DC’s leading events once again figured on top of sales for January. The numbers available here are based on the data provided by Comichron, covering sales made by Diamond Comics Distributor to the direct market. This means those are the number of copies ordered by retailers, not the copies sold to readers.
Doomsday Clock continues being the best selling title in the overall market, followed by Dark Nights Metal. Not only did those titles grab the first two positions, reprints of Hawman Found and Doomsday Clock #2 sold enough that they are figuring far above the least selling TBU title of the month, Gotham City Garage. Another reprint to figure in the ranking was the Batman Annual #2, which surpassed Gotham City Garage by a few copies.
The month also saw the debut of Batman and the Signal, which started off really well, figuring in the top 10 positions of the market. As per usual, there will probably be a drop for issue #2.
BATMAN
The Batman specific titles are undoubtedly the ones doing better out of all TBU titles. Tom King’s one-shots on his Batman run have usually been well received by the public, and retailers seem to have picked up on that trend. The order numbers for #38, “The Origin of Bruce Wayne”, were much higher than for the previous issue, but then it dropped to almost the same as before for issue #39, the first Wonder Woman installment of the Super Friends arc.
White Knight continues beating all odds and growing in sales. With the number of reprints it has been getting, it is no wonder that retailers would raise their orders for the title, even if hesitantly. Batman/TMNT, on the other hand, is following the pattern almost all limited series follow: a sharp decrease for the first few issues.
Detective Comics is a more curious case. The rise in sales – and then a roughly equivalent drop – came right in the middle of The Fall of Batmen. One could assume that #972 sold more due to the hype built around the possibility of Kate taking the shot, its cover featuring the caption “Will she pull the trigger?”
GREATER GOTHAM
Some titles, as always, continue their usual downward movement, mainly Batwoman and Batman Beyond. For January, though, Batgirl joined the team of titles with drops above 1 thousand copies. In fact, the Harley Quinn crossover that happened in Batgirl #18 put a band-aid on the sales bleed of Batgirl making the drop for that month be of only 281 copies. January brought it right back to where it was before. After a bad December with a 1.7K drop, Red Hood and the Outlaws is back to a less worrisome point.
When all of the five Harley titles to come out in January are put together, a total of 152,430 copies were sold, a number around the same as the month’s top-selling issues. For being the last issue with Conner and Palmiotti penning Harley, sales for #34 were unexpectedly low.
Nightwing: The New Order came to its end with sales just above 20,000 copies. Still above a great number of Gotham titles, but yet not that successful. As for the ongoing, Humphries and Chang hit their second month in the title. While there was no sudden rise in sales, the drop rate got reduced to a third of what it was by the end of Seeley’s run.
GREATER DC
The biggest surprise of the month was how very little sales for Doomsday Clock fell from its second to its third issue. To put things in perspective, Dark Nights: Metal suffered a 9.2K drop from issue #2 to #3. This figure attests to how successfully Johns and Frank have been dealing with the Watchmen material, for this had every chance of blowing right back at them. As for the Dark Nights: Metal, with the series having hit its penultimate issue just a sliver below 150 thousand, it is very likely that it will remain close to that all the way to the end.
Another crossover event to kick off in January was the JLA/Doom Patrol special. The issue sold around the same as Justice League of America, but above physical sales for Doom Patrol (issue #10, the latest one, sold 15,504 copies). As one event started, another came to an end with Super Sons #12, the finale of the Super Sons of Tomorrow crossover. It lost some steam towards the end, as can be seen by the drop in sales. Teen Titans is coming off the crossover with a sharp 10K drop.
Like Nightwing, Justice League hits the second month after a creative change, but the sales results continue being much the same as before it. Also, both Trinity and Titans had an abysmal drop in sales for December but less so for January.
