Clearly two different strategies but I’m backing the one that works for me best on BOTH an economic level and a fan level — DC Comics.

Yeah, I mean Marvel only relaunches its titles ever other month and then goes back to the original numbering in time for a “big anniversary” issue….and then they cancel the title and relaunch it with a new #1. (Exp: Thor,Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk, Avengers, FF, Daredevil, Uncanny X-Men….do I need to go on?)

That annoying logic is why I do not read many Marvel titles anymore. DC…I am going to give them a shot. Justice League #1 was pretty darn good.

I’m sayin: Marvel should do seasons (12 issues), and after each season’s end restart with #1. On the cover keep the season’s issue number and then underneath (much smaller) the continuing numbering (#632 or whatever). That way new readers don’t feel daunted by huge numbers, and the old heads don’t get all bitchy. Win win.

Tom wouldn’t tell the truth to save his life. This is a guy who claimed that Civil War was really on schedule due to their “top secret schedule that only Marvel knows” reason. Instead of admitting Civil War was very late and causing problems.
Spiderman already had a relauch. Seriously is anything from JMS’s run on Spiderman from supporting cast to new villians even used in the last few years? The secret identity reveal was put back even though Marvel claimed they had years of stories to tell with his no longer secret I.D. When Marvel knew they were just going to undo it the whole time. JMS’s run was only touch on to undo what he had done. The renumber of DC’s whole line was just taking Marvel’s idea of relaunching series left and right to the next level. All at once. The non stop number ones are marketing stunts. DC and Marvel need return to quality stories. Right now the market is over flooded with comics just to keep the Marvel vs DC market share fight going. Who cares who is number one if the whole market shrinks to nothing? Marvel please return to being the house of ideas again.

DC’s reboot/relaunch or whatever it is versus Marvel’s not relaunching but renumbering schemes. Hmmm! I think both companies are trying to keep things interesting and tap or retap ,in some cases, more dollars. Regardless, here is my thought. The original Contest of Champions mini-series truly hooked me on Marvel. Crisis helped me to understand DC a little better. However, DC’s continued attempts at tweaking things lost me sometime ago. I’m not saying that Marvel doesn’t tweak, or change but for me it’s done a bit more discreetly. The exception being Heroes Reborn. I agree with the statement concerning what Gruenwald said, “That Marvel got it right the first time.” Marvel has the ultimate line and before that Gruenwald gave us Squadron Supreme. Maybe DC ought to give us Earth 2 and Earth 3 options. Until such time Make Mine Marvel.

Since DC is rebooting, it is giving me a jumping off point. I have cancelled all my Green Lantern titles. This is going to let me buy more Marvel titles that I have been wanting to pick up but didn’t have the money.

I honestly think that at this point Marvel’s history is more convoluted — and more in need of a line-wide slate wipe — than DC’s. I look at the X-books right now, and they are so far removed from their initial concept and characters that anyone who is only barely familiar with the property would be flabbergasted by the average issue of one of those series. Spider-Man’s past has become similarly complicated in a post-OMD universe. I still don’t understand how the hell Captain America came back to life. I’m sure if we could make quite a list of terribly complicated storylines and characters at Marvel that could use a fresh start.

Regardless of whether or not a reboot happens, it would be nice if Marvel could stop taking potshots any time DC tries anything. It’s so immature. Not to mention hypocritical — all those jabs in Previews about not renumbering their series when Captain America and Iron Man are on, what, volumes five or six at this point? Time to grow up, children. Your industry is at risk. Put away your junk and actually look toward the future.

The retcon, as used by Marvel Editorial, is a reboot. The Illuminati retcon, for example, which provided the basis for SECRET INVASION, WORLD WAR HULK, the Illuminati miniseries, etc. changed continuity in the Marvel Universe (leaving fatal conflicts aside) as radically as a formal reboot would have. The retcons merely aren’t promoted as reboots.

Formal reboots are superior to retcons because there are no conflicts with existing history. The prior histories of the characters are, technically, junked and the similarities of character histories to the pre-reboot histories are coincidental and non-harmful; differences are intentional.

Marvel Editorial might want to claim that they haven’t done reboots and won’t, but distinguishing between retcons and reboots is an exercise in semantics.

