All the comics you can read.

The cover of Marauders #1, a new Dawn of X book featuring a couple of my favorite X-Men.

In high school, my friend Yasser* introduced me to the X-Men. I’ve read comics off and on since then, but it’s been a long time since I read comic books regularly. A couple of months ago, I was interested in reading Jonathan Hickman’s Powers of X and House of X series and decided to try a Marvel Unlimited digital subscription. At $10/month, Marvel Unlimited provides access to thousands of comics on my iPad. And I completely love it.

New material (delayed). All of Marvel’s comics are released on Marvel Unlimited on a six month delay. Since I’m not up-to-date, this isn’t a problem for me. It’s fun to see what pops up each week. I’m reading all of the Dawn of X books, so I read two or three “new” books each week.
Crossovers. Comics love crossovers, but let’s be honest, crossovers are a pain to read. You have to find a bunch of comics that you normally don’t read. But Marvel Unlimited has a reading list feature that pulls together all of the books in a crossover event, making it much easier to follow a storyline without accidentally missing a chunk of the story.
Discovering different heroes. I’m reading a lot of X-Men, but the great thing about unlimited is that it’s unlimited. I’ve discovered new books like Ironheart, Agents of Wakanda and Valkyrie that I’m enjoying. Since I haven’t been reading comics consistently, I’ve found plenty of old runs that I missed when they came out.

I’ve only been subscribing for a few months, but I’m convinced it’s a great investment for me. I don’t know how well it would work on devices other than iPads — I honestly haven’t tried — but if you have an iPad and you love comics, you should try out Marvel Unlimited.

* My friend Yasser died recently. Every time I read a comic book, I think about how kind and generous he was to me when I moved to town. To be honest, he was probably the most kind and generous person that I’ve ever met.

Bob Wertz writes about design, technology and pop culture at Sketchbook B. Bob is a Columbia, South Carolina-based designer, researcher, college instructor, husband and dad. He’s particularly obsessed with typography, the creative process and the tools we use to create.