Marvel Biotch Slaps DC

Marvel Offers Siege #3 Deadpool Variant for 50 DC Comics

In a bold move, Marvel just announced they will swap one free Siege #3 Deadpool Variant comic for 50 stripped DC covers. (Comes to about $200 retail bucks).  But only for the DC Comics involved in the Green Lantern Rings promotion.

Black Lantern Ring

What’s the deal? According to Diamond Comic Distributors (monopoly), towards the end of ‘09, for the first time in more than like a bajillion years, DC snagged the top six spots for monthly sales!  Five of those six were Blackest Night related. To compliment sales and as a value-add, DC threw out a plethora of multi-colored Blackest Night rings, each one being released with a tie-in book, representing one of the corps at war in the series.

The rings stirred up quite a buzz and sales took off.  They were give-aways for the first week each comic came out, then they sold for about $2 bucks there after and about $13 for the full set. Retailers were able to order the highly sought after Rings, based on hitting incentive purchase levels of the Blackest Night tie-in titles; such as Adventure Comics #4, Booster Gold #26, Doom Patrol #4. Without a doubt, these promotions help bump interest and readership, which translates into sales.

Wholesale orders of the Blackest Night tie-ins skyrocketed, hitting 5x normal sales for the top selling covers.  … Then along comes Marvel, with their Siege #3 Deadpool variant swap, betting that not all those tie-ins will sell and most will sit on the shelf.  Here are the titles, and their respective increase in orders, for which Marvel is swapping the #3 variant for;

40,714  Adventure Comics #4
35,525  Booster Gold #26
33,712  Doom Patrol #4
28,364  Justice League of America #39
29,505  Outsiders #24
39,816  R.E.B.E.L.S #10

That’s  over 200,000 comics.  It’ll be interesting to see what the retailer response is.  Currently, perception is mixed over Marvel’s throw down.  See, retailers have to rip the covers off 50 comics, just to get one variant.  Yeah, worst case scenario is that those 50 will never sell, that’s about $75 sunk cost that could go towards the $1 or even 50 cents box.

Superherostuff spoke to George Demonakos, co-owner for The Comic Stop, with three shops in the Seattle area.

SHS: George, how’d the tie-ins do for you? They boat anchors? Got any sitting on the shelf?

George: We sold through the majority, if not all, of our Blackest Night tie-ins. They did VERY WELL for us.

SHS: Sweet. What’s your take on Marvel’s variant offer? Would you call it rude?

George: … I don’t know what to make of it, they’re obviously going after DC.. but I don’t know. … see, they both do crossovers, it’s not like Blackest Night did anything unique… so, I don’t know what to make of it.

SHS: What do you think the response will be for this Deadpool comic?

George: I don’t think they’ll get a big response, 50 is A LOT of comics to rip up, and the only benefit is getting that one variant.  There might be some dead stock, but… see the retailers had to buy more stock to get the rings from DC.  You had to order in groups of 25 and 50, but DC was really nice about it, forcing us to only buy 25 Doom Patrol and not 50, 25’s not a big stretch, so getting the rings wasn’t a financial burden.  With JLA the cut off was 50 and 100, but they’re a bigger seller.   So I don’t think there will be a lot of dead stock on the shelf, DC made it as friendly as possible.  And, for trading in 50… you don’t know if you’re going to get stuck with a dead book or not once you make the swap.

SHS: So you won’t be participating in the Deadpool variant swap.  Why not.

George: I don’t have 50 comics to send them, no, we won’t be participating.

SHS: Do you want to? Do you wish you did have 50 Dazzler or Madame Xanadu’s to send them?

George: No. I’d rather have the sales now rather than have 50 dead comics sitting there.

SHS: Can I have that Powergirl statue for free?

George: No.

SHS: What about that Lady Death life size statue

George: No.

SHS: … the Lara Cro…

George: No.

SHS: Thanks George

George: Any time.

All for one comic.  The way we see it, is that it just comes down to dollars and cents. Blackest Night sold lights out.  The tie-ins did very well.  And 50 comics IS A LOT to rip up.  And the variant is an unknown.  If it is just dollars and cents, then a retailer would be an idiot to get rid of 50 comics, that are currently not boat anchors, to grab one variant and turn around and sell it at cover price.  To recoup the sunk cost, a comic store would have to mark it up to $60 - $75, and that’s just to break even.

And maybe Marvel’s move just isn’t as classy or suave as they would like to think.  Word on the street, over at Newsarama, is that people see Marvel’s move as anything but classy and simply another contrived ploy to bring back the old DC/Marvel feud.

But DC aint bitin’.

Blackest Night Rings