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

About the difference in numbers between Shooter's first and second issue, remember that the first issue sported two covers, and that i'm sure a lot of people bought the two covers to have the whole Legion image.

March sales figures are up (see below). The good news is the drops are slowing down. The bad news is there's still more than 700 units dropped this month. (Also, Action missed its March date).

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
06/2007: LSH #31 -- 30,385, #72 out of 300
07/2007: LSH #32 -- 29,826, #84 out of 300
08/2007: LSH #33 -- 29,315, #92 out of 300
09/2007: LSH #34 -- 28,294 , #88 out of 300
10/2007: LSH #35 -- 27,370 , #91 out of 300
11/2007: LSH #36 -- 26,814 , #88 out of 300
12/2007: LSH #37 -- 45,803 , #50 out of 300
01/2008: LSH #38 -- 33,045 , #64 out of 300
02/2008: LSH #39 -- 31,123 , #59 out of 300
03/2008: LSH #40 -- 30,377 , #63 out of 300

April Sales figures up. Looks like the drops are picking up again. I think we're all holding our breath for the crossover now.

05/2007: LSH #30 -- 30,758, #79 out of 300
06/2007: LSH #31 -- 30,385, #72 out of 300
07/2007: LSH #32 -- 29,826, #84 out of 300
08/2007: LSH #33 -- 29,315, #92 out of 300
09/2007: LSH #34 -- 28,294 , #88 out of 300
10/2007: LSH #35 -- 27,370 , #91 out of 300
11/2007: LSH #36 -- 26,814 , #88 out of 300
12/2007: LSH #37 -- 45,803 , #50 out of 300
01/2008: LSH #38 -- 33,045 , #64 out of 300
02/2008: LSH #39 -- 31,123 , #59 out of 300
03/2008: LSH #40 -- 30,377 , #63 out of 300
04/2008: LSH #41 -- 28,939 , #76 out of 300

Action numbers are also up, including the post-Legion issue. Quite a drop as a lot of people were presumably on only for the LSH story.

10/2007: Action Comics #857 — 51,401 (- 4.5%)
10/2007: Action Comics #858 — 54,596 (+ 6.2%) [59,031]
11/2007: Action Comics #859 — 54,572 (- 0.0%)
12/2007: Action Comics #860 — 56,254 (+ 3.1%)
01/2008: Action Comics #861 — 56,093 (- 0.3%)
02/2008: Action Comics #862 — 55,658 (- 0.8%)
04/2008: Action Comics #863 - 56,882
04/2008: Action Comics #864 - 48,438

Thanks rouge!

May Sales figures up at ICV2. Another thousand copies are shed. Not to sound to alarmist, but if this pace keeps up, we'll hit the pre-Shooter numbers next month which are also the lowest numbers the series has seen.

05/2007: LSH #30 -- 30,758, #79 out of 300
06/2007: LSH #31 -- 30,385, #72 out of 300
07/2007: LSH #32 -- 29,826, #84 out of 300
08/2007: LSH #33 -- 29,315, #92 out of 300
09/2007: LSH #34 -- 28,294 , #88 out of 300
10/2007: LSH #35 -- 27,370 , #91 out of 300
11/2007: LSH #36 -- 26,814 , #88 out of 300
12/2007: LSH #37 -- 45,803 , #50 out of 300
01/2008: LSH #38 -- 33,045 , #64 out of 300
02/2008: LSH #39 -- 31,123 , #59 out of 300
03/2008: LSH #40 -- 30,377 , #63 out of 300
04/2008: LSH #41 -- 28,939 , #76 out of 300
05/2008: LSH #42 -- 27,940 , #84 out of 300

I am convinced the dropping orders are due to-- at least in part-- by a general feeling that this version of the LSH will be ending/replaced soon.

while I haven't read #42 yet, I would add that half a year of Shooter has yet to ignite a "must-read" excitement, also.

