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

Thanks for the additional info Ken!

July numbers are out and as predicted Legion drop about 3K orders. Still in the early goings so it's hard to tell if the sales will level out quickly or continue to fall, but limited trending over three issues say equilibrium should be around the 30K mark, which is a pretty solid orbit. Still too early to tell though.

05/2010: Legion of Super-Heroes #1 -- 44,415, #39 out of 300 [50,106]
06/2010: Legion of Super-Heroes #2 -- 39,102, #43 out of 300
07/2010: Legion of Super-Heroes #3 -- 36,360, #45 out of 300


Adventure, after having negligible drops last month, makes up for it in a hurry this time. It drops almost 4K, which represents a larger percentage, as sales were already lower than the main book. It will be hard to say the impact of the Atom back-up has, but safe to say Adventure sales are far form stable.

08/2009: Adventure Comics #1 -- 56,706, #30 out of 300
09/2009: Adventure Comics #2 -- 47,296, #44 out of 300
10/2009: Adventure Comics #3 -- 44,431 #40 out of 300
11/2009: Adventure Comics #4 -- 85,145 #6 out of 300
12/2009: Adventure Comics #5 -- 59,876 #21 out of 300 *
01/2010: Adventure Comics #6 -- 42,514 #33 out of 300 *
02/2010: Adventure Comics #7 -- 53,721 #23 out of 300 *
03/2101: Adventure Comics #8 -- 39,351 #39 out of 300
03/2010: Adventure Comics #9 -- 37,515 #44 out of 300
04/2010: Adventure Comics #10 -- 37,573 #41 out of 300
05/2010: Adventure Comics #11 -- 34,794 #54 out of 300
06/2010: Adventure Comics #12 -- 34,663 #55 out of 300
07/2010: Adventure Comics #516 -- 30,897 #63 out of 300

(* denotes no Legion content)

So, it looks like they should have kept with the lower numbering on Adventure! As soon as they went back to the actual issue number, sales dropped about 4000 copies!
I wonder if there'll be a similar drop once the Jim Lee Variant covers end with LSH #7? I would expect so because, as much as I hate this sort of thing, I'm still buying BOTH covers.
Since so many people seem to judge a book by it's cover, maybe they should get some BIG NAME artist to do the covers if it'll increase sales over the Cinar covers.

I know this isn't the place for this...but I don't know exactly where it belongs...or how to post it as a separate topic: How do I move beyond the APPLICANT status of my membership here....AND How do I post NEW TOPICS for discussion??

All but two forums will have this image or one similar at the top to create a new topic -

To fix your status, click my profile at the upper righthand corner of any page. Then click Edit Profile on the left side. Where it says "Member Status:" - clear any info already there and click on "Update Profile" at the bottom of the page. That will then show you whatever your status is .

Also, a topic of this particular discussion would be better suited in the Science Police Headquarters . You can see the Forum descriptions here .

Nightcrawler: I don't think that's correct. It says that your status is based on your number of posts but I have far more than 24 posts and it still says "Applicant". I don't think user-editable member titles and status based on number of posts work at the same time.

Diamond has released their top 100 for August and LSH charts at #51 (about 47% of Batman #702) while Adventure charts at #61 (40% of Batman). The top 300 and ICV2's estimates are later in the month.

These indexes are pretty consistent with last month's numbers, so it's all a matter of how Batman sales held up. I expect about a 1K drop for both titles.

I tried my hand at creating a graph similar to the Omnicom one. The graph is here. The graph is liable to vanish if I end up using too much web traffic, though I doubt that's too likely soon. It has some problems (I couldn't figure out how to get a more reasonable X axis grid, and there are no labels) but it extends the graph to the current issue using the data already posted here.

As can be seen by this graph, the best way to get high sales is to do a Blackest Night crossover. The second best way is to do a Final Crisis crossover. #1 issues, Supergirl, Superboy (the end of The Legion got a good boost from Connor) and gimmicks in general also help. (The bump for issue 23 of the threeboot is a variant cover.)

I love Ken Arromdee more than ever!! Thanks for sharing!!

They don't work at the same time. That's why I said to clear the custom status. I just cleared your custom status in the Control Panel and now it's updated to your status - Reservist.

August numbers are out. Looks like I was off in my math in the earlier post to the tune of about 1,000 issues. LSH #4 drops 2K orders this month. Not necessarily the healthiest sign, as the book isn't stabilising very quickly. There's still a lot of room left, but the trend is a little troubling.

