Marvel Comics wants to give you 700 free (yes, I said free) comic books through Tuesday

Not content with dominating the comic book movie universe, Marvel Comics is now determined to expand their readership with an unprecedented outreach effort to bring in new readers.

From now until 11 p.m. Tuesday, you can download more the first issue of more than 700 issues. Let me repeat that price. FREE.

You can download the comics by the Marvel Comics app or Marvel Comics Digital Comics Shop. The comics will be back to their regular $1.99 to $3.99 price starting Wednesday. Be prepared to wait if you’re downloading via the digital comics shop as their servers may be a bit overloaded due to serious demand. This may be a better late night project for some of you.

So if you’ve had any comic you’ve had your eye on checking out, but understandably didn’t want to waste your hard-earned money on a stinker, this is the perfect opportunity for you. The only way this could have been better was if Marvel allowed people to download the first four or five issues of a book to really get them hooked especially the way comic writers write for the graphic novels now instead of standalone issues, but that’s a minor gripe.

This is such a smart move on Marvel’s part. If even 5% of the people who take advantage of this deal decide to pick up a few new series as a result of this initiative it’s worth it. And half of those people tell their friend or friends to read a book you’ve got the word of mouth and more awareness for characters in the next round of Marvel movies. This is pretty much a win-win for Marvel and a brilliant marketing strategy.

You’ve gotta think that DC Comics is hard at work at this moment thinking up some kind of response, especially considering their complete overhaul of their comic universe with the new DC Universe mid-2011 in an effort to gain new readers.