Marvel's new Android app!

It's the moment true believers (with Android phones) have been waiting for! Marvel Comics now has an Android app, using the Comixology platform. (And boy has it been a long and irritating wait.)

The finer details follow, not entirely wonderful.

Marvel's app is built on the Comixology platform (this part is wonderful), but is a standalone app. You cannot use your original Comixology app or account to get to your Marvel comics. Instead, you must log in with your Marvel.com account.

But if you're a subscriber of Marvel Digital Unlimited (such as myself), don't get excited just yet, because you will not be 100% pleased with the way this has worked out. You can use your Marvel Digital Unlimited name and password to log into the Android app, but it will NOT honor your Digital Unlimited subscription. The Comixology platform is a digital distribution service. Like Steam for comics. You pay for each comic you read. You purchase comics and download them to your phone for reading. The average price is $1.99. So yeah, that $60 you pay them annually? Does you no good here.

Comixology's swipe and zoom-by-panel technology is unmatched. I have been using the platform to read digital comics on my PC and Android for the past year. I will be unsubscribing from Marvel Digital Unlimited this year and switching to the Marvel app, pretty much without regret.

However, that doesn't mean there isn't some lamesauce all over this deal. After buying a comic on the Android app, I used my PC to log into both my regular Comixology account AND my Marvel Chrome store account. My new comic was in neither of these places...which means this is an entirely separate service from any of Marvel's other online storefronts. The suck? I'd have to purchase each comic twice to be able to have it on PC and phone.

DC and pretty much every other publisher solved this problem years ago by just putting their stuff on regular ol' Comixology where it can be accessed via phone or computer.