DC Relaunch Week Four – By the Numbers

The finish line behind, us the final week of the DC Relaunch concluded, soon we’ll be left wondering what it is that we’re supposed to be talking and writing about from now on. But not quiet yet. The last spate of #1 issues from DC Comics came out, and we’re back to check out the highs and lows according to you, the iFanboy community.

Aquaman #1

Highest Average Rating (out of a possible 5):

1. Aquaman #1 / All-Star Western #1 –  4.5
2. The Flash #1 – 4.3
3. Justice League Dark #1 – 3.8

Highest Pulls:

1. The Flash #1 – 1341 Pulls
2. Aquaman #1 – 1317 Pulls
3. Justice League Dark #1 – 1258 Pulls

Highest Pick of the Week Percentage:

1. Aquaman #1 – 57.7%
2. All-Star Western #1 – 19.7%
3. The Flash #1 – 8.0%

Most User Reviews:

1. Aquaman #1 – 22 User Reviews
2. The Flash #1 / All-Star Western #1 / Justice League #1 / Justice League Dark #1 / Superman #1 – 12 User Reviews
3. Batman: The Dark Knight #1 / Green Lantern: New Guardians #1 / Voodoo #1  – 9 User Reviews

Most Comments:

1. Aquaman #1 – 93 Comments
2. Justice League Dark #1 – 87 Comments
3. Superman #1 – 74 Comments

Lowest Pulled Relaunch Books:

1. The Savage Hawkman #1 – 576 Pulls
2. Voodoo #1 – 613 Pulls
3. The Fury of Firestorm the Nuclear Man #1 – 614 Pulls

Batman: The Dark Knight #1

Lowest Average Rating (out of a posible 5):

1. Batman: The Dark Knight #1 – 2.7
2. The Fury of Firestorm the Nuclear Man #1 – 2.9
3. The Blackhawks #1 / The Savage Hawkman #1 – 3.0

Least Comments:

1. Blackhawks #1 – 20 comments
2. The Fury of Firestorm the Nuclear Man #1 – 22 comments
3. Batman: The Dark Knight #1 – 24 comments

Top Pulled Non-DC Books:

1. Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #2 – 881 pulls
2. Captain America and Bucky #622 – 631 pulls
3. Ultimate Comics The Ultimates #2 – 566 pulls

Highest Pick of the Week Percentage – Non-DC* Books:

1. Ultimate Spider-Man #2 – 5.4%
2. Captain America and Bucky #622 – 1.2%
3. American Vampire #19 / Abe Sapien: The Devil Does Not Jest #1 – 0.6%

*non DC Relaunch

In this last week, it would be fair to say that overall quality was not quite as strong, but average-wise, your ratings are pretty similar to prior weeks. There are no highs higher than 4.5 out of 5 however, but still nothing rated below an average of 2.7. It would be fair to say that you are a kind comic book community in regards to some of the books. The top pulls were off the pace of prior weeks by several hundred, possibly indicated decreased interest, or maybe you’re just running out of money. The books at the lowest end of the pulls still did fairly well, all in the top tier of pulls across all books this week, with 576 the lowest pulls on a Relaunch book this week. The numbers below will clear that up. The real questions are going to get answered in the coming months when we see how much of this momentum DC can retain. Will cuts be made? Almost assuredly.

Here are some other numbers to take a look at. Keep in mind they’ll change and shift slightly over time. The cumulative numbers for prior weeks were gathered the Monday following the original Wednesday release.

Week One Average Ratings for Top 5 books – 4.14
Week Two Average Ratings for Top 5 books – 4.10
Week Three Average Ratings for Top 5 books – 4.06
Week Four Average Ratings for Top 5 books – 4.14

Week One Average Ratings for Bottom 5 books – 2.96
Week Two Average Ratings for Bottom 5 books – 3.06
Week Three Average Ratings for Bottom 5 books – 3.1
Week Four Average Ratings for Bottom 5 books – 2.94

Week One Average Ratings for all books – 3.56
Week Two Average Ratings for all books – 3.35
Week Three Average Ratings for all books – 3.56
Week Four Average Ratings for all books – 3.52

Week One Total Books Pulled – 11,842 (not including Justice League #1)
Week Two Total Books Pulled – 11,430
Week Three Total Books Pulled – 10,554* (*only 12 books released)
Week Four Total Books Pulled – 11,588

Overall, week 4 beat week 2 and 3, only a little behind week 1 in total pulls. I didn’t expect that. Also the overall average was nearly the same as weeks 1 and 3. By these numbers, week 2 was the weakest in almost all relevant categories. This week, the overall average was highest, just behind week 1, and the top 5 books averaged equaled those of week 1. The average of the bottom 5 rated books was the lowest yet.

