Green Lantern Sales Numbers

[Big Daddy Dave Skywalker Moisture Farmer Find all posts View Profile Close Big Daddy Dave Skywalker]

I thought Johns' Sinestro was one of his better contributions to the GL mythos. I really liked what he did with the character, I just don't think a title for him was the best idea in hindsight.

[Big Daddy Dave Skywalker Moisture Farmer Find all posts View Profile Close Big Daddy Dave Skywalker]

So by #22 or 23, both titles will be selling fewer copies than GL volume 5 was at the end of 52 issues. And that is going twice monthly, which would have been around #11 in monthly comic time. Imagine a flagship title selling less in 11 issues than it's previous installment did at #52. Damn.

How are DC and Marvel even going to stay in publication 15 years from now? There will come a point where the comics stop, and the characters just live on in other formats.

[Trey Strain Guardian of the Universe Find all posts View Profile Close Trey Strain]

So by #22 or 23, both titles will be selling fewer copies than GL volume 5 was at the end of 52 issues. And that is going twice monthly, which would have been around #11 in monthly comic time. Imagine a flagship title selling less in 11 issues than it's previous installment did at #52. Damn.

How are DC and Marvel even going to stay in publication 15 years from now? There will come a point where the comics stop, and the characters just live on in other formats.

I don't think Hal's title will drop much more, if at all. But the other one will.

[Mister Ed Horse of a Different Color Find all posts View Profile Close Mister Ed]

I thought Johns' Sinestro was one of his better contributions to the GL mythos. I really liked what he did with the character, I just don't think a title for him was the best idea in hindsight.

Wait, was he the one who turned Sinestro into a huge Mary Sue, who was the bestest at everything, or was that after Johns left the title? I hated that. A lot.

[Trey Strain Guardian of the Universe Find all posts View Profile Close Trey Strain]

Superman has actually lost ground.

May 2016 -- 54,317

April 2017 -- 51,373

And what do Green Lantern and Superman have in common?

It's that somebody decided to reinvent the wheel, and now it won't roll any more.

But check out the numbers for JLA!

May 2016 -- 92,423

April 2017 -- 41,543

[Big Daddy Dave Skywalker Moisture Farmer Find all posts View Profile Close Big Daddy Dave Skywalker]

Wait, was he the one who turned Sinestro into a huge Mary Sue, who was the bestest at everything, or was that after Johns left the title? I hated that. A lot.

Johns definitely made Sinestro the bestest GL ever, but I really liked his characterization and motives (most of the time) in a general sense, if not issue to issue. I think Sinestro was one of the better improvements to the series. He stopped being a bumbling idiot with Hall always kicking his ass. He became the major threat that Hal and the GLC desperately needed.

[Big Daddy Dave Skywalker Moisture Farmer Find all posts View Profile Close Big Daddy Dave Skywalker]

I don't think Hal's title will drop much more, if at all. But the other one will.

Really? I think they will both drop a bit more. The formula for HJ&TGLC is all wrong. The title needs to be cancelled and relaunched as GL volume 6 proper before it gets too embarrassing for DC.

[Big Daddy Dave Skywalker Moisture Farmer Find all posts View Profile Close Big Daddy Dave Skywalker]

Now I wish I had done this for GL volume 4!

[Trey Strain Guardian of the Universe Find all posts View Profile Close Trey Strain]

Oh, the data.

The CGI budget for GL was $54 million:

**The Ryan Reynolds-starring superhero film, which already boasts a huge $150- 200m budget (depending on which reports you read), is to receive a 20% boost to its $45 visual effects budget.**

Meanwhile, The Flash's whole budget per episode is $3M:

**At 23 episodes a season, the total budget is about $69 million.**

(This doesn't mean that every episode has to come in in under $3M. But that has to be the average cost.)

You can't make a one-hour version of the GL movie for television every week. Even if you're paying the actors and the director a lot less.

And even if the ring constructs were feasible for television -- which they're not -- they'd still suck.

[Space Cop The Dandy Find all posts View Profile Close Space Cop]

^I agree. And since GL is about the constructs, to me, that just means it's not an appropriate property for live-action TV. That suits me fine since I don't like to watch TV. I'd feel obliged to watch it and since I don't have (or want) cable personally it would be an inconvenience.

[Big Blue Lantern Corps Honor Guard Find all posts View Profile Close Big Blue Lantern]

Green Lantern had more than 2,000 special effects. Imposing blurs over images and making prosthetic masks in The Flash is not comparable.

You can argue with me, but you can't argue with the numbers. You should explain to DC how they can make a GL television series on the cheap with kewl ring constructs and hordes of aliens that nobody wants to see anyway. They'd love to have their eyes opened about it.

That's exactly my point. The GL film went the expensive route when that wasn't necessary. They could have gotten similar visuals for much less, and each week, Flash/Supergirl/Legends (and occasionally even Arrow) hammer home that point. Those shows routinely equal the CGI shots in Green Lantern, but they do so in a frugal manner. Each week, we see proof positive that GL could indeed work on TV, but the stuffed suits at WB are still skittish after their own financial blunder.

