Heroes Reborn Comic Sales Analysis
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- Опубліковано 21 сер 2024
- In 1996 Marvel handed over the keys to the kingdom in a move that would shock the industry. Rob Liefeld and Jim Lee who had left Marvel in a very public rebuke of the company just a few years earlier had four of the most well-known Marvel books of all time "outsourced" to their control. How did they do?
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I only worked on FF. The reason I was told for the switch, if a book missed a printing deadline Marvel could pull them. One of The Extreme books got to the printer a day late or something.. Most of the Image books were usually down to the wire and they’d fly people to the printers all the time with film! That’s what I was told when I asked.
You know, I thought so. Marvel’s database is so screwed up.
Brett Booth is here! Awesome.
I remember being excited for this. My cousins were excited for this. As soon as he got the books, we sat in his living room floor reading the issues. Afterwards we’d talk about it and speculate what will happen next. It was an happy, innocent time. Now looking back at the books they don’t hold up as well.
The 90s were such an exciting time to be a fan! The excitement, the hype, the passion for comics was electrifying. I remember going to the Wizard shop to get Jim Lee to sign FF #1. Good times. Thanks for the analytics, Perch. And I love me some boob windows.
yeah, so much enthusiasm in those books even though half or more of them were x-men knock offs. i still wish those titles were still going.
I enjoyed the first six issues or so of each title, particularly Fantastic Four. I also really enjoyed the Robservations Podcast on this period.I feel there was an unfair comparison to the impossible sales figures achieved on X-Men and X-Force years earlier. Plus it seems Jim Lee always planned to leverage this into a return to either Marvel or DC, at the expense of Image, which he successfully did.
Very interesting video. A few takeaways:
Setting aside whether or not people think the books were good from a story/quality standpoint, the raw sales numbers show that not only was the experiment a success but the return was as well. The final chart Perch displayed showed that once the books "returned" they were still on average selling 80-100% more than what they did prior. You would not have seen that renewed interest without the Heroes Reborn experiment.
Another positive worth noting, is that maybe without this experiment, Chris Claremont doesn't comeback in an overseeing editor role and begins to write the Fantastic Four after Lobdell's short arc.
I would be curious to know how the books ranked among the rest of the Marvel catalog when they returned. Was 70k for an Iron Man book considered a success? Was it only the X-books they were behind or did Spidey outsell them as well?
Lastly, if Marvel tried this today, are there any artists/writers that would excite and generate interest the way Lee and Liefeld did at the time? Honestly, the only two names I could think of would be Todd MacFarlane and Robert Kirkman because they might bring casual or lapsed comic book readers to the shops.
As always, great facts and insight Perch!
People wanna shit on Heroes Reborn, but the truth is they sold way better than what's out today. I actually liked Heroes Reborn. I was a FF fan before I started reading it and it got me reading Iron Man and the Avengers consistently. Plus the crossovers were always good. The only low point in the series was that weird Image/Marvel storyline that came out of nowhere and made little sense. Also as someone who was reading FF loyally before Heroes Reborn I wasn't too mad at the interruption because it didn't feel like an interruption like today's comics (Ie.Jonathan Hickman wants to completely rewrite the Xmen so we're just gonna throw away everything that's happening now.) Onslaught was like a 60 some issue lead-up and had a satisfying finale that flowed seamlessly into Heroes Reborn, and the books did a nice job being both something new, but also dropping hints of returning to the status quo. I also think Peter David did a fantastic send-off of the old universe and bringing the heroes back into the proper Marvel Universe.
The Wildstorm crossover did come out of nowhere. Heroes Reborn was scheduled for 12 issues. However, Heroes Return left a gap in the schedule so the 13th issues of each series were hastily put together to fill the gap.
It would be intersting to see the sales of cap and iron man from right after Heros Reborn and right before Civil War.
My only wish was that Jim Lee got Avengers, or at least did all the art for FF
Heroes Reborn aka 90's New 52.
Love Liefield's podcast
Where can I listen to it?
@@OlafLesniak Spotify
@@casualgamerreed Thanks! It's a bit odd that he stole the name Robservations from another UA-camr Robert M. Burnett, but I'll give it a shot.
@@OlafLesniak Liefeld has been using this title from back when he did articles for wizards in the early 90s. Burnett is the one squatting. I enjoy both content producers mind you.
