Sad day- I really enjoyed the Walmart Giants.
I went to my local Walmart this morning to try the new 4 packs. They were ok.
$9 for 4 comics isn’t a terrible deal, but 3 of those books are a mystery and are likely going to be books you wouldn’t have bought otherwise (which is what happened to me here). So essentially you’re paying $9 for the book you can see and rolling the dice on the other 3.
Yeah, I don’t like it. They actually had a similar deal with the Giants. I bought a pack for $10. Had the first issue of the Superman Giant and a bunch of random stuff. Turned me off the whole thing.
If you’re gonna do a 4 pack, at least make it consistent. 4 issues of the same series, preferably in order and starting from the beginning. Or at least have a theme. “Batman Family” for instance… you get the #1s and then come back next month for the next issues. Completely random doesn’t seem right.
I love it. It’s like buying a pack of cards. Part of the fun is uncovering what’s inside. I could never find any of the giants in my stores nearby, so I never got attached to them.
I suppose that is one way to look at it 
Do you find it useful discovering comics you haven’t read, or just appreciate the randomness of collecting various issues?
Sad because I enjoyed the giants, but interesting. I do like @nu52’s way of looking at it, it’s like getting a pack of cards. There’s something exciting about the aspect of surprise.
And I actually do get your point here, but at the same time, I kind of looked at that as a positive. It could be a way of finding a book that you enjoy, but never would have known otherwise. (If that makes sense)
The pack of cards analogy almost works for me, if the comics were all in the same series or related in any way to the character portrayed in the top book.
This is like buying a pack of NBA cards and getting 1 NFL, 1 MLB, and 1 NHL card mixed into the deck.
I’m still happy to be able to buy comics at all when I’m in Walmart, I just prefer the Giants.
It’s like buying an incomplete deck of cards that has been cut into seven pieces, and only one piece of each card is included. Marvel pulls this same crap, and it’s worthless. It’s anti-accessible.
I think they could have themed packs (like Bat-family or event) and a random pack option. Perhaps they could have a small price difference as an incentive to try the random option.
If they did this right, it could be neat. The way I really got into comics as a kid was buying packaged sets Toys ‘R’ Us. They were Marvel ones, usually four issues or so of a series, and were generally an entire storyline. I loved it. But if it had been four random, unrelated issues it would’ve made it a lot harder for me to get into comics.
It could be good as a gift for a kid or someone you want to get into comics. They have four different options and hopefully they like one and get into DC. I can see why they would produce them but understand that for comic fans unless you’re trying to find something new, it wouldn’t be worth it.
Every now and then I see bundled comics at Ollies or Dollar Tree. I never pick them up because of the randomness of the package. An example is a Valiant comic on one side and then a Wonder Woman comic on the side with a few comics sandwiched in between. If they were complete stories I would probably take a chance on them. There is another problem I have with the ones that I have seen, there are some titles that are not aimed at kids. An example is the one I saw with random 90s Image Comics in them. I am a fan of Image but there is no way a parent would look at the cover of Spawn or whatever random Image book is there and buy it for a kid, even if it was a dollar.
Haven’t packs of random comics been around for a while, though? While they didn’t have the mini-posters, I have seen packs of comics at Walmart and Five Below before. They also tended to be older series from the 90’s with some recent-ish ones mixed in.
I’m honestly surprised that they cancelled the giants. I thought they were popular.
The Giants were much better suited for that. They also contained four stories, but they gave readers an easy way to follow up on those four stories: just buy the next issue at the exact same location a month later! These four packs give the readers very little direction on where to find the rest of the story arcs. It’s akin to showing someone a random 15 minute clip out of a movie and then saying, “Good luck hunting down the rest of the movie!”
At that point, the reader has four options:
Which option do you think they’ll likely choose?
I bought the Wonder Woman pack today for my girlfriend and her Wonder Woman collection but it was a sad state, as all the 100-Page Giants were already gone. That was the local Wal-Mart that always had copies of each issue and generally had back issues as well.
Give up on hard copies and subscribe to DC Universe.
I was trying to be funny… but while I was typing that I realized it would be a clever way to advertise DCU. Have a coupon in there for a reduced 1 month membership or something.
But that would assume that DC would think in 2020 terms instead of still behaving like it’s 1993. 
I realize that publishing physical comic books is a nightmare (what used to be able to ride on the backs of newspaper publishers has diverged into its own specialty), but the industry keeps coming back to this “mystery bundle” concept every fifteen years or so, as if it hasn’t always flopped before or there’s reason to believe that the market has gotten better for it.
Mind you, I appreciated it when I was a kid just getting into comics–one of my early ventures was the “Whitman Editions” packs in the '70s from a department store toy section that included Superman #233, where the late Denny O’Neil started to overhaul the title–but kids shopping for toys who don’t have many comics and might be interested isn’t exactly a huge market.
Then again, I also don’t like the idea of needing to support Walmart to get certain comics, so…fine, I guess?
@Green.Lantern I loved those Toys R Us multi-packs! They filled in some holes, and were a pretty spiffy deal from what I remember.
TRU made a lot of mistakes over the last 15 years or so, but I was happy to see comics return to their stores in 2011. True, it wasn’t the bundles like they had in the '90s, but something was better than nothing.
Regarding the topic, I’m happy that the majority of new features from the current Giant line are continuing on as Digital First titles.
As for the 4-packs, well…it’s a neat, easy way for randos and kids who just want comics of any kind and don’t care if they’re the Newest of the New™ to get them. I’d like to see a themed approach, but I can see why each set is random, as that’s to show off different titles from different franchises to potential readers.
A pass for me, but it’s good to see DC still has a solid partnership with Walmart.
goes out and plays “Taps” for the Giant line
I have purchased my first Digital First title— Titans. Question, though— are the 100 page giants ending in the direct market, too?
