Current Spider-Man Sales

[Kevinroc]

I'm seeing people online who are confused about what the ICV2 numbers mean, and when/how variant covers help bump up numbers, and when/how variants are a reflection of how well the book is doing.

The ICV2 numbers take a small sampling of comic shops (125 shops out of around 3,000).
Since all the major distributors are no longer using Diamond, and Diamond would post the numbers in the past, it's hard for the public at large to get an accurate account of what books are selling.
That said, looking at this small sample is a way to make a fairly good guess at general trends.

And important fact about the ICV2 numbers: They are Point of Sale numbers. They're numbers gained by what is sold at the register and put into customers' hands.
That means they're a very good metric for how well a book does DESPITE variants.
If a store has to order X amount of a comic in order to get a rare variant, that could mean that a store is willing to get an excess amount of comics in order to make up for it by selling that rare variant to a collector at an inflated amount.
HOWEVER, if a book is doing phenomenally well in Point of Sale numbers, that is reflecting how what the CUSTOMER is buying from the retailer.
And that means that fan demand is getting that book over the finish line.

In the case of Zeb's ASM run, you can look at those ICV2 numbers, and that shows (regardless of whether you personally like or don't like the book) that it is dominating those charts, taking 1 or 2 spots in the Top 10 on a regular basis, and pretty much flooding the Top 50 zone for the best selling issues of the YEAR-- on a chart that is entirely BOOKS in the HANDS of CUSTOMERS.

I've seen people upset that I keep saying that SPIDER-BOY #1 was Marvel's best selling book for 2023, despite that it's not listed as Marvel's best selling book of 2023 in ICV2's charts. In their charts SPIDER-MAN #7, Spider-Boy's 1st appearance, is actually Marvel's best selling book for 2023, and the 2nd best selling book in the industry. (Way to go TRANSFOMERS at #1!!!)
So it's a pretty weird flex on my part to contradict that chart and say that another book I worked on was Marvel's best selling book. Why not just take the win? Because that wouldn't be truthful. SPIDER-BOY #1 took the spot (when you can see all of the numbers in one place). And I've been very straight forward about WHY that's not reflected in the ICV2 numbers: Retailer variants.

There are 3 main kinds of variants:

Marvel incentive variants - When retailers order a specific amount of a title, they get a certain number of special variants. The more they order, the rarer the variants they can get.

Retailer variants - Retailers approach Marvel (usually larger stores and chains) and, because they have faith that a specific issue will do well, they order a special variant for their store. No one is twisting their arms to make this happen. This is a case of retailers believing in a product and wanting to back that belief up. Those are sales that are generated by retailer DEMAND. I take that as win that the book has EARNED. Retailers can approach Marvel to commission a special variant for ANY book Marvel is doing-- and if they choose to do that for ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN, or SOMETHING IS KILLING THE CHILDREN, or DETECTIVE COMICS, or... gasp... SPIDER-BOY-- those are variants that those books got on their own steam.

2nd, 3rd, and 4th Printing variants - These are variants that the company puts together for books that have sold out a distributor level and need to go back to press. These are the BEST variants to get. This means (even if there's a stack of a certain book at YOUR store) that somewhere out there the book has sold out at enough stores that there are so many reorders that the book has to go back to press for an additional printing. Right now ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN is deservedly racking those kinds of variants up in their win column. Fair's fair though, you also have to give praise to Zeb's run for racking up a lot of additional printings, and Nick's run too. (And maybe a certain someone who sold out a third of their entire 10+ years on ASM and 1 year and a half on S-M & SSM, racking up seventy 2nd printings, thirteen 3rd printings, four 4th printings, and two 5th printings).

Side note: I saw someone saying "If SPIDER-BOY's so good, why hasn't it gotten a 2nd printing?" It did.

