across the globe.

It is a paid for service, however, with a $10USD flat fee per month or $60USD fee for yearly access, with new titles added often from the Marvel universe, though not necessarily as quickly as they would appear in stores. Free issues will be made available, though, for customers to try it out.

Old issues available for the reading.

In Australia, comic buyers generally haven’t had the best time of it over the past decade, paying as much as two to three times the actual cover price for an issue once it has been imported in the country.

The release of digital comics on tablets and smartphones – such as through Comixology’s “Comics” app – has certainly helped here, making individual issues available at a cost of between $1.99 and $5 on digital download, sitting on a device the moment they’re released, as opposed to having to head in town and purchase every issue.

So far, the obvious difference we’ve noted is that the comics on Marvel Unlimited have to be zoomed in and moved around manually with your fingers, similar to how you might zoom into photos on a device, while the comics on Comixology’s platform play out almost like animated movies, with the frame zooming in and changing look based on the cell or frame you’re looking at.

Currently, Marvel Unlimited is available on iPhone, iPod Touch, and the iPad tablets from Apple, though we’re told an Android app is coming soon.