It is no secret that in the last 10 years the comic book market has suffered significant declines in sales. This is due to a variety of factors including the price of comic books increasing, the lack of interest in story and characters, and the way comics are now being read. In the last two years there have been a few exceptions to the problem the comic industry is facing. This is reflected in the success of Action Comics 1000, Spiderman 800, and Detective Comics 1000.
Action Comics 1000 was initially published in April 2018 to celebrate 80 years of Superman. In order to accomplish this DC Comics created several different variant covers on the comic to document the numerous decades of Superman. Featuring the different covers fans ordered one of each, which translated to more sales for DC Comics. In addition, DC Comics had several other variant covers available through regional comic shops, companies, and conventions, which further increased the number of copies of sold. These comics were sold at $7.99 plus, resulting in over 450,000 comics being sold bringing in $3.6 million dollars for a single issue. On top of all of this, DC Comics released a hardcover book that provided history, comics, and other information about Superman over the past 80 years. This book brought in over $250,000.
A month later, partially due to DC plans with Action 1000, Marvel released Spiderman 800. In December of 2012, Marvel had a major success by ending The Amazing Spiderman 700, and rebooting the story. They brought back (the real) Peter Parker to the Marvel Universe under a new numbering system. As the 800thissue was approaching Marvel switched back to the traditional numbering system as they realized that it is easier and more profitable to sell an issue labeled 800 than an obscure number. With their 800thissue Marvel had their own multiple variants alongside additional variants designed specifically for multiple comic shops starting at $7.99 plus. This resulted in over 400,000 comics being sold totaling over $4 million in sales.
Recently, Detective Comics 1000 has been released, selling over 520,000 copies featuring several different variants totaling over $ 5 million in sales. Unlike Action Comics, which was priced at $ 7.99, Detective comics is priced at $9.99 bringing in more money for a single issue than ever before. In addition to all this, DC Comic has published a hardcover book documenting the history of Batman over the last 80 years. This book has brought in over $250,000 on top of the comic sales. Due to the price change of the comic, multiple covers and issues being ordered, and the hardcover book being published, the strategy has proven to be a very lucrative deal for DC Comics and many comic shops.
As a result of the success of these 3 comics, Marvel has decided to follow suit and release their own 1000 issue. On the face, their reasoning is that they want to revisit 80 years of Marvel, which would be true if they had the same attitude 10 years ago when Marvel turned 70 or even 5 years ago when it was the company’s 75thanniversary. In both of these years Marvel released some interesting variants and a few books talking about their history, but nothing truly promoting the company. Rather the real reason Marvel is releasing a 1000 issue is they realized that for the past 2 years DC has produced over $ 12 million in sales on 2 comic books while Marvel has barely touched that on any one issue in the last 10 years. Despite the success of Marvel movies, Marvel comics is struggling and could use a nice influx of $5 to $6 million in cash that would help to cover some of the failed comics issued in the last few years. Furthermore, Marvel realized with the success of Action Comics and Detective Comics 1000 that these comics market themselves. The concept has increases sales, helping to maintain fans and sparking interest in the comics. DC Comics’ strategy with Action Comics 1000 and Detective Comics 1000 introduced a new model into the comic world. Marvel is copying the plan as a way to sell a lot of comics and make some serious money while doing it.
