Not sure if anyone said it before in the comments, but one of the big draws in the first Jane Foster Thor run was the mystery of who was this new Thor. That's the primary reason why this 8 issue run did so well.
I remember being kinda annoyed because everyone was like... is it Jane? and Iirc they were trying to deny it for weeks and then were like HA SURPRISE! Its Jane!
At the end of the day, Thor sells and will always sell. Compare Jane Foster Thor to Valkryie and you'll see how drastic of a difference you'll see when you give the mantle of one popular character to another.
@@brandenwalton2914 Always sell? With all due respect(I do mean that, I am not a troll) but Thor has been canceled and/or kept of the table more than a couple of times for poor sales.
Marvel's publishing strategy is all about the short term. Jim Shooter has said that an average issue of Claremont's X-Men sold 3/4 of a million, those comics read dated today but were written so every issue could be someone's first, meaning there was actually an attempt to build an audience and the numbers prove they were very successful at that. Marvel today don't try to build an audience with their comics, its all about getting as much blood from a stone as possible.
Ongoing means Ongoing recruitment! Give people a reason to join in! Inspire new readers! They grasp desperately to 50,000 readers and assume average 38% decline. SAD.
FYI, ASM Vol. 5 #1 launched at 289,102 and dropped to 113,944 for Issue #2. That's about 175K drop, so thats more than 100K. Granted, 113,944 is a good landing place and 289,102 is a very strong launch for any comic, including events.
What I take from this is there's a 'Thor' fanbase and Aaron knew how to appeal to that base consistently, but his stories didn't INCREASE that base. The only boost the Thor line received during Aaron's time was from the relaunch 1st issue boost and the gimmick boost ala Jane Foster Thor. As much as the figures prove that Jane Foster Thor was a strong sell, I highly suspect that the numbers would have dropped to the same levels of the other runs over a longer period.
The trend down for Jane Foster Thor makes more sense when you take into account the trashing of "Real" Thor in an attempt to make the Jane version look better and "Trolling of the Trolls" started showing up on social media. I know that a "NEW FEMALE THOR" and the supposed mystery of who she was would have gained readers and there would have been "Thor exhaustion" later, I still don't believe the story did the character any favours. I hope that Marvel or ANY publisher does take notice of the general trend, that "Events"(must have that capital 'E') do NOT help ongoing series. Especially new ones. The Event increase does not justify the drop, especially when you have writers working at cross purposes and characterisation completely inconsistent between them.
If it out sold the Fraction run then I would say this was a positive move for Marvel and that JMS rebooting Thor was a good move. I cant believe that Marvel devalued Thor at one time. There is no point in a publisher devaluing a title if it sells.
What I take away from this, is that Thor has a core readership of around 40,000. You can create spikes and troughs with gimmicks and relaunches, but it will always return to that core number, almost regardless of who wields the hammer. Interesting.
What helped the awful first Jane Foster series was the mystery of finding out the identity of Lady Thor. That was the only reason issue 8 spiked up so much, the long-awaited reveal. Same with the Death of Jane Foster, people wanted to see the bitch die. She didn't and many were disappointed, myself included, as that story arc ended up being a waste of time.
The 8 issue run you are pointing to had several marketing tricks going for it that they knew would prop up the title. The Controversial nature of gender swapping Thor was going to draw attention, the corporate push to Get Woke by Marvel, the prominent inclusion of she-Thor in every Marvel Title as well as the increased consumer awareness of the character brought on by the unprecedented success of the MCU movies all contributed to the sales of those issues. I very much like you analysis of the meta data around the comic sales. It is very interesting to look at the sales from a distance like this.
I remember when Aaron came on and the first arc was really good. I was really impressed with what he was doing. When Jane Foster became Thor I found the first arc to be okay too and didn’t have the “I hate her” or “she’s amazing” feeling I just found it to be okay but knew it was going to be short lived. However because of the strong start I had a good feeling with Aaron and his run this quickly disappeared though because Aaron just turned Odinson. Into an utter joke and bumbling fool. I get trying to push the NEW characters but I also started to find Jane annoying too if felt very much like Reay in Star Wars. All of a sudden Jane was better than Thor and had a better relationship to the Hammer “because it’s alive now” and it just felt like Aaron was trying way to hard to sell Jane Foster and ultimately made what could of been a really interesting character dull. I have no idea why writers always dump on the OG characters why could we not of had compelling Jane snd Odienson. Ultimately Imo the story turned into a rambling mess that was predictable and ultimately I found it hard to like Jane and OG Thor as they became parody’s of themselves and the writing just became bland and pointless. Also War of the Realms was one of the worst events I’ve read in years it was just dull. But that’s just my opinion. This was an interesting break down as I personally tend to buy trades over weekly mainly due to the lack of comic shops near me so I can see how the events and crossovers effected it but I still think JA just ran out of steam and stayed on Thor way to long.
It's interesting to look at the comics this way, because as a fan who bought comics I had a completely different view of it. As I recall Thor was made unworthy, basically beaten, because Nick Fury whispers something to him. A woman took over for Thor, but her identity wasn't revealed. None of Thor's friends seemed to mind. She even joined the Avengers. Meanwhile there were a lot of online knockdown tear apart fights as fans chose sides. To me this was another example of marvel using anger and division as a marketing strategy. But beyond that there was the fact that I didn't like the stories starting point. Nick Fury revealed to be a defender of Earth, never telling anyone else (who really could have helped) about the alien invasions he constantly fought off, able to knock Thor out of action by one whispered phrase... If I don't like reboots I really don't like retcons that don't seem to make any sense in a large context. Also the back and forth online told me that this was a storyline that was only going to be like all the other storylines marvel had been putting out; it would anger me, disappoint me and in the end just get thrown into the longbox and never picked up again after one reading. I didn't have money to spare back then (don't now really) and I knew if I bought it, didn't like it and said so online I'd be attacked. Ultimately there would be no entertainment value in this comic for me, at least not at full price. I decided to wait for a few years and fish it out of the dollar bins at the comic book shows. That isn't my preferred way to read the comics, since by the time I get to it there's no way I could avoid the spoilers and thus loose a lot of the suspense, but I didn't see any point in buying a comic just to see a character I liked slashed down to a pathetic shell while some stranger replaced him. Also to be honest I felt the the storyline was just more of the SJW down the throat push that marvel was reveling in. That is my reasoning as a reader and that's why I didn't buy any of the titles.
