Adam, Legend of the Blue Marvel is one of many essential Marvel books that could soon disappear.
In a move Marvel is insisting has nothing in common with Disney’s legendary marketing scheme “the Vault”, Marvel is announcing that starting in September, several books will be entering the Marvel Longbox where they will not be re-released for an indeterminate period of time.
“DC’s done really well keeping many different titles in perpetual print. Since we have no reason to piss off Alan Moore, we can let important titles fall in and out of print,” said Jeff Youngquist, Senior Editor, Special Projects at Marvel Enterprises.
Several of Marvel’s best sellers and most critically acclaimed titles will be amongst the first to enter the Longbox.
- Wolverine / Black Cat: Claws
- Adam: Legend of the Blue Marvel
- Infinity Crusade
- Wolfpack
- GLA: Misassembled
- Avengers 1959
- Road to Ultimatum
- X-Treme X-Men volume 6
Marvel plans to heavily promote its decision not to sell these titles, and more, to fans through extensive print and television campaigns. Marvel has also stated that it will be placing American Vampire, a title published by rival and sexual dynamo DC Comics, in the Longbox.
“They can’t do that. Wait? Can they? Hey, who’s your lawyer?” asked American Vampire writer Scott Snyder. “Son of a bitch. There’s no way.”
“We really want people to know that we’re not just going to let them buy whatever the hell they want whenever they want. They’ll buy it when we tell them, or they can head off to eBay,” said Youngquist.
Outraged fans have likened this to economic extortion. “They come at you and say buy it today or it’s gone forever. What if I don’t know I’ll want to read Claws until two years from now? It could be awesome, and I’d never know because I’m not paying some scalper $250,” said Garrett Lowney. Upon reading sample pages of Claws, Lowney realized that the book was, in fact, quite irredeemable, and no longer believes he will ever want to read the rest.
