DC Comics News 9/6/11: JL #1 Sells Out/Sets Digital Record & Cavill's Super-Suit

- The biggest story for DC Comics this week was naturally the release of JUSTICE LEAGUE #1 on August 31st - at the stroke of midnight for some large retailers in Manhattan, such as Midtown Comics - and thus the start of "The New 52". This is the beginning of the newly rebooted DC Universe which is entirely new, except for where it isn't. Geoff Johns and Jim Lee, the creative team for JUSTICE LEAGUE #1 as well as two major higher-ups at DC Entertainment now, held an event at Midtown Comics on the last eve of August to promote this series' launch. The pair also hit other major Manhattan shops such as Jim Hanley's Universe, Forbidden Planet and St. Mark's Comics for impromptu 45 minute signings. DC Comics have been airing advertisements for this launch as well as others online as well as via electronic billboards over subway stations and on buses.

For the moment, it is all working swimmingly for DC in the short term. JUSTICE LEAGUE #1, via advance orders and back-orders, has apparently sold 200,000 copies worldwide and has already been set up for a third printing (http://www.deadline.com/2011/08/dcs-justice-league-1-sold-out-already-renumbering-of-all-dcs-superhero-comics/), after burning through two printings already. Bleeding Cool also announced that due to pre-orders alone, ACTION COMICS #1 and BATGIRL #1 from this upcoming week have also sold out (http://www.bleedingcool.com/2011/09/02/action-comics-1-and-batgirl-1-sell-out-and-get-second-prints-justice-league-1-gets-third/). While AC #1 is written by Grant Morrison and was expected to be part of the New 52's "Top 3" sellers, BATGIRL #1 written by Gail Simone may have caught DC by surprise. It actually shouldn't have, as the return of Barbara Gordon to the mantle of Batgirl after 26 years as Oracle lit quite a fire online. Granted, "selling out" merely means that DC sold as many copies as retailers ordered weeks in advance, plus any extra printings made which are always kept mum. It will be interesting if BATGIRL #1 gets at least two printings while WONDER WOMAN #1 sees less demand.

If that 200k figure holds up for JUSTICE LEAGUE #1, it will easily become the best selling comic in a couple of years, and a better seller than FLASHPOINT #1, which was the start of DC's annual crossover event. However, "worldwide" figures would also include copies sold to the U.K. as well as any rare, mythical newsstand sales, which are not often added in Diamond's monthly sales figures. JL #1 will likely be the top seller of August with numbers like this, and even market skeptics should realize that DC will likely dominate the charts for September and October. The real trick of whether this will work will be to see how well the digital comics sell, as well as how many of these "New 52" comics hang on to decent sales over several months or a year. While one can easily imagine certain books selling well, and others selling decently, at least a dozen of those "New 52" titles would be of questionable franchises such as HAWKMAN or OMAC or I,VAMPIRE. What often kept DC selling at #2 under Marvel was not that the company was unable to produce a lot of Top 25 sellers, or even sell the top comic of any given month; it was that so many of their comics below the Top 50 sold dreadfully in comparison.

In terms of digital sales, JUSTICE LEAGUE #1 "set a record", with the above Heatvision article claiming "tens of thousands" of digital issues were sold. That would be quite a leap above DC's old digital comics ratio, which was roughly 1 digital comic sold per every 600+ physical comics sold - which meant for some low sellers, digital comic versions sold in mere triple or double digits. Jim Lee answered questions about JUSTICE LEAGUE #1, as well as criticisms that it focused on Batman and Green Lantern and was paced too slowly, over on Salon.com (http://www.salon.com/entertainment/feature/2011/09/02/dc_reboots/). Lee sees it as leading with their best known characters and allowing the story "to breathe", which has usually been what creators of decompressed comics have said since 2001, when Brian Bendis and Mark Bagley on ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN made it popular (with eight issues to cover the origin). Japanese manga is usually pointed to and referenced, forgetting that the manga market in Japan is very different; serialized manga are first sold in chunks of often 30-40 pages at a time in phone book sized anthology magazines which have 500-900 pages each of many titles, with cheap paper quality. Lee also addressed the lack of women in the issue, although how one interprets a response of, "we didn't have any Koreans, gays or lesbians either" is variable.

Editor Brian Cunningham also revealed on DC's official blog, "The Source", that the marriage between Barry Allen and Iris West would also be ended in the relaunch of THE FLASH, and he was less than apologetic to critics about it - claiming the new status will make stories more interesting because a bachelor hero invites more romantic subplots (http://dcu.blog.dccomics.com/2011/09/02/%E2%80%9Comg%E2%80%A6what-have-they-done-to-flash-in-the-new-52%E2%80%9D/). How this works for Kid-Flash in TEEN TITANS is a mystery; he can;t be Wally West if Barry is not married to Iris and thus not Wally's uncle, so it could be Bart Allen, formerly Impulse. This is mixed with quite a few "Lois/Clark marriage is done" stories that some saw as classless. It may remind some readers too much of the promotion Marvel did in 2007 of their ONE MORE DAY story which ended the Spider-Man marriage; while AMAZING SPIDER-MAN has since sold consistently, the promotion divided fans and perhaps limited the success of the relaunch (or at least made it no easier). Comic book publishers desperate for every comic book reader should rarely seek to insult them. The fact that in the preview for JUSTICE LEAGUE INTERNATIONAL #1, Dan Jurgen's editor allowed a line such as, "Ignore them. They're nothing but a bunch of basement dwellers who spent all day whining on the 'net. Not a single open minded one in the bunch" in regards to those with different opinions about the JL, to run for a comic on only the second week of the relaunch says a lot about the mindset (http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=preview&id=9677). Interestingly, while the cast of JUSTICE LEAGUE consists of four white men, Cyborg, and Wonder Woman, JUSTICE LEAGUE INTERNATIONAL has a far more diverse cast (even split between men and women, with members hailing from China, Russia, and Brazil).

ICv2 has a 3 part interview with Jim Lee and Dan DiDio about this bold and risky relaunch (http://www.icv2.com/articles/markets/20943.html), and they seem to have a cautious optimism as well as an "us versus them" mentality with skeptics. They also are keeping their options open in regards to plans next year, waiting to see how this shakes out. The pair also note the importance of keeping most of their comics priced at $2.99 (albeit their 22-24 page comics like JUSTICE LEAGUE will be $3.99), and on publishing only 80-85 titles a month; less than Marvel do on average. The fact that 60% of July's DC comics were by fill-in talent perhaps show how "well" in advance the New 52 was planned. Still, the positive is that DC Comics have gotten a lot of publicity and attention lately, and they are likely hoping to replace any jaded long time readers with new ones from Marvel or outside the usual market. In the short term, JL #1 and many of their launches will sell very well, and Marvel will be buried for the start of the 4th quarter.

- In some non-New 52 news, a barrage of pictures from the filming of Zack Synder's "MAN OF STEEL" film in Illinois have some of the best images of what the full Superman suit that Henry Cavill wears will look like. As ICv2 notes (http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/20978.html), it will look very much like the new costume Superman dons in SUPERMAN #1 as well as in JUSTICE LEAGUE, to provide more synergy with different mediums - more "futuristic", and no red underwear. Super Hero Hype has more close-up's, without the cape (http://www.superherohype.com/news/articles/168314-close-up-shot-of-superman-on-the-man-of-steel-set). While the suit in 2006's "SUPERMAN RETURNS" also changed the look of the iconic suit, this is the most drastic change yet. At the very least, Cavill does look very buff in it.