Earlier this week, Marvel announced that it was discontinuing the Marvel Unlimited app, only to have it replaced by the new Marvel Comics app, powered by Webtoon. At New York Comic Con I had the chance to go hands-on with the app, and I am struggling to see why it needs to exist.
Just like Marvel Unlimited, the new Marvel Comics app will bring the entire Marvel and Star Wars comics libraries at both of its subscription tiers. On the surface, the big advantage Webtoon has over Unlimited is how quickly new comics will be available — with the more expensive ‘Ultimate’ tier getting new issues 30 days after print, rather than Unlimited’s 90 day waiting period.
Webtoon shared a rough roadmap for the app; it’s looking to bring in Disney and Pixar comics, make it easier to create your own custom lists, and create different profiles for all the comics readers in your home – even kids. But, Webtoon failed to share dates for when any of these improvements are coming, so at least for now, it looks like the bulk of the changes are minor cosmetic ones.
Webtoon said that its mission in designing this app was to make it faster and easier to use. After all, Unlimited has been around since 2007, and the UI still kind of looks like it’s stuck about a decade in the past. But rather than give Marvel Unlimited a facelift, the decision was made to create a brand new app. And, while the navigation does seem a bit more modernized, the app itself isn’t noticeably faster than Unlimited was. Of course, this could come down to the tablets at the Webtoon booth and spotty convention Wi-Fi, but I couldn’t really feel the difference.
Once you click into an issue, the Marvel Comics app does get a bit more compelling, though. Before you start reading the issue, it’ll bring you into a sort of overview page, where you’ll be able to see the information about the selected issue, but you’ll also be able to slide through other issues in the series on the top of the screen. There’s also a section where you’ll be able to see every reading guide that issue is a part of.
When I’m reading comics on the Unlimited app, I tend to make a beeline straight for reading guides, because I simply don’t have the patience to read entire comics runs that sometimes have hundreds of issues. Marvel Unlimited’s reading guides were excellent, and it seems like they’ve carried over to the Webtoon app. But, again, I only had a few minutes with the app in a crowded booth at NYCC, so I didn’t exactly have time to see if all of my favorite guides were intact.
Once you get into an actual comic, though, not much has changed. You can still choose between reading the entire page or reading panel by panel. With the latter option, you can also choose to have it zoom back out when you’re ready to move on to the next page, in order to appreciate all the art on the page, just the way you would in a regular comic.
That’s a great way to read digital comics, but Marvel Unlimited had the exact same options, and it wasn’t hard to set up. As nice as the new UI is, that probably could have been implemented with a hefty update, rather than asking all of the Marvel Unlimited users to move over to a whole new app. The Marvel Comics app will let you move over your library and all of your reading progress, but I can only imagine that there are going to be people who stubbornly won’t make the migration. I just hope it was worth that risk.
The new Marvel Comics app launches November 16 with more than 35,000 digital comics. Marvel Unlimited will sunset as of December 7, 2026.
Jackie Thomas is the Senior Tech Editor at IGN and the PC components queen. She’s been covering gaming hardware for more than a decade for IGN, TechRadar, Gizmodo, PC Gamer and more. You can follow her @Jackiecobra
