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Anthony Dean Kotorac
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 05 September 2005
Location: Australia
Posts: 832
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| Posted: 12 January 2014 at 11:31pm | IP Logged | 1
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Still trying to figure out why on earth Marvel are rebooting Daredevil with the exact same team!
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Andrew W. Farago
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Joined: 19 July 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 4079
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| Posted: 13 January 2014 at 12:30am | IP Logged | 2
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It is what it is. I'd rather be looking forward to Amazing Spider-Man 730-something in April than the third Amazing Spider-Man #1, but for the time being, Marvel's decided to go with the "season" approach to books.
They've got plenty of people in the marketing department looking at this stuff, and if sales go up by 10,000 when they start a new creative team with a new #1 and they only go up marginally when they start a new creative team with issue #37, it's not hard to see why they do it. Creative teams get paid more when sales are higher, and they've got more job security when sales are higher, so the one-to-four year self-contained series is here to stay.
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Matt Reed
Byrne Robotics Security
Robotmod
Joined: 16 April 2004
Posts: 35786
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| Posted: 13 January 2014 at 12:32am | IP Logged | 3
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Reboots and renumbering is a gimmick, plain and simple. I'm talking about the last 20 odd years. Making the creative team on a book more important than the character so much so that you stop his or her title and renumber it at 1 just to signify a creative change is the worst sort of self-importance I can think of as well as playing into the speculator mentality that a #1 is "worth more" than #2, #23 or #137.
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Eric Jansen
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Joined: 27 October 2013
Location: United States
Posts: 2322
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| Posted: 13 January 2014 at 2:19am | IP Logged | 4
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In theory, renumbering sort of makes sense. In practice, however, it's dumb and annoying and is probably having a detrimental effect on the whole industry. Some things to note:
1. Marvel has a long history of copying DC's decisions. Going way back, if DC has a super team (Justice League of America), then Marvel has to have a super team (Fantastic Four). If DC has a mini series that's making a big splash (Identity Crisis), then Marvel has to throw out a similar series (Identity Disc). If DC restarts all its books with number ones, then Marvel has to restart all its books with number ones! And it makes no sense since Marvel usually does things better than DC anyhow!
2. Obviously, if DC does something big like the New 52 (putting aside the wisdom of such a thing for a moment), then, yes, starting over with new number ones makes sense. Likewise, if Marvel decides to merge the X-Men and the Avengers, then starting a new number one for UNCANNY AVENGERS makes sense. If you have a good reason to restart the numbering, then go ahead.
3. In the 90's, the quality of a lot of books deteriorated so badly, that canceling them and restarting with new number ones was almost an act of mercy. And it sent a clear message to the reader that they were going to try harder now. Of course, sometimes this got out of hand. And now they'll restart for little or no reason.
4. At some point, people in power (for noble or ignoble reasons) came to the realization that the renumbering was dumb or bad or ignorant of history and decided to do dual numbering (number 79 was also number 489 or whatever)--usually in time for some big milestone like an issue 500. Maybe (at Marvel at least) someone in power will dictate a similar re-renumbering in time for certain flagships' numbers 700 or 1,000 one day. (At DC, however, it looks like that ship has permanently sailed.)
5. In the end, the publishers are shooting themselves in the foot. They seem to respect the trade paperback and graphic novel format more than the lowly monthly comic, but their collection philosophy makes it even MORE confusing for a new reader to jump in! Instead of just numbering them straight through (as the Manga collections do), they have multiple AVENGERS or X-MEN collection series with various number ones or no numbering whatsoever. Even if things like the AVENGERS movies were to send a million new readers into Barnes & Noble or your local comics shop eager to buy the comics, it's practically impossible to know which books to buy and in which order.
They could fix the comics renumbering problem if they made sure to number the trade paperbacks in order, but they don't--even though it would help them sell more copies to new readers and start rebuilding the audience again.
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Andrew W. Farago
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 July 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 4079
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| Posted: 13 January 2014 at 2:21am | IP Logged | 5
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Publishers have been doing this at least since Crisis on Infinite Earths, haven't they? It's hardly new, it's just that Marvel's making a more concerted effort to get readers to start reading a particular book.
The people who are still hitting comic shops every week know that #1 issues aren't "worth" more, and I don't think there are a lot of speculators who are grabbing ten copies of each new iteration of X-Force. The people who *are* paying attention to new directions and ordering more copies of #1 issues and relaunches by the same creative teams are the retailers. They've proven that they'll order twice as many Daredevil #1 issues as they'd order for #37 by the same creative team, and they've proven that they'll talk up that "new" Daredevil series to their customers more than they'll direct people to another solid issue of Daredevil by the creative team that's doing solid work every month.
