Sales For Spider-Man pre-OMD to current

[Themanofbat]

Youre quickly becoming my favorite poster on SHH.

Thanks...

 

[Themanofbat]

I'm all about change, but this was a pointless change. It was a desolving of a character and a return to a point 20 years previous (despite minor details). This was just a move done by some whiny Marvel people who didn't like what happened 20 years ago who obviously doesn't care about the readers who did...

supported by whiney old people who didn't like what happened 20 years ago who obviously don't care about the readers who did

Well, that's a pretty broad statement up there... and you could say that the same thing is happening over at DC, except with most of their characters.

But as far as it being a "pointless" change... that's a decision that only you can make. And it's easier for you to make such a claim, because as you have stated, you grew up with a "married" Peter Parker.

But when you look at the movies and cartoons, they all depict a single Spider-Man, and while we might have had an Ultimate Spidey & a Marvel Adventures Spidey, they were just reimagined versions of the real deal, and that's THE Spider-Man, whom Marvel has wanted single for quite some time.

If you want to support a married Pete & MJ, but ASM Family which has the continuing adventures of Spider-Girl as well as the married Parkers.

I didn't like OMD, but if you step back and look at it from a financial stand-point, a single Peter Parker, or a born-loser Peter Parker, simply works better for Marvel in the long-run.

And when a person starts to understand THAT, the decision doesn't become quite so "pointless"...

Cheers...

 

[Obi-Ron]

I didn't like OMD, but if you step back and look at it from a financial stand-point, a single Peter Parker, or a born-loser Peter Parker, simply works better for Marvel in the long-run.

The numbers in the first post tell a different story.

 

[farmernudie]

I have collected all titles Spidey from the beginning.

Stopped during only the Clone Saga and NOW...as soon as the tripe called OMD and BND rolled out the retcon wagon and states that what i read all these years (the marriage) never happened. Hmn. Major time alteration, yet they want their cake too and say nothing changed despite major changes.

I will and have argued the fact that this was NOT A WONDERFUL MOVE FOR MARVEL FINANCIALLY.

Wrong. This was an agenda that Joe hinted at forever and flat out always said he HATED the MARRIAGE. Period.

The numbers are going down the toilet. And i can speak for myself...i am not only NOT buying my FAVORITE TITLE (that i WANT to LOVE) but i am NOT buying the TPB"S i usually do for spidey either. Losing ALL my MONEY.

Yes we are in bad economic times. More reason to sell a NON DEVISIVE, NON CONTROVERSIAL Spidey comic. Gow ith what works...NOT AN EXPERIMENT!!

This comic is really ULTIMATE AMAZING now. Alteranate world, history, and dumbed down Pete who has no recognition of his past and has learned nothing of it.

I can NOT associate any longer with this loser, the way they've written him. THAT STINKS TOO. I love Pete. Tried to like this garbage...because i always have and do love spidey stuff...but they've stolen my favorite character away from me with a giant bottle of white out & bad direction.

But, i can't relate to dealing with the devil to save my dying ELDERLY aunt, whom i love, by throwing my WIFE under the bus, and mindwiping an entire planet to boot. SUPER SELFISH BUM STATUS THERE. Creating a world where you kicked your wife to the curb with satans help. Woohoo. H-E-R-O.

And now he has a magical mask like santa clause or something so he can flash people and help heal their minds. Good grief.

Insulting and losing tons of CUSTOMERS with a devisive, non needed experiment during bad times is....insane. Pepsi and everyone should change their formula for success too...ignore their customers too.

I mean, we already had Ultimate Spidey, they coulda just published a ULTIMATE ALWAYS SINGLE SPIDEY DEVIL WORLD comic for those needing that kinda direction without ruining actual Amazing continuity and development. We don't need spidey turning 70 next month, but we don't need him back to the 70's either.

So THIS is a GREAT direction for marvel, despite the bad foundation???

That is an oxymoron even. It defies logic.

You cannot have a great house if built upon a horrid foundation. Period.

 

[farmernudie]

Oh, and PS...

People have to stop comparing apples to oranges with this old topic.

You cannot add up old Amazings, PP, and Spect. Spidey to get your number comparison. Any more than Adding Amazing, Web, and Spider-Ham.

