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Marvel Legacy Numbering – Marvel Universe

bluedevil2002 — Mon, 30 May 2022 02:14:13 +0000

Legacy numbering started out as a fun gift to fans, sort of a way to apologize for relaunching so many series. However, Marvel has managed to overcomplicate it as they really stretch the definition of a legacy series, as well as adding in mini-series, and also not understanding proper math skills. John Jackson Miller at Comichron has a really good explanation for the logic behind most of the legacy numbering:

It’s important to understand that Marvel’s goal was not to create a census counting all issues published under a series’ name, but rather to restore the post-1960s numbering that most of its legacy titles spent the longest amount of time under. Hence, Captain America gets the credit for Tales of Suspense issues he was not in, because the longest-running Captain America title took over the numbering of Tales and any attempt to force imaginary numbering on a plurality of the series’ issues would be counterproductive. The idea, rather, was to pretend that the wave of 1990s-and-later reboots never happened. So, too, there is no error in leaving out the first six issues of Incredible Hulk‘s original run; they were never presumed to be part of the sequence by collectors during the hundreds of issues the Tales to Astonish-born series ran, and have no more role in its renumbering than the Golden Age Captain America title does.

Another key to determining legacy numbering is finding the core series of a franchise, even if it didn’t have the exact same name. Also, specially numbered issues (such as #-1, #0, or any number with a decimal) are not counted in the whole numbers.

The “Quick Math” section under each series is what number to add to an issue from a particular volume to get its legacy number.

Fantastic Four
#1-416
Fantastic Four volume 1 #1-416
(series began in 1961)

#417-429
Fantastic Four volume 2 #1-13
(“Heroes Reborn” series launched in 1996)
Quick math: 416

#430-499
Fantastic Four volume 3 #1-70
(“Heroes Return” series launched in 1997)
key issues:
–#35 (464) - first Carlos Pacheco issue
–#42 (471) – legacy numbering printed on covers starting with this issue until #500
–#60 (489) – first Mark Waid issue
Quick math: 429

#500-588
Fantastic Four volume 1 #500-588
(series reverted to original numbering in 2003)

#589-599
FF #1-11
(series launched in 2011 as part of Jonathan Hickman’s run)
Quick math: 588

The “FF” series continued after the publication of Fantastic Four #600, with numbering from #12-22. Those issues are not included in any legacy numbering.

#600-611
Fantastic Four volume 1 #600-611
(series again reverted to original numbering in 2012)

#612-627
Fantastic Four volume 4 #1-16
(series launched in 2013 as part of “Marvel NOW!”)
Quick math: 611

#628-641
Fantastic Four volume 5 #1-14
(series launched in 2014 as part of “All New Marvel NOW!”)
Quick math: 627

#642-645
Fantastic Four volume 1 #642-645
(series reverted to original numbering in 2015)

Since Disney owned Marvel, but Fox controlled the FF movie rights, the comic series was put on hiatus for a few years due to corporate egos. However, Disney bought Fox and thus regained the movie rights, allowing the comic to return.

#646-693
Fantastic Four volume 6 #1-48
(series launched in 2018)
Quick math: 645

#694-current
Fantastic Four volume 7 #1-current*
(series launched in 2022)
Key issue:
–#7 (700) – milestone issue celebrated
Quick math: 693

*as of the September 2024 solicitations, the most recent issue is #25 (718)

Daredevil
#1-380
Daredevil volume 1 #1-380
(series began in 1964)

#381-499
Daredevil volume 2 #1-119
(“Marvel Knights” series launched in 1998)
Key issues:
–#1-8 (381-388) – “Guardian Devil” by Kevin Smith
–#22 (402) - legacy numbering printed on covers starting with this issue until #81 (461)
–#26-50 (406-430) and #56-81 (436-461) – Brian Michael Bendis run
–#82 (462) – Ed Brubaker run begins, series moves out of the Marvel Knights imprint and drops dual numbering.
Quick math: 380

Although the dual numbering did not get officially added to the covers until #22 (402), the cover artists had been incorporating the legacy numbering into their signatures from the beginning of the series.