I was ticked off about this when we got a new Captain America #1 by Rob Liefeld in 1996, which led to Mark Waid and Ron Garney's #1 in 1998, which led to another #1 around 2004, and another two or three after that...but now it's just one of those things. When Rick Remender leaves the book (and he could be on for a good long while, like Ed Brubaker was before him), the next writer will want to put his own stamp on the book, the next editor will want to push that creative team with a new #1, and Disney will want to higher sales when the new team takes over, and will want to see those sales sustain themselves for a while, too.
I'm sure Rick Remender likes the bigger paycheck he gets for a top-selling #1 issue compared to what he'd get if he just wrote the next number in the run that Ed Brubaker started, but it's not "self-importance" that led to that decision, it's more like self-preservation on Marvel's part. People are creating comics because they love doing it, regardless of issue numbers and volume numbers.
I'll buy a #1 by a creative team that interests me just as readily as I'll buy a #14 by a creative team that interests me. I don't have any control over whether a publisher is going to put out a #1 every single month and will tack a decimal point onto the end every issue, or if they'll start numbering them by color, or if they'll drop numbers altogether; I can just control what I'm willing to buy.
If you want high issue numbers, you've always got Image. Spawn's past #200 now, Savage Dragon is fast approaching that number, and Walking Dead and Invincible are both past #100. DC's still got Fables on the Vertigo side of things if you want a Big Two book that's in triple digits.
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James Woodcock
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 21 September 2007
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 7697
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| Posted: 13 January 2014 at 3:41am | IP Logged | 6
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The crazy thing is, that as a child, growing up on comics, there were always special issue numbers that were used - #1, #12 (to celebrate the end of the first year), and then every twenty fifth issue so #25, #50, #75 etc.
Celebrations of multiples of 50 and 100 were always landmarks as well. So why the need for #1 every year or so?
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Joe Zhang
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Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 12857
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| Posted: 13 January 2014 at 4:04am | IP Logged | 7
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You'd think that folks would have a sort of "insulin resistance" with marketing stunts like renumbering. Perhaps there's a very basic desire in fans, even the most jaded guys, to relive their earliest experiences with comics, that a big honking "#1" speaks to.
Edited by Joe Zhang on 13 January 2014 at 4:04am
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Brett Stuart
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Joined: 07 June 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 89
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| Posted: 13 January 2014 at 4:14am | IP Logged | 8
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When all you are catering to is the same dwindling fanbase, what's the point?
"Joe Blow quit reading Amazing Spider-Man after issue 700 because he was upset Peter Parker died. He'll come back for Peter's return in our new Amazing Spider-Man #1! We just got back one of the 60,000 or so fans who are still reading comics!"
The Big 2 are just rotting corpses at this point. |
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Craig Robinson
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Joined: 28 November 2010
Location: United States
Posts: 1756
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| Posted: 13 January 2014 at 6:22am | IP Logged | 9
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Going from Amazing Spider-Man 700 to Superior Spider-Man 1 and then back to Amazing Spider-Man 1 NOW makes much more sense to me than relaunching Daredevil, X-Factor, etc. I am interested in Dan Slott's Silver Surfer 1 and All New Invaders 1 (which probably markets better than Same Old Invaders) In the future, all issues will be #1s. Marvel RIGHT NOW!!
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Jeff Dyer
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Joined: 08 January 2012
Location: United States
Posts: 143
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| Posted: 13 January 2014 at 6:56am | IP Logged | 10
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I think the key word is "frequent" re numbering. I remember when JB launched SUPERMAN #1. It was a huge deal because (I don't think) anything like that had happened before. Now it's a regular occurrence. While I prefer historical numbering, you can make a case for it when a book is actually restarted with a new continuity, like JB 's SUPERMAN. I can even accept the recent DC restart since much of the continuity got a refresh. But when you restart a book for every new creative team then it's just a silly game. It may boost sales for a few months, but that's it. It also takes away the credibility of relaunches when it happens so often, like with FANTASTIC FOUR, HULK, etc.
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Greg McPhee
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Joined: 25 August 2004
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 5071
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| Posted: 13 January 2014 at 11:22am | IP Logged | 11
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This link is Tom Brevoort's response when this was put to him recently:
Edited by Greg McPhee on 13 January 2014 at 11:23am
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Charles Valderrama
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| Posted: 13 January 2014 at 11:40am | IP Logged | 12
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"there are a lot—a LOT—of readers who hear about one of our books being good, but who feel like they don’t know where to jump on board to try it out. They’re hesitant. The new #1 gives them a nice easy access point—which is part of why it always works."
"... when it comes to something as irrelevant to the storytelling as the number that happens to be on the cover, we’re going to do whatever the marketplace tells us gives us the best chance to get that material into as many hands as possible."________
There you go, Tom Brevoort has it all figured out. The Marketplace is the blame for all the reboots and renumbering!!!!!
AND why i've stopped reading MARVEL.
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Topic Closed)
