Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Legion of Super-Heroes Sales Figures

It's still about double the lowest selling DC titles right now, and doing better than the previous Legion title ever sold. I don't think it's in any immediate danger of cancellation. I'd like to see the numbers a lot healthier, however.

You know I was very critical of this book at the beggining but the last 4 or 5 issues I've warmed up a bit too it. Still don't love it. But I do love Barry's art.

Still the sales figures are very low when you take into account it's Waid, Kitson, and a new title.

Sure they are not at the cancellation level but I don't know....that's like Alan Moore and Jim Lee doing a book and it's not in the top 10.(well a DC book atleat) The names of WaK should automatically put this title in the top 30 IMO.

I know DC would never admit it but was the ball dropped? The legion is the one DC book waiting for a big comeback...what happened?

I don't know. I guess I just don't see the WaK team being so big that they automatically guarantee sales of that level. I don't see them as any bigger than, say, Greg Rucka or Kurt Busiek, and SatLOSH has been outselling their big OYL relaunches (Checkmate and Aquaman).

Good point EDE. But WaK is a twosome with no offense to Barry who was the star of the series...Waid is a bigger name due to things like his Flash, Kingdom Come, etc.

Checkmate and Aquaman are no Legion either. There is no websites called Aquaworld for instance. I just thought the combination of all three Waid, Kitson, and the Legion should've garnered more sales.

One thing is for sure...something I read from DC stated...it's not a problem with the Legion. It's how DC managed the Legion over the last few decades. A few better choices and the Legion can be as popular as the X-Men.

well said, Jorge.

Aquaman may have more years under his belt, but no teeming cadre of fans who endlessly debate the virtues of Ramona Fradon vs. Jim Aparo vs. Peter David etc.

LSH could and should be a top-ranking DC book, as it was in the 70s and 80s. It'd be hard to see that happening without returning to some version of 1989/2989.

DC right now has an opportunity to propel the Legion towards the top in sales. With the 50th anniversary of the 1st Legion appearance coming up next year, they should launch an Elseworlds story blitz of Legion adventures. They could use a whole year to feel out what combination of creative teams and/or types of characters/costumes/stories they could hypertime into a winning combination. My personal view is the animated series has the right idea - keep it light, colorful, positive, and keep it moving.

Hmm... I guess I just don't really care if the Legion is a top-ranking DC title. As long as it's selling at least well enough to avoid cancellation, I'm happy. What I'd really like to see is a well-written title that's once again ground-breaking and innovative, which it hasn't been (with the possible exceptions of TMK and the GDS) since the Cockrum era.

Your making an assumption that DC remembers that they have a title that doesn't revolve around the big 3

isn't that more like the big 2.5. I get the feeling that Superman/batman book would sell less if either one was replaced with Wonder Woman.

and in my sampling of comic blogs, far more people appear to be upset and/or interested in Supergirl than anything going on in Wonder Woman. even without the delay that probably wouldn't change much.

I don't know if there are many WW fans out there - the character has always been boring and didn't even interest me when I was a kid - and bought EVERY OTHER comic book out there :-)

I bought some of the George Perez issues for cheap. Perfect art - still, the stuff is boring.

So I hardly doubt DC can make longterm big money with WW without support from other characters.

12/2004: LSH #01 -- 59,944, including reorders
01/2005: LSH #02 -- 48,584 ""
02/2005: LSH #03 -- 44,824 ""
03/2005: LSH #04 -- 43,408 ""
04/2005: LSH #05 -- 41,664, no reorder listed in top 300
05/2005: LSH #06 -- 40,970 ""
06/2005: LSH #07 -- 39,155 ""
07/2005: LSH #08 -- 37,272 ""
08/2005: LSH #09 -- 35,834 ""
09/2005: LSH #10 -- 35,800 ""
10/2005: LSH #11 -- 34,100 ""
11/2005: LSH #12 -- 33,500 ""
01/2006: LSH #13 -- 32,730 ""
02/2006: LSH #14 -- 32,513 ""
02/2006: LSH #15 -- 31,649 ""
03/2006: LSH #16 -- 54,826, including reorders
04/2006: LSH #17 -- 47,697, including reorders
05/2006: LSH #18 -- 45,520, no reorder listed in top 300
06/2006: LSH #19 -- 43,918 ""
07/2006: LSH #20 -- 41,679 ""
08/2006: LSH #21 -- 39,800 ""
09/2006: LSH #22 -- 36,735 ""
10/2006: LSH #23 -- 41,554 ""
11/2006: LSH #24 -- 33,985
12/2006: LSH #25 -- 39,762, including reorders of 6,474
01/2007: LSH #26 -- 32,342

Thanks to rouge and everyone else for keeping this up-to-date while I've been occupied with other things.

