March X-men books sales

[bishop66]

feel bad for the aoa guys their cable run was so good and they obviously know there x-men stuff but i knew this would be a giant turd from the begining..one of the main problems is its too long and there are too many series should have kept it tight 4 4 issues series alpha and omega that would have worked better. And i know they needed filler until eh hickman run but they should have done something again like x-men black those books were very well recieved and well done

[Havok83]

feel bad for the aoa guys their cable run was so good and they obviously know there x-men stuff but i knew this would be a giant turd from the begining..one of the main problems is its too long and there are too many series should have kept it tight 4 4 issues series alpha and omega that would have worked better. And i know they needed filler until eh hickman run but they should have done something again like x-men black those books were very well recieved and well done

In hindsight, I kind of think Dissasembled+AoX should have been a 16-18 issue maxi series. Uncanny could have spun out of Disessmbled and culminated in an Omega issue with AoX that sets the stage for Hickman's books

[cranger]

1 Detective Comics 1000 526,941*
4 Batman 67 84,463
5 Batman 66 83,102
7 Amazing Spider-Man 17 78,464
8 Amazing Spider-Man 18 74,466
10 Justice League 20 64,675
11 Venom 12 61,901
12 Justice League 19 57,733
16 Fantastic Four 8 53,378
17 Immortal Hulk 15 53,120**
19 Daredevil 3 51,268
20 Uncanny X-Men 13 50,430
21 Avengers 16 48,984
22 Superman 9 48,919
23 Uncanny X-Men 14 48,840

Take out all the one shots, limited series, events etc and look at the regular monthly titles and Uncanny is doing fine. Don't get me wrong, I don't think these numbers look great for anything listed here, but that is another conversation. I also think the X-Men line is as uninteresting as it has ever been, but that is also another conversation. However, the facts are the facts, and UXM is just on the bubble of being one of the top 10 titles followed month to month (and twice a month at that.)

* Arguably Detective may not have been selling above UXM without the #1000 build up.
** I did not try to account for any sort of incentive variants or speculative story events, such as Incredible Hulk #15.

[Triniking1234]

Scott Summers flexing on his kids' books.

I'm salty about Domino out-selling Laura due to #1 shininess.

[Heroine Addict]

... the only book that is doing okay...

... is doing fine. ...

IDK, maybe due to buzz on here, I just overestimated what the returns of Cyke & Wolverine would mean. Guess I expected more than resignations/justifications of only doin' okay, or fine, and that being no cause for concern.

Perhaps it'll stabilize tho, around where it is now, we'll see.

[cranger]

IDK, maybe due to buzz on here, I just overestimated what the returns of Cyke & Wolverine would mean. Guess I expected more than resignations/justifications of only doin' okay, or fine, and that being no cause for concern.

Perhaps it'll stabilize tho, around where it is now, we'll see.

Well I would certainly have liked to see it do better, but the return of Wolverine was done elsewhere, over a very long time, with great dissatisfaction, and he is still showing up everywhere as it is making his appearance in UXM seem unimportant. They bring back Cyclops only to for some reason rehash the mutants are extinct and humans are the enemy plot that has lead nowhere for the last 15 years.

Whether this stabilizes or not could depend on how it's lame duck status is received, which it surely will be unless something in the promotion for Hickman's run indicates it builds on Rosenberg's. If people really are not enjoying this at all, they will easily drop it, but if some are on the fence, they may stick with it just because comic book readers do find it hard to drop titles they are in a habit of buying, and UXM is a collector's title.

[Snoop Dogg]

If we had lenticulars, sales would be POPPIN'!

[Maestro 216]

Well I would certainly have liked to see it do better, but the return of Wolverine was done elsewhere, over a very long time, with great dissatisfaction, and he is still showing up everywhere as it is making his appearance in UXM seem unimportant. They bring back Cyclops only to for some reason rehash the mutants are extinct and humans are the enemy plot that has lead nowhere for the last 15 years.

Whether this stabilizes or not could depend on how it's lame duck status is received, which it surely will be unless something in the promotion for Hickman's run indicates it builds on Rosenberg's. If people really are not enjoying this at all, they will easily drop it, but if some are on the fence, they may stick with it just because comic book readers do find it hard to drop titles they are in a habit of buying, and UXM is a collector's title.

