Comic Source Weekly 10/7/26 — ASM #1000 Fallout, Marvel Unlimited Shutdown & Absolute Batman

0:00Amazing Spider-Man 1000 finally hit comic shops after a two week printing delay, but even with that delay, Marvel was not able to fulfill all the orders. Some of the open order coverage were allocated leading to some fans chasing the covers they wanted at very inflated prices. Plus, Marvel has announced that their Marvel Unlimited platform is shutting down and moving to a web tune operated service. Scott Siders talking about why Absolute Batman is challenging the idea that Batman works alone, that lone wolf theory. Plus, we've got other comic news, the top 10 Beseleus for Prana, 10 books to look for that dropped this week that could be on the Peseleus next week. Plus 21 books or reaching Final Order Cutoff. Hello everybody, welcome to our comics first week, I'm your host Jace. I'm separating out all the New York Comic Con news into its own episode. I'm going to wait till the last of the news comes out Sunday morning and hopefully I'll drop that New York Comic Con news episode on Sunday night. But I wanted to get this out.

1:01There was too much to put all into one episode, so look for that later today or maybe early tomorrow. But we'll still talk about the October 7th, what hit books. There's a lot of great books that came out this week that I think have a chance of making the Prana top 10 Beseleus for next week. We'll look at the Beseleus for last week of course. And then as I mentioned, 21 books on Final Order Cutoff for October 12th. So let's get into the news. There are unfortunately some things that Marvel has not done well recently. Now I've been trying to defend Marvel recently if you watch my DC Spotlight I Do with Comic Boom. Every week Rocky has been pooping Marvel for a long time. And I've said hey I think they've reached their bottom. I'm not saying they hit rock bottom or bottom or whatever. You can always dig yourself deeper. But it feels like they hit their lowest point and they're on their way back up. And I've been defending them. But when it comes to the way they've handled EBS amazing Spider-Man 1000, it's kind of hard to defend.

2:03The should have been one of the easiest celebrations Marvel's ever had. A landmark issue, a huge lineup of creators, 999 which sounds expensive. But when you look at the size of the book, it makes sense. There was more than 400,000 advanced orders reported. And instead it got pushed back. It got pushed back from September 16th to September 30th because of printer problems. So two weeks, which isn't the end of the world. But the problem is that even when it did come out, even the books, the versions that did come out. First of all, they're not in the condition they should be. Now they'll still get 988 if every single copy has that printer defect that it's still going to get a 988. And I don't care that much about grading, but I know a lot of people do. And the point being that this is a landmark book that you knew was coming up. You should have been working on this for years. And to not build in enough time to overcome any kind of production delays, especially

3:05delays that you should have been able to anticipate to some degree because it is such a thick book. And not something that printers print on a regular basis in this size and this format. You should have known that there was a greater possibility for problems and built in a bigger cushion. To have to allocate books that are supposedly open to order. And then leave fans chasing the variant that they want. Like I love Liebermejo. My shop didn't have any Liebermejo covers. I haven't gone to look on eBay, but I guarantee they're going for more than the 999. Plus, even if I can find one for 999, I still have to pay shipping. And I'm a diehard fan, right? Let's think about the casual comic fan, right? Somebody that, hey, I don't even collect comics, but maybe I'll start. Oh, amazing Spider-Man 1000. That sounds interesting. It's such a big event that it gets mainstream media coverage. So you have somebody that just goes in, maybe they go in over the weekend, right? Because they don't know that the book come out on Wednesday, whatever. So they just go in the Saturday or maybe the Monday after.

4:08It's when you come out and they go in and there's none, right? They're all sold out. All sold out. They have absolutely none. Well, the fans think the possible, the wannabe comic book fan, the person that wants to start collecting comics. Oh, well, it's okay. I'm actually going to New York Comic Con because I love fun copops. I love anime or whatever. I'm going, I'm going, my friends, whatever. It's Comic Con. It's New York Comic Con. One of the biggest Comic Con's in the world. I'm sure I can pick up a copy there, right? And so you go to New York Comic Con and you go to one of the boosted selling comics and there they have it, the main cover or one of the other covers, one of the covers that sold for $9.99 on release date. Or that's what it was priced as when it was being released at the comic shop. And it's $50 or $60 or $100 or $300 or whatever, whatever, right? And that person's like, what? It's a $10 book and I'm going to pay three, no, I'm not doing that. I'm not collecting comics. That's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. And it's ridiculous what Marvel, what Marvel has done here.

5:11I mean, we're talking about some of the most popular artists, J. Scott Campbell's, Scotty Young, Steve Ditko, Lee Burmejo, as I mentioned, Ed McGinnis, Paco Medina, Herb Berto Ramos, Marco Smartine, Frank Miller with Peach Momoco. These are the books that people wanted. These are the covers that people wanted. And all of a sudden retailers, they put in those orders, they took pre-ordered from people and now they can't fulfill them on release date. Because, well, maybe they'll come out. We've been told that maybe November 4th there's going to be more release. And supposedly they're still first printings. But in the meantime, three, four times cover price on eBay or whatever, it's just really, it's so frustrating. Because Marvel had to know the demand was going to be there. They had to know. And Marvel doesn't make anything off the secondary market. If somebody's getting that J. Scott Campbell or Scotty Young cover and putting it for 50 bucks or 100 bucks on eBay and selling it, hey, great, they're making the money, right? But Marvel doesn't see any of that. Although, being subsequent printings, will there be a second printing of this?

