March 2018 had 6,078,535 in the top 300 comics list, an increase of 326,887 units from last month. Most of the gain was from Marvel. The month-to-month increase for DC was offset by the losses for Image. March 2018 was the strongest month for the top 300 comics since the 6,593,275 units for November 2017. Prior to that, the most recent month lowest than March 2018 was February 2014 with 5,916,604 units. The period from December 2017 to March 2018 is the longest period of low total sales for the top 300 comics since the period from July 2010 to July 2011 which averaged sales of 5,553,092 units over those 13 months.

Marvel Comics placed 2,550,801 units in the top 300 comics, an increase of 239,362 units. Infinity Countdown #1 sold 93,029 units for Marvel.

RELATED: Dark Nights: Metal, Doomsday Clock Top Sales Charts for March 2018

DC Comics placed 2,312,202 units in the top 300 comics, an increase of 8,000 units. Both Dark Nights: Metal and Doomsday Clock shipped in March and not in February. Dark Nights: Metal #6 concluded the miniseries with 187,583 units and was the best-selling comic in March. Doomsday Clock #4 was the next best-selling comic in March with 149,581 units.

Image Comics placed 564,112 units in the top 300 comics, a decrease of 8,072 units. IDW Publishing increase of 45,083 units to 159,318 units. Dark Horse placed 69,353 units in the top 300 comics, an increase of 7,897 units which is the best it has done in 2018 but still far below how the publisher has done in past years.

The premiere publishers (Dark Horse, DC, IDW, Image and Marvel) accounted for 93.05% of the units in the top 300 comics this month while all of the other publishers with items in the top 300 accounted for 6.95% of the units. Factor in Dynamite Entertainment and BOOM! Studios which became premiere publishers in the April 2018 Previews and the total for the premiere publishers goes to 96.26% of the total units for the top 300 comics.

BOOM! Studios placed 104,760 units in the top 300 comics and was up 13,599 units in the top 300 compared to last month and accounted for 1.72% of the total units for the top 300 comics.

Dynamite Entertainment placed 90,377 units in the top 300 comics and was down 35,525 units in the top 300 compared to last month and accounted for 1.49% of the total units for the top 300 comics.

The up-swing of 1,578,245 units from new and increased sales was enough to compensate for the down-swing of 1,251,358 units from lost sales resulting in the net increase of 326,887 units for the month.

The continuing titles which gained sales category added 153,214 units compared to last month. Mighty Thor #705 shot up 120.67% to 93,082 units from the 42,181 units of the previous issue. The issue featured the death of the current Thor, which is a story point that Jason Aaron has been building to for years. Avengers also saw a large increase from month-to-month with the weekly issues selling an average of 47,336 units in March versus the 39,079 unit average in February.

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Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #25 increased by 153.80% to 27,789 units with the start of the Shattered Grid storyline. After two years of just the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers team, other teams of Power Rangers are being introduced into the title.

The continuing titles which shipped more issues category added 126,401 units compared to last month. February and March both had four shipping weeks. Five of the six titles which released two issues in March were from Marvel and the other was from DC. Peter Parker: Spectacular Spider-Man #300 was released in February with significantly higher than normal sales which is why the two issues of that title sold less in March than the single issue sold in February.

The continuing titles with reasonably stable sales category removed 3,332 units compared to last month.

The continuing titles which shipped fewer issues category removed 126,992 units compared to last month.

Daredevil #600 increased by 170.88% to 67,100 units. As Peter Parker: Spectacular Spider-Man illustrated this month, the increases on these anniversary sorts of issues don’t typically carry over into subsequent issues. Amazing Spider-Man #797 might be a different case. That issue increased by 78.55% to 128,189 units and there was strong reorder activity on the previous three issues. This issue introduced the Red Goblin and is building up to Amazing Spider-Man #800 and the end of Dan Slott’s ten year run on the title.

The continuing titles which lost sales category removed 311,596 units compared to last month.

X-Men Red #2 dropped by 51.47% to 49,084 units but remained the best-selling title for March with X-Men in the name. The X-Men titles are averaging 37,069 units which is unimpressive for what was once a flagship franchise for Marvel.

