We are looking at the very real possibility of DC overtaking Marvel in sales for a long period of time right now.
Early rumblings are that retailers are pissed about Marvel NOW! It's all of the same mistakes that Marvel made with ANAD, a serial debacle that's been crashing down the charts since the relaunch. No one is going to be lining up the door for ongoings for Solo, Foolkiller, and Slapstick, and the constant relaunches for titles with slight reconfiguration and the exact same creative teams is exciting nobody.
Marvel NOW has the same stench wafting about it that Convergence and DCYou had a year back. A few great low-key titles that are unfortunately borderline unsellable and a core line of titles that is so far adrift from what anybody wants that it might as well be virtually unrecognizable. Retailers aren't happy and they're likely going to respond the same way they responded to DCYou. Dramatically under-ordering the entire line.
Meanwhile, the only thing DC has to do is not fuck up their momentum. A pretty big "if" to say the least, but they're currently poised to launch JSA, JLA, and Shazam, and anything short of a horrendously botched launch, and those titles should be selling gangbusters.
Andrew Clark
This is basically WWE vs WCW all over again
John Gutierrez
>they're currently poised to launch JSA, JLA, and Shazam, and anything short of a horrendously botched launch, and those titles should be selling gangbusters. so they all have Batman then?
Connor Miller
I know I'm fucking happy.
What I've seen in the lcs I used to work at now that I'm back there is a return of readers who fucked off after flashpoint. The comics right before that were utter shit just because they were wrapping up half assed and what followed was not much good and what was good, much too short.
I'm back and I know many are too, to buying, not just reading waiting and hoping.
And JSA makes me really hard.
Caleb Nguyen
First issue of Green Arrow supposedly sold 100k, so Batman isn't exactly a necessity.
The iron has never been more hot to strike for relaunching JSA. There's no way that it won't end up being a top 10 title.
Christian Stewart
And you and most of those who left are idiots for leaving
Caleb Parker
It's kind of funny how Rebirth gracefully tricked guys like into thinking this was some big backpedal, when in reality every single ongoing and plotline in the Rebirth ongoings directly springs from a DCYou title.
Rebirth is still decidedly the New 52, they just got wise and fixed the hideous aesthetics and started rebuilding the relationships people cared about.
Christopher Gomez
As much as I enjoy the thought of Marvel getting their shit pushed in due to the crap they've been putting out recently, DC won't be able to maintain the lead until they can overcome Marvel's biggest asset - Star Wars. Thankfully, they just got the Harry Potter license and that takes off. Even if Marvel were to get back to "normal", having a successful Harry Potter line will narrow the gap considerably.
Justin Rogers
Yeah I stopped buying what I didn't like and only returned when it pleased me again.
Maybe I should be smart and keep buying the the titles they didn't cancel with my fingers crossed, hoping the title will be all I hope. You know, since they cancelled the ones I did buy.
What I found that was good in the nu52 could have been done without Flashpoint with the possible exception of Morisson Supes, and his backstory could have gotten retconned yet again without it too.
Like JSA?
Asher Hill
good guys do win sometimes
Levi Powell
This always bugged me for stupid reasons. If you take away non-comic-originated comic books like Star Wars, Harry Potter, Disney comics and Scooby-Doo, how do the two fair?
John Phillips
They didn't get the Harry Potter license dude, that was a fake post.
Anyway, Star Wars books are slipping down the charts pretty considerably right now. They're still good midlist performers, but not like the huge sales juggernaut they were at launch.
Elijah Sanchez
There are no Harry Potter comics. And for DC licensed comics like Scooby Doo and others don't really sell as much as Star Wars. Star Wars is a fucking beast when it comes to Marvel and has been since the initial run way back in the day.
Nathan Nelson
They're bringing back fan favorites into the New 52 universe without having to reboot everybody's history, so yeah.
It's DC's Zero Hero for the New 52 basically.
Ayden Cox
we are at war with marvel
We have always been at war with Marvel
Christopher Reyes
>DC won't be able to maintain the lead until they can overcome Marvel's biggest asset - Star Wars.
Unless Disney decides to make call backs on "legacy" titles. Star Wars will just suffer the same shit that Marvel is currently doing with their own in house titles.
Joshua Bailey
I hope this is true. I can't believe Marvel's sells haven't tanked yet with their little status quo to piss everyone off. After OMD and more importantly watching Bendis take over, I joined the pirate world on their comics.