#500-512
Daredevil volume 1 #500-512
(series reverted to original numbering in 2009)

While “Daredevil” was relaunched, “Black Panther: The Man Without Fear” was launched continuing the numbering from Daredevil. It ran from #513-523 and then was renamed as “Black Panther: The Most Dangerous Man Alive” for #523.1-529. None of those issues are included in the legacy numbering for Daredevil, although Marvel did include them in Black Panther’s legacy numbering.

#513-548
Daredevil volume 3 #1-36
(series launched in 2011)
Quick math: 512

#549-566
Daredevil volume 4 #1-18
(series launched in 2014)
Quick math: 548

Both “Daredevil” volumes 3 and 4 were completely written by Mark Waid and are even collected within the same hardcover and TPB series. Perhaps the series was getting too close to #50 and Marvel had to cancel it with their fear of high numbers?

#567-594
Daredevil volume 5 #1-28
(series launched in 2015)
Quick math: 566

#595-612
Daredevil volume 1 #595-612
(series reverted to original numbering as part of Marvel Legacy initiative.)

#613-648
Daredevil volume 6 #1-36
(series launched in 2019)
Quick math: 612

#649-662
Daredevil volume 7 #1-14
(series launched in 2022)
Quick math: 648

#663-current
Daredevil volume 8 #1-current*
(series launched in 2023)
Quick math: 662

*as of the November 2024 solicitations, the most recent issue is #15 (677)

Incredible Hulk
Hulk debuted in his own series called “The Incredible Hulk” which was cancelled after 6 issues. That series is not included in any legacy numbering. However, due to inconsistency of volume numbering (would the series that continued from Tales to Astonish count as volume 1 or volume 2?), we will refer to each Incredible Hulk series by the year it was launched. If “The Incredible Hulk” is used without a year number, it refers to numbering consistent with the series that continued from Tales to Astonish. This series also includes the most glaring error for a milestone issue.

#1-101
Tales to Astonish #1-101

#102-474
Incredible Hulk #102-474
(series continued numbering from Tales to Astonish)

#475-485
Hulk #1-11
(series was launched in 1999, without an adjective)
Quick math: 474

#486-586
Incredible Hulk (1999) #12-112
Quick math: 474

The “Incredible” adjective was added to the “Hulk” series starting with #12 (486). When another Hulk series was launched in 2007, the numbering of this series continued as “The Incredible Hercules” from #113-141. While Marvel has done this “relaunch but continue the old numbering for a new title” trick many times, I believe this is the only time the numbering did not come from the original legacy numbering.

#587-598
Hulk (2008) #1-12
Quick math: 586

After the release of “Incredible Hulk” #600, this series continued from #13-57, and then for another ten issues as “Red She-Hulk”. Only these first 12 issues are counted in the legacy numbering.

#599-610
Incredible Hulk #600-611
Quick math: subtract 1

Marvel messed up the math and issued “Incredible Hulk” #600 an issue early, causing all of the issues until the next relaunch to be a number ahead.

#611-634
Incredible Hulks #612-635
Quick math: subtract 1

Some outlets may not count the slight name change to plural form as a separate series.

#635-649
Incredible Hulk (2011) #1-15
Quick math: 634

#650-669
Indestructible Hulk #1-20
Quick math: 649

#670-685
Hulk (2014) #1-16
Quick math: 669

#686-708
Totally Awesome Hulk #1-23
Quick math: 685

#709-717
Incredible Hulk #709-717
(series reverted to original numbering as part of Marvel Legacy initiative.)

#718-767
Immortal Hulk #1-50
Quick math: 717

#768-781
Hulk (2021) #1-14
Quick math: 767

#782-current
Incredible Hulk (2023) #1-current*
Key issue:
–#19 (800) – milestone issue celebrated
Quick math: 781

*as of the November 2024 solicitations, the most recent issue is #19 (800)

Annuals

Annuals have created their own kind of problems with legacy numbering. From the 1960s through the mid-1990s, Marvel numbered annuals sequentially, although they referred to some as “King Size” and/or “Specials”. Starting in 1995, the X-Men titles got annuals labelled by year (ex. ’95) with the practice expanding to the rest of the Marvel line in 1996. In 1998, all of the Marvel annuals were team-ups, and some characters or groups were represented in multiple annuals. In most cases, whichever series was referred to first in the title claims that annual. From 1999-2001, Marvel continued to number by year (using all four digits), and then discontinued annuals in favor of extra regular issues during the year. Sometime in the late 2000s, annuals returned, but there has been no consistency among numbering practices. Some series got legacy numbers, some get a new Annual #1 to go with each relaunch, and some Annuals get renumbered even if the parent series had not been relaunched. And naturally, over the years, there have been misnumbered and forgotten annuals.

