Ready to start buying your new single issue comics from Amazon? For quite a while, comic shop owners have been moaning about unfair competition from Amazon’s discounts on trade paperbacks (which is to say they’re just like other kinds of booksellers). Come to find out, you can now get your single issue monthly comics from Amazon. Well, not all of them. I don’t know if this a pilot program or not, but four titles are available. Two from DC and two from Marvel. Batman, Superman Confidential, Marvel Adventures Two-In-One (this is a the double-sized reprint comic with Spider-Man that’s marketed towards the newstand, if I’m placing the cover image correctly), and Civil War Chronicles.

If you’re thinking that’s a really strange quartet, I’d being agreeing with you. With these comics, there isn’t a discount, but there is a buy “three, get one free” program, so figure if they carried more titles, you’d get roughly a 25% discount, assuming you were ordering 4 books at the same cover price.

Is Amazon moving into the comic space? Hard to say. Based on the placement, I’d say this is more likely part of their on-going (and not stunningly successful) effort to get into magazines. The interesting thing is, while they’re not stocking these in depth, you can get some back issues at cover price. While supplies last, at any rate.