I had a question from a customer and in answering it, the post here kind of wrote itself.
“I had a question about the mix of Marvel to DC with the re-launch underway. I guess I am wondering if Marvel sales are down as fans try the new DC books. I know there are new customers, DC customers, and some lookie-loos in for the number 1’s picking up the titles but is this “event” pulling Marvel fans over too? Just wondering…”
I can’t tell yet. Marvel only came out with 8 ongoing books last week and they weren’t A-listers. Heroes for Hire, Hulk, Moon Knight, Punisher, Thunderbolts, Wolverine, X-23, X-Factor.1 & X-Men. But, I have had a lot of Marvel only people trying the DC books. I had one guy, who only gets Spider-Man (with a few event books thrown in) give me a list of 8 New DC books he wants to try. That is awesome.
I haven’t seen a hard shift yet, but it will be slow when people start handing stuff back saying “I’m not getting this any more.” I can’t say its been happening in droves, but some titles stand out. X-Men, Moon Knight, Avengers across the line. All have memorable “Not getting this anymore.”
Of course things are going to be very skewed for a while as people try out the DC stuff. But Marvel needs to step up their game. And they need to stop the crap. Spider-Island may have been an interesting storyline, but it didn’t need 3 3-issue mini-series, 7 one-shots and tie into 2 other ongoing books.
I just ran the actual sales numbers for new comics that shipped last week. This doesn’t count books still in hold files
DC outsold Marvel in issues actually sold 3.8 to 1. That is a pretty big difference. I will keep this going through the month.
What I hear people saying is that they are going to drop the Marvel books that haven’t been doing it for them lately to keep going with the DCs that they enjoy. (X-Men is a good example. People don’t want more vampires and when they see Girschler, they walk away now). It’s not the best thing in the world, as I would love to have people pick up more books, but I understand budgets. What does make me happy is that people are going to be getting the books that they enjoy. If you only get 4 books a month and you really aren’t enjoying them, there’s a good chance that the industry is going to lose you. If nothing else, the DC books are putting a new face, a new story out there. Each issue so far has had a cliffhanger ending to make you want to come back for more. Good on DC for doing that.
Plus, there is a lot of buzz bringing new people into the store asking about the New DC. My only regret is not ordering more. But my order numbers were huge. My DC retail order (before increasing them at FOC and reordering more already) was higher than my normal wholesale number for an entire month. I can count on one hand how many books I have ordered 100 of and most of them left a lot on the shelf (Avengers #1, Siege #1, Godzilla). I blew through 125 copies of Justice League on Wednesday. I have 3 left of the 120 Action #1 I ordered. These are insane numbers for me.
This week will be a far better test as Marvel is coming out with some books (Fear Itself, X-Force, Spider-Man, Daredevil…). But, overall, this should be a wake up call to Marvel. DC is going to crush them in initial order numbers (what all the sales charts show), but I think that every book is going back to a 2nd print so far. These numbers could be astronomical. I just wish I had more on the shelf right now to sell. But that is mostly my fault. Even so, I ordered $3000 more DC comics than I normally do and I haven’t even been tracking reorders and orders of 2nd prints. Never before have I been so cavalier about bumping my order numbers for books. Example, I bumped Wonder Woman from 55 initial to 70 on FOC to 90 after seeing the response to JL #1. For comparison, I sold 17 copies of the last issue of the regular series. I sold out of about half of last weeks books and I have less than a handful left of any of them. I, luckily because I threw a reorder in on them when Justice League sold out, have more coming this week, but for most it is only 10-15 copies of each. Never before have I increased my orders line wide on books that I thought I heavily ordered in the first place and without having seen them. Crazy. A good crazy, but still crazy.
Back to Marvel. They are going to have to step up their game at this point. For the past two + months, DC has been the buzz, and even more so now with the books on (and off) the stands. Marvel needs to do more than (as was said about the DC relaunch) move the chairs around on the deck of the Titanic. They need to insert some life back into the X-franchise. Moving the players around is great, but they need to follow it up with a must read story(ies). So in one sense they need a big X event to draw people back in, but on the other hand they need to lay off the events. Fear Itself has done more damage than good. Numbers on Avengers books are down across the board as people bailed during the crossover because the books were basically fill ins. Any momentum they had going in was lost. Now the books are continuing on with post-Fear Itself stories before it ends. I do not have much faith in the post Fear Itself related books like the Valkyrie/Sin story. The main thing I hear about Fear Itself is “Is it over soon?” Not the response you want to your big event. Having read #6, it doesn’t get better. It feels like Siege all over again. How can they possibly defeat this overpowering bad guy? With this super magic item that never existed before this moment. Bah. Sorry for the editorial. But overall, they need to look at their lineup and see what their strengths and weaknesses are. What is missing? DC has such a variety of books to reach out to every demographic. Marvel has white male super hero books (oversimplification, yes). This is the first time their dominance has been threatened. It was a bold move by DC. Will it hold? I don’t know. Obviously #2s will not be the same as these #1s. There are a lot of lookyloos coming in for certain #1s that won’t be back. And many online commenters will be out there saying that this shows that it won’t last, but I think people are excited and will stay for a while. Until something better comes along.
I loved that Marvel had their creative retreat last week and someone on Twitter said that they may not want to use that word right now. But I really think that they need to regroup and figure out how to answer this. Not with their own relaunch, but in coming up with books that people will want to buy rather than their “if we throw it out there, you’ll buy it any way” books. Case in point: Fear Itself Monkey King #1 (Meet Marvel’s newest star! Spinning out of IRON MAN 2.0 and FEAR ITSELF! Discover the history of Sun Wukong – Thief! Trickster! Hero! Great Sage, Equal of Heaven! – and witness as he takes his place at the forefront of Marvel’s ranks, the legendary Handsome Monkey King ) coming out this week. Now I know that its Joshua Fialkov. But if you have to chose between an unknown new Marvel character showing up at the very end of the mini-series in a random one-shot or a new DC #1 that has some buzz and excitement, what would you chose?
Marvel needs to regain their footing. I know that Joe Q said in San Diego on the CBR yacht that they never respond to the competition (cough yeah right cough), but they need to respond to this. Not in flooding the shelves with more Wolverine and Deadpool, but looking at each of their titles and family of titles and figuring out how best to maximize their sales. Give up the big events and focus on telling stories in the titles that will keep people coming back. Squirrel Girl fighting Nazi tanks won’t do it when the next issue ignores her and has Daredevil joining the team (what?).
I love you to death Marvel, but its time to pick up your game and once again show the world why you are the House of Ideas. Wouldn’t it be great to have both Marvel and DC running on all cylinders, where you can’t wait to read the next issue? Throw in some really creative stuff from Image, Dark Horse, IDW and the rest. This has the opportunity to be a real Golden Age. The relaunch can be the next defining moment in comics (ie Silver, Bronze..) Lets hope everybody steps it up and make comics a must see popular culture medium again.
Thanks for the analysis and answers.