We are CURRENTLY multiplying (new) AMAZING x3....thus you'd have to multiply OLD Amazings x3.

So we are WAY BELOW with currrent BND Amazing #'s.

And then take into account OLD AMAZINGS weren't even marketed with the best creative teams or the way the 3X advertising muscle is.

So, if ya must compare, you go (old) Amazing X3 Vs. (new)Amazing X3. That's the whole reason they went with the "Amazing title"....they said it sells more. So comparing OTHER titles is completely in-accurate & contrary to marvel's own reasoning.

And look at the constant drop. Where are all the new fans climbing aboard for single 70's spidey? What about us customers that were faithful payers all this time? Why are we bad just because we type on the internet?

 

[Themanofbat]

Oh, and PS...

People have to stop comparing apples to oranges with this old topic.

You cannot add up old Amazings, PP, and Spect. Spidey to get your number comparison. Any more than Adding Amazing, Web, and Spider-Ham.

We are CURRENTLY multiplying (new) AMAZING x3....thus you'd have to multiply OLD Amazings x3.

So we are WAY BELOW with currrent BND Amazing #'s.

And then take into account OLD AMAZINGS weren't even marketed with the best creative teams or the way the 3X advertising muscle is.

So, if ya must compare, you go (old) Amazing X3 Vs. (new)Amazing X3. That's the whole reason they went with the "Amazing title"....they said it sells more. So comparing OTHER titles is completely in-accurate & contrary to marvel's own reasoning.

And look at the constant drop. Where are all the new fans climbing aboard for single 70's spidey? What about us customers that were faithful payers all this time? Why are we bad just because we type on the internet?

And before the typical "but let's compare ASM to ASM" people come on board, that still doesn't matter. At the end of the day, Marvel shareholders will look at total volumes of books sold regardless of the adjective that precedes "Spider-Man".

And yes, I acknowledge that the current "3x" per month is a sales gimmick, and it's a damned good one as well.

t: t: t:

 

[Themanofbat]

The numbers in the first post tell a different story.

The long run has yet to be seen...

 

[moraldeficiency]

To be fair the sales have been quite good, although in addition to making their money book x3 they've also basically thrown everything they had into ASM from the moment of BND. Ridiculous sub prices, practically every writer anyone ever wanted on the book, top notch artists and a damn good editor. As well as event after event drastically changing pete's life. They've done a good job of piquing enough interest to keep people reading. That said, the question is can it last? The answers we've been getting (though understandly hampered by the fact that you can't make a steak from eight day old ****) have been lackluster at best and typically raise more problems long term. The new characters have ranged from a few likable ones (Norah Roberts, the Bookie, Mr. Negative, loved spot recently too) to the annoying (Vin and his sister, lady kraven) to the crappy (goblin 12.86 I'm looking at you) but nothing that's really shown that BND and the BND status is a good thing. No real story lines that couldn't have been done better and with less odd offputting moments with the old status quo. And finally, and this is the important thing to remember, the level of hate is at least clone status (which damn near doomed ASM last time) with no signs of ebbing, Marvel admits to the sheer level of hate mail they get all the time. All of this should equal after a while of incipient decline a sudden turnaround.

I should mention that I don't care Pete and MJ aren't married, but I and a lot of people like myself will never accept Peter Parker making a deal with the devil for the easy out. Might as well bring Steve Rodgers back as a commie that likes to ass**** stalin's corpse.

 

[Dread]

While trying not to get on my own personal Spidey soap-box (I was against OMD/BND and even my enjoyment of Dan Slott comics couldn't sway me), there is some information that I want to make sure isn't lost in this debate over sales for ASM.

As Paul O'Brien has chronicled in his sales figure reports for the last two years at THE BEAT website (where whatever poster who posted that sales data on Marvel.com likely got his info), you can't simply compare current ASM sales to old ASM sales. There are factors to consider in such analysis.

