DC and Marvel are closing in numbers wise

Dc's market share has been in the low thirties as oppose to it's normal twenties.Marvel is in the upper thirties. Also, in this years six months: three months had Marvel having best sellers (Jan, Mar, May for Superior, Guardians and Wood X-Ladies) and three DC (JLA, Bat20 and Unchained).

Is DC getting better? Marvel worse? What do you think?

You mean X-Men?

Don't think you can say DC is better just because the sales are up on their most popular titles, think about how many they've canceled.

If DC had a "major event" constantly like Marvel, DC would take the lead.

@novarichrider: I thought the fans hated the constant events?

@krspacet: I hear people complain too, but they keep buying it. Those events make Marvel lots of money.

However,it not only depends on the event,but how frequently.

If it's like,every two weeks and then another event one month after that,then you can see why no one would really buy it.

We can't exactly use AoU since it kinda bombed.

@cameron83: AoU was a top-seller every month.
It may not be good but it sold well.

seriously?

Damn.

To be honest,I don't think it was as bad as everyone said it was. Wasn't the best,and the only progress was in the first 3 issues (the middle just felt slow with no progress) and in the second to last issue and the last issue.

I'd love it if for like a year or so IDW or Dark Horse would just crush the big 2 in sales like every week. Just a solid 52 weeks of TMNT smashing Batman by a large margin would be spectacular. It'd just be cool if they were forced to see other companies as actual competition

It looks like it's evening out.

If I remember correctly DC fans were raving after New 52 how they took over the top sales spot. The fact of the matter is; DC is a number 2. While Marvel has a solid core of characters and teams that can reach top 10 status consistently (Spider-Man, Wolverine, Avengers, X-Men, crossovers). DC only has two really consistent top 10 characters (Superman and Batman). It's not really a knock on the DC stable as much as it is a reality check. If DC and its fans really want the No. 1 spot then they have to market beyond Superman and Batman.

@rustyroy said:

Since the launch of the New 52 can you really still make the argument that DC does not do big events?

The Night of the Owls, The Culling, Rise of the Third Army, Rotworld, Death of the Family, H'el on Earth, Throne of Atlantis, Wrath of the First Lantern, Zero Year and the upcoming Trinity War makes me question that line of thinking. This isn't even counting company wide yearly events like the 0 issues and Villains Month.

Unless I'm forgetting something I think technically DC is having more crossovers than Marvel at the moment. Considering how most of these crossovers affect more than a handful of books I can't see how they can't be considered "Major Events".

This^. Although I agree with the above statement that things are starting to level out more. Also Green Lantern and Aquaman have started to break the top 10 more often but they aren't Spider-Man, Wolverine, Avengers levels.

DC will always be 2nd to Marvel. And I'm ok with that.

@ohcrumbscomics: DC's events aren't nearly as bad with tie-ins. Throne of Atlantis included Justice League and Aquaman. Batman's stories always include Batfamily books, same for the Green Lantern story, Superman story, and Swamp Thing was his book and Animal Man's. Trinity War is the only one I consider a major event including a good quantity of tie-ins that I see from what you've listed.

Yes I ran across the numbers a few nights ago. There is no doubt that DC has gained ground. Only time will tell if the trend can continue. Perhaps the competition will help to improve Marvel?

@catfightfan said:

No, competition should in theory help both companies but the truth is they've only resorted to pathetic gimmicks like "special months" and event fatigue instead of actually worrying about making good comics.

@novarichrider said:

That is a pretty dismissive argument. While the tie ins are just contained within a single family of books you forget just how large those families are and how many titles are affected. While Rise of the Third Army was just a Green Lantern story it spanned over 5 titles. Heck Night of the Owls as you put it was just a batman story but it spanned over 12 different series! How is that not a big event?

@night_thrasher: Superman is hardly a consistent top 10 seller. His sales have been falling for quite some time.

Superman Unchained was the top selling comic book of June, but it’ll likely fall in the coming month, just like every Superman title.

Not dismissive at all. Batfamily books always tie in. Nothing new there. Bottom line is you're poorly informed and I don't care to debate about it.

@krspacet:

Most of fans will always complain about everything. Even if some hate events, DC´s last Major event was Flashpoint. And crossovers are always good to see character´s development and connections to other character that never met on New 52 so far.

Is All Star Western a Batfamily book now?

Don't be a jerk guy. I was just defending my position with some actual figures about the events and how they crossover and your response was just to ignore the points I made and insult me. When Batman Titles make up over 1/5 of DC's output you simply can't say a Batman event is not a big event just because it only ties into other Batfamily books.

@ohcrumbscomics: Those arent BIG events. Big events in comics are the ones that launch a major title that contains the main story then have a huge number of tie ins to the main events in other books. These events also more often than not affect the entire universe examples being Infinite Crisis, Flashpoint, and pretty much all Marvel events(Age of Ultron, Fear Itself, AvX, ect.). H'el on Earth, Night of Owls are simply crossovers its as simple as that. The New 52's FIRST big event is Forever Evil.

JLA does not sell that well anymore, I expect Unchained to be the same. People just like to buy the first issue for collecting purposes. The Batman titles and Justice League have been consistent top sellers.

@night_thrasher: Sure those book are saling but mainly due to popularity and how they are treated on outsider of comics. For exemple i hated when i was watching Young Justice and everybody was commenting on Static Shock (I know that is Static but most of people call him Static Shock) and Blue Beetle but their own comics were cancelled pretty quick. There is some books that werent on usual books that are pretty good or even quick funny.

@noj said:

I see the point you are trying to make but I still don't agree with it mostly because book by book Night of the Owls was a bigger event than Age of Ultron.

Age of Ultron had 1 main series and had 7 tie-ins.

Night of the Owls had 1 main series and had 12 tie-ins.

As I said I get your point and I imagine a lot of people feel that way but going off numbers like that I don't feel that way and I think saying an event is only an event just because it has a miniseries attached is not correct in the New 52. All we have is a disagreement abount what constitutes as an event.

Also please don't talk down to me. We are on the forums of Comicvine so I think you can be same to assume I know a bit about comics so there is no need to explain what "Big events in comics are..." with such absolution and the apparent assumption that I have never read a book in my life.as i said we have is a disagreement abount what constitutes as an event the difference is I'm not insulting you because of you're view I'm just asking you to consider mine.

YES!

I think the reason for that is the new 52. I know its been out for almost two years but if you read around comic vine there are a lot of people reading comics solely because of the new 52 and the promise that now you can read without being confused. Marvel also has a lot of events and the movies have definitely brought in more comic readers for them. I don't think marvel is getting worse or DC is getting better i just think DC's new 52 will pay off for it in the long run.

Also i just think in my opinon DC has better books and writers. MY OPINON.

Sales wise, DC seems to be on top lately. At least on certain series. Looking at ComiXology's top sellers, Batman of all kinds, Superman, and sometimes Green Lantern always dominate. (with Injustice always being # 1 but lets not count that because of the whole price thing)

While Marvel's biggest sellers like Superior Spider-Man and Avengers are always up there, when you match the two companies heavy hitters DC takes the lead. That's what it looks like to me at least.

Personally I think DC SHOULD take the lead, seeing the diversity they have. Theres a book for everyone, while at the moment Marvel consists mostly of crazy mashups of teams, which is cool, but not as personalized.

But DC's not making everything will change after this events, DC's are self contained crossovers while Marvel's are events that generally includes entire Marvel universe, Villains month and TW haven't even come out yet and Zero Year crossover haven't even started. And DC doesn't release #1 titles evey month.

Certainly a lot of arguments for and against here. Not bad