Anyhoo... Did SPIDER-BOY #1 get to be Marvel's best selling issue last year thanks to variants? Yes. Retailer variants. Which are very different from Marvel's incentive variants. Retailers came to Marvel, not the other way around, and retailers commissioned those variants because they had faith in the title. That's something Paco, Erick, Ty, Dee, Joe, Humberto, MR, Ellie, and I earned. It's not reflected in those ICV2 numbers because those 125 shops don't include a lot of the larger chains and bigger stores. But, hey, if you don't want to give it to us, I'm perfectly fine with the asterisk and letting you count SPIDER-BOY #1 as Marvel's 9th best selling issue of 2023... with SPIDER-MAN #7 being Marvel's "official" best selling issue of 2023 in your mind. :-P

And, as I've said here and other places, I'm very excited and happy for Jonathan, Marco, Will, and the entire ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN teams' success. We're only 3 months into the year, and I wouldn't be surprised at ALL if USM #1 or another USM issue walked away as the best selling issue of all of 2024! It's an exciting time to be a Spidey fan on many levels! Conversely, if things had played out differently and an equal number of people online were being as openly hostile to the USM team as they've been to the current ASM team, I'd be on these message boards defending them-- with stats and figures and whatnot.

I've seen people online who are determined to believe I am scared by another title-- by my fellow Marvel creators, people I LIKE-- and that its stunning success somehow freaks me out and makes me fear for my future. Dude, I worked on the top selling issue for Marvel for the last two years in a row, got my contract re-upped, am working with the legendary Mark Bagley on a Spidey title, co-created a new IP about an imaginary sidekick that's now a Top 50 title that's outselling Green Lantern, Titans, and Batman & Robin, and I'm heading over to an Oscar party tonight-- with fingers crossed-- hoping that a Spider-Man movie I helped out on might win an Oscar. I think I'm okay.

Internet people are silly.

Internet people are silly.

The thing is I don't think people actually care about statistics or anything like that. They aren't liking the direction of the title and they are in small communities with like-minded fans.

But it is true that many of these same people wanted a direction similar to what Hickman and co. are doing in Ultimate Spider-Man. And people have, by and large, absolutely shown up for that title that they haven't shown up for with regards to Spider-Man in some time.

So what does that mean for the franchise as a whole? I don't know if anyone has the answer to that. I'm sure Marvel will keep on keeping on, but when something is as massive as USM is, it seems odd to think ASM won't do anything to respond to such positive reception. Feels like a wasted opportunity. (I would put a shrug emoji here if CBR had one.)

[Dan Slott]

By that same argument, ASM #698 and #699 went to 3rd printings, ASM #700 went to a 5th printing, with Superior Spider-Man Vol. 1 #1 going to a 4th printing, and SSM #2 through #6 going to 2nd and or 3rd printings. Should Marvel have taken that as a sign that SSM should've been a more permanent status quo? Would NOT doing that be a "wasted opportunity"? I'm not being serious, I'm just playing Devil's Advocate.

[Kaitou D. Kid]

By that same argument, ASM #698 and #699 went to 3rd printings, ASM #700 went to a 5th printing, with Superior Spider-Man Vol. 1 #1 going to a 4th printing, and SSM #2 through #6 going to 2nd and or 3rd printings. Should Marvel have taken that as a sign that SSM should've been a more permanent status quo? Would NOT doing that be a "wasted opportunity"? I'm not being serious, I'm just playing Devil's Advocate.

Mr. Slott, I'm not sure I buy that analogy. The appeal of Superior (by your own admission as well) was similar to that of Knightfall and Kraven's Last Hunt - in the sense that the audience wants to see the hero return and triumphantly get his life back.

Based on that, it wouldn't make sense to keep Superior as a permanent status quo regardless of sales. Same is true of the Knightfall and KLH status quos, and those sold great too.

It's a different context than with the audiences that want to see the marriage return that are buying USM right now. Such audiences made it clear they want it as an ongoing status quo.

[Spider-Tiger]

By that same argument, ASM #698 and #699 went to 3rd printings, ASM #700 went to a 5th printing, with Superior Spider-Man Vol. 1 #1 going to a 4th printing, and SSM #2 through #6 going to 2nd and or 3rd printings. Should Marvel have taken that as a sign that SSM should've been a more permanent status quo? Would NOT doing that be a "wasted opportunity"? I'm not being serious, I'm just playing Devil's Advocate.

