In a move sure to fire up the never-ending war between the Big Two comic publishers, Marvel has announced that it will swap one free Siege #3 Deadpool Variant for 50 stripped covers (or roughly $200 at retail) worth of DC Comics involved in the Lantern Promotional Rings promotion. If retailers respond, the barter value will give Marvel great fodder with which to promote Siege, at DC’s expense.
The stunt is based on the fact that retailers were able to order the Rings, which were highly sought after, based on hitting incentive levels of the Blackest Night tie-in titles last November. The quantities sold of those titles went up dramatically, including a 5X multiple on the most-affected title. With from 28,000 to over 40,000 copies over the norm sold, Marvel is betting that a significant number of those books languish in retail stores with little expectation of ever being sold.
Here are the titles for which Marvel is offering to trade, along with the order increase over the previous issue:
40,714 Adventure Comics #4
35,525 Booster Gold #26
33,712 Doom Patrol #4
28,364 Justice League of
29,505 Outsiders #24
39,816 R.E.B.E.L.S #10
For those doing the math, that's over 200,000 books. Some undoubtedly sold; some retailers will not participate; some retailers won't have enough copies. But it will be interesting to see how many DC covers Marvel gets (and to see what DC comes up with in response).
