If you were to ask a die hard comic fan the question, “Who’s your favorite character?” there’s a high chance that they’ll include what dimension/series they’re from in their answer.

At first, it may just seem like the comic reader is trying to flex their knowledge. This is however, only partly true. Comic canon tends to be extremely messy, especially when it comes to the two major publishers, Marvel and DC.

Comics tend to be a little bit difficult to get into. Most series require a decent amount of background information. When picking up a new series you may find yourselves asking the following questions: What is the current character’s status quo? How did they get to this point? Wait, when did this character die?

Most comic series are part of a connected continuity, what happens in one series can affect another. No matter how unrelated they seem to be. This is especially true with big event comics.

There’s a reason why comics are often referred to as “modern mythology.” There are some comic series that span literal decades. Hundreds of writers and artists have worked together to build up this massive shared universe.

Honestly I can’t really say that I blame anyone for being intimidated. There’s so much that you have to learn.

Hence, this is where reboots come into play.

Reboots allow new readers to jump into a comic series without needing to know years worth of lore.

Comic reboots tend to sell extremely well. For example, let’s look at last year’s “Transformers” reboot. The series has been outselling every single DC comic for about a year. The first issue alone is on its ninth printing.

Marvel’s “Ultimate Spider-Man” is another good example of how well reboots sell. Within the first three months of release the series had already sold out multiple times.

It’s more than obvious that rebooting a series lends to massive success. Which begs the question, why don’t comic publishers do it more often?

DC has done a total of two hard reboots, 45 years apart from each other. Meanwhile, Marvel has never done a traditional reboot. They’re been using the same comic continuity from the 1940s.

Marvel instead prefers to release alternate universes series that run side by side with the main comic universe. The very first “reboot universe” happened in 1992 with the release of the “2099” line of comics.

Every few years the two publishers relaunch certain big series. While still popular, they tend to not do nearly as well as the reboots.

So what gives?

First thing first, as you can probably imagine, starting a whole connected universe from scratch is not easy.

Each new series that takes place in the universe needs a creative team, which usually consists of an artist, writer, editor, colorist and letterer. Now at first this may not sound like a big deal, after all, this is pretty standard.

The difficulty comes from the fact that each creative team has to share a similar version for what they want the universe to be about. For example, the main idea of DC’s “New 52” was that all of the heroes were younger and more modern. This meant that all of the creative teams had to base their series off of this one prompt.

Marvel’s main “616” continuity has been around forever. Writers are pretty much allowed to do whatever they want. There isn’t a single core theme with the universe.

A universe revolving around a single central theme can cause problems when it comes to sales. Readers like variety; the new series can’t end up being too similar to each other. It’s a very difficult balance.

We also mustn’t forget that reboots are based on an existing story. Reboots must share some aspects in common with the original source material, all while still trying to be different from it. A Spider-Man reboot must still feel like Spider-Man.

I personally love it when a publisher does a reboot. I really enjoy seeing reimaginings of my favorite characters. There are even some reboots I prefer over the original, such as the previously mentioned “Ultimate Spider-Man.”

With that being said, I believe that reboots must be used sparingly. We can’t reset an entire series just because one isn’t selling well. A universe wide reboot should be treated as an event, as an evolution. Constant reboots leads to the audience not caring about whatever universe they’re currently involved in.