Next week, we’ll have a wrap up of the month in general. Thanks for playing along! Keep up those pulls and ratings for all your other books though! People are watching.

By the way, the comments for these articles went from 34 to 16 to 12.

Comments

  1. i actually think weeks 2-4 will be interesting for all of these titles. hope you keep it up a little longer

    also, heres a comment to get THESE numbers back up for ya!

  2. So you’re only expecting 8 comments in this article judging from the drop in percentages?

    No seriously nice work as always with this josh.

    Even with Hawkman, Voodoo, and Firestorm getting the lowest pulls they are still pretty damn high for a ‘normal’ week. I’m sure everything is going to get less pulls this month.

  3. I was least impressed with this last week for some reason I can’t put my finger on. Other than All-Star Western, I wasn’t in love with anything that came out, except maybe Aquaman.

  4. Wha? – I had no clue Aquaman was the audience’s pick last week. I never woulda thought. I mean, I read it… it just wasn’t something I ever thought the majority would choose as the pick. Kinda blown away by how outta touch I am right now.

  5. Now comes the real interesting part, the month-to-month comparisons.

  6. I’m amazed by the pull numbers. I can’t wait to see if they stay high.

    Poor Hawkman. Saddled with that creative team.

  7. How will October look compared to september. that is the question i am looking forward to.

    and that is a ton of work you guys put into these articles. Great job! yet another reason i love this site (and you guys perhaps…maybe…we’ll see?)

  8. Week 3 has been bugging me, since it had one less books, it throws off the total numbers, so I did some quick averaging

    Average # pulls/week (rounded to the nearest whole pull):
    Week 1: 911
    Week 2: 879
    Week 3: 880
    Week 4: 891
    Overall: 890

  9. Curious to see which titles have the biggest drop in pulls from issues 1 to 2.

  10. I can’t even remember what I read this month.

    • I hear that. I had to go back and double check what books i’ve got on my order for this month. Way to many books last month. Way to many.

  11. Higher numbers for week 4 may indicate new users, such as myself. This is my first month buying comics each week.

    I get that the New 52 is a sales promotion mainly, but the hype got me. I usually read trades, but I’m starting to see comics more as a shared experience because of this month.

    The books I got were really good.

  12. you guys should do another dc relaunch video show…..

  13. poor Hawkman, will he ever be important in the DCU. I’m guessing no.

  14. I dropped B: TDK pre-emptively, after getting the pre-boot five-issue arc.

  15. Thanks for putting this together every week. I like knowing these statistics even though I can’t do anything with them. It helps keep the comments real, in that I read comments about the books on other sites, but it’s just one person’s opinion, and I don’t know where they are getting their stats from. This helps temper the hype and the criticism with some cold, hard facts.

  16. If Hawkman was to say, land on the missing Earth-2, or team up with Adam Strange to find Earths Fawcett and Quality, I could be interested.

    Maybe he could hunt for the Disappeared Ones?

  17. i would say despite aquaman which is in my top 5 of the relaunch (may be biased, he is my fave DC character BY FAR) this was a weeak (see what i did there, huh huh). I was selective in what i pulled and am in for at least the first 3 issues of everything i bought

  18. I actually bought the most from this week.

  19. Josh, are you going to do a combined “By the numbers” for Month One?

    Just curious…

  20. It’s super interesting to view the relaunch from the POV of folks who are buying every single one. I only bought 6 DCnU books last week, with only two stinkers and four of my absolute favorites from the relaunch. So while most are in consensus that this was the weakest week, for me it was easily the strongest.

    Yet another reason that these articles (and the podcast) are so fascinating.