@@bt3779 Thanks for the info.
Now we need one of these for Joe Quesada's Marvel Knights imprint. If it weren't for Heroes Reborn I very much doubt that Quesada would have gotten that opportunity.
Now this is a surprise. I always thought HEROES REBORN was a failure, but seems I was wrong all along. I only got the first two issues of FANTASTIC FOUR and IRON-MAN each, and remember liking the art in both. However, back then I was in college, and having a tighter budget, chose to follow other titles I liked more. Maybe I can complete those two now.
I remember picking up this reboot's version of Captain America and liking it at the time, but...the book wasn't very good. It doesn't hold up on re-read at all. Nor do most of the other books you're looking at here. They did have pretty pictures...for a certain value of "pretty" by 90s standards anyway. Which comes back to the old saying that sales are not a direct indication of quality. The Heroes Return titles, by and large, had more value as actual comic stories than their Reborn equivalents.
i enjoyed Scott Lobdell's Fantrastic Four issues. It sounds like he had a big fifty issue arc planned but Claremont kinda forced himself on that book after his return to Marvel (why they didn't just put him back on X-Men right away I have no idea, but it sounds like editorial was still a bit of a mess).
Fascinating! I collected FF and Ironman, which featured a new Hulk. Heroes Reborn interrupted Peter David’s Hulk run that I was heavily invested in. I got the impression PADs run could have ended with the relaunches, but he managed to keep a Banner -less Hulk. I’d like to see the numbers on PADs run and what affect Heroes Reborn had. Have you got any numbers Perch?
What would the growth of claremonts entire x-men run be from his first issue in the 1975 to x-men nr.1? Probably like 1000 Percent growth lol
Fond memories. I got to ink Joe Bennett and Ed Benes on some pages of Cap when Marvel turned it over to Wildstorm.
Never heard of these comics, but the sales analysis is still great & very interesting.
I always meant to read the 'Teen Tony Stark' storyline. I really enjoyed the Heroes Return main series by Busiek & also the next Jim Cheung ongoing (Scion from Crossgen). So going back to read a Cheung Ironman run seemed like a something worth a try. I just never got around to it - but you have refreshed my memory to try it.
Hmmm. Right off the bat, when you say a roughly 50% decline from FF#1 to #2 means half the readers went away, that isn't really the case. Many, many people bought multiples of issue 1 of all of these. There was a lot of hype and even the non-speculators were grabbing a spare or two "just in case' it went big in later years. The books almost certainly had better reader retention than those first issues indicate - and it could have been worse. We had to limit customers to three to a person IIRC - but not past the premiere issues. And we certainly saw some people jumping on later, these were some of the few Marvel books that had increased subscriptions in this era, even if it didn't last long.
Did I say readers or buyers? You're absolutely right, those numbers were absolutely propped up by speculators. I thought I made that point, but perhaps not well enough.
Do I remember correctly that the #1 issues had multiple covers?
@@briankulesz9410 There were at least a few, although nothing to compare to today's excesses.
@@ComicsPerch You did make the point later, but I was typing as soon as you said "...almost half of its audience went away..." It's hard to say exactly how much the multiple-copy purchases affected things, but I'd be surprised if the FF book ever had less than 100K to 120K reader/buyers, some of whom were grabbing multiples through the whole run. As you said, it did do quite well - another support for the argument that consistent creator teams do better than ones that swap around a lot.
i remember those days. i was sort of dabbling in the hobby again after leaving just before the onslaught saga in x-men. i can be honest and admit that if it wasn't for the art then i never would have touched that jim lee fantastic four. you could say that perhaps that was a problem with readers back then but you could also argue that maybe we were spoiled to have so many good artists who were improving or just getting into industry at that particular time.
Heroes Reborn was a year (well 13 months) of back issues and not much more. I guess you can safely put me in the camp of someone who was annoyed that they interrupted the stories that I was invested in that were already being told in the comics.
It's funny how Marvel is so obsessed with rebooting everything and as soon as sales dip again, just reboot again. And repeat ad nauseum until the end of time. It seems like a very short sighted fix to a more long term problem.
I think it's safe to say Lee and Liefeld are popular artists, their writing not so much (if someone wants to disagree please do; but I've never read anything by either guy that I thought was all that well written). So how about, crazy thought, just hire Lee to do the art on one or both of his titles, do the same with Liefeld, and pair them both with great writers of the time.
