Over at ComicBook.com, they’ve exclusively revealed that Marvel’s first issue of its new “Star Wars” flagship title from Jason Aaron and John Cassaday will generate more than one million copies being ordered by retailers in the direct market. This, of course, is an enormous sum, and the largest orders of any title in more than 20 years. In fact, it’s the first million order book since “Batman” #500 during Knightfall in 1993, and according to the site, the first comic to do so exclusively through the direct market ever.
While the article itself is the definition of thin – zero sources are referenced, and Marvel is mentioned only in that they declined comment – this isn’t surprising news really. There’s a new “Star Wars” movie coming out, Marvel is a huge fan of both retailer incentives and variant covers, the book could easily be returnable (comics by nature are not returnable to Diamond, the distributor, although that isn’t really Marvel’s style), and more than likely, this is a featured element in January’s Loot Crates, all of which would help inflate the numbers on this release to the ungodly number we’re presented with.
That’s all speculation though. I’ll be interested to see what the final numbers break down as and how exactly Marvel got the orders there. Either way, I’m happy for Aaron and Cassaday. They’re both top creators, and it’s really awesome to see their work get such enormous orders, regardless of how it got there. I’ve reached out to Marvel to confirm or deny, but have heard nothing as of yet.