6:12Yeah, probably. But there never should have been. They should have printed a million copies of this. And they should have printed it and had it ready to go two months in advance. They should have been sitting in a warehouse ready to go. Because it's that important, because it's amazing Spider-Man 1000. It only comes around once. It only comes around once. It's certainly once in my lifetime, I won't be around when amazing Spider-Man 2000 comes out. Who knows if Marvel Comics will even be around that long, right? This was such an easy win for them. Such an easy win for them to build goodwill, to show that they've turned a page, to show that they're not going to make the same bone-headed mistakes. And they just completely pooped the bed on this one. Like, it is unfathomable to me. And I get that it's a lot of decisions having to be made and a lot of just just ecologistics or whatever. And that's why you build in extra time. I mean, this isn't rocket science here. It's just printing comics. And they just fumbled it so badly. It's completely unacceptable.

7:13It just, they failed fans. And they failed to celebrate and honor Spider-Man properly. It's just, I mean, it's still super popular. And it's still sold out. And it's still great that people got to enjoy it. But with all the cover problems, the cover controversies with John Ramita Jr. and everything, to have them fumble the release and distribution and printing like this. It's just so disappointing. It's just, it's incredibly disappointing. All right. I can't let Marvel have to hook just yet. Because now we have to talk about Marvel Unlimited shutting down in December. So the digital library is moving to a new web tune operated service called Marvel Comics Power by WebTune. The new app is scheduled to launch November 16th. And the existing unlimited service is going to stop providing people access on December 7th. So it's maybe a little less than a month.

8:15It doesn't sound ideal. Again, I think you should be building in more time. The base plan is going to be $9.99 a month or $69.99 yearly. And new issues are going to arrive three months after print. But if you pay for the ultimate tier, which is $12.49 a month or $99.99 yearly, you get that delay reduced down to 30 days. And the plan libraries more than $35,000 are moving everything over that was on the Marvel Unlimited app to this new web tune based thing. There's obviously a lot of questions about the transition. Existing subscribers have to sign up for new memberships. And according to the terms of the advanced subscription offer, there's going to be a code that I guess they're going to send you. That's going to credit you for the time that you already have paid for on the old app. But we haven't seen it yet. So we've got to make sure that works. And again, there didn't build in a lot of time if there's problems or what have you.

9:16And supposedly everything that you had on the old app is going to be available on the new app as well. So you should have everything that you have previously paid for. Now, the first thing that I thought about when I heard this was, you know, here, web tuning, I think the vertical scroll. And a lot of people don't like the vertical scroll, especially. I mean, there's people that they're just Marvel zombies. All they read is Marvel. They read Marvel and even if they read it digitally, they want to swipe from from right to left. And so that was what I was concerned about. Now, according to what I've been able to find, it's going to have the vertical scroll if you want that option. But it's also going to have the swipe left to right. I don't know how well that's going to go. Because you have to have the comics format it differently. I guess we'll have to wait and see. I mean, I am glad that at least they're trying to make the option of side scrolling work because that's traditionally what comic fans are used to. So we'll see how that plays out. But it's not a good look. The DC is on both.

10:17DC's kicking Marvel's butt right now is because of decisions like this. There's no reason Marvel shouldn't be on a web tune or a web to space-based platform or whatever. And also have the unlimited out there. Such a community built around Marvel unlimited. I don't I mean, will that remain with this new app? Who knows. The problem is that it feels like such a greedy and short-sighted decision that it turns like it just rubs me the wrong way. I don't subscribe to Marvel Unlimited because I don't feel the need to because I don't know most of those books already. But here's the thing, right? You think about Marvel and really it's beyond Marvel. We're talking about Disney here, right? Disney's looking at it like we can get Webtoon to pay us money probably, right? We're going to host our comics on Webtoon. And Webtoon's going to kind of pay a licensing fee for like a better term, right? As opposed to Marvel having to pay for servers,

11:21pay for maintenance, pay for developers to keep their app up and running. So instead of spending money, now they're making money. But again, it just seems short-sighted because it feels like that's the only reason to do it. That's the only reason to do it, Disney. You're so greedy that you're going to shut down something that's beloved, something that's that I've called the modern-day equivalent of the spinner rack, something that's working, something that's well received for Webtoon. Who knows how to make things work for their kind of comics and their kind of platform and their kind of audience. It's much more manga, romance, whatever. Will that, and again, the vertical scroll, will that work for Marvel? I mean, who knows? But the point being that you're making this decision based purely on finances, it's purely a financial decision. You make it based on that. With no regard to your fans, it's a bad look. Disney, you've got so much money.

