The big news is that JLA/Avengers #1 Breaks 200,000.

Am I the only one who finds that figure incredibly low for a 20-year-in-the-making event that should be drawing comic fans old and new from both DC and Marvel readers and the mildly curious? A Batman comic book once sold a million issues back in the 1960s.

Where is the mainstream press that this crossover should be getting? Where is the massive advertising campaign that the companies should be running? And isn’t there something really wrong about neither Marvel.com nor DCcomics.com having any promotion for this titanic mini-series on their own damn home pages?

Am I wrong in thinking it’s also the direct sales prestige format? While a beautiful format, and one truly befitting the quality of Busiek and Perez, there’s no getting over the fact that the long-awaited JLA/Avengers is now a novelty product available only in specialty stores. Had this debuted 20 years ago as it should have, it would have been available in every gas station, drugstore and grocery magazine rack in the country and you know it would be selling more than just one-fragging-fifth of a million copies!

Consarn razzer-frattin’ circus freakshow side act, that’s what our beloved comics industry has become. Everyone’s so excited about prying six bucks from 200,000 people.

I am not even in a bad mood, folks, and everyone knows me as a glass-half-full kind of guy. But I love comic books, and this kind of gross incompetence just bugs me. Promotion! Advertising! Press! The general public loves these characters, which is why their movies do so well. Superman wielding Thor’s hammer and Captain America’s shield is something even the public at large thinks is cool.

At the very least, you companies should put some elbow grease into getting a big graphic promoting this on your own web sites!