DC’s announcement that it’s
planning to relaunch fifty-plus titles with new
continuity and new #1s in September prompts a number of observations on
reboots
and renumberings from the past. After so many months of talking about
prices in
the comics industry, it's a nice change of pace to talk about a
different
number on the cover.
One thing we quickly see when
looking at past reboots and renumberings is
that they’re different in many ways, enough that generalization becomes
difficult. DC’s particular move, for example, is the largest linewide
renumbering we’ve ever seen. (Acclaim, which renumbered just about
everything
from the Valiant line in 1996-97, is dwarfed by this example.) DC’s move
is
further not just new numbering, but reportedly new continuity — a
separate
phenomenon that nonetheless usually coincides with new numbering.
John
Byrne's Superman:
The Man of Steel in 1986 represented a continuity reboot,
under a new
title; the new continuity was eventually reflected in the other Superman
titles
which were not renumbered. (The existing Superman title was later renamed Adventures of Superman to permit a new Byrne Superman series — but the original series continued its numbering, and in fact, changed back to Superman with #650.)
Meanwhile, when Amazing
Spider-Man renumbered in the
late 1990s, it was simply a numbering restart (plus John Byrne, again).
The numbers historically tend
to suggest that renumbering alone, for its
own sake, doesn't do an awful lot beyond the first-issue effect sales
boost
unless associated with other elements, such as new creative teams, a new
over-arching storyline, or other enhancements that impact a series
across time.
Kevin Smith's Daredevil
received a new
#1 in 1998 and had major sales benefits that stuck for years; others
tailed off
more quickly. Amazing Spider-Man had preorders
in the 60,000s up until its
cancellation and replacement with Vol. 2, #1 in late 1998; sales indeed
spiked,
but even with Byrne, were back to the 60,000s within a year.
The 1999 Incredible
Hulk numbering restart, again with Byrne added, had by #6
returned to
the 40,000s where it had been before.
No change in the titling and
numbering of a series can be evaluated without
regard to creator and story factors — and as we've seen, every case is
different. In general, however, we do see that renumbering can be a
double-edged sword.
The first-issue boost is almost always there, and is
often
substantial, sometimes doubling or tripling the sales of the ongoing
title it
sprang from. But we also know that higher numbering on a comics title
tends to
be associated, on average, with slower issue-by-issue deterioration in
sales.
Retailers ordering in advance cut orders from #1 to #2 far more deeply
than
they would from a #101 to a #102, where they have established
readerships.
Now,
in the case of a renumbering of an existing series, the new series
retains most
of the longevity benefits of its connection with the precursor title —
but not
all, as some long-time collectors decide to call it a complete set and
stop
buying. So you're looking for a really big boost from the new #1 —
substantial
enough so that you're not right back where you were in a few months.
One important factor in
predicting the performance of a renumbered ongoing
series is the extent to which retailers are able to “map” orders from
one to
the next, and thus place an educate guess at the base readership for the
new
#1. If a year or two elapses between the last issue of the ongoing
series and
the first issue of the renumbered series — as happened with Flash,
which was off the shelves during 1986 —
the sequel series tends to be treated as brand new, because no
existing
readers have it in their pull lists. The announced DC situation differs
in that
one volume is rolling over into the next, so far as retailers are
concerned;
logistically, the change is small.
What DC has announced is both
a change in numbering and continuity, and two
prominent cases are "Heroes Reborn" from September 1996 and
"Heroes Return," from November 1997, when The Avengers,
Fantastic Four, Iron Man, and Captain America
both
rebooted continuity and started with new #1s.
We do not have the monthly
“before” numbers for “Heres Reborn,” because September 1996 was when I
began
getting reports from Heroes World, Marvel's exclusive distributor; there
is no
public source for direct market sales for those titles before the
reboot. But
judging from the Statements of Ownership for those four titles, it
appears that
the first issues of “Heroes Reborn” jumped dramatically higher, tripling
in
some cases the previous volume’s sales. Sales fell by nearly half on the
second
issues of the new series and declined afterward, but it does appear that
sales
for the entire 13-month experiment remained higher on all titles than
what they
probably were before, if the Statements from 1996 are correct. Liefeld's
titles
(Avengers, Cap) declined in sales a little more quickly than Lee's
(Fantastic
Four, Iron Man), with Liefeld departing both titles by issue #8.
