Marvel Comics comes to iPhone.

Now you can read Spidey whenever you want.  Photo: Creative Commons

Marvel Comics, publishers of such comic book heroes as Spiderman, X-Men, Captain America and Iron Man are now coming to the iPhone and iPod Touch with the all new Panelfly app.  The app allows you to read digital comics that Marvel makes of their franchises, including most of their classic heroes and new ones too.  The app is free on iTunes and allows you to buy the comics for a fee.

Panelfly has a wealth of comics to choose from.  Spiderman, X-Men, Iron Man and others are all here.  The app charges you $1 or $2 per comic, while other less known comic books are free  The interface is easy to learn, but everything takes a long time to load.  However, the slow speeds are probably due to all the comics on the app’s server.  There has to be hundreds of comics on it.

The comics themselves read fairly well.  You will need to zoom in as the print is small, but all of the comics are meticulously recreated page for page from the real thing.  If you love comic books it’s really great to be able to read them right from your pocket.

Here is a demo of Panelfly:

Panelfly is a very good app that is worth having because it brings Marvel comics right to your iPhone.  While I think it’s a must have app, nothing can truly replace having an actual physical comic book in your hand, but perhaps that time has passed.  

It’s also a big deal that a major comic company such as Marvel would do this, but with comic sales not what it used to be, Panelfly is a great idea for Disney and comic book fans.  Disney can get a new source of income while the people can get comics on a more instantaneous basis that’s cheaper than the paper version. It will be interesting to see what DC comics does to counter Marvel’s latest move.