Number Games: Avengers Arena vs. Avengers Academy

So for the past several months I've been putting together numbers and trying to make some guesses about what Marvel is thinking about Avengers Arena. I didn't have anything conclusive to say, which is why I haven't already written a blog about it. But in light of recent events and the possibility for the numbers to take a legitimate hit, I thought it might be interesting for folks -- fans and haters alike -- to consider the reality of Arena and the likelihood we will see the Season Two that they discussed at C2E2.

First, here are some numbers for Avengers Academy (issue/sales/rank):

AC20 23,412 #107

AC21 22,713 #101

AC22 22,531 #107

AC23 22,422 #89

AC24 21,857 #83

AC25 21,963 #94

AC26 21,633 #96

AC27 21,830 #83

AC28 22,333 #92

AC 29 29,460 #86 (AVX tie-in)

AC 30 29,213 #87 (AVX tie-in)

AC 31 34,040 #65 (AVX tie-in)

AC 32 32,243 #71 (AVX tie-in)

AC 33 31,687 #68 (AVX tie-in)

AC 34 26,572 #96

AC 35 26,381 #98 Cancelled.

AC 36 23,822 #93

AC 37 23,027 #98

AC 38 22,467 #111

AC 39 21,632 #105

As you can see, the book was steadily around 22,000 for quite a while. The book's role in AvX, a considerably massive event, bumped the numbers, but they immediately dropped back down afterwards, first by about 5,000, and then back to normal numbers after it was announced the book would be cancelled. Note that Avengers Academy was cancelled less than a year ago, and prior to Marvel NOW's launch, with sales in the mid-26,000 range.

Compare these to the numbers we have so far for Avengers Arena:

AA 1 64,626 19

AA 2 43,014 50

AA 3 38,461 54 (January)

AA 4 33,611 63 (February)

AA 5 32,548 65

AA 6 31,617 75 (March)

AA 7 29,784 71 (April)

AA 8 27,900 77

AA 9 26,873 86 (May)

____________ (numbers below this line were not included in OP)

AA 10 - 25,277 - #89

AA 11 - 24,487 - #93 (June)

Note that in less than five months (for these numbers reflect only up through May) the book has dropped back down to within a couple hundred issues of where its predecessor -- a book that didn't have X-23 or Runaways to bolster its numbers -- was when that book got cancelled. Specifically, the numbers for the pre-cancellation issue of Academy were only 492 issues higher than the most recent issue of Arena.

Note also that unless the trend in readership drop reverses, it is likely that the 10th and 11th issues will see Arena selling below Academy's cancellation levels and ranking very close to the same (nearly out of the top 100 entirely). Academy was cancelled at #98 -- that spot is currently held by a Sesame Street book, and is 3,108 issues below where Arena currently resides. That may not initially seem very close, but consider that since January Arena has lost an average of 2,897 readers a month. It is entirely possible that June's numbers will see Arena with lower sales and possibly even a lower ranking than Academy had when it was cancelled. There is no indication that the dropoff is tapering, though it remains to be seen whether the promised death toll will increase interest or cause the dropoff to actually sharpen.

Now I know that some people will say we should be comparing this to other current books but the fact remains that this was a direct replacement of Avengers Academy. It was actually pitched to Academy readers as the follow-up to the book they'd been reading. And it was part of Marvel NOW, the goal of which, by all accounts, was to change things up to boost readership. In that regard, and especially when you consider the extra fan bases that Academy wasn't reaching but Arena, by virtue simply of its character selection, ostensibly should have brought into the fold, I think it is fair to say that it was a financial failure regardless of how you feel about its content or quality. Yes, it outsells other books; but it has not improved the corner of the market that its predecessor occupied; it has provided no long-term financial benefit to Marvel while arguably generating one of the greatest backlashes in the entire NOW lineup, second perhaps only to Superior Spider-Man and the death of Peter Parker.

Anyway, like I said in the beginning, I don't have a firm consensus. This isn't me saying "I predict Avengers Arena will be cancelled within thirty days." But these are the numbers, and I'm wondering if folks have any thoughts. Try to be constructive, of course.