Looking at those numbers, what I’m seeing is a LOT of short term thinking. They don’t really seem to have much hope that they can consistently increase sales, so they keep going for the short term spike of some sort of relaunch, even as that decreases the long term prospects of the book. And this at a time when the movies should be attracting new readers, but there’s nothing going on in any of Marvels titles to capitalize off fans of the movies checking out the comics they were based on. My own anecdotal story about the success of that initial Jane Foster Thor arc was I had a friend who kept picking up the book hoping to see how Thor would get his hammer back (and find out if his guess that it was somehow Jane under that helmet was right).
Funny you should mention trade sales, I decided to look up how the trades of Bendis' run on Superman have been doing through Comichron and so far according to what I could find, the highest point of any trade of Bendis run on Superman reached was when Vol.1 Unity Saga managing just below the top 20. If a non canon Superman book managed to outperform the trades of in-continuity stories like that, it's not a good look for Bendis' entire run on Superman in general.
This comic book takes place in multiple world settings that are threatened by the planning of opportunists that are taking advantage of a neglected state of power which a new Thor has to contend with. It explains what everything is and who Thor is. It was worth reading. I liked it.
The first Jane Thor run aside, the other runs have an almost identical trend. It seems to me that for the books that trend this way (a slow drop over time), relaunches are a successful method for getting more sales. Thinking of them as just parts of a longer run (as in one of those last charts), it looks to help the book sell more, even if the relaunches diminish over time (maybe because they're not a true relaunch, like a new writer). These relaunches seem to interrupt the previous trend of the ongoing book (whether that's downwards or upwards) to start again with launch-level sales. And I reckon most books trend downwards, so taking the risk of interrupting a sales trend with a relaunch is gonna work out well more often than not
There is no "misconception" about the Jane Thor as far as its sales.Nor that it was a woman. It had some serious issues writing wise. And they made Odinson a complete idiot and useless without his hammer.
I mean I loved the Jane Foster run but Perch is right you'd be surprised how many people were saying her comics were loosing money for Marvel. Look up any old reviews when it was out, there were whole videos and articles made on how bad it was tanking Marvel
@@AlecArtComics I didn't say that it was horrible. It was just evident that Marvel went out of their way to devalue Odinson. Jane Foster's stories were great.
The reason why the first Jane Thor series did so well was because it was a limited-series and everyone wanted to know who the new Thor was. The reveal didn't come until the last issue. Once that marketing spin was gone it did just as any Marvel title. Best I would describe Aaron's run is a failure, saved by the event fluctuation and less so by its story quality. I also thought it was funny how you said 30 issues is a long run. How times have changed. Visibly for the worse. Loving these videos, keep it up.
It wasn't billed as a limited series, in fact Marvel kept pushing that it was absolutely ongoing because many didn't believe it. But... that Secret Wars interruption came as a slap in the face to that story and I think drove away a lot of customers.
@@ComicsPerch Right! I just figured the mystery was a big part of thrill as it was the talking point behind that series and the sales probably would have slumped after that. It's true, though, maybe the drop wouldn't have been as bad had the Secret Wars not interrupted its flow.
@@uiron5755 - I accept. Glad to see some integrity in the comments section. I never trashed the comic or said that it sucks or whatever. I expressed my opinion respectfully without insults or name calling. I gave the comic a chance until the moment I felt the book was no longer enjoyable for me. So, yeah, I’ll remove my negative comment as well. Good day.
It's too bad that the comic companies don't look at sales graphs like this to learn lessons from their successes...And failures. It might teach them how to quit doing the same thing over and over and expect a different result. Huge crossovers hurt books!
@@davidsantos1299 Tiny crossovers probably help books in some ways. But those big line wide crossovers cripple sales. War of the Realms, Secret Wars....Those do way more damage than help. Especially to story flow. It sucks when an author has to stop what they're doing to push some crossover that no one cares about. I mean, I'm liking King in Black, but at least they're keeping the crossovers mainly to the books already involved and one-shots. Killing a title's momentum for a cheap pop isn't smart.
Cool, I'm meh on Thor in general still a great video! Do you plan to do any more team ones? Would love to see New Avengers(Bendis) and how the events impacted things.
Perch, I have a question to you, and I know this will be a little complex of a video to make, but I think would be insteresting, since the "Marvel Now" iniciative started back in 2012, did marvel total revenue got too heavily impacted, or still pretty much the same?
I would love to see a video showing the impact of Secret Wars in 2015. I think it did a lot of harm ultimately in that new readers might have come in to a series just to have it cancelled after 7-10 issues. They then relaunched several months later with new #1s. My LCS said it all but killed Silk and Ms. Marvel which had started strong, at least in my area.
Instead of incessant reboots, I don't see why they wouldn't just dedicate a portion of the issue to a B plot. Then as plot needs to make a double issue.
So, two questions. 1) You say THOR was subject the “reader fatigue,” and I believe it - while I was a fan of the Jane Foster “Thunderella” version, even I, toward the end, was like, sheesh, you’ve been dying for 20 issues, will you hurry up and kick it already! - but it’s also true the entire Marvel line suffered during the “All-New, All-Different” era. So, how did the high, low and medians of each THOR title track with the median sales of all Marvel titles? Even if each subsequent THOR title was losing sales, was it gaining or holding rank compared to other titles of the time? And 2) While I don’t disagree that constant rebooting brings diminished returns, so, too, does normal publishing. In comics for the past 20 years or so, a book that lost less that 2% each month was considered a strong seller. So, are the diminishing returns of rebooting mitigated by the increased sales on each new #1? Might the actual lesson for Marvel be to eschew whole numbering and switch to a volume/issue format, such that reboots are backed into the pie, with every 13th month bringing a new #1, and each 12-issue run is one, continued story?
I asked for this sales trend review. Thank-you. I liked Jane Foster Thor, picking it up the last year of the run and, subsequently, the back issues. I think the succuss of this comic as due to good writing and great art. I picked the series up with Unworthy Thor. I dropped the following run that centered on Odinson because the art by Del Mundo was hidious and made the comic unreadable. It might have been written well but I couldn't piece one panel to the next.
