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I know about "The New 52," and have heard about a lot of other retcons to handle changes, as well as other reboots. I think I remember, for instance, a reboot of Superman in the 80s that had him as a really strong guy who got that way from lifting weights or something. Someone else told me about a reboot of Spiderman that I think Joe Straczynski did that was about some kind of animal totems, where Peter Parker was chosen or aligned with a spider and there were others out there, too. Some were good, some were evil.

How frequent or common are comic series reboots? Is this done when the continuity gets to hard to keep up with? Does the old line ever continue when a new reboot is brought out so they can run in parallel?

I know there are different situations for different comics, but it sounds like this kind of thing happens fairly often and I'd think it'd be frustrating to watch the same story restart over and over.

Tango
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    Whenever some middle-line manager at publishing company gets a bright idea that it will bring more money to the company and more bonus to him :) – DVK-on-Ahch-To Jan 21 '12 at 01:50
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    It really helps if someone who doesn't like a question can offer constructive criticism or explain what the issue is rather than just give a downvote with no comment. I'm getting interested in comics, especially Marvel and D.C. and I really don't know where there's a more appropriate place for a question such as this and just what the issue is. – Tango Jan 22 '12 at 05:39

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Generally, as far as I can see there is no rhyme behind the reboots there is no planned, time based schedule, but there is a reason. This reason is largely done to preserve or bring in new readers, either to expand or to re-coup an overly convoluted story line. Taking from here it looks like Marvel reboots are every 10 years roughly (more of a guestimate). The last major reboot I can find is from 2000. Most of the time the original line of comics continues though.

AncientSwordRage
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