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“The last publisher who tried this, Crossgen”

It’s amazing how many of Crossgen’s weird ideas Marvel has since reused. Remember Comicsontheweb.com, the original Marvel Unlimited?

“Spider-Man Renew your wows ”

Best typo ever. (If it was there in previous months, I completely missed it.

“67- INFERNO LTD
Even if it holds onto its audience a little better than other titles like it, it’s disappointing that it’s not selling much more than Little Marvel or Squadron Sinister.”

I was very disappointed by this one. Still finished it because I’m an addict, but just saying.

I wonder how different all these drops would have been in Secret Wars had marched on at its originally-planned, thunderous pace. The main book is still great, but my enthusiasm for the tie-ins has definitely been hurt. Compare it to Age of Apocalypse–four months of wall to wall excitement and then gone before anyone could take a breath.

OMG, that’s one typo, good catch Niels! :p
I apologize to Joelle Jones because “-if we forget her participation to Ultimate Spider-Man 150 years ago.” could make you think she’s way older than she is :p

“Sure, there will be a lot of issue #1s launching, but with numbers like that, less than 250K for the relaunch of Amazing Spider-Man would be considered a disappointment.”

Xavier, can you please walk me through the math on this. How, in this market, would “less than 250K” be considered a “disappointment”? That seems like a weird and arbitrary metric.

Well, seing that less than 6 months ago, a mini-serie starring spider-man crack the 200K (Renew your wows), the relaunch of the historic main title can’t be expected to do less than that with it’s #1, if not slightly better.
If the market is hard to live on in the long term, it still welcomes #1 with tons of variant very well, especially for a relaunch of an historic Marvel titles. the last time it relaunched, in 2014 it did 570K. The spider-man franchise has been doing very well since then, so saying that it is expected to sell at least half of what it did with its previous relaunch doesn’t seem to me like a bold statement.

With the sales on the RYV, and the many variants offered , it would be surprising if Amazing SM #1 didn’t top 250,000 copies. While I’ll agree with the metric, perhaps “disappointing” isn’t the correct adjective. More than likely, it’ll be the other half dozen SM family titles that will face the challenge of longevity.

Star Wars Journey was a four issue mini not two.

I believe Groot ends with issue six.

I find Dan’s “in this market” note utterly perplexing — market conditions are a *direct result* of Marvel and DC’s actions over the last few years. ASM (2015) #1 shouldn’t sell appreciably worse than ASM (2014) #1 did! If it does, I would submit the problem is the publishing plan, not the market’s reaction to said plan.

Dan Slott said:

” How, in this market, would “less than 250K” be considered a “disappointment”? That seems like a weird and arbitrary metric.”

Mr. Slott,
A couple of questions:
1) What do you feel would be the best metric?
2) What were your expectations for the sale of the new #1, and were they met?
3) Do you think that there has been an appreciable change in “this market” since the last Spidey #1, and, if so, what is it?

Thanks in advance!
Phil

Everyone stay polite please! These are business questions!

Oh-oh. I thought I was being nice!

Phil

Poop–that was supposed to be “uh-oh”. grrr

Everything good about Secret Wars has been outside everything Hickman-written. The 24-issue build-up (or 100+ issue build-up, to be more accurate) was the biggest waste of time in the world, and the main series itself is more Hickman gibberish, but the miniseries have all largely been fun (except Guardians of Knowhere, which is typical Bendis meandering garbage).

Easily Marvel’s best event in . . . geez, I don’t know, since Infinity Gauntlet? Age of Apocalypse? And entirely in spite of anything Hickman has written.

Really? I would say that’s damning with faint praise. I’m finding the only SW books of any interest (apart from the main series — which I think is pretty decent) are the ones that have zero to do with any of the main MU characters (like the Hank Johnson book and maybe Weirdworld). The rest of these expensive “what if?” stories have been fairly dull reading and I regret purchasing most the ones I did and don’t feel I missed anything on the ones I didn’t.)

Marvel relaunching everything with shiny new, more expensive #1s next month will certainly keep them at the top, though.

Oh yeah, I’m not paying for them.

