Judging the New 52: March 2015

March 2015 marked, for all intents and purposes, the end of DC's New 52 initiative. The line-wide reboot commenced all the way back in September 2011 with the launch of 52 all-new monthly titles, and has continued over the past three-and-a-half years. In April and May DC is going through a massive cross-over storyline titled Convergence, and when regular service resumes in June there will be a whole new raft of new titles launched and the New 52 masthead is being abandoned (although the fictional universe is thankfully not being rebooted again).

Of the 52 monthly titles launched in September 2011, 11 of them have survived to continue in June. An additional 14 books that were launched subsequent to 2011 are continuing as well. In the meantime there are a total of 67 monthly books that started between September 2011 and late 2014 that didn't survive to the end of the initiative. As far as comic book publishing goes, that's not a bad hit rate: 92 books all told, with about 27 per cent making it through to the post-New 52 line-up.

Judging the New 52: February 2015

It's a weird time to be analysing DC's superhero titles, since we're only a few weeks away from DC's big move from New York to Los Angeles. To paper over delays in producing new books over that time the company is presenting a massive two-month event called Convergence. In addition to a weekly miniseries there's a raft of two-issue storylines bringing back and mashing together a lot of old characters and concepts from the 1980s through to the 2000s. I have to be honest it's not grabbing my attention and I'm unlikely to pick up many of these temporary books. I am interested to see how well they all sell.

Then in June we're getting a mini-relaunch for the whole line. New directions on many of the old books, new costumes for some key characters - which is what you do when you don't have a new direction, but want to make it look like you do - and 25 new monthly titles and miniseries. DC will also be dropping the "New 52" moniker, which is fair enough - you can't be new forever. I guess that means this is the second-to-last instalment of this particular column. Come June I'll have to call it something else.

Judging the New 52: January 2015

In January 2015, the American comic book industry was all about Star Wars. The first issue of Marvel's new ongoing Star Wars comic shifted close to a million copies via Diamond Distribution to the USA and Australia alone. Additional sales in the UK (which aren't counted in Diamond's figures) will easily push it over to make it the first million-selling American comic in years. Certainly it's the highest-selling single issue since Diamond started exclusive distribution in 1997.

All of this activity saw Marvel claim a pretty healthy market share of more than 40 per cent, but I think all of the attention on Star Wars is masking some pretty serious downward trends among DC's titles. Put simply, some of the main DC titles are really starting to slip with readers. Justice League dropped below 70,000 readers for the first time the New 52 launched. Similarly Aquaman dropped below the 30,000 unit mark, and Green Lantern below 40,000. Detective Comics dropped by 3,000 copies. That follows a similar drop in December, suggesting that despite the sterling work Manapul and Buccelatto are doing on that book the market simply isn't buying. Sales are still above 50,000 copies, so it's doubtful DC will be taking any drastic measures, but it must be of concern.

DC have a two-month crossover coming up in April and May, and are launching 24 new comics in June and setting up new creative teams on many of the continuing titles. Hopefully that will bring some readers back.

DC Comics: The New 24

In June DC Comics is undergoing a widely expected semi-relaunch of their superhero line. Everyone will likely remember DC's line-wide reboot of September 2011, the "New 52", and while there have been fairly regular launches of new monthly titles since then June represents the biggest change since then. The New 52 moniker is being dropped, and 24 new monthly books are premiering in one month. These will join 25 books that are continuing - some with new creative teams and some with the same writers and artists.

These new titles are following from the successful broadening of the Batman comic book range in recent months. Headlined by a re-imagining of Batgirl, a raft of books have tried out new directions and styles including Harry Potter-inspired boarding school hijinks in Gotham Academy, a crime saga in Catwoman, espionage in Grayson, and horror in Gotham After Midnight. This "Batgirling" of the DC Universe looks set to produce some really interesting books, and - it must be said - a few with "immediate cancellation" written all over them.

So with 24 new books at once, this is probably going to be a fairly long post. Let's take a deep breath and dive right in.

Judging the New 52: December 2014

December sales figures are in, with Batman once again the most popular comic book in America. Basically so long as neither DC nor Marvel run a major new issue one, or Loot Crate don't make an order through Diamond Distribution, then Batman winds up on top. Of course next month it will blown out of the water with Marvel's Star Wars #1 printing at least a million copies, but for now Batman is king. Overall DC managed to outsell Marvel by a small margin last month; it's usually the other way around.

