‘Absolute Batman’ Leads DC Holiday Sales Sweep, Marvel Makes Lone Appearance With ‘Ultimate Spider-Man’
Love their current direction or absolutely loathe it, DC’s near-complete domination of the December 2025 holiday sales charts undeniably proves that the publisher is doing something right, especially when it comes to their ongoing Absolute universe – in particular Absolute Batman – and their Compact Edition efforts.
Per receipts collected from “over 125 stores” by the American comic point-of-sales tracking system ComicHub and provided to the public by industry news outlet ICv2, DC was on everybody‘s Christmas list, with 18 of the Top 20 Graphic Novels by Units Sold coming from their library.
Unsurprisingly leading the charge on this ‘DC December’ was the Absolute universe, whose every available trade for each of its six current entries – Absolute Batman, Wonder Woman, Superman, Flash, and Martian Manhunter – as well as the hardcover edition of Absolute Batman, rocketed to the top of the charts.
And while almost any other time period would see seven-straight spots occupied by Darkseid’s pet universe, the upcoming release of James Gunn’s Supergirl helped its source material, Tom King’s Woman of Tomorrow Vol. 1, secure a comfortable fifth-place landing.
From there, eleven of the next thirteen slots would go to DC Compact Edition line, which provides readers with complete, manga-sized releases of some of the publisher’s most popular storylines, all for the similarly manga-inspired price tag of just $10 USD.
Making for either great stocking stuffers or gifts all their own, the market ate up said releases of Batman: The Long Halloween, Batman: Court of Owls, Batman: Hush, Kingdom Come, Watchmen, All-Star Superman, Batman Arkham Asylum, and V for Vendetta.
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Respectively breaking up the above straight ticket at #13 and #17 were the fourth volume of Image Comics’ current Transformers series and the first of Marvel’s Ultimate Spider-Man relaunch, the web-heads appearance at this point marking the rival publisher’s first placement among the Top 20.
And in a stark wake-up call for the former House of Ideas, it would prove to be their only appearance, as DC would ultimately snag the final two spots with the collected edition of Mark Waid and Chris Samnee’s immensely popular and new reader-friendly Batman & Robin Year One and the hardcover edition of Absolute Martian Manhunter Vol. 1.
The results were roughly the same when it came to Graphic Novels by Dollars, with the only notable changes being the complete absence of DC Compact Editions (an unsurprising result given their low price tags) and their assorted replacement by the first three volumes of Image Comics’ Invincible Compendium, the aforementioned Transformers Vol. 4, Dark Horse’s hardcover deluxe editions of Lone Wolf and Cub Vol. 1 and Berserk Vol. 1, IDW’s The Last Ronin, and the first omnibus of Gerry Duggan’s Krakoa Era X-Men run.
Admittedly impressive on their own, DC’s holiday sales are especially noteworthy when taken together with their likewise performance in the year’s Top 9 Best-Selling Issues race, where the only two qualifying books that didn’t belong to them were Image’s blind bag-fueled Invincible Universe Battle Beast Vol. 1 #1 and Marvel’s Deadpool/Batman Vol. 1 #1, the latter of which even nets them credit due to being a joint production.
Between these comic book showings and Superman revitalizing the Man of Steel’s pop-culture popularity, 2025 was all in all a fantastic year for DC – now let’s see how long they can keep that momentum going.
