Why in the Name of Maria Hill am I missing so many comics in Marvel Unlimited?

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• Just pirate back issues. Better product, complete product, better product quality. And you can get all of a series in one shot.

• I started from the beginning of the Silver Age with the first Ant-Man story. I have been reading each Marvel series in release order. I'm currently on August of 1968. I'm getting to the point where there's going to be a big gap in Daredevil, which I can't understand why all of FF has been added, but not all of Daredevil since it did really well on Netflix. But for each issue I come across that has not been added, I leave a comment asking for it to be added. I usually get a response back from an admin with in about 24 hours or so. It's the usual, "Hey, thanks for contacting us, we're not sure when it will be added...", but at least they're paying attention. So, if you see something is missing, leave a comment. That way they'll know what kind of interest there is for a series or certain issue. For one thing, they'll get tired of responding to people. I've probably left close to 300 comments so far. I know it's not automated, since some were individually responded to, then some they collected all of a certain series I had commented on, because I leave a comment on each issue missing not just the first in a run. One occasion, they found out the page was incorrect and that they would contact their developer to get corrected.

  • I blew right through that gap in DD. Started reading the next issue in line and was super confused. Thought I missed the time travel part. Now I guess I wait until they get added.

  • Up to you of course, but I recommend you check out My Marvelous Year. It's the Comic Book Herald reading club, and we're going through each year of Marvel Comics throughout 2016. We're already on 1965, so we'll be at your place in no time!

    • Sounds like a neat idea!

      I'm still plugging away at my randomly chosen 1988, and Daredevil is missing from the first few months of '88 too, for some reason. Think it kicks in starting with April. You can kind of see the new copyright date for when the comics were presumably added to Unlimited. Tons of stuff added in 2013 it looks like.

      Honestly so far it's thorough enough for me, I'm getting... Avengers, Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, The Incredible Hulk, The Amazing Spider-Man, Classic X-Men (I think they just scanned in the new portion, like 12 pages, which kind of makes sense given the rest of it is I guess just reprints), and "regular" Uncanny X-Men. Oh, and Daredevil as of April.

      Plus The 'Nam, which I didn't know existed, and isn't bad, and some oddball stuff, like X-Terminators, which was I guess a limited series (or else just canceled after 4 issues) and was pretty bad, and a painted special series Havoc and Wolverine, which wasn't bad, but I think it only had the first two issues and then quit lol

      X-Factor is running by this point in time, and is missing, and maybe New Mutants? There might have been a second Spider-Man title too, I'm not sure.

      I'm hoping all the "2099" comics are scanned in, as I never really got to read those.

      I'm really disappointed how the service doesn't track what you've read. Actually reading a downloaded issue on my iPad works pretty darned well (though there's no brightness control like in most reading apps), but everything surrounding that stinks. No way to tell where you are, to have that show up on another device, to sort by publication date online for Windows devices, etc. :(

• I will say this, having posted my concerns earlier, I received a subscription as a gift, I have been very PLEASED with it so far, picking up various series from the mid 2000s forward. X related titles and avengers, wolverine and the like have all been complete. I have not gone back into the 90's catalog so I can't speak much to that, but I'm happy with the service so far.

• So is this STILL going on? I've been drooling over Marvel Unlimited for years, but haven't subscribed yet as I have a backlog of physical comics to finish. This sounds incredibly annoying though. I mean it sounds like it's tough to figure out what you've already read-I'd probably rather just start reading from 1990 on and read EVERYTHING, so it's annoying that other stuff might get filled in after the fact. But to be in the middle of a run and just have issues randomly missing? That's super annoying...

  • It's less common than it used to be, but it can still happen.

    The bigger issue for you would probably be starting from 1990 on the library is missing a lot of stuff. They haven't filled in the 90's all that well to date. Some of the bigger series are fine (incredible hulk, amazing spider-man), but some are missing good runs (Daredevil).

    End of the day, it's the best value for an insane amount of comics at your fingertips. There are limitations, though.

    • Thanks! Hmm, maybe I'll just start from 2000 then. I've read some of those awesome gigantic black and white Marvel Essentials books, so am somewhat caught up (at least for the X-Men), and have a bit from the late 80s/early 90s. The 2000s are what I most want to read anyway.

      Thanks for the feedback and the awesome articles! :-)

• The problem of missing issues, particularly within story arcs, is the reason I gave up my subscription a few years back. I arrived at this forum this eve by researching if it was still a problem, and it sounds like it is. I can't help but feel like the gaps are an intentional effort to get readers to seek out/buy back issues. regardless it irks me to the point that I can't participate.

• Yeah, I started rereading Pak's hulk run and Son of Hulk #9 is missing, as well as two issues of Warbound. I thought it was pretty weird to have 3 out of five issues of a limited series. Do you know if any of the comics you were worried about have been added in the last year or so?

  • Inhumans #5 was my go to example for a while and that has since been added. It was at least a year but it's there now.

