ACTION COMICS #1000 will be released!

DC Comics' ACTION COMICS will be reaching its #1000 issue very soon! Superman's original home had its groundbreaking #1 back in 1938..now it is 1 thousand!!
OK, OK, okay, I'm coming on all PR talk-age here - but it certainly is a milestone, and a publishing/comic books accomplishment!
Even though modern-day comics publishers often employ numbering gimmicks, this will not be one of them - the number will reflect that ONE THOUSAND issues will have been issued! As a young fan I used to think of when thisnumbe would be reached...........Do you think there will be anyone in the world who will have amassed all
ONE THOUSAND
issues? Now,
that would be something!!

 

It would be cool if they included issue #1 as part of #1000.

 

...#1 was a 64-pager. All of it? Only 10 or so pages were of Superman.

 

One issue with the numbering is that it will have to reflect the odd issues that were released during the run. Some examples:

• In conjunction with the Zero Hour event, every DC title released a #0 issue. The #0 issue didn't replace the issue number that would have been but sat between two regular issue numbers (#31, #32, #0, #33, #34).
• Like with the above, in conjunction with the DC One Million event, every DC title released a #1,000,00 issue. The #1,000,000 issue didn't replace the issue number that would have been but sat between two issue numbers (#517, #518, #1,000,000, #519, #520). BTW, the setting for DC One Million was the 853th Century (1,000,000 months after the release of Action Comics #1).
• Also, according to Wikipedia Action Comics restarted its numbering with #1 for a few years before returning to its original numbering. They also did this with Superman where, for a time, Superman became The Adventures Of Superman and a new Superman comic was introduced. Later, they cancelled Superman and restored The Adventures Of Superman back to being Superman (with the numbering of the previous Superman added to The Adventures Of Superman to bring the issue number to #650).

 

I wish Marvel and DC had just always kept to the numbering. All these reboots with new issue 1's! Insane.

Well done Supes anyway. Funny as I was just telling someone yesterday how Nic Cage had issue 1 and he sold it to pay the bills (for a lot of money and a good profit).

 

The whole purpose of so many #1 issues is because people buy them thinking they will be worth something. However, I think it was Stan Lee who said that the reason that those old issues are worth something is because they are rare. Nowadays #1 issues are so common that they almost don't register for me (The Flash #1? The 12th one?)

For me, a #1 issue should only be released in two situations:

• A new series
• The first issue of a miniseries

First issues for other reasons leads to confusion. As an example, Legion Of Super-Heroes (LSH) has four "first" issues:

• The first issue of a four-issue reprint series
• When they started a second LSH series (the original LSH was originally Superboy and the LSH eventually took over the title after roughly 60 issues)
• When the ended the above series and started a new series set Five Years Later
• The "Threeboot" Legion, which was new team set in the future of Earth-Prime.

 

When I was a kid I always wondered how long it would take to get to issue 1000. Haven't bought an Action comic (or any comic for that matter) in over 25 years.

 

Agreed. Number 1 is meaningless these days. I used to look for everything #1 when I was a kid. Or last issues. Or "such and such dies" issue. Think back to McFarlane's Spiderman #1. So many alternate covers, so many printed. What's it worth now? I have no idea but I know I have at least 20 of them and they are still in the original shrink "plastic" that has probably ruined the comic. Same with the "Doomsday" storyline.

 

It occurred much sooner than it would have if you just counted the number of months since Action Comics #1. Among the reasons is that for a time Action Comics became Action Comics Weekly where it became a weekly comic, with each issue featuring six stories (including a two-page Sunday-type spread featuring Superman).

 

Even issues where a character dies isn't that much of an event anymore since so many characters return from the dead so often. One of the reasons I liked the original Legion Of Super-Heroes is that in that series dead is dead (Ferro Lad, Invisible Kid, Chemical King, Karate Kid, two-thirds of Triplicate Girl), and until the reboots none of the characters returned from the dead.

Returning from the dead had become such a non-issue that they did an event called The Blackest Night to address it. Simply put, the reason so many have returned from the dead (Superman, Wonder Woman, The Flash (Barry Allen), Green Lantern (Hal Jordan), Troia, Dove (Dawn Granger), and Superboy (Conner Kent) among them) is that a being called Nekron (a being who acts as a gateway to death) prevented them from going to their final destination.

 

Is issue #1000 all Superman? As you can tell, I don't know too much about this.

 

Yes, to recycle an old Simpsons joke, he dies on every page.

 

The oldest Action Comics that I have are in the early 200s. I really like Actions from that era.

Scott

 

...That's correct re: ACTION's renumbering during the New 52 and the gimmick-numbering issues, Sol, I decided not to complicate this unduly by going into those facts. The language I used took those issues into account.
When the N52 period ended and DC returned to the 1938 numbering for Action they added those 54?? issues of the N52 version onto the original 1938 numbering, and these all were " normal " issues. #1000 will be the 1000th of those issues.
Action Comics Weekly and the fact that DC has made Action a twice-monthly title for the last coupla years are the main reasons for Action's months-spanned reduction.

 

I think Dave Simms self-publishing 300 issues of Cerebus is a bigger deal, but AC hitting 1000 is pretty cool.

 

The fact that in this day and age there are still comic collectors who buy first issues (or multiple copies of first issues) believing they will someday be worth something boggles my mind. It's hard to believe there are people that stupid out there. Yet as long as this stupidity persists, Marvel and DC will keep exploiting it.

 

I have most of the he issues between #300 and #600.

 

They are also releasing a companion hardcover for this #1000 issue. Apparently they are also restarting Superman back to #1 after this issue comes out.

 

Since #1 issues always sell more, I'm amazed no one has yet come up with the idea of starting over at #1 every single issue.

 

Marvel basically renumbers all their comics on a yearly basis these days.

 

When I was a regular reader something with a high number meant it was an established title with a history and it would be fairly easy to pick up a new title because the back issues were all easily identifiable.

 

You want First-Issue reboot insanity..? Get a look at Bendis' Powers.

 

DC Comics already did this with The New 52. According to Wikipedia, they cancelled all of their series and relaunched them with #1 issues.

 

No, what I meant was that they should literally start over at #1 every single issue. Each month would be a new first issue. It was a joke, but I was half serious. First issues still do sell better than other issues, which means there are a significant amount of people who buy the first issue but no others, and/or that there are a significant amount of people still buying multiple copies of first issues. Which tells us there are a significant amount of comic buyers out there who are idiots. So my "every issue is a first issue" plan would probably work.

 

The thing that irks me the most about the endless stream of '# 1's' is that older buyers are aware of the gimmick and probably realize that they're pretty much worthless. The Big 2 must be aware of this which means they're basically trying to pull a fast one on the kids!