Blackballed

Marvel's press junket shifted into overdrive to promote the new Black Panther series, hyping the first issue and then further hyping that issue selling out. Regular newspapers (like my local Atlanta Journal-Constitution) ran substantial articles about this hit new series, and how it was flying off the stands. You'd think that a black comic character had never sold so well.

Now the ICv2 rankings are in. Black Panther #1 came in at #27, with an estimated sale of 50,490 copies. (We'll have to wait and see the numbers on the second printing.)

So how does this compare with the last Black Panther #1, from 1998? According to this list, Priest's first issue sold 54,500 copies. Strangely, however, Marvel didn't call the Associated Press to share that number and hype that series.

Then again, Marvel's under different management these days. Maybe they decided to rectify what they saw as a mistake. But it remains true that the numbers on the new series aren't that different from the numbers on the old one.