The April solicitations for DC Comics have announced the cancellation of Manhunter and Firestorm at issues #30 and #35 respectively. This, naturally, has gotten people talking.
Point:
Iain Jackson is unsurprised by the cancellation of Manhunter.
And, to nobody’s surprise, Manhunter bows out in April, this time likely for good. Seriously, the chances that another four-five issues, all tied into Crisis Crisis Redux, would pull in new readers under these conditions was just about nil. If they’d really wanted new readers, DC would have rushed trades into print; instead, they forced people to try to find older issues to see what all the fuss was about. If most retailers were like Chicago Comics, they just plain didn’t have a lot of back issues, never mind continuous runs. I mostly liked what I’ve seen in the two trades (although volume 2′s link to the OMAC Project was seriously annoying), but there was just no way to keep up easily.
Counterpoint:
Loren Javier, on the other hand, refuses to accept the end of Manhunter.
Excerpt:
I can’t believe that DC would give Manhunter a chance to survive cancellation and find an audience, only to cancel it again with only one issue for which we know the sales for. According to ICv2, sales for Manhunter #26 is an estimated 23,767 and ranks #96. Is that Batman, Justice League of America or X-Men numbers? No. BUT, it’s very close to sales of She-Hulk at Marvel which, I understand, is respectable. It’s about 4,000 units away from Birds of Prey. And, it ranked higher than Catwoman.
What do you think?
January 19th, 2007 at 7:36 pm
I think Iain is right. I might’ve picked up some TPBs if they’d existed. Didn’t want to read the first TPB, then have to skip to issue #20, or wherever they were by the time that first TPB dropped. For a book that DC was supposeldy supporting, I sure didn’t see much support!
January 19th, 2007 at 11:59 pm
I think I’m right!
January 20th, 2007 at 12:51 am
I just bought the second Manhunter trade a few days ago, which I thought was fantastic, certainly superior to the first volume.
I thought it was kinda funny that the last caption of the final page said, “Not the end”, when the cancellation was announced just a few days prior.
January 20th, 2007 at 2:31 am
Bang the drum loudly. Maybe they’lllisten again.
January 20th, 2007 at 8:02 am
Assuming MANHUNTER really is cancelled, I guess DC are betting the same creative staff working on books about characters actually care about will sell considerably better.
In other words, MANHUNTER not be a sales disaster, but has too a big “opportunity cost”.
January 20th, 2007 at 8:44 am
That would be a nice thought, Juisarian, wouldn’t it?
My husband doesn’t have another regular gig yet, so that’s another theory shot to hell.
January 20th, 2007 at 1:08 pm
A shame really. I guess they figured it just doesn’t have the potential for growth. Interesting considering the character is in BoP right now and sells better than Catwoman. I’m sure they have a good reason but as someone who just added it to my pull list I gotta say I’m disappointed.
January 20th, 2007 at 4:08 pm
The trade schedule at DC is so unpredictable. On the one hand, you’ve got the second trade of Testament, collecting up #11, hitting stands this week at the same time as the series hit #14. On the other hand, Manhunter gets cancelled while only the first two volumes are available, collecting up to #14, while #27 is on the stands.
January 20th, 2007 at 4:30 pm
The reason Testament is alread out in trade is because thats what sells. Vertigo has always sold better in trade, so they release their trades faster. DCU books are more unpredictable to gurantee trades because no one knows if the series will do well enough to warrant them.
January 21st, 2007 at 2:33 am
My guess is that the reason that Manhunter is showing up in BoP is that DC is looking to move some readers over. Neither title has really great reader numbers, so if they can get one title with a third again the readership that either one now enjoys I think DC will count it a win as far as keeping a strong, ongoing title. I would almost be willing to bet money the last words in the final Manhunter are something along the lines of “continue to follow Kate’s adventures in BoP next month!”
January 21st, 2007 at 6:53 am
Just had a thought. A one-arc continuation is a questionable proposition in the first place–it just seems there’s no way DC could have enough sales information to tell if it helped (beyond a one-issue bump) before having to decide whether to put the creators to work on more issues. So maybe the plan was just to see how this goes, and then have a nicely publicized relaunch if the sales merit it.
January 22nd, 2007 at 10:57 am
It makes you wonder what happened to all of the fans supposedly buying two issues of the Manhunter revival to make sure that it wasn’t canceled. I love Manhunter, and I’m sad that it’s going away, but DC did more than I would have expected already. They marketed that the new arc would be accessible to new readers, so the trades weren’t so much the issue; if everyone had given Manhunter a shot when the new issue came out, it might still be around. Sales almost always slack off after an initial issue, so DC made a sound decision to cancel it with its low numbers.
I’ll really miss it, though, and I hope all of the creators on the book (as well as the characters) can continue elsewhere in DC.
January 22nd, 2007 at 11:00 am
Oh yeah, I’m sad about Firestorm going as well. That was a good book, and I don’t know why it wasn’t more popular.