SRS

Why even ask Tom Brevoort? Of all the Marvel people that my friends have spoken to at conventions, Bendis and Brevoort always act like they don’t want to be there or interact with the fans. Whatever comes out of their mouth always, you always get a sigh and they blow you off with some stupid answer that makes you feel like you’re bothering them. I don’t know any two people in the Marvel company that treat fans like they’re dirt.

Meh. If Marvel did reboot, it would reboot, it would just be an excuse to raise all the cover prices to $3.99 again. (eg. Incredible Hulk)

Bendis is a Cleveland guy and has never come across as jerk to me. He appears to enjoy interaction on the Jinxworld forums and the only time he appears to get bent out of shape is when someone crosses the line and their attack goes from a story he did to a personal one. Brevoort has been much the same way on twitter when he takes fan questions until people turn things nasty. I would like to see some of the childish back and forth sniping stop for the good of the medium as a whole, but there is a place for healthy competition as well. You’re always better when someone pushes you.

Marvel doesn’t need to reboot because they haven’t done anything that they can’t come back from. DC for years now has been trying to match Marvel sales by doing more and more outlandish stuff to compete which kind of messed everything up. Even Spider-man OMD/OMIT marvel can come back from it. In addition Marvel for good or bad is always doing jumping on point issues. They have the blurb in the front of the books that sums up the history of the book pretty nicely. This is how marvel continues to keep it reader friendly. You open the book and before the comic begins, there is synopsis of what had gone on previously in the book. Even Marvel’s retcon’s serve a purpose. You may not like the retcon but it serves a purpose and is intertwines as seamlessly as possible. DC not so much. I hope this reboot works because they’ve spent a lot of money and put a lot effort into it.

“Distinguishing between retcons and reboots is an exercise in semantics” and “Formal reboots are superior to retcons because there are no conflicts with existing history.” You just contradicted yourself. If they are the same how can one be superior?

“It would be nice if Marvel could stop taking potshots any time DC tries anything.” Marvel is a company, not a person. Dido takes similar “pot shots” at Marvel as Brevoort does at DC. I am not saying it justifies, but two wrongs and all that.

And for the record, for whoever said that JMS’s Spider-Man stuff was tossed out is wrong. For example, Osborn and Gwen’s kids have been referenced post OMD, as has Ezikiel and a number of other things. Just because they have not explained how everything changed dosen’t mean there is not a good reason. They just have not gotten around to telling that story yet, and they may never.

I happen to think reboots (including teenage Tony and the Spider Wedding) is just laziness. It has been proven many times that a good writer can make a character accessible, go “back to basics” without just throwing things away and starting from scratch.

Using Star Trek as an example. IMHO Next Generation was a great series and introduced a whole new group of people to Star Trek without throwing away the years of history. Even though they are now off the air, there are some awesome stories continued in novels that pick-up where all the TV shows left off and don’t step on history. And you can still have the new Star Trek continuity from the new movie (Ultimate Star Trek if you will) and still publish great stories about Voyager, Next Gen, DS9, TOS and even come up with freat new characters and stories like New Frontier, Vanguaurd and Titan). Yes, I am a true Sci-Fi Comic Book Geek, and proud of it. No, I do not live in my parents basement, I am married and have 2 beautiful daughters, and am a successful non-profit CEO. You can have it all!

Also, renumbering and rebooting are not the same thing. One is a sales tool to attempt to bring attention to a change in creative team, or story archs but does not start everything over from the begining. In this sense, returning to original numberings is the same thing. A reboot throws away everything from continuity that came before and starts back at square one so the character can be reimagined with different concepts, relationships, histories and even powers. Both comanies have done both, so I am not advocating one over the other.

Legion of Super Heroes has been rebooted and renumbered many times, but this time around it sounds like more of a renumbering, as they say it is a continuation from the exsisting Legion stories. Punisher has been renumbered more times than I can count, but the history and back stories all exsist (even the FrankenCastle and silly Marvel Knights Supernatural Ghost Guns stuff, Frank just “got better” within the exsisting continuity). Heroes Reborn was a reboot, just not a permenant one, and Captain America remembers everything from both worlds, so they made it part of the continuity.

You just contradicted yourself. If they are the same how can one be superior?

There’s no contradiction. Both a retcon and a formal reboot alter a fictional universe’s continuity. The retcon alters continuity messily; a reboot alters it cleanly.

