A discussion on continuity and retcons. [Archive]

Lester C.

11-11-2008, 05:36 AM

I used to be a huge fan of continuity. My view on it was that the building and maintaining of a universe was like a house with a each layer supporting the next. Remove a layer and the house falls apart.

I changed my mind when Batgirl began murdering people. This ruined one of my favorite characters. DC has tried to salvage the situation but they keep failing and failing because the foundation of the character is broken. I would have no problem with a retcon here even though retcons drive me nuts as I hate having a financial and emotional investment in a story that never happened, even though its all fiction and none of the stories every happened.

Now let’s take Hal Jordon and John Stewart. Hal’s character was ruined and every time they tried to fix him by maintaining continuity they failed. Well not really as his Spectre book was good but no one read it.

In order to fix Hal Jordon and make John Stewart a superstar they had to retcon that Hal was possessed when he did what they did. And to make John work in the JLA and Green Lantern they had to retcon the fact that Hal Jordon killed John’s wife and planet he was taking care of. And since they did all that both characters are kicking ass again.

Then again I still haven't forgiven Marvel for wiping out twenty plus years of history in Spider-man so I'm a bit fickle on this subject which is why I want to talk about it with you guys.

Linkara

11-11-2008, 07:47 AM

As much grief as I give DC for their loads of continuity issues, most of the time they at least TRY to explain it at some point, especially with Crisis stories and the like. I sometimes think Marvel should have a Crisis if only to clean house with their own continuity issues. Marvel relies on HEAVY backstory in order to fix its issues, and sometimes I do appreciate that DC's willing to just admit, "Okay, we screwed up, so let's try again."

stealthwise

11-11-2008, 10:32 AM

I think that at this point you can tell far more interesting stories "in the past" or "in an alternate timeline," i.e. Outside of Continuity than you can within it. Seriously, I can't even imagine what the advantage to have the ongoing series with Superman, Spider-Man, etc, at this point. If you want to have someone let loose on a title, like Brubaker or Busiek or whoever, let them do it, but don't try to take whatever awesome stuff they come up with and push it forward with whatever lameass hack they end up using afterwards.

Continuity ends up being either a crutch or a distraction most of the time, and when you have writers needing to come up with garbage like Slott's explanation for She-Hulk's having sex with the Juggernaut, you know there's a problem. If Gail's going to do Agent X or Deadpool, I don't care if she references past stories with Weasel or Blind Alfred, I want her to just do her thing. Same with Wonder Woman, on a more negative note; I didn't give a crap about what happened in the nine or so issues prior to her run, I wanted to see what she was going to do with the character.

The level of quality between creative teams is so uneven that sometimes you get writers painting other writers into corners, and I'm way less interested in seeing how they "fix" bullshit that shouldn't have been written in the first place.

Charles RB

11-11-2008, 10:36 AM

Karl H

11-11-2008, 10:37 AM

Frankly I always try to enjoy each story on its merits, without worrying too much about continuity. Take the X-men for example, the revelations about the Deadly Genesis Team to me makes no difference to how I appreciate Giant Sized X-men as a story.

Yes, it's important that any characterisation changes are logical but that for me is simply the difference between acceptable and crap writing.

Personally I'd rather enjoy the story than worry too much about continuity and where it fits in. The vagueries of Marvel time and the DC sliding time rule make this pretty much a nonsense anyway.

Charles RB

11-11-2008, 10:41 AM

The vagueries of Marvel time and the DC sliding time rule make this pretty much a nonsense anyway.

The best thing about the sliding timescale is that now Marvel's got a whole load of Soviet supervillains who were being Soviet supervillains after the Cold War. Ahahahahaha.

NickThompson

11-11-2008, 10:42 AM

Then again I still haven't forgiven Marvel for wiping out twenty plus years of history in Spider-man so I'm a bit fickle on this subject which is why I want to talk about it with you guys.
They didn't wipe out twenty plus years of history in Spider-Man, they just erased the marriage. Everything else happened (And in theory, the marriage still happened too).

