By Rob Salkowitz,Senior Contributor

Copyright forbes

Marvel Entertainment and GlobalComix announce a partnership to distribute Marvel comics on Global’s digital app, October 1, 2025
Courtesy of GlobalComix and Marvel Entertainment

Fans of Marvel superheroes will have another reading option on October 15 as the Marvel Entertainment, a division of Disney, has announced a new partnership with digital comics platform GlobalComix. According to a statement from the two companies, Marvel will launch hundreds of titles available as part of Global’s standard subscription package, as well as the full line of Marvel’s current releases available for purchase on the day and date of their print release.

Marvel joins DC, Image Comics, Dark Horse, Boom! Studios, Oni Press, Kodansha and dozens of other publishers of comics, manga and webtoons worldwide as part of Global’s growing catalog of over 100,000 titles. The company says that inventory will grow significantly in coming months.

GlobalComix founder/co-CEO Christopher Carter
Courtesy of GlobalComix

“There’s no other publisher or platform out there that gives you access to everything from vertically-scrolling comics to manga to big content from DC and Marvel and everyone else all in one place,” said GlobalComix founder and co-CEO Chris Carter in a phone interview earlier this week. “Whether you’re a collector focused on Marvel back issues or newer fans interested in movie tie-ins like Deadpool and Spider-Man, Global gives readers a unique place to enjoy and discover the best the comics have to offer.”

GlobalComix VP of Business Development Eric Tapper says the two companies have been hammering out the terms of the partnership for a while and are excited to finally announce the deal. “We’re pumped!” he said in an interview. “It’s been a long time coming. This is definitely something we’ve been waiting for.”

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Marvel titles available at launch include X-Men ’97, Deadpool & Wolverine: WWIII, Star Wars: The Mandalorian, Avengers: Twilight, and Fall of the House of X, according to an announcement made exclusively to Forbes.

Eric Tapper, VP, Business Development, GlobalComix
Courtesy of GlobalComix

Tapper says there will be several hundred Marvel comics from popular storylines available to read through the site’s $6.99/month or $69 annual subscription at launch, with the catalog constantly growing and changing. All current Marvel titles will be available for purchase on day and date of release at cover price. Subscribers, he said, will receive a discount on those purchases, comparable to the discount print customers sometimes receive when ordering through their local comic shop. Comics are readable online or offline through the GlobalComix app, but not as individual PDFs. All titles will have industry-standard DRM protections against piracy.

GlobalComix launched in the late 2010s during a slow period in digital comics, when Amazon’s comiXology platform had locked down most of the market. Global began as a tool for independent creators and small presses to reach an audience digitally, pioneering back-end tools and dashboards to help grow the audience. Eventually, more and larger publishers from North America, Europe and Asia joined the platform, with DC signing on in 2024.

Marvel, which had previously announced digital distribution deals with DSTLRY and Webtoon, still sells on Amazon Kindle and through its own Marvel Unlimited app as well as today’s announced partnership with Global. Today’s announcement now assures fans have the most choices across different platforms for reading and discovering comics on their phone, tablet or computer.

The strategy of the major publishers to not play favorites among digital distributors marks a departure from the last big period of competition, the early 2010s, when comiXology’s exclusive deals with Marvel and DC helped clear the field. It also mirrors developments in the print distribution world, where the big publishers were burned by depending on a single distributor during the pandemic. They appear to have subsequently embraced competition at the distributor level. Marvel did not furnish a quote for this piece by publication deadline.

Amid the upsurge in activity and the scarcity of exclusive content deals to compete for readers, each player in the space is leaning into a slightly different value proposition.

“Community is really at the heart of what we are doing,” said Henrik Rydberg, GlobalComix co-CEO. “The content is the magnet that pulls people in, but reading is a solitary experience. So we are building a community around fandom, around the stories and so we’ve been adding features like a video hub where people can share stories, where creators can talk about their work, and where we can all enjoy this culture together.”

Rydberg and Carter also emphasized Global’s heritage as a creator-powered site where readers can find new material that may not be on the racks at the local comic shop, or on other platforms. They see the arrival of new Marvel content – and Marvel fans – as a way to expose different segments of fandom to new and exciting work.

Carter said he is unphased by the upsurge of new activity in the digital space, including Marvel’s recent announced partnership with Webtoon or the arrival of new competitors. “How many comic platforms have come and gone in the last few years?” he observed. “Of course it makes sense for us to be aware of who is in the market, but we look to our own strengths and our own value proposition, our mission and values. As long as we stay true to that mission and work every day to make that a reality, it doesn’t help to look at what anyone else is doing.”

Investors appear to share this optimism. Global Comix, which has already done several successful capital raises, recently secured new deals with SBI (Japan’s biggest VC) and Scrum Ventures, and US-based WISE Ventures, to go along with continued support from earlier investors Point72 and Upside Ventures. Carter points out that Japan is the world’s largest market for comics, with an investment community that understands the market as well as anyone.

With Marvel, DC and most other comics and manga now available at roughly the same prices on a wide variety of different platforms, the ball is in the readers’ court. Do they value collectability? Community? The convenience of the vertically-scrolling format? Subscriptions? One-click purchasing?

Marvel – and GlobalComix – appear content to let the market decide.

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