I was going to post, but then I saw this:

Try to be constructive, of course.

@k4tzm4n: Heh.

It's just that as I was about to hit the "post" button, I foresaw a grim future in which people posted non sequitur insults of me, the book, the people who hate it, or the people who love it -- and figured "hey, if it happens, at least I asked nicely for it not to." :P

I think you might have missed something.

Avengers Academy finished in November at #39, and Avengers Arena started in December. I get the feeling Academy might have been cancelled because Avengers Arena was to be launched with Marvel Now. Like many other series, it probably finished to get out of the way, rather than due to a certain number of sales.

I could be wrong, but that seems to make sense to me.

@v_scarlotte_rose: I'm not sure what you mean by missed?

I did point out that "the fact remains that this was a direct replacement of Avengers Academy. It was actually pitched to Academy readers as the follow-up to the book they'd been reading." The hope was clearly that Arena would outperform Academy, but it took very little time to get back down to Academy's end-run numbers, and is now very likely going to dip even further down.

Yes, Academy's numbers got even worse after the cancellation, but Marvel couldn't have known those numbers ahead of time, which means the decision that "these sales aren't good enough and we should replace this book" was still made back when they had a book with teen heroes only pulling these kinds of numbers.

@akbogert: I just meant that I don't think the cancellation and replacement was about sales figures.

@v_scarlotte_rose: Hm.

I suppose that's a possibility. It was still a poor choice if it led to them selling fewer copies of the replacement than of the thing it replaced, though in the short term it obviously sold more. As a myopic sales gimmick it makes sense, but you'd think that pitching this as an ongoing Marvel hoped to sustain improved sales for longer than they did.

@akbogert: I suppose so. Maybe they were just planning on ending it anyway.

@v_scarlotte_rose: How do you mean?

@akbogert: Like maybe they had decided that they had done enough with the series, and didn't have any ideas good enough to keep it going.

@v_scarlotte_rose: Well, I guess it's a possibility. Not one I really see support for, per se, but not one easily disproved without access to internal memos and such either, haha. I've gotten the impression that Marvel cares primarily about money. If the sales that Academy was generating weren't problematic, I can't imagine them just arbitrarily cancelling something they thought was successful (money frequently seems to trump art with them).

@akbogert: Have you tried asking Tom Brevoort to see if you can find out the real reason? He seems to answer a lot of Tumblr questions on his Twitter.

http://brevoortformspring.tumblr.com/

@v_scarlotte_rose: I have not tried. Though I can't imagine he or anyone else can or would comment on the situation if it directly pertains to the performance of a current book, you know? Nor am I sure that the performance of Academy will actually prove to have any bearing at all on Arena. Which is why I am not trying to make a solid prediction :P

I imagine anything Brevoort could say on the subject would be too vague to actually apply here.

So, any other thoughts on these numbers? Do people think there's anything useful here? Or are there many in @v_scarlotte_rose's camp who see Academy's cancellation not necessarily as a result of insufficient sales but simply as the decision that there was no more story left to tell with that cast?

And in either case, what do you think will lead to Arena being cancelled? Sales in a certain range? Or will it be allowed (like some other books) to continue on into the teen thousands until Marvel comes up with something new to replace it?

..... Academy still had plenty of stories and Gage had other plans for his cast, if you read the book you would know this.

I will use a parallel from elsewhere to reflect the "office attitude"

Prior to DC's "New 52", the title "Red Robin" did the following sales numbers

Issue 19 - ranked 43 - 30,547 sales

Issue 20 - ranked 49 - 30,149 sales

Issue 21 - ranked 57 - 29,652 sales

Issue 22 - ranked 49 - 31,786 sales (decision to cancel made)

Issue 23 - ranked 51 - 29,097 sales

Issue 24 - ranked 71 - 28,367 sales

Issue 25 - ranked 68 - 27,390 sales

Issue 26 - ranked 72 - 26,939 sales

NEW 52 Launched, and after over 200 issues without cancellation and consistently being in DC's top 25 selling books, Tim Drake was not renewed for a solo title.

