Marvel comic books frequently find a spot in the Top 10 list of monthly sales, so it's not like they're going to go bust any time soon, but something people have been noticing in recent months is that they're not doing anywhere near as well as they used to. The launch of DC Rebirth has hurt them, while even the once much smaller Image Comics manages to regularly beat the Disney-owned company.
Bleeding Cool has been keeping track of Marvel's sales, and with DC Comics dominating another week with eight out of the ten best-selling comics, the site caught up with retailers from all over the US.
As you can see below, they're not happy with the way Marvel is handling their comics, especially as the endless new #1 issues and big events are clearly hurting their shops in terms of their overall sales.
Spider-Man Deadpool was our bestselling Marvel ongoing for a while, mostly outselling Civil War and other events, but the over-saturation of Deadpool has caused it to finally calm down, dropping off a lot these last two or three months.
DC Rebirth continues to sell to new fans, returning fans and casual fans while Marvel still isn’t bringing in any new customers with their Marvel Now books, and their long time customers seem to be enjoying DC a lot more these days. Let’s hope Marvel can turn things around in 2017 as all stores need the big two to be leaders, and while DC has stepped up to the plate, Marvel has some major issues to look over when it comes to pricing, content and who’s actually buying their books. The customers that actually purchase these books from stores has shrunk more than ever this last year and it’s going to take a miracle for Marvel to recover from this one.
We just closed out our best year of all time, best month, and our best sales week in history leading up to Christmas, but Marvel sales have never been this low in our store in the last 15 years. Things were a little worse for Marvel in themid 1990’s, but the rest of the publishers seem to be doing their part.
Marvel took two spots in our store’s top ten–one with Civil War II #8 (4th place) and the other with Star Wars #26 (9th place). Everything else was all DC, as usual. Marvel had two more titles in our store’s top twenty, with DC taking the other eight places there. Anyone who thought that Rebirth was going to be a New-52-esque flash in the pan will have to re-evaluate in light of continued reader excitement over these books.
That's hardly a glowing review from comic book store owners then, and you can find more comments from them by heading over to the site. The top ten list can also be found below, and as always, be sure to share your thoughts on this news in the usual place. Have you stopped reading Marvel's comics?
1. Dark Knight III: The Master Race #7
2. Civil War II #8
3. All Star Batman #5
4. Justice League Suicide Squad #2
5. Detective Comics #947
6. Star Wars #26
7. Flash #13
8. Wonder Woman #13
9. Titans #6
10. Harley’s Little Black Book #5