Remember when that post I found said that DC actually beats Marvel when you account for reorders, and then i checked the numbers and decided that person was wrong? Well in market share they're still wrong, but in terms of top 10 books they were dead on. Marvel's policy of (almost) never reprinting forces retailers into larger initial orders and inflates their monthly standing, but if you check out the year end totals the Top 10 is chock full of DC books. Of course when you move to the Top 100 there are about twice as many Marvel books as DC.

And you'd have to look at the whole Top 100 to see this incredibly depressing tidbit, though you can get a good idea of it looking at the Top 10 anyway: "in other words, there is not one comic in the Top 100 for 2004 (this time counting Conan) that was created less (or based on one created) than 40 years ago."

NEWSARAMA - TOP COMICS, GRAPHIC NOVELS FOR 2004 DATA RELEASED: "The Top 10 comics for 2004 in terms of quantity (purely the number of comics shipped) were:

1) Superman #204
2) New Avengers #1
3) Superman/Batman #8
4) Identity Crisis #1
5) Astonishing X-Men #1
6) Superman #205
7) Superman/Batman #10
8) Identity Crisis #2
9) Superman #206
10) Superman/Batman #9

Again, the 2004 Top 10 list represents a virtual reversal of any monthly Top 10 list from the year, that is, usually; Marvel would hold eight or so slots, with DC holding two. Unarguably, the numbers were higher for DC on their top 10 books due to overprinting and heavy reorder/reprint activity on many of the Top 10 titles.

The Top 10 comics for 2004 in terms of dollars (a function of both cover price and amount shipped) were:

1) Identity Crisis #1
2) Avengers/JLA #4
3) Superman/Batman #8
4) Identity Crisis #2
5) Astonishing X-Men #2
6) Superman #204
7) Green Lantern: Rebirth #1
8) Superman/Batman #10
9) Identity Crisis #3
10) Identity Crisis #4