Too Much of a Good Thing, or Just Keeping a Good Thing Going?

Just to illustrate how much I worry: Tonight I started thinking that maybe I'm blogging too often, as measured by the fear that someone new arriving at my site would never be inclined to actually scroll back through 100+ entries! Is that silly or what? Welcome to my brain; don't feed the birds!

Which reminds me of an interesting, quirky fact about comic book publishing. Nowadays, comic companies look for any excuse to restart a comic title at # 1, because the sales on a first issue are almost always much higher than anything you'll see on the later issues. Why? Because many comic fans will buy just about any # 1, either because they think they're investing in a collector's item ("Someday it'll be worth a fortune!") or because they like to sample new titles, with little or no plan to continue past the first issue unless it's really good. So, for example, we're on the 3rd or 4th Iron Man run right now (only up to the 13th issue after 35 years? How strange!) and I've lost count of how many Legion of Super-Heroes series there've been!

But 'twasn't always thus. In fact, around the time of the Silver Age of comics (roughly 1956 - 1971) the prevailing wind blew in exactly the opposite direction. In those days, kids didn't want to buy a comic that was at a low issue #, because they assumed it probably wasn't going to last, since it hadn't been around very long. They wanted to buy # 105, or # 126, not # 6 or # 12 or (gasp) # 1! Publishers realized this, and so they went to great lengths to keep series numbers going up, even when it didn't always make a lot of sense. Here are a few examples I've always found interesting:

Flash Comics existed in the first era of comic books, the Golden Age, and ran from # 1 to # 104, between 1940 and 1949, before being cancelled as the interest in super-hero comics died out. When DC decided, 7 years later, to create a new Flash, they debuted him in the tryout series Showcase, where he sped through four issues (#s 4, 8, 13 and 14), starting strong and picking up more readers each time, and clearly demonstrating that he deserved his own title. Rather than launching a Flash # 1, though, DC acted like nothing had happened and put out Flash # 105 (minor name change, but the numbering picked right up where Flash Comics had left off nearly a decade earlier).

A few years later, Marvel showed the same appreciation for high numbering when they decided to discontinue two of their own showcase titles, Tales to Astonish and Tales of Suspense. Neither title was being stopped because of poor sales, however; on the contrary, sales were strong for both. Astonish featured half-length yarns about the Sub-Mariner and the Hulk, while Suspense similarly had Iron Man followed by Captain America in each issue. Marvel saw the opportunity to take two popular titles and make them into four by giving each hero his own title: but instead of kicking off with four # 1's, like they'd do in a heartbeat today, they sort of continued the original runs. So Tales to Astonish # 101 was followed by The Incredible Hulk # 102, and Tales of Suspense # 99 lead right into Captain America # 100. Sadly, Sub-Mariner and Iron Man couldn't benefit from this ploy, and had to start off with # 1's. Poor guys!

And my favourite example of them all was what DC did with All-Star Comics in the early 50s. For those who don't know, the first ever super-team was the Justice Society of America, precursors (by two decades) to the Justice League of America. Someday I'll have to write an entire blog about the JSA, as they've always been one of my favourite groups and in recent years have experienced a renaissance of sorts. But for now, all you need to know is that they were the first, and they featured all of the super-heroes that DC owned in the 40s: Batman, Superman, Flash, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, the Atom, Dr Mid-Nite, the Hourman, the Spectre, Hawkman, Dr Fate, Black Canary, and so on. They were the group! And they enjoyed a great Golden Age, as you can well imagine with that sort of line-up! But then the 50s started and super-heroes were out, while westerns, science fiction and romance comics were in (hey, I'm not making this up!). So DC published All-Star Comics # 57 at the end of 1950, featuring the last (sob!)Golden Age adventure of the JSA, followed by All-Star Western # 58 a few months later, with "The Law of the Tomahawk!" (cowboys and Indians, kids!) What made this even more heinous, from what I've heard, is that if you were the poor sap of a kid who bought a year's subscription to All-Star Comics in late 1950, you might've received one issue of your beloved JSA title followed by 11 issues of some guy named Tomahawk set in the 1880s!! I'd've been asking for my money back, personally!

So there you have: a little bit of comic book history, whether you wanted it or not!