Hey, don't get ahead of me, LOL!

These titles were doomed in previous months too. Even Deathstroke and Hawkman were doomed before Liefeld. Putting Liefeld on these books was a desperate move: the sales were already terrible... and there was a chance that all those rabid 90's fanboys might buy Liefeld's work based on his name alone. But of course that didn't happen.

Here are December's DC sales:


1. Batman 151,568
2. Justice League 115,074
3. Detective Comics 106,395
4. Batman And Robin 89,878

These four are in the top ten of all comic sales this month. Justice League sees a slight increase in sales. Detective and "Batman and Robin" see larger increases (due to the cross-over) and they jump many places on this list. Batman, however, loses sales as the usual gradual attrition.


5. Aquaman 75,947
6. Batgirl 75,341
7. Nightwing 74,407

Aquaman makes huge gains (probably due to the Justice League crossover). Batgirl loses some sales. Nightwing makes huge gains (again, due to the big Bat-crossover).

8. Green Lantern 74,363
9. Teen Titans 68,707
10. Red Hood And The Outlaws 64,103
11. Action Comics 61,298

Green Lantern suffers the usual sales attrition, though going from position #3 to #8 on my list this month, as other books zoom past it (for temporary crossover reasons). Teen Titans makes huge gains this month as well (was something important happening in this book this month?), not quite doubling its sales. Red Hood makes similarly gigantic sales increases (it's part of the Bat-crossover). And Action suffers the usual sales attrition, though going from position #7 to #11 on this list.

This Bat-crossover is really making it hard to make any meaningful discussion about chart position as books are jumping all over the place.


12. Batman The Dark Knight 60,569
13. Suicide Squad 57,132

These two books suffer the usual sales drops, staying about where they were last month, though Suicide Squad drops a lot more after last month's anomalous sales peak.

Here's where some non-original new 52 books are:

Earth 2 54,409
Before Watchmen Rorschach 53,396
Batman Incorporated 52,636

Now back to our regularly scheduled original new 52 discussion:

14. Superman 51,225

About the same, with usual attrition.

Interrupted again by non-new52:


Before Watchmen Comedian 50,073
Before Watchmen Dr Manhattan 48,909

Back to the new 52:

15. Green Lantern Corps 47,841

Usual attrition.

Before Watchmen Minutemen 47,627
Before Watchmen Nite Owl 46,928

16. Flash 45,925
17. Green Lantern New Guardians 45,136
18. Wonder Woman 41,641
19. Red Lanterns 39,071

The usual attrition on all of these.

Before Watchmen Moloch 37,371


20. Catwoman 35,020
21. Batwoman 34,964
22. Swamp Thing 33,916
23. Animal Man 32,013

Catwoman plummets back to her usual position after an anomalous peak last month. Batwoman and Animal Man suffer the usual attrition. Swamp Thing drops significantly in sales, losing 8k sales (or 6k if we ignore last month's peak).

Worlds Finest 32,010
Talon 31,531

24. Supergirl 30,814
25. Justice League Dark 27,712
26. Superboy 27,619

Nothing but the usual attrition here.

To be continued...

Legends of the Dark Knight 25,710
27. Birds of Prey 24,026
Jsa Liberty Files The Whistling Skull 21,370
Phantom Stranger 21,040
28. Green Arrow 20,672

These are the books that are still safely above the 20k sales line. It's also where the "top 100" best selling comics list ends. Birds of Prey is holding steady but Green Arrow is dropping and is unlikely to be above the 20k sales line next month.


29. All Star Western 19,190
Smallville Season 11 18,633
Batman Beyond Unlimited 18,089
Batman Arkham Unhinged 17,220
30. Legion of Super Heroes 16,912
Dial H 16,217
Ravagers 16,177
Fables 16,018
Arrow 15,780
31. Frankenstein Agent of Shade 15,705 -- cancelled
32. Stormwatch 15,437
Team 7 15,381
33. Demon Knights 15,152

All Star Western has finally dropped into the danger zone. Frankenstein and Stormwatch change positions, though by insignificant sales differences. Oddly, the better selling Frankestein is cancelled while Jim Lee's baby Stormwatch is still going. All of these books are still losing sales... though not hugely... but they don't really have many sales to lose.


34. Batwing 14,674
35. Legion Lost 14,005 -- cancelled
Sword of Sorcery 13,752
36. Savage Hawkman 13,564
37. Deathstroke 13,528

These books are still losing sales. The books contaminated by Liefeld are losing higher percentages though, each losing over 1k in sales over last month.


American Vampire 13,416
Ame Comi Girls 13,185
38. I Vampire 12,846 -- cancelled
39. DC Universe Presents 12,561 -- cancelled
40. Fury of Firestorm The Nuclear Men 11,997
41. Blue Beetle 11,744 -- cancelled
Human Bomb 11,212
42. Grifter 10,923 -- cancelled

Not much to say here except: who is Firestorm sleeping with that he gets to keep going? Firestorm is the only one out of the bottom five of the original new 52 to not be cancelled yet, and he's sandwiched right between four other cancelled books.





190 Hellblazer 298 $2.99 DC 9,132
193 G.I. Combat 7 $3.99 DC 8,941
194 Joe Kubert Presents 3 $4.99 DC 8,897
198 Unwritten 44 $2.99 DC 8,532
211 Superman Family Adventures 8 $2.99 DC 7,487 -- cancelled

Green Arrow has suffered from a horrible creative team. Not sure but with new writer coming on you should see improving sales unless the title is just too far gone.

I really want to see Demon Knights and Legion continue, though both books are receiving creative shake-ups early 2013, with a new writer on Demon Knights this month and Keith Giffen returning to Legion along with current scribe Paul Levitz, which was the same creative pairing during the Baxter era of Legion (early to mid 80's).