Tim was exclusively used for the new Teen Titans book, and given a solo title in his place was a new solo Bat-Family character: Batwing.

Here's Batwings most recent numbers

issue 20 - ranked 161 - 13,302 sales

Issue 19 - ranked 146 - 13,570 sales

Issue 18 - ranked 168 - 12,084 sales

But that's after 2 years. It debuted with such sensational numbers as...

Issue 1 - ranked 58 - 41,382 sales

Issue 2 - ranked 58 - 38,475 sales

Issue 3 - ranked 70 - 31,599 sales

Issue 4 - ranked 80 - 24,053 sales

Issue 5 - ranked 84 - 21,632 sales

Considering that it has to be ordered 3 months in advance through Diamond, by the time the readers actually had the chance to read issue one, the sales numbers for orders were almost cut in half and the book was underperforming what Tim Drake had previously been doing in his (Red) Robin books.

Red Robin did not get cancelled because it wasn't selling well. It got cancelled because EVERYTHING was getting rebooted with the New 52 and the story they had planned for Tim didn't work with him still in Gotham. They wanted Tim abroad doing this Teen Titans thing and they wanted him established as much more independent of Batman. In fact, the push even involved his book being sold under the DC Young Justice subsection rather than the DC Batman subsection as it previously had been.

I believe the same is very true with Avengers Academy. The book was good enough that it sold consistently and maintained good enough numbers that it would not have normally warranted cancelation. It was cancelled because of the Marvel Now soft reboot, not because of sales numbers. And with Marvel Now, Hopeless pitched his book for Britain Academy. The suits upstairs made the decision that they didn't want to run with three different SuperTeens In School books (Avengers Academy, Wolverine & The X-Men, and Britain Academy), and Christos Gage was moving on to do other books. The office staff then made the decision that the Academy kids that had decent sales would be used to pad up the new book, told Hopeless that he HAD to include extra fringe characters from Academy, Runaways, etc, and rolled his original idea for Britain Academy which would be following an Arcade Murderworld story through it's first arc to create the Avengers Arena book.

Yes, by all indications, Marvel would have sold more books by simply relaunching Avengers Academy as a part of Marvel Now (and having Christos Gage remain on writing). But without Chris on the book, taking a new talent like Hopeless who hadn't worked with Marvel previously, I believe we would have seen similar decrease in sales had Hopeless simply taken over Academy. The fact becoming apparent is that Hopeless just does not understand the Academy kids (or the Runaways, or Darkhawk, or really any of the existing canon characters) and only does a good job of writing his original characters from Britain Academy. Marvel made the decision to slaughter the Academy kids and the Runaways just to try and scrounge up some extra readers for Hopeless's book, because they didn't think that Britain Academy would do as well on it's own as what it would do if it was launched with the cameos of popular characters like X-23.

My personal wish was to take that closing arc of Avengers Academy, the one where they finally graduate into Class Four Avengers, and then continue from there under the title of West Coast Avengers. The teaching staff was all the old West Coast team, you'd have the kids that graduated, you'd have new kids showing up to keep the school feel of the book as well, and it'd be an excellent B-lister title. Too bad I don't get permitted to make these decisions.

@sharkbite: I think it's not even Hopeless' handling of the characters so much as the premise. I and many others would usually buy ANYTHING that has X-23 or the Runaways in it. Infusing Academy with those characters should have expanded sales regardless of the quality. But the premise is keeping a lot of prospective readers at bay.

Hopeless' inadequate handling of characters and his seeming desire to focus on and showcase his new characters at the expense of the other kids (to the point of having a funeral for his own but catapulting the corpse of a pre-existing one and leaving another pre-existing one in the snow for two issues before ostensibly "bringing her back") really exacerbates the situation.

@akbogert I remain unconvinced that it's the actual premise that puts off the readers. The sales numbers suggest that, at least initially, a portion of the readers were people who were fans of the characters and not just the Deathmatch plotline. As time progresses, those readers have dropped off entirely independent of the deaths.

