With December behind us, the start of the new year is looking rather bright for Marvel Comics. The "House of Ideas" had been trailing behind DC in sales since the September launch of the 'New 52,' but according to the latest report from Diamond sales numbers, it seems Marvel is gradually making its comeback.

A report in mid-December revealed the overall November sales figures which provided that DC remained at the top, with five of its ongoing series continuing to break the 100K sales mark, and four of those five maintaining the top four spots: Justice League #3 with 158,700, Batman #3 with 150,984, Action Comics #3 with 134,875 and Green Lantern #3 with 122,644. These are based on Diamond sales figures only and do not take into account the number of digital comics sales.

December was, however, a good month for Marvel since Marvel was able to gain some traction. Marvel comics sales increased a little over 1% from 37.94% to 39.05% while DC fell from 39.66% to 37.72%.

As the market begins to shift, do you think that Marvel will once again reign supreme in the top spot, or do you think that DC has solidified their sales figures and will continue to hold the top four highest selling monthly comics spots? What do you think of this news?

So much for the new 52. I mean some of DC's books are really good but it wasn't going to change things in the long run.

I think as more Marvel movies come out like Avengers and Amazing Spider-man a lot more Marvel comics will get sold and we will see an increase in their sales. Than maybe they will have a chance to beat DC again.

So Marvel sales increased 1.11% and DC sales decreased 1.94 %. Kinda bummed out by that but its not surprising. I think DC's New 52 is finally seeing an end to its 'honeymoon' period, and now the real work begins now to see that DC keeps itself at the top in the race with Marvel's new found traction. If anything, it makes it interesting now since it seems that the Big Two are neck and neck once more to an almost-even stance in the market. Wild times ahead I say.

@PrinceIMC said:

So much for the new 52. I mean some of DC's books are really good but it wasn't going to change things in the long run.

Kinda funny they've only now revealed the name of Pandora then recently then, huh? Release her name at a time when sales go down, especially considering her character is seeming more like a fail-safe to the DCU every second we are exposed to her.

The only reason Marvel takes the market is because they have thousands of comics out and DC is going with quality not quantity. How many X-MEN and Avengers tittles are out there?

i think dc needs to shove more big crossover events down our throats like marvel does lol. i liked most of their crossovers though.

A reversion to the mean is hardly a surprise.

DC said at the beginning of the relaunch that they weren't expecting a large increase in print customers. The move was largely about capturing the digital customers and we will never see those numbers.

Nobody should be surprised. It was going to happen eventually.

But in all honesty, who cares? All that should matter is quality and both Marvel and DC have a good number of worthwhile books. It's why we became fans of comics in the first place. To read good stories.

well DC had one week without any releases.
BB

@aztek_the_lost: Over the past few years, Marvel has supported many more comics per month than DC. A quick tally of the December solicits show 93 comics released by Marvel vs 63 released by DC.

Hang on a second, there aren't any major events going on over at Marvel atm, are there? Less universe-wide events = increase in sales, they should learn from that lol

And as long as DC don't start going on a cancelling spree like Marvel did, I'm content.

According to today's Bleeding Cool article (January 3, 2012), Marvel already took the top:

In September, DC Comics took back marketshare from Marvel Comics. This gave DC the lead in both dollars spent and the number of comics bought in the North American direct market. And October and November only consolidated that position as market leader.

In December, however, Marvel seem to have clawed some of that back. They still don’t have the lead they enjoyed earlier in the year, but it’s a sign of the market normalising slightly. Marvel started to close the gap between DC in November. While DC let the fifth week go with hardly any comics out at all in December, Marvel pushing out product for all weeks of December allowed them to completely take the lead and close it.

DC fell from 34.69% to 33.74%, while Marvel rose from 33.3% to 34.43% of dollars spent in December 2011.

And for the number of comics bought, Marvel led again increasing from 37.94% to 39.05% against DC falling from 39.66% to 37.72%.

This seems to be following Bleeding Cool’s earlier analysis, of the market settling down with Marvel still in the lead, but enjoying much less marketshare than they used to, with a far healthier DC Comics in second place – and sales overall being up on a year ago.