If I was DC Comics, I'd be having a very close look at Batman to break down precisely why it's currently selling as well as it is. It's not just the title character, although that's obviously a big reason behind its success. Scott Snyder, Greg Capullo and Danny Miki have been kicking out one great storyline after another, with each one being treated like a Hollywood blockbuster: high concept, high stakes, and great marketable story titles. They also seem to have by-and-large been left alone to develop the stories they want to tell. There's not reason DC couldn't be doing this with another three or four lead titles.

This is particularly true of DC's properties that are currently finding success on television. Arrow continues to be a big hit, and The Flash and Constantine have both premiered to great success, yet when we look to their comic book counterparts we find Green Arrow shipping just 20,904 units to the direct market, The Flash just 37,026 and Constantine a shocking 15,574. All three should be selling above 50,000 copies a month with the TV series on the air.

With Convergence giving DC a two-month break to prepare and release a whole slew of new titles and, I suspect, numerous relaunches, this is the perfect time for the company to wipe a few slates clean, sign up a few key creative teams, and give some of these books the marketing push they deserve.

Judging the New 52: November 2014

At the same time that sales figures for November 2014 were announced, DC Comics confirmed a whole raft of cancellations in March 2015. Prepare to say goodbye to Aquaman and the Others, Infinity Man and the Forever People, Klarion, Secret Origins, Star Spangled War Stories, Trinity of Sin, Worlds' Finest, Arkham Manor, Batwoman, Green Lantern Corps, Green Lantern: New Guardians, Red Lanterns and Swamp Thing. That's thirteen cancellations in one hit, suggesting that once DC's two-month Convergence event is over we're going to see a hell of a lot of issue ones come June 2015. (I told you DC would cancel the Lantern spin-offs in 2015.)

The cancellation of Arkham Manor is particularly odd, given that its first issue only came out in October. Its second issue, released in November, saw a 33% drop to 30,907 units - that's actually really respectable, and suggests a book that could run for at least 12-18 issues. Instead it's going to close at just six. It makes me wonder if it was intended as a six-part miniseries all along, but was simply promoted as an ongoing in order to boost its sales (miniseries do not sell well in this day and age). Either that or writer Gerry Duggan's exclusive contract with Marvel doesn't include exceptions for Arkham.

Judging the New 52: October 2014

DC Comics launched five new monthly titles in October, as well as soft relaunches of two others - Batgirl and Catwoman. Altogether it marked the biggest push of new titles they've done in a long time, all of them promoted with a lot of in-house print advertisements and Internet hype in all the standard comic book websites. How did they go?

• Arkham Manor: I can't quite get my head around this one, which is all about a repossessed Wayne Manor being adapted to use as the new Arkham Asylum (since the original building just collapsed over in Batman Eternal). It's not a concept I'd have thought had much appeal, but 35,922 readers disagreed with me. Talon launched somewhere similar in September 2012, and ran for 17 issues.
• Gotham Academy: This immensely cute all-ages book is basically Hogwarts School adapted into the Batman universe. It launched at 43,338 units; other books that launched around this number ran for about a year before burning out. Hopefully this one will last longer - it deserves to.
• Klarion: Dead on arrival, with just 20,870 units shipped. Only one other book (Star-Spangled War Stories) launched with less. It was a weirdly unfocused, difficult first issue too, so I'd expect a pretty harsh drop in November to about 15,000 units or less. This one will run the length of a trade paperback and quietly die.
• Lobo: This is the new 'sexy' Lobo, and launched with 39,047 units. That suggests about a one-year run, much like Gotham Academy.
• Trinity of Sin: Another book that's dead on arrival. This combined the two cancelled titles Phantom Stranger and Pandora into one, and sold 22,683 units - roughly what those two books sold together back in August. I give it six months, presumably to tie up their storylines, and then it's done.

Judging the New 52: August 2014

With August we hit the end of the third year of DC's New 52 initiative. One wonders how long they're going to keep referring to it as "new". Or indeed "52", given they haven't been regularly publishing 52 monthlies for a while now. The big launch of the month was Grant Morrison's parallel universe maxi-series Multiversity, which launched with a very solid 90,551 units. At US$4.99 an issue it was far and away DC's highest-earning comic for the month. Last month there were four launches: Grayson, Star-Spangled War Stories, Teen Titans and New Suicide Squad. How did each book fare in its second month?

