Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! Take a bet on Legion sales...

In the 70's when Legion was one of DC's top sellers, it was distributed at 7-11 and competed with with maybe 30 or 40 other titles in mass distribution retailers. Do they sell $3 comics at 7-11 anymore? I've never noticed. The days of the big spinning rack are long gone.

So a new Legion competes with hundreds of titles mostly at comic shops, and it's distinguished how? I walked into a comic shop for the first time in almost 15 years last month. I don't see how the Legion is going to distinguish itself to the people who are not already Legion readers.

Waid and Kitson are outstanding, but I don't see this new title being marketed to anyone except the people who've been buying the Legion all along. I don't think 50,000 potential Legion readers are even aware of this relaunch.

I am an anomaly -- the 15YG Legionnaire.

Will the new Legion be on your xBox (whatever that is -- another cultural icon that I've resisted)? Is the Legion at WalMart? Is my six year old looking for a Barbie Saturn Girl? Will Starbucks sell the Legion beside its CDs of songs that Willie Nelson really likes?

Is there a big shelf-hogging Alex Ross Legion book at Barnes and Noble? Alex Ross brought me back into the world of comics -- an article in the Washington Post a year ago. And though I have nothing but the highest regard for awesome work of Barry Kitson, there is probably no one except Alex Ross who has the drawing power (double meaning intended) to bring non-comic buyers into the world of any new DC title.

To get the Legion out of the 20's and 30's in sales numbers, it will take some aggressive, innovative marketing as well as a talented creative team. DC seems to have done only half its work.

What if:

They brought back the Slurpee cups....

One can only hope

Great idea, Starbucks Kid! Except that the slurpees would be "smart drinks", since they obviously had to eliminate a lot of junk food to make everyone look so naturally fabulous. (Except poor Chuck, who had to have his poster up for all of Metropolis to see.)

The hype that Waid personally created will probably help sales a little in issue 1, but I don't believe it'll survive past issue 12 because it sounds like a reimaging of the Archie Legion and his ideas don't sound that good. It'll fail if it's like Birthright which wasn't the success that he think it was and his reasons for the reboot sounds like something he made up, and he didn't do that very well either.

Poppin' Parakats! I was right about sales of LSH # 1! Were YOU?!?! Check this thread and see! And will I be right about LSH # 2?!?!

I'm not quite sure of the margins of error, but this is coming very close to a statistical dead heat with Birthright #1. If that pattern kept up, it'd be selling ~35k at issue 10. Bit more than I expected, but not superlatively so if the comparison holds.

LEGION O/SUPER HEROES #1: Rank - 25; Numbers - 50,691 ¹
LEGION O/SUPER HEROES #2: Rank - 30; Numbers - 42,261 ² <font size="5">↓</font s>
LEGION O/SUPER HEROES #3, Rank - 40; Numbers - 39,951 ³ <font size="5">↓</font s>

If #4's sales are higher than #3, then we're looking at about 2x what we were at #38 of the previous run.

You'll have to stick your Mark Waid voodoo doll a little bit harder, naysayers.

Realised I haven't updated this for a while...

LEGION O/SUPER HEROES #1: Rank - 25; Numbers - 50,691 (1)
LEGION O/SUPER HEROES #2: Rank - 30; Numbers - 42,261 (2) <span style="font-size: 22px;">↓</span>
LEGION O/SUPER HEROES #3, Rank - 40; Numbers - 39,951 (3) <span style="font-size: 22px;">↓</span>
LEGION O/SUPER HEROES #4, Rank - 46; Numbers - 41,756 (4) <span style="font-size: 22px;">↑</span>
LEGION O/SUPER HEROES #5, Rank - 44; Numbers - 41,664 (5) <span style="font-size: 22px;">↓</span>
LEGION O/SUPER HEROES #6, Rank - 42; Numbers - 40,970 (6) <span style="font-size: 22px;">↓</span>
LEGION O/SUPER HEROES #7, Rank - 44; Numbers - 39,155 (7) <span style="font-size: 22px;">↓</span>
LEGION O/SUPER HEROES #8, Rank - 54; Numbers - 37,272 (8) <span style="font-size: 22px;">↓</span>


After a brief rally, it's spiralling downward again, with #8 outside the top 50. Right now, it's on course to hit 31k on issue 11, one issue later than I bet in the opening post.

okay that's it . we are just going to have to take a page from the L. Ron Hubbard fan club. go out and buy up all issues of LSH. this will generate a false impression of its popularity, which will in turn lead to acutual sales.

so get cracking people! the next issue will be a sellout.