Should DC Go Back to Having Legacy Numbering on All Their Titles

I think they should. We only have four titles with their original numbering. Action, Detective, Flash and Wonder Woman. Why those four? Why not Batman and Superman?

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Would the legacy numbering for Superman be based solely on the original Superman periodical, which was rebranded for many years as Adventures of Superman, or would it include Superman Volume 2 (the series initially written by John Byrne) in its numbering?

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I think it should go back to Adventures of Superman. Superman’s numbering should be much higher than it is

The legacy numbering accounts for New52. Particularly in Flash’s case the numbering accounts for Jay’s run in the 40’s (1-104)
Barry’s Run from the mid-late 50s to the mid 80s (105-350),
Wally’s run from the late 80s to the mid-late 2000s (1-247 + 0 & 1,000,000), as well as
Barry’s Brightest Day run, (1-12)
the New52 (1-52 + 0 +23.1-23.3)
and finally the current run!
(Personally I felt they should have included Bart’s brief year long run and Flash Rebirth as well, but that’s the completist in me!)

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I was against dropping the original numbering when it happened, but having it restored for Action Comics and Detective Comics felt like a good compromise. I like the idea of celebrating what would have been landmark issues in a run by using the number for that particular issue, but trying to apply it across the board would be super confusing.

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Agree completely

Personally, I don’t like the legacy numbering. It’s confusing when there isn’t that many of the title in this specific continuity. I also don’t like when titles change or get cancelled and brought back with a new number 1. Perfect example. New 52 Nightwing, ended at 30 and went to Grayson. When Nightwing was brought back for Rebirth we got a new number 1. They should went with 31 and kept going from there. Or if I’m not mistaken Green Arrow was cancelled during New 52 and was brought back for Rebirth as well with a new number 1. They shoulda started where they left off.
In other words there should not be 1000+ if there aren’t actually that many issues currently circulating. And instead of constantly putting out new number 1s to bring in new readers start with the numbering it was left. The new jumping on point will cause new readers to want to check out the older issues. It just seems so much more logical to me.

That’s a fair comment. There is something to be said for certain runs having a definitive end point and a start point to the next one. (I really wouldn’t have minded if The Flash had begun with a new #1 in 1956 rather than simply continuing the numbering where Flash comics left off.
That being said, I was really put off when the New52 started, an DC’s higher ups cut Action and Detective comics (as well as Superman and Batman) when those titles were running up to almost #1,000.
Thankfully DC course corrected on at least two of those series.
I will say I AM a fan of Legacy numbering. Even if it does sometimes make it daunting for new readers to jump on. There are times I think it’s easier now to jump on because every arc in the books is pretty much self contained to fit into a numbered trade. at the same time, I jumped in in the late 80s when most issues were one and done and story development happened over much longer periods of Time.
Tim drake’s rise to the role of Robin happened over a year and a half. nowadays a robin would only have a six issue block to go from meeting Batman, to getting the suit.

I like it for the books with “Comics” in the title. I wasn’t upset that Batman started over in 2011, but it felt wrong to restart Detective Comics. And it proved pretty pointless, too: did the new Detective Comics series entice that many new readers? The book already seemed like a low priority to the DC offices ever since Rucka left the series and Loeb’s Hush arc began in Batman (with Detective Comics #775 and Batman #608 respectively, both with a December 2002 cover date), and I never got the impression that DC was pushing the mag any harder with the relaunch, instead focusing on promoting the Snyder Batman run. So again, why bother renumbering it?

I feel like legacy numbering is rewarding to long time readers while psychologically prohibitive to new ones. We need more people reading comics. If restarting the numbers is the way to do that, I have no problem with it.

Personally I think numbering should restart every time a new creative team takes over a book for the long term.

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I think the ship saled when they canceled them for new 52. Personally it doesnt matter anymore. Marvel struggles to get 25 issues before relaunches and DC is doing slightly better around 50, but superman wont make it to that since all numbers are going to 1 in February per Jim Lee, although he didnt specifically say that, he said line wide relaunch. So legacy numbers are fun for awhile but probably just a gimmick from now on as companies sales attrition is so high they need number ones to salvage any profit growth, if they have any at all.

Just a note about them starting with a new number one for the Flash: if I recall correctly, there were financial considerations regarding postage rates for subscriptions being higher for number ones than for series with high numbers.

I think that Marvel lately has the better apurroch,

Issue number in current volume

Then

Legacy numbering

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I like it, but I don’t necessarily like how it looks on the cover. (Granted, I’ve found Marvel covers to be hideous for quite some time now. Nick Spencer’s Amazing Spider-Man may be the exception to that rule, but it’s the exception to many of my complaints about current Marvel, so that’s no surprise.)

I’d prefer something like the old triangle numbers.

triangle numbers

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In a word? Yes.

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Honestly I just get tired of trying to keep track at times :joy:

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I do not like legacy numbering. It is hard to jump on and understand for new readers. And besides self congratulating on run length it holds no purpose. Everyone knows Batman has been around forever we don’t need Batman #800 to know that. It is just a milestone that also could be counted by years.

I think numbering should restart when the writer or editorial starts going in a completely different direction ie new 52 and rebirth. This signals to new and old readers that there is a firm jumping on point and something new is happening. It lowers the bar for everyone that want to jump on to something new.

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No way. I find the renumbering to be a lot easier to deal with.

I like legacy numbering for legacy titles and tho should be Action, Detective, Flash & Wonder Woman. Do what you like with the other titles but we need a few legacy title numbers because DC comics has a profound legacy on pop culture. Those titles are the link to that past.

Frankly, I think they reset a bunch of titles to #1 because they figured more of the investor/collectors would buy a #1 issue. It was a cash grab.

I really like what they did with numbering of Silver Age Flash picking up at 105. It connected it to the Golden age legacy character.

If they were going to do a renumbering it should only be after a major crisis event, like COIE. But that was 20 years in the making, not the “Hey, it’s Tuesday, time for another crisis event.”

But if I could wave my magic wand, I’d have everything use legacy numbers and keep that as the rule in perpetuaty.

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Don’t you feel tired to always going back to a number “1”. Just because a series is starting a new storyline, continuing the number sequence means that any issue could be significant and it would give more meaning to the whole series.

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