by Taimur Dar
Rumor has it that Marvel will be returning to the legacy numbers of many of its titles as part of its “Make Mine Marvel” move this fall, as opposed to relaunching with brand new #1 titles as it has done in recent years. As always, any speculation or rumors should be treated with a grain of salt, but it’s worth noting Marvel has already announced that the current Venom title will revert to issue #150 in May and continue to retain the original numbering.
Marvel has been rolling out info on their fall plans to retailers, and while the renumbering rumor hasn’t been confirmed in those calls, its still a very popular rumor.
When looking at other potential titles that could relaunch with the original numbering, Thor seems the most obvious and likely. A breakdown of the number of issues published:
Thor (Volumes 1-3): 621 issues
Mighty Thor (Volume 1): 23
Thor: God of Thunder: 25
Thor (Volume 4): 8
Mighty Thor (Volume 2): 19 as of May solicitations
| Title | # of Issues |
| Thor (Volumes 1-3) | 621 |
| Mighty Thor (Volume 1) | 23 |
| Thor: God of Thunder | 25 |
| Thor (Volume 4) | 8 |
| Mighty Thor (Volume 2) | 19 |
| Total | 696 |
Figure 1
| Month | Current Issue # | Classic Issue # |
| March | 17 | 694 |
| April | 18 | 695 |
| May | 19 | 696 |
| June | 20 | 697 |
| July | 21 | 698 |
| August | 22 | 699 |
| September | 23 | 700 |
Figure 2
That equals 696 issues of Thor by the month of May. Based on that, once the current Mighty Thor title reaches issue #23 it should also hit the milestone 700th issue. Of course, that doesn’t take into account other titles, in particular:
Journey Into Mystery: 35 issues
Thors: Battleworld: 4
Unworthy Thor: 5
| Title | # of Issues |
| Journey into Mystery | 35 |
| Thors: Battleworld | 4 |
| Unworthy Thor | 5 |
Figure 3
If that’s the case, Thor has already passed the 700th issue and then some. However, if Marvel does plan to revert to the legacy numbering, only taking into consideration the primary ongoing Thor titles from Figure 1 makes sense, especially from a marketing perspective. Assuming Jason Aaron’s current Mighty Thor title doesn’t double ship or skip a month, the 700th issue could be released as early as September. That coincides nicely when the third Thor film, Thor: Ragnarok, is released in theaters on November 3rd, 2017. A more ideal release for the 700th issue of Thor would probably be late October/early November when fandom of the Asgardian will be at its zenith. The point is that the fall release of Thor: Ragnarok presents the unique opportunity to promote the Thor comic and it just so happens to be perfectly timed with the celebration of 700 issues of Thor.
Does the 621 figure account for the 80+ issues of Journey Into Mystery that aren’t Thor-related? Marvel’s Thor numbering is so funny because Thor v1 kicked off with an issue number deep into the 100 count.
At this point why bother? Just stop the continual renumbering and let a title continue on..
If you are going to make sweeping statements, please make sure your numbers are correct.
The actual number for Thor (Volumes 1-3) is not 621, but 497
Thor #126 (March 1966) is the first issue using the Thor logo and indicia. It continued from where Thor first appeared Journey Into Mystery. The last issue of which was #125. Thor didn’t begin appearing in that title until #83 and shared the title with other stories including Tales of Asgard until its end.
Thor lasted until #502 (Sep 1996) – – 377 issues.
The new Thor title began with #1 (Jun 1998) and lasted until #85 (Dec 2004). The last part of that series also went to using the old numbering as well as the new, so the last issue was also #587.
That was 85 issues.
The next series started with #1 (Sep 2007) and went until #12 (Jan 2009). The next issue was cover dated April 2009 but numbered #600. Many people (including the GCD) consider this new series starting with 600 to be part of the previous series. So it went to #621 (May 2011).
That is 35 issues.
That totals to 497 issues, not 621.
I didn’t bother with the rest of the numbers since you were already wrong. You can add any other series you want, but there are many mini-series you can add if you want too.
That doesn’t make any sense. The first 125 issues of JIM have always been included in the legacy numbering of Thor – they’re calculated into that #587 that concluded vol. 2, and they’re calculated into the renumbering for #600 during vol. 3. It would be utterly baffling to renumber to somewhere in the 500s when we already had a Thor #600 years ago. The point of reference is #621 – that’s the last issue of Thor published with a legacy numbering; the only relevant question is how many issues have been published since then. The only real quibble here is how to count Mighty Thor #12.1 (and this will relevant for other titles too presuming Marvel does this at all programmatically). Mini-series should obviously not count toward main series numbering.
It shows you that the numbers didn’t mean anything. Kind of like the numbers don’t mean anything now. Call it Thor #1000; no one cares.
Micah wants every issue of Thor to be #1. Yeaaaa! Candy canes! Big fan of renumbering, ain’t ya boy? And every monthly Thor #1 should have many many variant covers – no less than 10 each!
Actually, Matt Fraction’s rebooted Thor run only reached issue #22. So issue #700 would release sometime in October. They could even delay it a couple weeks to get a November release, to coincide right with the Ragnarok film.
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