Overwhelming Success

DC made comic book history at Dr. No's today. This was the first week that we received a full assortment of New 52 titles (13 books, including Action Comics, Animal Man, Batgirl, Batwing, Detective, Green Arrow, Hawk & Dove, Justice League International, Men of War, OMAC, Static Shock, Stormwatch, and Swamp Thing). That's a mix of standard superhero books, former Vertigo books with an occult angle, former WildStorm books with an edgier tone, and more real-world themed titles (in this case, a contemporary war book with only the slightest superhero angle).

Here's the part that made history: by the end of the day, the least-selling of the DC books (Men of War, the contemporary war series) had sold better than the best-selling non-DC, including any of this week's major Marvel titles (X-Men, Wolverine, Punisher, New Avengers Annual, X-23, Moon Knight, and X-Factor). The best-selling Marvel at Dr. No's today could only take 14th place!

Those of you who know comics well understand why I say this is historic; for years, Marvel has dominated the sales charts. DC's best books would take key positions in the top ten, but the average books were relegated to positions lower on the sales charts. Today, a non-franchise-character DC war book beat Marvel's biggest franchises, X-Men and Avengers.

Congratulations to DC! This is the sort of moment that makes you realize we're in the middle of a real transition in the marketplace, and DC's gamble is paying off right now. And after having had a chance to read all 13, I think readers are going to like what they see and will be back for the second issues of most of these books as well.