It's not often that comic books hit the coveted one-million-sales mark nowadays. For movies, video games and TV shows, a million hits is a great number, but comic books haven't been anywhere close to that number in decades. In fact, the last comic book to hit that number was Batman #500, which saw the introduction of a new Batman way back in 1993. Now, for the first time in over a decade, a single issue has managed to hit one million direct sales...and when you know what the book is, the whole thing starts to make sense.
ComicBook.com has just confirmed that Marvel's Star Wars #1 will sell over one million issues into the direct market. Basically, Marvel has confirmed that one million copies of Star Wars #1 will be sent to comic book shops and other retailers before its launch next January. It doesn't quite translate to one million consumer purchases just yet, but it's a good sign that the issue will sell extremely well.
For a sense of scale, even popular comic books can have a tough time breaking the 100,000 mark: titles like Marvel's Spider-Man and The Avengers rarely hit six digit sales. In the industry's heyday during the '90s, it may have been more common, but following the collapse of comic books, such numbers are nearly impossible to hit.
Of course, this is Star Wars. Ever since a third trilogy was confirmed, there's been a resurgence in all things related to the films, and with Marvel once again taking control of the comic books, these sort of numbers were almost inevitable.
So, considering that Marvel is about to release what could be the best-selling comic book in over two decades, what did they have to say? Well, Marvel Senior Vice President David Gabriel had this to say:
"I'm super thrilled, of course. I've been saying for a while that 2015 is gonna be a very good year to be writing Star Wars. This only proves it. Excitement is already building for the new film coming next December, and we're just lucky we get to be the first big new Star Wars story coming right out of the gate. So yeah, I can't wait for people to see what we've put together."
Let's just hope the issue is good enough to match such ridiculous sales numbers...
Star Wars #1 will hit store shelves on Jan. 14, 2015.