The New Age of DC Heroes titles lost between 13.31% and 32.15% in Marvel. The Terrifics is the top seller and had decent reorder activity on the first issue in March. Damage #2 sold 22,394 units but had reorder activity of 568 units on the first issue and 788 units on the second issues. If the declines don’t level off soon, these New Age of DC Heroes titles might not last very long.

The new titles category added 720,965 units compared to last month.

Weapon H launched strong for Marvel with 98,651 units. The character is spinning out of the crossover between The Totally Awesome Hulk and Weapon X a few months ago.

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Infinity Countdown #1 sold 93,029 units which is strong sales but not for a Marvel event title. But, this is arguably just the lead-in miniseries to Infinity Wars. We’ll see how well Infinity Wars sells after it comes out later this year.

Robert Kirkman’s new title Oblivion Song launched strong with 80,287 units making it the best-selling Image title for the month beating out The Walking Dead #177 by 5,459 units. Second issue drops for Image averaging around 46% this month. If Oblivion Song follows that trend, and it might not, the second issues might sell around 43,355 units. But, this is a Robert Kirkman title so it stands a decent chance of doing better than that.

The new wave of Young Animals titles from DC all launched between 11,659 and 16,277 units, averaging 13,672 units. DC second issue drops averaged 35.79% in March which doesn’t look promising for the Young Animals titles.

The returning titles category added 577,665 units compared to last month. Over 58% of those units were from Dark Nights: Metal and Doomsday Clock.

The suspended titles category removed 287,617 units compared to last month.

The final issue of Batman and the Signal didn’t ship in March. Perhaps DC should have pushed the series back another month when they canceled the original orders and resolicited it.

The defunct titles category removed 299,433 units compared to last month.

Marvel had a number of titles ending in February and accounted for over half of the units in this category. Image titles accounted for another 75,406 units.

The annuals/specials category removed 21,814 units compared to last month.

The non-series category removed 200,427 units compared to last month.

The True Believers: Venom titles accounted for all of the new items in this category this month.

Most of the losses in this category came from DC with Dark Knights Rising: The Wild Hunt alone accounting for 101,373 units. The Young Animals/Justice League crossover titles last month accounted for another 91,876 units.

The one-shots last month leading into Infinity Countdown accounted for another 93,555 units.

The nature of this category is the transient here-today-gone-tomorrow items so this sorts of ups and downs are to be expected.

The reorders category removed 147 units compared to last month.

As mentioned above, there was noticeable reorder activity on multiple issues of Amazing Spider-Man. Thanos is also getting some reorder activity with the Cosmic Ghost Rider becoming a popular character.

Change is the one constant. In the comic book market we are seeing a lot of change. Dynamite Entertainment and BOOM! Studios have become premiere publishers as of the April 2018 Previews. With the May 2018 Previews, DC is moving out of Previews into the new DC Previews. We’ve got the New Age of DC Heroes title and a new wave of Young Animals titles. Marvel has another batch of new relaunches coming up. The question is if these changes will improve the sales of the top 300 comics or not. The past few months have been the lowest the top 300 has sold at in years. We rarely see an increase in comic book sales that corresponds to the release of a movie or launch of a television series. But are there now so many movies and television shows featuring comic book properties that even many comic book fans no longer feel the need to read comics?

For a more in-depth discussion of the sales data, check out the Mayo Report episodes of the Comic Book Page podcast at www.ComicBookPage.com. The episode archived cover the past decade of comic book sales on a monthly basis with yearly recap episodes. In addition to those episodes on the sales data, every Monday is a Weekly Comics Spotlight episode featuring a comic by DC, a comic by Marvel and a comic by some other publisher. I read around 200 new comics a month so the podcast covers a wide variety of the comics currently published. If you are looking for more or different comics to read, check out the latest Previews Spotlight episode featuring clips from various comic book fans talking about the comics they love. With thousands of comics in Previews every month, Previews Spotlight episodes are a great way to find out about new comic book titles that may have flown under your comic book radar.

As always, if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email me at John.Mayo@ComicBookResources.com.