Vault Comics announced that orders for Unnatural Order #1, by MCU screenwriter Christopher Yost and artist Val Rodrigues, topped 137,000.  Vault offered the comic to retailers for free (see “Vault Gives Away the ‘A’ Cover, Charges for Variants”), allowing them to sell it at the MSRP of $4.99, in order to boost readership for the new series.

“Anyone who works in comics knows that new series live or die by their orders on #2, #3, and so on,” said Vault CEO and Publisher Damien Wassel in a statement accompanying the announcement.  “The best way to get readers to show up in droves for a second issue is to make sure you got the first issue into as many hands as humanly possible.”  Orders on this first issue, Wassel added, “blow Free Comic Book Day numbers out of the water.”

Vault did not release order numbers for the variant covers, which were not offered for free.

For context, Image recently announced that the first issue of W0rldtr33, by James Tynion IV and Fernando Blanco, has total sales of over 150,000 across five printings (see “Two Publishers Announce New Printings After Titles Sell Out at Distributor Level”).  Several other Image first issues have had orders well over 100,000.  None of these comics were offered to retailers for free.