12:22There's no reason to do this. There's absolutely no reason to do it. There can't think of a good reason to do this. I can only think of ways that it can backfire. And you can't help but think of when Amazon bought comicsology. Right? And they're transition over to the Kindle app. And how terrible that was. So I think it's a huge mistake. We'll see if I end up being right or wrong. All right. Moving on to some DC news now. Scott Snyder was recently on podcast casually comics. And this is, I talked a little bit about it last week in terms of him talking about the book going on Hightest. But another thing that he talked about there that I didn't mention is challenging the central idea of Batman and the Batman fantasy of him being this uniquely equipped billionaire who saves Gotham all on his own. Right? Bruce Wayne is defined by his money and his tragedy and he does everything he can to save Gotham. What's got to say is that this new absolute Bruce Wayne is much more defined by the relationship

13:27with his mother, his friends, the working class community that he grew up in. And his journey has to involve all these other people. It's his understanding. He needs to come to the understanding that he needs these people. And it's an interesting emphasis because Batman learning to rely on other people is, it's not really new, right? He's had Robin. He said Alfred. He said Commissioner Gordon and the extended bat family. They've been a part of who Batman is for decades. But the real difference here is that Snyder is building the community into the foundation like the origins of absolute Batman rather than something that gets kind of tacked on later. So he was talking before, like I mentioned, 500,000 copies a month for absolute Batman. And while that's the number he's given, it's hard to know if it's really born out because we don't really have actual figures, DCs, not releasing their figures or what have it. So it's like you can't independently verify it.

14:27But it's pretty interesting because at those numbers, how long is it sustainable? How long can it keep going on? Could it even get higher? I mean, we know that absolute Batman animated projects in development. And apparently there was even some footage that debuted of absolute Batman fighting the party animals from the first issue. The debuted at near Comic Con. So absolute Batman is a runaway train. We've never seen anything like this in the Comic Con. And it's been a long time since I've had Scott on. I may reach out and see if he wants to come on. And not necessarily talk about the story or spoiling you that. But more about the phenomenon that is absolute Batman. It's so crazy. It's so crazy. All right. Up next, a van jolene one has sold out. Is it a van jolene or is it a van jolene? I just noticed today. I was today years old when I looked, hey, that's the word a van jolene.

15:29Never read any of van jolene. And I've always pronounced it a van jolene. But anyway, Rob Liefeld in Daniel mains, a van jolene one has sold out at the distributor level. On release day, now my comic shop still had some. That was just there earlier today. But anyway, a second printing is coming on November 4th. Now is the popularity of this driven by the fact that it is being developed and for other media, that's possible. But again, it is also a lot of the distributor level. So if you think it's going to blow up, might want to get out there to your local comic shop and see if they still have copies. Like mine did. I grabbed the Shannon mayor variant. I thought that looked the best. Because I, there was a midnight variant. I went to a shop on midnight. I was in LA, but I went to a shop at midnight on Wednesday. And I didn't see it there. I wasn't thinking and I didn't specifically look for it. But I did look at all the books on shelf. I didn't catch my eye. But that was a special midnight variant by Liefeld. Not in care for the art anyway. So no big deal. But I was glad I was able to get the Shannon mayor covered today when I remembered.

16:33Anyway, November 4th for the second printing. If you're so inclined to pick it up. All right, the first arc of mask from Skybound is going to hit shops on November 4th from Dan Waters and Piper. And it's basically the confrontation with Venom. It's coming to an head. We know the Energon Universe already has Transformers and G.I. Joe. Tons of action and espionage. And I'm really curious to see if mask is able to establish kind of an identity of its own with its characters and the cool vehicles and what have you. It feels like it's still finding its footing. So still early days, I think the next arc will start to tell us if it really is resonating with fans. I haven't really noticed the sales numbers for the last couple of issues. So that's telling me that it's not selling gangbusters. But mask was always less of a popular property when compared to things like Transformers and G.I. Joe.

17:34So all right, speaking of Skybound, we've got G.I. Joe, Real American Hero and Tomb Raider 2 arriving on November 4th. Just this last Wednesday on October 7th, we had the first issue. It was written by Kyle Higgins with Art by Elena Casagrande. It's got Laura Croft and Shipwreck teaming up. And they are on a mission involving Destro and Cobra Island. So issue 1 is getting another printing. We already know that. And I just feel like Tomb Raider, Laura Croft is such a perfect character for the world of G.I. Joe. I have not had a chance to read the first issue yet again because I was traveling, but I'm hoping to get to it this weekend. All right, staying in an image, I saw Spawn. A twisted Christmas tale is a two-issue seasonal horror project from Chris Killian, Andrew Sanders, and Todar Ristov. McFarlane's got a variant. That's one in the lower right corner. The first issue scheduled for November 4th, again, a two-issue series.

18:37Hope it to have Todd on sometime later this month or maybe early next month. Talk about the news from New York Comic Con and some of the other things going on. Kind of an end of year wrap up looking back on the year that was for Spawn Comics. So if I can make that happen, we'll definitely talk some Spawn Christmas Nightmare. I mean, I love holiday stories. They've been a part of Spawn since the very beginning. And it is, I'll mention it again because it's on FOC for this Monday. All right, we've got another Marvel legend getting an artist edition from Act 4 publishing and Skybound. They're releasing The Marvel Heroes by Gene Colin Artist Edition. It's oversized 12 by 17-inch hardcover. It's 176 pages, $150 as these artists editions usually are. The book includes complete stories from Captain Racco 137, Daredevil 63, Tales of Suspense 97. And these are, as always, reproduced from the original art materials. It's going to be in shops next year, April 7th, 2027, and in bookstores the following month in May.