To be fair, those were 616 titles. And "death of main Spider-man" is an event that's likely to draw interest and speculation as opposed to an ongoing status quo. But by its very nature, it's pretty much a one and done thing. (Though I'm sure they'll attempt another death in the future.)

When was the last time an au title completely disconnected from the main-verse was this successful? Now one could argue that the revival of Ultimate itself is a speculation drawing event. What I think matters most is how this continues to perform in the coming months.

Regardless, I don't see any of this changing their position on the main title. Certainly not in the immediate future. But I do think this could potentially have a lasting impact on the franchise as the original Ultimate did, and the creation of other successful au Spider-characters such as Miles Morales and Ghost Spider (which have been incorporated into 616).

[Kevinroc]

By that same argument, ASM #698 and #699 went to 3rd printings, ASM #700 went to a 5th printing, with Superior Spider-Man Vol. 1 #1 going to a 4th printing, and SSM #2 through #6 going to 2nd and or 3rd printings. Should Marvel have taken that as a sign that SSM should've been a more permanent status quo? Would NOT doing that be a "wasted opportunity"? I'm not being serious, I'm just playing Devil's Advocate.

Aren't you writing a new volume of Superior Spider-Man these days? Over 10 years after that initial storyline? I don't think that would have happened if those comics weren't so successful. You know, if I were just playing Devil's Advocate.

[TheKryptonMan]

I just want to add that even though a book may go to 2nd , 3rd printing or more . It's not really telling us how many copies it's selling altogether .
I say this because since the demise of Diamond ( well sort of ) we don't know for sure what books are selling . I think that we just have approximate numbers , nothing that says exactly how many copies a book has sold .
For example I read on Bleeding Cool that last week , X-Men # 1 outsold Batman #145 , but I don't know the exact numbers for both books ..
It doesn't seem like publishers want to give actual numbers for any or of their books .
Well just my 2 cents .
By the way , I enjoyed Superior Spider Man very much but I wanted to eventually see Peter back .
Just like I enjoyed KnightFall and Death of Superman but wanted to see the originals ( Bruce Wayne & Kal -El ) back .

[Kevinroc]

I just want to add that even though a book may go to 2nd , 3rd printing or more . It's not really telling us how many copies it's selling altogether .
I say this because since the demise of Diamond ( well sort of ) we don't know for sure what books are selling . I think that we just have approximate numbers , nothing that says exactly how many copies a book has sold .
For example I read on Bleeding Cool that last week , X-Men # 1 outsold Batman #145 , but I don't know the exact numbers for both books ..
It doesn't seem like publishers want to give actual numbers for any or of their books .
Well just my 2 cents .
By the way , I enjoyed Superior Spider Man very much but I wanted to eventually see Peter back .
Just like I enjoyed KnightFall and Death of Superman but wanted to see the originals ( Bruce Wayne & Kal -El ) back .

The success of USM is wildly acknowledged across the industry, on a level we haven't seen in quite some time. I don't think downplaying USM's success is the way to go.

https://www.thepopverse.com/marvel-u...comics-success

[bob.schoonover]

Mr. Slott, I'm not sure I buy that analogy. The appeal of Superior (by your own admission as well) was similar to that of Knightfall and Kraven's Last Hunt - in the sense that the audience wants to see the hero return and triumphantly get his life back.

Based on that, it wouldn't make sense to keep Superior as a permanent status quo regardless of sales. Same is true of the Knightfall and KLH status quos, and those sold great too.

It's a different context than with the audiences that want to see the marriage return that are buying USM right now. Such audiences made it clear they want it as an ongoing status quo.

I'm certainly not going to deny that MJ/Peter fans are turning out for this title, but that doesn't mean that there aren't plenty of people reading it because (1) they're Hickman and/or Checchetto fans, (2) they're interested to see what Hickman is doing with the Ultimate relaunch, or (3) they're interested in this because it's a continuity-light AU. Generally speaking, it's impossible for any of us to say why the masses are buying a title, but the best way to tease that out is to wait and see as the title evolves. If Hickman and/or Checchetto bail somewhat quickly and sales tank, then it's them. If they kill off MJ and sales drop, it's the marriage (of course, if they stay strong in such a hypothetical, that tells us something else entirely).

