I picked up Batman Beyond yesterday, but it's now title Batman Beyond Universe and it's issue number 1. The guy behind the counter mentioned that for DC villains month all the titles will be issue 1, only a few years ago everything seemed to be reset to issue 1. I think Marvel canceled amazing and started superior at issue 1. Are publishers having trouble counting to high numbers now? What is with all of the issue 1s?
The title itself was disappointing. New author seems to have decided to skip a year in the Batman Beyond storyline and work from flashbacks so for me there goes the flow of the storyline. Also they've reduced the stories from 3 per issue to 2.
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Issue #1's are perceived as being more appealing to new readers and potential new readers than comics with high issue numbers. A new reader is perceived to be more intimidated by issue #2, 3, or 4 of a series than issue #175.
I dunno if that's true or not, but I'm pretty sure that's the logic behind it.
I could see the logic of number 1s twenty years ago during the speculator boom. Speculators were kind of stupid, but they knew enough to buy loads of new number 1s. Now the market is flooded with them. Yes, publishers will sell through with number 1s, because of speculation, but these comics are worthless. In fact, with so many short runs, the value of a number 1 keeps decreasing all the time.
What made most number 1s valuable was the longevity of a series. It's meaningful to have the number 1 issue of ACTION COMICS (1938)--irrelevant to have the number 1 issue of ACTION COMICS (2011).
But, who am I to say. Maybe they are doing this now as a gesture to the brick and mortar specialty shops that are struggling. A number 1 digital seems meaningless to me--I fail to understand how digital comics are going to work out for the collector market--but at least for the comic shops, hard copy number 1s might get readers into their stores who are otherwise buying digital comics. However, I don't see this as lasting very much longer. The LCS will soon be a thing of the past and then number 1 issues will be pointless. Even numbering comics at all on digital platforms seems kind of silly.
For the most part the sales bumps are getting smaller, but they are still there. Any time a series restarts with a new number 1 it gets a sales increase. They also do this from time to time when a superstar creative team takes over a book.
That is why some people were confused by a number of Marvel's soft-boots. IE when Hercules took over the numbering of the Hulk series it replaced.
The joke is that eventually Marvel and DC only be publishing new number 1s each month for every series.
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Issue #1's are perceived as being more appealing to new readers and potential new readers than comics with high issue numbers. A new reader is perceived to be more intimidated by issue #2, 3, or 4 of a series than issue #175.
I dunno if that's true or not, but I'm pretty sure that's the logic behind it.
I've been intimidated by a lot of things in my life but never comic book issue numbers :)
I could see the logic of number 1s twenty years ago during the speculator boom. Speculators were kind of stupid, but they knew enough to buy loads of new number 1s. Now the market is flooded with them. Yes, publishers will sell through with number 1s, because of speculation, but these comics are worthless. In fact, with so many short runs, the value of a number 1 keeps decreasing all the time.
What made most number 1s valuable was the longevity of a series. It's meaningful to have the number 1 issue of ACTION COMICS (1938)--irrelevant to have the number 1 issue of ACTION COMICS (2011).
But, who am I to say. Maybe they are doing this now as a gesture to the brick and mortar specialty shops that are struggling. A number 1 digital seems meaningless to me--I fail to understand how digital comics are going to work out for the collector market--but at least for the comic shops, hard copy number 1s might get readers into their stores who are otherwise buying digital comics. However, I don't see this as lasting very much longer. The LCS will soon be a thing of the past and then number 1 issues will be pointless. Even numbering comics at all on digital platforms seems kind of silly.
For the most part the sales bumps are getting smaller, but they are still there. Any time a series restarts with a new number 1 it gets a sales increase. They also do this from time to time when a superstar creative team takes over a book.
That is why some people were confused by a number of Marvel's soft-boots. IE when Hercules took over the numbering of the Hulk series it replaced.
The joke is that eventually Marvel and DC only be publishing new number 1s each month for every series.
Used to be reaching a high number was a milestone. Publishers were proud of it.
True... but renumbering doesn't necessarily stop them from celebrating it. Look at Detective Comics 19 (aka 900).