The Future of Comics Characters?

Both Dark Horse and Marvel Comics are launching new prose novel imprints.

Could this be the ultimate future of all corporate owned titles, as the direct market declines?
With no real room or a large interest, left for many of the superhero titles in bookstore chains. Plus a dwindling fanbase, that is likely to have less and less interest in shopping at direct market comic shops.

Might there eventually come a day when the only new stories featuring these older characters, will be those available in prose form?

I'm not sure, maybe I'm wrong about the DM's effect waning as time goes by too. Yet it certainly seems a possibility at least.