I think the numbers are pretty stable before and after Shooter took over. The 45000 copies of issue 37 are linked to curiosity and the fact there were two covers.

francis just needs to slip a monkey onto the next cover!

i really wish we had a better way of tracking numbers, really those aren't QUITE whats sold, just what's bought by a comicbook store. so, enough to fill their orders and then a few more for the shelf.

i agree with parisclub. legion is hard to get into, you have to REALLY want it! i'm pretty sure it's the same people buying it who've been buying it forever!

even now i always feel like I'm a bit lost with knowing just whom everyone is (when i think about how i really have no understanding of who kent shakespeare is...). i wonder how the cartoon affected sales of the main line comic...? i know quite a few girls that got into it because of the cartoon (despite how difficult the cartoon is to understand!).

i think the book would be helped out by... well, superman being in it. a person pointed out at a con that he acts as a gate way character. you might not know cham from cos but if someone had just said "superman used to have these little friends from the future that he learned how to fight with! they're called the legion!" i would have totally understood! otherwise it's VERY confusing with lots of wikipedia and google involved.

or maybe if they did a more "year one" type thing, we keep getting dropped into the middle of insider references, and while LWers might get it, comicshop bob might not!

That's nice to hear about the young ladies getting into the comic due to the TV show (RIP, gone far too soon). LSH has historically had a high female readership (for a comicbook anyway) and I hope that is always the case. Maybe these fans are buying the comic based on the 'tooniverse?


Anyhoo, I think the Superman as gateway character is about to happen post-Legion of 3 Worlds.

Agreed.

He's doing some good things -- but in such a small way. The book seems to be nothing more than subplots. The overall story with the alien mosnter/android menace is painfully slow.

Kent was a Legionnaire from roughly 1990-1995, at a point when the Legion had essentially grown up, were mostly in their mid-30s, and living in a very distopian galaxy, trying to put carry on Legion ideals and restore some semblance of what had been lost. It's an era that engenders a lots of strong feelings pro and con as to its quality and whether it is "real" legion.

Kent had basic tuff-guy powers but was also the team medic, and a thinker even more than a fighter.

Kent has only made a few cameos in various Legion incarnations since, not as a regular member.

Sadly I'd disagree on that: the trend is definitely down. If you plug the numbers from issue #1 until now into a spreadsheet and convert it to a line chart, you'll get a better view of the trend.

Basically the book started around 60K and drifted down to around 30K over the first fifteen issues. Then OYL gave it a shot in the arm and pulled it back up a little below 60K again. Again over the next 15 issues it drifted back to 30K, and then over the next seven kept dropping to about 26K.

Here's where Shooter jumps on, and just like issues #1 and 16, it jumps (though not as high). But the difference here is the very next issue loses a lot of the gains right away instead of the slow drift we saw with the other milestones. Now it's only 5 issues later and we're back down to the lowest sales levels of the book.

After this it's uncharted territory and anything can happen, but the current trajectory is downwards.

No Sales figures for June (LSH slipped on the schedule).

Ah... THAT explains why DCBS has two LSH's listed in my next shipment.

The Legion of Superheroes 1050 years in the future GN sold pretty well...

Concerning the trends...yeah the W&K was on the verge of dropping under 30k when they added Supergirl back to the title...and they got a huge boost out of that that lasted for a while.

They got a slight bump off bringing Mon-El back also....and then promptly wrote him back out.


But other than those bumps, this title has basically been drifting to the sub 30k sales numbers of the DNA Legion and the end of the V4. Mid 20s per month....


The Supergirl bump was huge and probably saved the title from being at cancellation level right about now.


I'm disappointed the Shooter numbers didn't hold, because if you get past the cheesy dialogue he's had an extremely fun and eventful run to this point, I am surprised it's not holding it's audience as it's been the most I've enjoyed in Post COIE Legions. Maybe the bump that Shooter got wasn't a true bump of new readers because of the covers, plus retailers may have overestimated the impact of Shooter returning to one of the big 2. But ultimately I think the message the fans are sending DC is pretty clear, actually it's been pretty clear for a loooooooooong time, DC was just trying to outlast the message...and now they aren't and that's why the Action Legion was brought back.


