January 2021 DC Comic Book Sales
Projections for DC Comics Ordered by North American Comics Shops
This data refers only to sales by DC's sole distributor, Lunar. Click to see the Overall charts and those from Diamond.
Covers and issue links on this page lead to current eBay listings. This site may be compensated if you make a purchase.
With January 2021, DC was again exclusive with just a single Direct Market distributor, as retailers had to order its comics from Lunar Distribution or one of its subdistributors such as Universal Distribution in Canada. UCS Comic Distributors had dropped out of its relationship with DC at the end of 2020. The first month of the new era would coincide with the smallest slate of new DC comics in 30 years.
DC offered just 42 new comic books, not counting variants, in the month, dropping below May 1991's low of 45 new comics. It's six more than the next lowest non-pandemic figure, 36 new issues in December 1990. By contrast, DC had offered 82 new comics in January 2020, before the Coronavirus pandemic. But the actual number of versions of comics released by DC was much higher, with fully 26 out of its 42 new comics having card stock variants. In total, it released 121 variants.
The Future State event replaced almost all of DC's line, in a manner similar to what Marvel did in another January in 1995 with "Age of Apocalypse." Our retail order dataset found that the finale issue Dark Nights: Death Metal #7 garnered the most initial orders, with the Future State versions of Batman and Wonder Woman following closely behind. At $7.99, Future State: The Next Batman #1 appears to have been the top comic book by dollars in initial orders.
Despite the lower number of new releases, the number of units ordered in our retail order dataset improved over December and November levels; it helped that 23 releases, more than half the slate, were all first issues. As a reasult of all the special and first issues, the median cover price of DC's releases went to $4.99, with the average cost weighted by orders hitting $5.60.
While Lunar added a consumer-facing website in December, it still did not report anything about sales. Given the lack of official information, Comichron has drawn upon a subset of known retail orders both to determine approximate rankings and to project the relative order volumes of comic-book releases. The subset represents a sizable number of copies; only initial orders for periodicals were examined. No statistical adjustments have been made for returnability and no later returns have been subtracted out.
Note, further, that our process only looks at first-month orders for comics, so no reordered titles from the month before or reprints appear in the chart below. Thus, comics like December's Batman/Catwoman #1, which might have charted again on a Diamond-style report, do not reappear.
The chart below features every new comic book released by DC in January 2021. Variant editions have been merged into single entries, following longtime industry practice. The release dates are from Lunar.
As noted, DC offered 26 comic books with cardstock variants at a different price; their sales have been fused by default below. You can find the component versions at the bottom of the chart. Dollar rankings are based on the combined sales of the component variants.
Things to remember: A difference of a single point on the chart may not be meaningful, due to rounding; projections for issues at the lower extremes are subject to more error due to the small quantities involved. Projected relative sales levels here are likely most reliable for regular series issues in the middle of the chart: orders for the highest sellers and first issues may tend to show more variation.
Rankings in these charts should also be expected to differ — often significantly — from the sales-to-consumers charts available at other outlets. Those report sell-through and not sell-in, and different retailers are sampled in each, with no known overlap in reporting stores as of the generation of the below charts.
We also have a page breaking out ship dates for second printings.
As is the case with all data on Comichron,
it is subject to revision without notice in the event more authoritative and complete information about orders becomes available.
—John Jackson Miller
Updated May 18, 2021
This list includes all DC items released by Lunar Distribution in the month.
Differently priced variants appear fused together by default near where they'd have ranked if together.
Distributor charts are regional commodity reports, not measures of a work's total reach. Read our FAQ.
Title links below lead to current listings for the issues on eBay. As an eBay Partner, this site may be compensated if you make a purchase.
