Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! Legion sales

Does anyone know if they've gone up since Legion 25? After all, that was the point of Superboy, Darkseid and the big publicity push DC's been giving it wasn't it?

It'll be a couple of weeks, probably, before we see the sales figures for # 26. With Legion being bi-weekly for the last month we are kinda ahead in issues but behind in the rankings. The last listing was released on 11/11 which had the rankings for # 25. The next one should have # 26, # 27 and the Secret Files.

Here are the sales figures for Legion #26 & 27, courtesy of icv2.com.

I'm still looking for were we put the figures on #25

81 LEGION #26 26,635
86 LEGION #27 25,667

I've actually got the figures gathered for the whole year. Just waiting for the final actual numbers for Novemember I believe. I'll post it tonight if I get time.

I'd be interested to see that...

Here are The Legion's numbers from last December through last month. The figures for November are estimates and are provided from ICV2 .


November
81 27.52 LEGION #26 $2.50 26,635
86 26.52 LEGION #27 $2.50 25,667
119 19.87 Secret Files 3003 $4.95 19,231

October
87 25.97 LEGION #25 $3.95 30,440

September
94 19.69 LEGION #24 $2.50 22,653

August
98 15.27 LEGION #23 $2.50 22,466

July
101 15.68 LEGION #22 $2.50 22,987

June
92 16.10 LEGION #21 $2.50 22,749

May
92 16.09 LEGION #20 $2.50 23,184

April
97 15.20 LEGION #19 $2.50 23,214

March
90 17.14 LEGION #18 $2.50 23,180

February
75 18.39 LEGION #17 $2.50 23,005

January
71 19.78 LEGION #16 $2.50 23,744

December
85 21.90 LEGION #15 $2.50 23,962

A fellow named Marc-Oliver Frisch has posted the icv2 sales figures on usenet, along with %increases/decreases in sales. Here are his summary calculations. As you can see, Legion is looking good right now in terms of sales gains over the last six months:


+32.5%: Birds of Prey
+17.7%: Cartoon Cartoons
+14.9%: Legion
+11.5%: Wonder Woman
+11.0%: Catwoman
+ 6.9%: Flash
+ 5.8%: Y: The Last Man
+ 3.1%: Fables
+ 2.6%: JSA
+ 0.8%: Gotham Central
- 0.4%: JLA
- 0.9%: Nightwing
- 1.2%: Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight
- 1.8%: Batman: Gotham Knights
- 2.2%: Lucifer
- 2.3%: Detective Comics, Robin
- 3.2%: Scooby Doo
- 7.2%: Action Comics
- 7.5%: Hawkman
- 7.7%: Looney Tunes
- 7.8%: Hellblazer
- 8.1%: Justice League Adventures
- 8.3%: Superman & Batman: Generations III
- 8.7%: Superman, Adventures of Superman
- 9.8%: Sleeper
-10.0%: Batgirl
-11.8%: Powerpuff Girls
-13.0%: Wildcats Version 3.0
-13.7%: Harley Quinn
-19.4%: Stormwatch
-21.4%: Green Lantern, Gen 13
-22.9%: Superman: Metropolis
-24.8%: H.E.R.O.
-25.5%: Green Arrow
-26.3%: JSA All-Stars
-27.8%: Aquaman
-34.9%: Batman Adventures
-38.9%: Batman
-42.2%: The Authority

While I like to see the Legion having the third best showing I doubt the accuracy of a list that has Batman at an almost negative 39%. This was a title that sold over 100,000 copies per month for the last year. How can that be a decrease in sales?

6 months ago we were in the midst of Jim Lee's run onthe title. Now we are past all that. Monstrous sales slip post-Lee.

Has the drop been that bad? I hadn't noticed the numbers on the new creative team's run yet. And I only thought we were two issues into it. Heck, I'm way behind on my reading.

