According to Bleeding Cool, Marvel is intending to ship copies of Avengers vs. X-Men #1 to retailers planning to have a Tuesday Night Launch Party a week early to ensure that stores will definitely have copies on hand to sell during the parties (Rich says that they’ll be shipped March 20, which is (a) yesterday, and (b) two weeks early, not one; I presume he meant March 28). This isn’t the first early-shipping, keep-under-lock-and-key release in early memory; DC did the same week-before ship trick for Blackest Night #6, and had to deal with the same thing that Marvel is opening itself up to here: The comic leaked ahead of time.
Yes, both Marvel and Diamond are threatening “dire retribution” for any retailer who sells the book early, but that almost doesn’t matter; if you’re shipping the book early, it will leak. Whether it’s a digital version – actually, that doesn’t even have anything to do with print editions shipping, they’re still leaking early from somewhere – or someone reading a copy and posting spoilers online, Avengers vs. X-Men #1 will be leaked and spoiled by the time its “official” release date rolls around. It’s sad, but true.
Of course, this could be a calculated risk for Marvel. After all, the cost/benefit ratio of potential spoilers/every store having copies to sell at the right time is definitely in play here (and so it should be), but there’s also the added benefit – albeit one that I don’t think anyone involved would ever admit to – of spoilers and leaks adding to the hype for the book ahead of the release, especially considering (a) there’s not that much likely to be actually spoilable in a first issue, (b) more likely to spoiled is the quality, and early reviews/leaks along the lines of “It’s actually great, better than I’d expected” are only a good thing, and (c) the AR/Infinite Comics component isn’t something that can be leaked or spoiled ahead of time, thereby providing a big reason for fans to buy the book even if they happen to know all of the plot points ahead of time.
Early shipping is always a risk – Can Diamond police all of its stores so well that no copies are sold ahead of time? – but it seems to me that Marvel have managed to build in enough factors to ensure that any leaks could actually work in the book’s favor, if they happen. It’ll be interesting to see what happens.
March 21st, 2012 at 11:05 am
Who cares about issue one leaks anyway…it is all just set up
March 21st, 2012 at 11:15 am
Yup, it’s just an event comic, anything ‘significant’ will be leaked by Marvel anyway.
March 21st, 2012 at 11:43 am
Leak! Leak! Leak! Leak all the things!
March 21st, 2012 at 2:01 pm
I hear on the grapevine, that it is going to pit the Avengers against the X-Men!
Whoa!
March 21st, 2012 at 4:36 pm
Sally, you’ll be blacklisted!
March 21st, 2012 at 6:05 pm
another blog post in the form of a question ….. is there something seriously wrong with you?
March 21st, 2012 at 6:25 pm
I’m sure Marvel will get out in front of this… by leaking anything worthwhile to a big media outlet first.
March 30th, 2012 at 11:41 am
One comic retailer in town (not the one that has my regular business) was bragging on the local early morning radio show that he had them in hand this week and had not received a letter to his store personally not to sell them and was inviting all listeners to come on by and buy it early that day!
His store is Marvels and Legends in Cape Girardeau Mo btw… nothing libelous here, he was live on the radio saying it to thousands of listeners! My normal store I go to did NOT have advance copies (he would have let me had one if he did actually, but he didn’t) but issue 0 is pretty good.