Anyone use the Marvel Unlimited service?

[Skinypupy]

It's the Netflix-ish service for Marvel Comics. $9.99/month, and you get unlimited access to over 15,000+ comics.

So, I've never been a comic book reader, for a couple primary reasons. For one, investing in and storing individual comic books didn't appeal to me at all. Two, I really just had no damn idea where to start. Having access to a huge curated library like this, where I can explore a ton of different stuff with really no commitment, looks like it could be pretty awesome. Just curious on feedback from anyone who uses the service before I jump in. And a couple quick questions:

1. Does it curate by title and date? So if I wanted to start reading Deadpool chronologically from the beginning, I could do that?
2. Is there any ability to set up different profiles? I think my daughter (8.1) would love this, but I don't want her to have access to everything.

TIA for any impressions.

[YellowKing]

I used it for 3 months back when they were having a 99/cents a month deal.

I really liked it. One thing I enjoyed is that they categorize major story arcs together, so if you wanted to read all of Civil War, they give you the issues chronologically even if they cross titles.

I can't speak to the multiple profile thing as I never tried it, but as far as the service itself I found it really entertaining.

The only reason I quit is that I've always been more of a DC fan, so after blowing through the big story arcs there wasn't much that interested me. If DC put out a similar service, I'd be throwing my money at them. Unfortunately for some reason they won't do it.

[Skinypupy]

They're doing a free month promo, so I signed up this morning. To answer my own questions:

1. Yes, there are a bunch of filters that allow sorting by character, release date, event, etc. I suppose I'd get more excited if I knew anything about the events (the only two I recognized were Civil War and Star Wars), but there certainly seems to be a lot to dig into.

2. There's no option for separate accounts or age restrictions. That might be a deal breaker, as I don't really want my 8 year old having access to Deadpool comics, y'know?

They seem really slow to load through the app, but that is probably more due to my shitty work wifi connection (seriously, our campus wireless is sub-2mb most of the time. It's ridiculous.). Will try it from home tonight and see if it fares any better.

[Moliere]

I have too many entertainment sources already and not enough discretionary time to add another.

[Skinypupy]

I have too many entertainment sources already and not enough discretionary time to add another.

I'm cancelling Netflix to make room for this. I just don't watch any TV and the only time I have for movies is on long flights where Netflix isn't an option.

[Isgrimnur]

I have too many entertainment sources already and not enough discretionary time to add another.

I'm cancelling Netflix to make room for this. I just don't watch any TV and the only time I have for movies is on long flights where Netflix isn't an option.

Netflix allows you to download some content now.

[Octavious]

I used it a few times. It worked well enough, but I found that I lost interest quickly. That has more to do with that I'm not that into comics than anything else.

[hepcat]

I have it still. I like to check in on a few comics each month. Considering that comics are about 3.99 an issue, and an annual Marvel Unlimited subscription comes out to 5.83 a month, if I even read two comics per month, I'm ahead. Well...4 if I were to factor in comic book subscriptions.

Still, it's a steal in my opinion. At least with the annual subscription.

I would dump it in a heartbeat for a similar DC offering though.

[msteelers]

I have the service. The app on my iPad is buggy, but overall the service is great. I've been using this reading guide to slowly work my way through. I'm currently up to the Infinity event from Marvel Now.

Once I get caught up I expect I'll continue the service. It's 6 months behind publication, but I haven't purchased a new comic since I was in elementary school.

[Isgrimnur]

I worked my way through the Dark Reign event, which was almost 200 titles, mostly by IPhone viewing. I need to make a decision on year 3 before I auto renew next month.

[Skinypupy]

Quite unimpressed with their iPad app. Even on a good wifi connection, it will often stall loading pages in the middle of a book. Closing out and restarting the app sometimes fixes it, sometimes not. Had to finally give up after the third volume of Civil War was missing two pages right in the middle (the rest of them loaded fine). I also don't see any easy way to identify stuff I've already read.

Between the tech issues and the lack of any sort of age-gating, I doubt I'll subscribe after this free month.

[Isgrimnur]

Decision made. With my undertaking a Masters, I doubt that reading comic books on my phone will be a good use of my time. I'll have plenty of other ways to procrastinate without feeling like I'm not getting my money's worth for another year.

[Isgrimnur]

Code: MILES

$61.60 for the year, normally $69.99.

Offer good through 01/11.

[Drazzil]

Ye-harr!

[AWS260]

I finally signed up for Marvel Unlimited yesterday. Is it just me, or is is really hard to navigate and find specific story arcs?

They have a ton of "reading guides" for various characters and stories, but no way to search or sort the reading guides. You have to scroll through an endless, chronological list of them, which makes it very obvious that reading guides are primarily created to boost MCU and video game properties. (Sooooo many Deadpool and Wolverine reading guides released to coincide with last year's movie.)

As far as I can tell, the best option is to find the issues you want using some third-party resource (like this one), and then spend an inordinate amount of time tracking them down on Marvel Unlimited.

The search function is useless. If I type in "Uncanny X-Men #141", the results are all 2024 Uncanny X-Men issues, followed by issue #141 of Millie the Model, a series from 1945 that I am pretty sure does not include mutants.

The only other option, as far as I can tell, is to find the page for the series and scroll down until you reach the issues you want. The series page shows 20 issues at a time and is in reverse chronological order, so reaching Uncanny X-Men #141 will require clicking "Load more" 20 times.

I'm still in the free trial week, so I think I'll cancel. I wanted to lose myself in comics, not get annoyed by a shitty UX.

[Blackhawk]

Part of the problem is comic book naming/numbering conventions (there may be half a dozen issues with the words 'uncanny', 'x-men', and '141.') And part of the problem is that whole storyline reading guides tend to skip all over. That's because the story is usually crossing back and forth between them - after all, Iron Man may be an Avenger, but he's also got a solo book. They're usually good at ensuring that something big happening in one is reflected (and sometimes advanced) in the other. Like:

Comic A issues 138-145
Comic B Issues 12-14
Comic A issue 146
Comic C issues 498-510
Etc.

What I usually do is just go through the guide (I like the ones from Comic Book Herald), look up all of the series, and then add them to my 'library.' Then I can just jump from series to series as needed.

[AWS260]

What I usually do is just go through the guide (I like the ones from Comic Book Herald), look up all of the series, and then add them to my 'library.' Then I can just jump from series to series as needed.

Apparently the library function is only available on the mobile apps, not the website interface.