The Comixology app, the mobile incarnation of the digital comics platform owned by Amazon since 2014, has finally shuffled off this mortal coil. On Dec. 4, individual Comixology libraries and Comixology Unlimited subscriptions were swept into users’ corresponding Kindle libraries, where those comics can now be read using the Kindle app or the read.amazon.com browser experience (still in beta).

It’s been a slow-moving and inevitable apocalypse for Comixology users. In 2018, Amazon shuttered Comixology Pull List, a service that allowed readers to order comics from brick-and-mortar shops through Comixology.com. In 2022, the company merged the Comixology Submit program into Kindle Direct Publishing and shuttered the Comixology.com storefront, forcing comics purchasers into its general retail experience. (You know your UI is bad when even Patton Oswalt is tweeting about it.) Earlier this year, Amazon laid off swathes of Comixology staff, with those remaining saying they “felt like their hands were tied in making major decisions.”

Arguably, the tension between Comixology and its corporate mothership has been there since the 2014 acquisition of the digital comics platform. After Amazon acquired the app from its founders, the company removed the ability to purchase comics from all iOS versions of Comixology, so as not to pay app store fees to its biggest tech competitor, Apple.

But this isn’t a clear-cut case of a huge monopoly throwing its weight around a small industry. Comixology was already a monopoly. It’s monopolies all the way down.

Before I ever read a comic on Comixology, I used Comixology Pull List to keep track of upcoming releases — there was a time when that was all you could really do there! At its 2007 launch, the service was largely dedicated to offering online community and........

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