Comments on: Marvel vs. DC, solo books vs. team books

By: J. Caleb Mozzocco

J. Caleb Mozzocco — Fri, 15 May 2009 15:49:28 +0000

I think you missed Marvel’s Nova series.

I think you’re right. I went back and added it in.

Azrael and Commissioner Gordon count as solo characters, I would have thought?

Well, it’s all completely arbitrary. Like, is Commissioner Gordon a supporting member of the Batman comics, or his own character? It looked to me like both of those books were wider, ensemble book about the Batman characters in general and Gotham as a setting, rather than stories about Gordon and Azrael II. But I didn’t read ‘em.

I thought about drawing an even stricter line, and not including miniseries, one-shots and/or characters who spun-off others (like Solomon Grundy as a Green Lantern villain, Oracle as a Batman character), in which case DC would have been down to just Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Booster Gold, Vigilante, Jonah Hex and Simon Dark in March.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Fri, 15 May 2009 13:46:33 +0000

Conniption, he made a classification especially for event books. Event books really aren’t an indicator of successful solo books, as they rely on the event to drive their sales.

Personally, I would have excluded mini-series like Solomon Grundy, Black Lightning and Terror Titans.

By: Conniption

Conniption — Fri, 15 May 2009 12:15:57 +0000

Azrael and Commissioner Gordon count as solo characters, I would have thought?

By: rwe1138

rwe1138 — Fri, 15 May 2009 02:39:18 +0000

I think you missed Marvel’s Nova series.

By: Joe

Joe — Fri, 15 May 2009 02:34:52 +0000

I’m also buying a bit more team books than solo books. 5 solo versus 10 teams.

By: preston

preston — Fri, 15 May 2009 01:54:34 +0000

I buy more team books than solo books, just because usually they kind of offer more story diversity for me. On a decent team book, teh writer has a bunch of characters they can focus on, and without a definite lead anything’s game (well, this being comics at least moreso than a solo title) whereas in a solo title the writer has to do a very good job trying to make build around one character. It’s not to say that one type of book is better than teh other, it’s just that one offers more story potential and some writers pick up on that. Also, you get more of your favorite characters in a team book!

By: Mr Wesley

Mr Wesley — Thu, 14 May 2009 21:07:09 +0000

On one hand, I do miss the days where the team books focused on members who couldn’t (or didn’t) have their own title.

On the other hand, one my favorite runs of any character is the Superman triangle years, where the character starred in 4-5 titles, at least one a week. So what does that tell you?

I’d like to see a little more variety in both universes, but showcasing the larger stars just make more business sense.