X-Men Unlimited #1 (2021)

[laughing_tree]

Ask anyone and they’ll tell you that I’m always up for trying out new ways to make stories, and this turned out to be a very interesting format. -- Jonathan Hickman

Comments

[silverhammerman]

Shalvey providing gorgeous art, a plot with AIM (the Marvel U's resident stock villains), in-canon but seemingly inconsequential, WOLVERINE: everything about this screams that it's aimed at being a crowd pleaser. It seems successful, but I can't help comparing it to DC's Batman WebToon and seeing this as something akin to Marvel debuting a new kind of horse drawn buggy when DC just built a rocket ship. Then again, perhaps Marvel tying this to a subscription will prove the smart move, since who knows how many of Wayne Family Adventures... 450,000 subscribers (so far) will actually spend any money.

Even the fact that Hickman is talking about this as a formal experiment is indicative of Marvel's approach. It's great that someone as established as Hickman is still looking to experiment and learn, and he lends real credibility to Marvel's latest digital push, but this is very much established territory.

[laughing_tree]

Ironically, from what I've seen of the two, this makes far more use of the vertical scroll format for storytelling purposes than the Wayne Family feature. The latter could easily be converted to a standard physical comic without hassle (though maybe that's on purpose, for the sake of future TPBs).

(I'm only comparing to the X-Men comic. I haven't checked out any of Marvel's other Infinity Comics titles yet.)