Between Spiderman and Superman, whose comics sold the most number of copies? Whose more popular then?

Question

Which comic sold the most, was it Spiderman or Superman comics? So whose more popular ? if posible can someone give the a site or something to the official count showing who sold the most and/or whose more popular....plzz.. Me and my friend are having this debate on whose more popular and this could help out a lot.... o yeah, I'm a huge spidey fan.

I didnt mean all time sales.... if superman and spider brought out books at the same time... for example who sold more copies in 2006, was it spiderman or superman?

Answer 1

First off I want to say I am indifferent and neither prefer one hero over the other. I like them both and regularly buy comics from both of them. So I do not have a bias towards either of them.

I think you need to clarify the question. If you are talking long term, probably Superman sold more. But that's because he had an over 20 year head start on selling comics.

If you are talking current popularity, which I think is more relevent, I would say Spider-man is more popular.

Since you said "Comics sold" I won't bring up movie ticket sales where Spider-Man has destroyed Superman. And saying that Superman had 5 movies to Spider-Man's three is not a good arguement to saying Superman is more popular. Superman III did not do so well at the box office, Superman IV bombed, and Superman Returns was a sales disappointment to the studio. Each of the three Spider-Man movies have broke sales records during their releases.

To me the best way to see who currently sells more comics is to look at the current sales. So let's look at where the comics rank. This can be tricky, cause do you just count the Superman and Spider-man titles? Or do you also include comics that have appearances from either Superman or Spider-man.

Let's look at March 2007's list of the 300 top comics sold. I could not find anything posted for April's numbers yet, and since I am not a vendor who buys comics directly from Diamond Distributers I do not have access to that info.

Anyway here is where they ranked on the top 300 list for March.

#3 Amazing Spider-Man 329

#6 Justice League of America 6 (features Superman)

#7 New Avengers 28 (Features Spider-Man)

#19 Superman/Batman 32

#25 Ultimate Spider-Man 106

#26 Ultimate Spider-Man 107

#27 Action Comics (featuring
Superman) 847

#37 Superman 660

#38 Sensational Spider-Man 36

#43 Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man 18

#47 Spider-Man Reign 4

#59 Superman Confidential 4

#94 JLA Classified (Featuring
Superman) 36

#165 Spider-Man Reign 2

#192 Marvel Adventures - Spider-Man 25

#194 Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane 16

#255 Amazing Spider-Man 538

#259 Action Comics (Superman) 845

#277 Action Comics (Superman) 846

#285 New Avengers (Featuring
Spider-man) 27

The link below will show you how many copies of each issue were sold, if you want to add them up since there is a big difference in sales between the highest ranked and lowest ranked. For example
#3 sold 137,700 copies while #285 sold 1,600 copies in March 2007.

I'd love to see the what the numbers were if you add them up.

Answer 2

The most recent data I could locate with a quick search was Diamond comics preorders for the month of may 2006. These are the books ordered by direct sale retailers. If you look at the list here:

http://www.cbgxtra.com/Default.aspx?tabid=1692

It is interesting to note that of the top ten, 7 were DC titles while 3 were Marvel titles. The difficulty I find in answering your question is.... what do you consider spider/superman comics? do you count all of them? do you count simply their flagship title? Here is what I did.. I took the top 50 titles, any spidey or supes issue and crunched the numbers:

There were 5 books involving each hero shipped to retailers that month. Superman shipping far more books:

Superman/Batman 26 (118,800)
Superman/Batman 25 (103,700)
Superman 652 (70,400)
Action comics 838 (62,700)
Action comics 839 (61,900)

Spiderman titles:

Amazing Spiderman 532 (95,500)
Ultimate Spiderman 94 (74,000)
Ultimate Spiderman 95 (73,500)
Friendly Spiderman 8 (53,500)
Sensational 26 (52,500)

Superman owns spiderman 417,500 to 283,250


Now - Do you not consider Superman/Batman a title because of the batman draw? I would suggest Ultimate line should not be included also, as its an alternate universe. (in this case Spiderman would edge Supes by 6,900 copies)

I do think however from a retailer standpoint that Superman is THE draw. I would bet that the current movie has not bumped the numbers all that much. (history - retailers haven't figured out how to cash in on the movie hype) - when was the last time you saw a comic book store advertised in conjuction with the movie... you'd think this would be the case.

Thanks for letting me play with the numbers. enjoy!

Answer 3

I don't think you'll get DC or Marvel comics to release their actually sales numbers. But I think you can also safely say that Superman was the more popular and most sold...here is my reasoning.
1. Action Comics is MUCH older than Marvel.
2. There's been like 6 Superman movies and only 3 Spidermans.
3. Superman has died and come back to life.

So, for franchise value, Superman has the edge.

Now, whether Superman actually has better stories, that's debatable.

Answer 4

When you consider that Superman had a 24 year head start on Spiderman, and branched out into multiple books before Spiderman, its pretty clear that Superman won in terms of sales a long, long time ago. After Action Comics came out, Superman got his own personal title in 1939. In 1941, he started having stories appear alongside Batman's in 'World's Finest'. Superman's Pal Jimmly Olsen started in 54. Fans were also drawn to Lois Lane's comic vicariously through Superman. Other comics that center on Superman have included Man of Tommorrow, Man of Steel, and Adventures of Superman.

Spiderman's first appearance was in Amazing Fantasy #15 in 1962, but he didn't see his own title until almost a year later. In 68 he got a second series titled 'Spectacular Spiderman'. In the 80s Marvel published 'Web of Spiderman' to coincide with his new costume from Secret Wars. In the 90s Todd McFarlane started another book, simply titled 'Spiderman', but left the book after 16 issues.

Superman's total sales of all of his own books, family books, superboy books, spin offs, and team-ups, I'd say it would be reasonable to guess that he's sold well over one billion.

Answer 5

Superman

Answer 6

superman. its the oldest

Answer 7

i am not sure if this link is going to help but just try
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superman
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiderman