Both such as Batman and Superman is a testament to their enduring popularity regardless of the decade…so why do comics companies continually reset the issue numbering?
Legacy characters such as the Fantastic Four, Green Lantern, Captain America and others technically have hundreds of issues to their name. The Amazing Spider-Man series has over 700 issues and Action Comics and Detective Comics, home to Superman and Batman respectively, both have well over 1000 issues each. Yet every title mentioned above has seen a number reset. Amazing Spider-Man’s number was reset in 2018, while Action Comics and Detective Comics saw a massive reset in 2011 along with the entire DC line in the New 52 publishing initiative. Some of the less-popular characters, such as Marvel's Moon Knight and DC's Harley Quinn, reset their numbers very frequently and are thus unable to achieve milestone issue numbers.
From a business standpoint, the reasoning behind the repeated resets is obvious. New Issue #1’s tend to sell very well; on the current list of the top ten best-selling individual comics of all time, six out of ten are classified as Issue #1 (the best selling comic of all time, 1991’s X-Men #1 sold over 8 million copies). New readers are more likely to buy a comic if it comes with the promise of a fresh start bereft of complex continuity, and collectors are more inclined to buy an issue if it promises to be valuable in the future (as is often the case with new #1's).
The release of new Issue #1’s can also signify a change in the creative team and/or direction for the character overall. However, the repeated rollback of the long-running numbers risks placing a character’s place in history in the background. Comic book fans enjoy the long history of these characters – even if some continuity is contradictory – and look forward to milestone issues (which are naturally harder to achieve if the numbers continually roll back). DC realized this soon after the New #52, and Action Comics and Detective Comics proudly released their 1,000th issue with the number prominently displayed on the cover.
Overall, the decision to roll back numbers, such as the case with DC's New 52, is largely positive (New 52 missteps notwithstanding). Better sales means a better chance for a character to become popular, which in turn will help readers read issues which they wouldn't have otherwise read. But the long history of the Marvel Comics and DC Comics titans mustn’t be overlooked either.
