And that's kind of what's happening today. Only this time I don't even need to log in!
As you may have noticed (If you've been paying attention to anything I've been saying.) there's a new Supergirl movie out this summer. Next month, in fact. June 26 to be precise. I posted about it here and here which, since I'm talking about it again today, makes this three months in a row. DC should be paying me!
It's not so much the movie this time as the opportunity it represents. Digital Ink, the Daybreak sub-studio responsible for DCUO has, unsurprisingly, thrown itself headlong onto what it hopes is going to be the Summer Supergirl Bandwagon. If I had to bet, I'd guess the movie will be an artistic success but a commercial failure but until it comes out, its success or lack thereof is conveniently unsullied by either reviews or box office receipts so why not make the most of it while it lasts?.
There is, naturally, an in-game event based around the movie. There's even a (Not very good...) trailer, which you can watch below, although if I were you, I probably wouldn't bother.
I've completely lost track of how these things work in DCUO any more. There used to be Chapters and then there was some kind of multi-part story set up and now I don't know what they're doing. It must be well over a year since I last logged in and a lot longer than that since I played for more than half an hour before I got bored and logged out again.
Of late, I haven't even bothered to go in and get my free stuff. There's always free stuff but if you're not playing, what are you going to do with it? And I got a bit annoyed when I bought a new Hideout and instead of ending up with two, it lost me the one I already had. Which I never got back. Not that I'm bitter...
I tried to redecorate the new one but my heart was never in it. Anyway, enough of that. For this summer's Supergirl event there's a freebie you don't have to log in to enjoy. And it's a good one, too. If you like Supergirl and superhero comics, that is. Which, obviously, I do.
To cut to the chase (In the skies above Metropolis, likely as not.) DCUO is "giving away" six issues of Supergirl's comic to promote the new Children of Krypton: Shadows Over Argo event.
I say "giving away" but it's more like "Giving you a lend of" as we used to say when I was at school. And when I say "comics", I imagine no-one really believes they're going to send you half a dozen printed copies through the mail. No, what they're giving you is limited-duration access to selected digital issues through the DC Universe Infinite portal. You do have to sign up and register an account at DCUI but it just asks for your age and an email and password but it only takes like thirty seconds.
The most interesting part of all this for me was learning that DCUI is now available in the UK. Has been since 2022, in fact. I completely missed the Bat Signal on that one.
Several times, back in the twenty-teens, I tried to sign up for the service and was repeatedly rebuffed. I wanted to give them my money but they wouldn't take it. I kept checking back to see if they'd expanded into my region and they hadn't but then, some time during the pandemic I think it must have been, I happened upon a website that gave me free access to what seems like every comic ever published and I forgot all about DCUI.
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| The six Supergirl comics you can read for nothing right now. |
I've used that website, sporadically, whenever there's been something I particularly wanted to read. I assume it's some sort of pirate operation so won't link it here but really I have no clue what it is. At no point has anyone ever asked for any money or indeed any personal details, You don't even need to provide an email address. It's as easy to access as Wikipedi and as public, which seems a bit of an odd way to do piracy.
Still, I prefer not to pirate if there's a legal alternative. FFS, I don't even like playing pirate-themed games! Pirates of any and all kinds are the antithesis of cool as far as I'm concerned. Bad pirates! Pirates bad!
The upshot of which is that, having been alerted by the DCUO promotion to the fact that DC is now willing to take my money, I will very soon be giving it to them, not least because the monthly subscription is an extremely cost-effective £6.99. For reasons that are anything but rational (Or indeed sane.) I feel it would be foolish to give them that money before I've read my six free issues, so I'll probably start subbing next month. I fancy the idea of reading comics on my tablet in my lunch hour at work. You can download them and read offline with the DC offer so I won't even have to contend with our crappy wi-fi..
The one thing that's putting me of a bit is that, having read one of the issues on the DCUI platform this morning, the experience doesn't seem to be anything like as good as it is with the pirate version. I was only saying to someone at work this week that I now find reading comics on a screen considerably more immersive than reading them on paper but that certainly wasn't true of the one I read on DCUI today. I hope there are better ways to display and turn the pages hidden in the UI somewhere because the default option felt really clunky.
The six free issues are mostly very recent, including the first in the current run that's been so highly rated by Anj at Supergirl Comic Box Commentary. Anj's reviews are so incredibly thorough that you could just read them and not bother with the comics at all. I have to skip most of what he says about anything I have any intention of reading. The word "spoiler" doesn't seem to feature in his vocabulary.
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340 more Supergirl comics you could read for just £6.99 a month. |
Having read that one, I can confirm it's excellent but also probably of more interest to long-time fans of the character than casual readers. I guess that's likely true of most of the others but I would recommend anyone with more than a passing interest, especially if they have any plans to see the movie, to take the opportunity to read the free copy of Issue #1 of Tom King's Woman of Tomorrow, the full graphic novel version of which I wrote about at some length in one of the posts I linked earlier.
Ah, yes. Issue #1 and only Issue #1 for free. That's worth noting because of course the hope is that, having had a taste, you'll crave more and be willing to pay for it next time. Remind me again what profession uses that sales model?
I was curious (Read: suspicious.) that the free Supergirl comics were just the regular free tasters on offer over at DCUI. Well, I was once I remembered that, when I was checking the platform out all those years ago, giving away free issues was a thing there. So I went there directly to check, using a different browser, and they're not.
Not the same, I mean. There are six free comics anyone can read over there, just not the same six. And none of them feature Supergirl, which seems odd now I come to think of it. Why would they miss a chance at cross-promotion? Free Supergirl comics coming to all in June, I'll bet.
Thinking about that, it occurred to me to wonder just who it is that can access this offer. I got an email but whether that's because I'm a Daybreak All Access customer or because I have a history of playing DCUO so Digital Ink has me email address I couldn't say. Well, I probably could, if I dug into it a bit but I have better things to do with my Saturday afternoon. It's not like I'm a journalist!
In that spirit, I offer the information, for what it's worth, "as seen." If you play DCUO or have played it, maybe you can read six Supergirl comics for free, too. Or maybe not. If you care enough, I imagine you'll go find out, now I've brought it to your attention.
And if it turns out you can't... well, there are other ways.
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