How about Walt Simonson going back to FF with Lee on art (and let him finish some of the great stories he was telling before his run on the title was interrupted). Put Mark Waid back on Cap and let Liefeld handle art (though I think Ron Garney was putting in good work so maybe that's not the ideal fit). But most importantly, stop rebooting everything. There's nothing wrong with maybe a change in creative direction when a new writer/artist takes over but it should be a gradual easing into a different direction, not slamming on the breaks and coming to a complete stop and then doing a 180 degree turn.
OK, I like my cheesecake VERY much, but that costume on Sue Storm. The person/persons responsible for that cannot be beaten enough.
What's not captured here, and I don't know if there is a way to capture it, is the hype generated by bringing the "Image Boys" in to show the Marvel crew how it's done. It had all the spectacle of a WWE wrestling grudge match. The personalities of Liefeld, Lee, and McFarlane played a significant part in those sales, imo.
I started reading The Avengers with issue 8 of the Reborn run thanks to that issue being a gift for my birthday.
As an ardent X-Men reader at the time I'd seen The Avengers in some of the Onslaught issues, terrifically rendered by Joe Mad and Andy Kubert, and was aware they were thought dead and in some other world restarting their journey as heroes (wasn't as hung up on all the details, just rolled with it, like the Age of Apocalypse issues of X-Man I picked up when I was 7 years old.
I liked the Simonson run alot, I thought Hellcat had an interesting look, liked the villainous Thor doppleganger, Loki basically playing the role of the devil and creating a civil war between the Avengers, Hawkeyes costumes have never been better than that run, the oversized Loki/ Faux-Odin battle was terrific, as was the Thor funeral and the battle with the Heralds of Galactus.
Busiek really continued the strength of the title after, introducing new characters Triathlon and Silverclaw, bringing in Justice and Firestar, honoring the legacy of the title in his first issue and creating the best Wonderman story I've seen to that point or since.
Is that Liefeld's infamous captain america chest drawing from this run?
Something else to consider--I bought Heroes Reborn Avengers #1 at WalMart. I don't know if those Comichron numbers include the news-stand market that was still limping along at the time...
In retrospect, there is a lot to criticize about the actual stories in the Heroes Reborn line, but there were enough good points for me to justify buying the omnibus Marvel put out a year or so ago. By contrast, I haven't bought any current Marvel universe books for at least 10 years.
Nope; this is DM only. That number is way higher in total.
I remember buying them all but only sticking with the fantastic four, and honestly I don't remember that much having actually been changed but I could be remembering it wrong..
Very interesting. I was reading Captain America and Avengers before and after but I only bought the final issues of Heroes Reborn.
Great video! I wasn’t collecting back then but everyone seems to make that era of Marvel out to be a failure. I’m an everything Spider-Man / Spider-Verse / Symbiote collector. It’d be interesting to see how the numbers looked on The Amazing Spider-Man before and after they gave the series a new #1 in the 90’s. As a comic book collector, I say thank God for the internet and legacy numbering because a lot of us newer collectors would be lost without them. So many relaunches and new #1’s 🤣🤣🤣🥴
Very interesting analysis! I remember feeling curious but not super excited when first I heard they were coming back to Marvel, despite being a huge fan of their work. I guess the energy was just not the same. I liked the Jim lee art for FF, but the stories weren't memorable for me...
Jim Valentino also did Heroes Reborn.
So they canceled at 110000 copies 25 years ago? I guess they were hoping for 60s numbers. There were about 100,000 solud fans now......these days, i bet it's closer to 30,000 as the increasing prices and deaths of the older fans cause a decline in comic buying. Thanks for the analysis.
There were two ( three). covers for all issue 1’s. Cover A and the Variant Perch is saying didn’t exist. Also a gold embossed signature variant for each cover was offered.
I said there wasn’t tons of variants, and you and I both know the system of variants was radically different back then.
Wow didn't know about this. Thanks for this one man, it will be interesting to see how it does In 2021.
Avengers. And. Fantastic. 4. Weren’t. That. Bad. Listened. To. Liefelds. Podcast. He’s. Very. Interesting. In. What. He. Had. To. Say.
