It's officially a trend: In the ICv2 Digital Comics Conference today, Marvel VP David Gabriel handed a couple of scoops to the crowd. Here's the biggest: "Because of what digital comics are doing, we will be able to lower prices in January."

He didn't elaborate, but could that mean the hated $3.99 price point is a thing of the past?

Gabriel led up to this with some comments about how their digital comics are doing. "Just this week, we passed 2 million downloads," he said. That doesn't match the sales of a store like Midtown Comics, but the lines are drawing closer for some titles.

"Yesterday we released the Ultimate Thor book," he said. "By tomorrow, we will have outsold what our top retailers have sold. There is an audience for that." The digital sales have given the print edition a boost, he believes.

Update: Kiel Phegley has more information on the price change at Marvel over on the CBR home page. Gabriel confirmed that new books launching in January 2011 will not debut at $3.99. So it isn't an across-the-board price reduction/page count reduction, like we saw from DC earlier today.