Cooper Bailey
It won't happen DCucks. Sorry :^)
Kayden Lee
>implying eternal company wars
Brody Roberts
>le batman is DC's golden goose meme.
Aaron Allen
Foolkiller's getting his own book?
Caleb Nelson
If all those #givethecharacterbacktomarvel is any indication, it's pretty true
Wyatt Sanders
I don't give a shit, I just want some good comics from both companies.
I'm fucking sick of all the company wars on Sup Forums. I don't remember it being this bad some time ago, it's like suddenly Sup Forums invaded this board.
Wyatt Edwards
Foolkiller, Slapstick and Solo.
Kayden Lopez
DCucks think they gonna win so they're doing maximum shitposting :^)
Adrian Anderson
>No one is going to be lining up the door for ongoings for Solo
>Solo ongoing
what
Jaxson Myers
I wouldn't count on them even coming close.
26% to 44% is a much steeper climb than you think; it's not about how the headliners sell - though it might be slightly easier since this year is significantly down on unit sales anyway - it's about how the books lower down the ranking are doing.
If you're getting 100k sales on your flagship title and the five others that link into the story that's great, even if you sustain it; it means you're making more money per title, which means (unless you fucked up your contracts) you're paying basically the same for production as when they were making 30k sales each.
But it's only great if the other 46 books in your lineup each month don't see a drop in their sales - if, in effect, you're creeping business from other producers in a closed market with a finite dollar spend and minimal new readers each month, which is what comic books appear to have been for a couple of decades at least. Every title that was doing 30k and is now only doing 20k hurts you, because the cost of producing it just went up by 30%. Every title that drops below financial viability requires a relaunch (or your line to shrink, which means layoffs), which costs money; true, if you concentrated your sales into fewer stronger-selling books (and they didn't experience sudden audience collapse down the line) you'd be doing better overall because of lower costs all around, but you wouldn't be overtaking the competition, just rationalizing output.
Put another way: in May DC sold 1.67m comic books to retailers (some of which will still be unsold, at those retailers, because of how the market functions). Assuming June matched May's sales, DC would need to sell another 1.1m comics just to match Marvel's sales - an unprecedented and likely unsustainable 1-month change.
As for a fall in Marvel sales - they'd need to lose 550,000 and DC gain the equivalent amount just to hit even. Again, this is probably not happening. It's still too steep a rise for DC.
Ayden Morales
When did :^) become a thing?
Isaac Evans
Considering that's the best period for wrestling, that's good. Competition is good for the consumer (you). It means companies put out the best product they can to attract customers instead of putting something out and telling you to like it, which is what Marvel is doing right now.
Parker Moore
>If you're getting 100k sales on your flagship title and the five others that link into the story that's great
Batman #1 alone sold 300k my dude.
Jace Butler
>it's like suddenly Sup Forums invaded this board. >suddenly Sup Forums has been invading since 08. They just got help from their buddies Sup Forums and Sup Forums now.
Gavin Reyes
DCYou had a large number of quality titles wrapped up in fringe characters. New-52 had a lot of quality material as well. What's wrong with keeping stuff that worked and tossing out stuff that didn't? It's the best of both worlds approach, and that's good.
Ethan Collins
I'm not denying that it was a good. I'm just worried that one of the companies will go down in spectacular flames like WCW. As much as I hate Marvel fanbase, I won't wish that kind of flames on any company/
Noah Peterson
>They didn't get the Harry Potter license dude, that was a fake post. Bah! It would have been better for the industry if DC did get the license.
Adrian Thompson
Kek no, regardless of who comes out on top in the coming months and years neither company is going to go under in any circumstance.
Ryan Bailey
Hopefully, but we thought the same with WCW and WWF and look how fast that shit went down.
William Perry
What I find funny is that this board is completely oblivious to the fact that Marvel historically has always sold better than DC. It's not a Star Wars thing. Marvel is just more well known and popular with fucking casuals. DC is in the middle of a relaunch, they'll sell more for a while, then they'll return to the same old numbers with shitty characters such as Deadpool selling more than motherfucking Superman.
Bentley Flores
Marvel deserves to get shit on for pandering so hard to people who don't read comics honestly. I was a fan of a few of their diversity pushes (when the characters were actually solid like Miles, Kamala, and Sam but the desperate "look at me!" act they're always doing with every aspect of their business is getting old as fuck. Plus keeping up with the constant relaunches is fucking exhausting, let a title get past thirty issues for fuck's sake.