The first and foremost is that Spider-Man at the time had three ongoing titles, as he usually has had for many years. At the time I believe it was ASM, SS-M, and FNSM. ASM always sold the best and was considered the "flagship" Spider-Man title for obvious reasons. The rest are always secondary books, usually connected by crossovers but often doing their own thing despite starring the same hero and much of the same supporting cast. While ASM may have had over 90-100k sales for a lot of the time, the other two Spidey books usually sold maybe half that or two-thirds that. When one compares current goals for the thrice monthly ASM experiment after 2007, one has to calculate the monthly "average" from all three titles combined per month. Paul calculated that number at about 62k per issue for every "three issues a month" comic of BND ASM. In 2008 he doubted that sales would ever reach or be lower than that for issues of the thrice monthly ASM; he has been proven wrong by 2009 for some weeks.

The second fact is that when one is using old ASM sales figures, one has to remember that for a full TWO YEARS before it merged with the other Spider-Man books, it had been boosted in sales by crossovers and other events/stunts. Before ONE MORE DAY, there was BACK IN BLACK. Before that there was UNMASKED. Before that there was the CIVIL WAR crossover stuff which reached then-historic numbers for some Marvel books after the 90's. Before that were PRELUDE TO CIVIL WAR issues, with the new costume issue (Iron Spidey) getting like 2-4 printings and high sales with a Bryan Hitch cover. And before that, of course, was THE OTHER, another Spidey-crossover. My point is that you really can't gauge what a "natural" sales figure for ASM as itself was because it was ALWAYS being pumped with gimmick sales stunts for at least 24 months before Jan. 2008. Some might argue that the fact that Spider-Man so desperately needed to return to an era when his comics needed either smaller or company wide crossover event stunts to maintain high sales was itself a cause for alarm, or at least that Spider-Man had jumped one shark too many.

Sales drop offs for ASM since Jan. 2008 also can be hard to figure for a cause. It is very possible that ONE MORE DAY was a counter-productive thing that made fair-weather or non-fans excited, but longtime readers of ASM embittered (some 35k of them usually read all three separate books, after all); ancedotal evidence claims that. On the other hand, it could be simply diminishing returns; DC has learned for three years that a weekly comic doesn't always maintain high sales; TRINITY's sales are maybe a third what 52's were. A sale drop off could have nothing to do with BND but could have more to do with the market being unable to keep a Spider-Man book that is very close to weekly at high sales numbers indefinitely. Remember, as ULTIMATE proved, something can't still be "fresh and new" a year and a half later; it simply is "less new".

My personal opinion was that it would have been better to try the "3 times a month" ASM thing for a while before Joe Q sought to enact his personal editorial vendetta against the Parker marriage, because all that did was add some stigma to the new experiment from die-hard fans, which sometimes can backfire. I certainly would have loved to see Dan Slott's ideas for making the Parker marriage work. I know he had 'em. He must have. SPIDER-MAN/HUMAN TORCH, the mini that for many is still Slott's best work, had many hints of that. While any ASM sales drop offs may not be entirely due to MJ-Fan backlash, it certainly didn't create the best environment long term.

The other factor is that so far since the new ASM debuted, sales have spiked for things that are harder to predict, such as a well publicized story. And of course, 2009's sales figures will be unfairly boosted at the end of the year for the title by the Obama issue that sold over half a million copies across five printings. Some have argued that the real tragedy is that despite that issue, not even a thousand of those readers returned for the next regular issue. Hell, I don't even think 400 readers did.

My point is that while it would be great to say, "a HA! Losing the Parker marriage has resulted in lower sales for ASM!", there are other factors at play here to explain any sort of sales fluctuation. That said, I would be curious how many people read the weekly newspaper strip, whether through sales of papers that carry it or some online poll (as I am sure some people read the strip online, like many strips); if fan letter demand was really that high for a newspaper strip, it could serve as a factoid towards what the general public, who has had a 5 season 90's cartoon that has been airing in repeats on cable for a decade, and only three feature films that earned over two billion dollars worldwide, thinks of the idea of MJ being in Peter's life as a significant other.

