Sorry if this was posted elsewhere, but I didn't see it.

I'm dying to know how figures stack up against # 1

[edit note: Hunt, hope you don't mind but I edited the title so we can continue to use this thread to report out on sales.]

Not yet. I think its about another week yet before we get them.

I know a lot of folks are curious.

# 2s generally see a drop in sales. I hope that isn't the case here, because LSH # 2 was a more enjoyable read than # 1, for me anyway.

#2 will see a drop in sales, because it was ordered before anyone knew if #1 was a good read or not.

The statistics presented are generally not sales to the customer, but sales to the various comic book stores, and they are ordered about three months in advance (I think). *EVERYTHING* takes a sales hit for the second issue. It's to be expected and isn't that bad a thing.

The really interesting numbers will show up on issue four and five...

The owner of my comic shop said sales for #2 were still pretty high. In fact, he sold out. I know he didn't put in low orders because he sold out of #1, re-ordered, and sold out of those. I'm pretty sure he'd make sure there were enough copies of #2 around.

Yeah, my CBS sold out of # 2 hours after it hit the shelves, under heavy order numbers.

I noticed a healthy restock of both # 1 & 2 when I was there yesterday.

Yeah, no sales yet, but we'll have rankings later this coming week, most likely, and sales figures extrapolated from those in an additional week.

J

Look for a DC announcement about sales on the early issues any day now...

Well! Color me Super-Curious now!

Sounds like good news!

Hey Barry, Where? dccomics.com?

Thanks for the tease.

Well, if DC's making an official announcement on sales, it's gotta be doing pretty spectacular.

Dare we hope... a "sold out!" press release?!

I'm hopin' the smiley means Barry knows something good he just can't share yet.

they've decided to reboot the sales figures.

Hey, Barry! Is THIS the news you're hinting at...?

Woo-Woo-Woo!

Huzzah for Mark and Barry!

The Legion of Superheroes: The little book that could.

At my CBS both sold out. I remember when they told #1 sold out and I was supossed to have it on my pull list but they said they didn't have anymore...i almost made the 17 yr acne ridden cashier cry when he pulled one out he had hidden for himself...but it was either that or break his legs.

and here I thought that CBS was a TV broadcasting company

That's the funniest thing I've read all day.

Thanks.

It's the Legion man, this isn't just a comic book it's important!

Yay WaK!

Go Legion!

No figures yet but here's the rankings released today (including the 3 books above and below LOSH):

27 24 79.03 ** NOV041799 FANTASTIC FOUR #522 $2.99 MAR
28 37 74.45 ** NOV040278 JSA #69 $2.50 DC
29 26 73.93 JUN041408 WANTED #6 (Of 6) (MR) $2.99 IMA
30 27 72.08 ** NOV040280 LEGION O/SUPER HEROES #2 $2.95 DC
31 49 71.07 ** NOV040270 FLASH #218 $2.25 DC
32 28 69.66 ** NOV040236 DETECTIVE COMICS #802 $2.95 DC
33 29 68.53 ** OCT041735 NEW X-MEN #8 $2.99 MAR

We beat out the Flash, Detective Comics and New X-Men. But we fell five slots. Still, the actual numbers will tell a better story.

An interesting note on the top 300 for January. DC's highest ranking title was The Teen Titans (#20). It came in at #14. Marvel owned the top 13 slots. I don't think I've seen that for quite awhile.

Here's the full list .

Based on Titans doing 62k (which, coming from this is, I think, a fair assumption), LSH #2 had orders of ~39.7k, (with reorders for #1 of around 7.2k), which makes a drop of ~22% on orders for #1 (not counting reorders).

For comparison, Titans had a drop of 2.7%

DC's Top 20

1) TEEN TITANS #20
2) JLA #110
3) JLA CLASSIFIED #3
4) BATMAN #63
5) FLASH #217
6) JSA #69
7) LEGION O/SUPER HEROES #2
8) FLASH #218
9) DETECTIVE COMICS #802
10)OUTSIDERS #19
11)ADVENTURES O/SUPERMAN #63
12)NIGHTWING #101
13)ACTION COMICS #823
14)NIGHTWING #102
15)BATMAN GOTHAM KNIGHTS #61
16)ROBIN #134
17)GREEN ARROW #46
18)SPACE GHOST #3 (OF 6)
19)JUSTICE LEAGUE ELITE #7 (OF 12)
20)PLANETARY #22

Looking at it this way, I'd say that Mark & Barry deserve lots of kudos. They beat out some pretty significant titles at DC, including every single Batman & Superman title except for Batman.

Congrats Mark & Barry!

Man, I thought the days of having a Legion title in the top 30 2 months in a row was an 80s legend, never to be seen again. How nice to be wrong.

LSH is one of DC's top 10 titles. It feels pretty good to be able to type that.

It proves that everything is "cyclical". I knew if I was a Legion fan long enough, it would be "hip" again.

I'd say things are gonna be looking up for Huey Lewis and the News again too...

Take that flash.

Since we are talking rankings and sales does anybody Know if Fallen Angel is still on the chopping block? It's suck a good book.

I'm almost entirely certain that last sentence didn't come out the way you intended. :7

PAD has said that issue 20 is the last issue, as have DC's solicits. I suppose a miracle could still happen, but I'm doubtful. Peter also said that he has something in mind for later down the road, and to keep your eyes open.

LSH looks to be doing good. Yay. =)

J

Using Batman as the index title, it comes out somewhat higher -- 42K-44K copies. This assumes Batman slipped no more than it did in December. The range is consistent with the most recent numbers for the neighboring titles: FF (47.6K), JSA (45.2K), Flash (43.6K), New X-Men (43K) and Detective (42.8).

January reorders of LSH #1 also come out a bit higher -- 7.5K-8K copies. So, the total number sold in the U.S. through Diamond was about 58K copies.

I won't try to estimate the drop between the two issues until next month, in case there are reorders for #2.

Also, in Newsrama are spoilers of issue #7.

http://www.newsarama.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=27924

A Freudian slip is when you say one thing but you mean amother.

While a slip on a banana peel is one of the great cliches of slapstick humor.

SEE?!

DC's three best sellers: Superman/Batman, Superman and Green Lantern: Rebirth, all missed their January shipping dates, so it's not hard to see why Marvel dominated the top ten.

I am excited by the news out of Wondercon that DC is seeing increasing sales on Legion month over month from #2 onwards. Very, very excited!

Some numbers from ICv2 :

30 72.08 LEGION OF SUPER HEROES #2 42,261
145 13.06 LEGION OF SUPER HEROES #1 7,657

That would give #1 sales of 58,348. Since DC wouldn't run off an odd number like that I'd figure they printed at least 60,000 copies of number one.

Can't wait for next month's numbers and see what the reorders for #2 look like.

Just been reminded of this :

And, as I said later on that same page...

Still not quite as high (even after advance reorders & one month of reorders + a "sold out") as I expected from that. We'll see what happens next - they didn't "me too" Teen Titans as I expected.

it's an interesting (and telling) experiment - this re-booted, reimagined Legion

since contained minis seem to be more profitable for publishers, and ongoing series have shown considerable trouble maintaining stable sales, it's really issues #10, 12, 24, 35, 78 that tells the story (especially with the golden re-imagination parachute: the Legion could get old if it gets completely reborn every 5-10 years based on sales of the ongoing book

ALTHOUGH THESE NUMBERS CERTAINLY ROCK - and IMO, Waid & Kitson certainly earn it

Sales figures for February titles have been released. Here is how LoSH #3 ranked:

40 39 68.84 ** DEC040270 LEGION O/SUPER HEROES #3

While it may seem like a slide from #2 I'd wait for the actual number of copies sold before making any assumptions.

By the way, additional sales of #1 and #2 were reported as well:

205 211 8.34 NOV040280 LEGION O/SUPER HEROES #2

274 284 2.75 OCT040295 LEGION O/SUPER HEROES #1

So what are our grand totals for 1 & 2? I can't figure out those numbers beside the title.

Don't know yet Lash. The actual figures will still be another couple of weeks. But for now #1 has total sales (not counting the third round of reorders) of 58,348 and #2 has 42,261.

Sorry I've missed this thread up to now.
Some more good news - initial orders on #5 are up once again on previous issues

All good signs!

Thanks again guys for helping make the relaunch the big success it's generally agreed to be!

Barry thanked us! Us!
[steinbrenner] I am blown away, George! Blowowoowwwn Away! [/steinbrenner]

Thank you, Barry! You guys are doing such a great job that we can't not support it!

ICV2 has released the actual numbers for February here .

LSH #3 - 39,951
LSH #2 reorders - 4,840 (47,101 total)
LSH #1 reorders - 1,596 (59,944 total)

Am I correct that Barry stated orders of issues #3-5 topped #2? If so, we'll be seeing a huge reorder number for #3 in next month's chart.

Three Legion books in the top 300 - got to be a long time since that happened.

Yeah, by # 4, the shop owners will be tired of having to do all the reorders and will up their initial orders-- watch for # 4's initial orders to make a big jump over # 3's!

50 61.4 X-FORCE #6 $2.99 MAR 35,633

70 48.87 X-FORCE SHATTERSTAR #1 (OF 3) $2.99 MAR 28,361

I am not alone!

BWA-HA-HA-HA!!!

Hey, the slimmest majority of Americans reelected Duh-bya. Sometimes a large number of otherwise sane people can do stupid things.

LEGION O/SUPER HEROES #1: Rank - 25; Numbers - 50,691 ¹
LEGION O/SUPER HEROES #2: Rank - 30; Numbers - 42,261 ² <font size="5">↓</font s>
LEGION O/SUPER HEROES #3, Rank - 40; Numbers - 39,951 ³ <font size="5">↓</font s>

With only a three issue drop with the third issue, it appears that the usual new title drop has slowed relatively fast. It's quite good that sales have stabilized so fast plus, this number also doesn't factor in reorders.

P.S. Reboot, not to sound snooty but this Legion is still selling 15 000 more copies than your Legion ever did

The legion topped the list of reorders for febuary as well!

REORDERS:
(205) 4,840 -- Legion of Super-Heroes #2
(215) 4,178 -- Nightwing #102
(217) 3,877 -- Green Lantern: Rebirth #3
(227) 3,145 -- Nightwing #101
(244) 2,368 -- Space Ghost #3
(249) 2,246 -- Flash #218
(250) 2,234 -- Adventures of Superman #636
(251) 2,205 -- Green Lantern: Rebirth #1
(258) 2,025 -- We3 #3
(262) 1,933 -- JLA: Classified #3
(264) 1,898 -- Batman #636
(266) 1,828 -- Green Lantern: Rebirth #2
(267) 1,828 -- Teen Titans #20
(274) 1,596 -- Legion of Super-Heroes #1
(293) 1,248 -- Superman/ Batman #16
(294) 1,225 -- Superman #212
(295) 1,213 -- Superman/ Batman #15

Your Shatterstar fetish has got to end before more innocent people are subjected to Liefeld! Just hold out until a better creative team can use him or else we risk even more Liefeld!

Nah. Liefeld's says he won't do anymore X-Force stuff, so if Marvel wants to revive X-Force, they're going to have to find someone else.

Oh, thank the Gods. Maybe if they do more X-Force I can pick it up, then.

J
And I'm back!

Just out of curiosity, does anyone save this monthly data anywhere or is there a place where we could pull the data for a bunch of months?

I'd be interested in looking at an "adjusted balance" of all titles for comparisons. The concept is fairly easy to do but there would be a bit of data manipulation involved.

ICv2 - the guys who provided the info above - keep records dating back to about three years ago.

You can also Google the rec.arts.comics. newsgroups to get Marc-Oliver Frisch's monthly updates. He does some of what you're suggesting.

Initial March figures are in (minus actual sales):

46 69.83 LEGION O/SUPER HEROES #4
220 8.15 LEGION O/SUPER HEROES #3
300 2.48 LEGION O/SUPER HEROES #2

Issue #4 beat out Action Comics (#48), Detective Comics (#51), Nightwing (#52), Outsiders (#54), Nightwing (#55), Green Arrow (#65), Robin (#66), Wonder Woman (#69). All those titles were on sale the same month, not reorders.

The ranking for #3 was #40 with 68.84. So, depending upon actual numbers, #4 did bounce back up a little.

And # 2 is *STILL* making the chart? Kewl!

Just barely but it did.

Jillikers!! WAK's LSH # 2 is just like Debbie Boone's song "You Light Up My Life" back when it was assaulting the # 1 spot on the top 40 for 10 straight weeks in the 70s

Only more amusing.

Here are the estimated figures for #4 and reorders:

46 69.83 LEGION O/SUPER HEROES #4 - 41,756
220 8.15 LEGION O/SUPER HEROES #3 - 4,873
300 2.48 LEGION O/SUPER HEROES #2 - 1,483

Totals to date:

LoSH #1 - 59,944 (w/reorders)
LoSH #2 - 48,584 (w/reorders) 19% drop from #1
LoSH #3 - 44,284 (w/reorders) 9% drop from #2
LoSH #4 - 41,756 (no reorder numbers yet) 6% drop from #3

I figure there should be at least another 3,000 in reorders for #4. Looks like a pretty decent decline already becoming steady. But figuring these numbers aren't my strong suit.

Very decent numbers.

Someone posts detailed anlyses of DC's numbers (Marc Oliver-Frisch but highly mangled by me, I know it), and he does a good job of the percentages and sorting out how things are performing against each other.

J

Inital sales for April (minus actual numbers):

44 66.83 LEGION O/SUPER HEROES #5
271 2.65 LEGION O/SUPER HEROES #4

ICV2 has reported actual sales numbers for April 2005 HERE .

LSH #5 - 41,664
LSH #4 reorders - 1,652

Totals so far:

12/ 2004: LSH #1 -- 59,944, including reorders
01/ 2005: LSH #2 -- 48,584 ""
02/ 2005: LSH #3 -- 44,824 ""
03/ 2005: LSH #4 -- 43,408 "" (41,756 + 1,652)
04/ 2005: LSH #5 -- 41,664, not incl. next-month reorders, if any.

After 5 months, the buzz is gone, but hopefully it's attaining stability now. 40K or thereabouts, and a solid position in the Top 50, wouldn't be bad for this series, though I wonder if it might have done better if it moved somewhat faster than an arctic glacier. The Infinite Crisis tie-in starting in August, and the possible intro of Power Girl, is bound to give the series greater exposure, if not more readers, though I remain skeptical about the long-term benefits for Legion continuity. TPTB would be wise to publish a trade collection soon to tie-in with the tie-in. Some press about the upcoming cartoon (we hope) wouldn't hurt, either. Just my two cents.

At least we beat Conan!

Forget Conan! We beat:

DETECTIVE COMICS
PUNISHER
NIGHTWING
NEW X-MEN
GLA
EXILES
BATMAN GOTHAM KNIGHTS
GREEN ARROW
ROBIN
BIRDS OF PREY
JUSTICE LEAGUE ELITE
WONDER WOMAN
SPAWN
BATGIRL
Y THE LAST MAN
BATMAN LEGENDS O/T DARK KNIGHT
X-MEN UNLIMITED
CABLE/DEADPOOL
FABLES
EX MACHINA
CATWOMAN

And those are just the on-goings from the Top 100.

Intial standings for May:

42 61.48 LEGION O/SUPER HEROES #6

And that's it. No reorders in the Top 300.

I'm going to guess that issue #6 sold about 40,800 copies, down about 800 copies from last month.

Well I was off by 170 comics. #6 sold an estimated 40,970 issues. That's only a drop of 694 copies.

is this usual for sales to drop like this?

DB you can find a good recap of DCs sales figures here . The Legion is actually doing pretty well for a new series.

And DC really started kicking butt finally!!! Which is nice cause in quality they've been head & shoulders over Marvel for a while and then some.

Intial numbers for June:

#44 58.26 LEGION O/SUPER HEROES #7

A little slip but I still think the numbers are holding up quite well compared to the last title.

Will probably fall a few more places in July. I think with all the House of M series, a couple of first issues from DC and the Adv. of Superman and Wonder Woman getting a big bump from OMAC it's possible that the line to get into the top 50 may be above 40k.

The fluctuation in the position is no big deal as long as the raw counts are relatively stable.

FYI, Newsarama has just started publishing their own sales data. You'll find their chart HERE .

According to them, LSH #7 sold 39,100 copies. We'll just have to see how it lines up with the actual numbers from ICV2 when they come out.

If Newsarama's numbers are accurate, it represents a drop of 1,870 copies from issue #6. That doesn't come as a big surprise; the 6-month mark tends to be end of the standard trial period for a new series. And then, as Tamper Lad said, there are all the Infinite Crisis and House of M crossovers and event issues that are flooding the market now, and people's pockets are only so deep. The fact that LSH remains firmly in the Top 50 is a positive sign. Let's just hope the downward trend doesn't continue for long.

A trade might have helped respark interest at this point and capture some belated readers, but DC seems oblivous to that idea. What dummies.

Well their prediction is about 1,000 copies higher than mine so I hope they are correct.

As for a trade, I can't really see a trade yet for LSH. There hasn't been a set start and end to anything yet. I think it'll be a bit longer before we get to stories that can be collected.

Um...must keep quiet, since I don't know if I'm supposed to say or not...

Be looking for a trade of the new series the next time they announce DC's collected additions. Barry told me, but I don't think I'm supposed to spill the beans about it. So...shhh!

Bastards...I know you're hiding something.

And if you look at it in another way, we are still outselling a number of their flagship titles. Both Detective Comics and Adventures of Superman were lower in sales than the Legion. There is no shame in being a top 50 selling book, in my opinion.

there's no shame. but why oh why aren't the numbers higher! I have some ideas to increase sales:

(4) take a cue from Element Lad and get rid of clothing for all Legion members.

(3) have 2 or 3 variant covers for every issue

(2) less character development and more rock'em sock'em battle scenes

(1) have a 7 part mini in which projectra's illusions changes the universe in an internet breaking event of the decade!

dude, sales would go through the roof.

naturally, the above items are all a joke. but sadly, some of those probably would increase sales.

The ICV2 sales figure is a tad higher: 39,155 copies. You'll find the chart HERE .

Maybe I spoke too soon.

Looks like the cat is out of the bag anyway.

Totals to date:

12/2004: LSH #1 -- 59,944, including reorders
01/2005: LSH #2 -- 48,584 ""
02/2005: LSH #3 -- 44,824 ""
03/2005: LSH #4 -- 43,408 ""
04/2005: LSH #5 -- 41,664, no reorder listed in top 300
05/2005: LSH #6 -- 40,970 ""
06/2005: LSH #7 -- 39,155 ""

For comparison, here are the figures for the first seven issues of the last series:

The Legion #1 - 28,350
The Legion #2 - 24,364
The Legion #3 - 24,338
The Legion #4 - 24,416
The Legion #5 - 24,232
The Legion #6 - 24,603
The Legion #7 - 25,113

For comparisons against the end of the series prior (Legion/Legionnaires), Legion Lost and Legion Worlds, see Reboot's invaluable post here .

Thanks! And without the color code, my post from above.

LSH fell out of the top 50 this month:

54 56.96 Legion of Super-Heroes #8

I figure #8 sold around 38,500 copies so it dropped a bit more.

Hmm. I don't care for this falling out of the top 50 business.

At least 16 of the titles I counted in the top 50 are part of various limited series. They end... blam-o -- Legion back in the top 50.

LEGION O/SUPER HEROES #8

54 on Hot 100

37,272 units sold

Okay, but the book is trending down. With all of the Infinite Crisis tie-ins, etc., I'm afraid Legion is getting lost.

The past couple of issues have been a bit of a turn-off (Legionnaires acting like asses and the unknown guest artist).

Hopefully, we'll be moving in a new direction soon. The current one is getting tedious.

#9 continues the slide:

69 53.97 Legion of Super-Heroes #9

Although the share of sales didn't slide that badly. If the share was the same as last month the issue still would have ranked at #63.

Any know what the actual number of copies sold for number 9 was?

That's all that really matters right?

35,800 as estimated by Newsarama.

I was looking at the rankings earlier this week... If you subtract all the one-shots, annuals and mini's (25) and only count titles that double-shipped this month as one (4), LSH is still #40 in ongoing monthlies. Not so scary when you figure it like that... though dipping towards 35K is a little worrisome.

More than a little, to my thinking.

As many of us here have noted, it's getting lost in the IC shuffle.

I'd like to blame this on the IC/House of M summer glut, but sadly must realize that no matter the glut, if the demand were there, the initial orders wouldn't be shrinking.

If there are reorders, I might feel better about it.

Still, the 3boot is selling better than the last run, and with a 'toon in the pipeline, things are still okay with unlimited potential for improvement.

I noticed that issues 6-7 were over-ordered by several of the comic book stores I go to. There were still 8-12 copies by the time the next issue was out.

I've noticed that 8-9 seem to be closer to equilibrium at the stores. I think #9 actually sold out already at my regular store, so maybe we'll see a leveling out. With Barry promising a huge conclusion to year 1 and a TPB coming out 35-37k is not a bad base to build from.

when i saw these numbers, i just shook my head ... i like this version of the Legion (it's not MY legion, but that went out the window 4ever when Giffen & TMB blew up the moon IMO) ... it's taken awhile for the characters to form (not a bad thing with such a big cast and the need to differentiate them from past versions while providing an entertaining story) and the villains are kinda lame (again, IMO), BUT i see a lot of promise here

unfortunately, perhaps this Legion was not considered in light of the larger crossover pushes at both companies and thus became lost in the shuffle

it's possible that a smaller start -- maybe a team of "Legionnaires" stuck in our present learning to be heroes before returning to their present/a future to form a LSH or something ... build some additional interest outside of the 30k of 'us' (i mean the predictable Legion fans)

hindsight is 20/20

i see how some titles get 'shaken up' for selling at this level (i.e. Aquaman, Green Arrow, Catwoman, Nightwing) -- and usually not in a good way

hope that Waid can bring some of his Brave & Bold numbers to Legion when that kicks up (i expect it to start big, call me optimistic)

Honestly while I am enjoying this Legion I see some missteps on how to launch a series. The pace being the most important.