19:42Colin's a legend, again, like I can't reiterate it enough. He was one of the early pioneers of handling movement and shadow and atmosphere and being able to see his work in this raw form is just awesome. So I love that Scott Dunbeer does these. These are great. They're going to be two different covers. The one on the upper left, I believe, is the direct edition. And then there's a retail edition in the lower right. All right, Dark Horse is celebrating 10 years of Black Hammer. This is the series from Jeff Lemire and Dean Ornstein. And there's going to be a facsimile of the original Black Hammer number one. And there's also going to be a new Black Hammer project called Black Hammer forever. We know nothing about that other than it's coming and the title. Never released any details on it or cover or anything. But alongside that facsimile edition, there's also going to be a new Jeff Lemire one and 10 variant that's his reinterpretation. I mean, it looks kind of the same. Same layout or whatever, just the rendering is different because it's

20:47because it's Jeff Lemire. So if you're big Lemire fan or a Black Hammer fan, you may want to check that out. I'm cute. I love Jeff Lemire's art. So I might just pick a, I have Black Hammer number one, but I might pick up that one and 10 just because it's cool. I mean, the fact that it's Lemire's characters and it's his art might be worth picking up. All right, also in Dark Horse News, they're teaming up with the Wizards of the Coast and they've announced a new Dungeons and Dragons publication called Dungeons and Dragons Dark Sun. Now, the Dark Sun world has always stood apart from the traditional fantasy stories and realms of Dungeons and Dragons because the place that it is set in Athens is such a heart harsh, I should say, environmentally devastating setting. So survival and consequences of magic are very central to that world, but it skews a little different than some of the other realms. So it's definitely an interesting property to revisit.

21:49It's almost, I think it came out in the late 80s. Somebody correct me in the comments if I'm wrong about that. It maybe it was a little earlier, but I remember being very aware of it in the 90s and how it felt like, you know, everything got grim and gritty in the 90s. It's like even Dungeons and Dragons grim and gritty in the 90s with Dark Sun. So anyway, like I said, interesting that they're coming back to it, particularly for readers who are looking for something a little different than the conventional Dungeons and Dragons fantasy stuff. All right, now this one's really interesting. Dark Horse has also announced GI Joe, the definitive visual guide to the GI Joe classified series 2020 through 2025. Now the GI Joe classified series was a line of action figures and toys. And this is sort of like this coffee table book that's giving us the design, giving us photography, development of that modern action figure line. And it's a great, if you collected that line or you love that line, this is a great reference book where it has everything all in one place. And I just

22:51think it's awesome. This is where it kind of set the stage for where we are with the energon universe and the way these characters look and whatever. And it's just treating it as sort of a serious art thing. I know people like, oh, it's toys, it's toys. It's just cool. It's what you love. It's what you love. And you can celebrate it with this really nice looking book. So, yeah, I was hoping that they were going to show us some of the interior pages. All we have is the cover, but when I get some interior previews, I'll definitely share them with you guys. All right, also at Dark Horse, we've got a new canto adventure from writer David M Boor along with Drew Zucker, the co-creators of canto. So this is called canto, the clockwork chronicles. It's a new ongoing. It's going to kick off on November 18th. Now canto, he's got this very distinctive look. He's such a great character. There's always tons of emotional stakes and canto is always being put in these dangerous situations. And you connect with them and you

23:51care so much about them and you want to see him do well. He has such a good heart. It's really easy to see the appeal of this story. So the first issue is on Final Order Cut off this Monday. I'll mention it again at the end, but there's some fantastic covers there as well. So really looking forward to canto being back in comic shops because he's such a fantastic character. All right, another book that was released this week and did really well is something that's killing the children issue number 50. And Boom Studios has let us know that it has sold out at the distributor level and it's getting the second printing. So it had a couple things going for it. Not only was it a milestone issue, issue 50, a very popular series. There was a blind bag. And every blind bag also had a card from the forthcoming something is killing the children trading card game. And my understanding is that you can only get that version of the card in this bag. So it's not surprising that it sold out. So you know, it's just more reason for somebody

24:55to pick it up or what have you. So you know, you add in the card and the blind bag, a 50th issue. Yeah, people are going to show up for it. I bought, like I don't normally buy something that's killing the children. I have like the first three issues that I bought that I never read. Then they're just as joy somewhere. They got a couple different, I think about two copies of issue one, two different covers. But I've never read it. It's just I'm not like it just doesn't it doesn't pull me in worth their deladera's art is not something that I particularly enjoy. So anyway, but I did pick this up just picked up one of the blind bags. Probably not going to open it. But yeah, purely a speculator thing. Like I think that card, if the card game hits that card could be worth something and you know, leave it sealed and somebody can have a chance to get something really cool. So all right, pivoting over to bad idea. Kamal Nanjiani is joining it demand sacrifice. Now we've had a lot of Hollywood names that have been announced as joining as performers attached to bad ideas. It demands sacrifice. Bino comic or read along.

25:58We talked about Danny Elfman. We talked about Christian Ritter. So now Nanjiani is the latest to join and bad idea is giving us this unusual horror comic. And it's it's just really, really interesting the fact that you can get a read along of this. And yeah, when you hear the ding, ding turn the page. He's definitely obviously an actor that a lot of us know. So bad idea continues to just making out like more and more people joining us really in our all star lineup at this point. All right, pivoting over to ignition press. They've announced a new series called the caretaker. This is a new ongoing science fiction series from Jeremy Lambert and Claire Row with colors by Jordy Belair. First issue is coming out February 10th, 2027. Find out what we're caught out for that is January 4th. And it's another addition to ignition's growing second year publishing lineup creative team worth keeping an eye on. Don't really have that many details on it yet. But when I know more, I'll definitely let you guys know. All right, another beloved artist.