Frankly, I see stunts like ONE MORE DAY or some of DC's Hal Jordon stuff where borderline middle aged men chase their childhoods from the 70's at the expense of any fan who has been reading since as a critical reason not only of "diminishing returns" for superhero sales figures, but also why younger readers don't bother. The fallacy of adults is they usually underestimate the collective intelligence and savvy of anyone younger. That is why network TV execs usually believe that "dumbing down" a show will appeal to kids, forgetting that as former kids themselves, their fondest memories are of shows that didn't do that to them. Most people under 21 know very well how old these characters are, and they know that many things remain unchanged since the day they were born. There is some hatred of manga, but I can tell you this; manga is quite serial and not as static on average; ONE PIECE vol. 400 will not have the EXACT same status quo as vol. 2 did maybe five-seven years ago. For American superhero comics, reversing a mere half decade of character progress is usually called a "yearly event where nothing will be the same". The very thing that gives American superhero comics their strength, the eternal endless soap, is also their greatest weakness. No one takes ARCHIE seriously, but that is one of few comics that doesn't shy away from how nothing can ever change in it's universe beyond details like new ethnic minority students at Riverdale now than even in the 90's. Laugh at NARUTO, but at least in a few years, more has changed in the manga of that than likely in many superhero books. DRAGON BALL Z is seen as male action fulfillment fantasy, but Goku, the star hero is popular with many kids under 21 despite not only being happily married, despite not only being a father, but a GRAND-FATHER. That appeals to youth, who are smart enough to know things change a little as they grow up and experience new things. If comic editors could think of the future instead of revisiting their own dusty childhoods, I think the industry would have more imagination, more innovative ideas and so forth.

But, knee-jerk shocker moves usually drive up sales. Oh, well.

 

[hippie_hunter]

or some of DC's Hal Jordon stuff where borderline middle aged men chase their childhoods from the 70's at the expense of any fan who has been reading since as a critical reason not only of "diminishing returns" for superhero sales figures, but also why younger readers don't bother.

Actually Hal Jordan's return has been a critical and financial success. Asides from dare I say ******** Kyle fanboys, people have been loving and gobbling up Green Lantern since Rebirth. And from the sales figures of the Flash: Rebirth, it looks like the process will repeat itself with Barry Allen.

 

[hippie_hunter]

I will and have argued the fact that this was NOT A WONDERFUL MOVE FOR MARVEL FINANCIALLY.

The numbers are going down the toilet. And i can speak for myself...i am not only NOT buying my FAVORITE TITLE (that i WANT to LOVE) but i am NOT buying the TPB"S i usually do for spidey either. Losing ALL my MONEY.

Yes we are in bad economic times. More reason to sell a NON DEVISIVE, NON CONTROVERSIAL Spidey comic. Gow ith what works...NOT AN EXPERIMENT!!

This comic is really ULTIMATE AMAZING now. Alteranate world, history, and dumbed down Pete who has no recognition of his past and has learned nothing of it.

Insulting and losing tons of CUSTOMERS with a devisive, non needed experiment during bad times is....insane. Pepsi and everyone should change their formula for success too...ignore their customers too.

You cannot have a great house if built upon a horrid foundation. Period.

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[Dread]

Actually Hal Jordan's return has been a critical and financial success. Asides from dare I say ******** Kyle fanboys, people have been loving and gobbling up Green Lantern since Rebirth. And from the sales figures of the Flash: Rebirth, it looks like the process will repeat itself with Barry Allen.

I suspect REBIRTH will dwindle in sales over time. Big numbers all at once are usually prettier than building a small but steady audience over time.

Right now, sales figures show fewer fans buying more comics, which seems unhealthy long term. But for most insiders, "long term risk" means, "leave it for the next sucker in my position after I leave".

Plus, some of the buzz around Green Lantern can't be 100% Jordon. Plenty of "********" fans pick up Corps after all.

I simply see it as counter-productive when Marvel & DC do heavy handed overreaching gestures through time that may as well literally say in a statement, "anyone reading under 35 doesn't matter, and go **** yourselves." I don't see that as especially healthy. I see that as stop gap band-aids to continue a status quo cottage industry, which is fine if either Marvel or DC admitted that is all they wanted. Granted, both make a mint with licensing, not in actual comics. But there's much more room to grow. Ignoring ideas from, say, Japan, whose market dwarfs America's, sometimes is the prime example of industry stubbornness.

 

[Jack O Lantern]

I'd be interested to see how JMS's run in general sold. Because those sales show how tow major events, The Other and Civil War sold. How did the title with regular stories do?