SRS

Tformer4, you said it all, beautifully. Kudos.

I’ve enjoyed many retcons, which can be done beautifully with causing little or no impact to existing stories, unless one is looking for any reason one can find to have a problem wih them. Good examples are the old Roy Thomas back-up features in Doctor Strange or other comics which explained many of Marvel’s side cultures, like the Uranians and the Cat People. A great one was the introduction of Elektra to Daredevil’s college days in DD 168. It was added to the mythos without altering other stories already told, and everybody stayed in character.

And yes, there are also terrible ones, like the later DD-Elektra first-meeting retelling which changed their personalities and made it impossible to believe Foggy and others wouldn’t have known Murdock was much more than a simple blind kid. Much of the Illuminati stuff has soured too, I agree, especially in Reed Richard’s characterization.

Lazy retcons are bad, yes, but reboots are worse in that they guarantee that many or most of the stories I spent my money on are no longer relevant to the character. I’ve stuck with Marvel for 35 years, and DC for about 30. I must admit that I find myself in a bit of a malaise lately where comics hold less and less interest for me. I’ve stopped buying Marvel since the Torch “died,” which was a final straw of creator laziness for me. DC’s reboot has indeed been a major jumping-off point for me. In cases like the Justice Society and Zatanna, they threw me off the plank themselves.

And Jack, your reference to “Springsteen Superman” killed me. I’m still laughing.

I like Marvel’s plan of launching new universe books every so many years like Alex Ross’ Marvels, 2099, MC2, Ultimates. So what if DC reboots their universe? In ten years from now it will have ten years of baggage and so forth. I think it is better to launch new universe books like Marvel which can created to fit the times while keeping the core universe intact.
‘Nuff said!

P.S. I miss Tom DeFalco as editor!

Thank you Marvel!!!! VOTE NO TO STUPID REBOOTS!!!

@sniperboy4
Yes and yes.
I hope Marvel’s “Next Big Thing” is focusing more on art and stories and less gimmicks and giving these overhyped “architects’” egos stroke jobs.

For Marvel, it ebbs and flows. They’ll have everything grow together for a few years, then it will grow apart again.

DC just hits a reset button every now and then.

If marvel wants to get back Market share from DC after this 52 gimmick thing all they have to do it wait a few months. When everyone drops the crappy Dc tittles and stick to oh i don’t know Batman, Action comics, Green Lantern, and Justice league and things go back to normal. There wont be a long term sales jump for DC the first couple of months they will crush marvel then all the normal fans will stick to the comics they like and all the trendy fans will get distracted by the new shiny thing and forget to pick up I Vampire #4 on their way to the next thing.

$3.00+ for a ‘comic book’ is ridiculous… Its the 21st century: value of the dollar is weak, gas is going up, price of food is going up (or will stay expensive), the period of being unemployed before finding another job is longer than ever – and the rate of pay for minimum wage has not significantly kept up with all of this…>>>By the time all of this ‘gets better’ we all with have been culturally digitalized in ways that we cannot fathom >>>>>> ‘not talking sci-fi culture, I’m talking beaurocratic, monitoring, real-time pretentious passive-aggressive plastic wireless culture that will consequently create no interest in plastic bags for little books that are flimsy and over priced…<<<<<>and it will NEVER expand based on ‘super-hero’ ‘comic’ books.

: …UNLESS there is a global consciousness in some form that will base a culture/slang-dialect/music/cloths upon the events that develop from Marvel… or DC… or Image,…or DarkHorse… or SOMETHING NEW THAT DOES NOT MAINLY TELL CHEESE DRAMA ‘SUPERHERO’ COLD WAR HOMO-EROTIC POWER FANTASY FULFILLMENT STORIES W/CONVOLUTED HISTORY … the death of the super-hero comic (good-by 20th century) would mean the birth of a new 21st century cultural medium of sequential story telling… not based on events and sales and a majority of creepy comic book stores and ….just the words ‘super-hero’ and ‘comic-book’ need to change, GROW UP -in order for the medium to survive. I’m saying, the market base needs to expand, >>>and it will NEVER expand based on 20th century ‘super-hero’ ‘comic’ books. Market share/sales will increase when ‘super-hero’ tales (directly or sublty) include an emphasis ABOUT PSYCHOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT, MATURITY VS IMPULSIVE SELFISHNESS, RELATIONSHIPS, …REALISTIC TAKE ON CHARACTERS APPEARANCES AND AGE,

