[MacQuarrie]

Originally Posted by Charles RB

Why should #219 be the same story as #218? Because if it isn't, there is no point to it being #219. If you're saying you're doing a serial, it should be a serial.

The only reason they're numbered is postal laws. Back in the old days, each time a series started a new volume, it needed a new postal code for subscriptions and a new fee had to be paid. Most magazines at the time paid a new fee each year, so the magazines were numbered Vol 3, No 4 or whatever, starting over each year. Comics were published by notoriously cheap and tight-fisted people who had no compunctions about working angles and bending rules (some of them had been bootleggers during prohibition and later got into comics as a low-profile place to hide and launder their money), so they came up with the gimmick of keeping the numbering even when the series radically changes; All-Star Comics changing from JSA to a western while maintaining the numbering is one example.

Other than that, there is no reason for considering the numbering of the issues as having anythign to do with the content. It only denotes the sequence in which they were published, it does not dictate the content.