In contrast, the Runaways has actually had deaths in it's original title. Alex, Gertrude, Old Lace, heck, when volume three ended, many fans were convinced that Chase was dead from the auto-accident. A member of the Runaways dying hasn't thus far ever negatively impacted their sales. But when it was Vaughn writing it, those deaths occurred in a way that it was fitting for the Character, not just the story. Same thing with deaths in the New Warriors (which is what I still consider Darkhawk to be). Same thing with deaths in Christos Gage's run of Avengers Teens (while all the Academy kids did live through their run, there were some deaths in Avengers Initiative which was the prelude to Academy). It's not the death that has put off the readers, it's the fact that the characters are poorly written and the death serves no point beyond plot advancement.

Heck, look on the forums right here. What is the beef with Nico's death? It's not that she died. Nobody is arguing the point that Nico should be unkillable, or that Runaways are too powerful to succumb to mortal injuries. It's the glaring plot holes. If the "Help" spell works, then she would have cast it before that point, because she's not an idiot. Heck, if the teleportation worked so long as it remained on the island, Nico is resourceful enough that she would have done that in order to get the supply cache rather than walking there while hungry, tired, and under constant threat of attack. Or this ridiculous idea that it took Nico "dozens of spells" in order to make a tree that already had berries on it grow to the point it could be a food source. That's where the complaints consistently come back to. Why is Nico being treated like an idiot? Why is the Staff of One suddenly nerfed into this pitiful item that can barely do anything? Why are the characters from existing canon completely handled out-of-character?

If a Sentinel had come hunting after Molly in an issue of Runaways, and Nico did the exact same thing, shunting the others into a magical safehouse and then dying in battle against killer robots, it would have been tragic and readers would have been sad. This didn't make us sad. This made us mad, because it never should have happened, because there's no good reason why she shouldn't have been prepared when she was placed into this situation (not just on the island, but when she becomes perfectly aware that Apex is coming back. If the others weren't going to be there for the fight, then she already would have had them somewhere safe BEFORE the Sentinel comes jogging along).

It's not the deaths; it's the poor writing. People read comic book deaths. They don't read garbage.

@sharkbite: I don't think the underdeveloped nature of the deaths and the premise are quite so inextricable from one another. It is a deathmatch story, in which characters will die -- that is how Hopeless defended it when I questioned him. That is the premise. And that is the problem:

The driving force of the entire story is deaths of characters. Specifically, deaths in a cruel and brutal environment. And when you look at the backgrounds of these characters, large portions of their fan base are simply not the sort - age or personality-wise - who want to read a deathmatch story. Particularly not of characters they came to love in a safe, all-ages environment. The dark, MAX-level content and tone are simply hugely disparate from the series which generated most of these fans.

That refers specifically to fans of Sentinel and Runaways. Yes, there were deaths in Runaways, but there was always great context, and they always tied back to both the character who died and their relationships with their surrogate family.

In any case, I think it IS the premise that keeps many away, The poor writing simply makes it even harder to deal with.

Have you seen the solicit for "The Hunt"? It kind of reminds me of the idea of Arena, but I imagine it's not a fight to the death, and more of a friendly competition.

INFINITY: THE HUNT #1 (of 4)
MATT KINDT (W) • STEVEN SANDERS (A)
Cover by SLAVA PASARIN
INFINITY TIE-IN!
• Hank Pym, Wolverine, and She-Hulk bring the students of the Marvel Universe together to announce a new CONTEST OF CHAMPIONS!
• This CONTEST OF CHAMPIONS pits the super students of schools all over the Marvel U (including some you’ve never seen before) against each other.
• However, the Contest is interrupted when Thanos’ forces descend on Earth. What do they have to do with the young heroes?
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

The Hunt takes place after this arc and has X-23 in it.

The premise in 616 isn't easy to sell to begin with and Hopeless doesn't do it justice.

But not because of talent, because of damn right bias and laziness. His OCs are fabulous but he treats past characters as caricatures of themselves or severely nerfs them.

@crimsonspider89: what evidence do you have of your first sentence?

