Thunderbolts may have a more core reader base, and has been around as a title (even with all the ups and downs) for a longer time. Ms. Marvel was a backbencher at Marvel for the 80’s and 90’s. I also don’t know how many readers were going to stay around for some of the issues that had Initiative on them…I think that whole Modok/AIM story may have dragged a little bit or been too overdetailed.

Ms. Marvel is my favorite Marvel character (and the only Marvel book I buy every month). I really hope that won’t get canceled. I wish they would make some changes, namely, dumping her agent and tightening the focus. I do like the comic a lot, but between the focus on her love life, her career, and the sometime appearances of little sister figure Arana, Ms. Marvel’s comic often comes across as Katy Keene with superpowers.

In all likelihood, the vast majority of Nextwave’s audience would have been composed of fans who were drawn by Warren Ellis, because that was the big selling point for the title. Thunderbolts is a completely different book, with more popular characters and a more significant role in the Marvel universe.

Mind you, I suppose it’s always possible that Thunderbolts will plummet by 37K next month, with the Initiative banner and variant covers gone.

If Venom was such a big draw, then (a) his last solo series from a few years ago would still be around and (b) the BEYOND mini series from last year would have sold a hell of a lot better then it did (IIRC, the book sold between 25k and 30k a month).

As for sales compared to Nextwave… do I need to draw a diagram explaining how Venom is a bigger draw than Machine Man?

Thor, in only 2 issues, has become the top-susbscribed regular super-hero title in my store, beaten only by World War Hulk (a miniseries) and Buffy Season 8.

The MOST LIKELY reason why the T-bolts special sold 15k more then then Fabian’s run is because dealers thought and/or hoped that the book MIGHT have picked up new readers with it’s much hyped new direction.

And for what it’s worth, MANY of our customers picked up Ellis and Deodato’s T-bolts ONLY because the book was tying into the INITIATIVE storyline.

I always find analyses like this one on The Beat blog interesting to read, but depending on just badly written or how badly a book has been rendered by Marvel’s PC-madness, that’s why it’s troubling if sales on them are actually doing well. Because …

08/29/07 at 6:00 am
“Onslaught Reborn: is this late because of Loeb, or Liefeld? My vote would be for the latter. Why does someone who has not proven to be successful or dependable get new projects like this?”

It’s late because of Loeb. As was announced at Wizard World Chicago, Liefeld’s drawn almost an entire Killraven miniseries waiting for Loeb to find time to finish his Onslaught Reborn scripts. J. Scott Campbell also mentioned that he is doing Wildsiderz pages as he waits for more pages from Loeb on their super-secret Spider-Man miniseries. Apparently Loeb way overcommitted himself because he wasn’t expecting the TV show “Heroes” to take off the way it has, and now that it’s this huge success it’s taking far more of his time than he ever planned.

I’m pretty sure it was officially confirmed to be Loeb’s problem…

Wraith, a half-dozen guys at the store I use dropped Thunderbolts for that month (including me) because it wasn’t by Ellis and Deodato. None of us picked up the book before that creative team came on (well okay, 1 guy did during CW). And I imagine we’ll be outta there once they leave. Because we follow those creators (Ellis, mainly) around to see what they’re doing in much the same way some people went over to that Baron Zemo miniseries with Nicieza. Only there’s more of us and we’re all out of our faces on whisky.

So why does this non-Initiative, non-variant cover one-shot still sell 15k more than it did when Nicieza was still writing it?