DC's sales win was only going to last until after the first few issues of the DCnU period. No one should be basing their comparisons on 52 (!!!!) number ones. Come on, every comic series declines with time, so DC will settle down to a new normal. I like the DCnU, but I'm only sticking with 3 titles from an initial 7.

Considering Marvel books are more expensive...

The more interesting question for me is if the industry as a whole has been lifted by the New 52 or not.

@RedheadedAtrocitus: An increase in market share doesn't necessarily mean an increase in sales. If all companies are selling less but Marvel's drop is lower, it will increase the market share. These numbers don't reflect Marvel's month to month sales.

@aztek_the_lost: Marvel probably doesn't have 52 ongoing but they sure have a lot of double-shipping. They'll cut out the lower sales and ramp up with more double shipping. They always had more quantity.

Lol keep the excuses coming DC fanboys, you're tragic.

@Billy Batson said:

well DC had one week without any releases.
BB

And Marvel double shipped a lot of issues too.

DC's New 52 seems to be losing traction now but in any case, Marvel still puts out way more books than DC so the quantity of available books is probably what's allowing them to catch up with DC. Having said that, some of the New 52 titles are pretty rubbish e.g Red Hood and The Outlaws, Static Shock, Suicide Squad and the there are only a few titles I can see people buying from DC for the forseeable future e.g Justice League, Action Comics and Batman.

Is this topic just an excuse to bash DC?

DC will holds its own for the time being. Marvel in my opinion leans too heavily on events and not individual comics which is one of the reasons I do not buy as many Marvel books as I have in the past. It feels like Fear Itself just ended and they are already jumping into Avengers v X-Men, not to mention Spider-Island and Schism that closed '11 out.

My pocket book cannot afford to buy all the titles that are required to understand whats going on during the "event."

DCuN is a nice break from that. I know that DC is revving up for their own event this summer, at lease I do not have to worry about multiple events stacking on top of each other for a full year. I can now buy individual comics and enjoy them separately without having to buy titles that I do not necessarily want just to fill in the gaps.

All that said, I think more people will be inclined to buy titles they want with DC than titles they need (to fill in gaps) with Marvel. Not to say that Marvel does not have a few good titles going right now....few.

A reversion to the mean is hardly a surprise.

DC said at the beginning of the relaunch that they weren't expecting a large increase in print customers. The move was largely about capturing the digital customers and we will never see those numbers.

@HotSauceCommittee said:

Lol keep the excuses coming DC fanboys, you're tragic.

Not sure if ppl stating facts is qualified as making excuses. Marvel publishes ~10 more titles than DC. Marvel double-ships roughly a dozen titles, a handful of which are $4. DC only has 3 $4 titles w/o any double-shipping, and take 5th week of the month off. I'm not making excuses for DC, just stating facts. It's bound to happen that Marvel regains its top spots in $ and unit share since they publish more comics than DC and are more expensive than DC.

The main reason for Marvel to increase their comic book sales is because of numerous events are happening in the Marvel Universe.

@Dr_Cheesesteak said:

@HotSauceCommittee said:

Lol keep the excuses coming DC fanboys, you're tragic.

Not sure if ppl stating facts is qualified as making excuses. Marvel publishes ~10 more titles than DC. Marvel double-ships roughly a dozen titles, a handful of which are $4. DC only has 3 $4 titles w/o any double-shipping, and take 5th week of the month off. I'm not making excuses for DC, just stating facts. It's bound to happen that Marvel regains its top spots in $ and unit share since they publish more comics than DC and are more expensive than DC.

Debunking the notion of higher priced titles = more market share...

That's why shares are divided into 2 categories: "Retail Market Share" for price, and "Unit Market Share" for quantity.

Sure comics priced at $3.99 over $2.99 will get a bigger percentage of the Retail Market Share, but that doesn't stop consumer from still purchasing it, hence the Unit Market Share.

@HotSauceCommittee said:

Lol keep the excuses coming DC fanboys, you're tragic.

