Marvel’s on WEBTOON, but no one seems to be talking about it.
Maybe it was me, maybe I just missed the memo, but Marvel has officially partnered with WEBTOON with the story of The 500 Year War and The Eternals. I’m not shocked or anything, in fact it was expected: everyone knows the Big Two are always finding out who will be the first to set foot on the moon, so to speak. What caught me off guard was that I found out about it by logging onto Webtoon myself, at home. I saw a quick banner pop up along with all of the other premier Webtoon originals being promoted and there they were, The Eternals, on Webtoon. I mention this because I don’t think I was able to escape DC launching their ongoing series Batman: Wayne Family Adventures on Webtoon. I heard it on More To Come-the PW Comics World podcast, Webtoon’s own Instagram account made several posts, and just the general chatter in the air was how much of big step this was for DC to make the leap to the endless scroll, and adapting one of it’s most popular characters (and family) into a-I dare say-fun Webtoon comic.
I feel like it’s just a case of who-did-it-first when it comes to Marvel’s later arrival, still there are some differences between the two approaches that you might want to be privy too before reading. The first thing is it’s only seven episodes, or issues, long; unlike the ongoing story being told over on Batman: Wayne Family Adventures. Also, it’s important to note that the creative team changes from episode to episode. This was a bit of a distraction at first. I really enjoyed the artwork on the first issue only for it to suddenly change for the next one. At least there’s a good reason. “Each issue will have an international creative team of writers and artists from the respective country that the story is being told in,” it says on Marvel’s website. Marvel Editor-in-chief stated, “Bringing ETERNALS: THE 500 YEAR WAR to Marvel Unlimited will open up doors for our international creative teams to tell much more personal stories by setting them in their homelands.” Which, I have to admit, is pretty cool.
On Webtoon it says the comic updates every Friday but it looks like the entire story was dropped on January 20th, so it’s ready for readers. I read the first episode and, it’s not bad. I’ll probably read the rest when I can and you should too, at least now you know you can. As much as I heard about DC’s entry into WEBTOONS, it seems like the fan fare called in sick with this one.