I think people put too much care into continuity issues. When a company publishes 80-90 books a month there's always going to be some issues that slip through the cracks. Mistakes will happen. Heck, back when Stan Lee wrote everything he couldn't even keep people's names right. Bruce Banner became Robert Bruce Banner because he had people call him Bob, then Spider-Man has been Super-Man and Peter Parker was Peter Palmer :)

Continuity is nice but the writers control it, not vice versa.

stealthwise

11-11-2008, 10:46 AM

I never got the "continuity is a restraint!" argument when it barely seems to restrain Kurt Busiek, Mark Waid, Paul Cornell, John Wagner, Gordon Rennie, Don Rosa, Warren Ellis, Simon Furman, Scott Gray, Brian Vaughan, Alan Moore, Ian Flynn, Gail...

What's regarded as Waid's best work? He's done good stuff on Fantastic Four and the Flash, but a lot of people also prefer Kingdom Come or Empire.

Busiek's? Again, his Superman is well-regarded, but Astro City is where he excels.

What's better, Ellis's in-continuity stuff or out of continuity stuff? I... don't need to answer that one, right?

Moore's greatest works? Name them for me please. Same with BKV.

None of them rely heavily on long-term continuity, nor do they worry about re-telling old stories from the past with a cruel, mean twist tossed into them. Shit like Brubaker's Giant-Sized X-Men retcon or Sins Past are the exact kind of thing we should all be avoiding, because they just keep referring to the same damn events over and over again.

PatrickG

11-11-2008, 10:48 AM

Paul Levitz pushes a three tier system of continuity. There's essentially the basics (ie. Superman is from Krypton, Robin is Batman's sidekick) on the first tier. Tier 2 is the incidental stuff that builds organically from stories (Tim Drake is the current Robin, Lex Luthor grew up alongside Clark Kent). Tier 3 is the trivial stuff (Superman likes Metallica and Beef Bourginon with ketchup).

Take that a step further. All 3 tiers of continuity are nifty but, really, Tier 1 trumps Tier 2 and Tier 2 trumps Tier 3. If one thing gets in the way of a higher tier's "truth", change or ignore it. If it doesn't really mess with the higher tier, work with it or ignore it -- your choice.

Tier 1- Hal Jordan is Green Lantern, a fearless, swaggering hero who serves as a space cop.

Tier 2- Hal Jordan went crazy in Emerald Twilight.

Tier 3 - Hal Jordan's uncle is the Golden Age character Airwave.

#3 you can take or leave unless there's a story in it. #2 gets in the way of #1 so ignoring/retconning it is okay.

This lends itself to some things being static or cyclical.

But really, it isn't the size of the shocking development or the length of the gatefold variant cover -- it's what you DO with it.

Everything exists to support that first tier, that iconic status. Just figure out how to make it interesting without wrecking on it and when in doubt, go back to something that worked before... but don't blindly accept the things that didn't work.

Case in point: Superpets can be cool. Having Krypto around may be silly but it can also lend itself to a mythic feel. If you want to expand that out to a pet suneater, that might be cool. However, Beppo was lame even in his own era so there's no need to acknowledge that, even if it was in an era of healthy sales.

The early 90s had some solid spikes for Superman's popularity in the industry. Revisiting Cat Grant or Doomsday can be a solid move. Revisiting Jeb Friedman or Superman with a mullet is probably not as solid.

But, hey, if you got a story that uses minutia, go for it. Just don't expect it to be popular for the sake of the minutia.

Black Atom

11-11-2008, 10:54 AM

I think, generally, continuity works best as story-element when it gives a nod to the longtime reader and is more or less transparent to a new reader.

Charles RB

11-11-2008, 10:55 AM

They didn't wipe out twenty plus years of history in Spider-Man, they just erased the marriage.

Except they also altered it so nobody remembers Peter's marriage, and that Harry is alive.