Not sure if ppl stating facts is qualified as making excuses. Marvel publishes ~10 more titles than DC. Marvel double-ships roughly a dozen titles, a handful of which are $4. DC only has 3 $4 titles w/o any double-shipping, and take 5th week of the month off. I'm not making excuses for DC, just stating facts. It's bound to happen that Marvel regains its top spots in $ and unit share since they publish more comics than DC and are more expensive than DC.

of course they will! i believe they can gain back the top spot especially with an interesting x-men story and well avengers vs x-men!

@BatClaw89: You're exactly right. Marvel releases around 100 books each month and DC has about 60, yet their market share is almost the same. Clearly DC books are selling higher.

i hope so

Won't make me pick-up Marvel again, unless they produce something worthwhile again

well it's not surprising seeing as how 
 
-Marvel still produces more titles 
-Marvel books are more expensive 
-Dc went a week without producing any titles  
-The New 52 is no longer "New"

I can't help but shake my head after reading some of these responses on here. Some of you take this stuff way too seriously. It's just comics folks.

What I'd be more interested in finding out about is how/what the other smaller publishers plan on increasing their market share while both DC and Marvel hold such a high majority between them.

Sweet! Dynamite is up 0.18% xD

Too early to call, but I've said all along Marvel would catch/pass DC within a year. It appears I was about 6 months off.

Some of these reasons as to why Marvel have a bigger share are just plain silly. So what if Marvel books cost $1 more & they ship more? Bottom line people are buying Marvel even if it is a $1 more. The fans, not just people who whine & moan on message boards, have spoken w/their wallets. Apparently there are people who actually enjoy events, Bendis's Avengers & the direction JoeQ has taken Marvel. Who knew?

Everyone should have known that some of these numbers for DC was inflated w/collectors cashing in trying to buy multiple copies thinking in 5,10, 20,50 years that the issue will be worth thousands and thousands of dollars.

Well I would hope that Marvel would be able to do something. I picked up two copies of X-Force, Cap and Ult X-Men in that month

@Shamelesslysupportinaznballers: Intelligent people know about the No. 1 issue collector craze. That doesn't make DC sales invalid. They had a legitimate sellout. But 1 issue doesn't make or break anything. The eventual sales drop is happening as usual. I don't understand that stating facts about Marvel sales is silly. If you ship more you should sell more if your product is good. DC doesn't ship as much but still sell a lot. That's a good thing for their bottom line. Both DC and Marvel are winners here.

I started with all 52 of the New 52 and am now down to about 8 I think, so I'm not that surprised it has evened out. If the quality isn't there, you're going to lose readers, no matter which publisher you are.

Say what you want about Marvel but they know how to run a business 

considering that marvel comics cost more thats why they got up in sales lol really really really what an awesome excuse admit it new 52 isnt as awesome as people hyped it up to be

@luckydomino1 said:

considering that marvel comics cost more thats why they got up in sales lol really really really what an awesome excuse admit it new 52 isnt as awesome as people hyped it up to be

It's not even just that they cost more, although that certainly is a factor.

It's the sheer amount of comics that they continue to put out.

This has nothing to do with the cost of Marvel's comics. It has nothing to do with public reception to the new 52. It has everything to do with DC not releasing anything for an entire week while Marvel continued to put issues on the shelf. I mean seriously, how hard is it to do a little research? But no, it's easier to go "LOL NEW 52 SUCKS MARVEL FTW", right?

Hmmmn this thread seems to have people who know business and numbers well, hey guys, lets like all put in $20 dollars and make like thousands of dollars overnight? That way we can be personally invested in the most badass awesome comics company around, our own. No more jibber, jabber, whose with me? Lesbians!! Exactly. 

I think this really just proves how bad Fear Itself was.

Personally i could not give a crap about the big two. as long as i have my favorites to read its fine. 
 
 Come on Red5 comics you will get up there some day with your comic sales. People just need to get into Atomic Robo more.

Both Marvel and DC are good. Comics are good. I'm glad they exist and everything related to them does. I'm really lucky to live such a life. I hope they both do well and excel because then the industry itself will stay afloat and be able to provide better products to me.

* pictured: Artists, or a fishes, I'm really not sure and don't know everything so quit asking already, geez almighty, conception of DC and Marvel fans embracing each other and...I don't know, really there's just the one picture and nothing that comes after, but I assume no ones head get's popped up and everyone wins and is happy? That sounds about right.