I notice, though, that no one seemed to catch the extra sales #25 generated. Just the usual bump normally received by books reaching that number milestone though.

You just need to look beyond the top 100 books to get the reorders though. #25 did bounce up nearly 6.5K in copies, as my post above shows. I think that's a pretty decent bump for an anniversary issue. More than the extra boost in sales than the Hughes variant offered.

Sadly, I don't think those numbers wash. There was a shipping problem on the West coast the last week of December and a lot of books may have been counted twice. If you go down the list you'll see tonnes of DC "Reorders" that on average bump the numbers for a given title above normal by several thousand. That it's consistent across the board and just as quickly disappears in the January numbers leads me to believe it's an error on Diamond's part.

To Wit:

http://pwbeat.publishersweekly.com/blog/2007/03/02/dc-comics-month-to-month-sales-january-2007/

"Incidentally, they are exactly the same titles of which significant quantities reportedly failed to reach the West Coast until January 2007, due to transportation problems. Now, since Diamond Comic Distributors usually only include copies in their charts which actually reached stores, my first impulse was to simply add the extra sales to the numbers from December and be done with it.

Unfortunately, as noted last month, there was nothing unusual about the numbers of those titles in the December chart. On the contrary: Adding the additional copies from the January chart would result in random sales spikes that make no sense whatsoever. In the case of Batman, Diamond would have us believe that issue #661 sold an estimated 89,359 units — a spectacular 16% increase from the previous issue — only to drop back by a brutal 19% for #662, all in the middle of a filler storyline. The numbers for the other involved books would look equally absurd."

Since the books weren't an additional shipment, why would Diamond count them that way? Not that I'm disputing the figures (I've changed my list) but that means Diamond counted those book as if they shipped them twice. I thought the books stayed with the shipping company and never went back to Diamond. It surprises me they didn't release a statement or something correcting that.

Anyway, February's figures are out. The Legion still slid a bit, under a 1,000 copies, but with the upcoming changes everything is up in the air. Honestly, I can't see the figures improving, long term, for any new creative team unless Jim Lee is announced as the artist and Joss Whedon as the writer. Guess we'll see.

12/2004: LSH #01 -- 59,944, including reorders
01/2005: LSH #02 -- 48,584 ""
02/2005: LSH #03 -- 44,824 ""
03/2005: LSH #04 -- 43,408 ""
04/2005: LSH #05 -- 41,664, no reorder listed in top 300
05/2005: LSH #06 -- 40,970 ""
06/2005: LSH #07 -- 39,155 ""
07/2005: LSH #08 -- 37,272 ""
08/2005: LSH #09 -- 35,834 ""
09/2005: LSH #10 -- 35,800 ""
10/2005: LSH #11 -- 34,100 ""
11/2005: LSH #12 -- 33,500 ""
01/2006: LSH #13 -- 32,730 ""
02/2006: LSH #14 -- 32,513 ""
02/2006: LSH #15 -- 31,649 ""
03/2006: LSH #16 -- 54,826, including reorders
04/2006: LSH #17 -- 47,697, including reorders
05/2006: LSH #18 -- 45,520, no reorder listed in top 300
06/2006: LSH #19 -- 43,918 ""
07/2006: LSH #20 -- 41,679 ""
08/2006: LSH #21 -- 39,800 ""
09/2006: LSH #22 -- 36,735 ""
10/2006: LSH #23 -- 41,554 ""
11/2006: LSH #24 -- 33,985 ""
12/2006: LSH #25 -- 33,288 ""
01/2007: LSH #26 -- 32,342 ""
02/2007: LSH #27 -- 31,387 ""

So, we're now at the lowest point of the current series. and the decline picked up slightly.

Historical "Legion" Numbers to look at in comparison:

23,327 - The sales at the end of the last run.
28,350 - The sales at the beginning of the last run.
30,440 - High point of the last run (#25)

The book's still selling better than it ever did as "Legion", but one would think the bar was set a bit higher this time around as well. It will be interesting to see how sales react to the interim team and beyond.