| Unit | Dollar | Comic-book Title | Issue | Price | On sale | Publisher |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | Dark Nights Death Metal | 7 | $5.99 | 01/05/21 | DC |
| 2 | 1 | Future State Next Batman | 1 (All) | $7.99 | 01/05/21 | DC |
| 3 | 9 | Future State Wonder Woman | 1 (All) | $3.99 | 01/05/21 | DC |
| 4 | 4 | Future State Dark Detective | 1 (All) | $5.99 | 01/12/21 | DC |
| 5 | 3 | Future State Next Batman | 2 (All) | $7.99 | 01/12/21 | DC |
| 6 | 5 | Future State Justice League | 1 (All) | $5.99 | 01/19/21 | DC |
| 7 | 8 | Batman Catwoman | 2 | $4.99 | 01/19/21 | DC |
| 8 | 15 | Future State Teen Titans | 1 (All) | $3.99 | 01/19/21 | DC |
| 9 | 7 | Future State Immortal Wonder Woman | 1 (All) | $5.99 | 01/26/21 | DC |
| 10 | 13 | DCeased Dead Planet | 7 (All) | $4.99 | 01/19/21 | DC |
| 11 | 17 | Future State Harley Quinn | 1 (All) | $3.99 | 01/12/21 | DC |
| 12 | 14 | Rorschach | 4 | $4.99 | 01/26/21 | DC |
| 13 | 11 | Future State Superman of Metropolis | 1 (All) | $5.99 | 01/05/21 | DC |
| 14 | 12 | Future State Dark Detective | 2 (All) | $5.99 | 01/12/21 | DC |
| 15 | 19 | Future State Flash | 1 (All) | $3.99 | 01/05/21 | DC |
| 16 | 21 | Future State Swamp Thing | 1 (All) | $3.99 | 01/05/21 | DC |
| 17 | 22 | Future State Superman Wonder Woman | 1 (All) | $3.99 | 01/05/21 | DC |
| 18 | 23 | Future State Nightwing | 1 (All) | $3.99 | 01/26/21 | DC |
| 19 | 10 | Future State Superman Worlds of War | 1 (All) | $7.99 | 01/19/21 | DC |
| 20 | 6 | Generations Shattered | 1 | $8.99 | 01/26/21 | DC |
| 21 | 16 | Future State Green Lantern | 1 (All) | $5.99 | 01/19/21 | DC |
| 22 | 26 | Future State Robin Eternal | 1 (All) | $3.99 | 01/26/21 | DC |
| 23 | 20 | Batman White Knight Presents Harley Quinn | 4 | $4.99 | 01/26/21 | DC |
| 24 | 27 | Future State Catwoman | 1 (All) | $3.99 | 01/12/21 | DC |
| 25 | 28 | Future State Kara Zor-El Superwoman | 1 (All) | $3.99 | 01/26/21 | DC |
| 26 | 30 | Future State Shazam | 1 (All) | $3.99 | 01/26/21 | DC |
| 27 | 18 | Batman Black & White | 2 | $5.99 | 01/19/21 | DC |
| 28 | 25 | Strange Adventures | 8 | $4.99 | 01/19/21 | DC |
| 29 | 32 | Future State Batman Superman | 1 (All) | $3.99 | 01/12/21 | DC |
| 30 | 33 | Future State Legion of Super-Heroes | 1 (All) | $3.99 | 01/26/21 | DC |
| 31 | 35 | Future State Aquaman | 1 (All) | $3.99 | 01/26/21 | DC |
| 32 | 24 | Future State Suicide Squad | 1 (All) | $5.99 | 01/05/21 | DC |
| 33 | 36 | Legion of Super-Heroes | 12 | $3.99 | 01/26/21 | DC |
| 34 | 31 | Batman The Adventures Continue | 8 | $4.99 | 01/19/21 | DC |
| 35 | 29 | Joker Harley Criminal Sanity | 7 | $5.99 | 01/26/21 | DC |
| 36 | 37 | Future State Superman Vs Imperious Lex | 1 (All) | $3.99 | 01/19/21 | DC |
| 37 | 34 | Other History of the DC Universe | 2 | $6.99 | 01/12/21 | DC |
| 38 | 39 | American Vampire 1976 | 4 | $3.99 | 01/12/21 | DC |
| 39 | 38 | Last God | 12 | $4.99 | 01/26/21 | DC |
| 40 | 40 | Dreaming Waking Hours | 6 | $3.99 | 01/05/21 | DC |
| 41 | 41 | Sweet Tooth The Return | 3 | $3.99 | 01/12/21 | DC |
| 42 | 42 | Looney Tunes | 258 | $2.99 | 01/26/21 | DC |
January 2021 DC Graphic Novel Sales
Graphic Novels and Trade Paperbacks Ordered by North American Comics Shops
Comichron did not sample retailer sales data for DC's Direct Market graphic novel sales, and Lunar Distribution did not release any sales data.
There are no major releases in the batch of graphic novels DC did offer in January, so odds are good that December's Wonder Woman: Dead Earth hardcover and November's Batman: Three Jokers hardcover would have continued to appear prominently.
The list of all the graphic novels DC released appears below. DC released 21 new graphic novels in December, ten fewer than in December.
The links below lead to title details on Amazon (paid links). You can also find the books at your comics shop.
