Crisis on Infinite Reboots Is Still Working

With the hype of DC semi-quasi-kinda resetting their entire universe with the new 52 back in September, as well as the increased sales that generally come along with #1 issues, it was a pretty safe bet that DC was going to kick Marvel’s butt sales-wise in September. And they did, taking 43% of the direct comics market to Marvel’s 38%. I didn’t report that news because I thought it was pretty obvious. What I was wondering if DC sales would keep up once all the #2 issues came out. As it turns out, they didn’t — they got even better.

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Here’s the market share breakdown by Diamond, and as you can see, DC owns a whopping 50% of all comics sold in the direct market as compared to Marvel’s 30%. DC had seven of the top 10-selling comics of the month for the first time in a jillion years; Marvel had the other three (Comics Alliance has the specifics, if you want them). This is especially insane given that all DC’s titles were #2s, and Marvel had two #1 issues — and DC still had the top 6 comics of the month, too. Madness.

Obviously, the real trick will be to see how long DC can sustain this lead, but I think it’s noteworthy they kept it up past the first month, and especially that they widened it with their #2 issues. That was by no means a gimme. I’m curious to see how Marvel responds — can they really do anything other than their own Crisis on Infinite Reboots? And if not, would comics fans respond as well to such a brazenly desperate copycating of DC? Hmm.