Star-Spangled War Stories is officially the New 52's least successful monthly book ever. In July its debut issue only sold 18,762 copies. In August it only sold 11,724, down almost 38% and beating previous worst-selling second issue Green Team: Teen Trillionaires by 2,600 copies. Discounting the original September 2011 launch, which arguably had unrealistically inflated first issue sales, the average second issue drop for a New 52 monthly is 28% - so not only did this book launch poorly it then promptly crashed ever harder.

Grayson #2 had a 30% drop with its second issue, down to 56,483 copies. That's actually pretty reasonable for what is essentially a relaunched Nightwing. It's still 29% above the last issue of Nightwing from May. The relaunched Teen Titans only dropped by 22% (40,687 copies), a softer than average fall that suggests this new iteration might have some legs to it. New Suicide Squad dropped by the same proportion, to 38,477 copies. Three reasonable launches, and one absolute disaster: it could be worse.

Judging the New 52: July 2014

July saw DC Comics debut a couple of new monthlies. The one that leaps out immediately is Star-Spangled War Stories by Palmiotti and Gray, which with just 18,762 copies sold makes it the lowest-selling debut of a DC ongoing since the New 52 started. The question now is whether DC will kill it in the usual eight issues, or if they'll cut their losses and end it at four. To be honest, with sales that disastrous I'd expect the latter.

Much more successful was the relaunch of Nightwing as Grayson #1, which managed to ship 81,433 units - almost doubling the sales of the last issue of Nightwing and reaching #8 on the Diamond charts. Nightwing #1 only reached 63,000 units in September 2011, so this is a really impressive achievement.

Other relaunches didn't go quite as well. Teen Titans #1 sold an estimated 52,358 units; while more than double the sales for Teen Titans #30 back in April it's still well below the sales of the last Teen Titans launch in September 2011 (89,000 units). New Suicide Squad #1 shifted 49,260 units; again more than double the last issue of Suicide Squad but below Suicide Squad #1 in September 2011 (56,817).

Judging the New 52: June 2014

Sales figures for Diamond Distribution are out for June 2014, so it seemed an opportune time to see how DC's New 52 superhero books are faring mid-year.

June saw a lot of books come with 'bombshell' alternative covers, depicting various DC superheroines and sidekicks in sexy poses like old-school 1940s and 1950s glamour illustrations. I found the whole exercise more than a little skeezy to be honest, but that didn't stop a lot of books enjoying a massive sales bump for the month. Aquaman jumped 12,000 copies, The Flash more than 13,000, and so on. Batman got a 23,000 unit sales spike. This wasn't pocket change for DC: I suspect the success of this set of covers is going to lead to more and more alternative cover gimmicks every month until the market tires of it.

DC Comics released a brand-new monthly in June: Infinity Man and the Forever People, another adaptation of old Jack Kirby characters by Dan Didio and Keith Giffen. It shipped an estimated 24,907 copies through Diamond Distribution - that's the lowest launch of a DC monthly in the history of the New 52, beating previous record holder Sword of Sorcery by about 2,000 copies. Sword of Sorcery lasted eight issues. I'd expect something similar from this. As I've noted in my Pull List reviews, it's not a bad comic by any stretch but certainly not good enough to sustain itself beyond its first year.

Judging the New 52: March 2014: Green Lantern

Before the New 52 launched in September 2011, Green Lantern was one of DC Comics' biggest success stories. After many years as a second-string title, it had been revitalised by writer Geoff Johns into one of the publisher's tentpole franchises - so successful that a Green Lantern motion picture got produced by Warner Bros ahead of The Flash, Wonder Woman and numerous other potential movie properties. While Johns remained to spearhead the Green Lantern Corps into the New 52, he has since departed the lead title - and the entire franchise seems to be in trouble without him.

If you want to know how much trouble Green Lantern is in, consider this: total sales across all five books in March 2014 was 136,797. Jump back one year, and that total was 191,248 - and that was across only four books. In the past 12 months the range has declined by 28%. Jump back to March 2012, and those four books sold 219,942 copies. Let's jump back even further to March 2010, when there were only two books in the line and between them they shifted 174,089 copies. That splits up to an average of about 87,000 copies per Green Lantern title. That average in 2014 is down to just over 27,000. In the past four years Green Lantern sales have effectively declined by almost 70 per cent. It was a tentpole for DC. Now it's just another second-string title.

Since September 2011 DC has published five ongoing Green Lantern titles. Of these, all five are currently ongoing - Larfleeze is selling so badly it has to end soon. The average number of issues per title currently sits at 26.