Teenage revolution? Teenagers have the attention span of 10 seconds. Not sure if they were going for the actual young audience or the old audience that enjoys the teenager thing.

things sound like they will pick up soon hopefully that will translate into sales.

Totals to date:

12/2004: LSH #1 -- 59,944, including reorders
01/2005: LSH #2 -- 48,584 ""
02/2005: LSH #3 -- 44,824 ""
03/2005: LSH #4 -- 43,408 ""
04/2005: LSH #5 -- 41,664, no reorder listed in top 300
05/2005: LSH #6 -- 40,970 ""
06/2005: LSH #7 -- 39,155 ""
07/2005: LSH #8 -- 37,272 ""
08/2005: LSH #9 -- 35,834 ""

These plunging sale honestly don't surprise me in the least. And as gloomy as it is to say it I'm sure we've got a ways to go yet before it stops.

When I heard that Mark Waid was restarting the Legion I was thrilled. I *loved* the first few years of the reboot and thought he would bring the same electric story-telling here that he had brought there. But the threeboot is almost a master-class in how *NOT* to reboot a franchise and especially how *NOT* to reel in today's young readers!

If I wasn't such a Legion fan I probably would have dropped this boring series ages ago.

Hate to type it, but I too am suffering from Legion-ennui.

I think issue #10 will crank it up a notch for a wild ride for the next few issues.

I agree Blacula. Thing is I think Waid was trying to be very careful. And for that I am grateful. But electricity sure is missing.

But in less than 24 hours everything can be turned around.

I just hope the Legion itself isn't blamed. I've seen some comments from creators here or there that the audience for them isn't there and I disagree very much so.

Maybe they should add a short, scrappy Gaul to the team: just read that the new Asterix book has a 1st print run of 8 million....

69 Legion of Super Heroes 9 $2.99 DC 35,800

Well it's only dropped 34 issues since last month. Looks like it's going level out at 35K. I hope the next few issues jump starts some more readers but we will see.

I noticed today that my store seems to have re-stocked a bunch of back issues of the new series. Don't know what that means, though.

I noticed my CBS did the same, EDE.

But now that sales have (hopefuly) stabilized backstock levels should lower as well, I think.

Compare to 'The Legion' #10 (24,775 copies, rank 85)

Numerical increase: 11,025 copies
Percentage increase: 44.5%

Compare current sales to the equivalent issue of Waid's first reboot. If we count the Zero issues, that would be LSH #70. The sales chart for that month is missing, but the closest issue for which we have data, LSH #69, ranked 148. It took a nice upswing in the following months, but as far as I can tell, the franchise never once attained domestic sales of 35-36K during the entire 10 years of the postboot era.

Compare to issue #10 of T&M's 'Legionnaires' relaunch. We can't, because it didn't appear on the Top 150 chart, nor did the LSH series at the end of T&M's run with LSH #50. Unfortunately, there are no earlier rankings online, but we're told that sales had "gently eroded" during the year after Giffen's departure. So we're looking at a bleak sales picture that goes back to 1993 and maybe back to 1992, if not earlier.

I love old sales data. They tell an important story, without bias. Disregarding the TT/Legion special, no previous LSH book appears to have reached 36K in domestic sales for at least a *dozen* years, insofar as I can interpret prior sales history.

If WaK's LSH is not the "important" book that TPTB hoped it would be, and if it failed to match Waid's hyperbolic projections as DC's #1 title (what *was* Mark smoking that day?), it can still be counted among their viable franchises for the time being, for which I give thanks. I choose to remain optimistic.

I agree Trom. (what was he smoking that day?)

Maybe IC made them change the pace? The Waid/Kitson expermiment is going to be around atleast 24 to 40 issues and I think sales will level.

But at some point this is going to need a kick in the pants IMO. I see much potential for improvement. I just hope DC doesn't think it's the Legion's fault they sell low...it's not. This book can easily be in the top 30 methinks.

Was Quesada there, he obviously caught something from over there.

Updated list:

12/2004: LSH #1 -- 59,944, including reorders
01/2005: LSH #2 -- 48,584 ""
02/2005: LSH #3 -- 44,824 ""
03/2005: LSH #4 -- 43,408 ""
04/2005: LSH #5 -- 41,664, no reorder listed in top 300
05/2005: LSH #6 -- 40,970 ""
06/2005: LSH #7 -- 39,155 ""
07/2005: LSH #8 -- 37,272 ""
08/2005: LSH #9 -- 35,834 ""
09/2005: LSH #10 -- 35,800 ""

LSH #11, in the raw data I just received from CBG, is listed as #54 for October, that's a rebound of 15 spots. The index is 48.75 with the #1 being Infinite Crisis #1 at 356.22 and an estimated 250,000 in sales. That rougly puts Legion sales at 34,213, down 1587 issues. I'm thinking that the 250K for IC may be on the low side.

Interesting. I wonder if they keep dropping little by little if DC will attempt to make some changes? Not a new creative team...but tell Waid to shift gears a bit?

Maybe with the wrap up to the first story arc, any IC tie-ins and some smaller arcs, the book will even out. And taking out all the one-shots/specials/minis, LSH ranks as the #40 selling ongoing title.

It also looks like I was off by 100 books. The finaly sales estimate for the issue was 34,113.

And don't you just know that sales will take off when Vi and Legion of the Multiverse arrive.

With those three on the cover and Barry promising to fix the coloring on Block I expect a jump, even if only for an issue or two, of a couple of thousand extra issues. Of course, watch me be proven wrong just so Reboot can gloat.

I agree. With Vi on the cover, then Blok, Dawny, and Tyroc...I am sure it will jump up real high. I know for sure the Levitz Legionnaires will come out again and buy that cover.

54 Legion of Super Heroes #11 34,100

Latest from Newsarama (if I read it correctly). Ouch. Still think just with the release of the cover for #15 sales should go up next month.

Updated list:

12/2004: LSH #1 -- 59,944, including reorders
01/2005: LSH #2 -- 48,584 ""
02/2005: LSH #3 -- 44,824 ""
03/2005: LSH #4 -- 43,408 ""
04/2005: LSH #5 -- 41,664, no reorder listed in top 300
05/2005: LSH #6 -- 40,970 ""
06/2005: LSH #7 -- 39,155 ""
07/2005: LSH #8 -- 37,272 ""
08/2005: LSH #9 -- 35,834 ""
09/2005: LSH #10 -- 35,800 ""
10/2005: LSH #11 -- 34,100 ""
11/2005: LSH #12 -- 33,500 ""

And the current ranking for #12 is 57th with an index of 48.11. The TPB "Teenage Revolution" ranked at #27 of the top 100 graphic novels, while the CoiE Absolute edition came in at #29.

Updated list:

12/2004: LSH #1 -- 59,944, including reorders
01/2005: LSH #2 -- 48,584 ""
02/2005: LSH #3 -- 44,824 ""
03/2005: LSH #4 -- 43,408 ""
04/2005: LSH #5 -- 41,664, no reorder listed in top 300
05/2005: LSH #6 -- 40,970 ""
06/2005: LSH #7 -- 39,155 ""
07/2005: LSH #8 -- 37,272 ""
08/2005: LSH #9 -- 35,834 ""
09/2005: LSH #10 -- 35,800 ""
10/2005: LSH #11 -- 34,100 ""
11/2005: LSH #12 -- 33,500 ""
01/2006: LSH #13 -- 32,730 ""

#13 ranked 54 in sales for January with an index of 52.47

Ouch. I'm reminded of the Career Builders commercial with the inverted line chart and the celebrating monkeys ...

Okay, I never follow sales. What does the index number mean?

It represents the sales of a book relative to the industry standard title, which is Batman. So it means the LSH sold 52.47 copies for every 100 copies of Batman sold for the month. Batman has been the industry standard for quite some time now. I think Portfolio Boy (Duke) once mentioned it has been used since the first Tim Burton Batman movie.

Hmm. That's better than I would've expected actually.

Thanks, LL.

Well, still some work ahead for the book to become DC's number one seller.

Everyone pick up an extra issue of # 16 & give it to a friend, if you have no friends, give it to a stranger!

I plan to buy extra copies - just for myself!

I buy two a month. Three if I can't wait for my shipment and go to the local shop.

I dropped it. Legion is my fave all time but I just can't dig this team. I am going to wait for a new direction to try it again.

Well, I may just buy some more of #15 caused I liked it that much.

I agree. I bought extra copies of most of the earlier issues, but haven't felt inspired to do so lately. #15 may start that trend again.

I bought 3 #1s, and I've been doing 2 copies since then. Around #5 I decided I'd drop to 1 copy after the 1st year story arc, but I've postponed the drop thru the Supergirl run. Still hoping.

I must admit that I am a little worried by the steady decline in sales.
The previous Legion series had a very steady sales of about 25,000 and it looks like this series in trended back in that direction.
I am hoping that 16 will represent a turnaround on those figures.

12/2004: LSH #1 -- 59,944, including reorders
01/2005: LSH #2 -- 48,584 ""
02/2005: LSH #3 -- 44,824 ""
03/2005: LSH #4 -- 43,408 ""
04/2005: LSH #5 -- 41,664, no reorder listed in top 300
05/2005: LSH #6 -- 40,970 ""
06/2005: LSH #7 -- 39,155 ""
07/2005: LSH #8 -- 37,272 ""
08/2005: LSH #9 -- 35,834 ""
09/2005: LSH #10 -- 35,800 ""
10/2005: LSH #11 -- 34,100 ""
11/2005: LSH #12 -- 33,500 ""
01/2006: LSH #13 -- 32,730 ""
02/2006: LSH #14 -- ?
02/2006: LSH #15 -- ?

#14 ranked 62 in sales for January with an index of 47.63. A big drop this month but when taking into account one-shots, specials and multiple issues of some titles, LSH actually held its spot as the #37 best selling on-going title for the month and improved two spots to DC's 15th best selling title.

Did you see 15 ranked 3 slots lower?

LSH #15- 65 47.63

And 14's index was actually 48.93.

Didn't catch that. Thanks Pov!

#16 ranked 41st in sales for March with a big jump in their index, up to 67.94. Of course it was a sold out issue and had the Big Red S helping out, so I doubt they'll stay up that high. But it would be nice to see them level off again a bit higher than they have been.

Taking into account all the specials, one-shots, annuals, double-ships, etc., SLSH #16 ranked at #27 in on-going titles and as DC's 12th best selling on-going.

Not bad.

Also good that # 16 was the best issue in months.

Updated numbers, including totals for #16:

12/2004: LSH #01 -- 59,944, including reorders
01/2005: LSH #02 -- 48,584 ""
02/2005: LSH #03 -- 44,824 ""
03/2005: LSH #04 -- 43,408 ""
04/2005: LSH #05 -- 41,664, no reorder listed in top 300
05/2005: LSH #06 -- 40,970 ""
06/2005: LSH #07 -- 39,155 ""
07/2005: LSH #08 -- 37,272 ""
08/2005: LSH #09 -- 35,834 ""
09/2005: LSH #10 -- 35,800 ""
10/2005: LSH #11 -- 34,100 ""
11/2005: LSH #12 -- 33,500 ""
01/2006: LSH #13 -- 32,730 ""
02/2006: LSH #14 -- 32,513 ""
02/2006: LSH #15 -- 31,649 ""
03/2006: LSH #16 -- 47,426 ""

#16 has posted the 3rd best sales of the series so far, behind #1 and #2. I'll be curious to see if the sales for the second printing hit the Top 300 for April since that issue is due out this Wednesday. Modest resales would be enough to push #16 up to the second best seller of this current series.

And just to note, since I now have historical sales data on the Legion back to 1997, issue #16 ranks as the fourth best selling issue of the Legion in nine years. Here are the top five since 1997:

Teen Titans/The Legion Special #1 - 61,047
The Legion of Super-Heroes v5 #1 - 59,944
The Legion of Super-Heroes v5 #2 - 48,584
The Legion of Super-Heroes v5 #16 - 47,426
The Legion of Super-Heroes v5 #3 - 44,824

I know the numbers are still dropping but the Legion haven't seen numbers north of 30k since The Legion #25 (the 45th anniversary issue) which barely broke 30k (30,440). Prior to that issue the closet in 30k sales was for the two 1,000,000 issues, both of which sold 29,300 and The Legion of Super-Heroes v4 #100 which sold 29,800. So I tend to believe that with these sales we have a pretty strong title, strongest in a decade.

Now I just wish I could find some of the older sales numbers.

Wow, those figures look really encouraging, Lightning Lad. I guess Kara has a lot of fans (I'm certainly one of them). #16 was one of the best issues to date, IMHO, so I think a lot of these people will stick around.

They wouldn't reprint unless they could sell 5000+ copies, would they?

I'm not sure. The earlier sell out only added a couple of thousand to the total as I recall. I don't think they set a certain number. But with a different cover there may be something more to what they decide.

Preliminary sales info for SLOSH #17 are strong as well:

44 42 61.5 SUPERGIRL & LOSH #17 $2.99 DC

This is good news. I'd take Kara on 3 out of every 5 covers if it meant these types of sales and some sort of stability in regards to knowing there is a guaranteed future to this Legion...

Pov, any idea how it ranked in regards to other DC titles (not including minis, one-shots, etc.)?

Why you asking him? This is my thread! I do the updates!

Not counting minis and such SLoSH #17 ranked as the #31 overall best selling title (DC and Marvel) and as the 9th best selling DC title.

I count it as 8 or 9 on DC's ongoing series. Which that is depends on whether you think Ion (a 12 issue limited series) is an ongoing. Remember there is no JLA or Flash or Wonder Woman right now. So I'd put it just outside the top 10 of DC's books.

Diamond's chart also shows issue 16 reorder/2nd print at number 184. That should be another 8-12k on top of what was sold in March.

I was looking for the full 300 list but could only find the Top 100 on Newsarama.

Here you go Scott. Diamond Charts

My quick estimate is just based on what the previous month's comics around 184 sold. I could give a better estimate but that would require work. (Ie entering the last year of top 300 sales tables into an excel analysis and forecast template I have i have) Perhaps if Legion World could provide me with a data entry slave.

My plan to play Pov against Scott is working, as I reap the reward of information!

I'm sorry...

Oh, now I've gone and made Pov cry. That will just ruin my weekend.

Hey, Pov, keep up the good work!

Shan

Updated numbers, including new totals for #16:

12/2004: LSH #01 -- 59,944, including reorders
01/2005: LSH #02 -- 48,584 ""
02/2005: LSH #03 -- 44,824 ""
03/2005: LSH #04 -- 43,408 ""
04/2005: LSH #05 -- 41,664, no reorder listed in top 300
05/2005: LSH #06 -- 40,970 ""
06/2005: LSH #07 -- 39,155 ""
07/2005: LSH #08 -- 37,272 ""
08/2005: LSH #09 -- 35,834 ""
09/2005: LSH #10 -- 35,800 ""
10/2005: LSH #11 -- 34,100 ""
11/2005: LSH #12 -- 33,500 ""
01/2006: LSH #13 -- 32,730 ""
02/2006: LSH #14 -- 32,513 ""
02/2006: LSH #15 -- 31,649 ""
03/2006: LSH #16 -- 54,826, including reorders
04/2006: LSH #17 -- 44,800, no reorder listed in top 300

And here are the new top five best selling Legion issues since 1997 (#16 passed up #2 with reorders):

Teen Titans/The Legion Special #1 - 61,047
The Legion of Super-Heroes v5 #1 - 59,944
The Legion of Super-Heroes v5 #16 - 54,826
The Legion of Super-Heroes v5 #2 - 48,584
The Legion of Super-Heroes v5 #3 - 44,824

#17 sold only 24 fewer issues than #3. It will be interesting to see if Supergirl keeps the title in the 40k range.

Scott, will there be reorders now in May that we'll end up seeing, which will add to the #17 figure? I'd love it if another broke $50K.

Supergirl's membership is worth it 100% if it means steady figures like this.

They haven't resolicited #17 as sold out but if the sales garner more reorders, like the first few issues of the series did, there is a chance we'll see some more. I doubt, though, that they'd be on par with the reorders for #16 which was sold out and resolicited with a different cover. They'll need about 1500 in reorders to chart again.

And I still want to know where those other 56 copies of #1 went. There is no way DC printed 59,944 copies. They had to run 60k. I wonder if they would have given out 56 comps.

Two things to remember:

1) ICV2 and other sights only release estimates based on what they see as reliable sales sampling. There are still calculations involved translating indexes to "real" numbers, so it's possible to be "off" by a few fractions of a percentage (which could translate into upwards of 100 copies either way depending on the volume of sales).

2) They may have printed 60,000, but there's no way they all made it to shops intact. Damaged, lost, and otherwise unsellable books are no doubt returned and probably don't rank in Diamond's system. That being the case, losing .1% of your run that way isn't too shabby.

Begrudgingly, I agree.

I've enjoyed Supergirl's membership so far. I think it's worth it all by itself; if the sales figures go up then that's even better.

Marc-Oliver Frisch has released his month-to-month analyses of DC's March \'06 titles over at The Pulse.

Legion/LSH sales trends for 6 mo's/1yr/2yr's

+ 36.2%/+ 13.6%/+ 90.7%

--making LSH DC's 5th-best improved sales performer for 6 months, 14th best for the 1 year period, and a whopping second-best improvement, behind Green Lantern, over its sales for 2 years.

Can anybody post the sales figures of the Pre-Crisis Legion of Super-Heroes.

If they were readily available I'd have them posted on my site. But they take some research which I haven't quite finished. Once I'm done, though, I plan to have sales figures all the way back to Adv. #247.

Marc-Oliver Frisch has posted his analysis of DC's April sales numbers, but I don't wanna step on Scooter's toes.

He'll make me cry again...

Why you....

Actually, didn't he post those last week? I wasn't planning on updating. Seemed kinda redundant and, to me, he really didn't add anything we didn't already know.

SLoSH is still in the top 50 for May, but just barely. Not much of a slip but hopefully it won't slide much further.

49 51 58.92 SUPERGIRL & LEGION O/SUPER HEROES #18

And #17 added some more to its sales total:

292 3.75 SUPERGIRL & LEGION O/SUPER HEROES #17

Almost forgot, the second trade of the series ranked in the TPB sales for May as well.

28 32 3.72 LEGION O/SUPER HEROES VOL 2 DEATH O/DREAM TP

I'm not too worried, as long as the actual sales #'s are consistent. Depending on how you look at it, there were around 15 minis and maxis (Ion at 12 issues, and 52, of course) charting ahead of S&LOSH, and several comics had multiple issues... again, 52, but also the Battle for Bloodhaven mini, Action and USM. The bloom hasn't worn off yet... Hopefully Mark and Barry can capitalize and retain the new readers.

Yeah, I hadn't figured out the 'actual' standings yet (usually wait for the numbers to come out) but I'm not too worried.

Good show for the trade, btw... I still wanna pick up both of them when I get a slow month.

(This month's PG bust month... )

Guess we have different priorities. I'd rather have a trade collecting books that I have at least two copies of each issue that make up the trade than get a statue/bust of a comic book heroine with an oversized bust.

Grife, been 40 barely a month and already my priorities have become screwed.

Updated numbers, including new totals for #17:

12/2004: LSH #01 -- 59,944, including reorders
01/2005: LSH #02 -- 48,584 ""
02/2005: LSH #03 -- 44,824 ""
03/2005: LSH #04 -- 43,408 ""
04/2005: LSH #05 -- 41,664, no reorder listed in top 300
05/2005: LSH #06 -- 40,970 ""
06/2005: LSH #07 -- 39,155 ""
07/2005: LSH #08 -- 37,272 ""
08/2005: LSH #09 -- 35,834 ""
09/2005: LSH #10 -- 35,800 ""
10/2005: LSH #11 -- 34,100 ""
11/2005: LSH #12 -- 33,500 ""
01/2006: LSH #13 -- 32,730 ""
02/2006: LSH #14 -- 32,513 ""
02/2006: LSH #15 -- 31,649 ""
03/2006: LSH #16 -- 54,826, including reorders
04/2006: LSH #17 -- 47,697, including reorders
05/2006: LSH #18 -- 45,520

#18 actually outsold #17 by 720 copies, before reorders were added in. The issue was the 29th best selling overall title when specials, minis (and maxis like 52) and one-shots were subtracted. It was DC's 12th best selling title.

The Legion TPB sold 2,874 copies, 228 less than the first collection.

And here are the new top five best selling Legion issues since 1997 (#17 passed up #3 with reorders):

Teen Titans/The Legion Special #1 - 61,047
The Legion of Super-Heroes v5 #1 - 59,944
The Legion of Super-Heroes v5 #16 - 54,826
The Legion of Super-Heroes v5 #2 - 48,584
The Legion of Super-Heroes v5 #17 - 47,697

boy it sure would be nice to stay at 45K

-Nick-

I hope sales stay strong. The OYL boost seems to have helped sales a lot, so hopefully a lot of people stay on Legion.

I didn't see the original release of the Top 300 but they are out along with the numbers:

46 57.39 SUPERGIRL & LEGION O/SUPER HEROES #19

If there were reorders for #18 they didn't chart.

#19 was, minus the special, one-shots, etc., the 33rd best selling title for June and DCs 13th best selling on-going title. If we count Superman/Batman as a team book then SLoSH was DCs 5th best selling team title.

Updated numbers:

12/2004: LSH #01 -- 59,944, including reorders
01/2005: LSH #02 -- 48,584 ""
02/2005: LSH #03 -- 44,824 ""
03/2005: LSH #04 -- 43,408 ""
04/2005: LSH #05 -- 41,664, no reorder listed in top 300
05/2005: LSH #06 -- 40,970 ""
06/2005: LSH #07 -- 39,155 ""
07/2005: LSH #08 -- 37,272 ""
08/2005: LSH #09 -- 35,834 ""
09/2005: LSH #10 -- 35,800 ""
10/2005: LSH #11 -- 34,100 ""
11/2005: LSH #12 -- 33,500 ""
01/2006: LSH #13 -- 32,730 ""
02/2006: LSH #14 -- 32,513 ""
02/2006: LSH #15 -- 31,649 ""
03/2006: LSH #16 -- 54,826, including reorders
04/2006: LSH #17 -- 47,697, including reorders
05/2006: LSH #18 -- 45,520, no reorder listed in top 300
06/2006: LSH #19 -- 43,918 ""
07/2006: LSH #20 -- 41,679 ""

13 out of ??

