Comic Book Math: DC to Renumber Series, Starting Again With No. 1

DC Comics The first issue of Action comics, from 1938, and its 900th issue, published in April.

For anyone who ever dreamed of owning a copy of Action Comics No. 1 they will have their chance in September. On Tuesday afternoon, DC Comics announced that starting Aug. 31, the company would renumber its entire line of superhero comic books.

As the devoted know, Wednesdays are the days that new issues of comic book series arrive in stores and a typical week sees the release of more than 10 Marvel or DC titles each. But on Aug. 31, DC will release just two titles: the final issue of the “Flashpoint” mini-series, about an alternate timeline that has affected the DC Universe of characters, including Superman, Batman, Flash and Wonder Woman, and Justice League No. 1, written by Geoff Johns and illustrated by Jim Lee. (Last February, the two men were promoted to crucial positions in the company: Mr. Lee was named co-publisher along with Dan DiDio, and Mr. Johns was named chief creative officer of DC Entertainment.) Starting in September, more No. 1 issues will follow for DC’s superhero line, which includes Action Comics, Superman, Detective Comics, Batman, Wonder Woman and more.

According to an article in USA Today, Mr. Lee has redesigned some of the character’s costumes and Mr. Johns has said his Justice League will focus on the interpersonal relationships of the team.

The renumbering rumors have been recent fodder for discussion on columns and message boards of various comic-book Web sites. One of the big questions regarding the move has been whether these are simply new directions for the various characters (say, Batman moves to San Francisco) or a “reboot” (a new take on the character that ignores previous continuity, say, Batman is now a teenager or an alien from the future).

In 1985 DC Comics published Crisis on Infinite Earths, a limited series intended to streamline the at times convoluted continuity of its heroes. At the conclusion of that series the idea of restarting every title with a new No. 1 was mulled but ultimately rejected.

Still, the post-Crisis alterations to some of the characters were substantial: Superman, who at that point had been published for 47 years and had encountered enough Kryptonians to fill a couple of stadiums, became the sole survivor of the doomed planet. His career as Superboy was also erased. Wonder Woman received a new series (and a new No. 1) that presented her as freshly arrived to the world and having never been a founding member of the Justice League. The murderer of Bruce Wayne’s parents, the traumatic event at the core of Batman, was never found.

These alterations provided some fresh starts, but the changes caused countless ripples as continuity issues were addressed: The Legion of Super-Heroes, who hail from the 1,000 years in the future, were inspired to form by Superboy. If he didn’t exist, why did they come together? If Wonder Woman was not a founder of the Justice League, who took part in those early adventures? Various writers tried to answer these and other questions, sometimes coming up with nifty solutions.

But if the goal was to make the DC universe easier to understand, the end result was the opposite: to this day, fans frequently mention “pre-Crisis” and “post-Crisis” as a way to distinguish stories. Twenty years later, in the Infinite Crisis limited series, DC tried to clean continuity up again: Superman’s career as Superboy was back; Batman knew who murdered the Waynes; and Wonder Woman was a founder of the Justice League again. The end of the Infinite Crisis series resulted in the lives of DC’s superheroes jumping forward 12 months. The “One Year Later” stories began with new situations and settings for the heroes and readers slowly learned what had transpired to get the costumed champions to that point.

Any eventual return to the status quo is a double-edged sword: both a frustration point and consolation for long time readers. A basic tenet of comic books had been established: If you do not like a change to a favorite character, or his or her “death,” wait a year, 10 or two decades and it will be like it was before. So many events, seemingly pivotal, in the DC universe have been undone or evolved: the death of Green Arrow, the death of Green Lantern, the death of the silver age Flash.

While some readers have applauded the return of these Silver Age heroes, who were born in the 1960s, fans of their replacements — Connor Hawke, the son of Green Arrow; Kyle Rayner, who inherited Hal Jordan’s power ring, and Kid Flash, who graduated into the role of his mentor — have been saddened at their heroes’ being pushed out of the spotlight.

DC and Marvel have both renumbered series in the past to indicate a new direction for a super-hero title. In some cases – after clamoring from fans, a marketing ploy or editorial whim, they have also returned to the historical numbering. Perhaps most famously, Marvel restarted the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, Captain America and Iron Man in 1996. The experiment – fresh takes on their long running characters known as “Heroes Reborn” – was eventually undone. The series were restarted, again, with new No. 1 issues. Some of those series, like The Avengers, eventually returned to their historical numbering, at least until another shake-up resulted in the title coming to an end and the New Avengers were formed, along with a new series and a new first issue. In January this year, when the Human Torch, a member of the Fantastic Four, died in issue No. 587, that paved the way for a new series, FF, with Spider-Man as a new teammate.

The original series ended with No. 588, but some Marvel fans thought that if the new title got a tepid reception, it would return to its historic numbering within a year, in time to get to issue No. 600 of the Fantastic Four. Last June, in addition to receiving a costume change, Wonder Woman reached issue No. 600 with a little comic book magic. The 600 issues were a result of combining Wonder Woman’s first self-titled series, which begin in 1942 and ended with No. 329, after the heroine sort-of died in “Crisis on Infinite Earths.” The new version of Wonder Woman, who was never a founding member of the Justice League, began Volume 2 of the series and lasted 226 issues. Another new direction, after the “Infinite Crisis” series that said Wonder Woman did help found the Justice League, spurred a third volume (and another Issue No. 1) that ran for 44 issues. When the three series were combined, Wonder Woman received her 600th issue.
In September, she’ll start up again with issue No. 1.

via artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com