Marvel still thinking Retail in an Online World.

Here is something cool:

Forty-four Fantastic Fours for forty-nine.

That’s 44 years of the Fantastic Four comics (including annuals) on ONE DVD for about $49.

The latest instant comic collection from Graphic Imaging Technology was released just about the time of the Fantastic Four movie. Enjoy the film? Why not fork over some more bucks and get every single FF adventure from 1961 to December, 2004? That’s 550 comics, 20,000 pages, on one very friendly package.

But I have to think it could be a lot cooler and profitable for Marvel if it was offered through a web-based subscription service instead. After all this is a company that got its start in the subscription business before it became Hollywood's IP gold mine.

All of the excitement over online Superhero games like City of Heroes and the recently announced Marvel and DC MMO projects points to the strong overlap between comic book buyers and online game subscribers.

Just imagine being able to browse the entire catalogue of Marvel back issues online, with hyperlinks between connected stories. The hard part of that work is already done because the bulk of Marvel stories are carefully anointed with little *'s and footnotes pointing to the relevant issue.

I'd pay for an all-you-can-eat subscription price or even a micro-transaction fee to browse such a service. They could even employ the evil "read the first 5 pages of any issue for free and then pay to read the rest" strategy.