There has been a lot of talk about Marvel losing sales to DC. Marvel has been doing a variety of things with their comic line that have caused controversy recently. Fans of either side of these issues have been very passionate Rather than debate we decided to sort out the facts of what is happening and look at sales data. The data used was from Chomiccron.com which houses comic sales data of all the Diamond Distributor retailers going back for many years. We then tasked the Toylab data team aka The Black Octopus team with analyzing the data.
We wanted Facts and.... we got them!
What is the Black Octopus Team
Toylab has built up a group of our bloggers who happen to be data and marketing analyst wizards. They routinely go out into the market place and analyze data to find trends. If you find the Black Octopus team finding interesting or want to join the team you can subscribe to their newsletter on the bottom of the page.
The Top 20 Comics Sales Study:
The Black Octopus Team analyzed November Sales on a unit sales basis. The team decided to focus on the Top 20 sold books as these tend to be the biggest indicator of sales for each company. These are the 20 books that comic community is focusing on in a given month. The Black Octopus team found that Marvel had lost significant market share in this group over the past 5 years.
While it is hard to say that a trend is forming the team did conclude that 2016 marked a low point for Marvel over the 5 year period of analyzed data. While Marvel is still selling well it clearly is not dominating the market place as it has done in years past. In every metric tested DC has risen in to the leading position. This is significant because Marvel had led all categories tested in the previous years and typically by a wide margin.
2016 Ugly Marvel Milestones
Marvel Milestones in the 2016 period were all negative.
- Lowest Sales - Over the period analyzed 2016 marked Marvel's lowest unit sales.
- Lowest Market Share Position -This was the first November of the 5 period where Marvel had lower market share of the top 20 than DC.
- Lowest # of Top 20 Titles - The number of Marvel titles in the top 20 hit a low point of 8. The previous low point was 2013 at 9. In 2015, Marvel had 17 Top 20 tiles meaning that the year over year drop in this category was 9 titles.
2016 Beautiful DC Milestones
DC Milestones in the 2016 period were all positive.
- Highest Sales - Over period analyzed 2016 marked highest unit sales by DC.
- Highest Market Share Position - First November over period where DC had higher market share than Marvel.
- Highest number of Top 20 Titles - DC reached a peak of 10 Top 20 Titles over the period analyzed
Note: Overall units sold were on the low side but not too much below average indicating that DC is picking up at least part of the sales that Marvel is losing. There does appear to be a significant decline in sales from 2015 showing that some sales are being lost from the comic industry as whole.
Percentage of units sold in the top 20 by Marvel vs DC.
Marvel has lost significant market share of the top 20 books sold in 2016.
Marvel held a major lead in this category through the 5 year period right up until 2016. Marvel's biggest lead was in 2015 which coincided with Secret Wars and major Star Wars books that helped the company completely dominate the top 20. In 2016, DC greatly climbed and Marvel shrunk to its lowest point.
Unit Sales:
DC hit a high of 867k units sold in the Top 20 titles while as Marvel hit a low of 712k units sold. 2016 marked the highest point for DC and lowest point for Marvel. Marvel had over a million in sales in the top 20 for 3 of the 5 years analyzed. DC has by far its highest sales in 2016 but did not crack the 1 million mark in any of the 5 years analyzed.
Number of Titles in Top 20:
Marvel reached a dramatic peak in having 17 of the top 20 comics in Nov of 2015. In Nov 2016 the company's fortunes have dramatically inversesd with its lowest showing in the period analyzed of 8.
DC had been sliding downward on this scale while hitting a low in 2015. This trend was reversed in 2016 with the company's highest showing of 10 titles in the Top 20.
Why has Marvel lost market share?
There have been a few reasons cited for the loss of market share and they include:
1) The Inhumans Agenda - There has been a major pushing out characters that Marvel does not own film rights to. This includes the Fantastic Four, and the X-Men some of the biggest flagships Marvel has traditionally had.
2) Diversity Agenda - Replacement of major characters with other characters to increase diversity. To many this is a good thing or even necessary but combined with the Inhumans Agenda this has made it impossible to find stories with the classic Marvel characters.
3) Seasonal Event format- Marvel has begun rebooting its universe multiple times a year and even equating it to the seasons of a TV program. The seasonal format is meant to hype titles with each "season" theme but some fans say it leads to fatigue and feeling that stories are gimmiks. This has also made continuity a total mess to explain.
Many Marvel fans tell me they are enjoying series that are outside of the events like Black Panther.