I didn’t realize marvel comics sold so low back then. Those marvel numbers were similar to today’s numbers. I thought the numbers were a lot higher in the 90s
The direct market crashed and Marvel was going bankrupt in the year or so before Heroes Reborn so that probably explains those really low numbers.
my buddy inked that Iron Man series 10:29 for a bit!
Perch where did you get the sales for the pre heroes reborn titles? Do you have a link? I would like to see them since Comichron doesn't really go that back
I used a few places to confirm, but Comichron does have those numbers.
@@ComicsPerch
I don't know if I am missing something but I went back to the monthly sales and they only have index order, do you mean the numbers they have on sales by title?
Fun fact this was the year before I was born
It makes you realize that the mid 90s HAD to be Marvel's absolute lowest point... Although I read somewhere that even then, they were still beating DC in terms of sales. Interesting that in the 70s, any title regularly selling 100,000 copies or more was considered an undisputed success, but in the 90s, 100,000 copies was seen as a penny in the bucket. As always, sales figured are cool to analyze. Great post.
You dont mention it on your chart (and sales don't indicate it was a deal breaker for anyone but maybe me), but Jim Lee only penciled till #6 on FF. Brett Booth took over from #7.
Brandon Choi: the luckiest person in comics.
So to some up: Heroes Reborn was good for sales and had a positive effect on the characters for at least another year.
Who'd of thought 🤔
Can anyone explain this to me? I noticed they retold the fantastic four origin. Is that the original fantastic four from the 616 that was put into a new world or is that an entirely new fantastic four? It looks like they gave them a new series and retelling of that series. Was that all part of an illusion of the new universe?
It was all part of the illusion.
Avengers numbers were high after it was over because they recruited a superstar team for the series.
Putting George Perez on the book certainly didn't hurt.
Marvel today would kill for these sales numbers lol
Fascinating is always Buddy
This ought to be interesting. Rare to see an analysis of something I actually sold myself.
EDIT after the vid: The real question for me - will Marvel have the giant brass balls needed to do a St. Elsewhere-in-reverse ending to the new Reborn run like the original had? And if so, who's going to be holding the Franklin Richards might-as-well-be-a-snow-globe this time?
Jim Lee only drew the first six issues of FF. The awful Bret Booth and the “it’s alright” Rom Lim alternated after that. For me, Heroes Reborn was a complete failure. Not only the whole concept made no sense, but the big artists who were hired to give an extra life to those characters were unable to fulfill their duties. Only six issues of Jim Lee? Why did got the job if he couldn’t draw the entire series?
Heroes Reborn, but will they be reborn better, or will they just continue to do the same nonsense things they’ve been doing for the past eight / nine years?
I don't include Carol Danvers, because it's easier to assume that they'll ruin the character even more, instead of fixing it.
I see there are many HEROES REBORN covers coming up. Is this just a miniseries or are there otherwise attached? Is it just covers commemorating the 25th Anniversary?
A miniseries starts in May.
What would be a healthy number for comic titles to have?
Maybe the entire bad rap comes from one weirdly-terrible Captain America cover by Liefeld. That book had a few artistic hiccups in it. Besides that, I thought their short-runs breathed new life into some flagging titles. The angle I remember thinking about at the time was that suddenly Marvel seemed to care again. With a handful of exceptions the books were pretty and pretty good with some excellent highlights. I kind of leaned into the FF Reborn book. Even after the experiment I thought Marvel showed a similar commitment to talent and creative freedom with Heroes Return especially on the Avengers, Thor and FF books. Last thought... maybe the whole Reborn/Return experiment was done to get rid of the Teen-Tony/Iron Man book. Good riddance. ... but then we got Iron-Boy in a cartoon show. ugh.
The podcasts are great, just listened to the death of Captain America.
Where can I listen to them?
@@OlafLesniak I listened on Apple podcasts, but I think he’s uploading to multiple different sites. He named the sites in yesterday’s video.
Jim Lee's speedo bulge iron-man
Aaaamazing Hilarious
Perch is a scam artist he said Bat Cat 3 is a butt book but half the butts were blocked from view
Were they blocked by other butts, though? :)
@@richmcgee434 VISIONARY
Now, to piss off the fanboys out there, do ROB! and Jim's sale numbers at Image before Heroes Reborn.