Well, that's what the link also says - that he's surprised this happened, because it usually doesn't. Certainly looks that way given the evidence though.

Yeah, given the fact that they added "Supergirl and..." to the beginning of the title to go for a sales boost, since her book was selling A Lot More. It worked, since it would have been around 20k by now at the rate things were going, although I suspect it's played a big part in the sales slide of SG's OWN title.

Of course, that leads to the interesting question of "What happens when Supergirl STOPS being in the title"....

It means, I hope, that we can stop wasting story and panels on Super Brat and get back to Legionnaires. This moment couldn't have come sooner. I would have preferred that WaK were around to get this title back on track but using Kara was doomed from the start.

Been slacking off on keeping this updated here and at the Clubhouse. Decided just to keep my sales-to-date list updated. Here's the latest list (series-to-date), including the animated series, trade collection and Showcase edition.

10/2004: Teen Titans/The Legion Special #1 -- 61,047
12/2004: LSH #01 -- 59,944, #25 out of 300 (sold out)
01/2005: LSH #02 -- 48,584, #30 out of 300
02/2005: LSH #03 -- 44,824, #40 out of 300
03/2005: LSH #04 -- 43,408, #46 out of 300
04/2005: LSH #05 -- 41,664, #44 out of 300
05/2005: LSH #06 -- 40,970, #42 out of 300
06/2005: LSH #07 -- 39,155, #44 out of 300
07/2005: LSH #08 -- 37,272, #54 out of 300
08/2005: LSH #09 -- 35,834, #69 out of 300
09/2005: LSH #10 -- 35,800, #69 out of 300
10/2005: LSH #11 -- 34,100, #54 out of 300
11/2005: LSH #12 -- 33,500, #57 ouf of 300
11/2005: LSH TPB #1 -- 3,102, #27 out of 100
01/2006: LSH #13 -- 32,730, #54 out of 300
02/2006: LSH #14 -- 32,513, #62 out of 300
02/2006: LSH #15 -- 31,649, #65 out of 300
03/2006: LSH #16 -- 54,826, #41 out of 300 (sold out) (includes reorders of 7,400)
04/2006: LSH #17 -- 47,697, #44 out of 300 (includes reorders of 2,897)
05/2006: LSH #18 -- 45,520, #49 out of 300
06/2006: LSH TPB #2 -- 2,874, #28 out of 100
06/2006: LSH #19 -- 43,918, #46 out of 300
07/2006: LSH #20 -- 41,679, #53 out of 300
08/2006: LSH #21 -- 39,800, #61 out of 300
09/2006: LSH #22 -- 36,735, #54 out of 300
10/2006: LSH #23 -- 41,554, #39 out of 300
10/2006: LSH TPB #3 -- 2,972, #23 out of 100
11/2006: LSH #24 -- 33,985, #68 out of 300
12/2006: LSH #25 -- 33,288, #61 out of 300
01/2007: LSH #26 -- 32,342, #56 out of 300
02/2007: LSH #27 -- 31,387, #65 out of 300
04/2007: LSH #28 -- 31,525, #71 out of 300
04/2007: LSH #29 -- 30,906, #72 out of 300
04/2007: Showcase: Legion #1 -- 4,812, #11 out of 100
04/2007: LSH TPB #4 -- 2,702, #39 out of 100
05/2007: LSH #30 -- 30,758, #79 out of 300

I'm thinking of pulling the animated into a separate list. And maybe about tracking the issues of various crossovers/AR appearances. Opinions? Thoughts?

I like that idea LL. Makes it easier to read.

Thanks Jorge. I, too, think it will read better so I've pulled the animated figures and posted them in their own thread in the animation forum.

June's figures:

06/2007: LSH #31 -- 30,385, #72 out of 300

Moved up in rank but down in sales, just slightly.

I wonder what the post WaK Legion would sell. My gut says a bigger drop than usual.

The July sales ranking for S&LSH #32:

84 91 35.60 SUPERGIRL & LEGION O/SUPER HEROES #32 $2.99 DC

--#84 in issues sold, #91 in retail.

Sold a little over 1/3 of what Batman #666, #18 on the list overall, sold for July. Thor #1, the #1 book for the month, sold almost twice as much as Batman. So whatever Thor sold, S&LSH #32 sold about 1/6th of that. Have to wait for the analyses to get the actual numbers, but... OUCH.