'Absolute' and 'Ultimate' lines continue to lead the way
Word Balloons #1254: Looking at January 2025 sales
The Absolute and Ultimate lines continue to pull the freight and top the charts in the comics industry in January 2025.
Looking back at the in-store sales at Speeding Bullet Comics in Norman, OK, for January, it was a good time to be Absolute. DC’s Absolute line took three of the top four spots in the monthly top 10.
“Absolute Batman” #4 landed at #1, followed by “Absolute Superman” #3 at #2 and “Absolute Wonder Woman” #4 at #4.
Marvel’s “Ultimate” line wasn’t too far behind, with the launch of “Ultimate Wolverine” popping in at #3 and “Ultimate Spider-Man” #13 landing at #5.
The highest-charting Image title for January was “Transformers” #16, landing at #12.
On the book side of things, the long-awaited “DC Vs. Marvel: The Amalgam Age Omnibus” was the top seller. It was followed closely in the top 5 by Dark Horse’s “Bowling With Corpses,” Skybound’s “Transformers Vol. 2” and “G.I. Joe A Real American Hero” Vol. 2 (written by Larry Hama), and Marvel’s “Ultimate Spider-Man” Vol. 1 (from the current Jonathan Hickman run).
What do back-issue sales tell us about the comics market? There’s still interest driven by media adaptations to some degree.
“Sonic the Hedgehog” saw the most interest in back-issue sales for January. The third “Sonic the Hedgehog” film was released in theaters in December.
Other titles doing well? Both “Daredevil” and “Punisher” are seeing lots of back-issue interest. These titles are fairly consistent sellers in general, but additional heat could be coming from the upcoming “Daredevil: Born Again” series coming up March 4 on Disney+.
Heating up sort of out of nowhere are back issues of “Buffy The Vampire Slayer,” both from Dark Horse and Boom! Studios. My presumption is the announcement of a potential sequel/reboot of the property at Hulu has driven this interest.
And finally, I can’t quite tell where this is coming from, but “Alpha Flight,” Marvel’s Canadian super-team, rounds out our top 5 in back issue trends this month. The team was created by John Byrne to face the X-Men and later spun off into its own series. Wolverine’s shadowy Weapon X past has ties to Alpha Flight, and Logan was previously a member of the team.
Matthew Price, matthew@matthewLprice.com, has written about the comics industry for more than two decades. He is the co-owner of Speeding Bullet Comics in Norman.
