Marvel’s Secret Invasion miniseries ended its run where it began at the top of the list of periodical comics. The finale in the series, Secret Invasion #8, topped the comics chart by a wide margin in December with sales through Diamond Comic Distributors estimated by ICv2 at over 152,000, a mere 1.5% drop from sales of the previous issue. Throughout its run Secret Invasion has dominated comic sales, and its absence along with those of Final Crisis, New Avengers and Mighty Avengers explains November’s precipitous drop in sales of periodical comics. All the key titles missing in November returned in December including the fifth issue of DC’s Final Crisis, which finished a solid #2 and appears to be a strong contender to take over the top spot with its next two issues.
Marvel’s new Dark Reign series, which deals with the aftermath of the Secret Invasion event as power in the Marvel Universe shifts toward Norman Osborn, is off to a solid start. Secret Invasion: Dark Reign, a one-shot, finished at #3, while Dark Reign New Nation ended up at #22 and New Avengers #48 and Mighty Avengers #20, both issues with Dark Reign ties also made the top 25. Both issues of Brian Michael Bendis’s New Avengers that shipped in December finished in the fourth and fifth spots followed by two issues (#682 and #683) of Batman written by Grant Morrison.
Only three comics in the top 25 (Uncanny X-Men #505, Detective Comics #851, and Green Lantern #36) posted increases over previous issues, while 20 titles declined (two new series debuted in the top 25). Marvel's Ultimatum, which led all comics in November, suffered the biggest drop of all as issue #2 fell to the tenth spot.
For the second straight month Marvel had 14 titles in the top 25, while DC had 10 and Dark Horse one (Buffy the Vampire Slayer #20 in seventeenth place).
DC Comics dominated the graphic novel list with eight out of the top 15 titles. DC took the top three graphic novel spots led by Brian Azzarello's The Joker hardcover, which was clearly the most potent release of Q4, followed by Alan Moore's amazing Watchmen in second place and Jack of Fables Vol.4 in third. Viz Media's Naruto Vol.33 was in fourth place followed by two Dark Horse Star Wars collections (Clone Wars Vol.2, and Legacy Vol.4) and then another Viz manga title, Bleach Vol.25, at number 7.
Here are ICv2's estimates of the sales by Diamond Comic Distributors to comic stores on the top 25 comic titles in December:
152,429 Secret Invasion #8 (of 8)
109,181 Final Crisis #5 (of 7)
102,928 Secret Invasion: Dark Reign
95,703 New Avengers #47
93,908 New Avengers #48
93,469 Batman #682
90,272 Batman #683
87,786 Hulk #9
86,085 Mighty Avengers #20
85,627 Ultimatum #2 (of 5)
83,356 Wolverine #70
82,271 Uncanny X-Men #505
79,953 Batman #684
75,803 Justice League of
73,784 Thor #12
72,728 Justice League of
71,896 Buffy the Vampire Slayer #20
71,186 Captain America #45
69,784 Amazing Spider-Man #579
69,662 Justice Society of
68,905 Amazing Spider-Man #581
68,485 Dark Reign New Nation
67,615 Justice Society of
64,961 Detective Comics #851
64,755 Green Lantern #36
We are estimating actual sales by Diamond U.S. (primarily to North American comic stores), using Diamond's published sales indexes and publisher sales data to estimate a sales number for Batman (the anchor title Diamond uses in its calculations) and using that number and the indexes to estimate Diamond's sales on the remaining titles. We can check the accuracy of our numbers by comparing the Batman number that we calculate using multiple data points; our numbers for Batman are within 1/10 of 1% of each other, ensuring a high degree of accuracy.
For an analysis of the dollar trends in December, see "Comics Have a Strong December."
For our estimates of actual orders to Diamond
For our estimates of actual orders to Diamond
For our estimates of actual orders to Diamond
For our estimates of actual orders to Diamond
For our index to our reports on the top comic and graphic novel preorders for January 2000 through December 2008, see "ICv2's Top 300 Comics and Top 100 GNs Index."