All sales data is taken from Comichron, and is the estimated sales of comics via Diamond Distribution to retailers - that is, what went into the stores, not what was actually sold to customers.I will be removing sales from September 2013, however, when DC ran its villain month. Some titles had as many as four issues in that months, and others had none, and sales regularly bore no resemblance to the titles they were ostensibly a part of. It's clearer without them.

Charts are colour-coded: anything in green is safely selling about 40,000. Sales below 40,000 move to blue, those below 30,000 to orange, and those below 20,000 to red. Anything selling less than 10,000 copies is listed in black: dead book walking.

Judging the New 52: March 2014: Superman

The Superman titles are an interesting part of the New 52. Let's be honest: Superman is a difficult character for DC Comics. He's hugely iconic, arguably more than Batman, and in merchandising sales alone towers over pretty much every comic book hero in the world. In practice, however, he proves extraordinarily difficult to write. There's a lot of clear demand for the character when these books launch: Action Comics alone launched with more than 200,000 units. That demands seems to slide off in the following months and years: basically, we want to read Superman, but we don't necessarily like the Superman comics that we get.

Seven Superman titles have been launched since September 2011. All seven continue to be published - although Superman Unchained is coming to a pre-planned conclusion with issue #9 - and the average number of issues per title is 20.

All sales data is taken from Comichron, and is the estimated sales of comics via Diamond Distribution to retailers - that is, what went into the stores, not what was actually sold to customers.I will be removing sales from September 2013, however, when DC ran its villain month. Some titles had as many as four issues in that months, and others had none, and sales regularly bore no resemblance to the titles they were ostensibly a part of. It's clearer without them.

Charts are colour-coded: anything in green is safely selling about 40,000. Sales below 40,000 move to blue, those below 30,000 to orange, and those below 20,000 to red. Anything selling less than 10,000 copies is listed in black: dead book walking.

Judging the New 52: March 2014: Batman

The Batman titles are pretty much the bedrock of DC's New 52: strong sellers, critically acclaimed (for the most part) and topping sales charts when collected into trade paperbacks and hardcover collections. Batman itself is the best-selling title of the entire New 52 and regularly tops the list as the highest-selling direct market comic book each month.

Since September 2011 DC has published 15 ongoing Batman titles. Of these, only three have been cancelled - Batman Incorporated back in July 2013 (although that was a natural end rather than a sales-based cancellation), and both Batman: The Dark Knight and Talon in March 2014. That means 80% of the line is still ongoing. The average number of issues per title currently sits at 25.

All sales data is taken from Comichron, and is the estimated sales of comics via Diamond Distribution to retailers - that is, what went into the stores, not what was actually sold to customers.I will be removing sales from September 2013, however, when DC ran its villain month. Some titles had as many as four issues in that months, and others had none, and sales regularly bore no resemblance to the titles they were ostensibly a part of. It's clearer without them.

Charts are colour-coded: anything in green is safely selling about 40,000. Sales below 40,000 move to blue, those below 30,000 to orange, and those below 20,000 to red. Anything selling less than 10,000 copies is listed in black: dead book walking.

Judging the New 52: March 2014: Justice League

It's been an age (well, 10 months) since we had a look at the performance of DC's New 52 line. I do wonder at what stage does the New 52 stop being called "the New 52", since it no longer consists of 52 monthly titles and has been around for two and a half years.

As with last time let's break the line down into its seven sales groups, beginning with the Justice League books. Since September 2011 DC has published 18 monthly titles as part of this sales group: 10 of them, or 56%, are currently in publication. The current average issue run of this group is 18.

All sales data is taken from Comichron, and is the estimated sales of comics via Diamond Distribution to retailers - that is, what went into the stores, not what was actually sold to customers.I will be removing sales from September 2013, however, when DC ran its villain month. Some titles had as many as four issues in that months, and others had none, and sales regularly bore no resemblance to the titles they were ostensibly a part of. It's clearer without them.

Charts are colour-coded: anything in green is safely selling about 40,000. Sales below 40,000 move to blue, those below 30,000 to orange, and those below 20,000 to red. Anything selling less than 10,000 copies is listed in black: dead book walking.

Judging the New 52: June 2013, Part VII: The Dark

The Dark is rattling along with four reasonably solid titles and three books spiralling towards cancellation. The top seller in June was Constantine, which is not unexpected as its only four months old. It declined 9% from May, which isn't too dangerous as long as that drop slows down over the next few months. I can see Constantine surviving quite successfully in the long term with about 20-23,000 readers.

