Johns was a big name before he took on Green Lantern, but Sinestro Crops War what what made him a superstar.
As for whether John or Kyle are more popular than Hal, I'm not sure what the answer is, but Kyle's solo is in the 90s sold as well as Hal's more recent solos that don't have Johns as the writer.
Sure, it was successful in the 90s, then during the early 2000s it dropped to around 25K. Johns' name wasn't what sold the book during the first few years, it was the character's return and the huge momentum from GL Rebirth. After Sinestro Corps War through Blackest Night and beyond, sure Johns' name helped it a lot, but he ran out of ideas and people got tired of it. The sales were starting to go down even before he left. I remember Johns' last issue that was hyped so much didn't crack the top 20. He had just ran its course on GL. Venditti took over a book that had already lost its luster and his subpar New 52 stories obviously didn't help it. Neither did constant crossovers that seemed to have the opposite effect on the GL line, rather than boosting its numbers.
Last edited by Johnny; 05-07-2017 at 08:15 PM.
Depends on who you talk to.
In comics it's Hal by a long shot. Since he has the head of DC on his side.
Outside it's John and Hal bouncing back and forth.
It's not so much who is popular it's can you show some damn respect to each fanbase.
Hal for the most part has been the stable one.
Guy to a point too.
Kyle has probably the most attempts to keep him actin in something. Be it Donna Troy, Darkstars, JLA, Omega Men or White Guardian.
John has always had some issue. Editors screwing up his book, plots to kill him off, viscous behavior by other fanbases (especially by folks who don't even read Green Lantern let alone any DC book). That why his fans QUIT. They are done with cameos, token black guy, magic black guy, plot device black guy and leader black guy who barks orders. That's black Wally, Cyborg & Duke's job now.
Hal fans can be mad all they like as that hurt sales but would you rather see the mess we saw with X-Men & Inhumans? This is a consequence of choices. Maybe if Wally & Tim fans did the same and walk away-Dc might get the hint.
Enough of the fan wars and begging-too many better books out there.
It's not that the GL franchise can't expand and sell-it's the fact folks want it to be Hal 24/7. It doesn't work that way.
Where would Batman franchise be if it was done the same way? No Harley, Tim, Damian, Nightwing, Babs, Cassandra, Stephanie, Batwoman, Jason, Batwing, Duke, Gotham kids, Catwoman or Gotham Central. All of them stuck in one book fighting for crumbs.
Except that's not what you said. This is what you said:
You were not only claiming that Hal is unpopular with fans as compared to John and Kyle, you were literally pointing it out as being a "fact". You were making a blanket statement about Hal's perceived lack of popularity, not about "respecting the fans".
Last edited by Johnny; 05-07-2017 at 08:44 PM.
Johnny, I do agree that there was character momentum in Green Lantern Rebirth, but it's success still attributes to Johns' past resume just like Flash Rebirth being a success. The successes of these books still attributes to high profile writers, though. When Steve Englehart took over Green Lantern and used John Stewart as the premier Green Lantern, the sales doubled, compared to when Hal Jordan was the main character in the book. Steve Englehart's GL book was actually the first book that Geoff Johns had bought. But surely, we'll agree it wasn't mainly because it was John Stewart's name, but it's rather acknowledged that Steve Englehart being the writer that took over the book. Why not acknowledge the same about Geoff Johns (and DC)? And Blackest Night wasn't just some event being written by a high-profile writer, it was a universal-wide event, which expanded in non-lantern titles. It was a huge marketing strategy to promote Hal's book and attract potential new lantern readers that was backed by DC. So it wasn't just a popular writer writing Blackest Night, but the fact that DC hugely invested in the GL franchise, which spread across in other mediums. Even Simon Baz and Jessica Cruz didn't get that kind of push, including Kyle Rayner. It wasn't solely due to the character's popularity. And take note that you didn't need to be a Hal Jordan fan or be fond of the character to like Geoff Johns writing on Green Lantern and invest into it. All GL fanbases invested in Johns' title.
As far as sales go, Johns' book was still number one when the New 52 started, but readers already made up their mind to stop reading when Geoff Johns made an announcement that he was going to depart from Green Lantern (although it's anecdotal). And Marvel was double shipping at the time when Geoff Johns was writing the GL title.
Last edited by Sodam Yat; 05-08-2017 at 03:00 PM.
Full sales rankings for April 2017 are out:
http://www.comichron.com/monthlycomi...7/2017-04.html
Batman #21 was the far and away leading title in sales. The lenticular version sold 130,216 copies and the regular sold 89,256. That's a total of 219,472!
Pull list: Action Comics, Aquaman, Batgirl, Batman, Detective Comics, Earth 2: Society, Flintstones, Future Quest, Green Arrow, Hal Jordan & Green Lantern Corp, Harley Quinn, Injustice: Gods Among Us, Justice League, Justice League of America, New Suicide Squad, Nightwing, Red Hood, Scooby Apocalypse, Superman, Teen Titans, The Flash, Titans, Wacky Raceland
A bat! That's it! It's an omen.. I'll shall become a bat!
Pre-CBR Reboot Join Date: 10-17-2010
Pre-CBR Reboot Posts: 4,362
THE CBR COMMUNITY STANDARDS & RULES ~ So... what's your excuse now?
Looked around at some numbers and I wonder, are DC finally getting some returns from CW shows in term of comics sales?
Flash is basically selling same numbers as new52 run did at its heyday, but twice a month and I don't see any reason in particular for that. While current creative team is better than previous, they aren't superstars either that can sell lots of comics on their name alone. Sure, Wally returned, but then he was shifted away to Titans and had, from what I know, no role in main Flash book so I doubt that there was sudden influx of Wally fans that started buying books about Barry. And Flash movie is nowhere to be seen so you can't say that its due to that either.
Green Arrow sells much less than Flash, but at the same time it is doing better numbers than it did before Rebirth (AND during start of new52) and is doing it twice a month with same writer who wrote last run before Rebirth started. Whats the reason for better sales?
Granted, trend is bucked by Supergirl doing rather bad numbers all things considered, but she just came to CW so maybe there hasn't been enough time yet to see any effect?
A bat! That's it! It's an omen.. I'll shall become a bat!
Pre-CBR Reboot Join Date: 10-17-2010
Pre-CBR Reboot Posts: 4,362
THE CBR COMMUNITY STANDARDS & RULES ~ So... what's your excuse now?
Different price, the lenticular-cover costs one dollar more + Comichron's policy is to leave Diamond's rankings intact on the monthly pages.
Diamond's practice is to merge all variants except for those with different cover prices.