Marvel, by the numbers: At The Pulse, Paul O'Brien examines Marvel's month-to-month sales, noting that orders for the first post-Morrison issue of New X-Men fell by 14.6 percent:

"But let's not jump to conclusions. This month's NEW X-MEN and UNCANNY X-MEN issues were effectively promoted as fill-in stories. Issues #155-156 are the first issues by the new creative team of Chuck Austen and Salvador Larroca, but Marvel have promoted May's X-MEN #157 as the real beginning of their run. Fill-in issues never sell that well, and the book should get a big push in the May chart thanks to Reload. Next month's chart will be the first real test of Austen and Larroca's success on this book."

However, he is puzzled by the 27-percent drop between Issues 4 and 5 of The Punisher. There doesn't seem to be a good explanation for that one.

I'm fascinated by the freefall of Venom, which started out a year ago as the strongest of the Tsunami launch, with sales of some 92,592. Now, 13 issues later, it's at 27,537 and falling. I can't understand why major editorial changes weren't made months ago. Silver Surfer isn't faring much better, though. Flip a coin to see which gets axed first.