Fantastic Four
#1-27 – numbered sequentially
#28 – Fantastic Four/Fantastic Four ’98 (yup, the FF teamed up with themselves in this annual that matches up with volume 3 of the main series)
#29-31 - Marvel used the full years for numbering: 1999-2001, going along with volume 3
#32-33 – numbered sequentially

The “Uncanny X-Men/Fantastic Four” annual in 1998 belongs with the Uncanny X-Men series.

Daredevil
#1-4 – numbered sequentially
#5 – mislabeled as another #4, as they had skipped 13 years between annuals. (The “wrong” Annual #4 is the Atlantis Attacks tie-in from 1989)
#6-10 – numbered sequentially
#11 – Daredevil/Deadpool ’97
#12 – Annual #1 in 2007, going along with Ed Brubaker’s run
#13 – Annual #1 in 2012, by Alan Davis as part of a crossover with FF Annual #33 and Wolverine Annual #1
#14 – Annual #1 again in 2016 by Charles Soule
#15 – yet another Annual #1, from 2018

Incredible Hulk
#1-20 – numbered sequentially
#21 – Incredible Hulk ’97
#22 – Hulk/Sub-Mariner ’98
#23-25 – Marvel used the full years for numbering: 1999-2001, going along with the relaunched series.
#26 – Incredible Hulks Annual #1 (2011)
#27 – Indestructible Hulk Annual #1 (2013)
#28 – Hulk Annual #1 (2014)
#29 – Hulk Annual #1 (2023), comes between Hulk (2021) #14 and Incredible Hulk (2023) #1

X-Man/Hulk ’98 counts as an annual for the “X-Man” series.

Other Marvel Legacy numbering articles:
-Spider-Man
-Avengers
-X-Men

Hickman’s Fantastic Four

Corwin — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 14:38:13 +0000

It’s a new era for the FF – in every way imaginable! Faced with the death of imagination and growing pandemic of tomorrow fear, Reed Richards takes the future of discovery into his own hands. Think the world is a bad place, everything is going to hell, and the end times are surely around the corner?

Black Bolt has returned from seeming death and four alternate-reality Reed Richards are scheming to ignite war among the fabled Four Cities. But all that could be moot because the Kree Supreme Intelligence has designs on Earth’s destruction – the resolution of a power play 300,000 years in the making. Plus Galactus is ready to feast, and only Reed Richards can save the inhabitants of Nu-World. Sue Richards is mediator between the long-lost tribe of Old Atlantis and Prince Namor, who is itching to mete out ages-old vengeance. Johnny Storm and Ben Grimm are the last line of defense against the coming of a new Annihilation Wave through the Baxter Building’s Negative Zone portal. And in the end, one of these heroes will die. It’s adventure, it’s family, it’s tough questions in dark times. See what happens when Reed Richards tries to SOLVE EVERYTHING!

Volume 1: Solve Everything

Dark Reign Fantastic Four 1-5
Fantastic Four 570-588
Amazing Spider-Man 657

Volume 2: All Hope Lies in Doom

FF 1-11
Fantastic Four 600
FF 12
Fantastic Four 601
FF 13
Fantastic Four 602
FF 14
Fantastic Four 603
FF 15
Fantastic Four 604
FF 16
Fantastic Four 605
Fantastic Four 605.1
Fantastic Four 606
FF 17
FF 18
Fantastic Four 607
FF 19
Fantastic Four 608
FF 20
Fantastic Four 609
FF 21
Fantastic Four 610
FF 22
Fantastic Four 611
FF 23

Of course after I send my books to be bound, Hickman released the official order that is going to be used by Marvel for two Omnibii.
F4 606
FF 17-18
F4 607-608
FF 19-21
F4 609-10
FF 22
F4 611
FF 23

Avengers – Disassembled

GaryUK — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 13:05:57 +0000

I collected all the issues bearing the ‘Disassembled’ banner which would lead up to the Avengers being… disassembled. The Spider-Man and Fantastic Four do not tie in to the Avengers storyline, but I included them here not only for completeness sake, but also because it seems the whole Marvel Universe would be affected by the outcome of this event. I had these bound in 2 volumes.

