New Ben 10 Off to a Red-Hot Start

There have been a number of new comic book series that tie into classic animated series over the years, but what makes Dynamite Entertainment's upcoming Ben 10 series such a big deal is that it is actually going to be written by the CREATORS of Ben 10!

The collective known as Man of Action (Joe Casey, Joe Kelly, Steven T. Seagle, and Duncan Rouleau) were all respected comic book creators before they created this animated juggernaut back in 2005, and now they are returning to do the new Ben 10 comic book series, and that fan interest has resulted in some impressive sales for the first issue!

How big were the orders of the new Ben 10 comic book series?

As Dynamite noted in its press release for the news of the high sales for Ben 10 #1, a general rule of thumb is that the initial orders for any comic book series are roughly 25-30% of the final order at final order cutoff. Comic books are ordered by comic book retailers in different ways. You can order a comic book on "initial order," meaning when the comic book is first made available to the comic book retailer. This is how comic book stores orders comic books for DECADES.

Initial orders are typically set about two months before comic books are released. However, those orders can be adjusted up or down up until the "final order cutoff" date, which is about three weeks before the comic book is released. This, of course, is the most important date, as up until this point, all the orders are just speculative. This is when things are finalized, and a number of comic book stores don't even bother doing initial orders these days, they just do all of their orders at the "final order cutoff" (or the FOC). This is why you'll see comic book creators often tell people their "FOC date."

Ben 10 #1's initial orders were 6,000 copies, which suggested that the final orders would be somewhere between 18,000 and 24,000 copies, which isn't even that bad for an independent comic book launch. However, instead, the orders ended up being over 80,000 copies!

A good chunk of that were Blind Bag variants, and exclusive variants for retail stoes, but still, just the normal comic book still sold over 50,000 copies. Dynamite, though, is confident that even that order is not going to meet the demand for this book, so the company is warning readers to make sure that they preorder their copy from their local comic book store ahead of the book's release on May 6th to make sure they get a copy!

What is special about this new take on Ben 10?

As we have noted before, what makes this new Ben 10 series stand out is that the Man of Action writers are treating this like the "Absolute" or "Ultimate" version of Ben 10. It is a brand-new continuity, and they are going to take the best aspects of all the various Ben 10 cartoon series over the years, and condense them into one comic book.

As Joe Casey noted, "As original creators of the entire Ben 10 phenomenon, this comic book is a huge deal for us. For Ben 10 fans, both new and old, we're committed to giving you everything you could possibly want in this series. We've got every previous incarnation to draw from and we're not holding anything back. I've said it before, and I'll say it again... this is the most ‘Absolute’ Ben 10 you can get!"

Ben 10 #1 is set to be released on May 6th.