Marvel Vs. DC Wars Have Begun; 2012 Should Be Fun

[[wysiwyg_imageupload:641:]]Oh, boy. Let’s sit back and enjoy the show!

Over at Newsarama, the DC Comics bigwigs have been talking and promoting their product line, with of course, a few jabs directed at Marvel. Last month saw DC Comics take the top 10 spots, with Aquaman even coming out on top over the likes of Uncanny X-Men. Actually, ever since the New 52 hit in September, DC has been doing, arguably, considerably well. They managed to take down the top dog, Marvel, more than a few times. I’m not getting into exact numbers, but from my own purchasing stand point, the pendulum has swung the other way — and now DC makes up a majority of my purchases. The short of it: If you would have asked if Aquaman would have been one of my favorite books to read a year ago, I would have laughed my arse off. And that for me is where the New 52 has been such a success: It got me to try a bunch of books I wouldn’t even think to pick up.

Now, Marvel has taken notice.

It started with Marvel Publisher Dan Buckley providing some “smoothing over” via the AP. USA Today even managed to cover it, I believe, and used an image of the new Justice League(?!) with the article. Today, Mr. Buckley uses CBR as his podium to calm the share holders, err.. masses. I kid. I kid. Anyway, Buckley fires off a few back at DC, and offers up one of the reasons for the success of the New 52 is based off the “returnability” of DC’s products. He even goes to say that in January, DC probably would have only scored three or four of the top spots, with six or seven overall in the top 10 because of the return factor. Of course, Buckley didn’t touch upon the fact that Marvel sent retailers free issues of various comics — which made their way to the top ten in previous months because of that — as Diamond counts those as part of the total overall sales for the month (which is ridiculous). In fairness, DC does it, too, but not to that extent. The website Bleeding Cool points this out all the time, and argues that in theory a publisher could ship a gazillion free comics to retailers to win that “coveted” #1 spot.

So we are only in the second month of the New Year, and Marvel has already brought out their big gun with Publisher Dan Buckley addressing the comic nation. I’m sure John Rood and Bob Wayne, of DC Comics, will have their fair share to say on these subjects and more in their next installment as well. What they all seem to agree on is that by providing readers great art and great stories each will succeed. And they both seem to state that the “numbers” don’t matter, but then they throw a right hook followed by a left upper cut at one another. Regardless, it’s going to provide for a fun year as we see which of the Big Two comes out on top and how they go about doing just that. The end result will be bitter sweet, for at least one of them.

I just hope we the readers are the actual ones to be left standing when all is said and done.