Vol.1 (18 issues)
Iron Man 84–89
Spectacular Spider-Man 15–20
Thor 80–85

Vol.2 (17 issues)
Captain America 29–32
Captain America and the Falcon 5–7
Fantastic Four 517–519
Avengers 500–503
Avengers Finale 1
Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Avengers 2004
What If? Featuring Avengers Disassembled

Fantastic Four (1998-2009)

bluedevil2002 — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 17:29:04 +0000

This map is not that creative. For the most part, volumes are broken down by creators. A lot of these are thick, so I’ll offer a few suggestions for possible break points. I’m using legacy numbers with the actual published numbers next to it. This covers the start of volume 3 through the renumbering back to volume 1 up through the end of Millar’s run.

Heroes Return
Fantastic Four #430-441 (vol. 3 #1-12)
Fantastic Four Annual #28 (Annual ’98)

There is an optional Silver Surfer tie-in with FF #4, but it seems like it feel somewhat redundant if included. The Annual is the FF/FF teamup annual by Kesel and Immonen. I included the Uncanny X-Men/FF ’98 annual in my X-Men collection, since it was more of an X-Men book.

Weird Worlds
Fantastic Four #442-444 (vol. 3 #13-15)
Iron Man #359 (vol. 3 #14)
Fantastic Four #445-452 (vol. 3 #16-23)
Fantastic Four Annual #29 (Annual ’99)

Doomsday
Fantastic Four #453-460 (vol. 3 #24-31)
Fantastic Four Annual #30 (Annual 2000)
Fantastic Four #461-463 (vol. 3 #32-34)

There is the Heroes Reborn event that Claremont handled that could go at the beginning. I was going to include the two bookends (Doomsday and Doom) as preludes, but just couldn’t get through them. I figure the reader can learn about Doom’s return the same way the FF does.

Worlds Apart
Fantastic Four #464-474 (vol. 3 #35-45)
Fantastic Four Annual #31 (Annual 2001) – main story only
Fantastic Four #475-483 (vol. 3 #46-54)

This is the Pacheco/Marin run, with Loeb on dialouge for most of it. The only backup from FF #50 that I included in this volume was the Loeb/Pacheco story that parodied Marvel. I placed that at the end of the book.
Possible breakpoint: before FF Annual 2001.

Ever-Lovin’ Blue Eyed
Thing/She-Hulk: The Long Night
Fantastic Four Annual #31 (Annual 2001) – backup
Fantastic Four #484-488 (vol. 3 #55-59)
Fantastic Four #479 (vol. 3 #50) - backups

It’s interesting that during this fill in run of issues, most of the creators decided to focus on Ben Grimm. That’s why I included the Thing/She-Hulk special that came out around that time, and the backups from #50 and the annual, which also focused on Ben.

Imaginauts
Fantastic Four #489-499 (vol. 3#60-70)
Fantastic Four #500-524

The Waid/’Ringo run. I was considering one large volume, because starting with #67, there’s pretty much a continuous narrative until #511, which made it hard for me to break up into multiple volumes. But then I found some good deals on the oversized hardcovers and got those.

Possible breakpoints: after #500, 502, 508, or 511
Oversized HC breakpoints: after #502 and #516

The Life Fantastic
Fantastic Four #525-537

We start with a two issue fill-in by Karl Kesel, which actually picks up shortly after FF #524. However, I didn’t want to dilute the ending of Waid’s run with this story. The rest of the book is the beginning of JMS’s run, including the Road to Civil War arc.

FF #536-542 should go into Civil War volumes.

There were several one-shots that came out during this time, mostly to gloss over the fact that the monthly series was slipping off track. Without commenting on quality, none of them are really that important, so I’ve skipped them.