27:04This one much more of a modern one is getting an art collection edition from Clover Press. They've announced the DC art of Ricardo Federici. And this is the fourth in the series of DC art series. Deluxe hardcover. It's going to be crowdfunded on backer kit. You know, we know Federici's style is painterly but detailed and it should look really good seen in that larger size. Still waiting for campaign details, but if you just Google DC art of Ricardo Federici, you'll find that pre-launched page where you can go and set up a sign up to be reminded of of when it's going to launch. All right, next up, we've got Geiger getting a dedicated website. So if you go to the Ghost Machine website, it's actually a Geiger landing page now. They're really pushing Geiger as the book reached issue 25 and it's really got a lot of interesting developments coming up in the Geiger world. We've covered the road

28:06to radioactive revolution last week. That's the new story that's coming up really, really soon. It's crossing over Geiger with Simon Pure from Redcoat. So this is really cool. I love that they're pushing Geiger. I love that Geiger was their foundational character and being able to go there to the Ghost Machine page and be presented with Geiger. If you're not familiar with it and learn about them and get ready to jump on this radioactive revolution, crossover, I think is a really, really good thing. Therapy's biggest impact doesn't show up in some dramatic breakthrough. It shows up in the smallest moments. You bite your tongue instead of escalating. You put your phone down instead of firing off that text. You say what you actually mean instead of what would hurt someone else the most. Nobody applauds those moments but they quietly change your life. That's what growing feels like and that's exactly what growth therapy is here for. Grow is therapy that works covered by insurance. Sessions averaged $21 with insurance and some pay

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30:15Print postage for certified mail, register mail, and packages in seconds. Then schedule a pickup right from your home or office. For a limited time, go to stamps.com and use code podcast for a free welcome gift. Taxes and fees apply. All right, moving on to what hit for this week, for the week of October 7, 2026. Again, just a reminder, this is pure speculation of my part. This is based on what I heard at my comic shop, which I wasn't even at my comic shop this week. Mostly this week, based on what I heard online. If anything already sold out, if anything's already hot on the secondary market, and just books that I think have a really good shot, if there's an absolute book, hey, guess what? It's going to be in the top 10. That's just the way it is. These are the books that I think have a really good shot at being in the Prana top 10 bettos and best sellers for next week. Kind of a no-brainer leading off with Midnight X-Men here. Jonathan Hickman coming back to the X-Men is already a major selling point. It's Midnight, so it's a brand new jumping on point. You don't

31:15have to know anything else about X-Men, continuity, none of that. I think this has a good shot to be the number one book next week for those reasons. I mean, X-Men is X-Men and it's always going to have a base floor of fans. You add in the success that Jonathan Hickman had on the Cricone era of X-Men. You add in, it's a great jumping on point. That's is an on-ramp for people where they don't have to know any continuity, especially for X something like X-Men, where the continuity is so convoluted. I'd love to read X-Men. I watched the X-Men 97 cartoon. I just don't know where to start. Oh, there's a brand new X-Men comic that's set in a brand new universe that I don't have to read anything at all. I can just pick it up on the ground floor. Yeah, I expected that one to be number one, but I wouldn't be completely surprised if it turns out to be one of the other Midnight titles, but if I had to bet, I'd bet on Midnight X-Men. Second of the Midnight titles, Spider-Man, this has an outside shot as well because Spider-Man is again so, so, so popular. And if you watch my Midnight review that I did with Rocky,

32:19I expected this to be my favorite. It wasn't. It was actually third of the three, but it's Spider-Man. He's got that name recognition. It's a number one issue. It's definitely a darker approach from Philip Kennedy Johnson. The art by cyan tronic is really interesting. So it's got it's definitely, it'll be there. I wouldn't surprise me if it does creep up to number one, but I think it'll be at two. Just based on that name recognition alone. And then finally Midnight Fantastic Four, Ben Percy and Kev Walker. This was my favorite. I thought it was really compelling. I thought it was really interesting. It felt the most fresh of the three. Fantastic Four is less popular than X-Men or Spider-Man though. So that's why I haven't come in at number three, but it would be interesting to see how they shift around what have you. So now next up at number four, and I, this might sound a little contradictory. I'm putting amazing Spider-Man 1000 at four. I think it's still going to be in the top 10. It's basically because of carryover. Carryover, excuse me, from the first week.

