Likely the Only Post That Will Ever Feature Marvel, DC, Deadpool and Hitler
Nerd fight! On Wednesday, Marvel issued an unusual press release stating that they would be offering rare Siege #3 Deadpool variants to comic store owners in exchange for covers of unsold copies…of combinations of any six books featured in DC’s recent Blackest Night promotion. (The one that gave comic buyers nifty Green Lantern promotional rings to wear upon their unloved, lonely sausage fingers). Any 50 stripped DC covers gets a store one copy of the collectible variant, a move that many, including Geek to Me, chalk up as a douchebag way for Marvel to get DC books off of store shelves. Marvel cryptically states that they doing this promotion to “provide assistance to comics retailers in 2010,” But what exactly are they up to here? Has the Disney buyout caused them to go insane and get exceptionally ballsy? Robot 6 has some further insight:
The specified titles — Adventure Comics #4, Booster Gold#26, Doom Patrol #4, Justice League of America #39, Outsiders #24 and R.E.B.E.L.S. #10 — received significant sales boosts in November, thanks to a promotional incentive that allowed retailers who ordered a certain number of copies of each book to buy bags of the corresponding color plastic rings. For instance, for every 50 copies of Adventure Comics, retailers could buy two bags of blue rings, and for every 25 copies of Outsiders, they could buy two bags of violet rings.
In the case of a low-selling title like Booster Gold, the promotion meant an order increase of more than 35,000 copies over the previous issue. Critics at the time questioned how many of those would end up in the dollar bin. But a good number of fans and eBay sellers didn’t care — they were just happy to collect the plastic rings in Pokemon-like fashion.
Is this posturing, marketing reconaissance or something more sinister from Marvel? We will have to see how this plays out. For now, let’s get Hitler’s thoughts on all of this.
About The Author
Chris Cummins is a pop culture writer and Archie comics historian who has contributed to The Robot's Voice, Den of Geek US, Philebrity, Geekadelphia, Uproxx, and Unicorn Booty. He is the co-producer and co-host of Nerd Nite Philadelphia, and is regularly involved in producing and hosting New York Super Week events. In 2014, Chris began Sci-Fi Explosion, a mix of live performance, trivia and funny clips celebrating the weirdest in science fiction that regularly travels around the United States. He wrote the introductions to the compilations Archie's Favorite Comics From The Vault and (with Paul Castiglia) Archie's Favorite High School Stories. You can find Chris on Twitter at @bionicbigfoot and @scifiexplosion.