March was a good month for the Marvel Heroes office. According to the standings released by Diamond this past Friday, we produced five of the top-ten comics in the industry that month.
More remarkable, and worthy of note, is the fact that four of these books were written by Brian Bendis (MIGHTY AVENGERS #1, CIVIL WAR: THE INITIATIVE, CIVIL WAR: THE CONFESSION and NEW AVENGERS #28.) It's amazing enough that anybody can produce four comic book scripts in a single month (and Brian did more than four for March), but that fact that Bendis can not only do so but land those books squarely at the top of the industry heap is nothing short of remarkable, and a testament to his talent. You may love his work, you may hate it, but there's no denying that Brian has become a major force in the world of comics, and shows no sign of slowing down.
The fifth top-ten title is no surprise to anybody: CAPTAIN AMERICA #25. And hopefully, this means that a much wider audience has sampled the excellent work being done by Ed Brubaker, Steve Epting and Mike Perkins on this series, and that some of them will stick around to see what happens next. Like Brian, Ed manages to write multiple excellet scripts each and ever month--and while he hasn't yet quite ascended to the heights of popularity that Brian has attained, he's clearly well on his way.
Also released this past week was the trade paperback collection of CIVIL WAR. I realize that I am completely biased, but it was terrific to be able to page through the completed volume and to know that each and every page was produced by the creative team that started the series, Mark Millar and Steve McNiven. For all the hullaballoo during the period when the series was coming out, I think having the collection look this nice and be this consistent was definitely worth it--as will hopefully be proven out by sales over the long haul. I also think that if people read Mark's story in this format, away from the distractions of the assorted crossovers, they'll see that it holds together pretty solidly, and that it's very consistent in the way it protrays the various characters and the Registration Act.
More later.
Tom B