 

[hippie_hunter]

I suspect REBIRTH will dwindle in sales over time. Big numbers all at once are usually prettier than building a small but steady audience over time.

Maybe it will, but right now reverting back to "classical" status quos are selling like hotcakes with Green Lantern, the Flash: Rebirth, and Amazing Spider-Man.

Right now, sales figures show fewer fans buying more comics, which seems unhealthy long term. But for most insiders, "long term risk" means, "leave it for the next sucker in my position after I leave".

People have been buying fewer comics in general though. I think we should wait and see once the economy improves before we think of any impending doom for the industry.

Plus, some of the buzz around Green Lantern can't be 100% Jordon. Plenty of "********" fans pick up Corps after all.

A lot of fans do get Green Lantern Corps, but pretty much all of the buzz surrounding Blackest Night and whatnot is focused on Hal Jordan's book. It's getting most of the acclaim. It's getting most of the sales. And it's the title most are paying attention to.

The only people bitter on the Green Lantern situation are people bitter over Kyle's role being usurped by Hal Jordan.

I simply see it as counter-productive when Marvel & DC do heavy handed overreaching gestures through time that may as well literally say in a statement, "anyone reading under 35 doesn't matter, and go **** yourselves." I don't see that as especially healthy. I see that as stop gap band-aids to continue a status quo cottage industry, which is fine if either Marvel or DC admitted that is all they wanted. Granted, both make a mint with licensing, not in actual comics. But there's much more room to grow. Ignoring ideas from, say, Japan, whose market dwarfs America's, sometimes is the prime example of industry stubbornness.

Can you really blame DC for essentially following Marvel's steps. Blackest Night is a Marvel styled event. They're creating massive buzz for books like Batman & Robin, the Flash: Rebirth, and Green Lantern. And they're fixing a lot of their messes created by OYL.

 

[Dread]

Maybe it will, but right now reverting back to "classical" status quos are selling like hotcakes with Green Lantern, the Flash: Rebirth, and Amazing Spider-Man.

Most of my post was about how gauging ASM's sales is difficult. It certainly has had some "wane" weeks after BND.

People have been buying fewer comics in general though. I think we should wait and see once the economy improves before we think of any impending doom for the industry.

I wasn't predicting doom per say. I do think it is a bit underwhelming to have an industry happy with being a niche or endlessly repeating ideas back when they were kids and Gerald Ford was in office. The 20th century's over, guys. Get with it. I mean, see, look at NEW MUTANTS. Marvel has been trying to launch a "young X-Men" book for years now. Virtually all of their latest takes ran their course after 1-2 years. The logical answer would be, "the X-Books cannot support that kind of spin-off, try building the characters in the main, selling books until times change". Instead, what does Marvel do? The exact same thing that sold in 1983, because anything that sold once MUST sell again, because time means nothing and no one ages in the real world or alters their taste, ever. It's such a backward, "back to the future" industry. I am just saying, more writers and editors should start looking forward for ideas, expanding on momentum and development, rather than finding creative new ways to hit reset buttons.

A lot of fans do get Green Lantern Corps, but pretty much all of the buzz surrounding Blackest Night and whatnot is focused on Hal Jordan's book. It's getting most of the acclaim. It's getting most of the sales. And it's the title most are paying attention to.

The only people bitter on the Green Lantern situation are people bitter over Kyle's role being usurped by Hal Jordan.

But, why does everything have to make a segment of the readers bitter? And don't give me the "that is how it always is" answer, that's baloney. Comic companies DELIBERATELY choose the option that is ensured to make the biggest splash, the biggest controversy and get the most people riled. That's not a strategy, though; that's being a class clown. I could take a dump on the subway and certainly get a lot of attention and discussion. Would it be beneficial? Is it a logical strategy to, say, land a job? Attention is all that matters, right?

Maybe if DC stopped making certain chunks of their audience bitter by telling them that their time and characters matter far, far less than a 30-40 year old version of a status quo snapshot from 1984 (at best), they wouldn't have shed so many readers the last few years. REBIRTH got good launch sales, but Marvel is still outselling them 2 to 1. And while ASM's sales overall have been mighty fine since the shift in status quo and whatnot, it's hardly the eternal juggernaut that some believed it would be in 2008.