It was, at least in my opinion, the weakest part of Aaron's run. War of the realms was underwhelming, especially when compared to death of mighty thor (which was great). I read it to complete my collection. You didn't miss out on much. King thor was pretty good tho.
I honestly appreciated what Aaron was tryna do with the Jane Foster run. Unfortunately, regardless of the numbers, people will make excuses for how it still hurt Marvel the most or how the numbers aren't right lol
I love the Aaron and Ribic run of Thor. The Thor and Galactus battle was as epic as the original Thor and Mangog fight by Lee and Kirby. Best Thor story sine Lee/Kirby and Walt Simonson run
I've heard that the spike in sales of a new # 1 partially subsidizes the declining sales of the rest of the run until they have to reboot again. Personally, I do not like reboots, but they do allow you to jump off during or after a crappy run. Case in point, Iron Man: Gillen's run - not my cup of tea - sold entire run; Bendis' run - did not buy (not a Bendis fan); Slott's run - what a cluster- dropped, sold off; Cantwell's run - too early to tell, but not particularly exiting so far.
Love the deep dive format! But ESPECIALLY when it's a title I'm a long-time fan of! (And I liked the Lady Thor/ Jane Foster arc: it felt organic to the story, IMO.)
I have to question then how the numbers for the latest Thor have dropped so far, especially since stores are selling 6th printings of those first 4 books. You couldn't find the issues anywhere. That's odd wouldn't you say? Or do you have a logical explanation for that? Not trying to be snarky, it really doesn't make any sense to me. Another fantastic video btw!
Would love a deep dive on FF in the future! I'm curious about what factors may impact comic sales, both internal ("Problematic" creators) and external (Upcoming movie.)
I would be really interested to see what the sales numbers would be if they didn't constantly restart the series and kept the same numbering throughout. Having a new number 1 is supposedly a good jumping on point but it's just as good a jumping off point.
This should, for the most part, dispell any idea suggesting that Aaron's run sold poorly overall. As time went by his run stagnated like any other run, but was consistent for the most part. The only question that should matter is whether you enjoyed the quality of the story, which for me was lacking and decent at best.
@BW Smith So what it proved was that it didn't bring a new audience but it also didn't really lose the old audience. Which means many things, including that there isn't really much danger in changing things up
@BW Smith where is the proof that it reduced the fanbase? This video shows that the sales didn't change much before Jane became Thor and after the second time she was Thor.
@@davidsantos1299 Maybe female Thor sold as well as regular Thor. But if you want an idea how the general fan base feels about Marvel and DC in general, look at comic book shops going out of business during the last few years. During the golden age of super hero movies and series. Comic book publishers had the marketing might of Hollywood backing up their titles... And yet they insisted on degrading those characters or killing them off and replacing them with different versions. Super heroes ARE mainstream pop culture now, and comic book shops are closing
@@pablopumarestaminiau7512 and how can you prove that the reason for that was the replacement of the characters, rather than the increase in prices, the surge of other entertainment like Films TV and Videogames that made people have to choose between spending their money on comic books or all those things, and a million other reasons. I mean DC comics didn't replace anyone in the last few years so how come Marvel changing some things is enough for the whole industry to go down?
The TPB was 3$ in my local dollar store. So yes, DC made a lot of sales. Then the stores made sales to the dollar store. I also find that the cover and title for this "Thor" is close to false advertisement. If I was to pick this book up expecting the cover to be a Valkyrie (not Thor), and a story about Thor, I'd lose trust in the transaction. ex. spiderman becomes spiderwoman, spidergirl, spidergwen, ect. Don't use the same brand name on a different product.
Do you consider variants when you run your numbers? Even if you don't #1s standard covers might have significant sales impact from those 1:25 or something like that promotions for hardcore collectors and speculators. They're pretty frequent but not always with the same discount rates for retailers, and it does influence things. I guess the #2 to #3 drop would be a more reliable KPI. Also, in fairness, digital sales must count nowadays more than a few years ago (with flat fee subscriptions contributing to the bottom line as well) Nonetheless, even assuming that digital is doubling profits today compared to 2012,, we're talking about an ongoing, decades-stretching miserable potential audience reach for characters with such a strong brand name universal recognition.
Yes, variants are rolled in. Reprints are not (and that's an interesting way to look at the picture). But the #1 drop is one big reason I use the trend, and start it at #2. As for digital, at last count we were still at around 8-10% of print sales and it wasn't growing.
@@ComicsPerch Digital tends more and more towards a Netflix-style kind of business now, I'm not sure that transactional sales for each single issues can give us a complete enough picture. I edited my first comment to include a line about 1:25 variants and retailers discounts. It makes sense, as I've read here, that all those #1 variants subsidize at least the first story arc, given the sheer volume of copies sold, but it's a sad state of things when you think that both Marvel and DC need an average of 2 variants per issue across their entire output (even Omnibus in Marvel's case) to keep their traditional print model alive. What if for any reason demand for variants collapse on the secondary market, albeit for a short period? It sounds likely that a great deal of those who are currently hoarding variants will move to another hot collectible. It happened before in the 90's after all.
Yo, perch! You knocked it out again with this one. I love this new line of videos looking at comic trends and sales. Jason Arron won me over on his punisher max run. I buy everything he writes. I really loved the Jane foster series but have to admit it drag at some points. This made me realize that it takes an extremely talented writer to pull off a long run while keeping your audience engaged. Willingham, Morrison, Ennis, Milligan, gaiman, Bendis, Miller, mccloud, kirkman, etc. Like the Too Many Hobbies put it in the comments section, I also miss long runs. You a gangsta, Perch.
Looks like they cost themselves a lot of sales by cancelling Jane Foster early in that 1st title. Interesting. Worth considering is that (I think) the Cates run had a ton of 2nd, 3rd, 4th and even 5th prints on those early issues.
