Marvel has some of the most convoluted title names and numbering. They just kept restarting without doing a volume and or changing the name enough. Avengers issue 7............ volume...1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8? Anything with all new or just new is a awful title for media.

At least point why even bother. The numbering is so hacked up none of it makes any sense. They even count a series with a different name as part of the Fantastic Four yet have issue 600 and still continue that other series.

And if they do this they will just start a new number one in a couple years. Just part smaller numbers under whatever volume and number it is.

I'm a bit behind and it will likely take who knows how long to figure out what has been going on after three reboots within a couple years.

I remember at one point they were using volume numbers when restarting with a new number one. However that was way back in the 80's and early 90's and the titles were on a long hiatus sometimes many years between the last issue and the new series. Red Sonja comes to mind where the series in the 80's was volume 3.

Marvel themselves lost track of the numbering when they wanted to celebrate some milestone issue by returning to legacy numbering for one issue. Fans pointed out that Marvel was definitely off by a few issues. I can't remember which title this happened.

They don't do volumes, but I think go by year, but they're so stupid with the renumbering that they often relaunch titles twice within a year. For example, there's a
Spider-Gwen (2015)
And
Spider-Gwen (2015-)

They relaunched spider Gwen after five issues.

Who the hell is calling the shots at Marvel? I thought the whole point of the recent Secret War mini-series was to get away from alternate universes/multiple versions of the same character/convoluted numbering/ect, but they went right back to it. Marvel needs to stop with the constant crossovers, events, renumbering, mini-series; all this shit they claim they’re doing to “draw in new readers” is just making their current stuff harder to keep track of. I read their comics, I get the Marvel Previews magazine, and even I have trouble keeping track of what books are coming out.

They did that with a bunch of titles around the time Secret War came out. I don’t see what’s so hard with keeping consistent numbering. They’ve had big events and artist/writer rotations before and didn’t renumber anything.

OT, but that's sort of how I feel about movies now.

It was either Hulk or Thor.

I don't necessarily agree with this critique of Marvel's current problems but the reactions to the piece in the comments section are worth reading. Lots of passionate Marvel fans are fed up with the company.

http://www.comicsbeat.com/titling-at...comics-anyway/

When Incredible Hulk relaunched at 600 they were off by an issue or two.

I thought it was Thor since they tried to incorporate the Journey Into Mystery stuff. Although it could have very well been Incredible Hulk.

I know Thor's was messed up. I think they used the same numbers for Thor and JIM at one point.

Anyone know what the longest hiatus was when a series ended and was picked up again as a regular series and continued along with the original numbering? I know they did a few issues of Amazing Fantasy starting back with #16, but that was more of a limited series. All Star Comics picked up 20-30 years later back in the late 1970's.

The original Thor and JIM are the same magazine with same numbering. 1-125 is JIM, 126+ is Thor.

There used to be, maybe still is, some kind of expense in starting a new title. Something to do with the info in the legend. To avoid this expense a publisher would change a magazine title but keep the numbering. Example: #1-101 was Tales to Astonish changed to Hulk with #102. Had they done Hulk #1 instead they would have had to pay some kind of fee for starting a new title.

I doubt there's any kind of fee (or Marvel would be bankrupt by now) but I'm curious, who was the fee paid to?

Hulk was off. Here's a decent description here:

https://comicbooknumbering.blogspot....0-mystery.html

Basically they cheat by only counting some issues of the Hulk (2008) series. Some say they count the only the first 12 issues of that series but include a -1 issue, others say they count the first 13 issues only, which is equally stupid. This is the Loeb/Mcguinness book featuring Red Hulk.

It was a fairly standard practice during the golden and silver ages to have a comic book retitled and given a new headliner than to start a new number one. It might have been a peculiarity of newsstand distribution at the time, where the might have been an expense to start a new magazine, so they just renamed them.

Another factor in the Silver Age Marvel books is that Thor was featured in an existing comic book named "Journey into Mystery," and the title was evetually changed to "Thor" after the character became popular. At the time, DC's parent company distributed Marvel Comics and limited the number of books they could release per month, which is why you had Iron Man and Captain America co-headlining "Tales of Suspense." When Marvel got a different distributor, Iron Man started his own series with #1 and Tales of Suspense became Captain America with issue #100.

There isn't anymore, but there was some kind of new application for titles or something that had to be made to the post office.

Back then, a higher number also gave kids confidence that a title had staying power and wouldn't be canceled after a few issues. So sticking a new hero into issue 126 of an existing title gave the appearance of them having some staying power.

That may have been it. Each title has a number somewhere in the legend. A new title would require getting a new number and there was some kind of cost associated with it. If you change the title but retain the volume # and issue numbering the number stays the same.
For whatever purpose this number serves, Tales of Suspense and Captain America are the same magazine.

Searching around the best answer I could find is that it was easier to just change a magazine's title and retain the current numbering than to get a new title set up with the printers and distribution systems. Whether any specific costs were associated with starting a new title at Vol. 1 No.1 instead of existing numbering I don't know.

Here's what I see for Thor:

Journey into Mystery 1-125
Thor 126-502
Journey into mystery 503-521
Thor (Vol 2) 1-85
Thor (3rd series) 1-12, then the next issue is #600
Thor 600-621
Journey into Mystery 622-655

If we start at Thor 521 and the add the 85 issue series and the 12 issue series, we should be at #618. Therefore the issue number after Thor #12 should be 619 but instead it is number 600. So somewhere along the way they chose to ignore 19 issues so they could do a #600 issue.

The (female) Thor series is still running which is just called "Thor" as well. There was also a series called "The Mighty Thor" which became "Thor: God of Thunder" at some point and then I believe ended when they started the female Thor series. No telling what number they will use or what series they will ignore when they go back to the legacy numbering.

It seems pretty obvious to me that the 19 issues that they are ignoring are the second run of Journey into Mystery. Is there a logical reason for doing so other than printing a 600 issue? Probably not, but that's what they did. 502 + 85 +12 = 599

That is probably what they did. They may use the exuse that the 19 JIM issues werent fraturing Thor, but then neither did the first 82 issues but they counted those. It looks like Mighty Thor/God of Thunder lasted 25 issues and then thete is the lady Thor series. Maybe they are shooting for a Thor #700 or #750.

Yeah, it was probably more of an order/distribution thing. Newstands that carried the old title would probably be more likely just keep ordering the same SKU, regardless of title change, than looking through and ordering a new SKU.

I found this explanation:
http://www.comichron.com/faq/comicsnumberingorigin.html

https://comicbooknumbering.blogspot....o-mystery.html

There are actually two Journey Into Mystery series that they skip over. This isn't official numbering, but it does seem like if they kept it consistent, they would already be over 700... I'm sure they will just ignore that, though.

Man I just looked at Iron Man, I didn't realize they counted Heroes Reborn issues...

I wonder if new #1's are not generating enough of a sales increase as they have in the past to be going back to legacy numbers. They're even going to start Venom at #150.

I think it's mostly a nod to long-time fans that have already jumped off the Marvel bandwagon and want to lure them back.

It's interesting that Ultimates seems to be the first title to go back to 'legacy' numbering (issue 100), I never really thought of the Ultimate Universe as part of Marvel's legacy... it's even mostly discontinued.

Edit: I'm not very familiar with the Ultimate Universe...

I didn't think the current Ultimates title had anything to do with the Ultimate Universe team?