33:25Now, not, there may not be huge carryover because like I said, it kind of sold out the first week, but I think there's probably enough left that it's still going to make the top 10. We'll be at four, I don't know, maybe not, maybe down around seven or eight, but I think it's still going to be up pretty high because there were retailers that did order quite a few of these. I think it's probably just about sold out everywhere now, but I do think it's going to carryover. It's that big of a book. All right, another book that's a no-brainer, Batman 14. It's one of DC's safest beds, Matt Fraction or he meant as. It's also bad seeds, which the bad seeds event has been boosting other books and aren't normally in the top 10 into the top 10. So of course, Batman's going to be in the top 10, no doubt. Another no doubt, absolute Superman 24, Jason Aaron, one for Eric, it was a great issue. I expect it to be there. Not a lot of DC books this week, actually, I think Marvel's going to dominate just like they did last week's spoilers for the bestseller list,

34:26but it's an absolute title. It continues to sell well and it'll be in the top 10. Also, absolute Green Lantern. This was Rocky's favorite issue of the series so far. It was up there for me as well, probably in the top three, if not my favorite as well. So again, it's been an inscrutable series. I've talked a lot about that. This gives us a lot of answers, but at the same time we raise more questions, which can be frustrating, but it's absolute. It's Green Lantern. The Lantern TV show has been very popular. I expect this to be there just like the next one, the demon number one. These next level books have been generating a lot of interest. Again, it's a number one plan off the hype. Hey, absolute Batman number one's worth all this money. Let me buy every DC number one. It's James Heron who also has somewhat of a following. The fact that it's the demon, the fact that it's Etragon, he's not really the sales driver. I think it's more, hey, it's next level. DC's been doing a good job. Let me check it out. Hey, I like James Heron. So people are picking it up for a number of different reasons, but it doesn't feel to me like the reason is that it's the demon,

35:30but I guess we'll have to wait and see. Same thing here with Jonah Hex and the Shadow of Death number one. So Jonah Hex with the first issue, Jonah Hex, I feel like has a much larger fan following. Then the demon, but he's still not somebody that has historically been able to maintain a long running title, but it's next level. It's a jumping on point. It's a number one. I think it'll be there. And then finally, something is killing the children number 50. Now again, like I was saying, isn't just a case of something that's killing the children being popular. And for that reason, the book is going to make the top 10. We know it already sold out at the distributed level because they told us that. But with that card, with the blind bag, with the incentives, the chance to get a variant 100 or 200 or whatever it was, definitely helped. So I expect it to be in the top 10 as well.

36:30Nobody told me one way or the other whether I should be picking 10 books or not or wanted me to. But I did end up with 10 this week. It was pretty easy. We'll see. Obviously, if I pick 10, there's much more of a chance that I'm going to miss one because I got to get them all right, where I've been, I think the fewest I've picked is like six, but I usually keep it around eight. A couple things that surprised me, but I think I'm going to challenge myself and try to pick 10 every time. The last two that I pick may be a crap shoot some week, but this feels like a really solid list to me. It feels like I could be go 10 for 10. We'll have to wait and see. But let's take a look at the bestseller list for last week. Now this is for the books. You know what I just realized I put the wrong date. I've got October 7th. That's not the date. It's September 30th. So maybe I'll fix that in post-production. I probably won't. So ignore that release week of October 7th. That should say release week of September 30th because this is based on the data

37:34that Prana provides me. Their bestseller list, which comes from over 80,000 customers, over 600 stores worldwide. The data is provided by the managed comic POS system, point of sale system, and the comic shop assistant POS system. They give all that data to Prana. Prana collates it and then creates this bestseller list where I give you guys the top 10. So I want to stress. I've talked about this before. I think I mentioned it. I think I've mentioned it every time, but it's worth repeating. This is so much better than the old diamond list, which was, hey, what is the distributor diamond comics distributors selling to comic shops? So comic shops could end up with a glut of inventory that's just sitting in their warehouse or sitting in their back room. No, what the Prana bestseller list is, it's actual comics that are sold to comic book readers. They're walking out the door or comic book collectors or speculators or whatever. So I feel like it's much more accurate. It's much more representative of what is actually hot in the market. So kicking it

38:37off at number 10 with Queen and Black number five. This is the recent event Spider-Man Venom. I guess Venom is more of an accurate way to say Venom event winding down. It was very popular. It continued to sell well. So no surprise there. Uncanny X-Men 36 comes in at number nine. As Gale Simone's run closes out the current wild ride storyline. Gambit, one of the most popular X-Men. This has been a gambit story that's been resonating with readers. I mentioned bad reads resonating with readers as well and pulling books up into the top 10. That's the case here with Poison Ivy. Poison Ivy 48 comes in at at number eight. Not a big surprise, but I haven't really been enjoying the bad reads event, but people have been showing up for it. There's no denying that. Speaking of events, people have been showing up for DNX. It continues to sell really well for Marvel. Fantastic Four 17 comes in at number seven. It is that DNX crossover. This is definitely my least favorite issue of the DNX

39:40crossover to date. But again, Fantastic Four has been pretty popular. Cross-Sendover with X-Men seems to be working. Next book is also a DNX crossover. X-Men 38 comes in at number six. Almost a wonderful live magmido story. That was much more enjoyable. But it does feel like the DNX event could use a little more momentum. It feels like it's sort of trading water. Here's another one that I predicted. Alien versus X-Men number one. Day-bune at number five. It's at number one. It's aliens. It's two below properties and they're fighting against each other. Yeah, no braider. At number four, absolute Batman number 24, did that come out last week, came out the week before, and still, still comes in at number four. Again, this is unprecedented stuff. This is uncharted territory. The things absolute Batman is doing are just insane. Just insane in terms of sales, in terms of reach, in terms of people talking about it and being

40:42excited, whatever it is, lightning in a bottle. It's like nothing I've ever seen. It's really, really cool. As much as I'm not a huge fan of the story, I'm a huge fan of absolute Batman and what it's doing for the comic book industry. Next at three, we have DNX number two. Again, this was a great issue. This event is resonating with people. The quality of the tie-ins can vary a little bit, but two issues into the spine series. It's been really, really great from from Jed McKay. At number two, we have the amazing Venom number one, debuting. I just met the writer Jordan Morris at that midnight release that I went to in LA. I got a chance to talk to him. Hopefully, I'm on my behalf on the show. This is an incredible debut. The Venom name, a number one issue, some really cool homage covers, but it's not Venom. Will people show up for issue two? We'll have to wait and see, but I can't wait to have Jordan on to talk about it. Then no brainer. Everybody knows what it is.

