indycwf wrote:
This may be an old discussion but I did not find a post on the  subject. Many of you like this title and I have them myself but you would think Atom or Hawkman could have been a better choice to devote a 5 or 6 volume run. This of course is my opinion. Did sales justify the publication decision?
For what it's worth, here's a comparison of the volume-to-volume for Doom Patrol Archives, Atom Archives and Hawkman Archives:

Doom Patrol Volume 1 2893 Mar-02      
Doom Patrol Volume 2 2368 Mar-04 2893 (525) -18%
Doom Patrol Volume 3 1728 Feb-06 2368 (640) -27%
Doom Patrol Volume 4 1487 Feb-08 1728 (241) -14%
Doom Patrol Volume 5 1500 Jul-08 1487 13 1%

Atom Volume 1 3064 May-01      
Atom Volume 2 2207 Oct-03 3064 (857) -28%

Hawkman Volume 1 3309 Jul-00      
Hawkman Volume 2 2022 Nov-04 3309 (1287) -39%

Unfortunately, our information is incomplete for Atom Archives and Hawkman Archives (we don't have Diamond pre-order / shipping data for the first volume of either line), and as the final volume of Doom Patrol Archives is an estimate. Nevertheless, the second volume of Doom Patrol Archives was marginally stronger than both of the Atom Archives and Hawkman Archives volumes released around the same time.

Couple that to the fact that it would take another 3 pre-jumbo volumes to get Atom Archives up to issue 38, another 2 pre-jumbo volumes to get Hawkman Archives up to issue 27, and then you have to figure out how to deal with Atom & Hawkman 39-45. Doom Patrol comes to a nice clean end.

And Doom Patrol is universally regard is a great 1960s DC series, while neither Atom nor Hawkman (at least post-Kubert) hold the same level of cachet.

My theory, for what it's worth, is that when DC focused on The Spirit, that soaked up 26 slots that might otherwise have gone to DC Universe titles including Atom and Hawkman. Had either of those two lines been a little further along, there might have been a push to get them out the door too. That said, to my mind completion of both The Spirit and Doom Patrol are among the most significant accomplishments by the Archives program. My hope with the revitalized jumbo-sized Archives is that we'll soon be able to include the completion of both Atom and Hawkman among the program's accomplishments.

UPDATED: Thanks to Karl51 we now have pre-order / shipping data for Atom Archives Volume 1 and Hawkman Archives Volume 1 so I've updated the post above. I love the teamwork at this Forum!

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Last Edited By: Matthew McCallum May 7 13 7:28 PM. Edited 2 times.