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

Also, we need someway to find out the circulation number for these venues! I wish there was some distributer who did this.

Does anyone (Dave?) know who the main distributers are for newstands? I suspect it isn't a monopoly like Diamond is for the direct market.

I'm considering contacting one of them through my company (a reinsurance brokerage firm) with false business pretenses with intentions to find out some info.

Then I'll get us all jobs so we can fix the comic book industry. (And subsequently use our new found power to force publishers to do things our way ).

It's too bad Paul only lurks here and doesn't post, because in his time at the head of DC he's most remembered for almost single handedly driving the industry to the Direct Market. Many saw that as what saved comics, while others take a different view.

Asked Paul on FB. His response:

"I'll sit this out, Dave. It's long, complicated and most of the discussion of the issue in fandom is driven by wishing rather than analysis. If I do end up writing about it eventually it'll have to be at some length..."

^ I didn't realise Paul was answering questions on Facebook. Has anyone asked him about Dream Girl's hair yet? I have to know if it's a mistake or a deliberate choice by the colourist (and I assume with Paul's approval). Does someone who's friends with him mind asking him for me?

Well he made a comment about Dream Girl last week and everyone piled on with comments about the hair, so I think he got the message.

Cool! I knew the Legion's large gay fanbase couldn't sit idly by while Nura went outside looking like that every month!

i totally agree with you.

still, i don't think that comics as they are now would appeal to a wider audience.

Diamond put out it's top 100 for December. Legion came in at #73 (39.62% of Batman's sales) and Adventure wasn't far behind at #76 (37.60%).

Assuming Secret Six continues it's 2% per month drop, I'd estimate that puts Legion at 25K and Adventure a little less than 24K.

While still a drop, and not burning up the charts or anything, that's the least decline issue-over-issue to date. Compared to other DC titles, Legion could do worse than settle in this wheelhouse.

I'm hoping that wherever its monthly sales settle at, it's a number that's large enough to warrant its continues existence. I see some of the titles that limp on every month with 10k or less, and I have to think that there's enough dedicated Legion fans out there to keep it going. At this point, LSH & Adventure are the two titles that I'm going to pick up even if (or when) I dump everything else. If DC pulls the plug on it, after 20 years of mishandling the feature, that might be the last straw that makes me stop buying ALL monthly comics entirely.

ICV2 numbers are out for December. Looks like I was spot on with my estimates (thanks Secret Six). Legion drops about 1.5K which is it's lowest drop to date and Adventure sheds about half that. It's still too early to tell for sure but it looks like the books might be finding their level.

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
10/2010: Legion of Super-Heroes #6 -- 30,246 #66 out of 300
11/2010: Legion of Super-Heroes #7 -- 26,439 #65 out of 300
12/2010: Legion of Super-Heroes #8 -- 25,063 #72 out of 300

ADVENTURE:

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
10/2010: Adventure Comics #519 -- 25,346 #76 out of 300
11/2010: Adventure Comics #520 -- 24,540 #71 out of 300
12/2010: Adventure Comics #521 -- 23,787 #73 out of 300

*denote no Legion Content

Diamond rankings for January are out, with Legion of Super-Heroes #9 at 40% of Batman sales and Adventure at a little less than 38%.

As usual, Batman's not the most stable indicator, so looking at other consistent sellers it looks like both books are between 21K and 23K in sales. A little disappointing as last month it looked like the drops were leveling out a bit.

More when the ICV2 estimates come out.

Well, I like it when I'm wrong. ICV2 numbers are out for January and it looks like my estimates were a tad low compared to theirs. Legion dropped about 800 copies, the first time its shed less than 1K. Adventure drops a bit more but stays above 22K. There certainly appears to be a leveling happening.

Now to see if an Annual, a Special and Phil Jimenez get the needle moving in the opposite direction.

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
10/2010: Legion of Super-Heroes #6 -- 30,246 #66 out of 300
11/2010: Legion of Super-Heroes #7 -- 26,439 #65 out of 300
12/2010: Legion of Super-Heroes #8 -- 25,063 #72 out of 300
01/2011: Legion of Super-Heroes #9 -- 24,230 #60 out of 300


ADVENTURE:

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
10/2010: Adventure Comics #519 -- 25,346 #76 out of 300
11/2010: Adventure Comics #520 -- 24,540 #71 out of 300
12/2010: Adventure Comics #521 -- 23,787 #73 out of 300
01/2011: Adventure Comics #522 -- 22,821 #64 out of 300

*denote no Legion Content

Not to mention a price decrease.

While the price drop was widely hailed as a great move, it didn't seem to alter DC's trajectory very much in January (they got drubbed by Marvel, but also didn't ship a lot of their top sellers). It will, however be a trend thing if it develops at all. I'll be interested to see the overall numbers come March, but at first blush it looks like a failed venture.

