Marvel, Batman Dominate November Comics Sales

Marvel topples DC in November, but Batman still rules sales charts

Whelp it had to happen sometime. After dominating the sales charts and market share for months following the Rebirth event/re-launch/whatever, DC actually fell in market share for November and Marvel regained the top spot according to Diamond Comic Distributors. But Batman and several of his titles still held strong in the top ten sales.

Marvel had a 38% dollar share with a 39% unit share while DC had a 26% dollar share with 31% unit share. What’s more, while the Dark Knight held strong (which we’ll get to in a bit), no other DC titles were in the top ten. It’s basically the Caped Crusader, a fairly good range of Marvel titles, and Walking Dead sneaking in at #10.

The good news for Bat-fans is that Batman titles held 4 spots in the top ten. Batman #10 & #11 were number 1 & 2 respectively, with All-Star Batman #4 in the 4th spot and finally Batman Annual #1 at #7.

Next: Preview: Batman/TMNT Adventures #2

So does this mean that people are already falling off Rebirth, and we’re due for yet  another DC reboot within the next couple of years? It’s a little early to make that call. If you’ll notice, most of the Marvel titles on the top ten are either debuting ones, such as Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows and Invincible Iron Man or major event comics such as Civil War II or Inhumans vs. X-Men. It’d be a little troubling for Marvel if so many big titles and event comics didn’t manage to crack the top ten. We’ll have to see if interest in those titles keeps up and keeps anything besides Batman and an occasional outlier like Walking Dead out of the top ten though.

I think a real test might be Justice League vs. Suicide Squad, which debuts later this month. It’s not just the first major post-Rebirth crossover event, it’s the first one of this scale in years. DC didn’t have much in the way of crossover event comics in the New 52 era. If that fails to debut really solidly in the top ten, it may be a sign that Rebirth was at best a temporary success that is quickly failing rather than a much-needed revitalization for DC….

h/t Comicbook.com