Im say’n, work the next ten years on REBOOTING THE ENTIRE CONCEPT OF SEQUENTIAL STORY TELLING. These are NOT ‘comic’ books. Reading about sci-fi adventure, noir, history, politics, romance …ect are neither comical nor funny pages… They are fantastic stories. The name ‘comic book’ applied to the ‘sequential story telling’ of super-heroes is lame, and thwarts the growth and survival of the market. >>>AND if the ‘super-hero’ is going to LIVE, THRIVE AND SURVIVE, it needs to increase market share/base, >>>>AND this will NEVER happen by marketing, selling sequential story telling books as ‘comic books’. ESPECIALLY USING PICTURES OF NAKED MEN WITH COLORS PRACTICALLY SPRAY-PAINTED ON BODIES with images of them ‘fighting’ and ‘posing’. Sorry, the actual stories can be cool, and the combat is entertaining, but it looks gay/SILLY/inane. The new superman movie… he looks like a blue naked guy, with boots, cape and an S on his chest… ACKNOWLEDGE it for what it is ) . “BUMP-ba-DA-Daaa!!!!”>>>”It’s the ‘DOESN’T-REALLY-NEED-TO-BE-NAKED-BUT-IS- NAKED’-MAN!!!” ).

It may sound trivial for the old school readers, but Im talking EXPANDING…gaining NEW 21st Century readers/$penders. Thankfully the past decade had provided ‘upgrades’ of looks of Thor, Iron Man, Captain America, Beast, new Vision, and just for most of the newbies that have been created in the Marvel U. I like to always note: please check out the animated Avengers2 DVD Special Features interview of Millar and Hich regarding this, and their 21st Century take on ‘super-heros’. What I’m talking about is what made Ditko and Lee’s SPIDER-MAN more interesting and enticing, even the way Ditko depicted the characters were ‘real’, this just lost momentum -I think one comic could of stayed ‘Ditko’, and another SPIDER-MAN title could of then proceeded with Romita Sr’s popy-romance look. Both are great, but the market of Super-heroes will NOT survive (w/dignity) nor expand based on the past way of depicting a singularity of the ‘super-hero’. …Peace.

Good stories will always find readers. Sandman for example, I love, even though some issues had atrocious art. Plain and simple. Spray painted superheroes, continuity debacles and price points aside, it really is that simple. Good stories would thrive. Marvel should look to its need for constant renumbering, and DC to its constant rebooting and maybe they’ll get a clue and start working on their stories and less on their marketing.

I’ll take a new number 1 every month on a book that I read so long as it’s recognizable as the book that I read over a hard reboot any day. As for the ‘gotta catch ‘em all’ philosophy, I don’t see it. I buy the books I want and don’t buy the books I don’t want. I haven’t bought a single issue of Fear Itself but understand completely what’s going on in Uncanny X-Men. Big Guy with Hammer unleashed Hammers and Juggernaut got one. Ok, cool, I like the story they’re telling with that, no need to read Fear Itself since I don’t care about it, but I like seeing the X-Men face a new threat. I think it’s the obsessive compulsive fanboys-which mostly reside online-who have this issue with not buying things and being ANGERED when something they don’t read merely exists.

You don’t want to read five Spider-Man books? DON’T buy one and be done with it. If the story-arc bleeds into the other books, well guess what, THAT’S HAPPENED SINCE THE 70s!!! If you started reading in the last 30 years it’s normal, and therefor you can’t bitch, you knew what you were getting into! All this complaining makes us as a collective looks silly.

What companies don’t seem to get is that in today’s world, kids are internet savvy, they are practically born with brand recognition built in. Disney bought Marvel to reach the young male audience, ok cool, but that won’t make them watch Disney films just because you own Marvel. Marvel and DC want to attract new readers, ok fine, but a relaunch won’t do that as the kids who don’t read don’t read because they have other things they’re interested in! They’re AWARE that comics exist, they don’t care.

Just a quick note to say I really enjoy reading through a series of posts on a forum (including this one).

So why are the majority of Newsarama’s stories now NOT doing this? I mean, not everyone is a fan of Twitter…

Color me confused.

