REBOOTS
Yeah, reboots are all the rage now. Basically, a reboot is taking everything that long time fans have known and loved, trashing it, offering something new that is usually lame and no one has any attachments to and offering that to the public in hopes of getting new fans while telling long time fans to basically screw off.
Hollywood does that with movies like Spider-Man and Star Trek and now comics are doing it.
This past Wednesday was the last week for the DC Universe that we've known for decades. In a bid to get new readers, DC announced they will relaunch their universe with 52 new titles. This is designed to bring in new readers.
Now, reboots in comics are nothing new, probably the best example in recent years is the Brand New Day reboot for Amazing Spider-Man which ended the marriage of Peter Parker and Mary Jane and reset some of Spider-Man's continuity. Many people had a problem with this and some have questioned how I can like that but be opposed to what DC is doing.
Well, the Spider-Man reboot only changed some things in that line and only, well, mostly, impacted the Spider-Man side of things, not the whole universe. So, there is a difference here.
But now, because of the attention DC has been getting, some of Marvel's talent are beginning to weight in on rebooting the Marvel Universe. At Fan Expo, Mighty Thor writer Matt
Fraction said: "It someone saw the Iron Man movie, and looked at the comics and saw Iron Man #489, that will intimidate them." This is just plain stupid. It's also hypocritical. On one hand these people will claim new readers aren't able to break in to books with high issue numbers while on the other hand defending starting over with #1 by claiming the numbering doesn't matter. Which is it? Because if the numbering doesn't matter then leave them alone.
For me, the numbering does matter because a series with a higher issue number tells me that series is stable and, yes, has a
history. When a book starts over from #1 I simply lose interest in it because it's like building a house only to have someone tear it down when you are almost done and having to start from scratch. You lose interest and figure what's the point in even trying.
And this myth that new readers won't jump into a series if it has high numbers? That's a load of crap, too. I started collecting Fantastic Four with #488 back in 2002. Hardly the first issue but it was a Jumping On issue. A new team was starting so to mark the occasion Marvel put a 9 cent price on it. I picked it up for that and also because I wanted a series that I figured had a very low chance of ever being cancelled. I only stopped reading Fantastic Four because of the way Marvel handled the Death Of Johnny Storm story then ended the series to launch a new #1 under the FF title.
I started collecting Amazing Spider-Man with #529 because it was part of Civil War. I figured I would drop it shortly after because it was never a series I could stick with for some reason but the One More Day/Brand New Day story hooked me. I'm still collecting it.
As for first issues, while they are fun to get they aren't as special as they used to be. I cherish
Fables #1 but was even more excited to finally get
Fables #100 marking the first series I ever collected from the first issue that made it to #100. If they ever rebooted that series, as much as I love it, I would drop it. I have no interest in a new #1 issue.
See, I don't see the problem with jumping into a series mid-stream. With books like Amazing Spider-Man and Thor I love buying the Essential volumes and reading the classic stories. The histories of these characters are pretty well known and it isn't like people can't hop online and actually look this stuff up. Plus, there are other comics fans, like me, who love talking about this and if someone is just getting into collecting and reading comics we love helping them out. At least the cool collectors do, the rest are elitist dicks who have to right collecting comics.
So, why this talk about the need to reboot? well, it's simple: they have no idea how to publish comics anymore. I've been
re-reading books from the 90's, near the beginning of my collecting career and I noticed, right away, a difference in how comics from Marvel were. Those comics were made to be comics. These days it seems like every book Marvel puts out they are hoping to get Hollywood's attention so they can option the character for a movie or TV show. They have forgotten that comics exist in their own unique niche and while movies and TV are cool they have never helped improve the sales of comics like having a great creative team and awesome stories do.
Great comics, not stupid movies or unnecessary reboots will boost sales. That and stop paying attention to turds who keep saying the comicbook is dead and digital 'comics' are going to replace them. Those people are dumb.
