Either Marvel is delusional or I am.

Marvel is rebooting almost their entire line.

In the September catalog, they offered:
AVENGERS #1.
INDESTRUCTIBLE HULK #1.
ALL NEW X-MEN #1.
IRON MAN #1.
THOR #1.
CAPTAIN AMERICA #1.
X-MEN LEGACY #1.
CAPTAIN AMERICA #1.
FANTASTIC FOUR #1.
FF #1.
DEADPOOL #1.

This to go along with the previous UNCANNY AVENGERS #1; and, apparently, an equal number of new #1's in the October catalog.

Obviously, they're trying to do a New 52 type thing, but they are doing it in such a muddled way that I can't see it having the same effect.  No one has come in excited to get "all" the new titles, the way they did with DC.

DC took a big gamble, and it paid off.  A clear message -- everything starts over and there will be 52 titles.

Marvel's message is -- some titles will, sorta kinda, start over, and some won't and some will come out one month and some on another and never mind we've sort of being doing this starting over things for several years now though in a more rolling manner...

So I took my subscription numbers -- that is, people who are already sighed up for them -- and instead of adding between one to five extra copies, I more or less doubled them.

And I didn't even come close to qualifying for even the lowest number I needed for the most common variant covers.

This has never happened before.  I've always managed to at least qualify for the lowest numbers, if not the more extreme numbers.

I would have to order between 5 to 6 times the usual numbers --which would've been about right for the new 52, as it turned out.  But I'm extremely skeptical that anything like that is going to happen this time.

Each title, I suspect, is going to be judged on it's own merits.

What's confusing to me is -- my comic sales are in a good place.  If my sales were down and I was falling below what Marvel considered the 'minimums' then I could understand it.  But my sales on comics are actually in a pretty good place.

So Marvel seems to believe I can sell 5 times my normal numbers, even though my normal numbers are pretty good.

Anyway, I've never encouraged variant (reward) comics -- and I don't currently have any customers who are demanding them, and I'll simply tell them I didn't qualify (hopefully that won't make my store seem too lame).

But I am NOT going to order 5 to 6 times normal numbers to qualify for a comic that has a artificially imposed different cover.

Maybe Marvel is right.  Maybe I'll wish I ordered 5 to 6 times normal numbers.

But here's the problem.  If I order that much, and sell say 3 times normal numbers, I still don't make money.

If I order double numbers and sell 90%, I'll have pretty good sales.

If I sell out, I can try to get more.  Marvel will undoubtedly have second prints.

So -- like I said, either Marvel is delusional, or I am.