Marvel Comics Has Just Seven Issues On 2025 Top 50, Only Places Thanks To Crossovers And Relaunches
While the general consensus agrees that Marvel Comics’ efforts have been particularly rough in recent years, it’s unlikely that anyone could have predicted just how dire the situation really is, with the final sales numbers for 2025 having revealed that the Spider-Man and X-Men publisher produced just seven of the year’s Top 50 best-selling issues.
Since the turn of the calendar, it has been made abundantly clear that 2025 was less-than-stellar for Marvel, as seen in the aggregated and annual point-of-sales data reports seeing just one of their trade paperbacks, the first for their Earth-6160 Ultimate Spider-Man series, being caught up in the Christmas rush and only a single issue, their Deadpool/Batman crossover with DC, appearing among the year’s Top 9 best-selling single issues.
But it was not until industry news outlet ICv2 published their Top 50 – Full Year 2025 sales rankings, as compiled based on numbers provided by “over 125 stores” to the American comic book-specific ComicHub point-of-sales tracking system, that the full extent of Marvels’ underperformance (and that’s being generous) would come to light.
As mentioned above, said data shows the publisher produced only seven of the year’s Top 50 Books by Unit, with their listed-by-rank winners including:
- #1 – Deadpool/Batman Vol. 1 #1
- #22 – Ultimate Wolverine Vol. 1 #1
- #25 – Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 7 #1
- #32 – One World Under Doom Vol. 1 #1
- #42 – Godzilla Vs. Spider-Man Vol. 1 #1
- #46 – Marvel Rivals Vol. 1 #1
- #47 – Ultimate Spider-Man Vol. 3 #16
- #48 – Fantastic Four Vol. 8 #1
In addition to the drastically low number of entries, what makes these results especially devastating is the fact that all but one of Marvel’s best-sellers were either crossovers (Deadpool/Batman, Godzilla Vs. Spider-Man), series relaunches (Amazing Spider-Man, Fantastic Four), or significant debut issues with relevance to larger events (Ultimate Wolverine, One World Under Doom, Marvel Rivals).
As such, Ultimate Spider-Man Vol. 3 #16, which tells the back story to Earth-6160’s Gwen Stacy and how she came to be a member of the Mysterio clan, stands as the only ‘regular’ Marvel issue to make significant waves in 2025.
Admittedly, #1s and crossovers did help DC to establish their near-total sales dominance, but this was in addition to various standard issues of their Absolute book also made the charts, such as Absolute Wonder Woman Vol. 1 #4-6 and all thus far 15 issues of Absolute Batman Vol. 1.
Unfortunately for Marvel, the results are only marginally better when measuring the Top 50 by Dollars, and even then are still predicated on significant issues:
- #1 – Deadpool/Batman Vol. 1 #1
- #13 – Ultimate Wolverine Vol. 1 #1
- #18 – Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 7 #1
- #28 – Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 7 #11 (as featuring the debut of the web-slinger’s new Technarachnid suit)
- #29 – One World Under Doom Vol. 1 #1
- #37 – Captain America Vol. 14 #1
- #38 – Ultimate Spider-Man Incursion Vol. 1 #1
- #43 – Imperial #1
- #45 – Ultimate Endgame Vol. 1 #1
- #48 – Godzilla vs. Spider-Man Vol. 1 #1
Taken alongside the MCU’s recent nose-diving, the year’s terrible comic book sales suggest that Marvel needs to do something to right their ship – and let’s be honest, another X-Men line relaunch really isn’t going to cut.
(And neither will another contrived season of Spider-Man/Mary-Jane drama.)