On the other hand, if sales stay strong well after Hickman leaves (or his run lasts a few years w/o it building to a big event), THEN there's the argument that the reason most are reading it is that the marriage fans "came back" so to speak. Focusing on the sales of the first couple issues of a big launch with superstar headliners leaves a lot of wiggle room for basically any argument about why it's selling well. I mean, for the two years prior to JMS taking over ASM, you could make a pretty facile argument that Ultimate Spider-man sales suggested that everyone was craving a younger Spider-man and they should keep MJ and Peter apart or just junk the 616.

[Kevinroc]

I'm certainly not going to deny that MJ/Peter fans are turning out for this title, but that doesn't mean that there aren't plenty of people reading it because (1) they're Hickman and/or Checchetto fans, (2) they're interested to see what Hickman is doing with the Ultimate relaunch, or (3) they're interested in this because it's a continuity-light AU. Generally speaking, it's impossible for any of us to say why the masses are buying a title, but the best way to tease that out is to wait and see as the title evolves. If Hickman and/or Checchetto bail somewhat quickly and sales tank, then it's them. If they kill off MJ and sales drop, it's the marriage (of course, if they stay strong in such a hypothetical, that tells us something else entirely).

On the other hand, if sales stay strong well after Hickman leaves (or his run lasts a few years w/o it building to a big event), THEN there's the argument that the reason most are reading it is that the marriage fans "came back" so to speak. Focusing on the sales of the first couple issues of a big launch with superstar headliners leaves a lot of wiggle room for basically any argument about why it's selling well. I mean, for the two years prior to JMS taking over ASM, you could make a pretty facile argument that Ultimate Spider-man sales suggested that everyone was craving a younger Spider-man and they should keep MJ and Peter apart or just junk the 616.

The marriage/family was a huge part of the promotion of USM alongside the creative team of Hickman/Checchetto. I don't think either should be downplayed.

[TheKryptonMan]

The success of USM is wildly acknowledged across the industry, on a level we haven't seen in quite some time. I don't think downplaying USM's success is the way to go.
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https://www.thepopverse.com/marvel-u...comics-success

Hey thanks for the reply . I'm not downplaying the success of USM at all . Sorry if that's what you got from my post .
I know that Hickman is a really terrific writer and I read his whole run on FF years ago as the books were coming out .
Actually I've been going to my LCS lately mostly every week and while there I haven't seen a copy of USM at all . And I've seen some people come in and ask for it and they don't have it .
Had I known that it was going to be so successful I would have reserved it too , because I do love Spidey .
I'll definitely be on the lookout for a 3rd or 4th pressing and would like to check it out .
But my whole point was that I don't know how many copies it's sold for sure to make a comparison between say ASM & Batman which usually always sell really well .
When Diamond was publishing sales numbers years ago , Batman was indexed always at 100.0 no matter how it did , and we could compare .
That's all I'm asking , to make a comparison between books .

[Dan Slott]

Aren't you writing a new volume of Superior Spider-Man these days? Over 10 years after that initial storyline? I don't think that would have happened if those comics weren't so successful. You know, if I were just playing Devil's Advocate.

;-)

It's weird to me, because something I've told people off to the side was that I was going to avoid doing Doc Ock stories in (what was then) the new Spider-Man book. And then marketing & editorial tossed out the idea of doing a 10th anniversary Superior story as a challenge. And then I couldn't drop it. It was like, "How could I do a new Superior Spider-Man story without doing what we did before?" Back during ASM, I was like that with the Vulture. He was my least favorite Spidey villain and I had no intention of writing him. Ever. And Brevoort challenged me. He dared me to find an angle about the Vulture and tell a story about him that I'd want to read. And that's how "From Great Heights" arc came about.