Jose Rogers
Keep in mind that even at the worst point in the past year, where Marvel led in the mid-40% and DC in the mid-20%, DC was more profitable than where they were pre-Flashpoint. The market largely expanded a bit with Star Wars comics. No matter who's on top, both companies are profitable, it's just the degree of profitability. Nobody's going anywhere.
Juan Turner
Marvel's new Black Hero is named Solo
Eli Ortiz
>Marvel NOW has the same stench wafting about it that Convergence and DCYou had a year back. >DCYou Stop this meme. DC had the balls to experiment with new books. You can't fault them for that. There are always some stinkers here and there but that's the name of the game.
Anthony Gonzalez
Not really. I'm sure they could win a few months, like when the New 52 happened. But I can't see them sustaining it. Not when Marvel still has a trump card to play; the same one DC is playing now.
Return things to the way they use to be. Tony Stark is Iron Man, Thor gets his hammer back, Banner becomes Hulk, Steve isn't Hydra and is the only Captain America, the FF return, etc. That's all it will take. Just like New Coke and Classic Coke.
Thomas Taylor
So, not James Bourne? Solo is popular enough to be a legacy? Did I miss something here?
Lucas Mitchell
That's a dumb name
Gavin Walker
>I don't remember it being this bad some time ago, it's like suddenly Sup Forums invaded this board. Blame the movies. They brought Sup Forums and all their memes here.
But also blame Marvel for being unreadable. Honestly though, how can you not be upset at the shit they've been forcing for the past 5 years?
Jaxon Cooper
and you're racist.
Leo Perry
I've accepted that
Oliver Jenkins
I don't know, it's the same old Solo on the promo art. Maybe he's thinking of a different guy?
Nicholas Rivera
DCWO
FOR LIFE FOR LIFE
Christian Martin
>how can you not be upset at the shit they've been forcing for the past 5 years
Because there have been a lot of books I've enjoyed in that time frame and I tend to ignore books I don't think will be/are enjoyable
Parker Powell
Somebody wasn't here in 2011/2012 DC/new 52 was getting shat on so badly, it was like Sup Forums looked forward to the next editorial fuck up and announcement that a writer was leaving a book.
Oliver Anderson
Fuck off indiecuck
You wish you had this competition
Chase Myers
forgot pic
Asher Miller
Well, Sup Forums and human nature in general look forward to the next big fuck-up so we can enjoy some schadenfreude.
Easton Clark
>We are looking at the very real possibility of DC overtaking Marvel in sales for a long period of time right now.
Bwahahahahahah.
Joseph Brown
Man, I really don't want Luna involved in this bullshit event
Jacob Sanchez
I feel the same way user
Zachary Morales
>Steve isn't Hydra Already addressed in the second issue of his ongoing It was "totally not mind control" made by that cosmic-cube-become-little-girl from Avengers Standoff, and since they already revealed it it's implausible that they will keep it going much longer
Josiah Edwards
I don't even understand why they would bring in a character from a in my opinion fun all-ages book. This event seems like it's way too heavy for the audience they're trying to sell the character to.
Dylan Anderson
Shhhh, ITT we're pretending we've read comics for longer than a year.
Levi Rivera
Marvel deserves to get crushed.
Carson Rodriguez
I miss when marvel were good guys
Jace Barnes
>not wanting good comic from both companies that sell well
This is all any comic fan should ask for. I'm tired of books I like getting cancelled.
Dominic Kelly
I kind of wish I had been around for that.
Jace Myers
The reality is that her book is probably selling bad and tying it into an event is a great way to get a low-selling book a sales boost.
Jayden Gomez
Getting utterly crushed is the only way to get marvel printing quality comics again sadly
Charles Wright
Not from DCyou.
Juan Rogers
Except unlike the previous relaunch from dc there has been near universal praise
And we are already observing the changes in editorial direction before our very eyes
Jace Powell
New 52 was GARBAGE.
Jeremiah Lopez
Man why do the books I like always do so badly?
Chase Price
Never gonna happen that quick The amount of readers lost because of diversity is far more then those gained.
But it will be nothing compared to readers lost if they suddenly get rid of the diversity.
