taffer

The December Marvel solicits are out now.

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?p...ticle&id=47860

Peter Parker is back. Of course nobody expected him to be dead forever. The only real question was how long he would be dead. The answer is one year.

In a move that copies DC's current Villains Month numbering, Amazing Spider-Man will get five issues in December. #700.1, #700.2, #700.3, #700.4, and #700.5.

December isn't a five week month, so I guess two of those issues will come out in the same week.

Also, the solicits show that Superior Spider-Man with Doc Ock will still be ongoing. Strange.

December will also introduce Superior Venom.

The Valeyard

Maybe those #700 issues are more of an "anniversary" thing with past "untold" Parker stories? The Marvel Milking Machine in action.

Looks like Superior Spider-Man is in the middle of an arc that month. Nothing leading up to Peter Parker's return in that title. Weird.

Also, Marvel is getting really ridiculous with their numbering. Uncanny X-Men #15.INH. Indestructible Hulk #17.INH. Avengers #24.NOW. At least the .1 numbering makes sense. All this .INH and AU is silly.

taffer

Possibly, but the solicit says:

• One year after his death at the hands of the Superior Spider-Man – PETER PARKER IS BACK!

That makes me think its not just a flashback kind of thing.


Agreed. Wasn't the whole point of Marvel Now supposed to make it more new reader friendly? All this insane numbering is the complete opposite of new reader friendly.

I don't know why they don't just drop numbering completely and go by cover dates. Like if you say the Amazing Spider-Man May 2012 issue, that makes it far less daunting than Amazing Spider-Man Volume 12 #723.2.

fujishig

New reader friendly? Ha! More like a way to grab more money from existing readers...

exharrison

From one of the titles in the solicit:
It seems like they say something is shaking the Marvel U to its core every month. Is the Marvel U made of jell-o?

teameck

No kidding. It's so ridiculous. Can't Iron Man just stop a mugger once in a while? Does it always have to be the end of the world?

fumanstan

I don't pay that much attention to new release comics, but are there multiple versions of each number, or do they just signify the story arc of whatever it's part of by adding the .INH or whatever?

PhantomStranger

Reading this thread, I am so glad I gave up on following Marvel's comics.

The Valeyard

Yes. The #700 Point issues are flashbacks:

Bleeding Cool


They tie into whatever Event Marvel has going on at the time. AU was tied into the "Age of Ultron." INH numbering will tie into "Inhumanity." The .Now books tie to their new new relaunch in January - "All New Marvel Now."

taffer

From that link:

Your mom and dad's Peter Parker? Marvel is so delusional thinking that kids are actually reading their comics.

Its the moms and dads that are still reading them and keeping the comic industry going.

fujishig

He'll be back in time for the next movie, though. Isn't that part of the reason Cap came back when he did? Not that Marvel has ever been great about funneling movie watchers to their comics.

fumanstan

Ah ok, that doesn't seem THAT bad to me and useful to identify for readers. What's the .1 issues mean? At a glance, seeing 700.1, 700.2, etc seems worse.

taffer

I think that is just copying what DC is doing this month with Villains Month where they have Batman 23.1, 23.2, 23.3, 23.4.

You can see the various Villains Month issues here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forever...onth.22_titles

fujishig

They've done it before, I remember there being 12.1 issues a couple of years ago.

The Valeyard

The Point One initiative started back in 2011. It was geared for new and long-time readers alike as the perfect jumping on points for a series. Like after Iron Man would finish a big story arc, they would release an Iron Man #12.1 between issues #12 and #13 which would bring readers up to speed on what's been going on and guide them into issue #13. They were supposed to be like #0 issues. Unfortunately, Marvel rarely used them that way. Most of them were stand alone stories that could easily have been a regular, non-.1 Issue. Others acted as #0 issues for other series (like Morbius starring in a Spider-Man .1 book).

Lately, they've been using them in lieu of a mini-series. They recently released Iron Man 258.1, 258.2, 258.3 and 258.4 as a weekly series that's meant to slot into Iron Man Vol. 1's numbering. Looks like they're doing the same with Amazing Spider-Man in December.


DC lifted the idea from them for their Villain Month. Why? I couldn't tell you.

fujishig

The DC villains month could have easily been annuals. Issues starring the villains, often by a completely different creative team than the regular book, with a higher price and a gimmick. But you know what, nobody buys annuals or miniseries. If it's part of the regular numbering, the OCD fans (ie: most of us) will get it just to "complete their collection." It's the same reason Marvel reboots their series with #1s (because #1s sell) and then reverts to the old numbering before milestone issues (because change and nostalgia sell). Like I said earlier, not new user friendly, but a way to milk the diminishing audience even more.

Someone asked why everything has to result in major changes to the Marvel Universe. Because if they create a crossover where the popular book crosses over with the less popular book, the less popular one gets a boost. If something earth shattering happens, that will forever change the face of the Marvel Universe, than that becomes an "important" book, at least until next months change of the status quo. Granted, Marvel does let some creators have a bit more freedom, and I think they do have talented creators like Peter David who can work around never ending crossovers, but geez.

resinrats

Said it before. I am so glad I am not a hardcore comic reader. All these reboots and then going back to the original numbering would drive me insane. So you try to put Amazing Spiderman in order and there will be huge gaps in the issue numbers due to them resetting back to #1 or worse yet, start adding in issues #s from other series. I swear Amazing was sitting around #300 something a rew years ago not is up to #700 because they put all 'Web of, Spectacular, blablabla series issues into the number count. Of course those issues too place alongside other series so putting them into a # order would cause jumping all over in the timeline.

As for comic sales. I'm betting Marvel is getting more $$ from their movies then they have for multiple years combines of book sales. So they could care less if they loose readers as long as people show up to see their character on the big screen.