Drubbed by Marvel? Please define, because the top 10 comics I copied/pasted from ICv2 are:


1
142.24
BATMAN THE DARK KNIGHT #1
$3.99
DC
89,985

2
120.70
GREEN LANTERN #60
$2.99
DC
76,360

3
119.27
BRIGHTEST DAY #15
$2.99
DC
75,450

4
118.35
BRIGHTEST DAY #16
$2.99
DC
74,871

5
114.13
GREEN LANTERN #61
$2.99
DC
72,203

6
113.09
BATMAN INCORPORATED #2
$3.99
DC
71,544

7
108.78
BATMAN AND ROBIN #18
$2.99
DC
68,814

8
107.24
NEW AVENGERS #7
$3.99
MAR
67,840

9
106.00
AVENGERS #8
$3.99
MAR
67,056

10
100.00
BATMAN #705

That's DC with 8 of the 10 biggest sellers.

(This is December, however, before the $2.99 thing went official in January)

Never mind, I'm losing it here... I just noticed January is what you are posting.

January's top 10: DC only makes 4 appearances.

1
191.68
FANTASTIC FOUR #587
$3.99
MAR
115,448

2
120.94
BRIGHTEST DAY #17
$2.99
DC
72,841

3
119.69
BRIGHTEST DAY #18
$2.99
DC
72,090

4
108.66
SPAWN #200
$3.99
IMA
65,448

5
107.70
AVENGERS #9
$3.99
MAR
64,867

6
107.28
X-MEN #7
$3.99
MAR
64,615

7
102.58
BATMAN AND ROBIN #19
$2.99
DC
61,785

8
101.56
NEW AVENGERS #8
$3.99
MAR
61,169

9
100.00
BATMAN #706
$2.99
DC
60,231

10
94.22
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #651 $3.99
MAR
56,749

With the May solicits released today, DC has cancelled five low-selling ongoing series, including Rebels. Even though most of those series have been living on borrowed time for months, it is still troubling. It could imply that the industry downward sales trend of the last several months has continued through February, March and April pre-orders. It will be interesting to see if Marvel cuts back on their May offerings or continues to flood the market.

Well, if you cut out all the non-DCU stuff, Mini-series and Jonah Hex (which Didio has stated plays by different rules) the two lowest selling DC titles are Booster Gold (16 K) and Power Girl (16.8 K). Since Booster is getting a push with Flashpoint, that leaves PG as the lowest ongoing right now.

This raises the "Floor" for DC titles quite a bit and Adventure's cushion isn't so big anymore. Bears watching.

Jiminez' ADVENTURE COMICS deserves a huge sales-bump!

I hope so. Word of mouth and internet reviews have been good, and it was relatively early in the month so plenty of time for re-orders. Still no word of a reprint, but we don't know the original print run either. We'll know in about three weeks.

February numbers are now out and while DC took a nasty drubbing and lost a lot of ground to Marvel, the Legion books saw some silver lining.

The main book saw it's drop off decrease again to about 500 less copies (compared the to the thousands it was losing month over month prior). The Annual wasn't too far behind the main book which is impressive given the price difference.

And most impressive of all Adventure actually posted a modest gain on the Phil Jimenez debut. Now, a 300 issue gain isn't chart breaking for sure, but where 90% of the books post losses, this is definitely good news for the Academy feature. Numbers below.


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
10/2010: Legion of Super-Heroes #6 -- 30,246 #66 out of 300
11/2010: Legion of Super-Heroes #7 -- 26,439 #65 out of 300
12/2010: Legion of Super-Heroes #8 -- 25,063 #72 out of 300
01/2011: Legion of Super-Heroes #9 -- 24,230 #60 out of 300
02/2011: Legion of Super-Heroes #10 -- 23,738 #75 out of 300


ADVENTURE:

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
10/2010: Adventure Comics #519 -- 25,346 #76 out of 300
11/2010: Adventure Comics #520 -- 24,540 #71 out of 300
12/2010: Adventure Comics #521 -- 23,787 #73 out of 300
01/2011: Adventure Comics #522 -- 22,821 #64 out of 300
02/2011: Adventure Comics #523 -- 23,127 #78 out of 300


SPECIALS/ANNUALS:

02/2011: Legion of Super-Heroes Annual #1 -- 22,201 #82 out of 300

what's the betting that over 22,000 bought all three Legion books? If the titles can stabilise at those numbers then they should be OK.

Well, it's important to remember that these numbers are sales to retailers. There is no industry wide tracker of customer sales. Anecdotally, I don't see a lot of shelf copies at my local shops so I'm hoping the sell through rate is pretty high, but I'd be surprised if all 22K of the Annual converted to actual sales. Still as a trending point it holds up quite well.