4) DC Rebirth - DC rebooted its universe from the New 52 and into DC Rebirth. During Rebirth the company changed a number of items that had given its fans consternation, DC managed to keep some of the aspects from New 52 that had been popular, while merging it with some classic DC elements. These moves have generally been met with positive acclaim at both Comic Conventions and in stores. While Rebirth is effecting the numbers in this analysis it should also be noted that Rebirth began in May and its new #1s are not effecting the November numbers. In fact none of the DC titles featured a number #1 in Novemeber. Marvel though benefited from the release of #1s and 6 of its 8 titles were #1. Comic Fans tend to buy more #1 of a title than they do of other numbers and it should disturb Marvel that its poor showing would have likely been even poorer if it had not released so many #1 titles. Another disturbing feature of Marvel sales is that Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows, Unworthy Thor, IVX and Civil War II are not ongoing titles. Also the current Amazing Spider-Man event the Clone Conspiracy was able to crack the top 20 when normally Spider-Man event sales are in the top 10. DC numbers from the past 2 months not analyzed were even more dominating than the November numbers.
Which of these did it?
We do not have any empirical evidence of which of these reasons are driving sales lower for Marvel but it seems likely that all of these in conjunction are weighing down sales. Generally, Marvel feels complicated, and unstable it is hard to invest in storyline and characters when they are going to disappear completely in a couple of months. All the items above have increased this instability.
The drive to increase diversity at Marvel has often been cited as a positive reason for previous years sales growth. However, the company has hit an inflection point where it no longer has any of the traditional characters left. This has left many longtime fans of the company feeling disillusioned. It has also made it harder for new fans to walk in and buy the book they want. Numerous retailers have complained that children are coming to stores hoping to buy a book of their favorite hero and are not finding them on the shelf.
To illustrate how far Marvel has gone in changing characters consider that right now in Marvel:
- Thor - Is not Thor
- Iron Man - Is not Tony Stark
- Hulk - Is not Bruce Banner
- Spider-Man - Is Peter Parker in some titles but not all
- Captain America - Is not Steve Rogers
- Vision - Is not the Vision
- Wolverine - Is not Logan
- Fantastic Four - Are Dead or something who knows anymore
- Ghost Rider- Is not Johnny Blaze
- X-Men - Are a confusing mess
- Hawkeye - Is not Clint Barton
Anyone of things alone is not a problem but consider when all of these are done at once. Its chaos.
If a person came to the comic book store hoping to buy a comic about the heroes they see in film or from cartoons they would find themselves completely and utterly lost. While doing some of these changes can be good, doing it all once has made Marvel books unrecognizable. The whole sale change feels forced and agenda driven. Even fans that were for increasing diversity have begun to buy DC comics in the hopes of finding more stability.
I do not take this data to mean that Marvel should give up on stories with diverse characters.
Marvel has successfully done numerous books recently with diverse characters that include Black Panther's phenomenal series a Nation Under Our Feet, and also Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur. These series have sold well and have also earned the company critical acclaim. One thing to note though is that these series are not replacements of original characters.
The company has also had great success with Kamala Khan and her mantle of Ms Marvel. While Kamala did replace Carol Danvers, Carol herself moved on to a different mantle of Captain Marvel. This has not been the case when other characters are replaced. In some cases the replacements have rendered the old characters dead, missing, old, evil or otherwise unrecognizable.
While the company should be commended for increasing the diversity of its characters in order to maintain sales I think they will need to find a way to achieve better balance. Getting rid of all the classic characters does not seem feasible over the long-term status quo. Marvel needs to find a sense of balance.
One thing Marvel really needs to think about is where should a new reader start. The continuity escapades of a character like Steve Rogers are a complete and total mess. I could explain 40 years of Captain America history better than I could explain his last 5. Moreover, Marvel's .1s that are supposedly been designed for new readers are not good at explaining anything. They are seen by Marvel fans as cash grabs, because they are.
There is a bright spot on the horizon for Marvel is that in January they will be launching a new event called Monsters Unleashed that really looks exciting and may help them revive themselves. It should worry Marvel some though that there are no plans for any of the major pillar characters to star in the series.
