Why did Virgin even try?

Heidi MacDonald talks about Virgin's death and how it came as a surprise to no one.

Everyone's commenting (with more than a hint of smug comfort in their voices) on the inevitability of failure when a company views comics as a stepping stone to movies. But what amazes me isn't that they couldn't compete with Marvel and DC, but that they attempted it at all. When Virgin Comics was first announced, there was a lot of chatter that they might be able to bypass the direct market entirely, distributing through Virgin Megastores. And using Virgin Group's vast treasury, they could have had an unprecedented ability to market comics to a wide audience. Instead the company played the game that's set up to sell Batman books.