5th out of ??

Need totals for proper reference.

Then if we don't count Superman/Batman as a team book then SLoSH would be DCs 4th best selling team title.

No estimates yet but it looks like SLoSH #20 took quite a tumble compared to #19:

53 40.12 SUPERGIRL & LEGION OF SUPER HEROES #20

#20 fell exactly as many points in the index from June to July as Marvel Team-Up #22 had in total (17.27). Still if sales for Civil War #3 were high maybe the actual number of issues sold wouldn't have dropped too much.

One-shots, et al aside, #20 ranked in at #36.

The issue ranked #16 (out of 33) for DC's on-going titles and #7 (out of 10) for DC's team books.

Estimated numbers are out and SLoSH #20 shipped 41,679 copies, 2,239 fewer than #19. The title is still selling 10k above what it was, though, prior to Supergirl joining.

I'll feel much better about this series when/if sales ever stabilize.

Don't most titles start to level out by 20 issues?

That is an unrealistic expectation - for example

Top 10 selling comics
January 2004:
1 Ultimate Fantastic Four 126,700
2 New X-Men 124,000
3 New X-Men 118,100
4 Marvel 1602 109,200
5 Wolverine End 100,100
6 Ultimate X-Men 99,600
7 Ultimate Spider-Man 95,900
8 Ultimate Six 94,200
9 Uncanny X-Men 89,900
10 Batman 89,100

Current position & sales

Ultimate Fantastic Four - 22 - 84,400
New X-Men - 55 - 39,800
New X-Men
Marvel 1602 - mini series
Wolverine End - mini series
Ultimate X-Men - 30 - 70,600
Ultimate Spider-Man - 27 - 76,600
Ultimate Six - mini series
Uncanny X-Men - 19 - 88,800
Batman - 5 - 113,600

He said 'most'- walk into a fully stocked comic book store and you'll see the ones he's talking about. That includes all the non X books out there, the books like firestorm and manhunter, all the Vertigo books, indy books, Darkhorse etc...

I do shop at a well stocked store - one that carries every Marvel, DC, Image and Dark Horse title plus a slew of independents. Plus it has one of the largest back issue stock of any store within a hundred miles.
The owner is a good friend of mine and I have reviewed the sales charts that he uses to review his sales and to project his orders. I can tell you that sales tend to fluctuate based on a myriad of special events - cross overs, new writers, new artists etc.
I also see that you mentioned a variety of publishers but only two specific titles and quoted no numbers to back up your assertions.
So I did a little research and here are the numbers:( I don't see a lot of stability)
Firestorm
Firestorm 1 46,300
Firestorm 2 35,400
Firestorm 3 31,000
Firestorm 4 28,400
Firestorm 5 26,400
Firestorm 6 28,000
Firestorm 7 22,100
Firestorm 8 21,100
Firestorm 9 20,000
Firestorm 10 20,200
Firestorm 11 19,400
Firestorm 12 19,000
Firestorm 13 18,900
Firestorm 14 18,400
Firestorm 15 17,700
Firestorm 16 17,700
Firestorm 17 22,600
Firestorm 18 23,200
Firestorm 19 23,000
Firestorm 20 23,500
Firestorm 21 22,500
Firestorm 22 21,100
Firestorm 23 25,100
Firestorm 24 23,700
Firestorm 25 23,300
Firestorm 26 21,800
Firestorm 27 19,800

Manhunter

Manhunter 1 25,500
Manhunter 2 20,300
Manhunter 3 19,200
Manhunter 4 15,800
Manhunter 5 15,400
Manhunter 6 14,300
Manhunter 7 14,100
Manhunter 8 14,200
Manhunter 9 13,600
Manhunter 10 13,700
Manhunter 11 14,000
Manhunter 12 13,600
Manhunter 13 22,100
Manhunter 14 17,200
Manhunter 15 14,300
Manhunter 16 14,300
Manhunter 17 13,600
Manhunter 18 13,200
Manhunter 19 13,000
Manhunter 20 16,100
Manhunter 21 14,900
Manhunter 22 15,700
Manhunter 23 15,500
Manhunter 24 14,600

I compared the % change from one issue to another for the first 20 issues - the first set of numbers is S&LSH, the second Firestorm and the last Manhunter, And i don't see the Legion as any better or worse than the others.
2 -19% -31% -26%
3 -8% -14% -6%
4 -3% -9% -22%
5 -4% -8% -3%
6 -2% 6% -8%
7 -4% -27% -1%
8 -5% -5% 1%
9 -4% -6% -4%
10 0% 1% 1%
11 -5% -4% 2%
12 -2% -2% -3%
13 -2% -1% 38%
14 -1% -3% -28%
15 -3% -4% -20%
16 73% 0% 0%
17 -13% 22% -5%
18 -5% 3% -3%
19 -4% -1% -2%
20 -5% 2% 19%

So, I usually let Scooter figure all this stuff out for me cuz I'm all lazy and stuff, but according to newsarama and CBG LoSH did pretty damn well in Oct 2006!

It looks like its about 39 in the Top 100 right now (is that right? or is it 43?). The figure looks to be at 66,560, or am I not reading it right?

If I am, that's pretty damn good for the Legion! Of course, its a pretty strong month for the industry as a whole, and everything looks to be doing better.

Now someone impress me with your dorkiness and tell me what this all means!

It sold 66.5% of what Detective Comics sold - that's not going to be anywhere near 66.5k.

And it was #39 in a month without Civil War, one issue of Civil War: Frontline, Amazing Spider-Man, Civil War: Young Avengers/Runaways, Ultimates and Astonishing X-Men on the Marvel side, and All-Star Superman, All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder, Batman, Wonder Woman, Justice League of America, Teen Titans, Superman/Batman, Green Lantern and Supergirl on the DC side. I may have missed a few titles.

On the other hand, it got beaten by that perennial top-seller Spider-Girl.

You'd almost think your post was negative 'Boot!

Normally it's indexed against the sales of Batman (not Detective) but for the first time in, well, a REALLY long time Batman missed a shipping month.

So while the index number looked like it's jumped through the roof vs. last month, it is because the comparison is to a lower selling book.

Add to that the lack of perenniel best sellers (see post above) and I think sales may have slipped a little. It shouldn't be long before ICV2 works out the projection of actual sales and we'll know for sure.

I am predicting that sales actually went up a bit - probably to just over 40K. I am sure the incentive cover resulted in dealers ordering a few extra copies.
We will know for sure in a few days.
One other thing of note - the Spidergirl issue was a number 1 which usually results in inflated sales. When I used to get over 30 titles a month, I had on my pull list any No.1 comic from Marvel or DC. And when I ran my shop, I also had customers that had similiar pull lists.
Probably explains why the comic companies love to relaunch titles.

I guess that shows what a poor excuse for a comic book geek I am! I buy books that I enjoy reading and it's never occurred to me to buy a book I don't care about simply because it's a number "1" though I guess it makes sense if you are interested in potential future value. (I assume that's why people would purposefully buy #1s. Is that correct?)

I take it another reason that #1s sell well is that people will often pick them up to sample a new title. So, for instance, maybe I didn't like the last Green Arrow series, but I'll pick up the first issue of the new one to see if it's a direction that I might enjoy more. If I don't, then I'm probably not buying beyond the first issue.

That's exacttly it!
I wanted to sample the new series to see if I liked it. I collected comics to read and not for investment value.
I never bought more than one copy of a book.

Looking at the numbers again, I think you're right. Even taking into account Detective's slides month over month, if its trends hold it would clock in around 62K. Legion being 2/3rds of that via the index would be about 40K. We might be looking at a modest bump here.

Let's just hope Detective didn't crash and burn this month!

Valor and Rouge are right. The numbers for #23 came in at 41,554. But when you take into account that for every 10 issues sold there was one Hughes variant cover sold, 4,155 of those issues were the variant. And as #23 sold 4,819 more issues than #22, that leaves only an extra 664 actual extra issues sold.

Guess I should also mention that the third trade of the series charted on the TPB list for October, coming in at #23 with 2,972 copies shipped.

Here are the updated numbers for the current series.

12/2004: LSH #01 -- 59,944, including reorders
01/2005: LSH #02 -- 48,584 ""
02/2005: LSH #03 -- 44,824 ""
03/2005: LSH #04 -- 43,408 ""
04/2005: LSH #05 -- 41,664, no reorder listed in top 300
05/2005: LSH #06 -- 40,970 ""
06/2005: LSH #07 -- 39,155 ""
07/2005: LSH #08 -- 37,272 ""
08/2005: LSH #09 -- 35,834 ""
09/2005: LSH #10 -- 35,800 ""
10/2005: LSH #11 -- 34,100 ""
11/2005: LSH #12 -- 33,500 ""
01/2006: LSH #13 -- 32,730 ""
02/2006: LSH #14 -- 32,513 ""
02/2006: LSH #15 -- 31,649 ""
03/2006: LSH #16 -- 54,826, including reorders
04/2006: LSH #17 -- 47,697, including reorders
05/2006: LSH #18 -- 45,520, no reorder listed in top 300
06/2006: LSH #19 -- 43,918 ""
07/2006: LSH #20 -- 41,679 ""
08/2006: LSH #21 -- 39,800 ""
09/2006: LSH #22 -- 36,735 ""
10/2006: LSH #23 -- 41,554 ""

Are we talking #23 or #22? I'm confused.

Sorry Gary. My list was missing the numbers for #22. I was talking about #23 as I assumed everyone else was. I hadn't updated in the last couple of months (other things on my mind).

Aw! Thanks! Now I understand.

Which is probably accounted for by a few people ordering extra copies to get variants, and shops doing much the same thing (i.e., they would have ordered (10x-5)-(10x-1) copies, and actually order those extra copies to bring their no. of variants up to x.)

And a hefty proportion of those variants themselves are probably going to get slabbed since they were only bought for the Hughes cover, while any AH! fans buying copies of the "standard" version just to get the AH! cover will probably chuck the "standards"

Ouch.

The new numbers are in, and S&LOSH crashes down to 33,985, losing not only the increase from the variant, but another 2,700 copies to boot. Not a good sign.

yeah but over-all numbers are down on all titles. While Civil War brings in close to 275K. Most likely stores cut down on titles to make room for a massive order of CW and CW specific Tie ins.

And yet Cable & Deadpool, Thunderbolts (whose relaunch isn't till two months after these figures) and a few others are still several k higher than before despite their CW tie-inship being over, done and kaputzee with.

So you're saying Legion needs a Civil War Tie-in? Got it.

December's numbers are up and Legion clocks in at 33,288. That's close to 700 dropped, but not in the thousands, like prior issues. This is a good sign that we may be may be leveling out (probably around the 30K mark). It's not setting the charts on fire, but it's respectable and well above cancellation range.

Edit: So, continuing Lightning Lad's List we get:

12/2004: LSH #01 -- 59,944, including reorders
01/2005: LSH #02 -- 48,584 ""
02/2005: LSH #03 -- 44,824 ""
03/2005: LSH #04 -- 43,408 ""
04/2005: LSH #05 -- 41,664, no reorder listed in top 300
05/2005: LSH #06 -- 40,970 ""
06/2005: LSH #07 -- 39,155 ""
07/2005: LSH #08 -- 37,272 ""
08/2005: LSH #09 -- 35,834 ""
09/2005: LSH #10 -- 35,800 ""
10/2005: LSH #11 -- 34,100 ""
11/2005: LSH #12 -- 33,500 ""
01/2006: LSH #13 -- 32,730 ""
02/2006: LSH #14 -- 32,513 ""
02/2006: LSH #15 -- 31,649 ""
03/2006: LSH #16 -- 54,826, including reorders
04/2006: LSH #17 -- 47,697, including reorders
05/2006: LSH #18 -- 45,520, no reorder listed in top 300
06/2006: LSH #19 -- 43,918 ""
07/2006: LSH #20 -- 41,679 ""
08/2006: LSH #21 -- 39,800 ""
09/2006: LSH #22 -- 36,735 ""
10/2006: LSH #23 -- 41,554 ""
11/2006: LSH #24 -- 33,985
12/2006: LSH #25 -- 33,288

I draw your attention to the fact that #25s are counted as anniversary issues, and as such often-verging-on-usually outsell #24. The fact that there's still a drop, even a mitigated one, well,...

Curious as to how the Diamond screw ups may have affected sales on 25.

What could be done to turn the sales slump around?

It didn't. SLoSH wasn't on the affected list, and the numbers don't suggest that it was affected.

They've already shot their wad on that by adding Supergirl to the title. Now they're at "complete creative team change" as the only chance of turning it around.

The change to the JIT ordering system probably means the recent numbers are more reflective of what's been selling.

Getting rid of Supergirl would be an improvement on the book

Regardless, look at the boost it gave them. It'd be more like 20k now on the selling power of Waid's version of the LoSH. As of now, the title's utterly dependent on that word in the title, to the point that it's arguably dragging down the solo Supergirl title.

They rolled the dice and it isn't working.

No matter how good the art, you can't wait until your second year to start telling a decent story. Without Supergirl, TPTB would probably be reaching for the plug already.

Hopefully, JSA is setting the stage for a return of the 80s LSH.

To answer my own question --

This title needs to be in a better neighborhood -- right now all things legion are either vague or mediocre (Barry's art and recent issues excepted)

(1) Shorter story arcs. The year long Lemnos story was a baaaad move. It frustrated readers who started with issue 1 and discouraged others from joining in.
(2) Concrete ties to the greater DCU -- Easter eggs, teasers and the unresolved Supergirl backstory don't cut it. It's too easy to leave this title without any loss of completeness or continuity in the DC Universe. As little as I care for Supergirl -- right now, her vague connection to the DCU at least gives me reason to think (hope) that there is some relevance of the LSH in the DCU.
(3) Supergirl's self titled comic is a train wreck. Waid should flex some muscle and kick some ass to get that title fixed or ditch Supergirl in this one. I suspect that rather than this title dragging down sales of Supergirl, it has done the opposite, because anybody whose only contact with Supergirl is in her own mag, must be going crazy trying to figure out who in the hell the title character is. The plot, tone, characterization and art change from issue to issue. It's like comic book karaoke. People who like Supergirl in this title might be duped into picking up a copy or two of her self-titled book.
(4) Timely resolution of subplots. If main arcs ran 3 or 4 months then the subplots shouldn't drag on for a year or longer. (Lemnos' body, anyone?, Sun Boy, Nura's existence, Jo's dog, Lyle's dad, brother pineapple boxers -- all like pretty snowflakes that cease to exist shortly after being observed.)
(5) The cartoon's gotta get better and have new episodes, otherwise it's in the minus column, too. C'mon, how many of us would be watching that cartoon if it weren't for the fact we longed for any LSH comic in our own youths. (People who are still youthful may disregard this comment.)
(6) Make Timberwolf look like Wolverine and feature him on the cover. Confuse some idiotic Marvel fans. (somewhat tongue in cheek, but not entirely)

The biggest danger to LSH right now is probably the successful resurgence of JSA. I'll continue buying them both, but for anyone who feels they have to make a choice between the two titles, it's an easy decision. That's where I'd pin some of the LSH sales slippage. There's a better product on the shelves.

The best issues of the title by far were the first three or four, in which Waid was delivering what he originally promised: self-contained, done-in-one issues that built towards a greater storyline. This is the same kind of formula that makes All-Star Superman, for example, so great. With that title, for example, I don't even care if it only comes out every two to three months, as each issue is an incredibly satisfying read once I get it in my hands.

Instead of continuing with that formula, Waid seems to have shifted to a psuedo-Levitz style of focusing on nothing but a multitude of endless, drawn out sub-plots that never really reach clear resolution.

Hmmmm how about getting this book to the stores before it is spoiled all over the internet... I know it may not have effected this months ordering, but...

Also it's the holidays. Money is spent on travel and gifts that would otherwise have been spent on books.

Also does anyone have the Trade sales figs. This is a book a lot of people are buyin in trades

This is a book a lot of people are buyin in trades

That can't be a good thing for a book that is published monthly, can it?

Nevertheless, I think that Lad Boy is absolutely correct in his analysis. Go forth and conquer Lad Boy.

23 - 4.76 - LEGION O/SUPER HEROES VOL 3 SUPERGIRL - 2,972

Yep, lotta people there....

And Supergirl's solo book is outselling Slosh by 2-to-1.

So, the January numbers are up at ICV2. Listed Below:

12/2004: LSH #01 -- 59,944, including reorders
01/2005: LSH #02 -- 48,584 ""
02/2005: LSH #03 -- 44,824 ""
03/2005: LSH #04 -- 43,408 ""
04/2005: LSH #05 -- 41,664, no reorder listed in top 300
05/2005: LSH #06 -- 40,970 ""
06/2005: LSH #07 -- 39,155 ""
07/2005: LSH #08 -- 37,272 ""
08/2005: LSH #09 -- 35,834 ""
09/2005: LSH #10 -- 35,800 ""
10/2005: LSH #11 -- 34,100 ""
11/2005: LSH #12 -- 33,500 ""
01/2006: LSH #13 -- 32,730 ""
02/2006: LSH #14 -- 32,513 ""
02/2006: LSH #15 -- 31,649 ""
03/2006: LSH #16 -- 54,826, including reorders
04/2006: LSH #17 -- 47,697, including reorders
05/2006: LSH #18 -- 45,520, no reorder listed in top 300
06/2006: LSH #19 -- 43,918 ""
07/2006: LSH #20 -- 41,679 ""
08/2006: LSH #21 -- 39,800 ""
09/2006: LSH #22 -- 36,735 ""
10/2006: LSH #23 -- 41,554 ""
11/2006: LSH #24 -- 33,985
12/2006: LSH #25 -- 33,288
01/2007: LSH #26 -- 32,342

So a drop of a little less than a thousand. Not very encouraging, but it is in-line with a lot of other titles attrition rates. We're still above the last pre-OYL numbers but barely. So while the Supergirl "bump" is almost completely gone, one wonders how low sales would have sunk without it.

I hope with the new creative team change the sales will go up, I don't want to see the Legion get cancelled.

even if this book is cancelled, I can't see LSH back-burnered for long.

We would likely get a return to the Levitz-era Legion, which couldn't be a bad thing at all.

Let's keep our fingers crossed...

Though I really find it hard to believe that a deboot could happen AND lure new readers at the same time, I really would love to see a return to the Levitz-Era drawn by George Perez (THAT would boost sales!!!!).

I think the Giffen era would have to be thrown overboard too (the EARTH was gone in that one!), which is a shame for the most part but hey, so it's another great Elseworld...

Imagine: Jo Nah waking up, shaking his head, stepping to the shower and there she is, Tinya Wazzo, as if she never had died... and the whole Giffen era - Kiddie Legion - Abnett Lanning Era - Waid Kitson attemt to tell a story was just a bad dream of Ultra Boy after drinking too much Kono...
:rolleyes:

Enter Perez and Wolfman on a new Legion book, LSH v.3 #65 :-)

It's still about double the lowest selling DC titles right now, and doing better than the previous Legion title ever sold. I don't think it's in any immediate danger of cancellation. I'd like to see the numbers a lot healthier, however.

You know I was very critical of this book at the beggining but the last 4 or 5 issues I've warmed up a bit too it. Still don't love it. But I do love Barry's art.

Still the sales figures are very low when you take into account it's Waid, Kitson, and a new title.

Sure they are not at the cancellation level but I don't know....that's like Alan Moore and Jim Lee doing a book and it's not in the top 10.(well a DC book atleat) The names of WaK should automatically put this title in the top 30 IMO.

I know DC would never admit it but was the ball dropped? The legion is the one DC book waiting for a big comeback...what happened?

I don't know. I guess I just don't see the WaK team being so big that they automatically guarantee sales of that level. I don't see them as any bigger than, say, Greg Rucka or Kurt Busiek, and SatLOSH has been outselling their big OYL relaunches (Checkmate and Aquaman).

Good point EDE. But WaK is a twosome with no offense to Barry who was the star of the series...Waid is a bigger name due to things like his Flash, Kingdom Come, etc.

Checkmate and Aquaman are no Legion either. There is no websites called Aquaworld for instance. I just thought the combination of all three Waid, Kitson, and the Legion should've garnered more sales.

One thing is for sure...something I read from DC stated...it's not a problem with the Legion. It's how DC managed the Legion over the last few decades. A few better choices and the Legion can be as popular as the X-Men.

well said, Jorge.

Aquaman may have more years under his belt, but no teeming cadre of fans who endlessly debate the virtues of Ramona Fradon vs. Jim Aparo vs. Peter David etc.

LSH could and should be a top-ranking DC book, as it was in the 70s and 80s. It'd be hard to see that happening without returning to some version of 1989/2989.

DC right now has an opportunity to propel the Legion towards the top in sales. With the 50th anniversary of the 1st Legion appearance coming up next year, they should launch an Elseworlds story blitz of Legion adventures. They could use a whole year to feel out what combination of creative teams and/or types of characters/costumes/stories they could hypertime into a winning combination. My personal view is the animated series has the right idea - keep it light, colorful, positive, and keep it moving.

Hmm... I guess I just don't really care if the Legion is a top-ranking DC title. As long as it's selling at least well enough to avoid cancellation, I'm happy. What I'd really like to see is a well-written title that's once again ground-breaking and innovative, which it hasn't been (with the possible exceptions of TMK and the GDS) since the Cockrum era.

Your making an assumption that DC remembers that they have a title that doesn't revolve around the big 3

isn't that more like the big 2.5. I get the feeling that Superman/batman book would sell less if either one was replaced with Wonder Woman.

and in my sampling of comic blogs, far more people appear to be upset and/or interested in Supergirl than anything going on in Wonder Woman. even without the delay that probably wouldn't change much.

I don't know if there are many WW fans out there - the character has always been boring and didn't even interest me when I was a kid - and bought EVERY OTHER comic book out there :-)

I bought some of the George Perez issues for cheap. Perfect art - still, the stuff is boring.

So I hardly doubt DC can make longterm big money with WW without support from other characters.