I think that the first 8-issue Jane Foster run is an extreme outlier in terms of sales, and the reason is, The Mystery. "Who is this new Thor?" Clickbaity, yes, but it was a compelling mystery that people were very interested in. You can't maintain that over the long haul, but for eight issues it was great for keeping sales steady. Once the mystery was revealed, that storyline was over. I highly doubt that if the series had continued untouched, just kept chugging along, that it would have maintained a steady pace over the next 8 issues. I would wager good money that if it had continued from issue 8 to 9, 10, and so on, that by issue 16 it would have dropped to 40K like the next run had. Maybe lower.
was that first jane foster run the one that had a men are wife beaters or something so us women have to stick together nonsense? i distinctly remember reading a trade and getting to a part they made a point of inserting a man bad women good section and i just put the book back on the shelf
While one volume too long, Jason Aaron's Thor run is the very best run in the history of Thor. And I say this as a guy who never thought anyone could top Walt Simonson.
It's hard for me to trust the criticisms of this run because they all just seem to hate it because it was Jane Foster as Thor. Personally I enjoyed the run and liked what Aaron was doing with the lore. He really amped things up in my opinion. I will admit that the art was also a major part of my enjoyment. I might have looked past some of its flaws because of how good the book looked. My only disappointment in the run was how little attention he was paying to the original Thor at first. I was genuinely excited and intrigued about what Thor could do without the hammer. I thought he was gonna realize his true power and potential and become a badass without his hammer. Which is part of the reason I didn't really mind Jane taking it. Unfortunately, things didn't exactly work out that way, not in this run anyway.
How did the "Trades are selling WAY MORE" cover story get started? Going through a lot of older content and there always seemed to be two "rebuttals" floated when sales came up for "controversial" titles and reboots 1) The digital sales are amazing 2) Trades are selling like gangbusters! More than those lowly floppies ya Incel! It seems both of these were completely untrue, so how did that get started in the first place? I would genuinely like your insight on this. Was it the publishers themselves or over zealos fans trying to stick up for stories they enjoyed? How did this misinformation become so ingrained that I still hear it today? I've seen articles(never citing sources) that still make similar claims while poking at longterm readers who are framed as ignorant of how "truly popular" some runs were.
i just hate aaron and fem thor, drop most of marvel after taht had alredy drop spider man tnx to one more day. i just cant whit american comics so for me its manga and comic from franse, oo and yes i dropt cap america after he is a natzi.
This vid. opened up a lot for me. The Female-Thor run ( i'm sure a lot of white knighter n virtue signalers wearing their red capes see me as a villian now, lol) anyway, FEMALE Thor. I was away from comics after the ASM clone war saga., variant cover over kill and everyone being a version of wolverine, needless to say, i was done with comics I somehow decided to come back to comics around 2014. It was like i was new to comics all over again. I picked up FEMALE thor #1 going. Ok. This looks good. As the run continues i started noticing all the stupid strong wahmen, cucking all male characters. Remember the scene where Titania knocked out her boyfriend The Absorbing Man. to then get arrested just to make Female Thor look good? I cringed at that. Running parallel is Iron Heart, Natzi Cap., Cap. Marvel being an A-hole nazi but being treated like the second coming. I left ASM clone saga and return to a bigger pile of shite What is missing in your research is what was happening to all comics the constant politics, SJW nonsense. I blame the generation that came up from " you get an award for showing up day" and all those ppl are now in charge, and the world is burning What i'm saying is I'm willing to be objective about comics if everyone puts down there constant outrage hat off
It looks like attention span, fatigue is a real barrier & equates to reader baseline of around 40,000-50,000 on a popular ‘flagship’ book. So rebooting to #1 is only a spike sales drive & nothing else, no higher sales retention. Looking a lot like the 2-year, 24 issue & a trend drop by roughly half is a golden ratio..or should I say half life. Be nice to see a Captain Marvel analysis from the same time period 2012 till now or a Bendis vs Hickman Avengers comparison > keep going Perch, most informative!
Not sure if anyone said it before in the comments, but one of the big draws in the first Jane Foster Thor run was the mystery of who was this new Thor. That's the primary reason why this 8 issue run did so well.
I remember being kinda annoyed because everyone was like... is it Jane? and Iirc they were trying to deny it for weeks and then were like HA SURPRISE! Its Jane!
@@chardrive it was only 8 issues?
@@aquariuskudo Yes, plus an Annual. That's cuz it was launched shortly before Secret Wars came and relaunched every series at that time.
The fact that 35k is the lowest a Thor Title has sold in the last 8 years is an actual feat in today´s market.
At the end of the day, Thor sells and will always sell. Compare Jane Foster Thor to Valkryie and you'll see how drastic of a difference you'll see when you give the mantle of one popular character to another.
...Noting that Jane is now Valkyrie.
@@TheZeroDozer I probably should've mentioned that, thanks
@@brandenwalton2914 Always sell? With all due respect(I do mean that, I am not a troll) but Thor has been canceled and/or kept of the table more than a couple of times for poor sales.
Marvel's publishing strategy is all about the short term. Jim Shooter has said that an average issue of Claremont's X-Men sold 3/4 of a million, those comics read dated today but were written so every issue could be someone's first, meaning there was actually an attempt to build an audience and the numbers prove they were very successful at that. Marvel today don't try to build an audience with their comics, its all about getting as much blood from a stone as possible.
Ongoing means Ongoing recruitment! Give people a reason to join in! Inspire new readers! They grasp desperately to 50,000 readers and assume average 38% decline. SAD.
I dont think it was an average of 3/4 million. I think it was like 500K or something (which is still a lot).
FYI, ASM Vol. 5 #1 launched at 289,102 and dropped to 113,944 for Issue #2. That's about 175K drop, so thats more than 100K. Granted, 113,944 is a good landing place and 289,102 is a very strong launch for any comic, including events.
What I take from this is there's a 'Thor' fanbase and Aaron knew how to appeal to that base consistently, but his stories didn't INCREASE that base.
The only boost the Thor line received during Aaron's time was from the relaunch 1st issue boost and the gimmick boost ala Jane Foster Thor. As much as the figures prove that Jane Foster Thor was a strong sell, I highly suspect that the numbers would have dropped to the same levels of the other runs over a longer period.
Underrated take. The shrinking thor comic club! Thor should look and read like an ICON! Where's the Growth??
