Seven Year Rule and Comic Books

The seven year rule was originally established for professional wrestling, by legendary wrestling manager/promoter James E. Cornette who said that every seven years, certain storylines and characters can be recycled due to the fact that there is enough new fans out there for it to not be an issue. There are the hardcore fans who have stuck around but most of the casual fans, who make up a good ninety five percent of your audience have mostly moved on or don’t really care enough to remember something that happened seven years ago.

If it is true for wrestling, then it is obviously going to be true for comic books. There are a lot of turnover rates for comic book fans. There are many lifelong fans who obviously will pick up on the same old storylines being done time and time again. However, there are many who just read comic books for the fun, the adventure, for something cool.

Plus there are countless new comic book readers who check out a certain title because of a new movie that came out or because of a cartoon on television. For instance, I got into X-Men and Spider-Man comic books based on their respective cartoons in the 1990s and I’m sure many people tended to transition to other media right into reading comics. Going, “hey, I want to read more of this character, let’s check out their comic books.”

A lot of fans check out the books for a while, particularly they might be hooked for years, perhaps they might turn into the hardcore fanboys that comic book companies love so very much, with their ability to pinpoint when a story is being recycled, and what issue it is going to be.

Continuity could be a rather daunting thing to say the least to deal with. No one is going to want to figure out eighty years of Batman or Superman. Perhaps that is why the recent reboot of DC Comics was a good thing. It gave them a fresh slate and a potential shot in the arm. Many people were appalled to say the very least and there were some eyebrow raising decisions, but for the good of the DC Brand and drawing in new readers with disposable income, the reboot was a good decision.

As Stan Lee once said, every comic book can be someone’s first. And really, most of the people who do complain about how they are redoing a Spider-Man story from the 1980s with just perhaps some names switched up are the minority and they are going to be likely to keep buying comic books like their complaints. Marvel and DC are in a business, as long as they keep getting sales figures that they deem acceptable, that should matter. Of course, there are many areas where sales have gone done but that is a combination of an economic problem and a quality problem.

So after all of that rambling, I do say that yes, seven year rule is rather important for comic books, as there is such a turnover that certain stories can be recycled. As long as the actual writing is good enough to sustain the readers, then go for it. It might come across as a lesser version to those who have seen it before, but again, while continuity can be great, it can also overwhelm people like you wouldn’t believe.