Subway, digital comics

Talk about being behind the news cycle curve, the other day I stumbled across these four online comics. All four DC Comics were produced in association with Subway restaurants. These comics feature Superman, Green Lantern, and Batman, and other members of the Justice League, as well as several famous athletes who are fans of Subway. In addition to the four eight-pagers (which were apparently inserted into the center of all DC comics back in June), there are two 3D motion comics staring Ryan Howard and CC Sabathia who stand with Green Lantern and the Justice League against the villainous Darkseid.

In the first comic Michael Strathan, Justin Tuck, and Ndamukong Suh help the JLA rescue Aquaman from Black Manta and Ocean Master while in Hawaii to play an exhibition game.

Issue #2 has Carl Edwards and Blake Griffin join the heroes to stop a gorilla invasion lead by Grodd, the intelligent gorilla from Gorilla City, a hidden city in the jungles of Africa.

The third digital comic has Nastia Liukin, Michael Phelps, and Apollo Ohno coming to the aid of Batman who has been set upon by Mr Freeze and Solomon Grundy.

In the the fourth and final comic Laila Ali, and Subway pitchman Jared, Fogle help the JLA during an attack from the Manhunters.

In all four of the digital comics as well as in the two chapters of then motion comic, the athletes are all chowing down on Subway sandwiches and touting the energy boost that such a healthy meal gives them. All of the comics have the various athletes visiting a Subway restaurant and mention specific sandwiches and ingredients by name (Avocados come up as an energy supplement quite a bit).

All-in-all, these comics are lighthearted and fast-pace, as the intent is to deliver an entertaining comic story while plugging the product, which all of them do quite neatly. Perhaps the only plot point which many fans took issue with was in issue #1, where Aquaman was apparently ambushed and knocked unconcious while swimming off Hawaii. Given that Aquaman is not only the DC King of the Seven Seas, he is the strongest while in water, so this seems to be a bit out of character for him.

Still, that aside, the comics are fun, and downloadable/printable from the web. While not part of the original comic run, during December 2011, Subway is offering two of their 6" subs (Cold Cut Combo and Meatball Marinara) for just $2.00 to all patrons as a way of showing their appreciation for their patronage.

These comics, as were the recently released JLA/General Mills comics tend to be collector items for comicbook aficionados. Thankfully, DC & Subway made the comics downloadable and printable so that fans can hang onto a copy for themselves.

Back in July, Subway teamed with DC to produce a series of six lunch bags that tied into the then-released Green Lantern movie.

The 6" $2.00 Subway offer can be found here.