'Secret Invasion' Continues Its Reign

'Final Crisis' Drops to Third

Marvel’s Secret Invasion #3 was the top-selling comic book of June with a total of over 175,000 copies sold to comic stores, a scant 6,700 decline from last issue.  Meanwhile additional printings of Secret Invasion #1 (8,500+) and Secret Invasion #2 (9,700+) added to the sales total of what has to be considered the top “event comic” of 2008.  

Marvel’s Ultimate Origins #1, the first issue in a new miniseries examining the origin of Ultimate universe, debuted in second place with sales of over 136,000, aided by two covers in a 50/50 split.

DC’s key event of the summer, Final Crisis, also had two covers split 50/50.  It dropped some 18,700 copies from its debut issue, though still managed to sell a respectable 126,000+ copies.  A second printing of issue #1 racked up sales of an additional 6,800+ copies in June.

Secret Invasion tie-ins continue to do well.  Marvel’s New Avengers #42 finished at number four, while Mighty Avengers #15 ended up at #7.  Wolverine #66, which features the start of a new story arc, "Old Man Logan," by Mark Millar (Wanted) shot up to #5, while Alex Ross and Jim Krueger’s Avengers/Invaders #2 remained in top 10 (though just barely).  Marvel’s weekly Amazing Spider-Man continued to bleed readers as the “Brand New Day” storyline and weekly publishing experiment don’t appear very successful at this juncture.

But in spite of Spidey’s setbacks, Marvel still dominated with eight out of the top ten titles and 18 out of the top 25.  DC would have had another top 25 title, if the publisher had shipped an issue of Batman with the very popular “RIP” storyline, but perhaps there will be two issues out in July.  Overall 18 of the top 25 titles declined while only three advanced.

While comics struggled somewhat in June, graphic novels were boffo.  Led by the final volume in Brian K. Vaughan’s hugely successful science fiction series, Y: The Last Man, Bill Willingham’s nearly equally popular fantasy series Fables, and Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead, graphic novel sales soared in June.  Though Marvel ruled the world of periodical comics, DC was dominant in the graphic novel realm taking both the top two spots in unit sales (Y and Fables) and the top dollar book as well (Absolute Sandman Vol. 3).  Overall DC had 10 out the top 25 graphic novels, followed by Marvel with 7, Dark Horse with 5 (including Gerard Way’s Umbrella Academy at number five), Image Comics with 2 (The Walking Dead and Invincible, both written by Robert Kirkman), and Viz Media with 1 (Bleach Vol. 23, which was the top manga title at number seventeen).

Here are ICv2's estimates of the sales by Diamond Comic Distributors to comic stores on the top 25 comic titles in June:

175,735           Secret Invasion #3 (of 8)

136,418           Ultimate Origins #1 (of 5)

126,082           Final Crisis #2 (of 7)

108,495           New Avengers #42

  98,026           Wolverine #66

  95,688           Utimates 3 #4 (of 5)

  94,014           Mighty Avengers #15

  90,600           Hulk #4

  85,013           Justice League of America #22

  83,012           Avengers/Invaders #2 (of 12)

  81,100           Uncanny X-Men #499

  80,464           Buffy the Vampire Slayer #15

  79,387           Captain America #39

  79,270           Dark Tower: The Long Road Home #4 (of 5)

  77,328           Justice Society of America #16

  73,698           Skaar, Son of Hulk #1

  72,372           Amazing Spider-Man #561

  71,893           X-Men: Legacy #213

  71,409           Amazing Spider-Man #562

  70,792           Amazing Spider-Man #563

  70,435           Trinity #1

  69,021           Invincible Iron Man #2

  64,839           Green Lantern #32

  63,596           Trinity #2

  62,236           Avengers Initiative #14

We are estimating actual sales by Diamond U.S. (primarily to North American comic stores), using Diamond's published sales indexes and publisher sales data to estimate a sales number for Detective Comics (the title Batman is normally the anchor title Diamond uses in its calculations, but no issue of Batman shipped in June), and using that number and the indexes to estimate Diamond's sales on the remaining titles.  We can check the accuracy of our numbers by comparing the Detective Comics number that we calculate using multiple data points; our numbers for Detective Comics are within 1/10 of 1% of each other, ensuring a high degree of accuracy.

For an analysis of the dollar trends in June, see "Comic Sales Fall Again in June."

For our estimates of actual orders to Diamond U.S. from comic specialty stores on comic books scheduled to ship during June, see "Top 300 Comics Actual--June 2008."

For our estimates of actual orders to Diamond U.S. from comic specialty stores on graphic novels scheduled to ship during June, see "Top 100 Graphic Novels Actual--June 2008."

For our estimates of actual orders to Diamond U.S. from comic specialty stores on comic books scheduled to ship during May, see "Top 300 Comics Actual--May 2008."

For our estimates of actual orders to Diamond U.S. from comic specialty stores on graphic novels scheduled to ship during May, see "Top 100 Graphic Novels Actual--May 2008."

For our index to our reports on the top comic and graphic novel preorders for January 2000 through June 2008, see "ICv2's Top 300 Comics and Top 100 GNs Index."