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By Jason Bourgeois
As you are reading this, the DCU relaunch is well underway, but that means I have nothing to say about it, because I have to have this written before September. So, any real concrete thoughts, and not just my babbling and guesswork from solicits, will have to wait. Because I do not have a single new #1 in my grubby little hands yet to give any of them a proper review. And no, I won't be giving them all reviews, or even all the ones I will be buying, just the ones I think might be worth the time and money. We'll be back to Marvel soon enough, and possibly sooner than you think.
But there's still things to talk about, and I wanted to touch on something maybe a bit more esoteric, a bit less specific to the relaunch. Although that relaunch is certainly the biggest offender.
Do numbers really matter?
This thought came to me while I was reading Action Comics #904, and it occurred to me that I had in my hands, the final issue of Action Comics, volume one. That thought gave me pause. Heck, it gave me major complete stoppage of time. That's a pretty weighty concept to sink in. Action Comics is the book that started this whole thing, back in 1938, and has been going straight through until today.
But does the change over, the renumbering...does it matter? Does anyone other than me and the hardcore geeks care?
I am not so sure.
First off, I always turned my nose up at the concept that new fans aren't going to buy issue #734 of a series, and are far more likely to buy a #1. It may be true, or stores may just order comics that way, but anyone who would let an issue number stop them from reading a comic...I dunno, it's just silly.
Two of the earliest comics I dove into as a kid were Legion of Super-Heroes #303, and Uncanny X-Men #205. So very far from issue #1, huh? And you know what? I understood what was going on and who people were just fine. Things were explained clearly, and while not everything was laid out for me, it didn't really HAVE to be. With each new issue, you learned more and more, and put things together. Figuring out that vast tapestry was part of the draw of things for me, learning as I went. And if anything was too confusing, I could always ask a friend. Today, we have better than friends, we have the internet. Issue numbers should no longer be a barrier to entry, if they ever were.
But now, with DC's line-wide relaunch, that sense of tapestry is gone. Sure, we're all starting out on page one with a blank slate (to some degree), but that sense of wonder is just gone for me. It will be rebuilt over time, but it will TAKE time to get there. And people will be put off by those issue numbers in a few months to a year, won't they?
DC's restarting of everything feels like a misstep to me, but I may be the wrong person to ask. Maybe more people will be brought into Action Comics #1, than they would to Grant Morrison's Action Comics #905. Oddly enough, I will NOT be buying that comic, but not because of any numbering issues.
When I heard that DC was restarting everything from issue one, I was a doubting Thomas. I thought they'd mean everything BUT Action and Detective. But when I saw that no, those too would be restarted, it became somehow more real to me. I took it more serious. If DC has the stones to do that to these pillars of the industry, they mean serious business. It did what it was meant to do, it got people talking. Look at me, that's exactly what I'm doing, and I've been talking for months about it!
Yet, it still feels so wrong to do, doesn't it? I think in the long run, only the die hard fans will really care that Action Comics would be reaching the milestone issue #1000 in a few years. My only hope is that this stunt doesn't crush the entire industry and make #1s more pointless and meaningless than they already are. That is a worst case scenario, but not out of the realm of possibility, I'd say.
Remember when DC rebooted the entire Legion of Super-Heroes, starting over from the very beginning, and nothing from before carried over? You know what issue numbers those books started with? 62 and 19! They didn't reboot from #1 THEN, and now they are? The ultimate irony here is, LSH is one of the franchises being least affected in the reboot! Go figure. Different times, I guess.
And not to be outdone, although I am sure it is entirely a coincidence with the timing, Marvel is ending one of its last long running titles in October when Uncanny X-Men comes to a close. See? Back to Marvel already. Yet, this doesn't bother me quite as much, in some ways.
With everything going on during the X-Men's "Schism" storyline, it makes sense to draw a very hard line under everything that has gone before. We're entering a new era, and things are changing. They're also not blowing up the entire Marvel line. So ending things there and moving forward with a whole new mission statement, it at least makes some story sense to do a new #1.
At the same time, however, they're ending the book only to restart it a few weeks later, with the exact same creative team, so it's not THAT much of a change. At least on that count, the renumbering seems superfluous. But we shall see.
Also, with Marvel's inability to properly count, and bounce their numberings from old to new and back again in the course of a few years, I'm sure I'll have Uncanny X-Men #600 in my hands sooner rather than later. If not #550.
I guess it ultimately doesn't matter, and no one is really worrying about Action Comics (And all of DC) restarting at #1, yet I an saddened, and I think the entire comics industry is lessened a little, by the absense of Action Comics #905 and beyond.
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