Keeping track of Post-Rebirth Superman sales

[BBally]

Just blame the fans and move on.


Ahhahhahahaha.

Huh? What?

[Matt Rat]

For all the praise it gets, PKJ's run is tanking Action and it's not getting any better. The Warworld saga didn't work. Get rid of him already.

[BBally]

For all the praise it gets, PKJ's run is tanking Action and it's not getting any better. The Warworld saga didn't work. Get rid of him already.

The Superman line was already tanking because of all the changes Bendis made to the status quo. If anything PKJ is one of the few Superman runs that's actually worth reading.

[BBally]

Bendis isn't stopping anyone from picking up what Waid's doing.

Because it's not a main Superman line title like Superman or Action Comics and it has Batman name's on the title and Batman still sells. Kind of obvious.

[Matt Rat]

Because it's not a main Superman line like Superman or Action Comics. Kind of obvious.

It's part of the main line, it may be set in the past, but the stories connect to what's going on in the present. It matters, and it has success. And it's also really damn good and doesn't take forever to finish.

[BBally]

Again are we going to ignore that Waid's series has Batman's name on the title? That helps sales since Batman still sells despite Tom King's run leaving a bad taste among readers. Also according to Comichron's April Sales, Action 1042 was DC's 16th top seller of that month.

[Matt Rat]

Again are we going to ignore that Waid's series has Batman's name on the title? That helps sales since Batman still sells despite Tom King's run leaving a bad taste among readers.

Batman's name isn't always a guarantee of strong sales either. Urban Legends and I Am Batman didn't sell well last month.

Any King Batman project still charts, regardless of the quality. Doesn't matter what fans think of his run (he really isn't that bad, although I don't personally like Strange Adventures or much of Bat/Cat)

All I've said is that PKJ has not been the saviour of the books post-Bendis and his approach to storytelling leaves a great deal to be desired. This is my opinion and my truth, I shouldn't be told to go away for expressing it. Not everyone thinks this run is the bee's knees. Noone is more hated than those who tell the truth.

The honest truth is I have went away. I voted with my wallet and supported other books, because PKJ isn't doing it for me. I rarely post in this section of the forum anymore other than occasionally World's Finest threads. I am a Rebirth/Post-Reborn fan and like Jon as a kid, I like the Superfamily but my ideal state for it isn't coming back anytime soon, I'm seeing the price paid for Bendis and want to see change when something clearly isn't working out, but you all are so tribal and overprotective of Johnson you intimidate and shout down anyone who thinks differently from you.

[Morgoth]

I guarantee, no writer, except maybe Hickman would be able to drastically raise Superman sales on higher level. It's not Johnson's fault, Superman is not a huge seller anymore.

Batman's name isn't always a guarantee of strong sales either. Urban Legends and I Am Batman didn't sell well last month.

Anthologies rarely sell very well. And I Am Batman is about Jace, not Bruce.

[Matt Rat]

I guarantee, no writer, except maybe Hickman would be able to drastically raise Superman sales on higher level. It's not Johnson's fault, Superman is not a huge seller anymore

So you are all satisfied with a mid/competent run with niche sales, than a powerhouse era with stronger sales. Gotcha.

[The Kid]

So you are all satisfied with a mid/competent run with niche sales, than a powerhouse era with stronger sales. Gotcha.

Comic sales are so miniscule now that yea I would much rather have a comic I really like with decent sales than one I hate with great sales. Why wouldn't I? I'm not a member of DC Comics Editorial, I'm a consumer

[Morgoth]

So you are all satisfied with a mid/competent run with niche sales, than a powerhouse era with stronger sales. Gotcha.

Well, it doesn't seem like there's a way to bring ''a powerhouse era with stronger sales'' back.
And I'm satisfied with a run I like, and that's it.

[Jeffrey2]

Superman sales have collapsed since Bendis was on board. PKJ is driving Action further into the ground - it came in at #112 for July. It had been hovering in the low 90s. Superman Space Age #1 came in at 96. That is unheard of for a debut Superman series. Barely in the top 100. The non-Superman titles are doing poorly as well - but for Bats. 52% of DC titles were out of the top 100 for July.

Zaslav will have to clean house at DC comics. As in a big cutback in titles and a reduction of force at DC comics. No one is reading most of the books so what is the point of publishing them?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aj6R2im0ZW4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mquw5WgH7kA

[Myskin]

The Superman line was already tanking because of all the changes Bendis made to the status quo.

I think that it is a bit ungenerous to blame solely Bendis for the current state of Superman. The character's sales (and in general, the number of all DC characters, including Batman) have been declining for decades at this point. I don't care for Bendis' run and obviously the general reception was not particularly enthusiastic, but the problem is that even the numbers of the Rebirth issues by Tomasi and Jurgens, which - if I remember it well - were in the top ten of best-selling comics pale in comparison to the average sales of the character 20 years ago.

Let's face it - the decline has been happening for too long to ignore it. "Strong sales" today are just mediocre sales in comparison to yesterday's numbers.

[BBally]

I think that it is a bit ungenerous to blame solely Bendis for the current state of Superman. The character's sales (and in general, the number of all DC characters, including Batman) have been declining for decades at this point. I don't care for Bendis' run and obviously the general reception was not particularly enthusiastic, but the problem is that even the numbers of the Rebirth issues by Tomasi and Jurgens, which - if I remember it well - were in the top ten of best-selling comics pale in comparison to the average sales of the character 20 years ago.

Let's face it - the decline has been happening for too long to ignore it. "Strong sales" today are just mediocre sales in comparison to yesterday's numbers.

Still, Superman line sales dropped drastically after Bendis did many unpopular changes to the status quo especially the removing the secret identity concept, in fact from what I remember his run's drop in sales was far quicker than when the New52 run started losing steam in sales especially after unpopular ideas such as the TRUTH story arc. If your run had a far bigger and quicker drop in sales than the drop that occurred during the downfall of the New52 run, that's a big problem. So I think it's fair to say Bendis did some real damage to the Superman line.



Moving away from that, anybody surprised how well Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow sold as a trade, considering it wasn't a big seller in the floppy market?

Update:

The trade release of Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow made the Top 20 Graphic Novel charts for both Units and Dollars

https://icv2.com/articles/markets/vi...vels-july-2022

First issue of Superman: Space Age only made the top 20 in the Dollars charts for floppies, though I see this doing better as a trade release down the line.

https://icv2.com/articles/news/view/...mics-july-2022

[Ascended]

Moving away from that, anybody surprised how well Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow sold as a trade, considering it wasn't a big seller in the floppy market?

I'm a little surprised that Kara did that well in trade, I didn't think she had that much of a following in the bookstore markets. But trades outperforming floppies isn't surprising, that's been happening more and more in recent years.

As for the floppy sales, the data we still get is questionable but as far as I know Action and SoKE are both hanging around the same sales range, which is around the same range the "S" books usually operate in (taking general market atrophy into account) and the Super books are still some of DC's best selling non-Bat titles. So all the bitching and moaning largely seems to be posters letting a personal bias influence how they're looking at the numbers....which aren't trustworthy anymore anyway.

Yeah, sales aren't what we'd like them to be, but that's a problem with DC across the board, it's not a problem with the Super books specifically.