I was reading an old interview with a Marvel editor from 1998 and found a wild number about X-Men #1

So I was digging through some old comic news sites for fun (you know, just killing time) and found this interview with Bob Harras. He was talking about the 1991 X-Men #1 launch, the one with the five different covers. I always knew it sold a lot, but he said the initial print run was over 8 million copies. Eight million! For a single issue! My mind is still kind of blown by that. I have a copy in a box somewhere, and it's not worth much because, well, everyone and their brother has one. It really puts today's sales numbers into a different light. I guess that was the peak of the speculator boom. Has anyone else stumbled on a fact about comic sales or print runs that just seemed crazy to you?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_drew14d ago

Eight million copies is a number that's hard to even picture. Does anyone know what the actual sell-through was, or did a huge chunk of those just sit in warehouses and never get sold to a real person?

susana6614d ago

Remember a friend who worked at a big box store when that game came out. They ended with a whole pallet of unsold copies in the back room for months. Makes you wonder how many of those eight million actually found a home.

james_kim13d ago

That "eight million" number is looking pretty sad now.