Looks like we have an early contender for best-selling comic book of the year. As announced by DC Comics, Batman #158, the kick-off of the sequel series “H2SH,” has hit 400,000 copies ordered.
Written by Jeph Loeb, with art by Jim Lee, Scott Williams, and Alex Sinclair, and letters by Richard Starkings, the six-issue storyline is a sequel to the best-selling “Batman: Hush,” which has gone on to also be a perennial graphic novel bestseller. Particularly with Lee back on interior pencils for the first time in a long time, it’s no surprise there’s a lot of anticipation for this book. And DC has been pulling out all the stops, including setting up launch parties with stores including ashcan previews of the second issue, glow-in-the-dark covers, and even a video promo touting the return of Loeb and Lee like they’re about to go ten rounds in the boxing ring.
So how does this stack up in terms of sales, though? For those who don’t know, this is 400,000 copies ordered by comic book stores — not 400,000 copies sold to customers. With multiple covers on the issues, many with requirements of ordering basic copies of the books to get the variants, it was a no-brainer that comic book shops would be ordering a lot of these. How it will actually sell is TBD, though likely “very well.”
More to the point, the best-selling comic book of last year (with the same caveats as above) was Absolute Batman #1… With 400,000 copies. And that was after multiple printings of the issue. So it’s likely that, given this is before the FOC (Final Order Cutoff) for Batman #158, that the final sales for this issue could go even higher.
And while this is pure speculation, even with all the doom and gloom over the comic book industry with the Diamond bankruptcy and looming tariffs (or not), this could lead to a promising one-upmanship throughout the year. We saw the same thing happen in 2024, as Dynamite announced 180,000 copies ordered for ThunderCats #1, then IDW announced 300,000 copies ordered for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1, and finally the Absolute Batman numbers above. Say, it’s almost like comic book sales charts are an effective sales tool and comic book companies could benefit from regularly releasing data like this? But I digress.
What titles could sell as well — or better — than Batman #158? It’s certainly possible (though not likely) that subsequent issues of “H2SH” could go even higher. But far more likely, the previously announced DC/Marvel and Marvel/DC crossover comics will go through the roof in terms of sales numbers. And with the best-selling Ultimate Universe and Absolute Universe teasing game-changing crossover events, those could be (and likely will be) blockbuster as well.
You can check out DC’s skeet about the sales numbers below.
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