Much of this is born of the "jumping on point" being magnified (by fan idiocy and bad writers) to the point that the notion of any issue being a good place to start is not even considered.

When I look back on my own "career" as a fan, I am struck by the likelihood that I would never have developed an interest in comics if I had shared this line of "thought". I would have had no chance at all with the likes of Superman and Batman, and altho I picked up the first appearance of Green Lantern in SHOWCASE, I missed the Flash's debut completely. Would I have picked up the first JUSTICE LEAGUE book, given that I was not reading most of the member's titles, having missed their debuts? Over at Marvel, FANTASTIC FOUR would not have been on my list, since the first one I saw was #2. I bought the first issue of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, but with the current mindset, would I have done so, having missed AMAZING FANTASY 15? I saw, but was not allowed to buy INCREDIBLE HULK 1. Having missed this, would I have kept working on my parents, until they finally relented an let me start buying the series with 5? (Great timing, huh?) X-MEN I was there for the first issue, as I was for AVENGERS --- but I had missed the debut appearances of all the members save the Hulk, (And what counts as the first appearance of Ant-Man, anyway?) so would I have picked up AVENGERS 1?