Wooow, even with numbers folks STILL got excuses for why it was still bad for sales lol
The trend down for Jane Foster Thor makes more sense when you take into account the trashing of "Real" Thor in an attempt to make the Jane version look better and "Trolling of the Trolls" started showing up on social media. I know that a "NEW FEMALE THOR" and the supposed mystery of who she was would have gained readers and there would have been "Thor exhaustion" later, I still don't believe the story did the character any favours. I hope that Marvel or ANY publisher does take notice of the general trend, that "Events"(must have that capital 'E') do NOT help ongoing series. Especially new ones. The Event increase does not justify the drop, especially when you have writers working at cross purposes and characterisation completely inconsistent between them.
This was really interesting to see. Hope you do some more of these.
This is why I love these videos, smashed a lot of misconceptions I had for this title. Keep up the good work
If it out sold the Fraction run then I would say this was a positive move for Marvel and that JMS rebooting Thor was a good move. I cant believe that Marvel devalued Thor at one time. There is no point in a publisher devaluing a title if it sells.
instaBlaster.
Really enjoying these sales videos! I'm sure they're a hassle to put together, but the effort is very much appreciated.
What I take away from this, is that Thor has a core readership of around 40,000. You can create spikes and troughs with gimmicks and relaunches, but it will always return to that core number, almost regardless of who wields the hammer. Interesting.
The Thorhammer 40k fandom. Still better than the 40 gotham high fans!
Yes, that was my take away.
There are about 40,000 of us
This is one of the best analysis I've watched on youtube. Awesome work. Subbed!
Thank you!
What helped the awful first Jane Foster series was the mystery of finding out the identity of Lady Thor. That was the only reason issue 8 spiked up so much, the long-awaited reveal. Same with the Death of Jane Foster, people wanted to see the bitch die. She didn't and many were disappointed, myself included, as that story arc ended up being a waste of time.
The 8 issue run you are pointing to had several marketing tricks going for it that they knew would prop up the title. The Controversial nature of gender swapping Thor was going to draw attention, the corporate push to Get Woke by Marvel, the prominent inclusion of she-Thor in every Marvel Title as well as the increased consumer awareness of the character brought on by the unprecedented success of the MCU movies all contributed to the sales of those issues. I very much like you analysis of the meta data around the comic sales. It is very interesting to look at the sales from a distance like this.
I remember when Aaron came on and the first arc was really good. I was really impressed with what he was doing. When Jane Foster became Thor I found the first arc to be okay too and didn’t have the “I hate her” or “she’s amazing” feeling I just found it to be okay but knew it was going to be short lived. However because of the strong start I had a good feeling with Aaron and his run this quickly disappeared though because Aaron just turned Odinson. Into an utter joke and bumbling fool.
I get trying to push the NEW characters but I also started to find Jane annoying too if felt very much like Reay in Star Wars. All of a sudden Jane was better than Thor and had a better relationship to the Hammer “because it’s alive now” and it just felt like Aaron was trying way to hard to sell Jane Foster and ultimately made what could of been a really interesting character dull. I have no idea why writers always dump on the OG characters why could we not of had compelling Jane snd Odienson. Ultimately Imo the story turned into a rambling mess that was predictable and ultimately I found it hard to like Jane and OG Thor as they became parody’s of themselves and the writing just became bland and pointless.
Also War of the Realms was one of the worst events I’ve read in years it was just dull.
But that’s just my opinion.
This was an interesting break down as I personally tend to buy trades over weekly mainly due to the lack of comic shops near me so I can see how the events and crossovers effected it but I still think JA just ran out of steam and stayed on Thor way to long.
Yes, agree, do more number crunching
It's interesting to look at the comics this way, because as a fan who bought comics I had a completely different view of it. As I recall Thor was made unworthy, basically beaten, because Nick Fury whispers something to him. A woman took over for Thor, but her identity wasn't revealed. None of Thor's friends seemed to mind. She even joined the Avengers. Meanwhile there were a lot of online knockdown tear apart fights as fans chose sides. To me this was another example of marvel using anger and division as a marketing strategy. But beyond that there was the fact that I didn't like the stories starting point. Nick Fury revealed to be a defender of Earth, never telling anyone else (who really could have helped) about the alien invasions he constantly fought off, able to knock Thor out of action by one whispered phrase... If I don't like reboots I really don't like retcons that don't seem to make any sense in a large context. Also the back and forth online told me that this was a storyline that was only going to be like all the other storylines marvel had been putting out; it would anger me, disappoint me and in the end just get thrown into the longbox and never picked up again after one reading. I didn't have money to spare back then (don't now really) and I knew if I bought it, didn't like it and said so online I'd be attacked. Ultimately there would be no entertainment value in this comic for me, at least not at full price. I decided to wait for a few years and fish it out of the dollar bins at the comic book shows.
That isn't my preferred way to read the comics, since by the time I get to it there's no way I could avoid the spoilers and thus loose a lot of the suspense, but I didn't see any point in buying a comic just to see a character I liked slashed down to a pathetic shell while some stranger replaced him. Also to be honest I felt the the storyline was just more of the SJW down the throat push that marvel was reveling in.
That is my reasoning as a reader and that's why I didn't buy any of the titles.
Looking at those numbers, what I’m seeing is a LOT of short term thinking. They don’t really seem to have much hope that they can consistently increase sales, so they keep going for the short term spike of some sort of relaunch, even as that decreases the long term prospects of the book. And this at a time when the movies should be attracting new readers, but there’s nothing going on in any of Marvels titles to capitalize off fans of the movies checking out the comics they were based on.
My own anecdotal story about the success of that initial Jane Foster Thor arc was I had a friend who kept picking up the book hoping to see how Thor would get his hammer back (and find out if his guess that it was somehow Jane under that helmet was right).
BILLIONS IN THOR MOVIE SALES and during the same period they can barely maintain with relaunch gimmicks.
This is always really interesting! Thank you!
Funny you should mention trade sales, I decided to look up how the trades of Bendis' run on Superman have been doing through Comichron and so far according to what I could find, the highest point of any trade of Bendis run on Superman reached was when Vol.1 Unity Saga managing just below the top 20. If a non canon Superman book managed to outperform the trades of in-continuity stories like that, it's not a good look for Bendis' entire run on Superman in general.