And the whole "everything happened but they weren't married" thing makes very little sense when you look at some of what happened. (MJ being pregnant would, you'd think, lead to a marriage...)

What's regarded as Waid's best work? He's done good stuff on Fantastic Four and the Flash, but a lot of people also prefer Kingdom Come or Empire.

Kingdom Come is DC mythology heavy though.

Busiek's? Again, his Superman is well-regarded, but Astro City is where he excels.

Astro City has continuity. It has a huge continuity. And bits interlap with other bits.

He also did Marvels, which is completely based around continuity. Avengers, that was continuity-heavy too; Amazing Fantasy and Untold Tales Of Spider-Man, same again.

He's got a reputation for it.

What's better, Ellis's in-continuity stuff or out of continuity stuff?

Let's put it this way - his Thunderbolts run? Popular, and also very fun. It's full of continuity.

Also the latter half of Transmet is set up in three panels in one scene in a seemingly standalone issue. Very continuity.

Moore's greatest works? Name them for me please.

They include Swamp Thing, Marvelman and Whatever Happened To The Man Of Tomorrow.

All of which use continuity, albeit Marvelman "altering" it.

None of them rely heavily on long-term continuity

Whereas Don Rosa's "Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck" did - you have whole scenes and chapters done because of off-hand references in one panel in a Carl Barks story - and won an Eisner for it.

Because it was good.

Black Atom

11-11-2008, 11:00 AM

Busiek's Avengers Forever (which was awesome) was like mini-Marvel Crisis. His JLA/Avengers, also deserves a nod. There's definitely a handful of guys that show what a huge benefit continuity can be and Busiek's one of those.

PatrickG

11-11-2008, 11:01 AM

What's regarded as Waid's best work? He's done good stuff on Fantastic Four and the Flash, but a lot of people also prefer Kingdom Come or Empire.

Busiek's? Again, his Superman is well-regarded, but Astro City is where he excels.

What's better, Ellis's in-continuity stuff or out of continuity stuff? I... don't need to answer that one, right?

Moore's greatest works? Name them for me please. Same with BKV.

None of them rely heavily on long-term continuity, nor do they worry about re-telling old stories from the past with a cruel, mean twist tossed into them. Shit like Brubaker's Giant-Sized X-Men retcon or Sins Past are the exact kind of thing we should all be avoiding, because they just keep referring to the same damn events over and over again.

I disagree somewhat on this.

I think Moore's For the Man who Has Everything or his Swamp Thing stack up with many of his non-continuity works.

I think Waid's greatest work arguably includes his Flash run.

And Millar's greatest work? SUPERMAN ADVENTURES. The cartoon tie-in. Yeah, I went there.

Now, these are all unlikely to get wide recognition as these creators' greater works because they're less accessible. Continuity is what creates some of that inaccessibility.

And in every case, the creators challenge or expand upon continuity rather than operating squarely within it.

I guess what I'm saying is that I don't think that continuity is bad. But I think longform continuity is to storytelling what verse is to the written word.

It's a structure, a device, a conceit. It's not a necessity and it may turn some people off but I think, ideally, a good serial comic writer does to continuity what a good film director does with stylized cinematography. You can go Spielberg with it or you can go Lynch with it. You can avoid continuity flourish or you can elevate it to surreal poetry.

It's just an element. It's a device. If it serves the story, it can make for something dense and complicated and brilliant. If it hinders the story, it's an albatross.

And at a certain point, if a story relies too much on continuity -- or relies too much on defying continuity -- it becomes amateurish.

Same thing with a film if the sole, consuming interest is the cinematography; it becomes a student thesis instead of a piece of art at a certain point.

Continuity is just a structural element that is a bit niche. Less continuity is more accessible. Poetic use of it is a kind of brilliance that won't get wide acclaim but which is brilliant nevertheless.

Rev. Calibos

11-11-2008, 11:04 AM

On one hand you don't want to be hemmed in by plot threads and storylines that are half a century old, on the other hand you shouldn't be afraid to acknowledge that these characters have a long, storied history.