12/2004: LSH #01 -- 59,944, including reorders
01/2005: LSH #02 -- 48,584 ""
02/2005: LSH #03 -- 44,824 ""
03/2005: LSH #04 -- 43,408 ""
04/2005: LSH #05 -- 41,664, no reorder listed in top 300
05/2005: LSH #06 -- 40,970 ""
06/2005: LSH #07 -- 39,155 ""
07/2005: LSH #08 -- 37,272 ""
08/2005: LSH #09 -- 35,834 ""
09/2005: LSH #10 -- 35,800 ""
10/2005: LSH #11 -- 34,100 ""
11/2005: LSH #12 -- 33,500 ""
01/2006: LSH #13 -- 32,730 ""
02/2006: LSH #14 -- 32,513 ""
02/2006: LSH #15 -- 31,649 ""
03/2006: LSH #16 -- 54,826, including reorders
04/2006: LSH #17 -- 47,697, including reorders
05/2006: LSH #18 -- 45,520, no reorder listed in top 300
06/2006: LSH #19 -- 43,918 ""
07/2006: LSH #20 -- 41,679 ""
08/2006: LSH #21 -- 39,800 ""
09/2006: LSH #22 -- 36,735 ""
10/2006: LSH #23 -- 41,554 ""
11/2006: LSH #24 -- 33,985
12/2006: LSH #25 -- 39,762, including reorders of 6,474
01/2007: LSH #26 -- 32,342

Thanks to rouge and everyone else for keeping this up-to-date while I've been occupied with other things.

I notice, though, that no one seemed to catch the extra sales #25 generated. Just the usual bump normally received by books reaching that number milestone though.

You just need to look beyond the top 100 books to get the reorders though. #25 did bounce up nearly 6.5K in copies, as my post above shows. I think that's a pretty decent bump for an anniversary issue. More than the extra boost in sales than the Hughes variant offered.

Sadly, I don't think those numbers wash. There was a shipping problem on the West coast the last week of December and a lot of books may have been counted twice. If you go down the list you'll see tonnes of DC "Reorders" that on average bump the numbers for a given title above normal by several thousand. That it's consistent across the board and just as quickly disappears in the January numbers leads me to believe it's an error on Diamond's part.

To Wit:

http://pwbeat.publishersweekly.com/blog/2007/03/02/dc-comics-month-to-month-sales-january-2007/

"Incidentally, they are exactly the same titles of which significant quantities reportedly failed to reach the West Coast until January 2007, due to transportation problems. Now, since Diamond Comic Distributors usually only include copies in their charts which actually reached stores, my first impulse was to simply add the extra sales to the numbers from December and be done with it.

Unfortunately, as noted last month, there was nothing unusual about the numbers of those titles in the December chart. On the contrary: Adding the additional copies from the January chart would result in random sales spikes that make no sense whatsoever. In the case of Batman, Diamond would have us believe that issue #661 sold an estimated 89,359 units — a spectacular 16% increase from the previous issue — only to drop back by a brutal 19% for #662, all in the middle of a filler storyline. The numbers for the other involved books would look equally absurd."

Since the books weren't an additional shipment, why would Diamond count them that way? Not that I'm disputing the figures (I've changed my list) but that means Diamond counted those book as if they shipped them twice. I thought the books stayed with the shipping company and never went back to Diamond. It surprises me they didn't release a statement or something correcting that.

Anyway, February's figures are out. The Legion still slid a bit, under a 1,000 copies, but with the upcoming changes everything is up in the air. Honestly, I can't see the figures improving, long term, for any new creative team unless Jim Lee is announced as the artist and Joss Whedon as the writer. Guess we'll see.

12/2004: LSH #01 -- 59,944, including reorders
01/2005: LSH #02 -- 48,584 ""
02/2005: LSH #03 -- 44,824 ""
03/2005: LSH #04 -- 43,408 ""
04/2005: LSH #05 -- 41,664, no reorder listed in top 300
05/2005: LSH #06 -- 40,970 ""
06/2005: LSH #07 -- 39,155 ""
07/2005: LSH #08 -- 37,272 ""
08/2005: LSH #09 -- 35,834 ""
09/2005: LSH #10 -- 35,800 ""
10/2005: LSH #11 -- 34,100 ""
11/2005: LSH #12 -- 33,500 ""
01/2006: LSH #13 -- 32,730 ""
02/2006: LSH #14 -- 32,513 ""
02/2006: LSH #15 -- 31,649 ""
03/2006: LSH #16 -- 54,826, including reorders
04/2006: LSH #17 -- 47,697, including reorders
05/2006: LSH #18 -- 45,520, no reorder listed in top 300
06/2006: LSH #19 -- 43,918 ""
07/2006: LSH #20 -- 41,679 ""
08/2006: LSH #21 -- 39,800 ""
09/2006: LSH #22 -- 36,735 ""
10/2006: LSH #23 -- 41,554 ""
11/2006: LSH #24 -- 33,985 ""
12/2006: LSH #25 -- 33,288 ""
01/2007: LSH #26 -- 32,342 ""
02/2007: LSH #27 -- 31,387 ""

So, we're now at the lowest point of the current series. and the decline picked up slightly.

Historical "Legion" Numbers to look at in comparison:

23,327 - The sales at the end of the last run.
28,350 - The sales at the beginning of the last run.
30,440 - High point of the last run (#25)

The book's still selling better than it ever did as "Legion", but one would think the bar was set a bit higher this time around as well. It will be interesting to see how sales react to the interim team and beyond.

Well, that's what the link also says - that he's surprised this happened, because it usually doesn't. Certainly looks that way given the evidence though.

Yeah, given the fact that they added "Supergirl and..." to the beginning of the title to go for a sales boost, since her book was selling A Lot More. It worked, since it would have been around 20k by now at the rate things were going, although I suspect it's played a big part in the sales slide of SG's OWN title.

Of course, that leads to the interesting question of "What happens when Supergirl STOPS being in the title"....

It means, I hope, that we can stop wasting story and panels on Super Brat and get back to Legionnaires. This moment couldn't have come sooner. I would have preferred that WaK were around to get this title back on track but using Kara was doomed from the start.

Been slacking off on keeping this updated here and at the Clubhouse. Decided just to keep my sales-to-date list updated. Here's the latest list (series-to-date), including the animated series, trade collection and Showcase edition.

10/2004: Teen Titans/The Legion Special #1 -- 61,047
12/2004: LSH #01 -- 59,944, #25 out of 300 (sold out)
01/2005: LSH #02 -- 48,584, #30 out of 300
02/2005: LSH #03 -- 44,824, #40 out of 300
03/2005: LSH #04 -- 43,408, #46 out of 300
04/2005: LSH #05 -- 41,664, #44 out of 300
05/2005: LSH #06 -- 40,970, #42 out of 300
06/2005: LSH #07 -- 39,155, #44 out of 300
07/2005: LSH #08 -- 37,272, #54 out of 300
08/2005: LSH #09 -- 35,834, #69 out of 300
09/2005: LSH #10 -- 35,800, #69 out of 300
10/2005: LSH #11 -- 34,100, #54 out of 300
11/2005: LSH #12 -- 33,500, #57 ouf of 300
11/2005: LSH TPB #1 -- 3,102, #27 out of 100
01/2006: LSH #13 -- 32,730, #54 out of 300
02/2006: LSH #14 -- 32,513, #62 out of 300
02/2006: LSH #15 -- 31,649, #65 out of 300
03/2006: LSH #16 -- 54,826, #41 out of 300 (sold out) (includes reorders of 7,400)
04/2006: LSH #17 -- 47,697, #44 out of 300 (includes reorders of 2,897)
05/2006: LSH #18 -- 45,520, #49 out of 300
06/2006: LSH TPB #2 -- 2,874, #28 out of 100
06/2006: LSH #19 -- 43,918, #46 out of 300
07/2006: LSH #20 -- 41,679, #53 out of 300
08/2006: LSH #21 -- 39,800, #61 out of 300
09/2006: LSH #22 -- 36,735, #54 out of 300
10/2006: LSH #23 -- 41,554, #39 out of 300
10/2006: LSH TPB #3 -- 2,972, #23 out of 100
11/2006: LSH #24 -- 33,985, #68 out of 300
12/2006: LSH #25 -- 33,288, #61 out of 300
01/2007: LSH #26 -- 32,342, #56 out of 300
02/2007: LSH #27 -- 31,387, #65 out of 300
04/2007: LSH #28 -- 31,525, #71 out of 300
04/2007: LSH #29 -- 30,906, #72 out of 300
04/2007: Showcase: Legion #1 -- 4,812, #11 out of 100
04/2007: LSH TPB #4 -- 2,702, #39 out of 100
05/2007: LSH #30 -- 30,758, #79 out of 300

I'm thinking of pulling the animated into a separate list. And maybe about tracking the issues of various crossovers/AR appearances. Opinions? Thoughts?

I like that idea LL. Makes it easier to read.

Thanks Jorge. I, too, think it will read better so I've pulled the animated figures and posted them in their own thread in the animation forum.

June's figures:

06/2007: LSH #31 -- 30,385, #72 out of 300

Moved up in rank but down in sales, just slightly.

I wonder what the post WaK Legion would sell. My gut says a bigger drop than usual.

The July sales ranking for S&LSH #32:

84 91 35.60 SUPERGIRL & LEGION O/SUPER HEROES #32 $2.99 DC

--#84 in issues sold, #91 in retail.

Sold a little over 1/3 of what Batman #666, #18 on the list overall, sold for July. Thor #1, the #1 book for the month, sold almost twice as much as Batman. So whatever Thor sold, S&LSH #32 sold about 1/6th of that. Have to wait for the analyses to get the actual numbers, but... OUCH.

http://forum.newsarama.com/showpost.php?p=4247689&postcount=34

Incidentally, I was playing around with the sales figures above there, out of sheer morbid curiousity. And guess where that black square (pretty much the intersection of the two lines) falls, certainly to within the margin of error.

Sometimes, the universe seems to love playing jokes...

It's a phenomena!

if only DC would listen to me and print more variant foil covers that glow in the dark.

What are we getting in issue 38 again?

ICV2's estimated numbers are up now:

07/2007: LSH #32 -- 29,826, #84 out of 300

Marginal decline. As one of the other internet sales analysts are fond of saying: "Standard attrition". With a another creative turnover in the works, I expect these numbers to stay relatively flat until then.

We won't know what the current series' #38 entails until late October (around the 22nd) beyond the start of a new creative team.

ICV2's estimated numbers are up now:

07/2006: LSH #33 -- 29,315, #92 out of 300

Still on a steady, if small decline. With the Shooter stuff coming in December, I can't see a whole lot of people rushing to or from the title while its in a holding pattern.

I certainly hope it sells more than that when we take over. I know myself along with my collaborators really have high expecations for this book. If the sales don't burn the charts right out of the gate, I think a few issues in, people will start to notice that this will be a must have title!

I've already predicted top 20 or higher for the first S&M issue!

You know I really must have a mucky mind. When I first read this I thought Grimbor is into S&M why are we taking kinky but given that that sort of S&M issue might appeal to some a top 20 postion is not beyound the realms of possibility

must get my mind out of the gutter old man

I agree!

I'm so excited I can't wait. I've felt this way before many times in LSH history. Hopefully I won't be let down...again.

LLL!!!

ICV2's estimated numbers are up now:

09/2006: LSH #34 -- 28,294 , #88 out of 300

A hefty thousand issue drop for September. Hopefully nothing to worry too much about as people gear up for the creative change.

If you look at that top 100 list, no less than 38 of the titles are either part of a mini-series, an annual, or a one-time special. 35 of them are placed in front of S&LSH.

53 looks a lot better than 88, doesn't it?

Yeah, I never pay attention to the ranking because of all the minis and one-shots blowing any sort of reasonable baseline. The % drop in sales is what I think is the biggest indicator (and after stabilising over the past few months it took a big hit in Sept.). Like I said, this isn't so bad compared to other titles with a know Creative Change on the horizon, its just that much more of a bump the new guys will need.

ICV2's estimates are here for December.

Halleluah Jim Shooter.

50 - LEGION O/SUPER HEROES #37 - 45,803

And for the record, this was the numbers for November:

88 - SUPERGIRL AND THE LEGION OF SUPER HEROES #36 - 26,814

Smaller than I would have thought - that'll be at 35k or less in three months' time.

perhaps. It's still a better number than all but a handful of prior issues (1, 2, 16 and 17), and 1.5 times as many as Foundations part 1.

So Shooter's still a draw - a bigger draw than Connor, but less than Supergirl. But if he can maintain good stories over a longer period, that could see a lower attrition rate than merely adding an "S" character.

#38 clocks in at 35,245.

Wow, over 10K drop for one issue. Guess those variant covers really inflated the numbers huh?

Not a good sign unless these stabilise pretty quickly.

Update list for reference (building off Lightning Lads, but only adding recent issues - not trades or showcases)

10/2004: Teen Titans/The Legion Special #1 -- 61,047
12/2004: LSH #01 -- 59,944, #25 out of 300 (sold out)
01/2005: LSH #02 -- 48,584, #30 out of 300
02/2005: LSH #03 -- 44,824, #40 out of 300
03/2005: LSH #04 -- 43,408, #46 out of 300
04/2005: LSH #05 -- 41,664, #44 out of 300
05/2005: LSH #06 -- 40,970, #42 out of 300
06/2005: LSH #07 -- 39,155, #44 out of 300
07/2005: LSH #08 -- 37,272, #54 out of 300
08/2005: LSH #09 -- 35,834, #69 out of 300
09/2005: LSH #10 -- 35,800, #69 out of 300
10/2005: LSH #11 -- 34,100, #54 out of 300
11/2005: LSH #12 -- 33,500, #57 ouf of 300
11/2005: LSH TPB #1 -- 3,102, #27 out of 100
01/2006: LSH #13 -- 32,730, #54 out of 300
02/2006: LSH #14 -- 32,513, #62 out of 300
02/2006: LSH #15 -- 31,649, #65 out of 300
03/2006: LSH #16 -- 54,826, #41 out of 300 (sold out) (includes reorders of 7,400)
04/2006: LSH #17 -- 47,697, #44 out of 300 (includes reorders of 2,897)
05/2006: LSH #18 -- 45,520, #49 out of 300
06/2006: LSH TPB #2 -- 2,874, #28 out of 100
06/2006: LSH #19 -- 43,918, #46 out of 300
07/2006: LSH #20 -- 41,679, #53 out of 300
08/2006: LSH #21 -- 39,800, #61 out of 300
09/2006: LSH #22 -- 36,735, #54 out of 300
10/2006: LSH #23 -- 41,554, #39 out of 300
10/2006: LSH TPB #3 -- 2,972, #23 out of 100
11/2006: LSH #24 -- 33,985, #68 out of 300
12/2006: LSH #25 -- 33,288, #61 out of 300
01/2007: LSH #26 -- 32,342, #56 out of 300
02/2007: LSH #27 -- 31,387, #65 out of 300
04/2007: LSH #28 -- 31,525, #71 out of 300
04/2007: LSH #29 -- 30,906, #72 out of 300
04/2007: Showcase: Legion #1 -- 4,812, #11 out of 100
04/2007: LSH TPB #4 -- 2,702, #39 out of 100
05/2007: LSH #30 -- 30,758, #79 out of 300
06/2007: LSH #31 -- 30,385, #72 out of 300
07/2007: LSH #32 -- 29,826, #84 out of 300
08/2007: LSH #33 -- 29,315, #92 out of 300
09/2007: LSH #34 -- 28,294 , #88 out of 300
10/2007: LSH #35 -- 27,370 , #91 out of 300
11/2007: LSH #36 -- 26,814 , #88 out of 300
12/2007: LSH #37 -- 45,803 , #50 out of 300
01/2008: LSH #38 -- 35,245 , #64 out of 300

It should be pointed out as well that icv2 appears to have moved their baseline higher this month for some reason - everything without a huge boost or drop seems to have been boosted that bit higher than it "should be" typically.

Yeah I noticed that too. Everyone seems to have gotten consistent 3-4K bumps near the top of the chart and smaller bumps the further down you go. That would appear to indicate LSH fell even more than the 10K reported.

But I guess it's quite a logical drop. #37 was not a very spectacular issue, so it did not invite you to come back if you#re not already a Legion fan.

And multiple covers are often rather bought by retailers than by regular fans - do you know anyone who actually collects multiple covers of his favorite books? I don't...

Um, I, and quite a few others here, do. Especially for Legion related books like the Action variants of late.

rouge, I appreciate you keeping the list going. Especially as I just don't seem to have the free time anymore.

Wouldn't it be awesome if the Legion were still as successful as it was when Gerry Conway was writing it?...

You know what? I've gotten my own brothers to read just about every comic DC and Marvel put out in the last four years. That means the X-Men and all their confusing history. That means the Titans. That means, well, just about everything. But they won't read the Legion, which they've always known is my favorite. Because they think its too confusing. The only Legion they know is the one from Crisis on Infinite Earths. My 25 year old brother told me he just isn't ready to make the committment to understand Legion history yet (I've tried to explain it to him in as simple way as possible).

Then there's the other problem that so many comic book stories are about continuity rather than building a continuity without having to continually reference and altar it.

I feel like we've talked about it so much . I do think the only way we'd ever see numbers as high as 500,000 again would be for DC to first get Superman that high and then tie the Legion directly to Superboy again...

i'd be interested to see that legion sales graph compared with one charting the drop in overall comic book buyers. the market has also been shrinking.

Wow... and I though i was AR...

Interesting stats, Lone Wolf! I am really quite astounded that Legion sales did hardly change all though the Reboot... and that those sales were seemingly the lowest ever, lower than TMK and lower than most of the Threeboot...

One of the most interesting facts is that the Giffen/Bierbaum run, even at its lowest point in sales, still never dropped as low as the lowest point in Baxter sales (though, of course, it never gets anywhere near the highest point).

It's also worth noting in regards to the reboot that fans were effectively having to buy two books a month for at least part of that period, which impacts sales.

I really enjoyed the sales chart as well, Lone Wolf. It really shows where the industry has gone in the last 50 years.

In my opinion, the only way any comic would reach a 500K circulation would be for the price to go back to 10-15¢!

Good points.

I recall TMK letter columns saying sales indicated the book was well-received depsite the objections of long-time fans, yet as much as I love that era, it never seemed to resonate in fandom.

Sort of like DS9 achieving better ratings than TNG, but TNG drew the fan buzz.

Those numbers certainly do seem to justify ending Reboot; even fluctuations in quality do not show fluctuatinos in sales.

I do not think ongoing print comics in general ever can return to anything more than the 100,000s, save for the very uppermost household-name books; the cartoon's long-term success would help far more than a Superman revival, in my opinion.

I don't think even 10-15 cents would do it; rather that would engender a sense that they were worthless. If they solsd for that, most sales would be for birdcage lining and the like.

The future is not in high sales runs, except for Manga TPs aimed at girls. Like it or not, the only way "our" comics will achieve mass audiences again will be digital.

I don't think it's impossible to regain sales in print, though I think it's highly unlikely the monthly magazine format will ever regain high sales. More likely something like TPs is the wave of the future.

I certainly don't think the problem is merely one of price. Marketing and accessibility have more to do with it than anything else, imo. In the Golden, Silver, or Bronze Age, the average ten year old could pick up a particular comic issue and at least understand the basics of what's going on. These days half the stories are incomprehensible to even diehard fans.

The most basic problem is that the comics companies are content with selling to a fairly limited fanbase. As long as they can make minimal profit off those fans, there's not much incentive to take the risks that could potentially open up comics to a wider market, but would very likely upset much of that core fanbase.

I think Eryk's very right in marketing and accessibility has a much more tremendous impact and that's where the real problem lies. This also includes/touches on the fact that most comics, like Eryk says, are almost incomprehensible for the random reader to pick up nowadays. That's a editorial fault.

Great point Kent about 10-15 cents making comics appear worthless. I think you're 100% correct.

The decline of the mass appeal isn't just comics related. There was a day where the newstand ruled the roost of media. Then it was the Big 3 networks on TV. Look at TV these days, with very few exceptions shows are narrowing their focus.

The internet has only accelerated it. And even those people that dreamed of a 500 channel world got it wrong by about 6 orders of magnitude. We are in a world of 1 billion channels. Seriously, if I wanted to only consume media about carnivorous rodents of South America i could build a life around that using the net. SImilarly If i made a web channel about the same I could likely make a living with a very modest audience.

Recently, I asked a woman that produces a web-comic about her audience and if she could make a living on just that. She told me that the fanbase was very loyal and that after several years her income now came primarily from her comic.

From what I understand, her audience can't be more than a few thousand worldwide but if each of them spends an average of 10-20 bucks on her art, merchandise, yearly contributions she can get by.

I disaagree with EDE that marketing and accessibility are the main issues. Tamper is more on the mark: we see in virtually all forms of media this trend of decentralization/smaller, narrower ventures.

Kids are spoiled for choices in TV, video games, websites, etc - having to seek out a publication and wait a month or more between installments is as foreign as the 40s-style Saturday Matinee with cartoons, serials and news reels.

Even standard comics marketed towards kids without ongoing stories are in the toilet - even comics based on popular cartoons/video games, etc. The only exception, as I mentioned, is Manga aimed at teen girls, which is generally in TP format, and seems largely serialized volumes of longer stories - not simple 30-page one-shot stories as was common in the pre-Claremont era.

If comics companies are serious about growing numbers, you're going to see more and more catering to the Manga audience - in style, content and format. No Legion that's seen print thus far has entered this realm, although the cartoon series and comic may be the closest.

Barring any extraordinary cultural shifts (which are fully possible), I think it's clear we'll never be more than a niche within a niche within a niche.

sunnovaniche...

But that's the thing. We don't see the same trend in all forms of media. Take TV, for example. While it's true that the Big Three networks don't have the same impact that they had thirty years ago and there's a plethora of cable shows targeted at niche audiences, the situation for comics just isn't analogous. It's not as though the reason why the Big Two comic companies are selling a couple of hundred thousand per title per month less than they did thirty years ago is because that audience has moved towards reading indie comics. They've stopped reading comics altogether.