Some of you obviously don’t know what a reboot is. When Marvel had James Rhodes take over as Iron Man, that’s not a reboot. When Marvel starts a new volume of Iron Man with a #1 issue, it’s not a reboot. When Marvel moves Iron Man’s origin from Vietnam to Afghanistan, it’s not a reboot. A reboot restarts continuity and erases the old continuity.

OMD was a reboot for Spider-Man, although I don’t think it erased continuity as much as started a new one. Therefore it could be considered a soft reboot. Being against it in principle, I didn’t read it or any Spider-Man book since.

Heroes Reborn was an alternate reality storyline. It was always intended as having an ending point. It was only scheduled for 12 issues but got expanded to 13. In other words, it wasn’t intended to be permanent. Calling it a reboot is like calling Age of Apocalypse a reboot.

Marvel has been pretty good about not just rebooting titles and throwing away previous continuity. DC’s continuity has always been more messy. Just look at Hawkman’s history. Crisis could have offered a complete, clean reboot, but they wimped out and only rebooted some of the characters but kept Batman’s history. I’m sure this new reboot will start fraying in time too.

I know people complain about the X-Men titles, but I don’t have a hard time understanding them. They’re depressing as hell but not confusing. I pick up the main trades whenever they come out and don’t have a hard time understanding anything.

My biggest problem with Marvel is the need for crossovers that will “change everything” but don’t really change much. The Heroic age was supposed to be a new start, but it feels just like Dark Reign. And we’re already being prepped for the next crossover. At some point, they have to just let the various creative teams tell their own stories. I don’t mind all the various franchises interacting more, but stop forcing crossover events on creators and fans.

Ok lets see … Daredevil was just rebooted … Hulk will be next month … Capt – been done … Spidey … just do a new book … FF … getting ready to again reboot … Thor .. oh how many times has that rebooted … Iron Man yep been there … X-Men .. a couple times …. Avengers .. just start a new group … and don’t forget the whole Ultimate Universe … so when you say Marvel doesn’t need a reboot, that did you mean???

Breevort couldn’t tell the truth if his grandmother’s life depended on it. The fact is that if the DC reboot works, Marvel WILL copy it, deny they are and then claim they had the idea first.

Just a few thoughts:

I agree that the semantics are confused. Starting over a series at #1 but keeping all of the previous continuity isn’t a “reboot”. Changing Tony Stark’s war from Viet Name to Afghanistan isn’t a “reboot”, it’s a retcon. You can also have a retcon where most of the history is changed, that’s still a retcon. A reboot is where nothing from the past happened. The DC thing is somewhere between a reboot and a massive retcon, because some history is duplicated.

When Roy Thomas originally coined the term “retroactive continuity”, he was referring to the All-Star Squadron series creating adventures that took place during and between the original Golden Age comics. As in “new history being inserted.” Later, the term tended to evolve to mean “new history being inserted that contradicts previous history and takes its place.” So the fact that the All-Star Squadron existed eventually wouldn’t be considered a retcon, but the notion that Liberty Belle was active in 1941 instead of starting up a few years later would.

Finally, I think that the “the story begins in this series and then continues in another series and then continues in another series…” like a lot of the X-Men stuff is the worst way to do things. Sure, the people who are already getting all of these series don’t care, but the ones who find themselves having to buy a book they wouldn’t ordinarily buy just to get the full story probably get really pissed.

I liked Civil War. I thought It was great. I thought Iron Man was the Hero and loved everything he did in the comic. I loved his comic afterwards and how the character acted in it. I hated how was portrayed in the rest of marvel comics because they had no idea what to do with the story but I liked it. Civil War brought me into marvel and now that they have pretty much ended every single storyline from it AND have told me that I am wrong for liking Iron Man during that by giving him amnesia. I am done, I am not buying a single comic again. If I want to read something I will steal it through torrents. but i will never give another cent to marvel as long as i live.

I like the idea that there’s a top ten of possible responses to Marvel losing market share advantage to DC longterm (even though I think Brevoort is right; I doubt it’ll happen, either), and I’m curious as to what those ten would be.

No, what’s actually interesting is given all the screwups and demonstrated lack of common sense of Dan Didio and company, that people are seriously pretending he can pull off a longterm win, like it’s a viable possibility. Come on man…