Also rebirth is pretty much the first time a comics company has admitted they fucked up in years I would be very surprised if that happened twice in one year
Josiah Torres
There were a few good books. Some of them dragged on a little too long with certain plots though. Looking at you Animal Man
Justin Robinson
Last time I checked DC didn't have Star Wars on their side, so no, that's not happening sadly.
Logan Wood
>We are looking at the very real possibility of DC overtaking Marvel in sales for a long period of time right now.
Nolan Bell
You've sunk so low.
James Williams
But i like DC now so when they do things I like then that means we win for forever right?
Anyway we're talking about a place who still thinks Marvel was only destroying DC during DCYou because of Star Wars and not because DC was selling worse than they have in the last 3-4 years.
Connor Ross
s-surely Jurgens writing Action Comics will be enough!
Joseph Lewis
>and the constant relaunches for titles with slight reconfiguration It's not slight. Writers are basically asked yearly to interrupt all their run up until that point and realign the whole thing with some new NEVER BEFORE SEEN! or shocking premise they have to come up with. And that's while their runs also get interrupted by events. Really, Writing anything meaningful for Marvel at this point looks utterly fucking impossible.
Andrew Nelson
Sup Forums is the official home of the delusional DC fanboy, it is well known.
Kevin Myers
Even Harley Quinn and Batman in every title wouldn't be enough.
Dylan Powell
This.
It's possible that DC's superhero books will outsell Marvel's, but Star Wars is the biggest franchise in comics right now. That'll make the difference overall.
Xavier Long
What characters who debuted with solos in the DCYou are we assuming are going into limbo? I mean, Midnighter is getting a mini-series soon with Apollo, for example. Most of the people who had solos are sticking around like Black Canary, Starfire, Damian, etc.
Cameron Parker
The delusion here is that people think Marvel is currently doing well.
ANAD has been a complete sales disaster. The only reason you don't here about it quite as much is because DCYou was an even bigger one. The difference right now is that DC went back to the drawing board and brought out a relaunch that's both re-energized retailers and fans whereas Marvel is doing the exact same thing that fucked them in the first place.
Grayson Gray
Possible but unlikely. Apologizing for the Nu52 was a good start, but not even close to enough to propel them into #1. Sometimes, there just isn't enough Batman.
Grayson Hill
Will be fun to see what your rationale for DC gaining no ground a year from now will be.
Ian Williams
>a #1 sells a lot Wow it's almost like you found out why companies relaunch a shit-ton
John Jones
In a better world Marvel writers would realize "I'm going to get 3 issues before a tie-in and 12 issues in total if I'm lucky so I'd better pack each issue full of content" but that's hard, it means writing a script and then revising it repeatedly, and maybe even getting it to the artist quickly enough to collaborate as opposed to "here it is, draw it".
Mason Allen
To be fair, until trinity wars new 52 was shit
Kayden Wilson
>always sold better I think they only overtook them at the tail end of the eighties and then dipped a little when they went bankrupt.
Julian Gomez
>The delusion here is that people think Marvel is currently doing well.
This I want quality comics from both companies and the indies, but Marvel seems run by complete idiots that do PC race/sex swap shit hoping to woo the tumblr crowd.
Brandon Jones
When DC relaunches with a bunch #1's it's fine, it's "re-energizing". When Marvel does it it's a gimmick.
Sup Forums will never learn.
Brayden Wilson
I second this I just want some good cape comics again
Cooper Turner
DC has relaunched once in 5 years.
Marvel has relaunched 6 times in 5 years. The post Secret War status quo literally lasted 6 months before they relaunched again.
If you can't tell the difference, well...
Alexander Baker
To be fair new 52, DCYou and rebirth are the only times they've done a big relaunch like that If they make a point to do it every year like Alonso is saying then I'm done with them too
Connor Gomez
This, there are many more Batman #1's in our future, and all of them will sell very, very well. ; They actual quality of the books would make 0 fucking difference.
Ian Wilson
No one said otherwise.
But the fact remains that Rebirth made DC less shit and sales reflect that.
Parker Kelly
>Marvel has relaunched 6 times in 5 years
Wait I thought it was only 3? I suppose 2011 was 5 years ago now Man, I feel old
Either way that's too many
Alexander Barnes
Have I really?
Carson Gomez
DCYou and new 52 must have been pretty shit if mediocrity across the line is a good thing.
Nolan Garcia
>The post Secret War status quo literally lasted 6 months before they relaunched again.
The status quo has remained the same for a long time, they only relaunch the comics themselves.