Rebirth Tops May Sales, Marvel Rules Top 10

Rebirth, Batman #52 and Justice League #50 are DC’s top sellers for May

Rebirth, DC’s new initiative to revitalize the whole line of DC comics seems to have at least paid off well in the beginning, as the 80-page one shot was the top-selling title this May. But while a couple other big DC titles made the list of the top ten, Marvel as whole still dominates the market by a pretty wide margin.

As I said, Rebirth finished at #1, but that’s not a huge surprise given how much hype and attention the one-shot has gotten. Marvel’s competing mega event, Civil War II, was close behind with issue #0 at the #2 spot.

Batman #52, which was the final issue of the pre-Rebirth run (but not the final issue by legendary duo Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo, that was #50) checked in at #4 while Justice League #50, which was the final chapter in the “Darkseid War” storyline and tied directly into Rebirth, was #7.

The rest of the list is dominated by Marvel titles, but whereas previous months were heavily dominated by Star Wars titles, this month sees a much wider variety. The controversial Captain America #1 landed at the #5 spot, Punisher #1 debuted very strong at #3, and Black Panther continues its stay in the top ten at #9 with issue #2. Marvel also not surprisingly dominates the large share of the comic market in general, commanding a nearly 45% share while DC has around 25% and the leftover scraps are mostly dominated by Image.

Perhaps buoyed by the upcoming film adaptation,  The Killing Joke graphic novel dominated the graphic novel sales charts. Joker: Endgame also placed on the chart at #7, but the rest is divided up evenly between Marvel & Image.

Next: Detective Comics: Clayface Is A Wild Card

It’s great that Rebirth debuted so highly, but given the hype and the price point, anything but a #1 debut might’ve been considered a pretty massive disappointment. Will a lower price point for all DC Comics going forward and this new Rebirth directive help DC chink away at the huge stranglehold Marvel has on the comics market? Maybe we’ll find out next month.

h/t CBR