And Guardians of the Galaxy's success has also taken the argument that Green Lantern is too weird for the general public and put it to rest once and for all. The difference between the two is that Marvel Studios has a clear understanding of their properties, whereas WB has a mixed track record of understanding their DC properties.

He's just pushing his 'no constructs' argument, nothing more. You can give him episode by episode special effects budgets and he wouldn't bother reading any of it.

I'd say the whole 4 part crossover used less $$$ for special effects than just the first hour of the GL film. Trey insists he knows everything about comics, tv, movies, and marketing though so... LOL

~//V\\~

We've seen intricate backdrops (Mars, Gorilla City, Krypton) and a plethora of various aliens and alien tech. It seems that Berlanti learned his lesson about the most pricey effects not necessarily being the best route.

I thought Johns' Sinestro was one of his better contributions to the GL mythos. I really liked what he did with the character, I just don't think a title for him was the best idea in hindsight.

Johns did wonders for Sinestro, but ongoing villain titles, even when they're temporarily going the anti-hero route, seem finite in nature.

[Trey Strain Guardian of the Universe Find all posts View Profile Close Trey Strain]

The Flash does a very good job with low-budget special effects, absolutely. But there's another story posted online about how the Gorilla City two-parter was by far the most expensive undertaking of that season. The series still had to average a budget of $3M, so that story made necessary a lot of "bottle episodes."

You can't make a GL series like the one you're talking about for cheap. If you could, then DC's movie budgets would be a fraction of what they are now.

[Big Blue Lantern Corps Honor Guard Find all posts View Profile Close Big Blue Lantern]

The Flash does a very good job with low-budget special effects, absolutely. But there's another story posted online about how the Gorilla City two-parter was by far the most expensive undertaking of that season. The series still had to average a budget of $3M, so that story made necessary a lot of "bottle episodes."

You can't make a GL series like the one you're talking about for cheap. If you could, then DC's movie budgets would be a fraction of what they are now.

I've seen far too much evidence to the contrary from the Berlanti shows. If I might be crude, a flying hero with a flash ring that makes things from his or her mind would be easy in comparison to some of the characters who are used on a weekly basis.

[Trey Strain Guardian of the Universe Find all posts View Profile Close Trey Strain]

I've seen far too much evidence to the contrary from the Berlanti shows. If I might be crude, a flying hero with a flash ring that makes things from his or her mind would be easy in comparison to some of the characters who are used on a weekly basis.

Maybe they should hire you to produce a GL television show. But if I write a few episodes for you, I ain't gonna use any ring constructs.

Meanwhile, the evidence is right there in my signature that Green Lantern not only doesn't need the constructs but is better without them, regardless of who writes it. Fighting for them is like fighting to preserve landlines in houses because you like them.

If the constructs sold comics, then Green Lantern would be selling. So very obviously they don't sell it. Of course there are a few posters on the message boards who will go to the mat for them, but it's that way with every aspect of every old comic. A few people will struggle to keep Aquaman wearing his orange shirt and holding a trident too. Or to keep the LoS idling in the future and the JSA idling n the past, where they won't sell a comic. You see a definite pattern in those objections, right?

I've even seen a couple of people claim here that if DC dropped the constructs, they'd stop buying the comic. Well, I call bullshit on that. But even if they did drop it, is that a tragedy? Nobody is telling them to go away, but if that's what they need to do, then Merry Christmas and all the best to them. They won't inflict a mortal wound on the comic, or even a mosquito bite. Someone will step up and replace their $3 a month.

[Space Cop The Dandy Find all posts View Profile Close Space Cop]

^So you actually think there are massive amounts of comic fans out there who are thinking "I'd really like to give that Green Lantern a try, but only if he gives up the ability to do make whatever he wants"?

You are literally the only person I've ever read/heard who thinks Green Lantern can be separated from construct making. The next closest I can think of is a friend of mine who said (probably in the 90s) that he didn't think they could make a GL movie because of the constructs, but even he couldn't conceive of the property without them. And I think that's how most outsiders think of him--he's that guy who can do whatever he wants with his ring. For myself, when I explain what he is to non-comic-readers, I say "he can make whatever he wants with his ring and . . . "

The constructs are not the equivalent of Aquaman's scale shirt. They're the equivalent of his aquatelepathy and ability to breathe under water. They're not the equivalent of Wonder Woman's jet. They're the equivalent of her strength and lasso of truth. And we saw what happened when they tried to remove those from her. It would be more truthful to the stories to upgrade the Darkstars slightly to what you want than to degrade the GLC that much.

When Nodell and Finger created GL they wanted to name him Alan Ladd because the concept was based on Aladdin. Even when Schwartz recreated the concept with a sci-fi twist and a large nod to the Lensman books, he knew he had to keep that element. Super heroes are modern myths (especially in DC) and the mythological core of GL is a wish-granting ring. If constructs are outdated and unmarketable than GL itself is outdated and unmarketable.