Data:
Here are the Top 20s going back through 2012:
You can find this data at: http://www.comichron.com/monthlycomicssales.html
| 2016 | |||||
| Comic-book Title | Issue | Price | Publisher | Est. sales | |
| 1 | Batman | 10 | $2.99 | DC | 120,901 |
| 2 | Batman | 11 | $2.99 | DC | 116,690 |
| 3 | Civil War II | 7 | $4.99 | Marvel | 116,447 |
| 4 | All Star Batman | 4 | $4.99 | DC | 99,064 |
| 5 | Invincible Iron Man | 1 | $3.99 | Marvel | 97,713 |
| 6 | Amazing Spider-Man Renew Your Vows | 1 | $4.99 | Marvel | 96,111 |
| 7 | Batman Annual | 1 | $4.99 | DC | 91,033 |
| 8 | Venom | 1 | $3.99 | Marvel | 90,138 |
| 9 | Walking Dead | 160 | $2.99 | Image | 88,367 |
| 10 | IVX | 0 | $4.99 | Marvel | 84,181 |
| 11 | Avengers | 1 | $4.99 | Marvel | 81,885 |
| 12 | Justice League | 8 | $2.99 | DC | 80,696 |
| 13 | Justice League | 9 | $2.99 | DC | 77,905 |
| 14 | Batman TMNT Adventures | 1* | $3.99 | IDW | 75,974 |
| 15 | Star Wars | 25 | $4.99 | Marvel | 75,234 |
| 16 | Detective Comics | 944 | $2.99 | DC | 71,923 |
| 17 | Flash | 10 | $2.99 | DC | 70,681 |
| 18 | Unworthy Thor | 1 | $3.99 | Marvel | 70,424 |
| 19 | Detective Comics | 945 | $2.99 | DC | 69,942 |
| 20 | Flash | 11 | $2.99 | DC | 68,304 |
| 2015 | |||||
| Comic-book Title | Issue | Price | Publisher | Est. sales | |
| 1 | Dark Knight III Master Race | 1 | $5.99 | DC | 440,234 |
| 2 | Star Wars Vader Down | 1 | $4.99 | Marvel | 384,969 |
| 3 | Deadpool | 1 | $4.99 | Marvel | 180,565 |
| 4 | Secret Wars | 7 | $3.99 | Marvel | 177,019 |
| 5 | Extraordinary X-Men | 1 | $4.99 | Marvel | 133,716 |
| 6 | All New All Different Avengers | 1 | $4.99 | Marvel | 128,570 |
| 7 | Star Wars | 11 | $3.99 | Marvel | 126,780 |
| 8 | Uncanny X-Men | 600 | $5.99 | Marvel | 126,447 |
| 9 | Star Wars | 12 | $3.99 | Marvel | 123,133 |
| 10 | All New Wolverine | 1 | $4.99 | Marvel | 119,786 |
| 11 | Darth Vader | 13 | $3.99 | Marvel | 113,448 |
| 12 | Mighty Thor | 1 | $4.99 | Marvel | 112,053 |
| 13 | Batman | 46 | $3.99 | DC | 106,989 |
| 14 | Amazing Spider-Man | 3 | $3.99 | Marvel | 93,848 |
| 15 | Deadpool | 2 | $3.99 | Marvel | 92,008 |
| 16 | Darth Vader | 12 | $3.99 | Marvel | 90,077 |
| 17 | Batman Europa | 1 | $4.99 | DC | 80,721 |
| 18 | Ms. Marvel | 1 | $4.99 | Marvel | 79,222 |
| 19 | Carnage | 1 | $3.99 | Marvel | 69,773 |
| 20 | All New Hawkeye | 1 | $3.99 | Marvel | 68,933 |
| 2014 | |||||
| Comic-book Title | Issue | Price | Publisher | Est. sales | |
| 1 | Amazing Spider-Man | 9 | $4.99 | Marvel | 135,280 |
| 2 | All New Captain America | 1 | $3.99 | Marvel | 120,500 |
| 3 | Batman | 36 | $3.99 | DC | 115,183 |
| 4 | Amazing Spider-Man | 10 | $3.99 | Marvel | 100,899 |
| 5 | Spider-Woman | 1 | $3.99 | Marvel | 93,723 |
| 6 | Thor | 2 | $3.99 | Marvel | 89,131 |
| 7 | Superior Iron Man | 1 | $3.99 | Marvel | 83,994 |
| 8 | Avengers and X-Men Axis | 4 | $3.99 | Marvel | 79,068 |
| 9 | Avengers and X-Men Axis | 5 | $3.99 | Marvel | 74,928 |
| 10 | Justice League | 36 | $3.99 | DC | 74,796 |