Nor is the situation similar to the music industry, where the big record labels are the verge of collapse because everyone is downloading music instead of buying cd's, and they've been unable to adapt to the changing format in which people obtain their music. People still listen to music, they just don't obtain it in the same way.

I would suggest that the reason manga is the one growth market within the broader comics industry has a lot to do with the fact that manga are simply far more accessible than "mainstream American comics". They're sold pretty much exclusively in TP format, in nice numbered volumes so that you know where you need to begin, that last for finite runs, and there's no having to worry about massive company-wide crossovers interfering with the storyline, or needing to know some obscure bit of trivia from fifty to seventy-five years worth of "continuity" that may be relevant one month and then vastly altered six months later.

I have no idea why manga have become popular or "cool" among teenage girls in particular, but if I was DC or Marvel I'd be trying to figure this out so that maybe I could learn something about how to create similar phenomena among other demographics as well.

It's also worth noting that while American comics have been on the decline, in Japan manga has been consistently popular for the last several decades, and far more culturally influential than American comics have been. My understanding is that the Japanese will talk about the latest volume of a popular manga at a business lunch or cocktail party much the same way we might talk about the latest bestsellar or hot movie or TV show.

EDE is completely right.

Beginning in the 1970s, the comics industry began being captured by "insiders" -- fanboys turned creators. The rise of the comics shop, the development of the "direct only" market, all of these things are guaranteed to drive down readership, even though they please the core fanbase. While reading comics was never totally respectable for kids, it at least had a veneer of mainstream acceptability when comics were prevalent at the 7-11, the drug store, the grocery store, next to "Tiger Beat" and "Popular Mechanics." As soon as the comics industry gave up on those distribution channels, it consciously chose a much smaller circulation. Now, you have to seek out a "comic shop" and brave the fear and uncertainty of venturing into such a geek-rich environment. I was in my local Borders the other day and checked out their spinner rack. It was a disaster. If Marvel and DC cared about distributing comics, they would work with the major chains to upgrade both the display and the content. Meanwhile, the graphic novel nook in the back was busy, as it typically is, with manga readers outnumbering comics readers at least 2 to 1.

DC's efforts to reach "the next generation" are particularly pathetic. Marvel's all-ages material includes a roll call and an "origin" blurb in each issue, pluse usually a mini-marvels one page funny comic. I've particularly enjoyed reading X-Men: First Class with the 5-year old. The book always starts with a great orientation to the characters and story.

Contrast with how awful the art, story and "universe" building often is in the JLU book. This book should be the centerpiece of the DC kids line, but it's been an afterthought for a lot longer than Jann Jones has been working on "Super Friends." The lack of an origin blurb, roll call, etc. -- not to mention often incoherent stories -- is just inexcusable.

In this regard, the Legion 3Boot has actually been pretty exemplary, although it's often been lacking in the "what went before" department (maybe because nothing happened last issue!). When I look at these charts, I see how steady things have been since the direct market reached full maturity in the late 1980s. The Legion market is what it is, a tiny niche in an industry full of tiny niches.

If DC wanted to leverage the Legion brand to the max, I would do a "Little Legion" comic and a "Saturn Girl Loves Lightning Lad" manga series. In fact, Legion seems tailor made for manga, with the large, female-rich cast and the teenager clubhouse setting.

Yep comics chose large margins from a small number of customers versus tiny margins from many customers.

Manga is cool for teenage girls because manga that speaks to them. I'd argue that Marvel does have some idea of what attract girls to manga. The Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane series is an Americanized version of shojo manga.

The thing is they don't really promote it correctly or heavily. I just think that the comic guys have been in the box so long they forgot there's anything outside of it let alone think outside of it.

Manga also capitalized on the power of cross media selling. My comic store guy says manga sales are tied directly to what new show just appeared or video game was just released. 13-episodes a year of LSH doesn't compare to what seems like 1000 episodes of Pokemon in circulation.

My understanding is that it wasn't so much that the comics publishers chose to leave the newstand market as much as the newstand market chose to kick the comic publishers to the curb due to distribution dealings of the time.

I think the market now is close to being in a similar situation as the music industry was a few years back. There is tremendous growth possibilities out there for accessing comics via the web just waiting to be tapped.

One of main things which killed "comics on the newsstand" was fairly simple and is almost never mentioned - the only whole-US distributor was worth less on the stock market than the value of it's assets minus its debts. So a vulture fund bought it and sold it off piece by piece.

Okay, it's as near to official as we're likely to get - the January charts are screwed up

http://pwbeat.publishersweekly.com/blog/2008/02/25/where-are-the-charts/
http://comiksdebris.blogspot.com/2008/02/on-numbers-update.html
http://pwbeat.publishersweekly.com/...-picks-up-his-calculator-again/#comments (and it's the comments that are important, not the entry itself)

At the links, they've gone through it and noted that it's the Diamond index data itself that's wonky - not icv2's estimates, as I first thought, possibly due to February sales "leaking" onto the January chart - to pick an example, Amazing Spider-Man #549, which didn't ship until February, charted in January at 202 with icv2-estimated orders of 7,247. Either way, the later in the month, the further from what's expected the sales get (in an upward direction, not downward).

So unless Diamond issue a corrected chart, don't trust the Jan figures OR rankings (and possibly the February figures & rankings if they proceed to get underestimated by the sales which leaked backwards).

And thus you demonstrate it is NOT marketing at all; it is content.

It wasn't so much a choice as a retrenchment. Sales were dropping anyway; the 60s conventional wisdom was to hope comics would survive long enough for the WWII-era guys to collect their pensions.

Direct distribution was a survival mechanism that saved comics. It was a distribution innovation that allwoed the Big Two to continue to operate by catering to the fanboys, who were the last stable remnant of comics buyers. Eigh-to-twelve year-olds were not buying as devoutly as in past decades, and this is what fed to decline in magazine-rack sales.

Companies of the 60s/70s that did not pursue/succeed in the direct market were the ones to peter away: Gold Key had recognizable 'name' products, like Star Trek. Archie began its dwindling. Charlton, Dell and a slew of former giants went belly-up, or abandoned their comics divisions.

And as fanboys aged or grew up (not always the same thing) and branched out into indies, this created the diversified media I described before - within the fanboy community; EDE was largely correct in noting the populace at large were not buying indies (but indies have and do attract people who would not buy a superhero comic, too).

If not for direct distribution, the fanboy niche would not be so dominant, very true - but there might not be a comics medium to dominate, in terms of periodicals as we've known them.

Instead, the general public's reading of comics would likely be more or less as it was all along since the 70s: Sunday funnies, compilations of favorite strips, and now manga. Maybe a fewsuperhero books would have limped through, as they did in the 1950s. Maybe not.

As a kid of the 70s, comics were only a mainstay for a few of us as a longtime endeavor; for most it was an occassional purpose and one easily gone without. TV was of far greater interest to the average kid, and this was still the era where many of us had only 3 channels.

Most magazines by the 1980s (and probably well before) were about 70-90 percent subscriber-driven; that made the mgazine rack sales less intrinsic; even if 75% of magaizines were returned unsold, they paid for themselves by keeping the magazine visible - people who did not buy the magazine still knew the name, and were still potential subscribers someday. Comics, pre-direct distribution, had no such built-in security; subsciptions were maybe 10 percent, as I recall - and before the 1980s were notorious for arriving mangled in the mail. This made the newstand market vulnerable.

Also, while in 1940ish both comics and "real" magaizines like Time were a dime, but the 1970s, they were 15-40 cents versus around $2; it was "okay" for Time to go up 10-20-fold, but comics were supposed to be a dime; they were 'worthliess' kids stuff, and even today you see people claiming a 10-cent price-tag would magically bring back the good old days.

as a result, comics provided essentially no profit margin for newstand retailers; selling one copy of a glossy mag brought in more than 10 comics would. Guess which takes precedence? And with less kids buying, the decision became all the easier to edge comics off the shelf to make room for something that pays the bills.

market forces, changing tastes, changing technologies, resistance to change, pigeon-holing as kiddie books... these are the reasons the field shrank. Without the feild shrinking, the ascendancy of the fanboys would have never taken root. Comic magazines were state of the art in the 1930s, but culturally marginalized by the 1970s. The future lies in TPBs and the Internet, not in 32-page monthlies.

As expected, Diamond has released corrected numbers and ICV2 has also released corrected estimates. LSH comes in at 33,045, meaning a few thousand less copies than originally reported. This means a 12K + drop-off from Shooter's debut issue. The next few months will be critical to see if the trend continues or the numbers firm up a bit. Revised list below.

10/2004: Teen Titans/The Legion Special #1 -- 61,047
12/2004: LSH #01 -- 59,944, #25 out of 300 (sold out)
01/2005: LSH #02 -- 48,584, #30 out of 300
02/2005: LSH #03 -- 44,824, #40 out of 300
03/2005: LSH #04 -- 43,408, #46 out of 300
04/2005: LSH #05 -- 41,664, #44 out of 300
05/2005: LSH #06 -- 40,970, #42 out of 300
06/2005: LSH #07 -- 39,155, #44 out of 300
07/2005: LSH #08 -- 37,272, #54 out of 300
08/2005: LSH #09 -- 35,834, #69 out of 300
09/2005: LSH #10 -- 35,800, #69 out of 300
10/2005: LSH #11 -- 34,100, #54 out of 300
11/2005: LSH #12 -- 33,500, #57 ouf of 300
11/2005: LSH TPB #1 -- 3,102, #27 out of 100
01/2006: LSH #13 -- 32,730, #54 out of 300
02/2006: LSH #14 -- 32,513, #62 out of 300
02/2006: LSH #15 -- 31,649, #65 out of 300
03/2006: LSH #16 -- 54,826, #41 out of 300 (sold out) (includes reorders of 7,400)
04/2006: LSH #17 -- 47,697, #44 out of 300 (includes reorders of 2,897)
05/2006: LSH #18 -- 45,520, #49 out of 300
06/2006: LSH TPB #2 -- 2,874, #28 out of 100
06/2006: LSH #19 -- 43,918, #46 out of 300
07/2006: LSH #20 -- 41,679, #53 out of 300
08/2006: LSH #21 -- 39,800, #61 out of 300
09/2006: LSH #22 -- 36,735, #54 out of 300
10/2006: LSH #23 -- 41,554, #39 out of 300
10/2006: LSH TPB #3 -- 2,972, #23 out of 100
11/2006: LSH #24 -- 33,985, #68 out of 300
12/2006: LSH #25 -- 33,288, #61 out of 300
01/2007: LSH #26 -- 32,342, #56 out of 300
02/2007: LSH #27 -- 31,387, #65 out of 300
04/2007: LSH #28 -- 31,525, #71 out of 300
04/2007: LSH #29 -- 30,906, #72 out of 300
04/2007: Showcase: Legion #1 -- 4,812, #11 out of 100
04/2007: LSH TPB #4 -- 2,702, #39 out of 100
05/2007: LSH #30 -- 30,758, #79 out of 300
06/2007: LSH #31 -- 30,385, #72 out of 300
07/2007: LSH #32 -- 29,826, #84 out of 300
08/2007: LSH #33 -- 29,315, #92 out of 300
09/2007: LSH #34 -- 28,294 , #88 out of 300
10/2007: LSH #35 -- 27,370 , #91 out of 300
11/2007: LSH #36 -- 26,814 , #88 out of 300
12/2007: LSH #37 -- 45,803 , #50 out of 300
01/2008: LSH #38 -- 33,045 , #64 out of 300

Also, as a point of interest, Action #861 sold an estimated 56,093 copies (down only 200 copies from the previous month and still up almost 5K from the issue before the Legion crossover started).

so basically, I could be writing the Legion, and the numbers would stay the same?

Diamond numbers for February are out (see below). So sales are back to where they were a year ago. I imagine it will still be a few months before the sales stabilise (hopefully) and we get a good metric on what the S&M era numbers look like, but barring something huge, it looks like it will be well below the WaK numbers.

10/2004: Teen Titans/The Legion Special #1 -- 61,047
12/2004: LSH #01 -- 59,944, #25 out of 300 (sold out)
01/2005: LSH #02 -- 48,584, #30 out of 300
02/2005: LSH #03 -- 44,824, #40 out of 300
03/2005: LSH #04 -- 43,408, #46 out of 300
04/2005: LSH #05 -- 41,664, #44 out of 300
05/2005: LSH #06 -- 40,970, #42 out of 300
06/2005: LSH #07 -- 39,155, #44 out of 300
07/2005: LSH #08 -- 37,272, #54 out of 300
08/2005: LSH #09 -- 35,834, #69 out of 300
09/2005: LSH #10 -- 35,800, #69 out of 300
10/2005: LSH #11 -- 34,100, #54 out of 300
11/2005: LSH #12 -- 33,500, #57 ouf of 300
11/2005: LSH TPB #1 -- 3,102, #27 out of 100
01/2006: LSH #13 -- 32,730, #54 out of 300
02/2006: LSH #14 -- 32,513, #62 out of 300
02/2006: LSH #15 -- 31,649, #65 out of 300
03/2006: LSH #16 -- 54,826, #41 out of 300 (sold out) (includes reorders of 7,400)
04/2006: LSH #17 -- 47,697, #44 out of 300 (includes reorders of 2,897)
05/2006: LSH #18 -- 45,520, #49 out of 300
06/2006: LSH TPB #2 -- 2,874, #28 out of 100
06/2006: LSH #19 -- 43,918, #46 out of 300
07/2006: LSH #20 -- 41,679, #53 out of 300
08/2006: LSH #21 -- 39,800, #61 out of 300
09/2006: LSH #22 -- 36,735, #54 out of 300
10/2006: LSH #23 -- 41,554, #39 out of 300
10/2006: LSH TPB #3 -- 2,972, #23 out of 100
11/2006: LSH #24 -- 33,985, #68 out of 300
12/2006: LSH #25 -- 33,288, #61 out of 300
01/2007: LSH #26 -- 32,342, #56 out of 300
02/2007: LSH #27 -- 31,387, #65 out of 300
04/2007: LSH #28 -- 31,525, #71 out of 300
04/2007: LSH #29 -- 30,906, #72 out of 300
04/2007: Showcase: Legion #1 -- 4,812, #11 out of 100
04/2007: LSH TPB #4 -- 2,702, #39 out of 100
05/2007: LSH #30 -- 30,758, #79 out of 300
06/2007: LSH #31 -- 30,385, #72 out of 300
07/2007: LSH #32 -- 29,826, #84 out of 300
08/2007: LSH #33 -- 29,315, #92 out of 300
09/2007: LSH #34 -- 28,294 , #88 out of 300
10/2007: LSH #35 -- 27,370 , #91 out of 300
11/2007: LSH #36 -- 26,814 , #88 out of 300
12/2007: LSH #37 -- 45,803 , #50 out of 300
01/2008: LSH #38 -- 33,045 , #64 out of 300
02/2008: LSH #39 -- 31,123 , #59 out of 300

Action, meanwhile, shipped 55,658 copies, meaning it's dropped less than 500 from the previous issue and remains above the previous (non-Legion) arc by a comfortable margin.

For comparison (stolen from the Beat analysis ( Here ) :

10/2007: Action Comics #857 — 51,401 (- 4.5%)
10/2007: Action Comics #858 — 54,596 (+ 6.2%) [59,031]
11/2007: Action Comics #859 — 54,572 (- 0.0%)
12/2007: Action Comics #860 — 56,254 (+ 3.1%)
01/2008: Action Comics #861 — 56,093 (- 0.3%)

The bracketed number for 858 (the first Legion issue) is accounting for re-orders)

About the difference in numbers between Shooter's first and second issue, remember that the first issue sported two covers, and that i'm sure a lot of people bought the two covers to have the whole Legion image.

March sales figures are up (see below). The good news is the drops are slowing down. The bad news is there's still more than 700 units dropped this month. (Also, Action missed its March date).

10/2004: Teen Titans/The Legion Special #1 -- 61,047
12/2004: LSH #01 -- 59,944, #25 out of 300 (sold out)
01/2005: LSH #02 -- 48,584, #30 out of 300
02/2005: LSH #03 -- 44,824, #40 out of 300
03/2005: LSH #04 -- 43,408, #46 out of 300
04/2005: LSH #05 -- 41,664, #44 out of 300
05/2005: LSH #06 -- 40,970, #42 out of 300
06/2005: LSH #07 -- 39,155, #44 out of 300
07/2005: LSH #08 -- 37,272, #54 out of 300
08/2005: LSH #09 -- 35,834, #69 out of 300
09/2005: LSH #10 -- 35,800, #69 out of 300
10/2005: LSH #11 -- 34,100, #54 out of 300
11/2005: LSH #12 -- 33,500, #57 ouf of 300
11/2005: LSH TPB #1 -- 3,102, #27 out of 100
01/2006: LSH #13 -- 32,730, #54 out of 300
02/2006: LSH #14 -- 32,513, #62 out of 300
02/2006: LSH #15 -- 31,649, #65 out of 300
03/2006: LSH #16 -- 54,826, #41 out of 300 (sold out) (includes reorders of 7,400)
04/2006: LSH #17 -- 47,697, #44 out of 300 (includes reorders of 2,897)
05/2006: LSH #18 -- 45,520, #49 out of 300
06/2006: LSH TPB #2 -- 2,874, #28 out of 100
06/2006: LSH #19 -- 43,918, #46 out of 300
07/2006: LSH #20 -- 41,679, #53 out of 300
08/2006: LSH #21 -- 39,800, #61 out of 300
09/2006: LSH #22 -- 36,735, #54 out of 300
10/2006: LSH #23 -- 41,554, #39 out of 300
10/2006: LSH TPB #3 -- 2,972, #23 out of 100
11/2006: LSH #24 -- 33,985, #68 out of 300
12/2006: LSH #25 -- 33,288, #61 out of 300
01/2007: LSH #26 -- 32,342, #56 out of 300
02/2007: LSH #27 -- 31,387, #65 out of 300
04/2007: LSH #28 -- 31,525, #71 out of 300
04/2007: LSH #29 -- 30,906, #72 out of 300
04/2007: Showcase: Legion #1 -- 4,812, #11 out of 100
04/2007: LSH TPB #4 -- 2,702, #39 out of 100
05/2007: LSH #30 -- 30,758, #79 out of 300
06/2007: LSH #31 -- 30,385, #72 out of 300
07/2007: LSH #32 -- 29,826, #84 out of 300
08/2007: LSH #33 -- 29,315, #92 out of 300
09/2007: LSH #34 -- 28,294 , #88 out of 300
10/2007: LSH #35 -- 27,370 , #91 out of 300
11/2007: LSH #36 -- 26,814 , #88 out of 300
12/2007: LSH #37 -- 45,803 , #50 out of 300
01/2008: LSH #38 -- 33,045 , #64 out of 300
02/2008: LSH #39 -- 31,123 , #59 out of 300
03/2008: LSH #40 -- 30,377 , #63 out of 300

April Sales figures up. Looks like the drops are picking up again. I think we're all holding our breath for the crossover now.

05/2007: LSH #30 -- 30,758, #79 out of 300
06/2007: LSH #31 -- 30,385, #72 out of 300
07/2007: LSH #32 -- 29,826, #84 out of 300
08/2007: LSH #33 -- 29,315, #92 out of 300
09/2007: LSH #34 -- 28,294 , #88 out of 300
10/2007: LSH #35 -- 27,370 , #91 out of 300
11/2007: LSH #36 -- 26,814 , #88 out of 300
12/2007: LSH #37 -- 45,803 , #50 out of 300
01/2008: LSH #38 -- 33,045 , #64 out of 300
02/2008: LSH #39 -- 31,123 , #59 out of 300
03/2008: LSH #40 -- 30,377 , #63 out of 300
04/2008: LSH #41 -- 28,939 , #76 out of 300

Action numbers are also up, including the post-Legion issue. Quite a drop as a lot of people were presumably on only for the LSH story.

10/2007: Action Comics #857 — 51,401 (- 4.5%)
10/2007: Action Comics #858 — 54,596 (+ 6.2%) [59,031]
11/2007: Action Comics #859 — 54,572 (- 0.0%)
12/2007: Action Comics #860 — 56,254 (+ 3.1%)
01/2008: Action Comics #861 — 56,093 (- 0.3%)
02/2008: Action Comics #862 — 55,658 (- 0.8%)
04/2008: Action Comics #863 - 56,882
04/2008: Action Comics #864 - 48,438

Thanks rouge!

May Sales figures up at ICV2. Another thousand copies are shed. Not to sound to alarmist, but if this pace keeps up, we'll hit the pre-Shooter numbers next month which are also the lowest numbers the series has seen.

05/2007: LSH #30 -- 30,758, #79 out of 300
06/2007: LSH #31 -- 30,385, #72 out of 300
07/2007: LSH #32 -- 29,826, #84 out of 300
08/2007: LSH #33 -- 29,315, #92 out of 300
09/2007: LSH #34 -- 28,294 , #88 out of 300
10/2007: LSH #35 -- 27,370 , #91 out of 300
11/2007: LSH #36 -- 26,814 , #88 out of 300
12/2007: LSH #37 -- 45,803 , #50 out of 300
01/2008: LSH #38 -- 33,045 , #64 out of 300
02/2008: LSH #39 -- 31,123 , #59 out of 300
03/2008: LSH #40 -- 30,377 , #63 out of 300
04/2008: LSH #41 -- 28,939 , #76 out of 300
05/2008: LSH #42 -- 27,940 , #84 out of 300

I am convinced the dropping orders are due to-- at least in part-- by a general feeling that this version of the LSH will be ending/replaced soon.

while I haven't read #42 yet, I would add that half a year of Shooter has yet to ignite a "must-read" excitement, also.

I think the numbers are pretty stable before and after Shooter took over. The 45000 copies of issue 37 are linked to curiosity and the fact there were two covers.

francis just needs to slip a monkey onto the next cover!

i really wish we had a better way of tracking numbers, really those aren't QUITE whats sold, just what's bought by a comicbook store. so, enough to fill their orders and then a few more for the shelf.

i agree with parisclub. legion is hard to get into, you have to REALLY want it! i'm pretty sure it's the same people buying it who've been buying it forever!

even now i always feel like I'm a bit lost with knowing just whom everyone is (when i think about how i really have no understanding of who kent shakespeare is...). i wonder how the cartoon affected sales of the main line comic...? i know quite a few girls that got into it because of the cartoon (despite how difficult the cartoon is to understand!).

i think the book would be helped out by... well, superman being in it. a person pointed out at a con that he acts as a gate way character. you might not know cham from cos but if someone had just said "superman used to have these little friends from the future that he learned how to fight with! they're called the legion!" i would have totally understood! otherwise it's VERY confusing with lots of wikipedia and google involved.

or maybe if they did a more "year one" type thing, we keep getting dropped into the middle of insider references, and while LWers might get it, comicshop bob might not!

