Now this is a weird one. Marvel have always had something of a friendly rivalry with their Distinguished Competition, but as the comic industry becomes more hotly contested and young fans are being tempted away by other way to spend their pocket money, market dominance is being taken a lot more seriously. Every summer both companies have their blockbuster crossover events, which is where they hope to make the majority of their profits, just like Hollywood do. And if some reports are to be believed, Marvel have been reverting to some decidedly underhand tactics to get one up on DC. In 2010 both publishers were in the midst of their summer events, Marvel with Siege and DC with Blackest Night. Rumour has it that Marvel extended an unusual offer to comic shops across America: if store owners were willing to tear the covers off of fifty Blackest Night-related titles, they would receive a super-secret variant cover to Siege #3. They repeated the stunt the next year, where the title to be vandalised was Flashpoint and Marvel needed to get the edge with their own Fear Itself crossover. The stunt wasn't widely reported, as DC refused to rise to the taunting, and it's unclear if any comic shops actually took Marvel up on their offer. When commenting on the scandal, Marvel claimed it was an attempt to help the ailing brick and mortar stores by providing them with lucrative, exclusive variant covers that fans love. In reality it was, at best, a bad attempt at gaining some publicity or, at worst, as pretty disgusting way to kick the competition.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
