Back on the comic sales thing...

[angelophile]

A couple of months ago I did a blog on comic sales, particularly the sales of the X-men line. Looking at the sales figures of November and (the top 10 in) December, let's see if there's been any turn arounds.

Young X-men: Well, I said in November it seemed likely this book would dip down below it's fairly steady levels under Kyle and Yost (who had actually improved sales during their run). And it seems I was right. Apparently it's cancelled after issue 12, at which point there's hints that a book starring the original New Mutants will be spinning out of X-men: Infernus. At this stage, I have to wonder whether the young X-men concept is dead in the water. It shouldn't be. There should be a market for young characters, but Marvel don't seem to be able to get it right. Or when they do and have a book that sells steadily, if not groundbreakingly, they mess with the format because they want more. Maybe eventually they'll twig that a young X-men book is never going to match the sales of Uncanny and the others.

Uncanny X-Men: Speaking of which... As I said, pre-Messiah Complex, sales were around 80-90k. Last time I mentioned it, sales were around the 82k mark. I consider Fraction's writing on this title to be unforgivably awful and given the 5,000 readers who ditched this book since then, apparently I'm not alone. Sales are at 77k and still sliding. That's pretty much the worst level Uncanny X-men has been at since... um... well, the sales became trackable in 2003 and they haven't dipped to 77k in all that time. Marvel's flagship X-men title is bombing. Ouch.

EDIT: I checked further. There's figures going back to 1996. And the November sales figures on Uncanny are the lowest ever for that book. Congratulations Fraction.

Astonishing X-men is on a sabatical, so no way of telling how that's doing.

X-Factor continues to slide. A fact that Peter David seems well aware of and he recently publicly recognised that the book had lost its way and vowed to do something about it. Certainly sales have dropped considerably since Messiah Complex. From averaging around the 40k mark, taking a jump around issue 25 and before down to half that now. In fact, it's dropped from 44k down to 35k in the space of two issues. That's worrying. I think the horrible art over recent issues hasn't helped, but is there any way David's gonna be able to tempt readers back to this book now? I'm not sure. I think the slide has been allowed to go on for too long now. A year of indifferent storytelling means it's gonna be hard to spark people's interest again. But David's set out his stall to turn things around, so let's see how he does with that.

X-men: Legacy - Back when it was plain old Adjectiveless X-men, it was selling a steady 85k and occasionally jumping up to the 100k+ mark for crossovers. Now it's a Professor X solo title. Sales of 65k have slid further, to 63k. Not a huge drop, but taking into account that the last couple of issues have seen boosts from a crossover with Wolverine: Origins, the book is on rocky ground. Something Marvel and Carey are apparently aware of as they keep making vague comments about a new direction on the cards. I'm one of the drops as I just couldn't be bothered picking this book up again after the crossover, especially with the Juggernaut issue. A serious misjudgement on the part of the editorial team, I think. Uncanny and Astonishing remain team books, but, along with Carey, they've insisted on using Emma, Scott, Hank and other characters over and over, while other favourites are shuffled into limbo or obscure spin offs. The brave new direction has resulted in a major drop in sales for what should be core titles.

Captain Britain & MI-13: Sales have slipped further, down to 22,000, which officially puts this book in trouble. It's solicited through to, I think, issue 15. But I can't see it going beyond that unless there's a major turn around. I honestly can't understand it. The book's a joy to read, yet it's dropped half its readers since the first issue. There's no justice. I guess the book needs more "star power" in terms of characters that it has. It's the only explanation I can think of, because it's certainly not down to the quality of the writing or art. That said, the book's probably selling well in the UK, but those figures aren't included in this chart. But still...

X-Force is a book I'm not reading, but was one of the few success stories of the post-Messiah Complex relaunches. However, it's dropped 8k in two months and is now down to 57k. Still better than a lot of X-titles, but the drops don't speak well for the book making it beyond issue 18 or so.

Elsewhere in Marvel, and amongst the books I'm reading, Daredevil's holding steady at its regular level of around 40k+. Runaways has slipped from Whedon's lamentable run, but is pretty much at the levels the book held steady at during Vaughan's run and actually up on the first run. New Warriors slumped to 17k and is already axed. A shame, as there was potentially a good book here. But it never emerged. Most disappointing is Incredible Hercules, which is now only just above X-Factor, having slid from its initial sales levels of between 45k and 55k down to 35k. I can't see why, as the book's as good as ever and the 17% drop between the last two issues is hard to explain.

Anyway, as far as the X-titles go, expect a major relaunch soon. There's no way they'll let those sales figures continue to slide.

Comments

[newnumber6.livejournal.com]

Hadn't realized it'd gotten that bad, but then, I haven't gotten any books except CapB and NYX. I even dropped X-Factor. I think the crossovers are death for that book. I jumped off because I didn't want to read She-Hulk to get the whole story, and realized that I didn't particularly want to jump back on again. Also Longshot and Darwin are not really selling points.

I think any retooling of X-Factor has to bring back Layla. As odd as it is, she's the heart and soul of that book. She gives them some kind of purpose rather than just hanging around doing whatever they happen to come across next.

And of course, I don't think I can be a part of any relaunch, as a whole, that doesn't bring mutants back as something more than a species on the edge of extinction. For all that they talk about how there were 'too many' mutants and X-characters, that provided something other superhero books don't... a little sub-world, the feeling of a community in which, no matter what kind of person you are, there could be somebody just like you, which new readers can join at any time and latch onto a new character as their own little viewpoint character. Also, anybody could be doing anything at any time.

[angelophile.livejournal.com]

I agree with that. The X-verse did create a nice corner of the Marvel Universe which was generally separate with world politics of its own. House of M shrunk that corner and constricted it so the opportunity for fresh new characters was drastically curtailed, existing characters were sidelined and the cast that could be used abruptly became restrictive. And they've grown more and more restrictive with it.

Even existing favourites like Nightcrawler and Iceman are being shuffled off into limbo. What's left is a hollow husk of a universe with a few core characters receiving focus. If you want a team book where the main characters are someone other than Wolverine, Cyclops, Colossus, Beast and Emma, you're stuffed.

What remaining variety there was has been lost since Messiah Complex and the X-men aren't superheroes any more. They don't care about saving the world. They only care about mutant politics. They're not saving the world, they're saving themselves. All the time. And that's become very monotonous.

[occamsnailfile.livejournal.com]

House of M pretty much pushed me off and nothing since elicited even the slightest interest. I read a few DC books for a bit, but they're doing a lot of the same thing as you're describing with the X-Verse--killing off and sidelining a lot of characters to focus on the unbelievable boredom that is Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman with a side of Hal Jordan's origin story three times in five years.

[angelophile.livejournal.com]

Quite. I used to go to my comic store weekly. Now I go about once a month and there's rarely more than 10 or so comics there. The X-universe has gone from essential reading to barely read. It's really just titles like Runaways, Incredible Herc and Captain Britain and MI:13 that keep me going to the store at all. I'm torn because I find most mainstream books too bleak or ridiculous and needlessly violent, like the worst excesses of the 90s, but I find a lot of the stuff deliberately aimed at being fun and light, like Spider-girl or most of the All Ages Marvel stuff to be overly cutesy.

[distractedone.livejournal.com]

That icon scares me.

[angelophile.livejournal.com]

It's Death, he's not supposed to be cuddly.

[distractedone.livejournal.com]

THANK YOU! Someone is keeping track of the X-sales, yay!

I'm one of the 20,000 others who abandoned all current X-titles now. Although, I'll probably pick up UXM Annual #2 this week....only to be less than satisfied.