Massive Speculation regarding November's Sales

The Diamond Top 100 and the ICv2’s Top 300 actual were posted, and always, there were a number of things I noticed. A lot of people look at the top first. What I see there is that DC knows what to do with its books. They’ve made a lot of mistakes, but they have really managed to come up with an effective expansion strategy. Whereas Batman and Superman were practically the only characters with multiple books, we now have Green Lantern sporting two satellite titles and The Flash prepared to expand. DC is constantly looking to recreate the magic of 52, where all of us were interested in the stories of character we previously had no interest in, andwhere we went out and bought a weekly book. They’re finally get a handle on it with the two bi-weekly titles, though like 52, the stories in Brightest Day have worked themselves into full issues and not just multiple segements per issue.

Marvel has managed to mold the Avengers into a successful franchise, which is fantastic. The X-Men is still doing amazingly well without controlling the way the Marvel Universe moves, and is really a testament to good storytelling that is self-contained with the Marvel mutants. Two things from the top 100 for Marvel: the market is ready for a Young Avengers title, and I expect to see a vampire-centric Marvel U title in the next year. More on that and more later in the week. There’s a lot I want to touch on.

Here’s what I see at the bottom though. First we have the initial “Danger Range” from 20,000-15,000 in sales. For Marvel, two titles are penned for cancellation (as per Alex Alonso): Deadpool Corps and Deadpool Team-Up. Personally I think this is a good move to get the number of Deadpool titles down. Marvel went a bit too far with that, in my opinion, and really spreadout their Deadpool reading viewers. The other is Namor, which is a sad little title due to constantly being tied in to events. This will be touched on later. DC has a few titles in this range: Booster Gold, Power Girl, JSA All Stars, and the Secret Six. Secret Six is going to be plagued by the villains for hire Titans title. I really feel the market is not able to support more than one of these kinds of books at one time, and Titans being tied into Brightest Day isn’t helping Secret Six at all. Honestly, the upcoming Doom Patrol tie-in won’t either. However, for DC titles, these are safe. The sad member of this group is Thunder Agents. Despite everything DC tried to promote this book, it debuts for November at 16,122. It doesn’t bode well for the future of the book.

The next section is the 15,000-10,000 range. Marvel cancels books in this range, typically. I think, and I’m not positive on this, but I think Marvel regularly publishes more mini-series than DC does, which definitely would make the number spread a bit trickier. However, Iron Man Legacy is still running in this range, which I have been continually surprised by after all the other titles Marvel has let go of. DC has a couple of books that live in this range, The Outsiders, Freedom Fighters, Batman Confidential, and REBELS. I’m actually quite surprised that Outisders has better sales than REBELS, due to REBELS having a much higher critical acclaim. But then the acclaim is also given to Thor, the Mighty Avenger, which pulls in at 8,720. To wrap this section, Marvel’s other books in this range are Black Widow, Hawkeye & Mockingbird, and Young Allies. All of which are done and will wrap in minis. I’ll give Marvel that, they usually allow the creator to finish telling his story.

Under 10,000. DC’s First Wave books are here, and I’m not really sure whether that is something that is still considered “safe” for that line. It’s below a lot of the Vertigo titles, and I’m not sure what will happen next with them. Personally I love reading The Spirit, and would be sad to see it go. Doom Patrol and Azrael are both here, with Azrael still chugging along somehow at 7,841. I think that the DP crossover with Secret Six will benefit it more than the other way around. Down at the bottom is the Mighty Crusaders, the wrapup of the debacle that has been The Red Circle stories, coming in at 5,006 for issue 5.

There’s a lot more I want to touch on, so I’ll be doing so in separate segments soon.