Marvel has once again announced their campaign to exchange unsold DC comics for a limited edition copy of Fear Itself #6.
“In these tough economic times, feel it’s our duty to help,” explained David Gabriel, Marvel Senior Vice President of Publishing, Sales and Circulation. “After the overwhelmingly positive response to our Comics For Comics programs, through which we received tens of thousands of covers, we’re excited to provide retailers with the chance to help their stores through selling an ultra-rate variant.”
For every 50 stripped covers of DC’s Flashpoint titles sent in, the comic book retailer qualifies for a free Feat Itself #6 McGuinness Variant.
Please note: No second printings, third printings, variants, are accepted as part of this promotion. Only the specific issues of the series listed below are eligible
FLASHPOINT ABIN SUR THE GREEN LANTERN #1
FLASHPOINT BATMAN KNIGHT OF VENGEANCE #1
FLASHPOINT CITIZEN COLD #1
FLASHPOINT DEADMAN AND THE FLYING GRAYSONS #1
FLASHPOINT DEATHSTROKE THE CURSE OF RAVAGER #1
FLASHPOINT EMPEROR AQUAMAN #1
FLASHPOINT FRANKENSTEIN CREATURES OF UNKNOWN #1
FLASHPOINT GREEN ARROW INDUSTRIES #1
FLASHPOINT GRODD OF WAR #1
FLASHPOINT HAL JORDAN #1
FLASHPOINT KID FLASH LOST #1
FLASHPOINT LEGION OF DOOM #1
FLASHPOINT LOIS LANE AND THE RESISTANCE #1
FLASHPOINT PROJECT SUPERMAN #1
FLASHPOINT SECRET SEVEN #1
FLASHPOINT THE OUTSIDER #1
FLASHPOINT THE REVERSE FLASH #1
FLASHPOINT THE WORLD OF FLASHPOINT #1
FLASHPOINT WONDER WOMAN AND THE FURIES #1
The comics must be received by Friday August 12, 2011 in order to qualify. Retailers (and retailers ONLY) can send the comics to:
Address To Send Submission:
J Friedfeld
Marvel Entertainment LLC
135 West 50th Street, 7th Floor
NY, NY 10020Information To Be Included With Submission:
Store Name
Store Address
Contact Person
Email Address
Phone Number
Diamond Account #
List of stripped covers being returned and their quantities
18 Comments
I’d be really interested to hear the final numbers or returned covers to marvel after this promotion has finished.
I think it would give a very interesting metric to compare against the monthly Diamond market share numbers.
Marvel is just giving DC a big finger right?
Didn’t they pull another “nyah-nyah” stunt like this during Blackest Night? Was that one actually a huge success, or are Marvel just being dicks? It certainly seems like the latter.
According to Marvel, they received “tens of thousands of covers”. But of course that is Marvel PR talking… I seem to remember seeing a room full of DC covers in one of the Marvel offices during the “promotion”
I’d rate the top 5 titles or so in each publisher’s stable as equal in terms of quality, which makes sense as writers make characters (generally), but after that, te quality drops precipitously, IMHO. In terms of Fear Itself vs Flashpoint, I’ve enjoyed a few bits of each, but found both linewide crossovers to be incredibly inconsistent.
Flashpoint’s kung-fu is stronger than Fear Itself’s. Nice marketing ploy but I’m still pulling for CM Punk…Uh, I mean DC.
I’m actually pulling for DC.This just clearly feels like Marvel trying to one up the competition.
Love to see them try this in September.
So let me understand this:
LCS buys the books from Diamond on the hope that they sell (Pull lists will account for most of those sales)
Any unsold books, the LCS has to take off the cover, (thereby no longer being able to sell that book)
LCS packages and ships the covers to Marvel (Does LCS have to pay shipping or is that paid for by Marvel?
Marvel then allows LCS to ‘purchase’ a single ultra rare variant issue to try to sell to customers?
Is that basically right?
So the LCS has to come up with 2-3 books of each titile get this one cover? I think if my LCS over ordered 50 assorted comics every month/week, they would be going out of business pretty quick. I don’t know if I see the economics of this from the LCS’s point of view. 50 books at a couple of bucks each for the chance to by one book for whatever that one rare book might go for.
Am I missing something from the $$ side of things?
I see this is an attempt by Marvel to get some publicity for themselves. Marvel is probably jealous they didn’t think of rebooting their whole universe first. I’m onboard with DC on their initiative.
No – Marvel sends them the ultra-rare variant for free.
And yes, the LCS is out the money for the extra books, which is why Marvel is giving them the free ultra-rare variant that they can sell for whatever price they want. I seem to remember the last one going for a couple hundred bucks…
Also, besides pull list orders, most stores will order a few extra books to have on the shelves for those browsing, so theoretically, this is a way for the LCS to make some money in the long run. Of course the dollar bin might also be a way for the LCS to make money off the books, too.
As far as Marvel and the reboot goes, while they aren’t rebooting the universe proper, they are killing off one character a month (USM, daredevil, Peggy Carter, Bucky, and the list grows), and if you’ve been looking at the solicitations, Marvel is also renumbering all their books with new number ones – Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #1, Daredevil #1, Captain America #1, Ghost Rider #1, etc…
Does that answer your question? Probably not, but it does offer up some food for thought… hopefully…
mileage may vary…
fishcakes…
buy our stuff…
or donate…
or both…
I’ve had too much caffeine, which will make recording tonight’s podcast very interesting… or at least interesting to me…
I’m not a Marvel ‘fan’ so I haven’t really kept track of most of their books. There is a big difference between just renumbering and doing the reboot/relaunch/rewhatever, that DC is doing. Though Daredevil didn’t really die, just retired for a while.
It would be interesting to see Marvel try a universe wide reboot in a similar way. I have had a lot of problems trying to get into any Marvel series due to the back history of most their titiles.
I can see some LCS’s taking advantage of this offer if they have a lot of unsold stock but it might be a close thing if it’s worth it or not. Not being an owner of that LCS, I couldn’t say.
It was mostly answered, and provided food for thought. My mileage was sufficient for the fishcake that was provided. How did you know I like those?
I have donated before, will do it again and am heading out for more caffeine.
As if the podcast was ‘interesting’ enough already….
Not to be off topic or anything but there are some serious porportion problems on that cover, does Marvel hire anyone these days? Wow, is that a tiny hammer in your hand Thor or are you just happy to see the Cap’n?
As confused as I am about this reboot/relaunch, when Marvel pulls kindergarten stunts like this, they only alienate me more.
Poor form, Marvel.
Agreed.
Seconded. Saddest thing is, this is the second time Marvel’s done a “deface your product and we’ll give you one thing” stunt, so the first stunt must have worked. Maybe the kindergarten-level stupidity isn’t just on their end.
I don’t know why it hurts me more that when a store like Walden Books has had their comics for too long, they rip the covers off and then shred (or are at least supposed to) the books and throw them away. And that’s for nothing.
I would think comic stores would only do this if they had the variant presold, or they had so many leftovers that they thought they’d not be able to sell them. A store would be looking for at least $100 (more likely $200) for this comic. Some stores have the clientele for alternate covers and some don’t.
I would be okay with this if it didn’t involve defacing the competition, and making the product completely unsellable; like they did again with the Blackest Night event. If it was a case of Marvel saying “Give us your select, unsold Marvel comics”, then it would be fine and understandable. I think this is a constant dig at DC, shouldn’t Marvel be satisfied with being the number one comic book company in terms of overall sales?
Not big on variant covers thought that they mostly died out in the 90’s. Interesting the hoops you’d had to jump through just to get the variant cover edition…….