How’s Marvel Now Working Out?

As 2012 came to an end, Marvel found their key titles weren’t selling quite the same as they’d been back in 2010. Rather than rebooting their entire continuity as rival DC did with their “New 52” initiative, Marvel opted for a soft relaunch. They called the program “Marvel NOW!,” spinning it out of their bestselling AVX mini-series event, and shuffling the creators on a number of existing books while launching a few new ones.

How’s that working out as we near Marvel NOW!’s second anniversary? After recent announcements, 19 of the 28 titles in the program will have either been re-relaunched with a new #1, cancelled or both. On the other hand, Spider-Man hasn’t been this popular in years and Deadpool got a real shot in the arm. While the “standard attrition” of periodical ordering usually results in a small decrease every month, drops for Marvel NOW! titles usually exceed that.

Here’s what the sales numbers say about Marvel Now!. The table shows sales (as estimated on Comichron.com) for the last issue prior to NOW!, first issue (sales inflated by variant covers and extra discount offers), fifth issue (closer to the actual original audience numbers) and the most recent or final issue, with the percentage up or down

1. A+X (10/12): an anthology title spinning out of AVX. Anthology titles haven’t worked out for Marvel in recent years and this was no exception. Cancelled with #18 in March 2014

2. All-New X-Men (11/12): created as the new flagship title for the X-Men franchise, this saw the original team from the 60s time travelling to the present. They’re still here, and even though the sales have dropped off, it’s still usually one of Marvel’s top 3 regular series.

3. Avengers (12/12): The comic the movie was based on is now the flagship title of its own line. Sales are up a bit over 3000/issue on this one and it’s still going.

4. Avengers Arena (12/12): Think “Hunger Games”/”Lord of the Flies” with kidnapped teen heroes in the Marvel Universe. This was generally regarded as a reboot of Avengers Academy, then relaunched as Avengers Undercover after the Hunger Game-esque story ended. The cancellation of Avengers Undercover was announced on August 15^th.

5. Cable and X-Force (12/12): This is a new book for the Cable character with an attempt to tie it in with the X-Force franchise. It was cancelled with #19 and the merged with Uncanny X-Force and relaunched as X-Force.

6. Captain America (11/12): Relaunched with a new #1 following Ed Brubaker’s modern classic run that inspired the Captain America: The Winter Soldier film, this title will be relaunched and Sam Wilson, A.K.A. The Falcon, will be taking over the title of Captain America. It’s down a bit less than 4K from the final issue of the previous run.

7. Deadpool (11/12): The relaunch of “The Merc With the Mouth” got a little outside publicity with comedian Brian Posehn signing on as co-writer. Still selling more than 20K/issue more than the previous series, this is by far Marvel NOW!’s biggest win outside Spider-Man.

8. Fantastic Four (11/12): Marvel NOW! Has not been kind to the Fantastic Four. The series was relaunched with a new creative team and even after a relaunch it’s still selling over 10,000 copies/issue less than the previous series ended with.

9. FF (11/12): Originally created as a goofier companion book to Fantastic Four following the (predictably temporary) death of the Human Torch, the relaunched FF never really took off and was cancelled with #16 when Fantastic Four was rebooted.

10. Fearless Defenders (2/13): Roughly speaking, a continuation of the epilogue to the Fear Itself event titled Fear Itself: The Fearless, this series featuring Valkyrie, Misty Knight and the women of Marvel was cancelled with #13.

11. Guardians of the Galaxy (3/13): Launched as part of the run up to the movie of the same name, this is largely a new take on the team and a departure from the older material. (Note: the 5^th issue was unusually highly ordered due to the introduction of the old Image character “Angela” and Neil Gaiman’s name being attached. #4 was estimated at 71, 575 copies.)

12. Indestructible Hulk (11/12): This was relaunched as Hulk and the relaunched version is slightly below previous series sales.

13. Iron Man (11/12): While still popular on the big screen, the Marvel NOW! version has seen sales drop like the comic was wearing cement overshoes. It will relaunch as Superior Iron Man with Tony Stark joining the San Francisco tech scene.

14.Morbius: The Living Vampire (3/13): The sometimes foe, sometimes ally of Spider-Man only lasted 9 issues.

15. New Avengers (1/13): The secondary Avengers title has not fared as well as the flagship title. It’s down 11,000 copies/issue from its previous incarnation.

16. Nova (2/13): A new, much younger, version of the character associated with the previous version of Guardians of the Galaxy hasn’t been relaunched, but hasn’t been selling particularly well either.

17. Savage Wolverine (1/13): A companion title to Wolverine featuring rotating creative teams. With no issues solicited past #23, it is presumed cancelled in the wake of Marvel killing off Wolverine. The sales certainly weren’t holding up.

