In an admittedly anecdotal but still incredibly damning report, brick-and-mortar comic book retailer Pulp 716 has reported that despite the publisher’s best attempts to revitalize the franchise with the ‘Krakoa Era’, Marvel’s current crop of X-Men titles have failed to endear themselves with either new or veteran fans.
Taking to the Buffalo, New York-based, two-shop-franchise’s official Twitter account on September 9th, Pulp 716: Coffee & Comics owner Amy Berent announced to the public that, shockingly, “About 58% of our X-Men subscribers have canceled their X book subscriptions in the past year,” the majority of whom had been “subscribed to X books for 10+ years.”
Sharing an excerpt of Jean Grey laying flowers at the grave of the Phoenix clipped from the pages of X-Factor Annual Vol. 1 #5, Berent then noted that Marvel’s upcoming magic-themed crossover G.O.D.S was not faring any better, as it was apparently the business’ “lowest ordered Marvel 1st issue in the past 5 years.”
Further, Berent recalled how “In the same time span, books that had similar subscription numbers, Saga & Something is Killing the Children, saw a slight increase in subscriptions.”
“People that were getting the trades are now getting the monthly releases because they don’t want to wait,” she added.
To this end, Berent was asked by fellow Twitter user @EverEverblue, “You don’t believe that the current market might be gearing towards trades vs monthly if the price value across big 2 persists?”, which the shop owner replied to by first making it clear that “It’s hard to say, we can only speak for the sales at our 2 shops.”
That said, she then detailed how “We can sell a case of each of Saga & Something is Killing the Children trades in a month, but monthly subscriptions are UP for those titles too,” whereas their stores “have had zero requests/orders for ANY X family trades this month”.
Since recent years have seen the entire comic book industry, Marvel included, develop an aversion to publicly releasing their sales numbers, it’s hard to confirm whether or not the trend seen across Pulp 716’s two locations.
However, what little information the publisher has made available appears to lend some credence to Berent’s claims.
Looking at Comichron’s advance reorder numbers across the last three months – as explained by the outlet, “To see potential sales for this month, you generally want to look at the advance reorders placed from the month before,” – very few X-titles took home any of the top slots, with those that did more often than not being either a series’ premiere issue or an event-related one-shot.
For example, in June, only the first issue of Arrowverse co-creator Marc Guggenheim’s X-Men: Days of Future Past Doomsday – an issue which, in a perfect encapsulation of the publisher’s current quality, sees Spider-Man willingly allow himself to be beaten to death by a mob of normal albeit hysterial humans instead of doing literally anything else – its San Diego Comic-Con variant cover release, and year’s annual Hellfire Gala Special.
In July, just four true X-books managed to make any noise on the reorder charts: Alex Ross and Adam Hughes’ respective variants for Dark X-Men Vol. 1 #1 – a ranking clearly based on each artists’ own talents rather than the story itself, as the main printing did not receive the same amount of attention – the first issue of the four-part The Fall of X tie-in miniseries Realm of X, and a facsimile reprint of Giant-Size X-Men Vol. 1 #1.
Even if one were to be generous and include any book that month which was even remotely related to Marvel’s Merry Band of Mutants, this would only extend their presence by four books: Each titular hero’s individual ’emblem’ cover to Ghost Rider/Wolverine Weapons Weapons of Vengeance Alpha Vol. 1 #1, Wolverine Vol. 7 #36 (the Canuklehead’s stats are divorced from the main X-book sales outlooks in light of the fact that he is a standalone franchise into and of himself) and Uncanny Avengers Vol. 4 #1.
Even worse, August saw just two X-books make the reorders charts: X-Terminators Vol. 2 #1 and its Skottie Young variant cover edition.
Ultimately, the only ones who truly know how bad the X-books are doing is Marvel themselves.
Let’s hope they have some sort of ‘Mutant Revival Technology’ of their own to get them out of this mess.
