Some Arguments For A Complete Reboot Of Marvel Comics

• There isn’t that much publishing history left anyway

By this I mean that there aren’t any long-running ongoing series left in Marvel’s lineup of monthly titles. The company has been going with shorter volumes and frequent #1 issues over the past few years, enough so that it wouldn’t be a shock if every book started over with another first issue next May. Even Amazing Spider-Man, the series most often used as evidence of why Marvel wouldn’t reboot since it just came back to life, would be in double digits by next spring. Getting relaunched after 12 issues isn’t even a big deal at this point, for better or worse.

Longtime fans seem to be more cynical of the steady stream of new #1s than more recent comics converts, for whom it’s just the way things work. But while it’s one thing to be upset about a comic that has 500-plus issues under its belt losing its original numbering, nothing Marvel currently publishes falls into that category at this point.

It’s worth mentioning that some titles starring very prominent characters are wrapping up later this year. Iron Man is one of them. I’d bet everything in every one of my longboxes that there’s going to be another Iron Man series before too long. When that happens, it’ll be the fourth new volume of the comic to debut in less than a decade. Other than a truly A-list creative team, a reboot would be the only other way to make this one mean more than the others.