18. Secret Avengers (2/13): The initial relaunch was closer in tone to the original series. It was relaunched with a tone closer to Hawkeye’s solo book, but the sales aren’t anywhere close to the original series.

19. The Superior Spider-Man (1/13): This is the comic where Doc Ock stuck his mind in Peter Parker’s body. When that storyline ended, after a very successful run both critically and in sales, Amazing Spider-Man returned with a new #1. A relaunch, but in this case a planned relaunch. It’s been Marvel’s best-selling regular title more often than not since the initial relaunch. It’s a little hard to put this book in the context of Marvel NOW!, since the Doc Ock storyline was picking up sales as it went along. The last issue (#700) sold 200K. Go back a couple months and it was selling in the mid-50Ks. For the purposes of comparison, we’ll use the second to last issue.

20. Thor: God of Thunder (11/12): Another movie hero due for a relaunch. Despite being not quite 4K/copy ahead of the previous series, Thor must not be meeting sales expectations. A relaunch is planned where a woman picks up the hammer and becomes Thor.

21. Thunderbolts (12/12): After resting the title, a new Thunderbolts series was launched. It’s recently been cancelled and the last issue will ship in October.

22. Uncanny Avengers (10/12): The idea was to combine members of The Avengers and X-Men for the Marvel Universe’s flagship title. Sales say the audience didn’t buy into that notion.

23. Uncanny X-Force (1/13): Relaunching the popular X-Men black-ops title, the Marvel NOW! version was merged with Cable and X-Force and relaunched as X-Force with no adjective. Sales are nowhere near the previous series.

24. Uncanny X-Men (2/13): Now the secondary X-title behind All-New, this has lost about 10,000 copies/issue from the previous series, though it was arguably the flagship title before the relaunch.

25. Wolverine (3/13): Wolverine is the latest Marvel character to be killed off (this usually lasts a year or less) and will be dying shortly. While the book is cancelled, for as long as he stays dead, the run-up has an uptick on sales over the previous series.

26. X-Men (5/13): While this was the flagship X-title in the 90s, adjectiveless X-Men has fallen in prestige over the years. It’s actually 7,000 copies/issue ahead of the previous series, though it’s not been retaining reader exceptionally well.

27. X-Men Legacy (11/12): What used to be an X-Men team title was turned into the adventures of Professor X’s sometimes villainous son with a decided indie comics flair. It lasted 25 issues.

28. Young Avengers (1/13): Reviving a popular concept that had been out of print for a few years, this title lasted 15 issues.

On the whole Marvel NOW! is a mixed bag. Superior Spider-Man was a break-out hit and the relaunch of Amazing Spider-Man is just as strong. Deadpool’s relaunch is still 73% higher than the previous series. Guardians of the Galaxy and All-New X-Men have settled in near the top of Marvel’s regular series. Take those titles out of the mix and the results aren’t so rosy.

For the 14 existing series that relaunched at the beginning of Marvel NOW! and still exist in some form, 6 have higher sales and 8 have lower sales than the old series. While Marvel was particularly adept at getting huge sales for first issues, if you look at the Marvel NOW! series still being published, the drop from issue #5 (when sales should have started to normalize) to the most recent issue is an average of 47%. Most of these titles were not retaining their audience and that includes titles that re-relaunched with another high sales #1 issue.

For those pre-existing series, whether their total circulation is up or down depends entirely on how you define the starting point for Spider-Man. If you take the second to last issue’s roughly 75K copies, that block of titles is up 17,547 copies/month. If you take the last issue, featuring the supposed death of Peter Parker, which sold 200,000 copies, that block of titles is down 107,000 copies a month. If you go back before that Doc Ock/Death of Spider-Man arc started, Amazing Spider-Man was selling roughly 59,000 copies in July. That puts the pre-existing block of titles 33,000 copies/month higher. If you were to decide to that Spider-Man’s success had little to do with the Marvel NOW! promotion and more to do with writer Dan Slott’s vision and just remove it from the equation, that block of books is down 25,000 copies/month.

The argument is easy to make that Superior Spider-Man, Guardians of the Galaxy and All-New X-Men would have launched successfully whether or not there was a successful promotion. With them counted, Marvel NOW! is close to a wash. Maybe sales are up a little, maybe they’re not. Without them, things certainly don’t look very positive.

Marvel was able to able to get some short-term sales bumps, but the status quo quickly returns and Marvel is readying yet another round of relaunches. 19 of 28 titles to have been cancelled or relaunched within 2 years.

On the other hand, if Marvel NOW! was supposed to get sales back up to the levels Marvel enjoyed in 2010 and stay there, it certainly hasn’t worked. Marvel is currently rolling out their All-New Marvel NOW! program, which includes some of the re-relaunches from the original Marvel NOW!. Perhaps in two years, the latest version of the launch and relaunch cycle will have better numbers.