Packed in around the 23-25,000 mark are Swamp Thing, Justice League Dark and Animal Man. Of the three Justice League Dark seems the most stable - not real change in sales since May and down only 26% since June 2012. On top of that it's got a high-profile tie-in with Justice League in July and August, which should add more than a few thousand new readers for a while. Both Swamp Thing and Animal Man declined 8% over the past month.

Judging the New 52: June 2013, Part VI: The Edge

Like Young Justice, The Edge is a line with a lot of cancellations. This is where most of the old Wildstorm characters ended up, and almost without exception they failed to find an audience. Books that haven't survived the first two years include Deathstroke, Voodoo, Grifter, Blackhawks, OMAC, Men of War and Team 7.

Deathstroke was one of the books I rather liked, until it was taken over by Rob Liefeld - whose art and writing I don't particularly enjoy. Also good was OMAC, which only lasted eight issues but which is well worth picking up in trade paperback.

One book in this range is still selling more than 20,000 copies. That's Suicide Squad, which started off incredibly awful and vaguely offensive before slowly getting better (or so I've been told, it's not a book I follow). Improvements in quality don't look like they'll save the book: sales are down 3% compared to May and down more than a quarter in the past year. At this rate the book's likely to be cancelled in the next 6-9 months.

Judging the New 52: June 2013, Part V: Young Justice

Of all the lines in the New 52, it's the Young Justice books that have suffered the most cancellations. A full five monthly titles have been cancelled since September 2011: Blue Beetle, Legion Lost, Hawk and Dove, Static Shock and Ravagers, and Legion of Super-Heroes is winding up in August. Two new monthlies - The Movement and The Green Team: Teen Trillionaires - are not looking very healthy either.

Teen Titans may be performing best out of the four, but let's not pretend it's performing well. The book's readership has declined by more than a quarter in the past year, and it's now selling less copies per month than it did before the New 52 hit. This is a very strong franchise for DC, particularly given it's the only place to see the massively popular Tim Drake, so in all fairness this book should be selling 50,000 copies a month.

Judging the New 52: June 2013, Part IV: Green Lantern

While I read through my enormous stack of new comics for this week's Pull List column, let's have a look at how DC's Green Lantern franchise went in June - it was an important month for them. June 2013 saw a complete shake-up of DC's four Lantern titles with all-new creative teams and, in the case of Green Lantern itself, the first new writer in about a decade. DC also took the opportunity to add a fifth book to the line, dedicated to Orange Lantern Larfleeze.

Geoff Johns' legacy on Green Lantern is enormously impressive, because he leaves it with not just one successful book but four. He managed to transform a sometimes-popular superhero comic into an honest-to-god franchise. It even got its own high budget Hollywood movie (although, if you've seen that movie, you understand it's not actually a very good one). This leaves the new creative teams with a tremendous challenge to keep interest high on these books and keep them selling.

Judging the New 52: June 2013, Part III: Superman

DC's Superman books got an enormous shot in the arm in June. Timed to coincide with the release of Warner Bros' Man of Steel were not one but two all-new monthly titles: Superman Unchained (by fan favourites Scott Snyder and Jim Lee) and Batman/Superman (by more fan favourites, Greg Pak and Jae Lee). Superman Unchained did particularly well; given it's US$4.99 price tag, that one issue grossed more than US$1.25m alone.

Batman/Superman (not to be confused with pre-New 52 title Superman/Batman) also did incredibly well, although in both cases I expect sales to drop pretty sharply over the next few months. DC have already announced Superman/Wonder Woman for October, so personally I'm hoping they also announce Wonder Woman/Batman so as to make the circle complete.

The bigger issue I can see, however, is with Superman's other monthly titles.

Judging the New 52: June 2013, Part II: Batman

The Batman books are the powerhouse of DC's comic book publishing efforts, and that is nowhere more apparent than in Batman itself. Under the creative guidance of Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo it has overtaken Justice League to become the effective flagship of the entire New 52. June 2013 saw the launch of its third major story arc, "Zero Year", and a corresponding 10% bump in sales compared to May's relatively self-contained issue. Batman shipped 9% more copies in June 2013 than in June 2012, which is an extraordinary feat in an industry where each issue generally sells less than the one before it.

Detective Comics, on the other hand, is still suffering from a fairly weak start by writer/artist Tony Daniel. I think that it's lost a lot of goodwill from readers, which is a shame because John Layman and Jason Fabok are doing some great work here. Sales are down 17% compared to May, where Layman and Fabok's first arc wound up: sadly it looks like about 8,000 readers were waiting for a chance to jump ship.