Here’s how much Marvel wants the final issue of Ultimate Spider-Man‘s “Death of Spider-Man” storyline – and maybe the series itself? – to be a hit: The publisher announced this morning that the book will ship with two polybag options (Yes, we’re at the point where there will be a variant polybag for the variant cover to the comic; it’s taking ’90s nostalgia to a whole new level), not be overprinted, and not be available on newsstands.
Those last two seem interesting, counter-intuitive choices, limiting the potential readership of the issue, right? But then you realize, cynically, that they put pressure on retailers to up their orders on the book while they still can, now that this news kills the chance for re-orders after the fact if they underestimate demand – and with no newsstand distribution, anyone hooked by potential mainstream media coverage will have to pick up the book at a comic book store if they want to pick it up at all (Well, they could buy it online, if Marvel ever works out the kinks in their day-and-date digital distribution). So is this news just a way of pushing retailers to inflate their orders for the issue and make the book more of a success in the Diamond charts, even if it the customer demand may not be there? Way to go with that power and responsibility thing, Marvel.
Still, at least we get a couple of polybag choices out of the deal. USM #160 is due in June.
April 12th, 2011 at 9:43 am
Is Marvel consciously trying to bring back the ’90s? Does one of these have a foil or hologram variant? Are they going to be packaged with collectible trading cards?
Count me in the camp that finds most of Marvel’s stunts (renumbering, spoiler press releases, etc.) distracting and disrespectful to comic fans.
April 12th, 2011 at 9:49 am
Flashbacks to the death of Superman, an event that was, quite frankly, one of the worst comics of the era. Yes, it led to the amazing Reign of the Supermen, but Superman 75 was a boring, splash-panel-only mess in a bag full of nonsense. This seems like it might be more of the same.
Ult-Spidey deserves better.
Though maybe we are getting Reign of the Spider-Men, featuring a clone (easy enough for Spidey), a armored Spidey (been there, done that), a cyborg, and an artifact from another world come to life. Paging Karl Kesel!
April 12th, 2011 at 10:12 am
“Flashbacks to the death of Superman, an event that was, quite frankly, one of the worst comics of the era.”
But I love my 4th edition print of the Death issue! After all, it was the first printing I could actually get my hands on just to be able to READ THE DAMN STORY after all the other speculators had their chance to help nearly ruin the comics industry.
April 12th, 2011 at 2:14 pm
Typical Marvel move: try to grab all the retailers’ cash so they can’t order anything else and dominate the ever-shrinking pond.
April 15th, 2011 at 12:27 pm
I stopped reading USM altogether with “Ultimatum”…So sad. I use to dig USM but then there were too many sub-par stories to make me care and the way “Utlimatum” went down…USM “died” a long time ago for me.
December 14th, 2011 at 12:21 am
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