This comic book takes place in multiple world settings that are threatened by the planning of opportunists that are taking advantage of a neglected state of power which a new Thor has to contend with. It explains what everything is and who Thor is. It was worth reading. I liked it.
The first Jane Thor run aside, the other runs have an almost identical trend. It seems to me that for the books that trend this way (a slow drop over time), relaunches are a successful method for getting more sales. Thinking of them as just parts of a longer run (as in one of those last charts), it looks to help the book sell more, even if the relaunches diminish over time (maybe because they're not a true relaunch, like a new writer). These relaunches seem to interrupt the previous trend of the ongoing book (whether that's downwards or upwards) to start again with launch-level sales. And I reckon most books trend downwards, so taking the risk of interrupting a sales trend with a relaunch is gonna work out well more often than not
I would love to see a video like this analyzing the sales of X-Men.
Just love these. I find them super interesting . Thanks for putting in the work.
Great analysis, more like this please.
There is no "misconception" about the Jane Thor as far as its sales.Nor that it was a woman. It had some serious issues writing wise. And they made Odinson a complete idiot and useless without his hammer.
I mean I loved the Jane Foster run but Perch is right you'd be surprised how many people were saying her comics were loosing money for Marvel. Look up any old reviews when it was out, there were whole videos and articles made on how bad it was tanking Marvel
@@AlecArtComics I didn't say that it was horrible. It was just evident that Marvel went out of their way to devalue Odinson. Jane Foster's stories were great.
Totally agree, Jane was written well, Thor was written horrifically
The reason why the first Jane Thor series did so well was because it was a limited-series and everyone wanted to know who the new Thor was. The reveal didn't come until the last issue. Once that marketing spin was gone it did just as any Marvel title. Best I would describe Aaron's run is a failure, saved by the event fluctuation and less so by its story quality.
I also thought it was funny how you said 30 issues is a long run. How times have changed. Visibly for the worse. Loving these videos, keep it up.
It wasn't billed as a limited series, in fact Marvel kept pushing that it was absolutely ongoing because many didn't believe it. But... that Secret Wars interruption came as a slap in the face to that story and I think drove away a lot of customers.
@@ComicsPerch Right! I just figured the mystery was a big part of thrill as it was the talking point behind that series and the sales probably would have slumped after that. It's true, though, maybe the drop wouldn't have been as bad had the Secret Wars not interrupted its flow.
I didn’t care for Jason Aaron’s Thor comics. It felt odd when Thor gave his name to Jane. Felt like character assassination.
@@OomaGooma I didn't mean to call you an odinsimp I was joking about Thor sorry about that
@@uiron5755 - I accept. Glad to see some integrity in the comments section. I never trashed the comic or said that it sucks or whatever. I expressed my opinion respectfully without insults or name calling. I gave the comic a chance until the moment I felt the book was no longer enjoyable for me. So, yeah, I’ll remove my negative comment as well. Good day.
@@OomaGooma thank you for your patience please also have a great day
It was
Huh, shows you different perspectives. I thought it actually enriched the Thor mythos
It's too bad that the comic companies don't look at sales graphs like this to learn lessons from their successes...And failures. It might teach them how to quit doing the same thing over and over and expect a different result. Huge crossovers hurt books!
Secret wars hurt the Thor comic but he also pointed out that things like Original Sin actually bumped up the sale of that issue
@@davidsantos1299 Tiny crossovers probably help books in some ways. But those big line wide crossovers cripple sales. War of the Realms, Secret Wars....Those do way more damage than help. Especially to story flow. It sucks when an author has to stop what they're doing to push some crossover that no one cares about. I mean, I'm liking King in Black, but at least they're keeping the crossovers mainly to the books already involved and one-shots. Killing a title's momentum for a cheap pop isn't smart.
Cool, I'm meh on Thor in general still a great video! Do you plan to do any more team ones? Would love to see New Avengers(Bendis) and how the events impacted things.
Yes, I'll keep going.
Perch, I have a question to you, and I know this will be a little complex of a video to make, but I think would be insteresting, since the "Marvel Now" iniciative started back in 2012, did marvel total revenue got too heavily impacted, or still pretty much the same?
I think I'll build to there.
I would love to see a video showing the impact of Secret Wars in 2015. I think it did a lot of harm ultimately in that new readers might have come in to a series just to have it cancelled after 7-10 issues. They then relaunched several months later with new #1s. My LCS said it all but killed Silk and Ms. Marvel which had started strong, at least in my area.
Endless relaunchs!
Instead of incessant reboots, I don't see why they wouldn't just dedicate a portion of the issue to a B plot. Then as plot needs to make a double issue.
So, two questions. 1) You say THOR was subject the “reader fatigue,” and I believe it - while I was a fan of the Jane Foster “Thunderella” version, even I, toward the end, was like, sheesh, you’ve been dying for 20 issues, will you hurry up and kick it already! - but it’s also true the entire Marvel line suffered during the “All-New, All-Different” era. So, how did the high, low and medians of each THOR title track with the median sales of all Marvel titles? Even if each subsequent THOR title was losing sales, was it gaining or holding rank compared to other titles of the time?
And 2) While I don’t disagree that constant rebooting brings diminished returns, so, too, does normal publishing. In comics for the past 20 years or so, a book that lost less that 2% each month was considered a strong seller. So, are the diminishing returns of rebooting mitigated by the increased sales on each new #1? Might the actual lesson for Marvel be to eschew whole numbering and switch to a volume/issue format, such that reboots are backed into the pie, with every 13th month bringing a new #1, and each 12-issue run is one, continued story?
Cate's Thor is terrific!
I asked for this sales trend review. Thank-you.
I liked Jane Foster Thor, picking it up the last year of the run and, subsequently, the back issues. I think the succuss of this comic as due to good writing and great art. I picked the series up with Unworthy Thor.
I dropped the following run that centered on Odinson because the art by Del Mundo was hidious and made the comic unreadable. It might have been written well but I couldn't piece one panel to the next.
It was, at least in my opinion, the weakest part of Aaron's run. War of the realms was underwhelming, especially when compared to death of mighty thor (which was great). I read it to complete my collection. You didn't miss out on much.
King thor was pretty good tho.
