In the North American market, only four Martian Manhunter trade paperback collections have ever been published. I was excited by the announcement of that last one, Son of Mars, especially since DC also made plans for a follow-up, Rings of Saturn. I'm not a huge fan of the Ostrander/Mandrake ongoing series, but it was nice to see the character's sole eponymous non-mini made available to new audiences on better paper stock.
I'm not sure if that will continue, as Son of Mars only ranked #113 on its month of release in the category of February-shipping Graphic Novels. For perspective, the top seller of the month was the final collection of IDW's popular Locke & Key series, moving 4,532 units. The 20th most popular tpb was the most recent collection of the cult favorite Prophet relaunch, at 2,244 units. The 50th bestseller was a collection of Superior Spider-Man Team-Up issues, with 1,519 pre-sold at the distributor. Ranking #112 was the latest edition of V for Vendetta, which has stayed in print continuously since 1989. For those who've missed out on the Moore/Lloyd book for the past quarter century, including the nine years since it was adapted into a movie, DC's most recent replenishing print run outsold Son of Mars by a few copies.
The Ravagers, an unpopular New 52 title DC canceled after 13 issues, saw its back half collected and pre-sold exactly 7 copies less than J'Onn J'Onzz's tpb. At least Ravagers is a current series, but it's hard to get excited about beating a Titans West type spin-off starring a member of Gen13, Beast Boy, and somehow even lesser characters. Not a high water mark for the Alien Atlas' standing amongst DC properties.
6 comments:
Ouch...I'm not a huge fan of the Ostrander series, either, but this seems kind of sad. Personally I'll probably pick up a copy because I'd rather have a trade than individual issues, so maybe sales will pick up once the word gets out.
On the upside, this trade is getting good reviews on Goodreads, which I was surprised to see. The really ironic thing is that the publisher's description on Goodreads refers to J'onn as "one of the key heroes in The New 52." I'm not really sure how they come to that conclusion...
That is sad...
They have never really used the character well in the past 10 to 15 years though...
He has been straight-up garbage in The Nu52. I had high hopes for Justice League Canada... but it was a very disappointing read.
JLU/Canada was disappointing, King? That's too bad...the IGN review made it seem like the second coming of JLI, so I was guardedly hopeful.
Nuts! I was hopeful about JLU, too. I've found New 52 Manhunter interesting, and I like the costume, but he hasn't amounted to much.
The numbers on "Son of Mars" aren't sooo bad, comparable to the later collections of New 52 Firestorm material, but half as popular as the 2011 collection of the first Firestorm series. Hard to believe it's worthwhile to print less than a thousand copies of a tpb, though.
@ Liss- Yeah, back when it was called Canada they did make it sound like that. That's why I was so pumped for it. I should have been suspicious with the name change- but I gave it a shot. Just the one issue is out, but I liked NOTHING about it. There's no point in trying it any further. -For me anyways. The true 2nd coming of the JLI is Justice League 3000! -I'm loving that title!!!
@Frank -See I hate the forced inclusion of the Wildstorm characters... and I hated Manhunter paired with Stormwatch. I hate most of the Nu52 continuity... Futures End is really good though! ...even if they are trying to shove Grifter down our throats again.
Ahhh, it was too good to be true. I should've known. But I'll take a look at Justice League 3000. I'm so out of the loop, I hadn't even heard of it.
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