So Marvel unleashed its “Ultimate” Universe in 2000/2001, starting with Ultimate Spider-Man and Ultimate X-Men, partially out of a need to have some “new reader friendly” material on the stands free of the deep continuity in the regular Marvel Universe. Also, a collapsed comics market and Marvel being on the verge of “going away” for good probably helped push along any desperate ideas to keep them afloat. Whatever the reason, the Ultimate books came out, giving fresh starts to their properties separate from the still-ongoing Marvel Universe proper…until they became just as convoluted as the mainline universe and purpose successfully defeated.
But it ran a long time, and made lots of money and had a strong readership, and “the sweet taste of success attracts many tongues,” as no one but me says, and DC was trying to figure out how to get some of that Ultimate scratch.
First they tried with their “All-Star” line in the mid-2000s, with All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder and All-Star Superman…both sold amazingly well, though one got a little more critical acclaim than the other. All-Star Superman was a mini and wrapped up after 12 issues, while the Batman title stopped mid-story with #10, and planned Batgirl and Wonder Woman titles for the line never appeared.
Then DC tried out the “Earth One” line of graphic novels, starting in 2009, again giving fresh starts to their major properties and hoping to catch a new bookstore audience with them. The Superman and Batman series for this imprint put out multiple volumes, but never really seemed to catch any traction. The Wonder Woman run of three books was generally well received, as was the Green Lantern run. But it looks like this effort was finally abandoned a few years ago (though a collection of the Wonder Woman books as part of DC’s Compact Line has done well for me!).
And then, finally, The Third Time’s the Charm, as they say, as just a couple years ago DC launched their Absolute line. Similar to the Ultimate Universe, the Absolute Universe gave fresh starts to their heavy hitters (Supes, Bats, and Wondy) in continuities separate from the mainstream DCU. Interestingly, the milieu spins out of one of DC’s Big Event titles, positing a reality centered around the Omega Energy of the seemingly fallen Darkseid. Sorry if that sounds a little inside-baseball for anyone coming onto this out of context, but the general idea is that this is not just a darker universe, but an existence where the heroes we know lack the advantages their regular counterparts have.
At any rate, this line (which quickly added a handful of new titles) is pretty much DC just printing money at this point. Absolute Batman is far and away the biggest hit. DC just keeps issuing reprint after reprint of the entire run of individual comics, and I keep putting them on my shelves, and they keep selling. They’re up to, like, a 12th printing on #1. This is almost unheard of for just a regular monthly title at DC, especially after the trade paperback collections started getting released.
And it’s not to speculators…it’s new readers, it’s teenagers, it’s adults who’d heard about this thing online somewhere. It’s the Holy Grail of what DC and Marvel have been looking for, A Title That Gets New Readers into Comic Shops Specifically for Their Thing.
The other Absolute titles also do well, if not at quite the extreme Absolute Batman does, but they’ve found their levels and move off the shelves.
Anyway, now that DC has found its Ultimate line, Marvel seems like it’s going to try to find its Absolute line, with this new Midnight publishing initiative they’re about to launch. I was going to say “I don’t know that this is directly a response to DC’s Absolute line,” but the headline of this article, “Marvel’s new Midnight universe makes DC’s Absolute comics look ‘pretty polite,’ says Spider-Man writer Phillip Kennedy Johnson,” seems to clear up any confusion.
The “Midnight” line is horror-centric, apparently, separate from the regular Marvel Universe, with darker versions of Marvel’s mainstays, which feels like a misread of the Absolute line, but, well, we’ll see what they do with it. The solicit for the first issue of Midnight: Fantastic Four #1 reads
“FIRST STEPS INTO DARKNESS! An obsessive scientist delves into the secrets of the universe perhaps best left unknown to humankind, leaving himself and three others warped in strange and horrifying ways. What horrible secrets lie in the new dimensions they have discovered? And can humanity survive the discovery? From the twisted minds of Benjamin Percy (WOLVERINE, PUNISHER) and Kev Walker (INFERNAL HULK, DOCTOR STRANGE) comes a tale of existential dread and secrets best kept…”
I can do without the “from the twisted minds of…” business, I mean c’mon, but I don’t know, Fantastic Four as a cosmic horror comic? Or even, dare I say, Lovecraftian? Yeah, I’d be all for that.
Just so we’re clear, I’m not criticizing anything they’re doing here. I obviously haven’t read any of these yet. They could be great! They have solid creative teams. But the question is, will these capture the same attention and sales as DC’s Absolute line?
This is something I had to ask myself when I was finalizing orders on the initial releases from this line. And while I tend to order conservatively on new titles, I did bump orders up quite a bit for these books. I think they will do very well, at least at first, as everyone tries to get in on the ground floor of what they think will be the Next Big Thing. And maybe they’ll be right, and it will be the Next Big Thing.
But I honestly think it will be at best a good selling new Marvel line to already established comic fans, and not the constantly-selling, new customer-attracting, phenomenon that Absolute has been. That niche is already filled, you see, and lightning striking again seems highly unlikely.
Again, just my feeling. I could be wrong, and maybe I’ll still be selling the 12th printing of Midnight: X-Men #1 off my shelves two years from now. And I’ll be cursing myself for not having ordered ten times the amount I did for the first printing of that issue.
We’ll all see soon enough how the Midnight line does. And whether I was on target with my orders. I’ve had strong interest from my regular clientele regarding these books, and I’ll be interested to see if there’s any demand beyond that.