I honestly appreciated what Aaron was tryna do with the Jane Foster run. Unfortunately, regardless of the numbers, people will make excuses for how it still hurt Marvel the most or how the numbers aren't right lol
I'm here for the stats vids! Cant wait for the Hickman avengers!
I love the Aaron and Ribic run of Thor. The Thor and Galactus battle was as epic as the original Thor and Mangog fight by Lee and Kirby. Best Thor story sine Lee/Kirby and Walt Simonson run
I can understand the relaunches to sell more books, but I miss long runs.
Kimetsu no Yaiba (Demon Slayer) manga started in 2016, has over 100 Million in sales.
US sales look like a joke. 🤣
I'd love to see the Dynamite #'s. Especially for the Vampirella titles
coates' black panther and Morrison's JLA would be interesting
Awesome job!
I loved the asgard/shiair empire war story line. Some of his run was hit or miss.
Great video! Just out of curiosity, where do you get these sales figures?
A few sources, primarily Comichron.
I've heard that the spike in sales of a new # 1 partially subsidizes the declining sales of the rest of the run until they have to reboot again. Personally, I do not like reboots, but they do allow you to jump off during or after a crappy run. Case in point, Iron Man: Gillen's run - not my cup of tea - sold entire run; Bendis' run - did not buy (not a Bendis fan); Slott's run - what a cluster- dropped, sold off; Cantwell's run - too early to tell, but not particularly exiting so far.
I adore your videos no matter the topic no matter the subject you bring such a glass of milk and I want to drink it it’s organic milk
Love the deep dive format! But ESPECIALLY when it's a title I'm a long-time fan of! (And I liked the Lady Thor/ Jane Foster arc: it felt organic to the story, IMO.)
I have to question then how the numbers for the latest Thor have dropped so far, especially since stores are selling 6th printings of those first 4 books. You couldn't find the issues anywhere. That's odd wouldn't you say? Or do you have a logical explanation for that? Not trying to be snarky, it really doesn't make any sense to me. Another fantastic video btw!
Because the shops under ordered and missed demand, so they had to do a lot of additional printings.
The Fantastic Four drop was bigger, but that´s because #1 sold like 350k units
And had a ton more variants of memory serves...
Would love a deep dive on FF in the future! I'm curious about what factors may impact comic sales, both internal ("Problematic" creators) and external (Upcoming movie.)
I would be really interested to see what the sales numbers would be if they didn't constantly restart the series and kept the same numbering throughout. Having a new number 1 is supposedly a good jumping on point but it's just as good a jumping off point.
This should, for the most part, dispell any idea suggesting that Aaron's run sold poorly overall. As time went by his run stagnated like any other run, but was consistent for the most part.
The only question that should matter is whether you enjoyed the quality of the story, which for me was lacking and decent at best.
@BW Smith all modern comics have the same drop after the first issue. Stop pushingnyour agenda
@BW Smith So what it proved was that it didn't bring a new audience but it also didn't really lose the old audience. Which means many things, including that there isn't really much danger in changing things up
@BW Smith where is the proof that it reduced the fanbase? This video shows that the sales didn't change much before Jane became Thor and after the second time she was Thor.
@@davidsantos1299 Maybe female Thor sold as well as regular Thor. But if you want an idea how the general fan base feels about Marvel and DC in general, look at comic book shops going out of business during the last few years. During the golden age of super hero movies and series. Comic book publishers had the marketing might of Hollywood backing up their titles... And yet they insisted on degrading those characters or killing them off and replacing them with different versions. Super heroes ARE mainstream pop culture now, and comic book shops are closing
@@pablopumarestaminiau7512 and how can you prove that the reason for that was the replacement of the characters, rather than the increase in prices, the surge of other entertainment like Films TV and Videogames that made people have to choose between spending their money on comic books or all those things, and a million other reasons. I mean DC comics didn't replace anyone in the last few years so how come Marvel changing some things is enough for the whole industry to go down?
The TPB was 3$ in my local dollar store. So yes, DC made a lot of sales. Then the stores made sales to the dollar store. I also find that the cover and title for this "Thor" is close to false advertisement. If I was to pick this book up expecting the cover to be a Valkyrie (not Thor), and a story about Thor, I'd lose trust in the transaction. ex. spiderman becomes spiderwoman, spidergirl, spidergwen, ect. Don't use the same brand name on a different product.
Do you consider variants when you run your numbers? Even if you don't #1s standard covers might have significant sales impact from those 1:25 or something like that promotions for hardcore collectors and speculators. They're pretty frequent but not always with the same discount rates for retailers, and it does influence things.
I guess the #2 to #3 drop would be a more reliable KPI. Also, in fairness, digital sales must count nowadays more than a few years ago (with flat fee subscriptions contributing to the bottom line as well) Nonetheless, even assuming that digital is doubling profits today compared to 2012,, we're talking about an ongoing, decades-stretching miserable potential audience reach for characters with such a strong brand name universal recognition.
Yes, variants are rolled in. Reprints are not (and that's an interesting way to look at the picture). But the #1 drop is one big reason I use the trend, and start it at #2. As for digital, at last count we were still at around 8-10% of print sales and it wasn't growing.
@@ComicsPerch Digital tends more and more towards a Netflix-style kind of business now, I'm not sure that transactional sales for each single issues can give us a complete enough picture. I edited my first comment to include a line about 1:25 variants and retailers discounts.
It makes sense, as I've read here, that all those #1 variants subsidize at least the first story arc, given the sheer volume of copies sold, but it's a sad state of things when you think that both Marvel and DC need an average of 2 variants per issue across their entire output (even Omnibus in Marvel's case) to keep their traditional print model alive. What if for any reason demand for variants collapse on the secondary market, albeit for a short period? It sounds likely that a great deal of those who are currently hoarding variants will move to another hot collectible. It happened before in the 90's after all.
‘Twas a masterpiece
There is any video with Perch explainig insentive programs?
Yo, perch! You knocked it out again with this one. I love this new line of videos looking at comic trends and sales. Jason Arron won me over on his punisher max run. I buy everything he writes. I really loved the Jane foster series but have to admit it drag at some points. This made me realize that it takes an extremely talented writer to pull off a long run while keeping your audience engaged. Willingham, Morrison, Ennis, Milligan, gaiman, Bendis, Miller, mccloud, kirkman, etc. Like the Too Many Hobbies put it in the comments section, I also miss long runs. You a gangsta, Perch.
how is donny cates new thor run selling?
