One More Month for DC Universe

I pretty much stopped news-blogging before DC Universe started, so I haven’t covered it much here.

Remember? That was the streaming service launched just before AT&T acquired Warner. It had digital comics; original TV shows (some of which were also aired on the CW when pandemic quarantine shut down production and the TV network needed content); and lots of older video programming. That last item was why I didn’t pay much attention to the service. It turned out that I already had most of it on DVD. (A couple of times, I was offered a press account to check out the service, but I never found anything much worth watching, and the access never lasted for long.)

Given the AT&T acquisition, and the resulting streamlining and shutdowns, it wasn’t a surprise when it was announced earlier this year that DC Universe would become DC Universe Infinite, a comic book (only) subscription service. The video programming was going to HBO Max, the overpriced Netflix competitor that AT&T is pinning its future on.

DUI (heh) will launch January 21 with “access to more than 24,000 comic books.” It’s accessible through the web or on iOS or Android devices for $7.99 a month or $74.99 a year. That’s how much it cost before, with the video content.

Subscribers will also encounter digital-first comics, exclusive access to DC fan events, as well as a steady stream of recently released comics six months after the physical versions hit store shelves…. Fans can also download comics, graphic novels and originals for unlimited offline reading on their favorite smartphone or tablet.

(Encounter?) One thing DUI gets right is accessibility in other countries, as of next summer. The previous incarnation was US only, likely due to video streaming rights.

“All you can read” setups are more popular with subscription customers, and $8 is the price of two print comics these days, so by that light, this is a bargain — so long as you don’t mind being six months behind direct market customers. Maybe that’s what the digital-first exclusives are meant to make up for.

And hey, if you haven’t read it before, it’s new to you. Wandering through the 80 years of DC history could be more enjoyable than trying to keep up with Death Metal or Future State or Infinite Frontier or whatever the latest event is.