@v_scarlotte_rose: Te infuriating thing is that The Hunt sounds a lot like Hopeless' original pitch to Marvel, which was supposed to be a Braddock Academy book dealing with a Tri-wizard Tournament sort of thing gone awry. Not only does that sound great, but it would have allowed him to really bring his new characters in in a way which wasn't antithetical to the lives of established ones. I actually think his new characters are great and like crimsonspider said, they are done well while the other characters are butchered (narratively and literally).

Was mentioned in an interview.

http://www.comicbookresources.com:8080/?page=article&id=46092

There it is.

@crimsonspider89: That says it shows X-23 IN Avengers Arena...

Edit: I now see you said after this "arc," but I guess I misunderstood what you meant because I figured it was obvious X-23 would survive past this arc as she's on the cover of the beginning of the next one.

@akbogert: So Arena wasn't supposed to be a death battle?

@v_scarlotte_rose: Originally no, or at least not one featuring pre-existing characters with devoted fans.

@akbogert: That's unfortunate. It could have been a lot more fan-friendly.

Speaking for myself, it's absolutely the premise that puts me off. I won't drop a penny on this book.

And considering it has one of my favorite characters in it (X-23), I generally buy anything she's in. So it's a lost sale from me just on the premise alone.

No I meant season 1 of arena.

And yeah, originally wasn't going to feature any old characters but Hopeless didn't say no to the change and then half wrote the characters.

@crimsonspider89: well perhaps I misread but I missed the part where it was after issue 18.

They said there is a "second season" after the first season.

If it is true.

@crimsonspider89: I am referring to how you said The Hunt was after this season. And I don't see why you think that.

Read the article that I posted. They mention X-23's name as a contestant.

@crimsonspider89: They mention that part of the crossover will show X-23 in Avengers Arena. Meaning there will be a The Hunt/Avengers Arena issue which shows X-23.

Perhaps timing wise that means the tie-in is after issue 18, but I can't imagine they'd reveal a Murder World survivor so nonchalantly.

I have reread the relevant part of that article a dozen times and I still have no idea what it is actually saying. He's listing various series which will be showcasing young characters (ostensibly new additions to the books they're named with) but then he mentions a book already known to be centered on young characters and names one who's already in it.

Why name X-23 specifically?

Why mention AA at all in the context of the question he was answering?

For anyone who hasn't read the relevant part of the interview, I've copied it here:

Axel's answer is definitely awkwardly worded. But it looks like he's talking about two different things. The first sentence details who will be involved in the Infinity: The Hunt, namely students at all the schools. The third sentence however, is him saying where you can find other young heroes in current Marvel titles. I think he's listing these titles to say if you're intestested in our young heroes, check out these books we're already publishing. I do not think he is saying Alex Powers, a few New Mutants, Prodigy, some New X-Men and X-23 will be appearing in The Hunt. He's not saying they won't, bus he's also not saying they are.

@impossibilly: And yet, that information could not possibly be useful to the asker, who obviously is already keeping tabs on these characters; moreover it makes no sense to single out one or two characters who are in books entirely populated by young characters. *shrug*

@akbogert: Oh, I agree completely with that information not being useful to the asker. I think he singled out characters is books full of young characters to place more emphasis on the titles than the characters. I'm looking at it as Axel taking the opportunity to push Marvel's titles whenever/wherever he can.

@impossibilly: which is fine, I just don't see why "X-23 in Avengers Arena" makes more sense than "Avengers Arena with kids from all over" or something.

So, again, this all may be completely pointless, and Marvel may happily let the book dwindle into the teens prior to trying to cancel it or sharply change direction for their season two plans. Meanwhile, June's numbers and the downward spiral continue precisely as predicted:

AA 7 - 29,784 - #71 (April)

AA 8 - 27,900 - #77

AA 9 - 26,873 - #86 (May)

AA 10 - 25,277 - #89

AA 11 - 24,487 - #93 (June)

Both issues are below the threshold at which Avengers Academy's cancellation was announced, though as has previously been discussed its cancellation was likely due to the decision to replace it with this book. At any rate, Marvel looked at Academy's numbers, which were higher than Arena is currently earning by a couple thousand readers, and decided it was better off replaced by something new, so perhaps that will happen with Arena as well.

