Marvel launches Digital Comics Unlimited archive

At Marvel.com, you can now read comics online! From the AP story:

Marvel is putting some of its older comics online Tuesday, hoping to reintroduce young people to the X-Men and Fantastic Four by showcasing the original issues in which such characters appeared.

It's a tentative move onto the Internet: Comics can only be viewed in a Web browser, not downloaded, and new issues will only go online at least six months after they first appear in print.

Still, it represents perhaps the comics industry's most aggressive Web push yet. Even as their creations -- from Iron Man to Wonder Woman -- become increasingly visible in pop culture through new movies and video games, old-school comics publishers rely primarily on specialized, out-of-the-way comic shops for distribution of their bread-and-butter product.

I'd love to weigh in on the service, but it seems like Marvel failed to anticipate the traffic this would generate, as their site is either timing out or throwing random SQL errors. I can tell that it's a subscription service, however, not a free one. It looks like you get a certain number of free samples, but membership is $9.99 per month or $59.88 annually. I certainly hope they beef up their server capabilities before too many people buy in.

If you'd like to try to check it out, visit Marvel Comics Unlimited. Let us know what you think!