Fans of Secret Origin from the current Green Lantern can still pick up and enjoy Emerald Dawn from the 90's. I'm a Supeman fan who followed the books from 88-01 and was able to fall back into the current titles with the Brainiac/Atlas arcs from Superman and Action seamlessly.

I like the 'three tier' system described above, the main concept of the characters will never change. What DOES change are the little things that are always in a state of flux.

I'm not a big fan of the 'silver-izing' of the current Superman books but they still make for good reading. I was a HUGE fan of the Man of Steel Reboot 20 years ago, but that probably ticked off older fans to say the very least.

Charles RB

11-11-2008, 11:14 AM

I think Moore's For the Man who Has Everything or his Swamp Thing stack up with many of his non-continuity works.

You just reminded me to add Whatever Happened To The Man Of Tomorrow to my post - which is not just using continuity, it's deliberately the last Silver Age Superman story.

It's just an element. It's a device.

Agreed. Saying continuity is inherently a problem is like saying panel structure or captions or thought balloons are a problem.

Of course throwing out or ignoring continuity alters the story, so it's also like saying "this status quo is inherently a problem!" - which, with One More Day, was blatant code for "I don't like, fuck what the readers like".

PatrickG

11-11-2008, 11:15 AM

I'm not a big fan of the 'silver-izing' of the current Superman books but they still make for good reading. I was a HUGE fan of the Man of Steel Reboot 20 years ago, but that probably ticked off older fans to say the very least.

I see what Johns is doing as more complicated.

He's giving a slightly more sophisticated look at things like multiple Kryptonian survivors. In a way, the old stuff seems schlocky to 80s fans in part because it never matured; it was simply dumped.

Same thing with Barry Allen. He'd be a radically different character if he'd stayed in continuous publication simply because storytelling and characterization have changed. So his return seems like a return to a simpler style of storytelling to some when, in fact, I imagine a lot of the creative appeal of bringing him back is that he's a blank slate with lighter continuity than any other Flash; his origin doesn't involve other super-heroes, really. His personality is somewhat defined but also subject to a lot more reinterpretation. He has the advantages, creatively, of a new character without the hurdle of establishing why he deserves to be a flagship character.

Also, I think Johns has a passion for the late 80s and early 90s stuff too. He's obviously big on Cat Grant and Booster Gold and I expect him to bring back Waverider eventually.

But I think the appeal of a lot of the Silver Age stuff is that it's high concept stuff that can be spun in a new way based on comics' older audience today. A lot of this stuff has never been addressed in a post-Watchmen kinda way. So there's a freedom associated with it.

Rev. Calibos

11-11-2008, 11:24 AM

I see what Johns is doing as more complicated.

He's giving a slightly more sophisticated look at things like multiple Kryptonian survivors. In a way, the old stuff seems schlocky to 80s fans in part because it never matured; it was simply dumped.

Same thing with Barry Allen. He'd be a radically different character if he'd stayed in continuous publication simply because storytelling and characterization have changed. So his return seems like a return to a simpler style of storytelling to some when, in fact, I imagine a lot of the creative appeal of bringing him back is that he's a blank slate with lighter continuity than any other Flash; his origin doesn't involve other super-heroes, really. His personality is somewhat defined but also subject to a lot more reinterpretation. He has the advantages, creatively, of a new character without the hurdle of establishing why he deserves to be a flagship character.

Also, I think Johns has a passion for the late 80s and early 90s stuff too. He's obviously big on Cat Grant and Booster Gold and I expect him to bring back Waverider eventually.

But I think the appeal of a lot of the Silver Age stuff is that it's high concept stuff that can be spun in a new way based on comics' older audience today. A lot of this stuff has never been addressed in a post-Watchmen kinda way. So there's a freedom associated with it.

I think at this point Barry is DC's 'Captain America'....he hasn't been gone in continuity as long as Cap was but for us he's been gone just about as long as Cap was before Avengers #4.

