"USA Today Play," is an aspect of the newspaper you can find online. It is free (with ads) or has a subscription option that makes those advertisements go away. There are games, quizzes, puzzles, and now comics (although you can only get so many for free). Yes, thanks to a deal with Marvel, USA Today has some slightly older Marvel stories folks can read along with a brand-new Spider-Man series titled, "Spider-Man TODAY," which will run for 47 weeks. Written by Al Ewing and illustrated by Todd Nauck, that is a pretty great creative team. Marvel has been struggling a lot lately, but this is a clever marketing idea as now those who frequent USA Today Play can read a new Marvel comic and sample highlights of other ones--with the idea being they will then seek out more Marvel, I imagine.
I am all for anything that helps expand the readership of comics. Without new readers (young or old) the format could very well find itself dying out. By getting some, "Younger blood," injected into comic-book fandom we can keep comics around for years to come, hopefully. Many people have been giving Marvel grief (myself included) for seeming to struggle in regard to new, good ideas. This is cool and I applaud Marvel for trying something different.