41:46Number one book last week. Amazing Spider-Man 1000. Despite the delay, despite the allocations, it's a milestone issue. It's taken the top spot. Again, 400,000 plus orders. Yeah, easy call. Easy call here. Would have been interesting to see if it had come out the same week as an issue of absolute Batman, where it would have ended up. We do have the Marvel crossing over with Star Wars event coming up next year. Since that's an ongoing, there's more of a chance that it crosses over with an issue of absolute Batman. Again, I'm going to be fast-paced to see what happens there. When we look at the numbers, this is the first time in a long time. Marvel has absolutely dominated the top 10 list. They got eight of the top 10 spots. DC has only two, with absolute Batman 24 at four and poison IV 48 at number eight. Nothing else. It's all big two this time. Really interesting to see DNX's remaining strong. We've got a couple of new Marvel

42:50number ones performing really well. This coming week, I think, or when we look at the coming best cell list, the one that's actually for October 7th, it's going to be interesting to see if it's more balanced. DC has been dominating these lists a lot of times. Usually, we've skybound some sneaks one in there here or there, but this Marvel getting eight really, really interesting. If we look at my what hit predictions for last week, I picked nine books. I was right on eight of them. The one I missed was Zatana. I didn't really want to even pick Zatana, but just based on the track record, it had been doing really well. It finished at 12, so I didn't miss it by a lot. I'm wondering where people picking up Zatana for the Jamal Campbell heart, but are they struggling with it for the same reason? I'm struggling with it. He hasn't given us reason to care about any of the characters beyond Zatana. Is it going to continue to slip? Is it

43:51going to climb back up? Did it just get pushed out of the top 10 because of so many strong Marvel books last week? It's going to be really curious to see where issue seven of Zatana drops. You can see where the others landed there. Really, really interesting to look. Now that I've committed myself to picking 10 every week, we'll see how close I can get to being 100% accurate each week. I never do. So buy your car today on Carvana. Delivery fees may apply. See our seven day return policy at Carvana.com. This episode is sponsored by Air Med Care Network in an emergency seconds matter,

44:51and when you're far from help, a medical crisis can become life-changing. That's why Air Med Care Network exists. For just $99 a year, your membership protects you from the monumental cost of emergency air transport when flown by one of their providers. And right now, when you join, you'll get an eGift card with code giftcard at checkout. Protect your family before an emergency strikes. Go to airmedcarenetwork.com to sign up now. All right, on to final order cut off. Again, these are the books approaching the point where retailers have to lock in their orders, which in turn has the publishers locking in their orders. That determines how big of a print run it has. So if you see something here, don't wait. Contact your comic shop. Order it. Make sure that you are able to get it. Assuming it's not allocated like amazing spent $1,000 covers were. So 21 books to talk about kicking it off with DC. We've got Batman 15 returning to your regularly scheduled programming after the bad seeds event. Bruce Wayne is supposedly murdered. Matt Fraction was talking about this

45:56in New York Comic Con. I'll have more details in that episode, but I will spoil a little bit here. He's talking about it as almost a Colombo like mystery. So pre-order if it's your jam. A Dupertrol one is getting a second printing. If you missed it the first time around, I would think that'd be a good thing. I didn't like it at all, but again, it did sell out. So if you want to know what you missed, you can check it out. And then Gings of Gotham number one is a new Gotham centered launch from Christopher Cantwell. And I did an interview with him at Senate of Comic Con. That was a bit exclusive. He was telling me all sorts of stuff. What was going on with Anarchy and Stephanie Brown. And I'm really excited to see where that series goes. Now if you missed Legion Superheroes number one, which also sold out, it is also getting the second printing with a wrap around cover. So that is coming out on November 4th, but the planet order cutoff is here on October 12th. And same thing with Teen Titans number one from Kyle Higgins and Elena Kosogorandate. Again, sold out or not Elena Kosogorandate. Sorry, Daniel Dean Akulau.

47:00Later in Kosogorandate is Kyle Higgins and doing the GI Joe tune writer. Sorry. So Daniel Dean Akulau. Another next level book did very well on launch. If you missed it, you want to check it out. The second printing coming too. All right, from Marvel, DNX 5, we just talked about two, finishing number three on the best total list. So just wanted to let everybody know. Not that I don't think there'll be tons of copies ordered by retailers, but if you want a specific cover, what have you. And as events go on, it's just like a regular series, people do tend to drop and retailers know that so their orders may drop accordingly. So again, if you want to be sure not to miss it, you're better off pre-order. And then we've got the midnight books getting their second issues. So again, a huge launch for them. I expect a big drop between issue one and issue two for these midnight books. So the more people that pre-order from their retailers is going to give them a sense of where the true level of these books and how many then they should be ordering. So you can