"Heroes Return," meanwhile,
picks up a similar big bounce on
relaunch, nearly doubling sales of the 13th issues of the
previous
volume — but those figures fell beneath the 13th issue levels of the
"Heroes Reborn" titles by #3 for Iron Man and Fantastic Four, by #4
for Captain America, and by #8 for Avengers. All were still above
probable
pre-Reborn sales, but that would not be the case for much longer, as the
entire
market continued declining. See the sales tracks for the “Heroes” titles
here:
http://blog.comichron.com/2011/06/heroes-reborn-vs-heroes-return-tale-of.html
“Reborn” and “Return” are
interesting cases, but they’re unique in many
ways, ways that remind us what we need to look for in studying similar
changes.
“Return” was the second relaunch in a year, and started right into the
"dead quarter," when sales normally go down. And Marvel spun off Captain
America:
Sentinel of Liberty just as the “Return” Cap series was
getting going, possibly dividing that title's sales. “Return” was also a
rejoining to a continuity that was still ongoing — whereas “Reborn”
appeared
simultaneously alongside ongoing continuity, much as Marvel’s Ultimate
line
does. And both cases came in the swiftly declining market of the late
1990s,
and across time, no single factor has more effect on the number of
copies
ordered than the number of comics shops.
Back to the matter of
numbering, apart from the reboots. Sequential
numbering of comics series is a long tradition in American comics
publishing,
separating it from the annual volume numbering of most magazines, where
the
cover date is the most important thing. It has in many ways made comics
more
timeless, and given readers a way to communicate about favorite series
over the
years. They also make it easier for collectors and dealers to engage in
the
hobby: repeated renumberings of Punisher have
made it pretty hard
for buyers on eBay to know what books they're talking about without
seeing a
cover.
The renumbering wave of the
late 1990s — which took in Marvel, Acclaim, and
Archie, among others — crested in 2000, when Marvel’s second
highest-numbered
title, after Uncanny X-Men at #387, was Wolverine,
way down at #157 (and
soon to be restarted itself). 2000 say only 10 titles in the #200s or
higher.
But waves go in and out. Marvel worked in the 2000s to re-establish
continuous
numbering on many of its titles, starting first with "shadow numbers"
on some of its titles. While not the official numbering as far as
collectors
are concerned (that's found in the indicia), the shadow numbers were
intended
to be helpful to readers who chose
to consider the numbering as consecutive. In the mid-2000s, DC reunified
Adventures
of Superman with Superman.
The announced move, if it
renumbers Action Comics, Detective Comics, and
Superman,
thus leaves no shortage of high-numbered titles, thanks in part to
Marvel’s
moves. It would mean the longest-running American series with
uninterrupted
publication and numbering would
become Archie, currently at #620. Amazing
Spider-Man, which reached
#659, rebooted once and hopped over to Amazing Scarlet
Spider for a short
time; Incredible Hulk and Thor
are higher-numbered but also
restarted in the past. (Incredible Hulk #1, interestingly, isn’t even in
the
same series that’s ongoing now — what we have today is the descendant of
Tales
to Astonish.) Meanwhile, Archie rebooted everything else
in the 1990s,
but left Archie’s numbering alone.
There are good reasons to
renumber: surely, there are few better ways to
psychologically signal a break from the past. The Silver Age Green
Lantern didn't pick up the Golden Age series' numbering,
which it very
easily could have. The successful changes stick; if they don't,
numbering can
be restored unless it's too far gone. And it’s difficult for anything to
be too
far gone, given comics collectors’ talents for trivia. Captain
America was very
hard to knit back together numerically — it's like half-a-dozen series
plus Tales
of Suspense — but it was accomplished.
It'll be
interesting to see what
the impact is of DC’s move — but whatever's going on in continuity, I
suspect
we’ll still see an Action Comics #1000 in one
way or another, even if it’s a
rebranding of an issue of the sequel volume. Just as there are marketing
reasons for returning to #1, there are marketing benefits to anniversary
issues,
too.
See more months of comics
sales here: http://www.comichron.com/monthlycomicssales.htmlWriter of fiction, comics and
books about comics, John Jackson Miller
(http://www.farawaypress.com)
has tracked comics sales figures for years. He’s developing an online
archive
for academic researchers at The Comics Chronicles (http://www.comichron.com).
Follow
research updates on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/comichron.