I think with the new ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN book, the draw of a married Peter Parker is pretty evident. ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE proved their was a large audience that really wanted to see that kind of Peter. I think what Jonathan & Marco are doing is it's own thing tho. It's a married Spider-Man in a way we've never seen before-- very different from MC2, RYV, and ATSV. It's going to be interesting to see how fans react as the story progresses. We're still in early days, and we're dealing with master storytellers who know how to let things build, develop, and surprise.

[Kaitou D. Kid]

I'm certainly not going to deny that MJ/Peter fans are turning out for this title, but that doesn't mean that there aren't plenty of people reading it because (1) they're Hickman and/or Checchetto fans, (2) they're interested to see what Hickman is doing with the Ultimate relaunch, or (3) they're interested in this because it's a continuity-light AU. Generally speaking, it's impossible for any of us to say why the masses are buying a title, but the best way to tease that out is to wait and see as the title evolves. If Hickman and/or Checchetto bail somewhat quickly and sales tank, then it's them. If they kill off MJ and sales drop, it's the marriage (of course, if they stay strong in such a hypothetical, that tells us something else entirely).

On the other hand, if sales stay strong well after Hickman leaves (or his run lasts a few years w/o it building to a big event), THEN there's the argument that the reason most are reading it is that the marriage fans "came back" so to speak. Focusing on the sales of the first couple issues of a big launch with superstar headliners leaves a lot of wiggle room for basically any argument about why it's selling well. I mean, for the two years prior to JMS taking over ASM, you could make a pretty facile argument that Ultimate Spider-man sales suggested that everyone was craving a younger Spider-man and they should keep MJ and Peter apart or just junk the 616.

I don't think the marriage is the only factor USM is selling well, but it's definitely one of the main factors. Let's remember that Hickman's previous title (G.O.D.S.) didn't perform anywhere near as well even though it was Hickman.

Like Kevinroc said, USM was heavily marketed on the marriage and that should not be downplayed.

[Mister Mets]

I feel like we're talking past each other here. I never said Amazing is underperforming or to rewrite the past 2 years of sales performance, I said it might be able to do better. There's a difference.

Sure. I'm just thinking about how to assess uncertainty.

In general, most things could be a bit more popular. But sometimes you have big hits, such that if you have the power to go back in time to tinker with it, you'd easily make things worse.

Marvel settled on a new direction roughly two and a half years ago. They could have gone with different creative teams and story mandates. But I don't think they'd want another roll at the dice, because this has been a decent outcome. My sense of it is that if they tried things over again, there's a 1 in ten chance it would be more successful, and a 1 in ten chance it would be as successful. Maybe there's a 4 in 10 chance that it would be successful, but not as big it is right now.

There are things that could've gone differently. Ms Marvel's death got some bad publicity. It may have made more sense to reveal what happened to MJ earlier, But it's also possible that the series would not have been as popular if they took the steps to fix that stuff. Perhaps by shuffling the order of stories around, they make Dark Web less satisfying.

It is consistently Marvel's best-selling ongoing title. Wells seems to be on time, and gets along with people. The artists selected for the title are excellent, which suggests faith from editorial.

Ultimate Spider-Man is doing awesome right now, but we don't really have a sense of where sales will settle.

[Kaitou D. Kid]

Sure. I'm just thinking about how to assess uncertainty.

"The demand for certainty is one which is natural to man, but is nevertheless an intellectual vice." -Bertrand Russell

We don't need certainty. We just need to assess beyond reasonable doubt.

It does seem beyond reasonable doubt at this point that Marvel is leaving money on the table with ASM by not having Peter and MJ together (at least in a long-term relationship if not married).

[wleakr]

"The demand for certainty is one which is natural to man, but is nevertheless an intellectual vice." -Bertrand Russell

We don't need certainty. We just need to assess beyond reasonable doubt.

It does seem beyond reasonable doubt at this point that Marvel is leaving money on the table with ASM by not having Peter and MJ together (at least in a long-term relationship if not married).

If Marvel is leaving money on the table, they are definitely collecting on it now via USM! Still seems like the current approach to ASM and USM is an efficient strategy for Marvel.