That's nice to hear about the young ladies getting into the comic due to the TV show (RIP, gone far too soon). LSH has historically had a high female readership (for a comicbook anyway) and I hope that is always the case. Maybe these fans are buying the comic based on the 'tooniverse?


Anyhoo, I think the Superman as gateway character is about to happen post-Legion of 3 Worlds.

Agreed.

He's doing some good things -- but in such a small way. The book seems to be nothing more than subplots. The overall story with the alien mosnter/android menace is painfully slow.

Kent was a Legionnaire from roughly 1990-1995, at a point when the Legion had essentially grown up, were mostly in their mid-30s, and living in a very distopian galaxy, trying to put carry on Legion ideals and restore some semblance of what had been lost. It's an era that engenders a lots of strong feelings pro and con as to its quality and whether it is "real" legion.

Kent had basic tuff-guy powers but was also the team medic, and a thinker even more than a fighter.

Kent has only made a few cameos in various Legion incarnations since, not as a regular member.

Sadly I'd disagree on that: the trend is definitely down. If you plug the numbers from issue #1 until now into a spreadsheet and convert it to a line chart, you'll get a better view of the trend.

Basically the book started around 60K and drifted down to around 30K over the first fifteen issues. Then OYL gave it a shot in the arm and pulled it back up a little below 60K again. Again over the next 15 issues it drifted back to 30K, and then over the next seven kept dropping to about 26K.

Here's where Shooter jumps on, and just like issues #1 and 16, it jumps (though not as high). But the difference here is the very next issue loses a lot of the gains right away instead of the slow drift we saw with the other milestones. Now it's only 5 issues later and we're back down to the lowest sales levels of the book.

After this it's uncharted territory and anything can happen, but the current trajectory is downwards.

No Sales figures for June (LSH slipped on the schedule).

Ah... THAT explains why DCBS has two LSH's listed in my next shipment.

The Legion of Superheroes 1050 years in the future GN sold pretty well...

Concerning the trends...yeah the W&K was on the verge of dropping under 30k when they added Supergirl back to the title...and they got a huge boost out of that that lasted for a while.

They got a slight bump off bringing Mon-El back also....and then promptly wrote him back out.


But other than those bumps, this title has basically been drifting to the sub 30k sales numbers of the DNA Legion and the end of the V4. Mid 20s per month....


The Supergirl bump was huge and probably saved the title from being at cancellation level right about now.


I'm disappointed the Shooter numbers didn't hold, because if you get past the cheesy dialogue he's had an extremely fun and eventful run to this point, I am surprised it's not holding it's audience as it's been the most I've enjoyed in Post COIE Legions. Maybe the bump that Shooter got wasn't a true bump of new readers because of the covers, plus retailers may have overestimated the impact of Shooter returning to one of the big 2. But ultimately I think the message the fans are sending DC is pretty clear, actually it's been pretty clear for a loooooooooong time, DC was just trying to outlast the message...and now they aren't and that's why the Action Legion was brought back.


I predict any ongoing title featuring the Action Legion will sell over 40k per month(tied back in to the Superman Family) and hold....much higher if Johns is writing it...and still higher if Superman is back in it. I think it will sell @60K plus per month if all those factors come into play. I'll be real suprised if it doesn't.....

Bold words my friend, and I LIKE IT. If that happens I'll change my sig to "Superboy was right!" with a link to your above post!

I'd love it if Superboy was right too, but we had all the same ingredients mentioned (plus variant covers) in the Action arc and it only blipped into the high 50Ks. A good springboard from FC could help launch it high, but there's got to be an X-Factor to take keep it in the sales realm we're talking about, at least until the quality of the book is able to keep up the momentum.

Alex Ross covers maybe?

The numbers on the Action Legion were rock solid though. Amazingly stable numbers, in fact a couple of months they actually increased over the previous month for no discernible reason...


That's what the Legion does historically in a period of a stable audience size.


This is going to be launched out of Final Crisis so it's going to be a more high profile...if a regular series comes out of it I expect it to start with higher numbers than the Action Legion, and maintain them.


I think the impact of Superman making the Legion's intimidatingly massive and foreign Universe more familiar is just that...


Plus, Superman is a huge sales boost to team books...he makes a huge impact on the JLA sales.


Do you think Final Crisis is going to sell better than Action, or worse?

I think it's going to sell substantially better than the Action arc did.


It's simple math really...

The original Legion had fans that just liked the Legion...but they also had tons of fans that like Superman period but also read to see him in a different setting than normal, in fact that was the bulk of the fan base IMO, not the Legion only fans...and that was the sales dynamic that drove the Legion of Superheroes for nearly 2 decades.


I think the factors behind that dynamic are still relevant...

I think there are still fans that Legion only fans, and there are fans that like Superman...and the result of rejoining the two is going to sell better than any Superman or any Legion title by itself...for two fanbases are greater than 1...and since the best selling Superman title hovers around 50K and the Legion has a locked in audience of 20+k...the result is going to be better than the 50k o fthe best selling Superman title. And I think the concept will be more inviting to new readers as well. I doubt I ever would have been a Legion Fan if not for Superboy, I picked up the title becuase I recognized him...and it made curious about the other Legionaires.

Keep in mind...not all Legion Fans were reading the Action arc....I expect that to change with the launch/relaunch of a title featung the Action Legion. And if there are any zero hour original Legionaires brought back it'll bring some(not all) of those fans back to the fold, and I don't think many of htem picked up the Action Arc.


Honestly I expect it to sell better than 60, if all the factors are in play...that 60 number was my conservative estimate.


Historically Superboy and the Legion outsold the JLA and the Teen Titans...always. It never didn't outsell them. Not once.

A couple of other things Johns is doing that I think will be relevant to sales...

He is tying it into Green Lantern and Flash as well...not just Superman.

We know there is going to be a Green Lantern involved...and he's already done something with Color Girl to tie her into Green Lantern...but he's bringing back XS and probably Bart Allen as well.

There will be a lot of reasons for non Legion fans to pick up the Legion when Johns is done with it IMO.

It'll have more than just the Superman and Legion fan base dynamic going for it...but that dynamic alone has historically proven to be the recipe for an extremely successful team book. Always. Historically it's had more inherent appeal than the Justice League.

I was gonna do a poll, but let's just do it here.

Assuming that a Superman/LSH book is going to be an end result of Lo3W.... what would you like to see said book be titled? Here's some suggestions, or pick a new one:


SUPERMAN and THE LSH

SUPERMAN starring THE LSH

ADVENTURE (both LSH and Superman logos underneath, much smaller)

THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES (with no "Super"-anything in the title)

EDIT: Dang, I thought we were on Lardy's thread... My apologies for veering offtopic...

X-Men

that should get the sales numbers up.

X-LSH!

All-Star Legion of Super-Heroes featuring Batman, Superman and Monkeys - Absolute Edition.

well let's not forget the art angle. when i shop for comics, i open the sucker up and look at the art. I'm not reading it at all, i'm looking to see if the art it good or not. if it is? i pick it up. if it's not? I check the writer, is it someone i know? someone i trust? no? down goes the book.

i can't really tell if a book is well written or not just by glancing at it, unfortunately. it has to be recommended to me by one of my cohorts or a podcast, etc for me to try to trust something based on writing. it's not like i can read the whole book in the store!

put a good artist on it and johns could write them playing scrabble for 7 issues and i'd be all on it. as sad as it sounds, sometimes it's not really what's happening in the comic, but how its drawn that gets the readers. (or colored or inked...)

That's actually what (IMO) stands DC and Marvel apart. I've always seen Marvel as the "artist" choice, while DC always had a bigger role for the writer. Sure, Marvel does have his share of great writers (usually writing more mediocre material), but it usually is about the art. I mean, get Planet Hulk, which made me instantly drop the book (Pak against Peter David). It became a hit, simply for being this huge splash slugfest.
But your point is correct, Adriana, and maybe one of the reasons Marvel outsells DC for quite a long time. I mean, Infinity Inc (a GREAT book by Peter Milligan) was ruined by a weird choice of artists.

Agreed. Even more to the point was Milligan's "The Programme" which may have been one of the best books of the year, but had horrible art and tanked.

July Sales figures up at ICV2. Because the book missed June it double shipped in July. #43 dropped back only slightly from the previous issue, but #44 roared ahead by over 2,000 copies (alternate cover boost, or Legion interest due to FC?). Good news for a change.


07/2007: LSH #32 -- 29,826, #84 out of 300
08/2007: LSH #33 -- 29,315, #92 out of 300
09/2007: LSH #34 -- 28,294 , #88 out of 300
10/2007: LSH #35 -- 27,370 , #91 out of 300
11/2007: LSH #36 -- 26,814 , #88 out of 300
12/2007: LSH #37 -- 45,803 , #50 out of 300
01/2008: LSH #38 -- 33,045 , #64 out of 300
02/2008: LSH #39 -- 31,123 , #59 out of 300
03/2008: LSH #40 -- 30,377 , #63 out of 300
04/2008: LSH #41 -- 28,939 , #76 out of 300
05/2008: LSH #42 -- 27,940 , #84 out of 300
07/2008: LSH #43 -- 27,531 , #96 out of 300
07/2008: LSH #44 -- 29,954 , #83 out of 300

As far as I know, there wasn't any alternate cover for LSH #44. I'd say it is the huge boost given by Legion of 3 Worlds. Maybe this will help Shooter's run to be extended. I'm excited by what's coming up on the main book.

It had a 1/10 Neal Adams variant:

http://www.comiccollectorlive.com/LiveData/Issue.aspx?id=0f69fc75-965b-4ed6-8470-44e67c80a7b9

My bad. Thanks for reminding me! Though I still think it wouldn't be an exceptional draw to the title at this point.

I so agree.

And in fact, it was the art of Dave Cockrum that made made me a huge Legion fan to begin with. After he left, I kept on through most of the Mike Grell run until I got bored with all of DC Comics.

It was Giffen's artwork in the early 80s that made me try the Legion again (after coming back to DC Comics via the Wolfman/Perez Titans series).

That's why I was a bit perplexed a few years ago when Dan DiDio stated that Legion has always been a writer's series. WTF?!!! Yeah, Shooter and Levitz did great work, but Swan was donig some of the best work of his career when Jim was writing -- and Levitz was never as good when team with a so so artist like Greg LaRoque.

The Legion needs a top notch artist to bring in readers. And it has to be someone who has developed his skills. Coipel was too rough in his early issues. Today, he'd be a big hit.

As much as I liked Manpul's poster/cover with the new Legion costumes, his interiors aren't quite in fan fave category yet.

August Sales figures have been up for a while (sorry, I was on vacation). Numbers aren't good for the main title. After the artificial bump from the variant cover on #44 sales drop by over 4K units. This is now the lowest the title has sold since the Threeboot started. It's not all bad however, as L3W more than doubled the regular title with 68,306 and ranked 20th on the list. I think this may put the writing on the wall for the current version but shows there's at least modest interest out there for a big Legion event.


07/2007: LSH #32 -- 29,826, #84 out of 300
08/2007: LSH #33 -- 29,315, #92 out of 300
09/2007: LSH #34 -- 28,294 , #88 out of 300
10/2007: LSH #35 -- 27,370 , #91 out of 300
11/2007: LSH #36 -- 26,814 , #88 out of 300
12/2007: LSH #37 -- 45,803 , #50 out of 300
01/2008: LSH #38 -- 33,045 , #64 out of 300
02/2008: LSH #39 -- 31,123 , #59 out of 300
03/2008: LSH #40 -- 30,377 , #63 out of 300
04/2008: LSH #41 -- 28,939 , #76 out of 300
05/2008: LSH #42 -- 27,940 , #84 out of 300
07/2008: LSH #43 -- 27,531 , #96 out of 300
07/2008: LSH #44 -- 29,954 , #83 out of 300
08/2008: LSH #45 -- 25,783 , #96 out of 300

Unfortunately, it seems DC doesn't think there is space for Legion at all except for some Geoff Johns event.

I can understand those who are thinking: "I won't spend any more buck on a doomed book"...

It's so sad that Shooters run has come too late...

September sales are out and the book sheds another 800 copies. It will be interesting to see what happens now that it's known there are only 4 issues left. I don't think it will be pretty.


09/2007: LSH #34 -- 28,294 , #88 out of 300
10/2007: LSH #35 -- 27,370 , #91 out of 300
11/2007: LSH #36 -- 26,814 , #88 out of 300
12/2007: LSH #37 -- 45,803 , #50 out of 300
01/2008: LSH #38 -- 33,045 , #64 out of 300
02/2008: LSH #39 -- 31,123 , #59 out of 300
03/2008: LSH #40 -- 30,377 , #63 out of 300
04/2008: LSH #41 -- 28,939 , #76 out of 300
05/2008: LSH #42 -- 27,940 , #84 out of 300
07/2008: LSH #43 -- 27,531 , #96 out of 300
07/2008: LSH #44 -- 29,954 , #83 out of 300
08/2008: LSH #45 -- 25,783 , #96 out of 300
09/2008: LSH #46 -- 24,959 , #98 out of 300

Also, Legion of Three Worlds picks up another 5,608 issues. It isn't labeled as "2nd printing" so these may be straight up re-orders.

Ok, I'm off work today and it's raining so, computer time!

rouge's posts on sales and the impending cancellation got me to thinking if there are similar books to the Legion (sales wise) that have been around longer and are languishing, yet not being cancelled? I just sort of noticed Birds of Prey. Birds of Prey is a DC Comic showcasing primarily female members. Core and supporting cast, according to Wikipedia, are
Core members
Oracle
Huntress
Lady Blackhawk
Manhunter
Misfit
Infinity
Rotating Members
Big Barda
Black Alice
Black Canary
Catwoman
Katana
Lady Shiva
Gypsy
Hawkgirl
Judomaster
Power Girl
Vixen

A few things I did some research on, with the help of ICv2:

1. Birds of Prey has CONSISTENTLY sold below Legion and or Supergirl and the Legion.
Going back to Threeboot Issue #1, December 2004,
only once has it outsold Legion, and that was on its 83rd issue, an OMAC tie-in, by a scant 622 copies.

2. In December 05 there was no Legion due to a scheduling slip, and instead there were 2 issues in February 06, with issue #14 coming in at 32,513 and #15 at 31,649 in sales, totaling 64,162. Birds of Prey in January and February did not top any of those individual sales figures.

3. The same thing happened in March 07-no Legion but two issues in April. Again Birds of Prey sales did not surpass any individual issue sales.

4. Biggest gaps in sales rank:
In December 07 Shooter and Manapul began, and there were two covers. Legion #50, Birds of Prey #99.
January 08 Legion #64, Birds of Prey #93
February 08 Legion # 59, Birds of Prey #91

5.Since April 08, Birds of Prey has been ranked 101 or lower, coming in at #111 in September, with under 22K in sales 4 out of those 5 months.
Threeboot Legion has never been below 22K.

6. Sales of Birds of Prey have fallen considerably in the same time frame as the Legion's Threeboot run.
Legion is canceled,Birds of Prey is on issue #123 for Oct 08, no cancellation in sight.
Good thing it has such a long and storied history...Oh, wait.

****BONUS****
Since issue 118, Birds of Prey has been written by...

<span class="spoiler_containter"><span class="spoiler_wording">Click Here For A Spoiler</span><span class="spoiler_text">Tony Bedard, the hailed hope for L.E.G.I.O.N.</span></span>

I'm just sayin'............

I don't think they're cancelling Legion purely for sales reasons, but because there's a plan from DC comics for yet another Legion reboot/reimagination/return to origins.

i wonder how the hardcover sold?

Birds of Prey was one of the most solid sales staples in the DCU under Gail Simone. While it never rose considerably, it never dropped that much either. Since she left it's been in a nose-dive of sorts while they sorted out a creative team (with Bedard finally getting the nod). If recent trends continue, it may be in a bit of trouble.

That said, I don't think Legion's sales levels are the sole reason for cancellation. There are a few books besides Birds of Prey selling well below Legion's level that have continued their runs (Blue Beetle for example). I suspect there's a revamp plan in the works.

The Hardcover is an October release. It will be an other month before we see the numbers. "Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes" had initial numbers of around 3K though.

I think DC wants Legion to be a fan favorite again as it was in the 70s and early 80s.

Maybe that's impossible given the reboots, but it does seem that they are planning to make a go of it with a more classic Legion after L3W.

I want monkeys to fly outta the butts of DC's powers-that-be for jerking us around this year, but I don't know how to make that happen anymore than they know how to make them a fan favorite again.

Also AFOB - Birds of Prey just got canned too (along with Robin & Nightwing). Hope you're happy now.

Obviously I'm not happy and never intended to see any books cancelled, but this is a tough economy and hard decisions have to be made. I wouldn't be surprised to see 4 or 5 more before next summer.

Blue Beetle is axed too. Keep'em comin'.

Anthology books sell well enough in countries other than the US. Seems to me that when they're done well they can be great. The previously named series would make fantastic entrants to a Bat-Anthology monthly. If Robin, Nightwing and Birds of Prey would headline one of these I could finally afford to follow them.

October sales are out and the book drops 1,200 copies and falls out of the top 100 (although that stat I blame on Marvel flooding the market). With three issues remaining before the switch over to Adventure, expect the numbers to slide a bit more.


10/2007: LSH #35 -- 27,370 , #91 out of 300
11/2007: LSH #36 -- 26,814 , #88 out of 300
12/2007: LSH #37 -- 45,803 , #50 out of 300
01/2008: LSH #38 -- 33,045 , #64 out of 300
02/2008: LSH #39 -- 31,123 , #59 out of 300
03/2008: LSH #40 -- 30,377 , #63 out of 300
04/2008: LSH #41 -- 28,939 , #76 out of 300
05/2008: LSH #42 -- 27,940 , #84 out of 300
07/2008: LSH #43 -- 27,531 , #96 out of 300
07/2008: LSH #44 -- 29,954 , #83 out of 300
08/2008: LSH #45 -- 25,783 , #96 out of 300
09/2008: LSH #46 -- 24,959 , #98 out of 300
10/2008: LSH #47 -- 23,751 , #118 out of 300

And here's the LO3W Sales. The [] number represents the total with September re-orders added in. Comparing the initial orders from both months, it looks like a drop of about 4K readers. Not entirely unexpected for an "Event" book, but it will be interesting to see if this levels out with issue #3 or if the delays impact things.


08/2008: Lo3W #1 -- 68,306, #20 out of 300 [73,914]
10/2008: Lo3W #2 -- 64,412, #23 out of 300

Finally the "Enemy Rising" HardCover sold about 1,559 copies, placing it at #91 on the GN chart.

While I'll be the first to admit those numbers are under what I expected...I expected ish #1 to be over 100k with re-orders...

Still...

It's been a loooooooooooooooong time since a first issue anything of the Legion was over 60k copies...the fact that it's still over 60 k for issue #2 is fantastic news for DC and the Legion.


A second issue of the Legion hasn't sold over 60k copies, probably since 1989 or 90.

Overall it's good news...and since the title has been hit with some scheduling difficulties that might have hurt sales. I expect this series to get a boost once the Flash and Green Lantern Elements started getting played up as well.


As of now my prediction of any ongoing monthly featuring this Legion paired with Superman averaging around 60k copies is still possible.


And I'm not convinced sales won't improve on this title as it progesses...that's kind of what happened with the Action arc.

I'm gonna guess...

62,000 for issue #3
60,000 for issue #4
68,000 for issue #5

and, a debut of Adventure #1 at...

65,000.

Here's the November sales update. The book shed about 800 readers this time out. With two issues left and the last one being an "Aniversary Number" (50), I expect we won't fall below 22K by the time it's all said and done.

BTW, Adventure Comics Special logged in at #56 with 34,674.


11/2007: LSH #36 -- 26,814 , #88 out of 300
12/2007: LSH #37 -- 45,803 , #50 out of 300
01/2008: LSH #38 -- 33,045 , #64 out of 300
02/2008: LSH #39 -- 31,123 , #59 out of 300
03/2008: LSH #40 -- 30,377 , #63 out of 300
04/2008: LSH #41 -- 28,939 , #76 out of 300
05/2008: LSH #42 -- 27,940 , #84 out of 300
07/2008: LSH #43 -- 27,531 , #96 out of 300
07/2008: LSH #44 -- 29,954 , #83 out of 300
08/2008: LSH #45 -- 25,783 , #96 out of 300
09/2008: LSH #46 -- 24,959 , #98 out of 300
10/2008: LSH #47 -- 23,751 , #118 out of 300
11/2008: LSH #48 -- 22,917 , #92 out of 300

If we all see the book by its market position, it hang on pretty tight for a book being trampled, ignored and humiliated by TPTB.

Sorry for the late posting of these. Here's the December sales update. The book drops down to the 22K level, shedding another 800 readers. Expect a bump for the last issue and then into the great unknown we go....


12/2007: LSH #37 -- 45,803 , #50 out of 300
01/2008: LSH #38 -- 33,045 , #64 out of 300
02/2008: LSH #39 -- 31,123 , #59 out of 300
03/2008: LSH #40 -- 30,377 , #63 out of 300
04/2008: LSH #41 -- 28,939 , #76 out of 300
05/2008: LSH #42 -- 27,940 , #84 out of 300
07/2008: LSH #43 -- 27,531 , #96 out of 300
07/2008: LSH #44 -- 29,954 , #83 out of 300
08/2008: LSH #45 -- 25,783 , #96 out of 300
09/2008: LSH #46 -- 24,959 , #98 out of 300
10/2008: LSH #47 -- 23,751 , #118 out of 300
11/2008: LSH #48 -- 22,917 , #92 out of 300
12/2008: LSH #49 -- 22,180 , #122 out of 300

I'll be curious to see if that's the case. I think #3 could drop by a lot more. Final Crisis turned out to be such a dud in many readers' minds that they might no longer be interested in something that is a FC tie-in, particularly after the long wait.

