Despite that, Avengers and Fantastic Four were both still top-ten books. Today, Avengers has morphed into the similar-but-different “New Avengers” series, but still hovers in the top 10. Fantastic Four, however, can usually be found way, way down the charts, outside even the top 20. So, 10 years ago, Avengers was doing big business – as it still is today.
Meanwhile, the X-Men have fared slightly more poorly, dropping well out of the top 10 – although August 2008’s #500 might just get the book back up there. In fact, despite an overhaul, the X-Men line is one of the few big properties that isn’t doing as well as it was at the time. Of course, it’s all swings and roundabouts – in between Avengers being a top property in 1998 and a top property in 2008 there was a period of cooling off where it languished in the middle of the chart. All we’re really saying here is that the popularity of certain properties might seem like lightning striking, but that if you hang around long enough it’ll eventually come back around.
That said, the same isn’t necessarily true of creators – or is it? The number #1 comic in the industry, at the time, was Battle Chasers #4. Created and Drawn by artist Joe Madureira, this issue knocked Joe Mad’s old job – a little title called Uncanny X-Men – back into second place, largely because the holo-foil cover that issue of Uncanny sported cut its sales in half on the chart, since the regular cover was listed separately. Battle Chasers itself wasn’t without its own variant cover gimmicks which undoubtedly boosted it up the charts, however, and its sporadic shipping meant that it was unlikely to top the charts again – but for this one month it was #1.
James Hunt writes Alternate Cover at Den Of Geek every Monday, although he’s away for two weeks after this week. Still, check out last week’s here..!
