Hello, Spider-Talk Faithful. It’s your dear friend Cain back again to deliver the monthly sales report. And this was a killer month. If you think this feature has been too much doom and gloom, then this is the entry for you! June 2016 was a big month. A huge month. In fact, it’s the biggest month in units sold since 1997. We’ll get to why in just a second, but I want to bask in those numbers for just a little bit. Civil War II #1 itself sold over 380,000 copies, generating over $2.28 million dollars. 11 titles sold over 100,000 issues and total sales for June 2016 were up 14% versus June ‘15.

Now, of those 11 titles, only two of them were not #1 issues, Civil War II #2 and Dark Knight III: The Master Race #5. So to expect this month to repeat is a little outlandish. DC relaunched its line last month in what seems to be an almost yearly reboot of the line. Outside of Civil War II, Marvel also launch Star Wars: Han Solo in June, which claimed the 4^th spot, right behind both Batman titles and Civil War II #1.

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So where does that put our regular Spider-titles? Well…. a lot further down the list. Amazing Spider-Man took another nosedive in sales, dropping back down to the 65,000 after a minor recovery in May. While this puts the book at the lowest it’s been in years, what might be more interesting to note is that the second issue of the month outsold the first by just a few units. That’s the first we’ve seen of this; typically in a double-shipped month the second issue undersells the initial issue by a few thousand copies (2,944 in December, 3,758 in February, and 6,197 in April). For this reason, I think we’re going to see Amazing bounce around the low 70ks to mid 60ks until The Clone Conspiracy adds some push to the title. However, now that we know the title is going to be sold alongside Amazing, I’m not entirely sure how Amazing’s numbers will change, if at all, f0r the annual winter Spider-event.

Also to note, is that the Civil War II tie-in outsold the mainline Amazing title by about 7,000 units. While I don’t expect this trend to continue past the second issue, it’s perhaps a reflection on fatigue toward the main title. Though that particular sentiment might be misguided since Christos Gage is a semi-regular presence on Amazing, serving as fill in writer for Dan Slott on occasion. So instead, this might be a reflection on the popularity of Civil War II, which sold 381,737 units with its first issue and then about 60% less on its second issue, which is on the upper end of what we’ve been seeing with dropoff from #1s to #2s, but still within normal range. Worth noting is that Civil War II #1 is the second biggest event #1 to come out of Marvel, with last year’s Secret Wars still coming in at top-dog, selling over half a million issues. And while Civil War sold consistently in the 250,000 unit range for its entire run, Civil War II #1 out sold Civil War #1 by 121,031 units.

Spider-Man #5 sold a comfortable 47,205 units, putting it within the same range as Avengers and Spider-Gwen, making up Marvel’s middle range of comics. July sees the Civil War II banner added to Spider-Man’s cover, so we’ll see if heat from the event can give rise to some numbers. Worth noting will be that Nico Leon will be filling in pencils for series regular Sara Pichelli. All-New All-Different Avengers takes a quick two-issue detour into space before diving into its Civil War II tie-in in August, resulting in a pretty hard drop in units moved.

(No longer Radioactive) Spider-Gwen and Spider-Gwen Annual both sold about the same, with #9 coming behind Annual by about 2,000 units. Spider-Gwen #9 was the first book of a new arc as well as the first issue to post-“Spider-Women.” Pre-“Spider-Women,” Spider-Gwen #6 sold 46,060 issues. Which looks like it sold better pre-“Spider-Women,” but Spider-Gwen #6 came out in March which had that extra shipping day and saw titles getting bigger numbers than usual. Gwen #6 actually posted a 5% gain to #4, which sold 43,796 issues. So really, for Spider-Gwen to only lose about 2,500 (-4%) units between February and June is pretty big, and I think that “Spider-Women” had something to do with that.

Looking at the other “Spider-Women” related titles, we see that Silk and Spider-Woman suffered a bit more than Gwen, with Silk taking a 25% drop in units sold while Spider-Woman dropped 27.5%. The February to June spread for Silk is 26,032 to 23,162 (-11%) and for Spider-Woman is 20,474 to 19,658 (-4%). We can also say that going out of Spider-Woman, about 30,000 units of the final chapter were purchased.

So while the numbers didn’t stay up for the “Spider-Women” characters, it certainly helped slow the level of attrition looking at the similarly selling titles, compared to Silk, Carnage’s February to June spread was 27,160 to 23,146 (-14%), Spider-Man 2099’s was 26,163 to 22,722 (-13%) and Spidey’s was 28,161 to 20,736 (-26%). Spider-Woman’s close selling neighbors Venom: Space Knight and dead-title-walking Web Warriors posted a -23% and -21% loss respectively. So from this, we can see that the clear winners are Spider-Woman and Spider-Gwen, each slowing their trickle down to a mere 4% over the four months, while Silk performed only slightly better than its peers, with Spidey acting as the outlier.

That leaves Spider-Man/Deadpool #6 and The Amazing Spider-Man & Silk: The Spider(Fly) Effect which I am almost positive is selling as low as it is because no one wants to fill out that name on an order sheet. Anyway, Spider/Pool managed to score a few hundred units over last month’s issue, despite the fill-in team, proving that this title is hotter than fire. Since I’m apparently doing spreads this month, February to June for Spider-Man/Deadpool is 69,801 to 64,630, which translates to a 7.41% drop. That’s from #2 to #6. That’s a massive, massive success and while it doesn’t quite outsell Amazing this month, it’s quite possible that it will next month.

That’s it for June, folks. As always, credit for these figures come from the mighty fine folks over at comichron.com. July will prove interested as we’ll see if the big spoiler from Civil War II #3 has any ramifications to the sales. Until then, Web Heads! Remember, winners don’t do drugs, you wouldn’t download a car, and five keeps the neighborhood alive.