Week 1: Uncanny X-Men #444 (May 5 2004)
News broke last week that Marvel Masterworks, the pre-eminent reprint series dating back to the late 1980s, has been put on indefinite hiatus by Marvel. One the one hand, the line has gone on hiatus before, so there's the possibility it could return again. On the other hand, there's a general sense amongst the collected edition community that with the rise of Epic Collections and omnibuses, Marvel Masterworks have become the odd man out in terms of reprint collections, with a higher-than-average price point that only appeals to an ever-shrinking audience.
I've picked up a few volumes here or there, but I've never been a big Masterworks guy. These days, I'm all in on the Epics, with a few occasional omnis sprinkled in. But I'm never excited to see a reprint line get the ax, certainly not one as venerated as Masterworks. Plus. the Masterworks led the way in terms of preparing previously-uncollected issues for reprinting, with those files later being used in Epics and Marvel Unlimited. If the line is dead, it's entirely possible we may end up with poorer reprints everywhere.
If you want to reach out to Marvel to express your desire for the line to continue, you can email David Gabriel and Jeff Youngquist a brief, passionate but professional message via dgabriel@marvel.com and jyoungquist@marvel.com.
ReplyDeleteI’ve never been a big Masterworks guy, either, which I think is due in large part to the price point and initial decision to have prominent numbering spread across the entire line sequentially instead of within each feature/character/series reprinted. I did pick up a few in the first wave but as a high-school and then college student they really weren’t in my budget. I’m extremely disappointed that the Epic Collections have such bland, small typography on the spines instead of replicating the Omnibus practice of using colorful logos or just, like, something you can read at a glance.