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Marvel Conquers April’s Sales Chart

The sales numbers for April, released by Diamond Comic Distributors, shows Marvel Comics continuing to retake the top ten from DC Comics, which held the entire top ten from September of last year up until March. Last month, Marvel's Avengers Vs. X-Men put a stop to that, but now, three more Marvel titles climb their way into the top of the list.

1Avengers Vs. X-Men #2
2Batman #8
3Justice League #8
4AVX VS. #1
5Green Lantern #8
6Action Comics #8
7Detective Comics #8
8Batman: the Dark Knight #8
9Uncanny X-Men #11
10Avengers #25

As I said about March's sales, the real test of Marvel's Avengers Vs. X-Men event will not be its own sales but whether it can pull the sales of Marvel's ongoing titles up into the top ten along with it. That looks to be exactly what is happening. This represents a substantial jump for Uncanny X-Men and Avengers, which respectively placed 16th and 20th on the chart last month. It's also worth noting that Wolverine and the X-Men and New Avengers follow closely behind in 11th and 12th positions. This poises Marvel to take even more of the top ten.

DC has held onto the majority of the top ten, though. Along with that, DC holds half of the top twenty. Action Comics, Superman and Aquaman are still enjoying uncommonly high sales numbers. That's still good news for them. Sure, they've lost most of their bragging rights with Aquaman, but it's still damn good to be able to say your Aquaman sells just as well as their Amazing Spider-Man, which doesn't seem to be benefiting much from his greatly hyped Ends of the Earth story.

Marvel's Surge
Marvel faces a tough fight to make any more ground in the top ten. They've whittled DC down almost to that company's strongest pillars -- Geoff Johns and Batman. You aren't going to see these books budge. Johns is a consistent high seller, especially when paired with major properties like Justice League and Green Lantern. As for Batman, he's Batman. With the Night of the Owls crossover now underway, the Bat-books are likely going to be stronger across the board. That's not even considering the launch of the new Batman, Inc. by Grant Morrison. Could the launch of Earth 2 also prove to be a sales powerhouse? This is going to become a real battle, and I'll be surprised to see much more movement from Marvel on this front.

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