I don't look at the silver age stuff is a bad thing necessarily, as you stated there is a freedom associated with it as it enables them to tell more stories.

I'm not a fan of Krypto but to not have him at all based on the fact that 'super-pets' were goofy is limiting to say the very least. If they're able to pull off a Krypto that makes sense and complements the characters in the Superman books, more power to them.

NickThompson

11-11-2008, 11:32 AM

I think, generally, continuity works best as story-element when it gives a nod to the longtime reader and is more or less transparent to a new reader.
I agree. Some books seem to go into continuity porn at times, which is great when you've read the books for years, less so if you're new to it.

Pink Bat Maxine

11-11-2008, 11:32 AM

I think at this point Barry is DC's 'Captain America'....he hasn't been gone in continuity as long as Cap was but for us he's been gone just about as long as Cap was before Avengers #4.

Two decades? About the same time. Er..... out of continuity, that is.

Corrina

11-11-2008, 12:11 PM

To me, what counts in continuity is emotional, not logical, continuity.

All these stories could never happen to these same characters in real time. Even throwing out the golden & silver ages and then the pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths stuff, that's over 20 years of stories in continuity.

Obviously, if this all happened to the same people, they'd be insane.

So, the key is emotional continuity.

If there is going to be a complete redefining of a B/C list character in one book that makes that character cool, then that redefined character needs to show up in other main events.

Yes, I'm talking about Black Canary. Right now, there's little emotional consistency between what Dixon (to some extent) and then Gail did on Birds of Prey. If there had been, Canary never would have married Green Arrow.

It's like making Jack Knight a completely new character down the line, with him being divorced and deciding to be a superhero again and not be involved with his kids.

Within their own books, characters need to be consistent. If there's character growth, that growth should be respected.

I don't care about simultaneous stories. I don't care about details of who met who when. I do care that they are the same characters throughout, and, if they're not, then I need an explanation.

Mostly, though, I've come to not care because I've stopped reading superhero comics (with two exceptions), save for trade collections that catch my eye. It's just too damned annoying to enjoy one story with a certain character and then have that character be completely different in another story.

4thHorseman

11-11-2008, 12:17 PM

I always focus on the stories being told. If something is confusing, its usually nothing to the point that makes me hate the story being told. If I'm confused, usually there's somewhat of an explanation, or one I could come up with by myself. Some people make it out to be the be-all-end-all of comics, when it should be one of the least concerned. Continuity should be viewed as a bonus.

MartinRedmond

11-11-2008, 03:19 PM

Rev. Calibos

11-11-2008, 03:36 PM

I think one license should be limited to one book. ie: Just ONE Spider-Man book, only ONE Batman book, just one X-Men book, one JLA book. Maybe have one or 2 sister titles, but you can't feature the same characters. It's cool many people get to do books they always dreamed of, but there's way too many creators handling the same characters since the 90s.

The problem with that is 'Which book do you keep?'

On the DC side of things we can look at their two biggest stars Batman and Supeman.

Superman has a self titled and is in Action monthly while Batman is in his own self titled and is in Detective monthly. For now lets disregard the various other titles out there featuring these two (superman/batman, confidential, etc.)

So which one do we keep? Action and Detective spring to my mind initially as they're the two titles with the most history.....but that would mean that for the first time in nearly 75 years we wouldn't have a 'Superman' comic on the shelves.

I think that having more than one title does no harm as long as they don't do what the Superman titles are doing, linking them once more with the numbering system.

I was a big fan of this and enjoyed the numbered books from the past and I'm picking up Superman/Action/Supergirl currently but for a newer fan who doesn't want to pick up all three they're just s.o.l.

It's a tough call, me, I don't mind picking up all three because I'm enjoying the larger storyline that's going to weave its way through all three books, but for someone who doesn't want that I can only think to suggest just sticking with Confidential or All Star Superman.

