If I were to try and figure out Marvel’s rationale for this, it’d probably be that they’ve sold thousands of copies, yet people still want the issues. Rather than let the secondary market money go exclusively to the retailers in the stores, they’re going to tap that secondary market and call it “servicing the customer.” They make the issues available, AND, since the books come two-to-a-reprint Chronicle, presumably they make MORE off the bottom line for the larger book. F’rinstance, if you want the hard-to-find Eggman #22 (featuring the tragic death of Spatula-Girl), you can pay the $19 bucks Wizard price (where no money goes to Marvel) or you can pay $4.99 and get that rare and valuable issue bound together with the Dr. Croissant #74, notable only for the point where the letterer misspells “Hoary Hosts of Hogjowls,” and MOST of the money goes to Marvel.

Of course, that means that the store that might have sold the $19 issue while people are still under the Wizard-inspired-delusion of it’s $19 value may be stuck with an unsalable product, which truly horks my cheese… but that’s an argument for another time.

That said, I question the wisdom of reprinting stories that appeared last year, in conjunction with a TPB collection. Quoth George Carlin, “How can anybody be nostalgic about a concept like ‘a little while ago?’”

They’re killing me.