But so far I’ve enjoyed Starlord and Kitty Pryde, Secret Wars 2099, Master of Kungfu . . . Planet Hulk had no ending and barely any characterization, but it was a really fun premise. I’m thrilled that Marvel is encouraging its writers to be as imaginative and playful as they want during this event, given how stringently the main Marvel U. seems to be forced to line up with the films.

why do say ms marvel is a cash cow? i am very curious. i admit im not sure how the business end of comics works. ms marvel gets so much hype, someone at marvel called her the 21st century spider man.
all i see is low sales. 30k a month sure doesnt look like great numbers . its good enough to stay afloat. its good enough to be a cult hit but the book is treated like a hit. if someone can explain why i’d be grateful. thank you

Critical praise doesn’t translate to a cash cow. I, for one, am kind of tired of everyone fawning over the series.

Regarding the Secret Wars event, I’ve enjoyed quite a few of the minis. 1872 is excellent so far. I also have enjoyed Where Monsters Dwell, Marvel Zombies, Thors, Hail Hydra and Red Skull.

Because Ms. Marvel has sold like crazy in trade.

Or…readers of each book need to be encouraged to try other books, and a crossover can be a good way of doing that.

@Glenn –

Why do they need to be encouraged to try other books?

Or if we accept that premise, why does the way to encourage them need to be a solo title being roped into a crossover? There are plenty of other ways to promote another book without forcing crossover content into a solo book.

I NEVER NEVER buy crossover comics. I just can’t afford to get into a multi title series. I go for mini series floppies. I like the floppy format, and rarely buy trades.

@Zach – because Marvel is a business that needs to make money. One of the ways to do that is to get your current customers to buy more of your product.

And there are plenty of ways to do it. But including the character in a crossover is probably a very effective way.

@Glenn –
That’s a want, not a need. And the efficacy is questionable. Who knows how many readers you pick up vs how many you drive away?

The fact that sales reports show that sales go up on crossover issues, meaning you picked up more than you gained, at least for that issue.

I read Batgirl and Ms Marvel from Marvel and DC. To be honest, I didn’t understand a lot of what you wrote. I’m buying A-Force right now to keep up with Ms Marvel and it’s ok? I don’t understand a thing that’s going on with the wider series, but an all female Avengers is cool. It would be more fun if it was set in the normal universe.

@Glenn – But there’s no telling the sell through on those issues. Could be that the retailers that are programmed to think they need to up their orders and are now stuck sitting on unsold copies of those books, right? Just seems like a good way to make some readers feel obligated to buy a book, as opposed to being genuinely interested in a book. And if I were a new reader and thought that it was common for me to have to buy comics I wasn’t interested in to fill out a story that I AM interested in, then I might just say “F that noise” and not attempt to get into the comics that sound interesting.

No, retailers have a business to run, and they aren’t going to buy a bunch of books that won’t sell. It might happen sometimes, it’s not perfect, but it’s also not chaos. And it doesn’t matter WHY the consumer buys the book – obligated or otherwise – as long as they buy it.

As for your last example, sure that probably happens. But that doesn’t mean they also don’t have a bunch of readers who discover something new from the crossover either. There’s a reason they’ve been doing them for decades.

I love the Weirdworld comic. I was never a fan of the main character, nor am I too into the whole Secret Wars thing going on, but the art is fantastic and weird and I love it.

I really want to read it: Arkon has been such a jerk, I’m interested to see what was made of him. And of course, I wanna know the terrilbe fate of the Crystal warriors! I’m a huge fans of Saga of Crystar.

What happened in Ant-Man #5 that made it jump so far in sales?

It looks like a special crate/box offer, or a special variant program at the same time than the release of the movie (like “buy 50 of those to 1 special variant cover for this”) but it had clearly nothing to do with readers taking a sudden interest into reading it.

Hi Xavier! Great column, as usual. The phenominon that is Star Wars sales are outrageous. How would Marvel stack up against DC if they didn’t have the numbers from the Star Wrs titles?

Thanks for the response, Xavier.

I do think the Star Wars books are sort of proof that a stable creative team can do a lot for a book/line of books. Darth Vader’s had a stable team, and while Cassaday didn’t stick around on the main book, I’m confident Immonen can deliver on a monthly basis. Sorta like Snyder/Capullo on Batman.