Xiroteus

The numbering system continues to get worse and even when a company starts over they still mess it up with 23.1 and 2's. When I was doing to research on back issues I had to figure out all the Avengers.....good grief! Since they appear to hate high number these days a volume and date would just be easier.

Each year can have twelve issues and start over since they are going to anyway after a couple years and mess it up. They stop a series and then start it back up at 600 counting the issues of a series that is STILL going as part of that series. No its not. The numbering system has to be the most broken way they could do it. I would rather just have Uncanny X-Men 700 then volume 28 number 21.23453532.

taffer

This isn't accurate. Web of, Spectacular, and other spin-off titles do not count in Amazing numbering. Amazing really has published 700 issues by itself.

#300 wasn't a few years ago at all. #300 was the first appearance of Venom and that was 1988.

I do remember at the height of the speculator era in the late 80s/early 90s, Amazing was double shipping (meaning it came out twice a month). So it quickly got up to issue #441 by the mid/late 90s.

#441 was the last issue of volume 1. Then it relaunched with a new #1 issue as volume 2. Volume 2 ran up until issue #58. Doing the math, that would mean the next issue would be #500 is original volume numbering, so Marvel went back to the original numbering then.

#500 was back in 2002 or 2003 when JMS was writing the title. So Amazing would then go from #500 to #700 in about a decade. This was done because for several years in the mid/late 2000s Amazing was actually triple shipping every month, so the issues very quickly added up.

Amazing reached issue #700 by itself without counting the spin-off titles in December 2012. That was the final issue and Superior Spider-Man was launched in January 2013. Also, Superior has been consistently double shipping every month so its gone through 17 issues already since it first launched 9 months ago.


Don't forget that Marvel is owned by Disney now. I wouldn't say they don't care about comic sales. I don't know as much about the Marvel/Disney situation, but I do remember that with DC/Warner that the DC New 52 reboot was done because the Warner board of directors basically told DC that they had to increase comic sales or their comic division would be shut down.

No profit-based company operates one of their departments at a loss. That's just ridiculous. If a department is operating at a loss for long and can't be fixed, that department will be terminated.

taffer

Like I mentioned earlier in the thread, they should just go by cover date.

For example, the May 2012 issue of Amazing Spider-Man instead of Amazing Spider-Man #685.

Both DC and Marvel hate having high numbers because it makes it seem unfriendly to new readers. However, all the constant #1 relaunches into new volumes is even more new reader unfriendly. Captain America has had, I believe, SIX #1 relaunches. SIX. Green Lantern has six volumes too.

That reminds me of the "triangle numbering" DC did with the Superman titles in the 90s. Basically in the 90s, there were four ongoing Superman titles that crossed over all the time.

Action Comics
Superman
Adventures of Superman
Man of Steel
A fifth quarterly title Man of Tomorrow was added after a few years to fill in the five-week months.

The triangle numbering worked like this. If Action Comics came out in the first week of January, then that would get a triangle with 1 on the cover. Superman would come out the second week and get a 2. Adventures the third week with a 3, and Man of Steel the fourth with a 4. Then February's Action Comics would get a 5, followed by a 6 for Superman, and so on until 52 for the last week of December. Then January would start over with a 1 again.

I always thought that was a nifty way of doing it. It kept the actual issue number but also had the triangle number too so you could easily see at a glance where the issue belonged in continuity. DC did that triangle numbering for about a decade from the early 1990s up until the early 2000s.

Spiderbite

Reading this thread makes me glad I gave up collecting comics, period.

The Valeyard

Warner definitely has their nose in DC's business now more than ever. Warner put the kibosh on DC licensing characters like Doc Savage and the THUNDER Agents. The rumor is: During a financial meeting, one of the bean counters said "Why are we spending money licensing obscure characters when we have plenty of unused characters that we own outright?" This wouldn't have happened 10 years ago. Paul Levitz did a good job of hiding DC from corporate eyes for decades. DC could afford to be in second (and even third) place back then. Now they can't.

It explains why some of their actions seem so desperate lately.

fumanstan

Ah ok. That seems to make far less sense then the .INH stuff to me.

PhantomStranger

The numbering nonsense comes down to the notion that #1 issues sell much better than anything else. The comic book industry has pushed out non-obsessive customers.

fujishig

Yeah, #1s usually sell well, then a gigantic drop to number 2, further drops as the series progress, until it's time to cancel or rinse and repeat.

I don't think Disney or Warner could shut down the entire comic division. If nothing else, it keeps the IP alive to make movies, and a lot of the better movies are at least somewhat based on comic stories. If they shut down the division, the licensing would eventually die.

The Superman triangle numbering era was an interesting one. During storylines like Death of Superman, there was a lot of careful coordination done between titles. This made it a little jarring since creators were different across titles, but it also made it a cohesive unit. With the state of editorial in DC, there's no way they can make this happen. They already have three different Lobo origins in the new 52.

The real victim here is the comic book retailer. They already have thin margins, and then have to guess how many of the new #1s to order, and how many #2s and #3s before the #1s even go on sale. And then if they don't move the product, they can't return it. They have to keep inventory of all these .1s and special issues in some sort of database, and file them in a way that people can find backissues. They order on solicitations that can change radically by the time the book comes to market; oh, you ordered more of that issue because a hot artist was on the title? Sorry, he didn't make the deadline. Oh, did we mention that the comic you preordered three months ago, which comes out tomorrow, includes the death of a classic character? Oh yeah, I know we told you that these new villains covers were cool, but we didn't anticipate demand, so we're allocating stock.

I've said it before, but as a comic fan I would never suggest to a friend to start getting into collecting monthlies again.