Reconstruction
Fantastic Four #543-553

All of McDuffie’s run.

FF: World’s Greatest
Fantastic Four #554-569

All of Mark Millar’s run.

Heroes Reborn

bluedevil2002 — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 17:23:14 +0000

Three versions of a Heroes Reborn map.

The first version is a chronological order, with two volumes. But it is kind of messy, because it doesn’t really take individual story pacing into account, and just lumps everything together. It was my original plan, but long since abandoned.

Volume 1
Heroes Reborn #1/2
Captain America #1-5
Avengers #1
Fantastic Four #1-3
Iron Man #1-3
Avengers #2-3
Iron Man #4
Avengers #4-5
Iron Man #5
Captain America #6 (pg 1-19)
Fantastic Four #4-6
Avengers #6
Iron Man #6
Captain America #6 (pg 20-22)

Volume 2
Fantastic Four #7
Iron Man #7-11
Fantastic Four #8-10
Avengers #7-8
Captain America #7
Avengers #9-11
Captain America #8-11
Fantastic Four #11-12
Avengers #12
Iron Man #12
Captain America #12
Fantastic Four #13
Avengers #13
Iron Man #13
Captain America #13

The second version is a revised chronological mapping, but I tried to keep the Lee and Liefeld series separated as much as I could, largely because of the different tones.

Volume 1: Patriot Games
Heroes Reborn #1/2 (Cap story)
Captain America #1-6 (pg 1-19)
Avengers #1-3
HR #1/2 (Liefeld sketches)

Volume 2: Renaissance
Fantastic Four #1-3
Heroes Reborn #1/2 (Iron Man story)
Iron Man #1-5
FF #4-6 (1st story)
HR #1/2 (Lee sketches)

Volume 3: Industrial Revolution
Avengers #4-5
FF #6 (2nd story)
Avengers #6
Iron Man #6
Cap #6 (pg 20-22)
FF #7
Iron Man #7-11

Volume 4: Shadow Games
Cap #7
Avengers #7-11
Cap #8-11

Volume 5: Reunion
FF #8-12
Avengers #12
IM #12
Cap #12
FF #13
Avengers #13
IM #13
Cap #13
Heroes Reborn: The Return #1-4

The final version is a straightforward, title by title binding, which is what I ended up binding. However, it does take into account the “Industrial Revolution” crossover from the #6 issues. That story had a prelude in the second half of FF #6, and a three page epilogue in Cap #6 (which does not tie into the main part of the issue and can be easily separated), with Avengers #6 and Iron Man #6 being the main story. This map requires 3 copies of Avengers #6 and Iron Man #6. I put the Cap #6 pages in the Avengers volume, because that’s the book that was most affected by the story, and the actions of those three pages.

I chose not to keep the #12 issues together, because at the end of each, Doom travels back in time. As such, each #12 issue feels more like the cap to its respective series rather than part of a larger crossover.

Fantastic Four
FF #1-6 (#417-422)
Avengers #6 (#408)
Iron Man #6 (#338)
FF #7-12 (#423-428)

Avengers
Avengers #1-6 (#403-408)
Iron Man #6 (#338)
Captain America #6 (pg. 20-22)
Avengers #7-12 (#409-414)

Iron Man
Iron Man #1-5 (#333-337)
Avengers #6 (#408)
Iron Man #6-12 (#338-344)

Captain America
Captain America #1-12 (#455-466)

(the last three pages of Cap #6 would not be included in this book, as they are up in the Avengers volume. But if you wanted to be completely thorough, you could get a second copy of Cap #6 – put the first copy in its entirety in this book, and then split the second copy with the last three pages going in the Avengers volume, and the main story going in a Cable volume.)

World War 3/Heroes Return
FF #13 (#429)
Avengers #13 (#415)
Iron Man #13 (#345)
Captain America #13 (#467)
Heroes Reborn: The Return #1-4

For this map, the Heroes Reborn #1/2 issue can be separated and included in several volumes:
Page 1-10 – Captain America
Page 11-12, 17-24 – Iron Man
Page 15-16 – FF (sketches)
This issue is completely optional. Pages 13-14 were both ads which can be tossed.