The Sep sales charts are out, and we can make some very interesting observations: (Under the jump, though)

Normally, we have no idea how many comics are printed. Like none at all. That's because all that the Diamond sales charts report is what is ordered by retailers, but that could be every copy printed, or it could be 1/10th of what is printed. No way to know.

BUT, for Villain's Month, DC sold out 100% of the 3-d covers, and, in fact, ALLOCATED each and every one, so there were NO reorders. Therefore, it is logical to say that the number that appears on the chart is the number printed (with the sole caveat that this doesn't include Diamond UK)

So, how much faith did DC have in their own promotion?

Well, the previous "normal" issue of BATMAN (#23), ICv2 reports 128,230 copies ordered for the four "Batman" issues of VM? ICv2 reports:

Joker: 107,680

Riddler: 107,413

Bane: 95,298

Penguin: 89,850

So, therefore, DC expected to sell no more than 85% of Batman on JOKER, and 70% on Penguin.... despite giving it the same series code (the mechanism that triggers Point-Of-Sale system to pull subscription preorders) -- and that's WITH the 3d covers!

JUSTICE LEAGUE #23: 104k (I'm going to round from here on, look to those links in previous paragraph for "real" numbers)

Darkseid: 78k

Secret Society: 44k

Lobo: 36k

Dial E: 26k

Those last two are insane, as the 2D VERSION HAS HIGHER ORDERS FILLED -- 39k on Lobo, and 34k on Dial E. DIAL H #15 (the August issue) was 11k.

BATMAN SUPERMAN #3 87k

Doomsday: 68k

ACTION COMICS #23: 43k

Cyborg Superman: 50k

Zod: 50k

Lex Luthor: 50k

Metallo: 43k

Note that those are in chart order -- while it is by within hundreds of copies, Diamond is reporting more sales of Cyborg Superman than Lex frickin Luthor. Bizarre!

BATMAN AND (Nightwing) #23: 56k

Two Face: 50k

Ras al Ghul: 50k

Court of Owls: 50k

Killer Croc: 48k

JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #7: 94k

Black Adam: 50k

Deadshot: 32k (Suicide Squad #23 was 22k)

Killer Frost: 32k

Shadow Thief: 32k

DETECTIVE #23: 62k

Poison Ivy: 50k

Harley Quinn: 49k

Scarecrow: 49k

Man-Bat: 47k

GREEN LANTERN #23: 59k

Sinestro: 49k

Relic: 37k

Mongul: 36k

Black Hand: 36k

SUPERMAN #23: 42k

Parasite: 44k

Brainiac: 37k

Bizarro: 36k

HEL: 36k

AQUAMAN #23: 44k

Black Manta: 37k

Ocean Master: 36k

EARTH 2 #15: 41k

Desaad: 32k

Solomon Grundy: 32k

FLASH #23: 39k

Grodd: 32k

Rogues: 31k

Reverse Flash: 31k

BATMAN THE DARK KNIGHT #23: 46k

Ventriloquist: 32k

Mr. Freeze: 31k

Clayface: 31k

Joker's Daughter: 30k

TEEN TITANS #23: 32k

Trigon: 32k

Deathstroke: 31k

WONDER WOMAN #23: 35k

Cheetah: 32k

First Born: 27k

GREEN ARROW #23: 25k

Count Vertigo: 27k

JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK #23: 64k ("Trinty" crossover, #21 was just 25k)

Creeper: 27k

Eclipso: 27k

SWAMP THING #23: 23k

Arcane: 26k

So, do you see? WHY were these books being pounced on by the speculators? Because, in most cases, DC PRINTED FEWER COPIES than the baseline orders that THEY established. And, where they DID go up (mostly at the bottom of the chart), it was generally within just 10%.

Some of these are truly crazy -- WW FIRST BORN, for example, may as well be a normal, regular issue of WW, from a plot POV, and it's about 20% UNDER the parent book. Same with REVERSE FLASH. And RELIC and HEL might as well be the first chapters of family-wide crossovers... and they're printed well below the parents.

So that's why these books disappeared so fast -- DC absolutely printed far too few of them; even if they were normal covers!

-B