Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-1005679-20131121074033/@comment-61022-20140228002659

Simply put: Marketing ploys.

Marvel did this back in the mid 90s when sales on non-X-Men and Spider-Man titles were flagging. The Heroes Reborn reboot reset the issue numbers. When Spider-Man was flagging later that decade they did the same thing.

The going idea with comic book publishers is that a "#1" issue is viewed as a "collectors item" to collectors (which these days with digital editions and multiple printings in the thousands that won't happen in your lifetime) and entice new readers. In the latter instance they believe that the large issue numbers scares away new readers who don't want to get into a series that is already some 300 issues or more in.

However recently of course, Marvel also brought back the "original" numbering of their flagship titles like FF, Spider-Man, and Thor because they hit "milestone" issues (for example, issue #600 was a bit one for Spider-Man and FF, so they counted up all the issues of Amazing Spider-Man and Fantastic Four and went back to "volume 1" numbering)

Again, marketing.

Do issue numbers really matter? Other than ordering things, not really. After all, they are only numbers.