First Batwing, then OMAC, and soon Firehawk... Justice League International is starting to look like Canceled Comics Cavalcade. Once upon a time, characters that couldn't even beat Firestorm in a fight were relegated to be pulped in the Suicide Squad. Now, they are sent off to join the Justice League? Surely these leftover characters aren't the reason that Justice League International sales aren't topping the charts?

Note that Booster Gold, Volume 2, #5 had sold well with a guest appearance by a founding Justice Leaguer. Maybe JLI could use a little more help than Firestorm's cast-offs?

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With the coming of the New 52, DC released a glut of new books on the market. Readers bought far more books then they typically would in the initial excitement in order to sample the offerings of this brave new world.

Unfortunately, that buying pace cannot be sustained. Because so much capital was expended during the buying frenzy generated during the initial hype, fewer titles can be purchased going forward, so the hype ends up detrimental in the long run as it forces buyers to be more selective than they would otherwise have been. And thus this hype cycle ends up damaging sales, not increasing them.

At least that's my theory. I'm also blaming Vixen: so far she's just dead weight.

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Last week, DC announced the first casualties of the New 52. Blackhawks, Hawk and Dove, Men of War, Mister Terrific, O.M.A.C. and Static Shock were among the worst-performing titles of the New 52. They will be replaced by some familiar titles in the next three months as DC seeks to inject some new blood into the rapidly decaying New 52.

Fortunately, JLI is still a top-50 seller, though it is interesting to note that even it is losing ground rapidly to a rather Boosterrific comparable:

At this rate, it should be expected that sales for the still-on-the-shelf Justice League International #5 will be worse than sales were for Booster Gold #5 in 2007. Granted, these numbers don't take into account the unknown digital sales of the JLI series, but it would still seem that Batman and Guy Gardner aren't helping promote sales significantly more than Booster Gold could do himself. Who would have expected that?

Booster Gold had two things that JLI doesn't. Since one of those things was Geoff Johns who is already busy doing what he does best reinvigorating Aquaman, the JLI will need to hang their hopes on the other one: Skeets, the JLI needs you!

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Yes, the New 52 is selling well by all metrics. But all new issues sell well. A better indication of its relative success is to compare its sales to the past.

Graphically, it looks like sales are falling off for Justice League International Volume 3 faster than they did for Booster Gold Volume 2. If all DC's hype has created a larger pool of buyers out there now, this is bad news for the JLI as the audience is turning its back on this series for greener pastures.

On the other hand, this should be expected if the readers of the New 52 are the same old readers who are adjusting their pull lists after buying a few extra books for the past few months. For a better view, take a look at the composite sales graphs for all of the New 52 against one another:

You can click on that graph to embiggen it, but all it really shows is that the sales trend seen for Justice League International Volume 3 is pretty much the same across the board for the entire New 52. That's a lot of volume with a very familiar sales trend towards entropy across the board. The more you see of the DCnU, the less new it looks.

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Now that the final numbers are in, let's take a look at the roller coaster ride that was the monthly sales report for Booster Gold, Volume 2.

What can this graph tell us? Obviously those spikes are tie-ins to the crossover events Blackest Night and Flashpoint, respectively. That makes it pretty clear that whatever DC says about re-inventing the DC universe with this "New 52" reboot, mega-events sold books and will be returning sooner rather than later. Also, fears about fans abandoning books as the reboot loomed may have been appropriate: Booster Gold #47 did not sell as well as Booster Gold #46 did.

On the bright side, that chart represents sales of 1,345,643 individual comic books starring Booster Gold! If each of those issues averaged 2.0 ounces in weight, that's 168,205 pounds (76,296 kilograms) of comics. Since those comics are solid gold -- Booster Gold -- they should be worth $4,475,904,840 at current market price! But of course they are priceless to us Booster Gold fans, right?

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