I predict any ongoing title featuring the Action Legion will sell over 40k per month(tied back in to the Superman Family) and hold....much higher if Johns is writing it...and still higher if Superman is back in it. I think it will sell @60K plus per month if all those factors come into play. I'll be real suprised if it doesn't.....

Bold words my friend, and I LIKE IT. If that happens I'll change my sig to "Superboy was right!" with a link to your above post!

I'd love it if Superboy was right too, but we had all the same ingredients mentioned (plus variant covers) in the Action arc and it only blipped into the high 50Ks. A good springboard from FC could help launch it high, but there's got to be an X-Factor to take keep it in the sales realm we're talking about, at least until the quality of the book is able to keep up the momentum.

Alex Ross covers maybe?

The numbers on the Action Legion were rock solid though. Amazingly stable numbers, in fact a couple of months they actually increased over the previous month for no discernible reason...


That's what the Legion does historically in a period of a stable audience size.


This is going to be launched out of Final Crisis so it's going to be a more high profile...if a regular series comes out of it I expect it to start with higher numbers than the Action Legion, and maintain them.


I think the impact of Superman making the Legion's intimidatingly massive and foreign Universe more familiar is just that...


Plus, Superman is a huge sales boost to team books...he makes a huge impact on the JLA sales.


Do you think Final Crisis is going to sell better than Action, or worse?

I think it's going to sell substantially better than the Action arc did.


It's simple math really...

The original Legion had fans that just liked the Legion...but they also had tons of fans that like Superman period but also read to see him in a different setting than normal, in fact that was the bulk of the fan base IMO, not the Legion only fans...and that was the sales dynamic that drove the Legion of Superheroes for nearly 2 decades.


I think the factors behind that dynamic are still relevant...

I think there are still fans that Legion only fans, and there are fans that like Superman...and the result of rejoining the two is going to sell better than any Superman or any Legion title by itself...for two fanbases are greater than 1...and since the best selling Superman title hovers around 50K and the Legion has a locked in audience of 20+k...the result is going to be better than the 50k o fthe best selling Superman title. And I think the concept will be more inviting to new readers as well. I doubt I ever would have been a Legion Fan if not for Superboy, I picked up the title becuase I recognized him...and it made curious about the other Legionaires.

Keep in mind...not all Legion Fans were reading the Action arc....I expect that to change with the launch/relaunch of a title featung the Action Legion. And if there are any zero hour original Legionaires brought back it'll bring some(not all) of those fans back to the fold, and I don't think many of htem picked up the Action Arc.


Honestly I expect it to sell better than 60, if all the factors are in play...that 60 number was my conservative estimate.


Historically Superboy and the Legion outsold the JLA and the Teen Titans...always. It never didn't outsell them. Not once.

A couple of other things Johns is doing that I think will be relevant to sales...

He is tying it into Green Lantern and Flash as well...not just Superman.

We know there is going to be a Green Lantern involved...and he's already done something with Color Girl to tie her into Green Lantern...but he's bringing back XS and probably Bart Allen as well.

There will be a lot of reasons for non Legion fans to pick up the Legion when Johns is done with it IMO.

It'll have more than just the Superman and Legion fan base dynamic going for it...but that dynamic alone has historically proven to be the recipe for an extremely successful team book. Always. Historically it's had more inherent appeal than the Justice League.

I was gonna do a poll, but let's just do it here.

Assuming that a Superman/LSH book is going to be an end result of Lo3W.... what would you like to see said book be titled? Here's some suggestions, or pick a new one:


SUPERMAN and THE LSH

SUPERMAN starring THE LSH

ADVENTURE (both LSH and Superman logos underneath, much smaller)

THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES (with no "Super"-anything in the title)

EDIT: Dang, I thought we were on Lardy's thread... My apologies for veering offtopic...

X-Men

that should get the sales numbers up.

X-LSH!