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Can DC Become Number One?

By | March 27th, 2010
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At this year’s annual ComicsPRO members meeting (a meeting dedicated to the progress of direct market comic book retailers), new DC co-publishers made quite the splash.

Didio said:

“Our goal is to beat Marvel…We have to see if there are tools we can use to make us No. 1.”

Didio and Lee emphasized to the gathered retailers that the direct market is their primary focus and that they will aid retailers as they can (or as Lee said, “I am your superfan.”

This has been big news today, but really, it’s unsurprising. Isn’t it the goal of any business to get to the top of their respective industry? It’s not like you see companies thriving for third or fourth. Hearing Lee and Didio say something of that sort is a big step, however they have a lot of work to do if they plan on surpassing the House of Ideas.

Is it possible? Well, let’s take a look at what they’re facing after the jump.

Before we get started with whether or not DC can do it, let’s look at what kind of challenge they’re up against.

Marvel by the Month
February
Unit Market Share: 45.42%
Dollar Market Share: 41.66%

January
Unit Market Share: 42.56%
Dollar Market Share: 38.77%

2009
Unit Market Share: 45.63%
Dollar Market Share: 40.47%

DC by the Month
February
Unit Market Share: 34.37%
Dollar Market Share: 30.95%

January
Unit Market Share: 34.89%
Dollar Market Share: 29.59%

2009
Unit Market Share: 32.22%
Dollar Market Share: 29.28%

So essentially, in a month where DC pulled four of the top five sales spots as well as over half of the top 20, they still finished over 10% behind Marvel in terms of both types of market share. This is a period of time where reports of Siege flopping and Blackest Night‘s towering sales are being touted in major comic media regularly, yet Marvel is still the commanding leader.

While their numbers are up from 2009 thanks to Blackest Night and its copious tie-ins, they’re still down big time. DC’s current plans to conquer Marvel include moving fan favorite writer J. Michael Straczynski to two of their flagship titles (Superman and Wonder Woman) as well as getting JMS and CCO/Writer Geoff Johns to establish a new line of reimaginings of their characters in the Earth One graphic novel series. Both of these are great first steps to shore up the upper tier of their lineup, but the problem DC is facing isn’t in that tier…it’s everywhere else.

Marvel has developed a commanding lead in the market thanks to a remarkable level of depth to both their lineup of titles and creators. While DC does carry 11 of the top 20, Marvel manages to take 57 of the top 100 spots in comparison to 36 for DC. That disparity is paramount to Marvel’s market share domination, and it stems from their company refocusing on a number of their previously non-existent or completely dead potential top sellers in the past five years. Those include:

  • Deadpool taking a huge leap and pulling four spots in the top 57 sellers
  • Marvel’s cosmic universe becoming a viable channel again, placing five books in the top 97
  • Licensed material from Stephen King giving Marvel 3 books in the top 81
  • Revitalizing the Ultimate Universe, as four books come in the top 64

Throw in the fact that Marvel has done an exceptional job of tracking down high quality new writers in the past few years, with guys like Jonathan Hickman, Matt Fraction, Jason Aaron, and Fred Van Lente taking off big time and others like Brian Clevinger waiting in the wings for their chance, and the recipe to Marvel’s success is simple. Find out what your fans want and do that, but also work hard on developing new ideas and new creators.

Take Hickman’s Secret Warriors for example. That book is at number 53 in sales and it features an ensemble cast that only includes two characters that anyone really knows – Nick Fury and Dum Dum Dugan. Not exactly a duo that guarantees sales unless it’s Jim Steranko creating it. Yet Marvel birthed it from an event, paired Hickman with Bendis at first along with a burgeoning artist in Stefano Caselli, and a hit was born.

Continued below

Meanwhile, it seems that every new book DC launches any more is either tied to one of their other big titles or events (exactly 50% of their spots in the top 100 were Batman or Blackest Night titles). While that’s great for short bursts of sales power like we’ve seen recently, does this do much for them in terms of long term gains in the industry? Not really.

They’ve launched titles that people have loved in recent years like Marc Andreyko’s Manhunter or John Rogers’ Blue Beetle, but both of them are gone now. Both either fell by the wayside or have been folded into one of DC’s poorly conceived backup features. This isn’t necessarily DC’s fault – these books simply did not sell. Could they have been marketed better? Perhaps. The fact is Manhunter was given three shots and Blue Beetle was given over 30 issues and neither sold, even though they had prominent supporters and passionate fans. DC gave them a shot and these niche titles still did not resonate with fans. Why that is, that’s DC’s job to find out because without new, successful titles they simply cannot compete.

It seems to me that DC’s biggest problem is the fact that outside of their big name creators (Johns, Morrison, JMS, Rucka) and their most prominent characters (Green Lantern, The Flash, and Batman, at this point), their books just aren’t selling that well. There isn’t a lot of depth to the DC universe. The only books that launched within the last five years that aren’t explicitly tied to Blackest Night or Batman that made the top 100 are Secret Six (at 40 – yay!), Booster Gold (at 88), Joe the Barbarian (at 97), and Power Girl (at 89). That’s not exactly encouraging, especially considering the much loved team from PG just departed, controversially.

Meanwhile, their prestige channel Vertigo managed to only take one spot in the top 100 with the aforementioned Joe the Barbarian (which stems from the fact it was written by fan favorite Grant Morrison). While their titles do much better in collected form, their monthly sales do not allow for a lot of monthly market share gain for DC as a whole.

A lot has been made about the fact that Marvel has taken this huge lead and now DC is trying to fight back. So far it looks like their moves have been in shoring up their strengths, but that’s the funny thing: Marvel has taken this lead by chopping DC’s legs out and gaining market share in niche markets. They’ve continued to fight to a stalemate at the top of the charts while expanding their potential at the bottom, and it’s done wonders for them.

If DC wants to make their way back, they need to work on reestablishing old favorites (like say Birds of Prey or Legion of Super-Heroes) and developing new titles for fans to latch on to (look at Secret Six for a good formula – why can’t there be a Larfleeze book that launches from Blackest Night?!). They also need to look to develop their creator base, as the only recent new creator that stands out is Sterling Gates. Why can’t they get a G. Willow Wilson to work on a Hawkman story or one of their other Vertigo creators like Jeff Lemire to work inside of their DC universe?

While Didio and Lee have their hearts in the right place, I can only imagine it’s going to get worse for DC before it gets better. With Blackest Night wrapping up and Marvel’s The Heroic Age and Avengers relaunches kicking off, their stars are going in opposite directions once again. And not in DC’s favor. If DC wants to make the push to number one, then they better start reassessing their strategy quickly.


David Harper

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