• Looks like this is still an ongoing issue then - just perusing the Deadpool selection and note that #13 from volume 1 is missing, which follows directly from #12. I appreciate it's not a showstopper but as someone with very mild OCD it could prove very frustrating!

  • The Marvel staff does look at the comments that people post on the digital issues. If it is one that you want to read digitally, the best thing you can do is comment on that issue to request that it be made available.

• Yeah like 30 issues of daredevil are missing

  • Daredevil is getting a new Netflix series, so there is hope for getting some of those issues added to MU. Recently, 45 issues of Amazing Spider-Man from years past were added in conjunction with the new movie, so they do still add old issues.

    • Yeah they tend to be very good when there's a cross media tie-in (movie/tv). The downside there is waiting for distant release dates. The upside is Marvel is developing something for so many great characters now. I'm hoping the Netflix series actually means the input of the real Defenders comics.

• I did a 1 month subscription a long while back and was reading the old Thor series and there was a chunk of the story line missing. I think it was where Odin was missing and Olympus was in chaos. The gap was so big that the next available issue available to read started a whole new story line. Needless to say i did not renew MDCU.

• Over the last year or so, the most consistent additions have been 1) newer ongoing comics (trying to keep up with their proposed "6 months" after release PR) and 2) back issues associated with characters about to hit the big screen.

  So the Iron Man & Thor catalogue were pretty effectively filled in the run up to their films. I'd expect to see the same treatment for Cap, Guardians, and Ant-Man in the coming year(s).

  I haven't analyzed this in detail, but I'd guess the 90's get the least attention. Maybe they're still trying to forget the Clone Saga :)

  • Impressively (sadly), Marvel's running an MDCU promotion on their Inhumans books to hype up Inhumanity, and their first recco is the Inhumans maxi series from Paul Jenkins & Jae Lee (rightly so). And the fifth issue is still missing in MDCU (which I identified here way back when.)

    Meanwhile, the Moon Knight and AvX: Consequences missing issues pointed out here have since been added. So they definitely do fill in these gaps, although the limited sample size seems to indicate release date is a major factor.

• Dave or anyone in the know,

  How often do they add older back issues to the MDCU? I've looked at the last couple weeks of additions to the service, and they all have been 2013 comics. There are some great stories from the 1990s and earlier that still could be added, and I was wondering what Marvel's recent behavior regarding those eras indicates.

• This is pretty frustrating. I can understand missing some 1-shot issues, but I was going to start reading the original Incredible Hulk and see they have issue 1-6 then there is nothing until issue 111! There's no way to ready when you miss a quarter of the comics run.

  • Incredible Hulk #1-6 was mixed in with Tales to Astonish #27-101. Incredible Hulk #102 is where the re-titling happened. MDCU currently has the vast majority of that first string of issues and has Incredible Hulk #102-110 as well.

    Strange Tales, Tales of Suspense, and Journey Into Mystery are other series that contain early stories of characters like Dr. Strange, Nick Fury, Thor, Iron Man, Namor, and Captain America. Captain America #100 is not his actual first appearance in the comics or on the MDCU.

    • Minor self-correction: Hulk was not in all of those Tales to Astonish issues, but he was in quite a few of them before it became Incredible Hulk.

• Has someone else made the experience that you cant load a comic although it should be available? For example Immortal Iron Fist (2006) #13 and #14. These issues just wont load when i select read now (always: "Loading" on the top screen, using android app).

  • I'm having issues loading particular... um, issues as well. They are apparently available for immediate reading with Unlimited (Avengers Assemble 11, for one), but won't go past the loading screen when I load them, regardless of restarting my browser/computer, clearing the cache, changing browsers, or anything. The prior and next still open just fine.

    I'm very new to comics and trying to get into them, but seriously, this has stopped me in the middle of trying to get into two different series now and I'm getting annoyed. No reply from Marvel.

  • Weirdly, I have no problem with those particular Iron Fist issues. I feel like the lockout is account-based... I would guess other subscribers can probably access Strange #4 whereas I can't.

    Unfortunately, can't prescribe a solution at this point other than to say I've had this problem too.

  • I have seen this occasionally although it's usually OK if I come back to it later.

    • I've had the same problem with "Strange" #4, which is a bummer because it's only a four issue mini series. For some reason the issue is just inaccessible on any device I try.

      This is very uncommon (it's the only example that immediately comes to mind), but yeah, I have seen it.

• On a positive note re this. I've noticed that a lot of the gaps in series have been filled in of late. It looks like it's something they are working on.

• A few weeks ago, Unlimited highlighted the Maximum Carnage storyline, this was terrific until reaching the end where the final issue was missing. Likewise Secret Wars II.

  • To be fair, you're better off without all the details of Secret Wars II ;)

    Great adds to this list - thanks for the comment! Can't believe Maximum Carnage was a featured story with a missing issue. Not a great look on that one.