Originally published November 5, 1999, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1355
I had been planning to write about the exhibit currently under fire at the Brooklyn Museum of New York. However I realized I really shouldn’t do so until I’ve had the chance to see it myself, which I’ll be doing this weekend. So instead I’ll tap into the CBG topic for this week which is, so I’m told, relaunches.
The subtext to such a topic is, naturally, whether relaunches are a good idea or not. The short answer is, obviously, yes… when it works. A relaunch, unfortunately, is something that can only be judged in hindsight. There are all sorts of reasons to be opposed to a relaunch—a disrespect for the material that preceded, the confusion of renumbering, the “oh God, again!” feeling that it engenders in readers. But if the result is a cracking good story and a concept and execution that fires the imagination, all of the downsides will be forgiven. Still, at this point relaunches are regarded with such a guarded sense of uncertainty that one almost has to wonder whether it’s ever worth it.
Relaunches, to me, break down into two types. The first is a relaunch that takes a franchise character who has fallen on hard times, and even ceased publication, and starts all new adventures with an entirely new configuration for the character. The Silver age certainly falls into this category, with the all-new versions of Green Lantern, the Flash, the Atom et al. Obviously, that would have to be considered a “good idea,” since the result was the revitalization of the DC line for a new generation of readers. One has to wonder, though, how well the Silver age would have fared if there had been computer boards around to broadcast all the details months in advance and decide—before a single issue had come out—that the entire idea stank on ice.
With the Silver age, one had the feeling that what we were seeing was a rebirth that came about purely as a creative impulse and endeavor. A “wouldn’t-it-be-nifty-if-we-did-this” sort of mentality, with such filthy considerations as sales, money and profits not figuring into the relaunch at all. I wasn’t there, but I think I can take a guess and say that it was likely the other way around.
The thinking likely was, “Let’s find a way to make these characters profitable again.” Much like the creation of the Fantastic Four was motivated not by a collaborative lightning stroke from Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, but rather from publisher Martin Goodman trying to find a way to cash in on the success of Justice League.
Then again, as Gordon Gekko said, “Greed is good.” Sometimes the drive for money and sales results in creative brilliance.
The other type of relaunch is one in which the character himself (or herself) is still basically the same as before (same basic identity, same basic powers) but the title is being started once more in order to ballyhoo or accommodate either some cosmetic change or else a new creative team (or even individual) that the publishers feel will provide a sales bump. The problem is that while greed may be good, naked greed is chilly, and that chilling effect spreads to the audience which can’t help but feel that someone is trying to take advantage (that someone, of course, being the publisher.)
I’ve been front-and-center in two relaunches myself. One benefitted me… the other torpedoed me, which gives me a fair batting average, I suppose.
The relaunch that paid off for me was that of Aquaman. When I originally signed on to do the series, my first issue was going to be issue #13 or #14 (I think a fill-in was going to be run, I’m not sure.) My run on the book was to begin with a four-issue series-within-a-series, which was dubbed “Time and Tide” and would lay the groundwork for my take on the sea king. After that would begin my regular run.
However, the powers-that-be decided that my vision of Aquaman was so different from what had gone before (what, you mean piranha never ate his hand off in another issue?) that the book should be started over with a number one. Personally, I wasn’t awesomely in favor of it. The biggest problem we had to overcome with Aquaman, as far as I was concerned, was the perception that the character was a loser. You have no idea how many people, both fans and pros, asked me why I was “bothering” with Aquaman. “Aquaman simply can’t sustain his own title,” I was told. My concern was that, in order to be taken seriously, Aquaman didn’t need a new number one; he needed issue numbers. The higher the issue numbers, the more chances we had of shaking the perception that Aquaman couldn’t keep a title going on his lonesome.
I was overruled, however, because the sales and/or marketing department (so I was told) felt that there would be higher numbers for a #1 by me than there would be for a #14 by me. And so Aquaman started over again… twice… with Time and Tide made its own series, followed by the restart of the regular title. This might give him the dubious distinction of having the most #1’s with his name attached.