| 11 | Avengers and X-Men Axis | 6 | $3.99 | Marvel | 73,824 |
| 12 | Harley Quinn | 12 | $2.99 | DC | 71,245 |
| 13 | Spider-Verse | 1 | $4.99 | Marvel | 71,232 |
| 14 | Walking Dead | 134 | $2.99 | Image | 68,093 |
| 15 | Superman Unchained | 9 | $4.99 | DC | 65,478 |
| 16 | Guardians of Galaxy | 21 | $3.99 | Marvel | 62,387 |
| 17 | Captain America and Mighty Avengers | 1 | $3.99 | Marvel | 60,206 |
| 18 | Wonder Woman | 36 | $2.99 | DC | 58,965 |
| 19 | Wytches | 2* | $2.99 | Image | 58,345 |
| 20 | Detective Comics | 36 | $3.99 | DC | 58,171 |
| 2013 | |||||
| Comic-book Title | Issue | Price | Publisher | Est. sales | |
| 1 | Batman | 25 | $4.99 | DC | 125,602 |
| 2 | Harley Quinn | 0 | $2.99 | DC | 114,212 |
| 3 | Amazing X-Men | 1 | $3.99 | Marvel | 112,337 |
| 4 | Superman Unchained | 4 | $3.99 | DC | 110,611 |
| 5 | Forever Evil | 3 | $3.99 | DC | 105,755 |
| 6 | Infinity | 6 | $5.99 | Marvel | 100,292 |
| 7 | All New X-Men | 18 | $3.99 | Marvel | 82,365 |
| 8 | Superior Spider-Man | 22 | $3.99 | Marvel | 81,250 |
| 9 | Batman Superman | 5 | $3.99 | DC | 77,198 |
| 10 | Superior Spider-Man | 21 | $3.99 | Marvel | 74,940 |
| 11 | All New X-Men | 19 | $3.99 | Marvel | 71,044 |
| 12 | Justice League of America | 9 | $3.99 | DC | 71,008 |
| 13 | Walking Dead | 116 | $2.99 | Image | 69,913 |
| 14 | Walking Dead | 117 | $2.99 | Image | 68,818 |
| 15 | Avengers | 23 | $3.99 | Marvel | 66,501 |
| 16 | Uncanny X-Men | 14 | $3.99 | Marvel | 65,655 |
| 17 | Detective Comics | 25 | $3.99 | DC | 64,392 |
| 18 | Superior Spider-Man Annual | 1 | $4.99 | Marvel | 63,595 |
| 19 | Uncanny Avengers | 14 | $3.99 | Marvel | 60,750 |
| 20 | Superman Wonder Woman | 2 | $3.99 | DC | 60,185 |
| 2012 | |||||
| Comic-book Title | Issue | Price | Publisher | Est. sales | |
| 1 | All New X-Men | 1 | $3.99 | Marvel | 181,693 |
| 2 | Batman | 14 | $3.99 | DC | 159,729 |
| 3 | Captain America | 1 | $3.99 | Marvel | 123,667 |
| 4 | Deadpool | 1 | $2.99 | Marvel | 118,976 |
| 5 | Indestructible Hulk | 1 | $3.99 | Marvel | 118,200 |
| 6 | Iron Man | 1 | $3.99 | Marvel | 116,529 |
| 7 | Fantastic Four | 1 | $2.99 | Marvel | 114,532 |
| 8 | Uncanny Avengers | 2 | $3.99 | Marvel | 114,257 |
| 9 | Justice League | 14 | $3.99 | DC | 113,094 |
| 10 | Thor God of Thunder | 1 | $3.99 | Marvel | 110,443 |
| 11 | All New X-Men | 2 | $3.99 | Marvel | 96,436 |
| 12 | X-Men Legacy | 1 | $2.99 | Marvel | 87,081 |
| 13 | Amazing Spider-Man | 698 | $3.99 | Marvel | 81,342 |
| 14 | FF | 1 | $2.99 | Marvel | 80,701 |
| 15 | My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic | 1 | $3.99 | IDW | 80,128 |
| 16 | Green Lantern | 14 | $2.99 | DC | 78,499 |
| 17 | Batgirl | 14 | $2.99 | DC | 77,468 |
| 18 | Batman And Robin | 14 | $2.99 | DC | 75,543 |
| 19 | Detective Comics | 14 | $3.99 | DC | 74,560 |
| 20 | Iron Man | 2 | $3.99 | Marvel | 72,902 |
Marvel Store:
Don't go anywhere there is more SPIDER-MAN!
Marvel - News, Characters, Reviews, Movies, and Comics