Lame duck sums it up.

[FUBAR007]

The X-Men comics franchise deteriorating to its current state is an inevitable consequence of the post-Harras X-office abandoning character-driven stories in favor of more high-concept, plot-driven fare. What made the X-Men franchise the juggernaut it used to be was the writers (starting with Claremont in his prime) getting the readers to care about the characters, to emotionally invest in them as if they were friends. Hand-in-hand with that went letting the characters grow and age (albeit slowly), creating an overarching, long-term narrative.

The mutant concept on its own, including its metaphor of the oppressed minority, isn't all that interesting over the long run. Especially if the protagonists never achieve anything long-term. Same goes for periodically de-aging the characters and undoing their character development. This doesn't preclude (and hasn't precluded) individually interesting stories from being produced, but the larger narrative just isn't there anymore. What readers get instead are cul-de-sac stories of varying length and quality. They can be clever, they can be shocking, they can be stimulating, but they don't add up to anything. And so, the emotional core just isn't there anymore, either. As a reader, emotionally investing in the characters has become pointless. Applying the "illusion of change" conceit to the X-Men has made the franchise more generic--an off-brand, angrier, and more dysfunctional version of the Avengers.

Further complicating the problem is that contemporary Marvel editorial, I strongly suspect, takes orders from the marketing department. For the latter, the comics are a combination IP farm/advertising medium to sell licensed merchandise i.e. toys, games, t-shirts, etc. Producing emotionally engrossing fiction that attracts long-term readers isn't their concern.

What made the X-Men franchise unique and successful back in the day is that it abandoned the "illusion of change" convention prevalent in superhero fiction. When Marvel forced the convention back in, they they took away the secret sauce that made the franchise work.

[Omega Alpha]

The mutant concept on its own, including its metaphor of the oppressed minority, isn't all that interesting over the long run. Especially if the protagonists never achieve anything long-term. Same goes for periodically de-aging the characters and undoing their character development. This doesn't preclude (and hasn't precluded) individually interesting stories from being produced, but the larger narrative just isn't there anymore. .

That was why Morrison was essentially moving the X-men away from this. While there were still haters, mutantkind was achieving new levels of acceptance and doing stuff nobody did before: expanding the school, having their own towns in NY (and one assumes other places in the world), having X-corp help mutants worldwide, mutantkind beginning to be emulated and seen as something cool by many, etc.

Then Joe Q got mad at him and we had M-Day. Of course, many of the fans were already mad at Morrison because he broke up Scott & Jean or that it wasn't "their X-men" anymore...

[Star_Jammer]

I couldn't, in good conscience, continue to buy the Age of X-Man crap after issue #1. It felt like wiping my butt with cash and flushing it down the toilet.

[JB]

It's way too crowded on the shelves right now. I'm a member of an X-Men Facebook group and many don't follow the books as closely as the people on here. Someone said he wanted to get back in but had absolutely no idea where to start. When he asked for suggestions, few knew exactly how to answer because they mostly felt we're in the middle of too much that is about to end. Uncanny had the most suggestions.

[Daedra]

It's way too crowded on the shelves right now. I'm a member of an X-Men Facebook group and many don't follow the books as closely as the people on here. Someone said he wanted to get back in but had absolutely no idea where to start. When he asked for suggestions, few knew exactly how to answer because they mostly felt we're in the middle of too much that is about to end. Uncanny had the most suggestions.

Uncanny is the only book that actually makes any sense, especially for someone willing to jump-in.

[Havok83]

Uncanny is the only book that actually makes any sense, especially for someone willing to jump-in.

Im not sure IA with that. UXM leans heavily on continuity that Rosenberg established in his minis from last year. It can easily be confusing for a new . Starting from #1 would be an easier digest but then that leads into Age of X-Man, which can be quite overwhelming. Id suggest a new reader to just wait for Hickman

[Daedra]

Im not sure IA with that. UXM leans heavily on continuity that Rosenberg established in his minis from last year. It can easily be confusing for a new . Starting from #1 would be an easier digest but then that leads into Age of X-Man, which can be quite overwhelming. Id suggest a new reader to just wait for Hickman

sure, I would do the same..... but if he really, really, really wanted to buy a X-book today I'd point him to Uncanny and tell him to stay away from age of X-man.