05/2010: Legion of Super-Heroes #1 -- 44,415, #39 out of 300 [50,106]
06/2010: Legion of Super-Heroes #2 -- 39,102, #43 out of 300
07/2010: Legion of Super-Heroes #3 -- 36,360, #45 out of 300
07/2010: Legion of Super-Heroes #4 -- 34,239 #51 out of 300

Adventure also sheds 2K, which is slightly more serious as the levels were already lower than LSH. Since Didio and company have let it slip that Legion's not keeping the top spot in Adventure through next year, it leads one to wonder exactly how much time is left.

08/2009: Adventure Comics #1 -- 56,706, #30 out of 300
09/2009: Adventure Comics #2 -- 47,296, #44 out of 300
10/2009: Adventure Comics #3 -- 44,431 #40 out of 300
11/2009: Adventure Comics #4 -- 85,145 #6 out of 300
12/2009: Adventure Comics #5 -- 59,876 #21 out of 300 *
01/2010: Adventure Comics #6 -- 42,514 #33 out of 300 *
02/2010: Adventure Comics #7 -- 53,721 #23 out of 300 *
03/2101: Adventure Comics #8 -- 39,351 #39 out of 300
03/2010: Adventure Comics #9 -- 37,515 #44 out of 300
04/2010: Adventure Comics #10 -- 37,573 #41 out of 300
05/2010: Adventure Comics #11 -- 34,794 #54 out of 300
06/2010: Adventure Comics #12 -- 34,663 #55 out of 300
07/2010: Adventure Comics #516 -- 30,897 #63 out of 300
08/2010: Adventure Comics #517 -- 28,966 #61 out of 300

(* denotes no Legion content) [/QB][/QUOTE]

Graph is updated . Also, added the Titans/LSH mini and Legion Secret Files.

The reboot was so low at the end that we're still above the peak at that point (which was after adding Superboy), and we're still better than Shooter's second issue, but V5#1 and the Supergirl start did quite a bit better than we're doing now.

Given the current state of most books in the industry, I'm not too worried that we're below comparable V5 numbers, it's the trajectory that's worrying. The declines are steeper than V5, and V5 was already pretty steep. I'm just looking for the line to start flattening out sooner than later.

Diamond initial chart numbers are out. Legion is at 42% of Batman sales and Adventure at 35%.

Hard to say how stiff a drop this is. The Morrison creative team was off Batman in September, but it was also a lead-in issue to the "Road Home" stuff, so the Bat-sales could actually be up, which wouldn't be so bad for LSH. But if the Bat-sales are flat or down, that will be a pretty substantial fall off for the Legion titles.

Went and did some quick estimates (based on the stable sales of "The Boys" as a marker) and it looks like both Legion titles may have shed just shy of 2K each, again. Not a great trend to be developing.

Something else else occurred to me: Variant covers boost sales in a way which doesn't carry over to other issues. LSH #1-4 have variant covers. This means that the sales of #1-4 are artificially boosted.

(Correction:#5 had a variant too. However this does apply to Adventure #516.)

The most recent variant that can be compared was V3 #23 (#37 also had a variant but was the start of Shooter's run). Considering the surrounding issues, it would have had sales of about 35000, so just having a variant resulted in extra sales of 6500. I would assume that extra sales caused by variants taper off so #5 isn't actually being boosted by the whole 6500, though, and Adventure #12 certainly wasn't. Still, the drop from 12 to 516 was noticeably large.

It's an interesting theory, although it may be hard to draw comparisons as at the time #23 hit, variants were a (relatively) rarer phenomenon at DC, whereas now they are much more commonplace. Of course, the current bunch are *Jim Lee* variants, which you think would push the collectability up, but then again we haven't seen these marketed heavily by DC as "ZOMG, a Jim Lee Variant!" either.

I wonder if Legion and Adventure going down to $2.99 in January will bring the sales up a bit?

September numbers are out. Both books dropped another 2K in orders, creating a rather worrying trend. Hopefully the election raises some interest outside the core readership and these numbers begin to even out, otherwise we'll be in a dangerous position sooner rather than later.

LEGION:

05/2010: Legion of Super-Heroes #1 -- 44,415, #39 out of 300 [50,106]
06/2010: Legion of Super-Heroes #2 -- 39,102, #43 out of 300
07/2010: Legion of Super-Heroes #3 -- 36,360, #45 out of 300
08/2010: Legion of Super-Heroes #4 -- 34,239 #51 out of 300
09/2010: Legion of Super-Heroes #5 -- 32,417 #55 out of 300


ADVENTURE:

