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Lee has also designed the costumes of more than 50 characters, the paper reported.
In a note to direct-market retailers, Bob Wayne, senior vice president for sales, said by rebooting the superhero titles and moving to day-and-date digital sales, DC was positioning itself to let readers experience characters in a new light.
"We have taken great care in maintaining continuity where most important, but fans will see a new approach to our storytelling," he said in the letter. "Some of the characters will have new origins, while others will undergo minor changes. Our characters are always being updated; however, this is the first time all of our characters will be presented in a new way all at once."
It remains to be seen if the renumbering will affect such long-published titles like Action Comics, which reached No. 900 this year, and Detective Comics, which is at No. 877.
Some of DC's titles are already available digitally through apps and in March it joined Comixology's Digital Storefront Affiliate program, which lets shops sell digital comics along with printed copies.
The move comes after the conclusion of the company's epic "Flashpoint" mini-series, also penned by Johns, that has changed the face of the DC Universe and made some well-known characters into different versions of their normal, and entrenched, personalities