(Reminder to self: add the delightful Cartoon Cartoons to my pull list! )

03/ 2003: Batman #613 -- 147,799
04/ 2003: Batman #614 -- 164,858 (+ 11.5%)
05/ 2003: Batman #615 -- 158,350 (- 4.0%)
06/ 2003: Batman #616 -- 152,652 (- 3.6%)
07/ 2003: Batman #617 -- 158,844 (+ 4.1%)
08/ 2003: Batman #618 -- 152,526 (- 4.0%)
09/ 2003: Batman #619 -- 307,521 (+101.6%)
10/ 2003: Batman #620 -- 109,160 (- 64.5%)*
11/ 2003: Batman #621 -- 96,784 (- 11.3%)

300k copies! I haven't seen numbers like that since the 80's! I bet whoever assigned Loeb and Lee to Batman got a Christmas bonus for those sales.

Y'know, I usually pay attention to those numbers, but I had not a clue that Legion #25 did 30,000 copies! Very cool. Sure, the subsequent issues didn't maintain that, but they're still doing a whole lot better than the title had been doing.

Thanks Lightning Lad!

Good to see that the Legion's doing better. Yeah, go Legion! Thanks for the numbers, guys!

My list above is updated with the preliminary ranking for The Legion #28 for December, 2003.

[edit note: reposted below for easy of navigation]

The Legion #28 actually went up in sales from #27, almost matching #26 sales. It will be interesting to see the actually number for the month for all titles to see where The Legion really falls.

Do most "Secret Files" issues sell less than the main book? This one was a bit of a slump. Looks like they've bumped up by about 3000 copies relative to last year. That seems fairly significant given the base - most businesses would be happy with a year-to-year sales increase of over 10%.

Secret Files probably would sell less, since they cost more and aen't that essential to the current storyline. Least, that's what I think. Wonder what could account for the increase in sales from 27 to 28, though, when 27 decreased from 26?

Retailers ordered higher than usual on #25 due to the appearance of Superboy, and it being an anniversary issue.

Issues #26 & 27 were ordered before retailers saw the actual sales results in their stores for #25. Therefore, retailers naturally cut their orders for each subsequent issue from #25.

Since #28 went back up again, I think we can assume that actual sales on #25 were better than retailers thought they might be, and so bumped their order on #28 up somewhat.

It will be interesting to see where sales fall over time now that it has been announced that DnA are leaving.

Also, flash-forward 20-years. Expect Legion collectors trying to complete their runs to, in general, have a harder time finding copies of #26 & 27 than other surrounding issues. The same phenomemoa holds true for 2nd & 3rd issues of many series, especially from the Golden and early Silver ages.

Legion's definitely better. There's just really an avalanche of mini-series right now on the major lists (JSA All-Stars, 1602, Ultimate Six, etc.)

Actually, it seems like the new trend is having a season 2, ala Legion Lost & Legion Worlds, or more recently, The Ultimates. I think it has something to do with putting books into trades, but that's just my 2 cents.

If Marvel's claims for UFF1 sales ("over 200K") are accurate, then L28 sold at least 28850 copies (Although this only matches up with other icv2 figures if its confined solely to NA comic shop sales).

And an interesting thing I just noticed is that SF&O's have STAR rather than month (e.g. OCT) codes. Which means that they're kept available for reorder the same way as TPBs are. Maybe that's another reason why their sales are lower.

Not sure what you are getting at here. The Diamond Index figure is a percentage of Batman's sales. That's why the Diamond Indenx for UFF should be over 100. There shoud be no way to otherwise extrapolate Legion's sales numbers from those of UFF.

Yes there is, just multiply it by 27.25/188.73

Here are the figures for the 5 Secret Files that hit the Top 300 during 2003. The Teen Titans/Outsiders had sales spread over two months, the only one to do so.

Legion Secret Files 3003 19,231 November $4.95
Teen Titans/Outsiders Secret Files 2003 4,046 November $5.95
Superman/Batman Secret Files 2003 41,224 October $4.95
Teen Titans/Outsiders Secret Files 2003 41,118 October $5.95
Birds of Prey Secret Files 2003 16,569 June $4.95
Aquaman Secret Files 2003 19,313 March $4.95