Well, this was at a point when I assumed (yeah, I know)that these were going to be published in my lifetime...

It will be interesting to see how much interest has piqued or waned with such a long delay.

Well, I imagine there's still a healthy percentage of people who simply have it on their pull lists and will therefore get it regardless of when it comes out. But stores who ordered it to display on the shelves next to the other FC titles may be slashing those orders.

Although FC will be done by next week, most people who've picked up Lo3W say that apart from Superman Beyond its one of the better spin-offs to come out of FC. While I am concerned about how well it stands apart from Lo3W, I truly believe the story is compelling enough for people who bought it to still pick it up.

I'm speculating that with FC ending, L3W is going to start being billed more as a Legion event than a FC event. IMO, that's a much better approach and one that should have been the way to go all along (consider, at least at this juncture in the story, it's connections to FC are flimsy at best).

Hey all,
January Sales figures are out. Slight bump presumably for the final issue and the 50 number. Boy, were those new readers in for a treat. I guess that's all she wrote for now. I'll include the numbers back to the beginning of the threeboot and let them tell the tale. Thanks so much to Lightning Lad for starting the list in the first place.

10/2004: Teen Titans/The Legion Special #1 -- 61,047
12/2004: LSH #01 -- 59,944, #25 out of 300 (sold out)
01/2005: LSH #02 -- 48,584, #30 out of 300
02/2005: LSH #03 -- 44,824, #40 out of 300
03/2005: LSH #04 -- 43,408, #46 out of 300
04/2005: LSH #05 -- 41,664, #44 out of 300
05/2005: LSH #06 -- 40,970, #42 out of 300
06/2005: LSH #07 -- 39,155, #44 out of 300
07/2005: LSH #08 -- 37,272, #54 out of 300
08/2005: LSH #09 -- 35,834, #69 out of 300
09/2005: LSH #10 -- 35,800, #69 out of 300
10/2005: LSH #11 -- 34,100, #54 out of 300
11/2005: LSH #12 -- 33,500, #57 ouf of 300
11/2005: LSH TPB #1 -- 3,102, #27 out of 100
01/2006: LSH #13 -- 32,730, #54 out of 300
02/2006: LSH #14 -- 32,513, #62 out of 300
02/2006: LSH #15 -- 31,649, #65 out of 300
03/2006: LSH #16 -- 54,826, #41 out of 300 (sold out) (includes reorders of 7,400)
04/2006: LSH #17 -- 47,697, #44 out of 300 (includes reorders of 2,897)
05/2006: LSH #18 -- 45,520, #49 out of 300
06/2006: LSH TPB #2 -- 2,874, #28 out of 100
06/2006: LSH #19 -- 43,918, #46 out of 300
07/2006: LSH #20 -- 41,679, #53 out of 300
08/2006: LSH #21 -- 39,800, #61 out of 300
09/2006: LSH #22 -- 36,735, #54 out of 300
10/2006: LSH #23 -- 41,554, #39 out of 300
10/2006: LSH TPB #3 -- 2,972, #23 out of 100
11/2006: LSH #24 -- 33,985, #68 out of 300
12/2006: LSH #25 -- 33,288, #61 out of 300
01/2007: LSH #26 -- 32,342, #56 out of 300
02/2007: LSH #27 -- 31,387, #65 out of 300
04/2007: LSH #28 -- 31,525, #71 out of 300
04/2007: LSH #29 -- 30,906, #72 out of 300
04/2007: Showcase: Legion #1 -- 4,812, #11 out of 100
04/2007: LSH TPB #4 -- 2,702, #39 out of 100
05/2007: LSH #30 -- 30,758, #79 out of 300
06/2007: LSH #31 -- 30,385, #72 out of 300
07/2007: LSH #32 -- 29,826, #84 out of 300
08/2007: LSH #33 -- 29,315, #92 out of 300
09/2007: LSH #34 -- 28,294 , #88 out of 300
10/2007: LSH #35 -- 27,370 , #91 out of 300
11/2007: LSH #36 -- 26,814 , #88 out of 300
12/2007: LSH #37 -- 45,803 , #50 out of 300
01/2008: LSH #38 -- 33,045 , #64 out of 300
02/2008: LSH #39 -- 31,123 , #59 out of 300
03/2008: LSH #40 -- 30,377 , #63 out of 300
04/2008: LSH #41 -- 28,939 , #76 out of 300
05/2008: LSH #42 -- 27,940 , #84 out of 300
07/2008: LSH #43 -- 27,531 , #96 out of 300
07/2008: LSH #44 -- 29,954 , #83 out of 300
08/2008: LSH #45 -- 25,783 , #96 out of 300
09/2008: LSH #46 -- 24,959 , #98 out of 300
10/2008: LSH #47 -- 23,751 , #118 out of 300
11/2008: LSH #48 -- 22,917 , #92 out of 300
12/2008: LSH #49 -- 22,180 , #122 out of 300
01/2009: LSH #50 -- 22,327 , #86 out of 300

Awww.

I was hoping it would finish by breaking the 20k barrier. In reverse.

You're all heart, 'Boot.

Though this piece of switch and bait deserves it...

Ouch - these figures are a sad sign of the economic times!

It took almost 28k to be ranked #84 back in May, and now only 22.3k to be ranked #86 in January. The industry has taken a beating lately...

Its a tough comparison though, as May had both Marvel and DC launching their Summer events with the myriad of tie-ins, while January is a relatively slow month regardless of the economy.

Is #50 the worst selling Legion comic of all time? It deserves it if it was.

Guess threebooting the Legion was more of a mistake than DC ever dreamed.

Yeah, looking at the drop off on this title the threeboot was a pretty bad idea. Those sales numbers are *ouch* regardless. And it's not like you can even blame it on the Johns' Legion showing up as this book shead readership pretty consistantly.

If DC had allowed returns, I'm sure it would have.

Actually, #49 sold worse that #50. I'd have to check for previous version to see if anything was less than 22K (aside form the Johnny DC book obviously), but 49 was the lowest point in the Threeboot.

weren't books in 1999 even worse? Before DnA and even the early DnA issues were pretty low, as I recall.

According to Reboot's post Here you're right. Legionnaire's #80 clocked in at 15,800. Of course, Diamond (and ICV2 by extension) I believe, had different reporting criteria then, but we can assume they are reasonable ballparks.

I don't think Lgs #80 is a reasonable ballpark, because it was lower than the issues surrounding it by quite a way - I suspect there was a reporting glitch of some sort with that issue. [I also suspect that the sales at that point were hurt overall by having two books a month when it had been struggling for quite a while - Lost debuted higher than LSH/Lgs and stayed steady, Worlds debuted higher than Lost despite being higher-priced, and The Legion debuted higher yet again and stayed fairly stable for quite a while]. And the pre-2003 figures are about 5% lower thaqn subsequent figures in general, because of the change to "actual" orders.

Looking at the "threeboot" curve - it had the two highest-promoted issues since [SW6] Legionnaires #1 in v5 #1 and Supergirl/LSH #16 (remember, the latter became a spin-off of Supergirl at a time when when that book was over 100k - and "Supergirl/LSH" may well have damaged THAT book, since it started a free-fall about the same time) and blew it both times, when you look at the way the drops mounted and mounted each time. If it hadn't been for the Hail Kara pass, the book wouldn't have reached #50 in the first place.

I'm consistent, at least

There is NO doubt Legion was hurt badly by both L3W and the imminent cancellation, that made sure Shooter's story was to be irrelevant for the future of the franchise.

Why is there "NO doubt"? Shooter's first few issues overperformed the sales trend, and the last few were just back on form. Or the lack thereof.

I agree, other than a large bump at the outset (with a variant cover), Shooter's run started sliding almost immediately. I don't think that can be blamed on Lo3W. You could make the case that the Lightning Saga and Action arcs hurt it, but the downward trend is pretty consistent across the entire threeboot. If anything it looks like Shooter provided little to no impact on the books performance.

Sales from about 1997 on(also courtesy of Reboot by way of the Legion Clubhouse):

Legionnaires #49 - 26,300
Legion of Super-Heroes #93 - 27,200 [-2.6%]
Legionnaires #50 - 28,300 [+7.6%]
Legion of Super-Heroes #94 - 26,500 [-2.3%]
Legionnaires #51 - 25,700 [-9.2%]
Legion of Super-Heroes #95 - 26,100 [-1.1%]
Legionnaires #52 - 25,200 [-2.0%]
Legion of Super-Heroes #96 - 25,500 [-2.3%]
Legionnaires #53 - 25,400 [+0.8%]
Legion of Super-Heroes #97 - 27,700 [+8.6%]
Legionnaires #54 - 25,200 [-0.8%]
Legion of Super-Heroes #98 - 25,800 [-6.9%]
Legionnaires #55 - 25,100 [-0.4%]
Legion of Super-Heroes #99 - 26,100 [+1.2%]
Legionnaires #56 - 25,100 [-0.0%]
Legion of Super-Heroes #100 - 29,800 [+14.2%]
Legionnaires #57 - 24,400 [-2.8%]
Legion of Super-Heroes #101 - 25,000 [-16.1%]
Legends of the Legion #1 (of 4) - 24,900
Legionnaires #58 - 23,800 [-2.5%]
Legion of Super-Heroes #102 - 24,500 [-2.0%]
Legends of the Legion #2 (of 4) - 21,400 [-14.0%]
Legionnaires #59 - 23,100 [-2.9%]
Legion of Super-Heroes #103 - 23,900 [-2.4%]
Legends of the Legion #3 (of 4) - 19,800 [-7.5%]
Legionnaires #60 - 23,100 [-0.0%]
Legion of Super-Heroes #104 - 24,100 [+0.8%]
Legends of the Legion #4 (of 4) - 19,300 [-2.5%]
Legionnaires #61 - 24,200 [+5.0%]
Legion of Super-Heroes #105 - 24,700 [+3.0%]
Legionnaires #62 - 22,800 [-5.8%]
Legion of Super-Heroes #106 - 23,200 [-6.1%]
Legionnaires #63 - 23,100 [+1.3%]
Legion of Super-Heroes #107 - 23,400 [+0.9%]
Legion of Science Police #1 (of 4) - 18,500
Legionnaires #64 - 22,400 [-3.0%]
Legion of Super-Heroes #108 - 22,700 [-3.0%]
Legion of Science Police #2 (of 4) - 15,900 [-14.0%]
Legionnaires #65 - 21,600 [-3.6%]
Legion of Super-Heroes #109 - 21,900 [-3.5%]
Legion of Science Police #3 (of 4) - 14,500 [-8.1%]
Legionnaires #1000000 - 29,300
Legion of Super-Heroes #1000000 - 29,300
Legion of Science Police #4 (of 4) - 13,400 [-7.6%]
Legionnaires #66 - 20,900 [-3.3%]
Legion of Super-Heroes #110 - 21,400 [-1.0%]
Legionnaires #67 - 20,700 [-1.0%]
Legion of Super-Heroes #111 - 20,900 [-2.3%]
Legionnaires #68 - 20,100 [-2.9%]
Legion of Super-Heroes #112 - 20,400 [-2.4%]
Legionnaires #69 - 19,800 [-1.5%]
Legion of Super-Heroes #113 - 20,200 [-1.0%]
Legionnaires #70 - 18,900 [-4.5%]
Legion of Super-Heroes #114 - 19,600 [-3.0%]
Legionnaires #71 - 18,700 [-1.1%]
Legion of Super-Heroes #115 - 19,100 [-2.6%]
Legionnaires #72 - 18,400 [-1.8%]
Legion of Super-Heroes #116 - 18,800 [-1.3%]
Legionnaires #73 - 18,100 [-1.5%]
Legion of Super-Heroes #117 - 18,500 [-1.9%]
Legionnaires #74 - 17,600 [-2.8%]
Legion of Super-Heroes #118 - 18,100 [-2.1%]
Legionnaires #75 - 17,700 [+0.6%]
Legion of Super-Heroes #119 - 18,000 [-0.6%]
Legionnaires #76 - 17,600 [-0.6%]
Legion of Super-Heroes #120 - 17,900 [-0.6%]
Legionnaires #77 - 17,300 [-0.4%]
Legion of Super-Heroes #121 - 17,700 [0%]

DnA start:

Legionnaires #78 - 17,300 [0%]

Legion of the Damned:

Legion of Super-Heroes #122 - 18,400 [+4.0%]
Legionnaires #79 - 17,200 [-0.6%]
Legion of Super-Heroes #123 - 17,700 [-3,8%]
Legionnaires #80 - 15,800 [-5,4%]

Widening Rifts:

Legion of Super-Heroes #124 - 17,200 [0%]
Legionnaires #81 - 17,000 [+7.6%]
Legion of Super-Heroes #125 - 17,500 [+1.7%]

Legion Lost:

Legion Lost #1 - 20,900
Legion Lost #2 - 19,100 [+8.3%]
Legion Lost #3 - 21,200 [+11,0%]
Legion Lost #4 - 22,000 [+3.8%] / 21,974
Legion Lost #5 - 22,406
Legion Lost #6 - 21,379
Legion Lost #7 - 21,706
Legion Lost #8 - 21,137
Legion Lost #9 - 21,540
Legion Lost #10 - 20,217
Legion Lost #11 - 19,553
Legion Lost #12 - 20,510

Superboy's Legion:

Superboy's Legion #1 - 23,350
Superboy's Legion #2 - 21,080

Legion Worlds:

Legion Worlds #1 - 23,830 / 21,955
Legion Worlds #2 - 22,020 / 20,570
Legion Worlds #3 - 22,080 / 20,954
Legion Worlds #4 - 21,960 / 20,832
Legion Worlds #5 - 21,410 / 20,685
Legion Worlds #6 - 21,520 / 20,129

The Legion:

The Legion #1 - 28,350
The Legion #2 - 24,364
The Legion #3 - 24,338
The Legion #4 - 24,416
The Legion #5 - 24,232
The Legion #6 - 24,603
The Legion #7 - 25,113
The Legion #8 - 24,771
The Legion #9 - 24,566
The Legion #10 - 24,775
The Legion #11 - 24,988
The Legion #12 - 25,355
The Legion #13 - 24,218
The Legion #14 - 23,880
The Legion #15 - 23,962
The Legion #16 - 23,744
The Legion #17 - 23,005
The Legion #18 - 22.516 / 23,180
The Legion #19 - 23,214
The Legion #20 - 23,184
The Legion #21 - 22,749
The Legion #22 - 22,987
The Legion #23 - 22,466
The Legion #24 - 22,653
The Legion #25 - 30,440
The Legion Secret Files 3003 - 19,231
The Legion #26 - 26,635
The Legion #27 - 25,667
The Legion #28 - 25,042
The Legion #29 - 24,908
The Legion #30 - 25,014
The Legion #31 - 24,870
The Legion #32 - 24,608
The Legion #33 - 24,865
The Legion #34 - 23,903
The Legion #35 - 24,207
The Legion #36 - 23,717
The Legion #37 - 23,479
The Legion #38 - 23,327
Teen Titans/The Legion Special #1 - 61,047

Yeah, I think Reboot and Rouge are right. Shooter made little impact--his writing simply did not draw in new fans. In fact, it continued the trend of the current Legion fans becoming more and more dissatisfied.

Same area as the current...and it was pretty much the same area before 97 as well going back to the tail end of the 5YG.

Those numbers continuing on the 3Boot, especially with Jim Shooter at the helm, made it pretty obvious to DC which direction they needed to go in...

Waid
Roger Stern
DNA
Jim Shooter
Gail Simone
Etc.


It's got nothing to do with the writers.


It's got everything to do with the standalone Legion being a closed club that doesn't attract new readers and never has. Not a problem when that club is big as it once was, but as that membership shrinks and what's left are basically a cult following...it's a problem, especially when they are an angry cult, and there are more profitable alternatives available.

So basically the choice for the Legion cultists is remain that closed club and have no Legion book to read...or open up the membership gates(by making the book less isolated and intimidating) and get a Legion book to read.


Fan bases of 20 thousand aren't really in a position to be making demands about the product they get. We aren't the X-Fans or anything comparable to them. That was 20+ years ago...this is now.

An unfortunate reality of comic book life, but true nontheless.


I don't have a doubt DC would have loved for the standalone Legion to be successful. That's why they pushed, pulled, heaved, hoed, shoved, cajoled, that concept uphill for 20 years, restarting it several times in the process, and they just weren't ever picking up the new fans in substantial numbers doing it...

The more I think about it the more I come to the conclusion that Shooter was definitely the last ditch attempt by DC to sell the stand alone Legion.


That's why they wrote Supergirl out of the title the issue before he took over. And wouldn't give him a super even when he was begging for one.


I think the reasoning was that if the Legion's most iconic creator couldn't sell it, no one could.

And I know a lot of people will immediately bring up Levitz, but Levitz already kind of attempted it himself in the latter half of the Baxter run and he didn't fare much better. On the contrary, the decline started with him.

And he most definitely was not writing a stand alone Legion at the beginning of the Levitz Giffen era...in fact he was writing he most mainstream incarnation of the team up to that point. Superboy AND Supergirl, Darkseid, descendants of Bruce Wayne and Oliver Queen, Guardians(or at least their clones) and Green Lanterns?

Thinking about it some more, the reason there isn't a regular Legion title right now is probably because they simply know it's potential as a stand alone property and they don't want to relaunch a book that's just going to sell 20k copies per month. So they are going to skirt the Superman ownership issues to the greatest degree possible while rejoining the Legion with him, possibly in attempt to eventually wean this version of the Legion off on it own as a stand alone Legion, or they are just waiting until that ownership situation is resolved.


Attempting to spin it off as a stand alone after a mini-run with Superman under Johns won't work...even if it sells fairly well while Johns is on it, the second he leaves it's going to go back to that 20k level, and it again will have problems attracting new readers. I mean not only does the Legion have problems as a stand alone, that's similar to a notorious problem with Johns titles as well...when he leaves the wheels(and his fixes) come off. Fast.

The Legion either needs to get it's own marquee/anchor character(like Wolverine in the X-Men), the Superman situation needs to be resolved to DC's benefit...or else they need to find another marquee anchor character in the regular DC Uni. Maybe they are hoping they can turn Mon into one...

Personally, I think they should stick Impulse in a Flash Uni and make him a member, the Flash of the 31st century. It probably won't have a true marquee/achor impact but it'll probably work better than any other options available to them.

I agree the Legion needs one or more marquee characters.

It's possible that the cartoon and even the Smallville appearance have laid a foundation of some sort. Time will tell.

Legion under the Superman umbrella is not a bad thing right now, in my opinion. Even if the sales #s were there, writers seem unable to craft a cohesive, accessible story around the Legion nowadays anyway.

As part of the S-books, they wil lget more exposure, and maybe someday DC and creators can get back to having a grasp on how to make the Legion work in their own right.

His run was made irrelevant by DC early on. His run didn't draw enough readers? Maybe. But it is just economics: 2 books, competing for the same dollars. Legion (the book) is left for completists. Those who were newbies had no other options than buy Johns' LSH. It is just economics and marketing.
So, let me rephrase it: the selling curve went further south due to DC Editorial decision to make Legion irrelevant.

The history of all DC's stand-alone teams is the same. Doom Patrol, Omega Men, Outsiders, Infinity Inc, L.E.G.I.O.N.

No doubt R.E.B.E.L.S. will go the same way,

It's not even team books - major players in the DCU like Aquaman or the Atom have consistently over 30 years, failed to bring in the readers. Only Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, the Flash and Green Lantern have consistently maintained acceptable sales figures - along with their supporting cast and team books.

DC aren't dumb, Batman & the Outsiders was the obvious launching vehicle for that new team and the Legion cartoon featured Superboyman heavily.

If the Leagion has to have a Superman to survive then so be it I guess. It would be interesting to see what a Bart Flash would do for sales but I suspect it wouldn't do enough.

"Superman & the Legion" by Geoff Johns is the most likely way of improving sales figures in the short term. Whether new readers would stay after Johns' tenure would, presumably, depend on the quality of the writer who followed on

That's an interesting take. I have to admit it was Superboy that brought me onboard as a kid when I was crazy for comics and I've always liked the team enough that I'll stick with it whether there's a marqee character or not. Not so with the casual reader, in general it seems they want the S or the Bat on just about everything they buy from DC or they're going to spend their couple of bucks on something else, probably something with an X on it.

My question about a relaunch though is whether they're going to treat this as an "Adult Legion" run of stories and relaunch with a teen team and a younger Superman or if TPTB will pick this up where it leaves off. I wonder that if DC owns a Superboy might they give us back something similar to the Legion where Levitz left off or will they blow that off and just go with Superman & ____________(fill in the blank)?

hhmmm..this might make an interesting poll. Grown up Legion or Teen Legion? Just to see where the fans stand.

There is one way for a Legion book to work -- for Warner and DC to actually coordinate their developments. Apparently the Superman movie franchise is being considered for a (much needed) reboot. If Warner could make a good (Iron Man, Dark Night) Superman movie -- I know that seems very unlikely -- and throw a small Legion scene into it ... and then have DC follow on with a reasonably good Legion title with an "S" character ... and maybe a Lego Superman game for the Wii with some Legion characters, then possibly a Legion title could coast along for 4 or 5 years.

I think a more likely scenario is for the stock market to rebound fantastically and for my retirement savings account to grow to the point I could publish my own Legion title. It would be good, I promise.

I've always been of the mind that the Legion would make an outstanding movie property.

It's a combination of the 4 main subgenres of sci-fi, the future, space, time travel and superheroes.


It's like Superman meets Star Wars meets Star Trek meets Dr. Who...and they've actually got some magic and fantasy elements to throw in there as well.

And they've got plenty of epic stories to base the movie on.

If I ever become wealthy the first thing I'm doing is buying the movie rights to the Legion.

The Lego Superman video game for Wii with Legion characters is probably the coolest and most brilant thing I've read about online in the lsat five years!

Hey read all my posts from the last five years. I'm full of cool brilliance.

