It has been reported that for the first time in 15 months no single comic book gathered more than
100,000 copies in orders in the direct sales market. Make that 93,459, to put a
point on it.

Conventional wisdom has it that sales have dropped because the average cover price has gone up, and who am I to question conventional wisdom? But there’s another reason. A big one.

Historically, whenever one of the major publishers (which means Marvel and DC; I’m talking superhero comics here) felt they were being challenged by one or more upstart publishers, that company would flood the market with crap, usually reprints or revivals of frequently cancelled titles. The other publisher would rapidly follow. Before the direct sales tail started wagging the dog, it was believed there was only so much space in the newsstands
and DC and Marvel could crowd the others out. That, of course, was nonsense: if the newsstands cared about comic books (how much profit is there in a 40 cent item?) nobody would have to crowd anybody out.

This philosophy extended to the direct sales market. When companies such as First, Eclipse and Malibu were making waves and racking up competitive sales, DC and Marvel started dumping product into the pipeline. How many times could you revive Kull The Conqueror? But retailers had to order at least a few copies because it was a Marvel Comic, and cumulatively all that sucked a lot of bucks out of retailers’ tills. Remember, they buy this stuff non-returnable.

But now comic book stores have dwindled down to a precious few and the big bookstore chains such as Barnes and Noble and Borders are coughing up blood, sales truly suck.

Which makes it real curious to see that Marvel is once again flooding the comics rack. Having finally lost the Kull license, the House of Idea has gone the Oreo Cookies route: they’re jerking their “going to the movies” properties as though they were crack fiends at a milk farm.

For example: the September Marvel Previews (books on sale November) lists no less than six Iron Man titles, eight Thor titles, and 13 Avengers books. There’s also two event series: Shadowland, which winds up with a mere four titles, and Chaos War, which boasts five.

I didn’t even mention the massive – and expanding – X-Men group. That’s old news.

27 issues featuring Thor, Iron Man, and/or The Avengers.
Boy, you’d think there was a Thor movie coming out that, oh I don’t know, tied in to the Iron Man movies, to be followed by the big The Avengers
movie.

So, why the flood? Is Marvel worried about competition from Boom, Dynamite, and IDW? I don’t think so. They started producing material
for this latest dump just about the time the Disney takeover was ratified. They are trying to impress the Mouse.

Disney doesn’t care about their comic book profits, and nor does Warner Bros. Marvel and DC, respectively, are there as R&D, fodder for movies, television and animation – and their concomitant merchandising revenues. All Marvel and DC have to do on the publishing front is show a decent
return on investment and their new masters will be content.

It’s hard for me to think of a way Marvel could better promote comic book bootlegging.

Atlas Comics, the 1970s upstart designed to rival Marvel Comics, is being revived in time for New York Comic-Con next month. In a Deadline Hollywood exclusive, Jason Goodman, grandson of Marvel founder Martin Goodman, revealed that the line is poised to be revived beginning with Phoenix and Grim Ghost.

Handling the creative will be Ardden Entertainment’s Brendan Deenan, working with J.M. DeMatteis as editor-in-chief. Together, the pair previously produced a well-received adaptation of Flash Gordon and Casper the Friendly Ghost. No creative assignments were announced in the story but will be unveiled at the convention where both Atlas and Ardden will have table space.

“Although my grandfather eventually sold Marvel, he insisted on keeping Atlas Comics in the family,” Jason Goodman told Deadline. “As a result of his vision, Atlas Comics is the largest individually-held library of comic book heroes and villains on the planet. We have 28 titles and hundreds of characters imagined by some of the greatest minds in the industry.”

In 1972, Goodman sold Marvel Comics and by June 1974 decided he wanted to keep his hand in and created Atlas, a name once used by the company. His son, Chip, was its publisher, a role Martin intended Chip to have at Marvel, but one denied him by the new owners. It was always speculated Martin founded Atlas to beat Marvel in revenge.

Martin Goodman hired former Warren editor Jeff Rovin and Larry Leiber, a relative and brother to Stan Lee, to run the color comics and black and white magazines respectively. Both men always felt they were given the wrong jobs.

The line aggressively launched after luring many of the biggest names working in comics to produce covers or stories. Atlas paid top rates and offered creator participation, making them a more attractive outlet than either DC Comics or Marvel.

However, no sooner did titles launch than they were ordered retooled to more closely resemble Marvels’ heroic universe. An example was Howard Chaykin’s pulp-inspired The Scorpion, but after two issues he quit when orders to update it came down. He took his unfinished work to Marvel, reworking it into Dominic Fortune.

The line lasted long enough to publish approximately 60 color comics and nine black and white magazines.