In my OP I noted that the average decline of the series is in the high 2,000's. At -2,386, this month's losses were less dramatic than usual. It's worth noting that the impact of Nico's seeming resurrection probably mitigated the effects (both positive and negative) which her death in issue 10 might have had on issue 11's sales.

Hopeless did say season 2 will be so much different than season 1. So I'm hoping not for a cancellation. :(

Well we can hope for a couple thousand boost on issue 13 maybe? I mean wolverine will be in it -.-

The only reason you might see a boost for 13 is because it's a different author, showing kids that fans love, and guarantees that no one will die. I think of it as a tie-in issue: it absolutely doesn't count in terms of actually representing the book's readership, because it's irregular and in many ways a tie-in with something different from what the book's about. Doesn't mean I actually expect a boost -- more like a lower decline. But ESPECIALLY given the likelihood that this week will see multiple deaths, and that one of those deaths is likely to be Chase, therein removing any good will that Nico not dying might have generated among Runaways fans (that's double if Nico ends up being the reason for Chase's death in some fashion), and given that the other likely death is Reptil, which would mean 2/3 of the Academy kids were out, and I don't think you're going to see an upswing. If anything, I expect the numbers to fall harder as kids die.

I think Marvel knew this would happen when they created the idea of the series. So I don't think this means it'll get cancelled right after season 1.

@captainm: I cannot imagine that Marvel sat there last July, when they decided to announce the cancellation of Avengers Academy as it was selling approximately 22,000 issues a month (and maintaining that number very consistently over the course of a half-dozen issues), that they predicted the series with which they would replace it -- featuring characters from other popular niche franchises and one of their more popular other characters (X-23) -- would take less than six months to underperform Academy while alienating almost all of its fans and many others.

I find it very hard to believe that Marvel predicted both this level of performance (or lack thereof) and the degree of passion with which it would be negatively received, which I'll note hasn't remotely abated but has in fact grown with each passing issue. I think they expected it to piss people off but decided it would probably sell well enough not to matter. And I think it has both undersold their expectations and made people far angrier than they may have predicted.

Frankly, the important part is that I can't imagine Marvel purposely cancelling one book to replace it with one they expected would do even worse and turn people against them.

If deaths are the biggest reason why the sales are getting lower. Then the twist at the end of issue 12 should double the series.

You won't freaking believe what happened.

@captainm: No, I won't.

Not until Season One ends. Because I've seen way too many reversals and lies by this point that I believe nothing at all anymore. Last time I believed what was on the page it was overturned less than a week later.

I like this guy. He's a good source of information, I think.

I hope they cancel it and retcon it from existence, lock it away as one of those big "what the hell were we thinking" failures and slap each other for it. Then bring back The Runaways.

I hate to be the barer of bad news, but ANOTHER RUNAWAYS SERIES IS NOT HAPPENING. This is all that we will see of the runaways- nico, chase, and rest in this series (issue 13) and Victor in A.I.. Can't we at least try to be happy that these characters are being used, and receiving character developement instead of turning out like the Initiative kids, or the Young Allies. I love the Runaways, but at this point in time this is the most we will see of these characters, same goes for academy kids. I LOVE this series! It made me like Hazmat and made me gain a lot more respect for Nico. Letting something you don't like consume all of your time and thoughts isn't going to make it go away, and it makes some of you people look like ignorant fanboys with nothing better to do than beat a dead horse. How many of you people complaining actually read this series btw? Not summaries, but the actual series. Peace

@djbwab:

@akbogert has eloquently outlined many times, in various blogs, why a few of those statements are at the very least debatable and disagreeable. That's not to say he's the only one who's made any good points or had anything to say; he's simply said it the best, in my opinion. He might like to ask you about your feelings of "LOVE" for this series in more depth, since I know he was looking for someone to explain what exactly people loved about it besides the recurring reasons of people who didn't really know the characters in the first place.
I will not buy the series because I am therefore supporting it, which I don't condone.

Besides, this isn't consuming all of my time. Just a couple seconds to a few minutes, depending on how long it's been since I checked and how many updates there have been.