In my posting on the geek-themed Christmas gifts that I received this year, I left out the best gift of all - and it's certainly a gift that will keep on giving, as cliché would have it. My wonderful wife Karli was generous enough to purchase me a subscription to Marvel Unlimited, an online service from Marvel Comics that essentially opens the doors to the collected history of the company, with an ever-growing catalogue that currently contains over 25,000 comics.
We set up my Unlimited account on Christmas Day - there's an option for either monthly or annual subscriptions - and I instantly fell in love with it. The quality is astonishing: the pages are in high resolution, and look incredible on my 27 inch 5K iMac display. That being said, the web browser interface is a bit clumsy - it's much better to read the comics through Marvel's Unlimited iOS app.
Both the browser and the app offer the option of reading comics as the original full pages, or in Smartframe mode, which shows individual frames in full-screen animated transitions, a much better option for readers on smaller iPhone screens. Subscribers also have the option of downloading comics for off-line reading.
I took a look at some of the older releases, and they're the same high quality as more recent digitally created issues. Rather than scanning copies of the screened four-colour artwork, Marvel has apparently scanned black and white line art and digitally coloured it, and the results are incredible.
The Unlimited service, which debuted in November of 2007, is obviously a work in progress. Because the list of available comics is so gigantic, I started out looking for things that I used to own, and there are selections from the back catalogue, such as the 1979 Micronauts series, or Ghost Rider 2099 from 1994, that don't appear on the list - or, perhaps more accurately, don't appear on the list YET. This isn't a complaint: it would be an epic undertaking to convert the complete Marvel archives, and the service has come a long way from its initial 2,500 comic book offering.
Unlimited also trails behind the newsstand editions by six months, which makes sense in terms of maintaining print sales.
For myself, I don't consider either one of those factors to be a problem. Marvel Unlimited offers readers access to the full print runs of Marvel standards like the Avengers, Iron Man, Captain America, the Hulk, and all the rest of the Marvel universe. And because it's all-inclusive, I've found myself reading comics that I would never have purchased as individual issues - simply because I can.
Overall, I would completely recommend Marvel Unlimited. Merry Christmas, Karli, and thank you for such a wonderful gift - or is it more appropriate to call it marvel-lous?
- Sid
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