Why in the world would someone pay $25 dollars for a trade that they could have bought for $18 in floppies?!

THOR HC VOL.2 – 2,562 | 136p, $25
Only two months after the release of volume 1, here is volume 2, at a not-very-friendly price, and collecting very few things (only issue 6-8 and Annual 1). Sales are ok but its less than the first volume. Apparently, reviewers were not really happy with the small amount of stories collected.

I mean, there is value in a trade that floppies don’t have (ease of display, ease of re-read, no ads), but also factor in that it’s easier to pay non-cover price for a trade. Amazon marks stuff down on the regular. But I agree, a bit lower a price would be preferable.

Remind yourself that it’s a HC: they are always way more expensive than their floppy counterpart.

so it’s a summer (and the fall season?) of alternate realities, what – if’s, and elseworld types stories for marvel, with multiple versions of multiple characters in multiple stories. i’m thinking most of this stuff will not survive the coming re-boot. if one is a fan of this sort of material, it’s gonna be a great summer. if one is not a fan of this type of material, think of the money you’ll save.

Skip. Not a lot of interest in Remender’s company-owned work or the Cap stuff in general. Plus I’m just generally “meh” on Secret Wars so far. I admit, some of the nostalgia titles put smile on my face, but literal months of line-wide “What Ifs” needs a stronger hook than what Marvel’s revealed so far to get me on board.

The more I read about what Marvel is Planning the less I seem to care.

Is there an “I Hate Rick Remender” website out there? Anybody?

I agree with the sentiments. This is just way too much now, a ton of stories that by definition won’t matter in 6 months.

Also if there is such a website someone send me a link, I’d love to buy a button.

Wait… on another website it sorta sounded like Andrew Robinson was doing the artwork. Ugh. He’s only doing covers. I was so excited! Ah well, another one to not pick up! Call me crazy, but with so many random books that won’t matter much in a short period of time (coming from both Marvel and DC in the next couple of months) I’m pretty much only picking up titles/two-parters, etc. that have great artists who’s work I love. That’s my selling point.

I think Marvel is doing themselves a huge disservice with the whole keeping these books vague. Are they minis? on-goings? How in the world would these last as on-goings? Maybe they’re doing as much because they don’t want people to find out about: reboot! ;)

I’ve really liked his Cap run. It’s basically turned into Fear Agent starring Sam Wilson, and I love it.

@Nathan – I don’t think anyone’s fooled about the reboot at this point. Soft reboot, full reboot, whatever. And it’s not going to do anything to fix the things that actually make comics as a hobby so unattractive — increasing prices, shrinking page counts, bait-and-switch creative teams, overly complex, disruptive mega-cross-over events, etc. I’ve watched so many of my circle either drop out of comics entirely or start torrenting over the years due to these factors, and it’s just depressing.

[…] Maestro Comes to SECRET WARS and CONTEST OF CHAMPIONS […]

If Old Man Logan is in there then obvs he wins everything. It’s ridic if anything else happens.

Glad this finally makes sense.

Worlds will live, worlds wilZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

Let me when a company announces a year with no events, no gratuitous deaths, and actual uninterrrupted story arcs in it’s books. *That* will be a surprising announcement.

Marvel hero vs Marvel hero again? The “All-New” fading away from over the Marvel logo is just about the most apropos statement for this. A retread event that’s retreading past stories announced via a trailer that strikes me as more of a trailer for an app or a card battle game, hell, maybe for Battlebooks than it does anything else.

Looks fun! Can’t have fun in some circles…

Hmm, are they basically saying all of these events happened in different universes or something? I can see taking Marvel Zombies and other “alternate reality” type events and putting them together. Very, very gimmicky, but I’m curious. I just read Original Sin, and boy, that was some horrible stuff. I guess they really, really want the Sam Jackson Nick Fury to replace the original, so they just tossed him out with an event that was so out of character, it staggers the mind. I’m surprised that wasn’t a “What if?” at the end.

Didn’t DC do this already? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countdown:_Arena

DC has had War World for ate sometime now and has used it in a similar a number of times including in one of the animated Batman seies where Jonah Hex and Batman battled a number of villians. War World also played a role in the second season of the animated Young Justice series.

The comic book industry really hate original ideas these days.