Some Marvel sales, JLA covers, and general griping.
Well, perhaps it’s a bit early to judge, but for its first day of sales, Fallen Son: Wolverine (the first “death of Captain America” spinoff) just kinda sat there. I hardly moved any copies. It’s not as if we weren’t busy…we had plenty of customers come in, and we sold tons of comics, but perhaps nobody wants to read a series of one-shots featuring characters being mopey about a hero’s death that’ll be undone in short order anyway.
Ah, well, at least it has nice art by Leinil Yu inside. Maybe sales’ll pick up on it by the weekend. And I know I’ve said it before…but all those folks who rushed in to buy the Cap death issue? They’re not going to come back for this. They’ll be back eventually…in a few years, when it’s time to sell that death issue for the thousands of dollars it almost certainly will be worth.
Also from Marvel, the “Planet Hulk” storyline wraps up with this week’s issue, laying the groundwork for the forthcoming “World War Hulk” event, and giving Hulk plenty of reason to be pissed off at Earth’s heroes. I’m a longtime Hulk fan, and I love the premise of WWH (heroes try to get rid of Hulk, and not only does Hulk end up gaining experience in war strategy and leadership, but he also gets plenty of reason to really be mad), and I am looking forward to the event…but still, I gotta wonder, how’s Marvel going to screw this one up? They already throttled sales on later issues of “Planet Hulk” by not rushing out, for once, a trade paperback for the early issues, allowing readers to jump on and follow the story. And once WWH gets going…will it have shipping delays, like Civil War? Will it have heroes acting remarkably out of character, like Civil War? Will it sorta peter out in the end, like, oh, say, Civil War? I hope not.
Oh, and apparently WWH will involve the Sentry, a character Marvel keeps inflicting on us, even though I’m not convinced anyone actually likes him. Am I wrong? Let me know.
Here’s a little something about the new issue of Justice League of America…it has two covers, which fit together to form a larger image of the team. One cover prominently features Superman and Batman, the other Wonder Woman and Green Lantern. I have them racked side by side on the shelf, and, if given the choice, people tend to take the Supes/Bats cover. Also, it may also be as folks are perusing the shelves from left to right, they hit the Supes/Bats cover first, and that’s the one they grab. So, as I was pulling books for our store’s comic savers, they all got the WW/GL cover to redress the balance. ‘Course, that won’t stop them from swapping out for the other cover, but hey, at least I tried.
Something else: I screwed up on Buffy the Vampire Slayer #2, forgetting to bump our orders up after seeing sales on #1, thus causing us to run out right away. Now, when I placed our reorder on the first issue, effectively doubling our order, a while back, I may have been a little on the optimistic side, as the initial rush of sales ended up fading away right quick. They picked up slightly recently, and I think it’ll be a consistent back issue seller, at least while the series is running, so I’m not worried about having the extra stock. My reorder on #2, however, is slightly more realistic.
The other Whedon-written book this week, Runaways, will be the test on whether Whedon can sell comics to his fans that are 1) not based on one of his TV properties, and 2) not featuring Marvel superheroes that those folks would recognize from movies or TV shows. Given the large number of customers we had on Wednesday, and the number of copies of Runaways we didn’t sell that day, it doesn’t look good. But, again, it’s just one day, and maybe once word gets around that, hey, Whedon’s writing a new series, it’ll move. I managed to handsell a copy or two on the basis of Whedon’s name, so maybe those two factors I mentioned won’t be too much of a detriment.
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Geez, I’m a grump. Okay, one thing I did love this week: Marvel Zombies/Army of Darkness #2 had the greatest last page ever. Well, it made me laugh, anyway.