I hope Birds doesn't get canceled. I am looking forward to Katana's book.

Firestorm has had a tornado of direction story-wise, and honestly is hard to follow for me. I don't see it surviving that much longer.

Heh, sorry about that. I just wanted to see which titles were on life support. Firestorm is the obvious pick for the axe, but Hawkman is plummeting pretty quickly with another 1200 readers leaving the title between November and December. Batwing would be noteworthy for being the first title under the Batman umbrella to get the axe since the nu52 hit. Deathstroke might not stand a chance, especially since he can't even help prop up sales for Team 7 when he has Grifter, Amanda Waller, Black Canary, and others pulling in readers.

Firestorm, Deathstroke, Hawkman, Batwing, and Demon Knights are the five to watch from the initial nu52. Firestorm is on borrowed time, and I don't know how long Hawkman and Deathstroke can hold on. I could see DC keeping Batwing going since he's a Batman character, and Demon Knights since they brought in a new writer.

I think Hawkman will implode before Deathstroke, if they don't go out together. Hawkman has almost slipped below Deathstroke despite starting with 8000 more readers when the reboot initially hit.

I'm glad to see the Kyle Rayner book is still doing alright for itself. That was the one I was worried the most about lasting when they announced the New 52 books, or at least I should say "the one I wanted to like the most."

I'm not surprised at the books at are gone/soon to be gone. The only "quality" book that is gone is I Vampire. Hopefully some of the creative staffs of the books next on the chopping block are able to get their acts together and put out some decent stuff.

And now Hawkman has been cancelled. No big surprise.

Hey, I keep trying to figure out the 52 books that made up the initial new 52, but I keep counting 53. What are the initial 52?

The Initial new 52 (cancelled books are in red):

1. Justice League
2. Batman
3. Action
4. Green Lantern
5. Detective
6. Batman: The Dark Knight
7. The Flash
8. Superman
9.Aquaman
10. Batman and Robin
11. Teen Titans
12. Wonder Woman
13. Green Lantern: New Guardians
14. Batwoman
15. Batgirl
16. Nightwing
17. Green Lantern Corps
18. Swamp Thing
19. Red Lanterns
20. Catwoman
21. Red Hood & the Outlaws
22. Supergirl
23. Animal Man
24. Justice League Dark
25. JLI
26. Superboy

46. Captain Atom
45. Voodoo
44. Blue Beetle
43. I, Vampire
42. Grifter
41. Resurrection Man
40. Legion Lost
39. Fury of Firestorm
38. DCU Presents
37. Frankenstein, Agent of SHADE
36. Deathstroke
35. Batwing
34. Savage Hawkman
33. Legion of Super-Heroes
32. Demon Knights
31. All Star Western
30. Stormwatch
29. Green Arrow
28. Birds of Prey
27. Suicide Squad

47. Mr. Terrific
48. Static Shock
49. Men of War
50. Blackhawks
51. OMAC
52. Hawk & Dove

Is anyone else here a little miffed about what feels like the constant juggling of creative teams? I get that comics is a business, but I'm not a fan of throwing someone on another book just because they're hot at the moment. Here's a few examples, and of course this is just my opinion (more of a rant, really. Bare with me).

1) Kenneth Rocafort being put on Superman- When the new 52 dropped I immediately loved where they were going with Red Hood and the Outlaws, and Rocafort's style and lines nailed the characters. Since he's been off the book I've been less interested, and it's a title deserving of a good artist. However, his style does not translate well at all to Superman. His lines are dirty, and while that works amazingly well for Red Hood I just feel like I'm reading Superman in the middle of the Sahara for some reason.

2) Jeff Lemire pulled off of JLD- alright, I know Lemire went from Animal Man to JLD and this goes against my "changing of creative teams is bad" rant, but this was a good move. Lemire gets the mystical side of DC, this is obvious from the last few issues of JLD ( and man does Janin's art move that along well) so what do they do? Throw him on Green Arrow. Just like Rocafort on Superman. They've invested in some media (movie or tv) for a character and they want the comic to get more interesting rather than to keep a middle to low range book on the up and up.

3) Brett Booth moving over to Nightwing- according to the sales, both Teen Titans and Nightwing are doing well, so why bother? I love his style on Teen Titans and was really looking forward to seeing what he would do with Raven coming into the storyline.

4) Not keeping Jim Lee's @$$ planter in front of an art table- in October I was hyped to hear about him doing another year long stint on Superman, now I've heard they've pushed it back until well after the movie releases, maybe even 2014. Again, why bother?


My point is it's clear that the other media DC has invested in is controlling some of these decisions, but why now? I mean when you look at when Batman Begins came out they weren't putting everyone and their mother on those books, in fact they killed the main character and let Morrison (who's known for making it tough for new readers to get involved) run lose on the title. If anything, by doing this they might get a brief surge in readers, but if they keep juggling those will shrink as well.

I'd just like a little consistency. It sucks to find a title you like and then they change it up. At least Janin is still on JLD, which should make the Trinity War interesting.

Thanks for letting me do a long winded vent there.

There are rumors that there are a *lot* more creative-team changes coming. Gail Simone survived because her fans were outraged when she was fired, so she was re-hired, but the other DC creators have been told not to go online and say that they've been let go... or else they won't get future work at DC... not that that's a guarantee that they will get future work at DC.

The hiring and firing does upset me when the good ones leave, such as Paul Cornell & Chris Robinson.

It is giving me a great time to segue out of comics though. I'm dropping Action Comics when Morrison leaves, and Animal Man/Swamp Thing may see the same treatment once those writers leave their respective books (Lemire / Snyder).