Why Is Marvel Renumbering Its Titles?

The last few weeks have seen Marvel unveil a blizzard of announcements about its upcoming "Marvel Legacy" initiative, set to launch in September. Alongside the new creative teams and the promise to take characters and concepts back to their roots, one of the most interesting aspects of the initiative is the change to the numbering of the titles affected.

After a long period where Marvel seemingly relaunched and renumbered titles at the drop of a hat, the Legacy relaunch will see both newer and long-running titles assigned new numbering, consisting of the accumulated total from the volumes to date. But what has prompted this decision, and who is the initiative truly aimed at?

It's worth remembering that in the early days of the Marvel Universe as we know it, the relaunching or renumbering of titles was exceptionally rare. When Journey into Mystery was renamed as The Mighty Thor, the numbering continued uninterrupted. This was also the case for when Tales to Astonish and Tales of Suspense were renamed to act as solo titles for the Hulk and Captain America.

Perhaps most famously, the 1975 debut of the all new X-Men in their ongoing series took place in #94 of Uncanny X-Men, marking the resumption of original stories after almost 30 issues of reprinted material. It's a safe bet that if this had happened 30 years later, the debut would have been accompanied with a new #1 and multiple covers. Even a decade later, in the '80s, significant changes to the status quo, such as John Walker assuming the mantle of Captain America and Jim Rhodes donning the Iron Man armor, all formed part of the grand tapestry of the ongoing titles, with nary a new #1 in sight.

With relaunches and renumbering so accepted in the modern era, it's easy to forget the furor that greeted the cancellation of Avengers, Fantastic Four, Iron Man and Captain America in 1996, and their subsequent relaunch under the guidance of Rob Liefeld and a pre-DC Comics Jim Lee. Many fans were outraged, not only because the characters were going to be featured outside the regular Marvel Universe, but also because the relaunch ended an unbroken thread of issues that spanned three decades. The overt anger didn't adversely affect sales though, and a precedent was established for the renumbering of long-running Marvel titles. Daredevil, Amazing Spider-Man and others followed, eventually leaving Uncanny X-Men as the only Silver Age Marvel title to retain its legacy numbering.

In the years since, Uncanny X-Men has also succumbed to the cult of renumbering, with #544 in 2011 being its final pre-relaunch issue. Since then, there have been three number #1s for the title, in 2012, 2013 and 2016. Marvel's merry mutants are by no means alone. Captain America has seen five different relaunches since the end of the "Heroes Reborn" experiment, with #1s in 1998, 2002, 2005, 2011 and 2013. And that's not even counting the renumberings that marked Sam Wilson donning the mantle of Captain America.

In 2011, Tom Breevort, Senior Vice President of Publishing at Marvel, spoke to CBR about the question of renumbering, stressing the benefits of such an approach.

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Why Legacy is 'Reverting' to Original Numbering

"At some point, 40 years of unbroken publication of all these titles was broken, and once that’s broken, you can pretend it’s still all there, but it’s never quite going to be seamless again," Breevort argued. "Combine that with the fact that our marketplace is more welcoming to a #1 than a #183, and it means that if you’re going to do something big, attention-getting and outreach-based, a #1 is only going to help you. Even the most casual potential comic book reader understands that a #1 is the beginning and that a #1 is the comic you save for your kids’ college fund. That’s important when you’re trying to get people into the stores."

That certainly seems to have been the pattern that's been adopted by Marvel and other companies over the last few years, with DC adopting wholescale renumbering for both its "New 52" and "Rebirth" initiatives. Yet there's a tangible sense of diminishing returns to such an approach, particularly for Marvel. Sales charts show that a new #1 is no longer a guarantee of mega sales, often delivering a temporary boost at best; a fact not helped by the frequency of relaunches. The 2015 Howard the Duck series, for example, was relaunched after only five issues.

There's one other element of Marvel's recent numbering strategy that should be mentioned in the context of Legacy. While renumbering and relaunching has become the standard, the company has also shown that it values the publicity from returning to legacy numbering -- particularly for anniversary issues. Hence, Uncanny X-Men reverted to #600 for its final issue, while Fantastic Four (#500), Amazing Spider-Man (#500), Daredevil (#500) and Incredible Hulk (#600) also enjoyed temporary renumbering. Pity the poor collector or comic shop owner trying to make sense of this tangled web.

So, why has Marvel now embraced wholesale the concept of reverting to legacy numbering? Marvel's recent November solicitations provide a short summary of the Marvel legacy approach, stating: "Featuring returns of the most beloved heroes and continuing the return to original series numbering... Marvel Legacy continues with fresh, exciting stories that define the next chapter in Marvel history while honoring that which came before!"

In this context, Marvel Legacy is a "back-to-basics" approach, an apparent response to the controversy generated by the replacement of several established characters with newer versions. If this is indeed aimed at the long-time fan, bringing familiar characters and concepts back to the spotlight, then the restoration of the original numbering does make a certain degree of thematic sense.

The wider question of whether this is a long-term change remains to be seen, and both fans and retailers would be forgiven for a degree of cynicism about when the next relaunch might come. But if Marvel does view this as a long-term initiative, it signals something interesting about the company and the way that it's marketing itself. Is this an intentional focus on older fans, attempting to consolidate the customer base and draw back the lapsed reader? Or is it simply a belated recognition that new readers are less concerned by a #1 than they are by an accessible and entertaining story? The next few months, as Marvel Legacy rolls out and consolidates, will offer a fascinating insight into this question.