For the past few years, DC has had an ongoing project to “draw the line” at keeping many of its comics at the $2.99 price point—but for a bulk of its DC Rebirth titles, that line is about to be crossed. The reason for crossing it, however, is at least a somewhat positive one.
Starting from April, 16 of DC’s ongoing monthly series (not the series that currently serve up two issues a month like Batman, Wonder Woman, Superman, and so on) will be increasing their prices by a dollar, from $2.99 to $3.99, although one, All-Star Batman, will reduce its current $4.99 asking price to $3.99. Here’s the full list:
All-Star Batman
Batgirl
Batgirl and the Birds of Prey
Batman Beyond
Batwoman
Blue Beetle
Cyborg
The Hellblazer
New Super-Man
Red Hood and the Outlaws
Super Sons
Supergirl
Superwoman
Teen Titans
Titans
Trinity
The reason for the dollar increase? Physical copies of these books will finally come with a “free” digital copy of the same issue, allowing readers to maintain a physical collection alongside building a digital library of books, an avenue of comics reading that’s become steadily more popular than physical books in recent years.
The timing of DC’s announcement is particularly is interesting because Marvel actually recently announced a controversial reversal of its digital code plans. Currently all Marvel comics offer a free digital copy with physical issues, but the company is changing that in February. While there’s no price change coming in with it, codes will now offer digital copies of one of three select comics from Marvel’s back cataloe.
Marvel believes the move won’t dwindle support for local comic book stores, as the free samples will supposedly encourage people to go out and buy physical trade paperbacks instead. Naturally, DC believes the opposite, which is why they’re adding the new digital codes to promote to people who are still subscribing physically to monthly series. Either way, if you’ve been used to picking up physical books from either Marvel or DC lately, you can expect some changes in the coming months.