11/2009: Adventure Comics #4 -- 85,145 #6 out of 300
12/2009: Adventure Comics #5 -- 59,876 #21 out of 300 *
01/2010: Adventure Comics #6 -- 42,514 #33 out of 300 *
02/2010: Adventure Comics #7 -- 53,721 #23 out of 300 *
03/2101: Adventure Comics #8 -- 39,351 #39 out of 300
03/2010: Adventure Comics #9 -- 37,515 #44 out of 300
04/2010: Adventure Comics #10 -- 37,573 #41 out of 300
05/2010: Adventure Comics #11 -- 34,794 #54 out of 300
06/2010: Adventure Comics #12 -- 34,663 #55 out of 300
07/2010: Adventure Comics #516 -- 30,897 #63 out of 300
08/2010: Adventure Comics #517 -- 28,966 #61 out of 300
09/2010: Adventure Comics #518 -- 27,028 #71 out of 300

And just to put my hand-wringing in a bit of perspective, according to ICV2, comics in general are having their worst year over year sales performance since they started tracking in 2004. So everybody's hurting, not just Legion books.

http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/18554.html

It's the recession combined with (IMO) stupidly jacking the prices up to 4 dollars.

It will be interesting to see what the price drop will do for the Legion and DC in general.

Diamond has their top 100 out for October. Estimates are a little trickier because Batman didn't come out, so Detective is the benchmark index for sales this month. I choose the relatively consistent Secret Six to do some rough calculations. It looks like the trend for Legion continues, with a drop to just above 30K with Adventure trailing about 5K below that. Still looking for some stability in the numbers.

This is truly worrying. I feel DC is really wanting/expecting the Levitz retroboot to succeed.

Unfortunately, the first 5 issues were somewhat unsatisfying to me and probably to others as well.

# 6 turned that around. I hope it wasn't too late for others.

If you look at the graph, just about the only thing that causes a long-lasting sales increase is a change in creator, #1, permanent Superman guest-star, etc. Even then it just resets the sales to a high level and they drop like normal. Crossovers and cover gimmicks don't help--they immediately drop to normal level after the crossover or gimmick. Getting a superstar artist did great for Legion of Three Worlds, but isn't really feasible.

The Legion election may boost sales a bit, but the loss of the gimmick covers probably hurt both books.

I sometimes wonder whether a gay wedding between Ayla and Violet would increase sales, but it would probably just boost the one issue like a crossover does. The biggest way to raise sales would probably be just to add Supergirl again, but there's no real way to do that because she's the wrong age.

And if #6 is a turnaround, that isn't going to affect sales until at least #7 anyway.

If it is indeed true that the market isn't so good as it was a couple of years ago, then we need a new graph of "percentage of Batman". Making that would be a lot of work though.

There's also the question of just what sales a book actually needs to be safe from cancellation. REBELS is a lot lower than either Legion book, for instance, and is way under even the end of Jim Shooter's run.

Oh, heck. No percentages, but here are Batman sales for same dates as the start of the Threeboot, the start of Supergirl/LSH, and the start of V6, with the Legion figures for comparison. Taking the health of Batman sales as a measure of the health of the market overall, it doesn't seem like the sales of Legion can be blamed on an overall bad market. I don't even have to bother with percentages.


12/2004: LSH #01 -- 59,944
01/2005: LSH #02 -- 48,584
02/2005: LSH #03 -- 44,824
03/2005: LSH #04 -- 43,408
04/2005: LSH #05 -- 41,664
05/2005: LSH #06 -- 40,970


03/2006: LSH #16 -- 54,826
04/2006: LSH #17 -- 47,697
05/2006: LSH #18 -- 45,520
06/2006: LSH #19 -- 43,918
07/2006: LSH #20 -- 41,679
08/2006: LSH #21 -- 39,800

05/2010: Legion of Super-Heroes #1 -- 44,415 [50,106]
06/2010: Legion of Super-Heroes #2 -- 39,102
07/2010: Legion of Super-Heroes #3 -- 36,360
08/2010: Legion of Super-Heroes #4 -- 34,239
09/2010: Legion of Super-Heroes #5 -- 32,417

12/2004: Batman #635 -- 60,901
01/2005: Batman #636 -- 58,513
02/2005: Batman #637 -- 58,060
03/2005: Batman #638 -- 59,723
04/2005: Batman #639 -- 62,333
05/2005: Batman #640 -- 66,629

03/2006: Batman #651 -- 69,796
04/2006: Batman #652 -- 72,890
05/2006: Batman #653 -- 77,228
06/2006: Batman #654 -- 76,529
07/2006: Batman #655 -- 113,552
08/2006: Batman #656 -- 95,800

05/2010: Batman #699 -- 62,377
06/2010: Batman #700 -- 104,755
07/2010: Batman #701 -- 76,398
08/2010: Batman #702 -- 73,414
08/2010: Batman #703 -- 77,033