The other relaunch, the one I ran aground with, was the Incredible Hulk. The powers-that-be, bottom line, weren’t satisfied with the sales on the title. They felt that it should be pulling the same numbers as Avengers, Iron Man, et al… titles that had been relaunched with new creative teams and much hoopla. It was felt that dramatic changes needed to be made to the title. From this came the insistence that the Hulk be made mindless and savage again, which I resisted. In retrospect, though, I realize that there was more to it than the demands for the changes to the character. Marvel wanted to give The Hulk the same treatment it had given Avengers and the other titles, with much success. But Marvel couldn’t do that if the same old writer was on it, writing the same old character, because how does that justify the relaunch. So guess who had to go? The annoying writer who was standing in the way of the Hulk achieving the true sales greatness he so richly deserved.
So I went away and Marvel got to have the Hulk, and relaunch with the Exciting New Team it wanted… and sales dropped like a rock. And lo, there was much headscratching. What could possibly have gone wrong? Well, now with the advent of Paul Jenkins, writer of the award-winning Inhumans series, Marvel is endeavoring a re-relaunch-within-a-relaunch, with the Hulk becoming “Incredible” once more as of issue #12, and that issue being treated with all the ballyhoo of the original relaunch.
The ironic thing is, there were any number of times during my run on the series that Marvel could have “relaunched” it, because I “recreated” the Hulk several times. We could have relaunched for the Vegas story arc. We could have relaunched at the end of issue #377 after he merged into the “new Hulk.” But the numbering remained consistent and the story continued because we were trying to put across a sense that one was watching a character’s life unfold.
The problem becomes that when a character is recreated for the purpose of a new launch, the fans become weary, jaded, bored. It presents a choppiness to the character’s history. The emulation of reality is what helps sell characters as “real,” because in real life, one’s life tends to proceed in a steady manner, one day to the next.
When was the last time someone turned forty and suddenly announced, “Wait a minute! My life has sucked up until now! I’m relaunching myself!” and started counting his age over from zero? The consistency of issue numbering helps to simulate genuine passage of time for the character and bolster the “sense of reality.” Since the characters age very slowly (or not at all) issue numbers become the sign posts of seniority. But since we live in a society where age equals bad, there is a desire not to remind young readers that the characters have been around for longer than the readers have (“This is not your father’s Superman!”)
Personally, I think the attitude has backfired. By treating high numbering as anathema, by refusing to reinvent characters within the context of their ongoing series, publishers have served to undercut the sense of history that served comics so well in the past. Since readers don’t know where the characters came from, they have little interest or stake in where they’re going.
I certainly think it’s part of what’s hurt comic ordering so badly. Once upon a time, retailers ordered as a hedge towards future readers looking for the back issues. I’m not talking now about retailers who overordered by fifty, sixty copies of a title in hopes of jacking up the prices. I’m talking about retailers who ordered two, three or four copies, just to have them.
Let’s take a look at Spudman. Here’s Spudman, and the title is up to about issue 87. New writer/artist Arthur Gladhand is slated to take over the book. Arthur Gladhand is highly regarded. Once upon a time, the publisher starts Arthur with issue 88. This creates a great deal of buzz.
People try Spudman who have never read the series before. They like what they read.
What’s the next thing they do, if they’re collectors?
Well, if they never read the series before… they try to pick up the back issues. Or if they had read it but then stopped, they might try to fill in the gaps. Particularly if Arthur Gladhand is bringing in characters and concepts introduced during those issues. And the retailers have those back issues on hand.
But now let’s say the publisher relaunched the series with issue #1. People get in on the ground floor… and have absolutely no compulsion to check out back issues. They feel they have the whole run right in their hands, and needn’t bother with anything else. The series that came out prior to that are irrelevant, unnecessary, immaterial. By cutting off the numbering, publishers cut off any potential Spudman readers who might pick up those back issues. I’m not saying readers won’t. But there’s certainly far less of a compulsion.
So retailers cut their orders to the bone on the back issues, doing so with impunity, because the back-issue demand is drying up.
It may not sound like much… cutting back two issues here, three issues there. But multiply it by thousands of retailers, and make it part of a trend, and it mounts up.
Bottom line, the worshipping of relaunches over the continuation of a character’s ongoing adventures, his “life,” spits in the face of history.
And the longer it keeps up, the more of a chance there is that we’ll all wind up history.
(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705.)
• 
Glad to see that the industry listened, as we almost never see this practice anymore.
And that, I think, more than anything else is what makes a relaunch likely to be successful. When it’s motivated by creativity rather than sales, there’s a far greater likelihood that it will be that enjoyable effort that “works”.