48:06see the covers there. Midnight Fantastic Four, Midnight Spider-Man, and then finally, Midnight X-Men. There also is X-Men incursions number one. There's a couple of different covers for this. So again, order the one you want. This is going back to right before Secret Wars, the Jonathan Hickman Secret Wars, and showing us some of the things that we're going on when the different universes of Marvel were colliding and conflicting with each other. Marvel has said, hey, we didn't have time, we didn't have space to tell all the stories of all the intersections or whatever. And so that's where this incursions are going back in time to tell and flesh out some of those stories. Doesn't need to be done. Probably not. Could it lead to cool stories? Yep, 100 percent it could. There's also a new expo called X-Sources, which that name is so great, you almost surprisingly haven't done this before, right? So it's magic, Ilyana Respieuton, teaming up with Juggernaut, and the Goblin Queen, Madeline Pryor. She's sort of been kicked out of hell and she teams up with

49:11these other two to try to figure out who's out to get her or whatever. So definitely, the Horde idea, great that they announced it in October, but obviously the book's not going to be out till November. Right, from image, I mentioned Evangelion I, second printing, we've also got Lone Gunman number one of five, a new entry into the larger exquisite corpses franchise. The reason I mentioned it here is because it's written by Pornsec Pichichot. A lot of you all have been enjoying absolute green arrow. So if you like that, you'll probably love this because Pornsec is bringing that same talent level, the same interesting compelling read, mystery, character dynamic. He's bringing that all here to this five issue series. And if you've been reading exquisite corpses, we know they're taking us like a television season model. And season one has ended. We know we're getting a season two from everything I've heard from the exquisite corpses team. You can think of this Lone Gunman five issue series as season one point five. It is what you should read in between

50:15the exquisite corpses story we have so far and what's coming up next year. And then finally, the I saw spawn a twisted Christmas tale that we talked about before. All right, from Dark Horse, we've got the canto the clockwork chronicles that I mentioned before from David and Booer Andrew Zucker ever mind from Tokyo pop and 24 seven comics. It's a new launch from a smaller publisher. The reason I put this here, this was a Kickstarter previously. I backed the Kickstarter. I read the Kickstarter. It's amazing. The artist by Sean Chen. He does it along with Daniel Wu. And if you're a valued fan from back in the day, you remember Sean Chen's art. He's so talented. It's such a great book. So I wanted to spotlight it. And then finally, Archie versus Terminator number two from Dynamite. Archie's making a comeback. It seems to be gaining in popularity. Team it him up with the Terminator. It seems so incongruous. It's definitely one of the stranger crossovers on the stands.

51:16I talked about issue one a few weeks ago. I think it just came out this last week. I haven't read it yet. But again, it's just such an interesting dynamic. And being that this is not a number one and it's from Dynamite. It's not going to be ordered in as high as of a quantity as one. So if you picked up one or you plan on picking up issue one, be sure you pre-order two because it could very well be that your retailer doesn't order any or only orders them for the people that ask. So if you don't want to miss out, if you read issue one or you're in ten on reading issue one, you should pre-order issue two. All right. Finally, from bad idea, we have three different books. HAD HAD HAD. Six of six. This is that incredible story that Joshua Dysart has been telling about the HADs and the HAD NOTs, the HADs and the HAD NOTs, not the HADs and the HAD NOTs. So this is a finale. Again, it's not it's bad idea. It's a small publisher. It's not a very big quantity. So if you want to be sure not to miss out on pre-order, it's to Mad sacrifice number two. We already talked about

52:18Kamal and Nanjiani's addition to the vinyl project earlier. This is the second issue of the comic itself, which is just awesome. David Yarraveski, just a talented guy. Definitely should pre-order if you enjoyed the first issue. And then Warbird two or four. This is from Derek Colstad and Robert Venditti. It's the first issue was so good. The first issue was so good. I could easily see, especially with Derek Colstad being involved. We already know Colstad is adapting, helping to adapt ordained with Colin Farrell. So this could be the next one that gets adapted. I can 100% see it. So be sure you don't miss out and pre-order. So that's everything for this week. Appreciate you guys joining me as always. Let me know what you think about Marvel and them shutting down Marvel and limited, especially if you're somebody that uses Marvel and limited. Let me know your thoughts on Amazing Spider-Man 1000. Did you get the covers that you wanted? Do you think that Marvel should

53:20have been able to avoid most of those problems? Were they not foreseeable? Am I wrong about that? Let me know. And let me know what you think of the bestseller list and Marvel dominating. It's the first time they've had that many books on the bestseller list on the top 10 in a really, really long time. So if you like this kind of content, I really appreciate you guys liking and subscribing. If you want to check out all the other content from the comic source, the past content, you have thousands and thousands of episodes to go check out on the audio only feed. So just go to wherever you get your podcast and subscribe to the comic source. I really appreciate it. We'll be back later today or early tomorrow with the news from New York Comic Con. That's going to be an episode huge episode all to itself. Again, lay off the headlines. I mean, I'll have time to deep dive and analyze everything that may have to come even later in the week. We'll have to wait and see. But this is sort of the last big convention of the year with the last big announcement of the year. So things will slow down. It'll be interesting to see how much news is coming out and how much I

54:25have to cover on upcoming comic source weekly episodes through the end of the year. So again, appreciate everybody joining me as always and we'll talk to you next time.