Of course not. Nobody hates Canada.
However, with the recent announcement of Alpha Flight’s expansion from being an eight issue mini-series and then quickly rescinding that very idea, moving it back to being that same eight issue mini due to a lack of sales, some may think so. Especially when you factor in Newsarama’s assertion that its sales were “ahead of books like Thunderbolts, Ghost Rider, Generation Hope, Black Panther and PunisherMax.”
But is that assertion correct? Why would Alpha Flight be canceled if its sales were doing well? What is the true, deep, dark secret behind its cancellation?
Find out my thoughts after the jump.
Just the facts, Jack
Most of the incredulity tied to the cancellation of this well-liked book (including much adoration from our resident Canadian Josh Mocle and our Pak/Van Lente fiend Gil Short) stems from two ideas: that Marvel just announced it was being moved to ongoing status and that its sales were actually better than a lot of books that haven’t been canceled.
The former idea is definitely the most ridiculous aspect of this whole deal. It was a bad business move and a disservice to fans of Marvel to pair those two announcements so closely together, although at least it was given the opportunity to have its full first arc told (it was originally an eight issue mini after all, and that is more than All Winners Squad got). Marvel could have avoided some bad PR if they simply never elevated its status to ongoing, and looking back on it, it seems as if they were only temporarily looking for a burst of positive PR towards the book given that the announcement came at Toronto Fan Expo.
It is what it is. It’s a business deal, and just strange handling of a title in such a fan driven industry.
The second idea — that its sales were actually better than other, not canceled books — is not necessarily as true.
Yes, its unit sales were higher than Ghost Rider, Generation Hope, Black Panther, and PunisherMax in September. That is true. However, it wasn’t higher than the regularly scheduled Thunderbolts issue (the issue that Alpha Flight finished above in September was actually the Point One issue).
Besides that point, you can expand the numbers in two other ways to derive more truth.
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| PunisherMax: Sneaky good seller |
First, if you look at revenue from the books in the month of September, the top book was Thunderbolts and the second highest in revenue was actually the book with the lowest orders — PunisherMax. Thanks to its $3.99 cover price, that book actually is a bigger revenue machine than any of them save T-Bolts.
Second, if you know a little about comic book ordering, the name of the game is really a 90-day window. Meaning, comic retailers must have orders in for their books from Diamond Comic Distributors 90 days before release. So really, we’re always looking at the numbers from the thoughts from three months previous.
Continued belowRealistically, that makes looking at a three-month segment of sales potentially more valuable than just one month, and in terms of sales and revenue, Alpha Flight finished third behind Thunderbolts and Ghost Rider.
So no matter what way you look at it, Alpha Flight wasn’t the best seller of that selection of books.
Sales & Misunderstandings
A quick aside about those “sales” numbers again. These numbers that everyone spouts out aren’t actually “sales” in the traditional way sales are understood. They are orders from the distribution warehouses of Diamond from retailers that are made three months in advance of release.
Because of that, you don’t really see the reflection of the actual in-store sales affecting the order numbers that are the “sales” we see until month four or five of the book (got that?). What does that mean?
Well, given that my local shop seems to have a good amount of excess Alpha Flight inventory on-hand, it’s quite possible that the in-store sales aren’t quite as stellar as shops anticipated and that is being reflected in their orders for issue five and beyond. We won’t know that until the October and November numbers are in, but that is a very likely explanation for this.
Trending (but not on Twitter)
Let’s face it; it isn’t about what you’ve done but what you are doing. In Alpha Flight‘s case, that bad boy is trending downwards.
Now let’s get the first complaint about the statement out of the way first: this book is still very young, and every young book drops pretty consistently at first until it levels out a bit at a fairly normalized number.
However, if you trend the percentage of sales change over the past three months for all of the books mentioned in the Newsarama article, it has the highest decrease percentage of all of them at 18.8% (which is assuredly bolstered by a very typical huge decrease between the first and second issues sales). Even if you look at the monthly percentage change numbers, it is the only book that consistently stays at a pretty high downward direction, with the smallest decrease coming in September at 6.55%. For a book that is closely aligned with a major event, such severe drops are pretty alarming (if I could predict a next book to be canceled based off trends though, I’d put money on Ghost Rider).
Even though it doesn’t really factor into this, I wanted to give a shout out to Jason Aaron and Steve Dillon’s PunisherMax. Sure, the other books have higher sales. However, that book averaged an insanely flat 0.79% decrease in sales over the three months I looked at. Crazy.
But what else?
So its sales rank was a little overrated and its trend was pointing downwards, but the truth really comes out when you look at ancillary factors about Alpha Flight and that list of books.
Let’s look at them book-by-book to explore what other reasons why Alpha Flight was the one that got the hook.
Continued below |
| If Thunderbolts starred Troll, it would still sell |
Thunderbolts: This book has been around for a very long time and has always been a consistently decent-to-great selling book no matter the creative team or the cast of characters. There’s no way this book was going to get axed in place of AF.
PunisherMax: Books like PunisherMax aren’t quite Icon style, but they are a vehicle for those creative types who like to mix their tights with more mature themed works. And for Marvel Architect Jason Aaron and star artist Steve Dillon, this is a perfect fit, as well as the continuation of a proud legacy title started by Dillon and writer Garth Ennis.
Generation Hope: Sure, it isn’t a big seller. But unlike Alpha Flight, it serves a distinct purpose in the niche of the Marvel universe it belongs to, as it is the newcomers to the world of mutants and a book to keep an eye on for that reason. Plus, its standard trend numbers are more flat than those you see from AF.
Black Panther: With the character in line to get his own movie from Marvel Studios as well as verging on joining the Avengers, canceling this book in this situation would be like a Major League Baseball team drafting a hotshot kid, developing him and then releasing him once he’s ready to join the big leagues. In others words, it’s not going to happen. Plus, the book is tied to the original Daredevil numbering, so that is an added bonus.
Ghost Rider: A critically liked take on a character that just started with a movie coming out as well? While I think this book is probably the second most likely to be canceled, I do think Rob Williams has earned enough acclaim to get a little legs on this title, especially with Nicolas Cage’s deal with the devil continuing to potentially bolster the stock of the character.
Alpha Flight: No film in development. A creative team that is perhaps the most well known (aka expensive) of all of the books. No real connection to the rest of the Marvel Universe save the very meager one that was thrown in to tie it into Fear Itself. A structure that made it even more attractive for cancelation (it was originally positioned as an eight issue mini after all).
To me, when you look at all of that, it’s pretty clear why the book is being cut over those other books. It’s a shame because this book and these characters do have a passionate fan base and the creators behind it (Fred Van Lente, Greg Pak and Dale Eaglesham and the rest) are about as nice of guys as you can find in the industry.
But when you look at it, you know Marvel isn’t hanging out around their offices burning maple leaves. You know that in their currently dicey financial state, they’re cutting corners anywhere they can. This time it just happens to be a book that a lot of people really like getting axed in rather unceremonious fashion.