Looks like they cost themselves a lot of sales by cancelling Jane Foster early in that 1st title. Interesting.
Worth considering is that (I think) the Cates run had a ton of 2nd, 3rd, 4th and even 5th prints on those early issues.
@@shadowspider9 that explains a lot. It’s possible that the bottom would have dropped out to normal levels after the reveal.
Perch, now compare Walt Simonson's Thor sales to these 😁
Sometimes, I feel sorry for Jason Aaron, what with him having blown his load in the first arc and never surpassing it in quality.
You're reading it wrong Perch it's time to relaunch every 4 issues $$$$
I absolutely loved secret wars!! So good.
Can you look at the sales for Carol Danvers?
It’s coming.
@@ComicsPerch Thank you!
I really like Jane Foster Thor, and yes, the Secret Wars event really stopped it's momentum. I don't remember buying the relaunched #1
I loved Jason Aaron's Thor run. One of my favourite marvel run.
I think that the first 8-issue Jane Foster run is an extreme outlier in terms of sales, and the reason is, The Mystery. "Who is this new Thor?" Clickbaity, yes, but it was a compelling mystery that people were very interested in. You can't maintain that over the long haul, but for eight issues it was great for keeping sales steady. Once the mystery was revealed, that storyline was over. I highly doubt that if the series had continued untouched, just kept chugging along, that it would have maintained a steady pace over the next 8 issues. I would wager good money that if it had continued from issue 8 to 9, 10, and so on, that by issue 16 it would have dropped to 40K like the next run had. Maybe lower.
Was Lady Thor written by the same team for both arcs? I heard that the first female Thor arc was ok and that the second arc wasn’t that good.
It was. Same creative team.
If you want to graph a huge drop, Marvel Star Wars #1 to #2 Jan to Feb 2015.
was that first jane foster run the one that had a men are wife beaters or something so us women have to stick together nonsense? i distinctly remember reading a trade and getting to a part they made a point of inserting a man bad women good section and i just put the book back on the shelf
That was the first run, and it was Titania and Absorbing Man you’re thinking of.
@@ComicsPerch oh lordy its coming back to me
What did Nick Fury whisper to Thor anyway? Did they ever reveal it?
Yes, it was that he wasn’t worthy.
@@ComicsPerch .... That's it? Nick Fury says "you suck" and Thor rolls up into a ball? Goddamn, these Marvel writers are the worst
Need better audio
While one volume too long, Jason Aaron's Thor run is the very best run in the history of Thor. And I say this as a guy who never thought anyone could top Walt Simonson.
I think it's good, but I think the end of Dan Jurgens Thor run is amazing and often overlooked.
It's hard for me to trust the criticisms of this run because they all just seem to hate it because it was Jane Foster as Thor. Personally I enjoyed the run and liked what Aaron was doing with the lore. He really amped things up in my opinion. I will admit that the art was also a major part of my enjoyment. I might have looked past some of its flaws because of how good the book looked. My only disappointment in the run was how little attention he was paying to the original Thor at first. I was genuinely excited and intrigued about what Thor could do without the hammer. I thought he was gonna realize his true power and potential and become a badass without his hammer. Which is part of the reason I didn't really mind Jane taking it. Unfortunately, things didn't exactly work out that way, not in this run anyway.
Why do people consider Jane Foster a success? 38 issues between both of her series? That's beyond pathetic.
How did the "Trades are selling WAY MORE" cover story get started? Going through a lot of older content and there always seemed to be two "rebuttals" floated when sales came up for "controversial" titles and reboots 1) The digital sales are amazing 2) Trades are selling like gangbusters! More than those lowly floppies ya Incel!
It seems both of these were completely untrue, so how did that get started in the first place? I would genuinely like your insight on this. Was it the publishers themselves or over zealos fans trying to stick up for stories they enjoyed? How did this misinformation become so ingrained that I still hear it today? I've seen articles(never citing sources) that still make similar claims while poking at longterm readers who are framed as ignorant of how "truly popular" some runs were.
I feel like you buried the lead, Marvel replaced a character and the replacement character sold as much or even better than the original.
Didn't those comics sell poorly?
Well, not like this was the first time someone else was Thor in place of Thor. All in all, I kinda enjoyed this read.
Mike del mundos art was terrible on Thor
Thor God of thunder was a good series. I didn't like the stuff right after so I stopped
i just hate aaron and fem thor, drop most of marvel after taht had alredy drop spider man tnx to one more day. i just cant whit american comics so for me its manga and comic from franse, oo and yes i dropt cap america after he is a natzi.
This vid. opened up a lot for me. The Female-Thor run ( i'm sure a lot of white knighter n virtue signalers wearing their red capes see me as a villian now, lol) anyway, FEMALE Thor. I was away from comics after the ASM clone war saga., variant cover over kill and everyone being a version of wolverine, needless to say, i was done with comics
I somehow decided to come back to comics around 2014. It was like i was new to comics all over again. I picked up FEMALE thor #1 going. Ok. This looks good. As the run continues i started noticing all the stupid strong wahmen, cucking all male characters. Remember the scene where Titania knocked out her boyfriend The Absorbing Man. to then get arrested just to make Female Thor look good? I cringed at that. Running parallel is Iron Heart, Natzi Cap., Cap. Marvel being an A-hole nazi but being treated like the second coming. I left ASM clone saga and return to a bigger pile of shite
What is missing in your research is what was happening to all comics the constant politics, SJW nonsense. I blame the generation that came up from " you get an award for showing up day" and all those ppl are now in charge, and the world is burning
What i'm saying is I'm willing to be objective about comics if everyone puts down there constant outrage hat off
It looks like attention span, fatigue is a real barrier & equates to reader baseline of around 40,000-50,000 on a popular ‘flagship’ book. So rebooting to #1 is only a spike sales drive & nothing else, no higher sales retention. Looking a lot like the 2-year, 24 issue & a trend drop by roughly half is a golden ratio..or should I say half life.
Be nice to see a Captain Marvel analysis from the same time period 2012 till now or a Bendis vs Hickman Avengers comparison > keep going Perch, most informative!