Here's the LO3W Sales for February. That's actually a pretty minuscule drop considering the delay and that the "parent series" of Final Crisis was well done by this point. The rise in ranks doesn't mean too much, as February was a lean month, but this is still encouraging that the series is holding an audience.


08/2008: Lo3W #1 -- 68,306, #20 out of 300 [73,914]
10/2008: Lo3W #2 -- 64,412, #23 out of 300
02/2009: Lo3W #3 -- 61,358, #15 out of 300

That is encouraging. Especially when you look at the drop between issue 1 through 3,that is really small (even for a mini).

Those are very nice numbers (IMO) and great to see for a Legion book.

So, we sell fewer issues and move up in the rankings. Must be because we outlasted some of those pesky limited sereis like crossovers for mega events like Final Crisis! Ha! I knew we'd outlast those losers!

[QUOTE]Originally posted by rouge:
[QB] Here's the LO3W Sales for April. A very healthy retention level, especially given the delays. I expect with the Superboy return this might rack up some re-orders next month as well. It remains to be seen how big a launchpad this gives Adventure comics.


08/2008: Lo3W #1 -- 68,306, #20 out of 300 [73,914]
10/2008: Lo3W #2 -- 64,412, #23 out of 300
02/2009: Lo3W #3 -- 61,358, #15 out of 300
04/2009: Lo3W #4 -- 56,888, #28 out of 300

...and that's how I'm pessimistically viewing Lo3W. It's a launchpad for Adventure Comics which looks like it'll headline Superboy, Kid Flash who figures prominently in Flash: Rebirth and possibly Teen Titans or the FLash title. It's a launchpad for everything except a Legion ongoing. When Didio said 2009 (or was it 2010) was going to be a big year for Legion, it better not be this guest-fest we're seeing at the moment (with Mon-El over at Supes' titles, Starman at JSA, etc.). The Legion's everywhere but their own series... :-(

I've stopped believing what Dan Didio say a long time ago, even more so when he often contracts himself.

but that just gives you multiple choices as to what to disbelieve!

Does anyone else see the the length between issues as the main cause of the drop in sales? I mean, that's 12K since issue 1. I'm sure some of it is dissatisfaction in story, but the gap between issues, sheesh.

On the other hand, I just checked the numbers for the main Final Crisis, and it couldn't hold an audience either, although it obviously outsold L3W. Here they are:
Final Crisis # 1 May '08 144,826
Final Crisis # 2 June '08 126,082
Final Crisis # 3 August '08 123,881
Final Crisis # 4 October '08 109,181
Final Crisis # 5 December '08 115,666
Final Crisis # 6 January '09 110,892
Final Crisis # 7 January '09 103,292

It lost almost 30% of its audience by series end.

That's actually quite normal. In fact the drop offs you mentioned are pretty slight compared to the usual ones. Both mini's appeared to have held their audience much better than most regular titles do.

Or you can just automatically disbelieve everything at once, to save time.


[ <--- On the outside]

It's the old "How can you tell if ____________is lying? His lips are moving!"

Ah, crap, I just realized. That means he could be in Congress one day.

Hey guys!

There is a website which lists comics sales figures for a number of years-Comichron, I believe. Check out the year 1966 , for example. Between Superboy and Adventure Comics, sales for the year were over 1,000,000! I was astonished. That was at 12 cents a pop! For the whole year that equals just over $130K! Today, that amount of money would equal sales of about 3500 per month. I realize that's a very crude example, but man, how times have changed...

And just to keep some perspective on the absolute scope we're talking here, compare 1966 and 2008 sales of "Adventures of Bob Hope"!

I'd love one of our resident genuises to figure out how much that amount of sales figures with today's, cashwise, with inflation and whatnot.

I have a theory there's actually been relatively little actual decline in dollar amount... 130K then likely tallies pretty close to whatever today's topselling books rake in... maybe?

Those sales figures for LO3W are excellent and easily put this series in the top tier if not the elite tier, of current DC titles.

DC would love any series that sells over 50k consistently, especially when it's bi-monthly or worse due to scheduling difficulties.


More importantly, DC, Jim Shooter, everyone knows what it takes to get the Legion to sell at a good level. The fact that DC doesn't do it, probably has more to do with legalities than it does cluelessness.


But make no mistake about it, LO3W has been a resounding success in terms of sales. Without a doubt.

Here's the LO3W Sales for July. Very solid outing, sticking at just shy of 56K. By any sales standard this even was a great success for a Legion book, even more impressive given the delays. Now, let's see how that translates into Adventure sales next month.

08/2008: Lo3W #1 -- 68,306, #20 out of 300 [73,914]
10/2008: Lo3W #2 -- 64,412, #23 out of 300
02/2009: Lo3W #3 -- 61,358, #15 out of 300
04/2009: Lo3W #4 -- 56,888, #28 out of 300
07/2009: Lo3W #5 -- 55,970, #29 out of 300

The sales figures on these mini series have always confused me. I can understand a drop off from a first issue to a second (you try the first issue and don't like it, you move on), but why is there, generally speaking, a steady decline from #2 to the end of the series? If you're inclined to pick up the second issue, wouldn't you want to finish the saga with the rest of the issues? Shouldn't issue #2 to the last be pretty much a flat line as far as sales go?

What disturbs me is that if this was an ongoing series, we'd probably end up in the 20k's again by the 20th issue, even with the great story and great artwork. This seems especially so with the Legion. What's a publisher to do?

BTW, I always appreciate the sales numbers info. Thanks, Rouge!!

You're quite welcome.

The thing to remember is that these numbers reflect orders to Diamond from retailers, so not necessarily everything ends up in a readers hand. An indeterminate amount of these are shelf copies which may or may not get sold. Retailers always alter orders according to what sells (i.e they don't want to eat unwanted copies), so if you have 1 copy of #1 and three of #2-#4 on your shelf you would probably reduce your order for #5 by a couple of issues to avoid having to pay for product you can't move. The steady drop usually just means different shops bail out at different points. In relative terms, these numbers are a healthy retention rate for a mini series.

I've seen you explain some of this at different times, but this finally makes sense to me (I'm a little slow).

I would also like to thank Rouge for posting this information. The sales figures are always interesting and certainly an indication on how well the book was received.

Hopefully these numbers and a successful Adventure run will equate to a monthly (sooner rather than later).

Rogue is an unsung hero of Legionworld for keeping us updated.


Those figures are are sweet. The total sales aren't elite, but the way it holds it's audience is...especially when you consider it was spun out of what is considered a disappointing, maxi-series, had huge lengthy delays, and oh yeah...had an incredibly large cast featuring many duplicate characters. Holding it's audience is what the Legion does extremely well, like few titles in history, when it is going well.

There is absolutely no way DC doesn't consider that one of their best successes in recent memory given the current state of the market and their place in it.

Whatever reasons this Legion doesn't yet have a series, it has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that DC doesn't think it will be successful...more like they are taking their time to set up a full fledged relaunch and build up to it. They are doing the build up for the benefit of comic fans, not just Legion fandom.

Near as I can tell, there is a set audience of 50k out there for this Legion right now...no appearance by the Johnsboot has gone under 50k to my recollection.

LO3W was a very successful series. Period.

Agreed!

Agreed... except what happens if/when Mr Johns is not guiding the Legion ship - can a Legion title even sustain itself in the 30k+ range for any period of time? Recent history says 'no'.

Well...John's definitely seems to be busy right now.

Blackest Night, Flash, Green Lantern, Superman, the Legion, Adventure...he's also writing Smallville stories, a script for a Flash movie, and a Shazam movie...

So I can see your point, at the same time that could point to why there is no ongoing Legion right now, because Johns wants to do it and he is too busy to do so.

I think the guy is a Legion fan...the first live action appearance ever of the true Legion we owe to Johns(and he wanted to show the 31st century but couldn't do it with the Smallville budget).


I mean if Johns wasn't going to write it, there would already be a Legion series to catch the momentum of the Johns association.


But let's just say you're right...the list of creators that would like to work on the Legion is impressive. Jim Lee, JMS, even Copiel has said he would like to return to the book. Giffen said he'd do it again. Hell Mark Waid never got to write this Legion...and I'm sure he'd like to do so. Most of these guys were fans of the original Legion...there should be no problem getting top level creators to work on the Legion.

I don't think Johns is the only thing driving sales though...

The Johns Legion Superman stories outsold Johns non-Legion Superman stories in Action...and not every thing he writes sells 50k(Booster Gold for example).

I think the dymanic that Superman fans and Legion fans aren't necessarily the same base is the dynamic driving it...as it always did.

Certain PCT of fans, that aren't Superman fans read anything with Legion on it(20k), certain pct of Superman fans that aren't Legion fans read anything with Superman on it(30k?), the result is a title that sells better than either of them do alone.

This sort of merger is attempted all the time with other properties to little or no impact, probably becaus it's the same 20k that buy Hawkman and the Atom and the bases aren't truly distinct...this dymanic has always been very real with Superman in the Legion...at least based on my research and the sales history of the book.

Having George Perez on Lo3W needs to be factored into the sales figures as well.

Just curious, does anyone know how this compares to sales for Final Crisis itself, and other Final Crisis tie ins?

Didn't sell anything close to Final Crisis itself(100k or so) but held it's audience much better, and well after Final Crisis was over. Sold much better than any other Final Crisis Tie in mini and held it's audience better.

Thanks !!

Fortunately Arm Fall Off Boy posted those numbers earlier in the thread:

Final Crisis # 1 May '08 144,826
Final Crisis # 2 June '08 126,082
Final Crisis # 3 August '08 123,881
Final Crisis # 4 October '08 109,181
Final Crisis # 5 December '08 115,666
Final Crisis # 6 January '09 110,892
Final Crisis # 7 January '09 103,292

FC also held onto its audience rather well, for a series as late and divisive as it was. It certainly didn't post anything near Secret Invasion numbers, but it held to a respectable amount of sales.

I don't think it was such a hit: probably everything Johns has written recently sold MORE than L3W. And considering it was being built up for a long time, and featuring George Perez, it was okay-ish, at best. This was supposed to be at least in the 80.000. I think Rogues Revenge outsold Legion, am I right?

29% fall-off.

Analysis;
103,292 fans take hallucinagenics.
41,534 fans are in early re-hab.



Seriously though. nearly 35,000 readers dumped the equivalent of a graphic novel into the series then stopped. Are they now going to go buy the graphic novel to finish the story or were they just mitigating their losses?

Me? If I go more than two issues into a mega-crossover then drop, I bang my head against the wall.

Not true at all...in fact his Superman didn't sell more. The Legion added about 10k per month to the Superman sales figures In Action Comics that surrounded the Action arc.

Green Lantern, Blackest Night, Flash and the JSA are the only things that have sold better by Johns...and those characters weren't coming from being as far gone for as long saleswise as the Legion has been...

They weren't forgotten and obscure as the last 20 years have left the Legion.


It was also going up against Final Crisis, Secret Invasion and a massive economic collapse in the US as the market was dwindling...

And it was top 30 book minimum from start to finish...

As opposed to the typical ground the Legion has occupied for the better part of 20 years in the bottom 20.


Johns tends to build his readership the longer he is on a title...that makes him unique among DC writers.

His GL is stronger now month to month than it was at first(even if the GL series did debut to massive sales), his JSA relaunch sold better than the pre-relaunch JSA etc.


No, it didn't outsell the Legion.


FINAL CRISIS ROGUES REVENGE #1 (Of 3) 62,482

08/2008: Lo3W #1 -- 68,306, #20 out of 300

FINAL CRISIS ROGUES REVENGE #2 (Of 3) 54,404

10/2008: Lo3W #2 -- 64,412, #23 out of 300

FINAL CRISIS ROGUES REVENGE #3 (Of 3) 55,058

02/2009: Lo3W #3 -- 61,358, #15 out of 300

And just to cap it all off:

07/2009: Lo3W #5 -- 55,970, #29 out of 300


As for it's hittability...it stayed in the top 30. That is a success by any standard, regardless of creative team.

DC considers a top 30 book a hit, especially when compared to the area the Legion typically occupies. And has for decades now.

One other thing Ricards on LO3W sales...

LO3W#1 had a second printing.

Usually a second printing will garner an announcement by DC...

There was no announcment ever made about LO3W getting a second printing...almost as if DC didn't want anyone to know it.


Whatever reasons the Legion isn't in a series currently, it has nothing to do with the sales of LO3W...DC puts out roughly 70-80 titles per month that don't sell nearly as well.

It was definitely a hit, it definitely sold well enough to justify an immediate ongoing title.

It's been one of DC's top 10 best selling books Ricardo...

The lowest sales rank it had for DC was #13 in the final issue, and that just happened to be the month Blackest Night was launched.....

Green Lantern came out twice in July, that Tales of the Corps mini(that was weekly) put 3 issues in their top 10, there was a Justice League mini launched...otherwise this title would have been about the 6-7th best selling title of the month for DC.

If DC doesn't consider that worthy of a monthly, I don't know what they would.

That sounds like "probably everything" to me.

Exactly. I think DC expected more, because if it were an instant hit, they would put out a monthly. DC is not in the business of losing money. And Rogues Revenge, considering its roster and team involved, sold quite better than Legion (Legion has much more vocal fans, in a book that never sold worse than Flash, and George Pérez is much more attractive than Scott Kolins).

LSH run on Superman had alternative covers for all editions. This also might have inflated sales, as well as the hardcore Legion fan. So, Superboy, it is still pretty much okayish success.

maybe they just wanted for blackest night to end before launching new high profile titles. see for example what they're doing with the flash: they could have started a new ongoing series just after rebirth, but they went for a blackest night flash mini instead.

You are entitled to your opinon of course...but tt's not Superman for starters, it's not Booster Gold, it's not Rogue's Revenge.

Of the 8 titles he's written since the LO3W period began, 4 have sold better, 3 have sold worse. None were coming from as far down as the Legion is and with as little set up...


If that is your definition of, "probably everything", more power to you, it's not a definition I share though.

I'd also point out that two of those titles, Flash and the JSA, did not sell as well as LO3W during Johns first run on them. It took him time to build them up. And he's been building up to this Green Lantern story for years now.

Much like he's building up the Legion IMO.


I mean people are acting like this Legion stuff is all just hacked out haphazardly but I can see clearly Starman was in the launch of his JSA title and Dream Girl has been stuck in the 21st century since the Lightning Saga.....which incidentally coincides with the time Johns brought Mon back in Action Comics Annual #10.

Let's see...

LO3W #1 was DC's 6th best selling title of the month(before the second printing).

LO3W #2 was DC's 8th best selling title.

LO3W #3 was DC's 5th best selling title.

LO3W #4 was DC's 10th best selling title.

LO3W #5 as already mentioned was DC's 13th best selling title(only because it came out the same month Blackest Night did, it would have ranked 8th if it didn't come out the same month Blackest Night did).


Ricardo my friend, I enjoying arguing with you, not because I believe I will ever change your mind on anything, but you do present me with the opportunity to post lots of things I analyze about the Legion.

That said old foe, it's patently absurd to say this title didn't earn monthly title status with that performance or qualified as anything other than a hit. Especially when you factor in all the delays, not to mention Blackest Night, Flash and Batman relaunches, the FC disappointment, 3 freaking Legions...etc.

The book sold better than 90+% of DC's line.

and you think they lost money on LO3W? If that's hte case they are losing money on 90% of their line and they should immediately cease publication on everything other than Batman, JSA, JLA, Flash and Green Lantern.

Aside from the fact that it didn't sell better than the Legion.

Didn't hold it's audience as well either...lost 10k fans off it's first issue, LO3W lost 4k, and took as long to get to it's second issue as Rogue's Revenge took to complete it's run.

All that inspite of the fact that it was spun out of the same series that brought Barry Allen back and featured the last fan fav writer artist team to work on the Flash and didn't suffer the delays LO3W did.

Vocal fans don't equal more fans and the Legion fans haven't been able to match the Flash Fan base all things being equal since Mike Baron relaunched the Flash and John Byrne killed the Legion in 1986.

On top of that, Johns and Kollins are fan fav Flash creative team...and Barry Allen came back in Final Crisis.

And lots of titles(pretty much all of them) have alternate covers, that doesn't hold readers that well.

Ricardo "old foe" :rolleyes: , you're wasting your time (IMO). Let me see if I can reflect your, "patently absurd" point without the twisting of words and logic.

You have been stating that you think DC might have had some sales "EXPECTATIONS" for L3W, some minimum that DC felt they needed in order to develop an on-going and that perhaps that minimum wasn't reached?

The gist of your thought as to why it might not have been a "hit" is that L3W, title aside, was written to pull in fans of Johns, Perez, Teen Titans, GL, Superman, the latest crisis, as well as Legion and so, 60,000 might still be considered marginal or low.

As argument you proffered that DC being in the business of profit, would have solicited an ongoing if the numbers had met EXPECTAIONS. Prime countered with "and you think they lost money on LO3W?", something you clearly did not say and did not imply.

Am I doing alright so far?

You are arguing why DC has not developed an on-going, not why they shouldn't develop an on-going, which he is twisting it to; a common political trick, change the other's topic in order to make their premises non-sensical.

Having reread the posts, Prime did make one valid point regards expectations but I've yet to see how his use of the numbers support a reason DC has not already developed an on-going.

I hope that's because he realizes that without knowing DC's EXPECTATIONS, the numbers are irrelevant but I don't think he cares. Based upon his use of this following patronizing twist of logic, he seems to only be arguing for the sake of arguing.

"It's patently absurd to say this title didn't earn monthly title status with that performance or qualified as anything other than a hit."

Well, it is a"patently absurd" statement but he said it, not you. The logic is equivalent to me saying "Halle Berry has me on speed dial OR the sun will come up tomorrow." It's assuredly true that the sun will come up so the statement as a whole is true even though there's no indication that Halle (still) has me on speed dial.

It's a common political trick, using an "or" to connect an arguably true statement to a false one in order to make both appear true. It could be true that L3W could be considered a hit but that doesn't mean it earned monthly status or that it could even be written as a monthly, given all the characters that would need be available.

Proof's in the pudding. As you state, there is no monthly, not even a suggestion of one by DC.


Given that the target audience included a portion considerably larger than and distinct from the normal Legion base, I don't see as unreasonable that DC needed to see higher sales on L3W in order to justify an on-going at this time. Their job is to put limited resources where they will maximize those profits.

It's quite possible that even DC realizes L3W wasn't a Legion book and that those sales do not reflect how well a Johnsboot Legion, even one written by Johns, would sell. 60,00 in this case might not be the "hit" some would want it to be.


Supes, I suppose there are a lot of ways to have a discussion, but demeaning, off-putting statements like "not because I believe I will ever change your mind on anything," "patently absurd," and "old foe," ignoring key words (expected) and twisting someone's logic could probably best be left out of it. Someone might react contentiously. Then again, maybe I misread your demeanor.

Do you mind if I take off the facade(which I like to call enforced passive agressiveness operating under the guise of civil discourse) and just lay my cards on the table here? I'm thrilled to do so...it's actually more productive when you can say what you really mean...and not have to pretend it's something else. I'll refrain from any vulgarity


I'm sure Ricardo appreciates you being offended on his behalf...however, since the comments were not directed at you and contained no vulgarity and in fact I was going out of my way to keep it civil, I frankly don't care if they offended you or not. You've made more than a few comments that I consider offensive, often that will be the entire purpose of your post directed towards me and it will have little or nothing to do with the discussion at hand, and I simply ignore it...so I feel you can also ignore the comments made at Ricardo in the course of an argument and let him be offended on his own behalf.

Since he's probaby the poster on here that offends almost as many, as many or, perhaps even more as I myself do...just on the basis of being purely opinionated in what he likes and what he doesn't...I don't think of him as a victim, I don't think he sees himself as one, and if he does then I definitely consider that a victory for myself.


And when I point out that LO3W, post the numbers to prove it in fact, did not sell worse than RR, and he still says it did....my point about the malleability of his opinion is hammered home. I don't necessarily think of it as an insult...and the old foe comment was referencing the fact that Ricardo and I have argued pretty much non-stop for the entirity of our time on the boards here, and there was absolutely nothing insulting about the term old foe unless you are oversensitive. Sometimes I start it, sometimes he starts it...but the bottom line is we have two drastically different views of the Legion
(although I do think we finally found common ground on the Shooter 3boot and DotLegion) and there is no reconciling that, there is also no making us like what we don't. It's never my intent to change his mind, for it cannot be done, it is my intent to post facts for the consumption of undecideds. Regardless of whether or not you like the methods of my delivery, the substance behind the points I make is almost always backed up by some form of provable fact.


And finally.....I realize the sales of LO3W were disppointing...I myself predicted a 100k first issue, in this very thread, I know what Ricardo is saying, I know what I am saying...


However the argument that sales were disappointing and the likely reason there is no Legion title, when there are roughly 5 titles that sell better and 80-90 that sell worse, is not just patently absurd, it's completely stupid,. Patently absurd WAS my nice way of putting it.

I appreciate the argument mediation and tips on civility btw, was helpful.

And I actually like being called Prime, it's hilarious in fact and probably the only comments you've made at me I acutally laughed at...by all means feel free to continue to referring to me as Prime.

I know I can be an ahole, what you don't realize is that I already got the good behavior speech and that was my good behavior.

If one takes a step back and looks at the Legion title over the last 5-6 years, DC can't be accused of not having top talent work on the characters. If you go back to Copiel and DnA and Batista and Kitson and Calero and Manapul - that's a pretty impressive list of feature artists. Throw in Jurgens and Giffen and Frank and Perez on a few of the features and that is top-of-the-line stuff. Add Bedard, Waid, Shooter and Johns to the scripting side, as well as Simone and Metzger and the writing roll call is very impressive as well.

What I'm trying to say is that DC is not skimping on assigning talent when it comes to the Legion - they are missing on the right formula as to what will sell. I'm sure they thought they would have a hit on their hands with Waid/Kitson, but it never materialized. I am certain they will take at least a year or more to spread the Legion around as guest stars or back-up features in other DC titles until TPTB feel they discover a solid template for a new Legion title that will become strong and vital for years to come. Don't be surprised if it happens in Adventure Comics around the 20th issue.