Paul O'Brien writes at The Beat:
The new year begins with a relatively quiet month on the charts. The big news, of course, is Barack Obama’s unexpectedly popular appearance in AMAZING SPIDER-MAN. Ironically, the other significant new releases for January are part of the “Dark Reign” event, with the launch of DARK AVENGERS and the relaunch of PUNISHER. The two don’t entirely fit together - if he’s putting Norman Osborn in charge of vital government departments, then Obama-616 evidently takes bipartisanship to new extremes - but Marvel have managed to get away with having their cake and eating it.
Otherwise… not much going on, to be honest. A lot of titles failed to ship in January - HULK, MIGHTY AVENGERS, ULTIMATUM, WOLVERINE, UNCANNY X-MEN, THOR, ULTIMATE X-MEN, ULTIMATE FANTASTIC FOUR and even IMMORTAL IRON FIST are all missing. You can tell it’s quiet when all the Marvel Adventures books reappear on the top 300. In December, MARVEL ADVENTURES AVENGERS missed the chart altogether; this time, it’s at number 227 with roughly the same sales.
Marvel beat DC by 46% to 33% in unit share, and 43% to 31% in dollar share.