Can you really blame DC for essentially following Marvel's steps. Blackest Night is a Marvel styled event. They're creating massive buzz for books like Batman & Robin, the Flash: Rebirth, and Green Lantern. And they're fixing a lot of their messes created by OYL.

I just sometimes tire of a large chunk of the industry that refuses to develop anything without hitting a reset button. Maybe this is how "indie snobs" are born.

 

[moraldeficiency]

I'd be interested to see how JMS's run in general sold. Because those sales show how tow major events, The Other and Civil War sold. How did the title with regular stories do?

I'm going from memory so cut me a touch of slack but I know he saved ASM from horrible sales (remember the crap before?), he eventually topped out creatively (I loved his initial elements and fixes, really got the book back on track and restablished who Peter Parker was again) and discarding the big hits from events I think he was somewhere in the 75-80K range.

 

[sdc10]

The most ironic thing i found in the OMD "controversy" is that I found myself asking out of all the people complaining about it and one not, how many of them were actually still reading the comics? To me it seems like a lot of those people were people who read the comics when they were younger but then ***** about whats going on in the comic even though they no longer read it. Also, people seem to forget the fact that MJ whispered something to Mephisto before it happened obviously something that will probably be played out but people either a) havent notice that fact (possibly because they didnt read it) or b)ignore it all together. Also, I commend Marvel for sticking to their guns. They knew it would piss people off but they took the stand "alright what happened happened we're just gonna move forward". Unlike DC on the other hand who reboots their entire universe continuity pretty much every year or so.

 

[Themanofbat]

I'd be interested to see how JMS's run in general sold. Because those sales show how tow major events, The Other and Civil War sold. How did the title with regular stories do?

I'll dig up the figures for you tomorrow...

 

[random_havoc]

The most ironic thing i found in the OMD "controversy" is that I found myself asking out of all the people complaining about it and one not, how many of them were actually still reading the comics? To me it seems like a lot of those people were people who read the comics when they were younger but then ***** about whats going on in the comic even though they no longer read it. Also, people seem to forget the fact that MJ whispered something to Mephisto before it happened obviously something that will probably be played out but people either a) havent notice that fact (possibly because they didnt read it) or b)ignore it all together. Also, I commend Marvel for sticking to their guns. They knew it would piss people off but they took the stand "alright what happened happened we're just gonna move forward". Unlike DC on the other hand who reboots their entire universe continuity pretty much every year or so.

Strongly disagree.

1) I was really diggin Spidey overall right up until OMD, at which point I immediately dropped it. The only pre-OMD things I hated in the recent past either screwed with spidey continuity or with the core of the character (ie 'sins' and 'the other'). Him being more mature and being a teacher were both excellent character progression. Further, there could have been years of good storyline coming from Aunt May dying and from him being de-masked (although that would, admittedly have to be reversed at some point).
2) what MJ said to mephisto means nothing until it's addressed so it's irrelevant to this conversation
3) "Sticking by your guns" is only a good thing if your original idea wasn't stupid and insulting to thousands of loyal fans. Otherwise it's more appropriately titled "ignorantly stubborn arrogance".

 

[random_havoc]

What seems pretty clear after reading this whole thread is that, after throwing every sales-boosting gimmick they could think of into BND spidey, it's STILL, at best, debateable that it's doing any better than the spidey comics were doing before OMD.
Which makes it pretty obvious logic that sales could only have been higher if they'd used those same gimmicks (Obama issue, top tier writers/artists, etc) without unnecessarily offending thousands of loyal fans.

 

[stillanerd]

Just to throw something else into the mix, over on the Spider-Man forums, I posted a link to the Comichron website in which they track the sales figures of various comics going back decades by way of the statement of ownership that they print in their comics. It just so happens that they've done this for Amazing Spider-Man going back to 1965 (actually 1966 to be precise), and highlight the average total paid circulation in comparison to the average total copies printed.

