X-Men #1 was the best-selling comic book of July 2024, beating Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1. Marvel has killed [spoiler]. Ultron joins the West Coast Avengers. All on Comic Book Club News for August 14, 2024.
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Episode Transcript:
X-Men #1 was the top-selling comic book of July 2024.
Marvel kills a major character.
Ultron joins the West Coast Avengers.
This is Comic Book Club News for August 14, 2024.
X-Men #1 Beats Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1 For Top Selling Comic Book Of July 2024:
The X-Men From the Ashes era may have just kicked off, but it’s already had a promising start: X-Men #1 was the top-selling comic book of July 2024 in both units sold and dollars earned.
Per ICv2‘s sales chart, X-Men #1 rather shockingly beat IDW’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1, which came in at number two on both lists. Shocking because TMNT #1 had already pre-sold over 300,000 copies, per IDW’s sales figures as of June 13. Though Marvel doesn’t release sales figures, that does mean X-Men #1 may have sold more than TMNT, easily making it one of the biggest comics launches of the past few years.
In fact, the X-Men relaunch was huge overall, with Phoenix, NYX, and X-Force all charting in the Top 10. And rounding out that list, Marvel’s Ultime Universe nabbed three top 10 spots as well, with Ultimates at number two, Ultimate Spider-Man at number six, and Ultimate X-Men at number nine. Also in the Top 10? Amazing Spider-Man #53 at number four, followed by Skybound’s Transformers #10 at number five.
While DC Comics didn’t rank higher than number 13 with an Absolute Power tie-in issue of Superman, they did slightly better than previous months with 13 titles on the units sold list. However, Marvel doubled that, with 26 titles on the list.
As for Image, versus June which was pretty much one-to-one, ICv2’s list doesn’t square up with the Image Comics July self-released sales chart. Image had Witchblade at number one, while that doesn’t chart in the Top 50 at all via ICv2. The difference is that ICv2 is using sales to consumers, versus Image, which is using raw sales to comic book shops. It’ll be interesting to continue to track the differences. Stay tuned.
Marvel Kills Danny Rand In Iron Fist 50th Anniversary Special:
Marvel has once again killed a major character. And this one is surprising because… Well, spoiler warning past this point.
Normally one would expect a 50th Anniversary Special to be a celebration of a character. And in the case of the Iron Fist 50th Anniversary Special, that’s true for most of the run time, with stories from throughout the eras of the character. That is until the final tale from Jason Loo and Whilce Portacio, which kills off Danny Rand.
Titled “Happy Birthday, Danny,” the story has Danny Rand explain that he’s now 34, and is the only Iron Fist to live to that age — normally, Iron Fists are hunted down and killed at age 33 by beings called the Ch’i-Lin. And that’s exactly what happens, as Danny battles, and is ultimately slain by one of the beasts, who promises to hunt down the two other characters called Iron Fist in the Marvel universe.
Just in case you weren’t sure what happened, Danny having his heart ripped out is followed by a black page, and then editor Danny Khazem paying tribute to the life and legacy of Danny Rand, and the Iron Fist. “Gonna miss Danny,” writes Khazem. And like all comic book characters, he certainly teases this isn’t the last we’ve seen of him. But regardless: pretty awful birthday present, gotta be honest.
Ultron Joins The West Coast Avengers:
Ultron is joining the West Coast Avengers in the upcoming title from Marvel. And writer Gerry Duggan added the evil robot to the team for redemption.
Said Duggan via press release: “Redemption has been on my mind this year, and we’ll see who can be redeemed on the West Coast. It’s a fun action story, but it’s also an Ultron tale – and one of my biggest Marvel swings yet. I previously had the pleasure of writing a pretty great horror story about Ultron wearing Pym’s face, and this is a very different tale with one of my favorite Marvel characters, in one of my favorite legacy titles in the city that has been my home for so long.”
The team book also includes Iron Man, War Machine, Firestar, and Spider-Woman, with art by Danny Kim. Interestingly, editor Tom Brevoort revealed via a recent newsletter that one of his only editorial edicts as Avengers editor was that when Ultron was in a story, he was always the main villain. Now that Brevoort has shifted over to X-Men, I’ll be curious to see how this all plays out.
West Coast Avengers #1 hits stores on November 27, 2024.
For Comic Book Club News, I’m Alex Zalben. And actually I just looked it up and the traditional gift for a 50th birthday is “getting murdered,” so my bad.
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