While DC Comics and Marvel continued to jockey for the top of the direct market heap in October, Image Comics took top honors as "The Walking Dead" once again shambled to the number one position, passing "Batman," "Infinity" and "Sandman" on its way to the top. The tenth anniversary of Robert Kirkman's unkillable zombie epic featured a number of variant covers and kicked off the series' biggest storyline to date, a combination which fueled its surge to the head of the charts.

DC followed up on its record-setting Villains Month-fueled September by leading the Direct Market in dollars, even as Marvel inched its longtime competition out in Units sold. The $6.99 "Batman" #24 and $4.99 "Sandman: Overture" made sure of that, helped along by the top ten debut of "Superman/Wonder Woman," "Forever Evil" #2 and "Justice League" #24. "Infinity" took two top ten positions for Marvel, as did two issues of "Superior Spider-Man."

Overall, DC accounted for 31.02% of the Direct Market's Dollars in October to Marvel's 30.47%, and 33.15% of it's Units to Marvel's 33.63%. Image Comics' Dollar share rose from 6.87% in September to 9.26% i October, while Units rose from 7.00% to 10.85%.

Check out the charts and graphs below and come back next week for John Mayo's look at the Top 300 and in-depth analysis.