You'll be interested to see which year was considered the best and which was considered the worst.

http://www.comichron.com/titlespotlights/amazingspiderman.html

 

[Dread]

Just to throw something else into the mix, over on the Spider-Man forums, I posted a link to the Comichron website in which they track the sales figures of various comics going back decades by way of the statement of ownership that they print in their comics. It just so happens that they've done this for Amazing Spider-Man going back to 1965 (actually 1966 to be precise), and highlight the average total paid circulation in comparison to the average total copies printed.

You'll be interested to see which year was considered the best and which was considered the worst.

http://www.comichron.com/titlespotlights/amazingspiderman.html

Very interesting data!

To summarize from that site, sales peaked in 1993, with almost 600k copies sold. 1997 was the first year sales had been below 200k. From 1966-1989 sales were usually about 260k or so on average per year, and then they started going up from 1990-1993. 2008 was the lowest total according to that website, barely over 100k.

I would imagine 2009's sales figures will look rosier since the Obama Spidey issue alone sold over 510k copies across 5 printings. No issue of ASM had sold close to that since 1992. Granted, that was more akin to Marvel happening to have a historic president elect on the cover at the right time more than the content inside, but a cash in is a cash in.

Beyond stunts, the three issues of ASM per month usually average over 180k sales combined right now.

That website doesn't list sales figures for historical secondary Spider-Man titles from those eras, such as SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN which started I think in the 70's, WEB OF SPIDER-MAN that started in the 80's, and hell, MARVEL TEAM-UP was an unofficial Spider-Man book for most of it's run. SENSATIONAL SPIDER-MAN ran for a bit in the 90's, and of course there was FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD SPIDER-MAN and a relaunch of one of those secondary titles in the 2000's. Today's ASM is basically three solo books merged into the flagship title. Until 2008, that wasn't the case for ASM.

Data seemed to be missing for 2006 & 2007. Which is strange since during those years ASM would have seen boosts from THE OTHER and CIVIL WAR. ICV2.com has data for that, though.

Ben Reilly supporters can likely claim that the Clone Saga outsold BRAND NEW DAY.

 

[JewishHobbit]

Also, people seem to forget the fact that MJ whispered something to Mephisto before it happened obviously something that will probably be played out but people either a) havent notice that fact (possibly because they didnt read it) or b)ignore it all together. Also, I commend Marvel for sticking to their guns. They knew it would piss people off but they took the stand "alright what happened happened we're just gonna move forward". Unlike DC on the other hand who reboots their entire universe continuity pretty much every year or so.

BND started in issue 546. The newest issue (according to milehighcomics) is 595. So in order for us to wait for this convienent excuse to eventually fix this or something or other, we'd have to buy AT LEAST 49 comics. So in sales, that means to patiently wait for that little deal to play out we should be patient and just fork over $147 for a crap character and title that we're against, HOPING that marvel will fix the problem? And that's not including however many extra dollars gained from each $4 issue, tie-in issues or oneshots (Secret Invasion, etc.), or for however many more comics that will come out before they actually get back to what MJ whispered.

If Marvel would have maturely dealt with divorce or just killed MJ off, I would have kept reading to see what would happen (or in that case, maybe something similar since MJ wouldn't be there), but the way this was done and is being carried out... it's not worth it and I'd rather not support the book.




And just a note to whoever's reading... I don't mean to sound like a *****e bag about this, I'm just still fired up about it. Nothing is directed toward any of you posters out there. Well, except for the old comments for MoB, but that's just fun jest. He's a good guy... with bad tastes in comics.

 

[Themanofbat]

And just a note to whoever's reading... I don't mean to sound like a *****e bag about this, I'm just still fired up about it. Nothing is directed toward any of you posters out there. Well, except for the old comments for MoB, but that's just fun jest. He's a good guy... with bad tastes in comics.

And you're just a young guy with no tastes in comics...

t: t:

 

[Jennifer Walters]

I do find it funny and odd that Marvel is using gimmicks to sell Spider-Man more now than it ever did before. It's almost as if they fell they NEED them to sell the comic.

New Ways to Die, Barack Obama issue, Character Assassination, American Son, Issue 600. They've finally gotten to the point where they've run out of gimmicks and they are using the return of Mary Jane as one.

I think things like this speak ALOT for the condition that Spider-Man is in right now as a character/comic book series.