Ultimately, stars like Batman and Superman and Spiderman/Wolverine/X-men/etc. are popular enough to warrant 2+ titles every month. It would be nice if they could find a happy medium where if you ARE going to have linked titles, at least have ONE book that a casual fan can enjoy that doesn't force them to pick up 20 different things every month.

Pink Bat Maxine

11-11-2008, 03:39 PM

Bob Violence

11-11-2008, 03:44 PM

Lester C.

11-11-2008, 03:49 PM

They didn't wipe out twenty plus years of history in Spider-Man, they just erased the marriage. Everything else happened (And in theory, the marriage still happened too).

I think people put too much care into continuity issues. When a company publishes 80-90 books a month there's always going to be some issues that slip through the cracks. Mistakes will happen. Heck, back when Stan Lee wrote everything he couldn't even keep people's names right. Bruce Banner became Robert Bruce Banner because he had people call him Bob, then Spider-Man has been Super-Man and Peter Parker was Peter Palmer :)

Continuity is nice but the writers control it, not vice versa.

Quesada already backtracked on that. He said there was a ripple effect that went beyond the marrage but they were trying to keep it as small as possible.

Calvin Government

11-11-2008, 03:59 PM

Continuity is cool, and if possible, probably shouldn't be just out-and-out ignored...but if comics want to never really end, then sometimes you're definitely going to have to ignore and alter bits.

And there's nothing wrong with that. There's something wrong with doing it poorly of course - OMD was a good example of that, as was GL:Rebirth - or for the wrong reasons, but that applies to telling stories in general, and all it really means in comics is that, sometime in the future, someone can do something interesting with your retcon.

Continuity is part of comics, and an important part, even, but it's not the end point, just a tool to get there.

Black Atom

11-11-2008, 04:27 PM

Tobias March

11-11-2008, 04:36 PM

"Bats....I think I might have been married once"

And with that line randomguy threw his hat into the ring on the continuity debate. In fact the last two storylines in his youtube series have surrounding DC and Marvel's use of retcons. It's been quite clever.

Metronome35

11-11-2008, 04:55 PM

Stuff like "Yellow fear monster" and "recton punch" are always used derisively by fans ... At least, in those cases, we're suffered an explanation, rather than a baffling Deus ex Machina, a la "No more mutants/marriage".

Wasn't the retcon punch a Deus Ex Machina?

Black Atom

11-11-2008, 05:03 PM

Wasn't the retcon punch a Deus Ex Machina?

By definition? Not really. Even if the effects of the Superboy-Prime, in essence, punching time seem far-fetched (and it shouldn't if one buys into the conceit of a character punching through abrstract concepts in general) there's at least exposition explaining the occurence and his motivations.

MartinRedmond

11-11-2008, 05:39 PM

The problem with that is 'Which book do you keep?'

They did that just fine in the 60s through mid to late 80s! At worst, make the book a bi-weekly if it's really popular.

Venom Melendez

11-11-2008, 05:50 PM

Thing is to keep things up-to-date you're going to have to do a retcon. It's fiction it happens.

Rev. Calibos

11-11-2008, 06:08 PM

They did that just fine in the 60s through mid to late 80s! At worst, make the book a bi-weekly if it's really popular.

But throughout the 60's to mid 80's they had MORE than one Superman title out there every month.

Supeman
Action Comics
Adventure Comics
Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane
Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen
DC Comics Presents
World's Finest

And I'm sure I'm forgetting a handful.

As of now we have:

Superman
Action Comics
Supeman Confidential
Superman/Batman
Supergirl

Compare that to a decade or so ago when we had

Action Comics
Supeman
Adventures of Superman
Superman: The Man of Steel
Superman: The Man of Tomorrow
Showcase

And, again, I'm sure I'm forgetting a few.

We have FEWER Superman titles every month now than we've ever had unless we head back to the Golden Age.

PatrickG

11-11-2008, 06:18 PM

Rev. Calibos

11-11-2008, 06:23 PM

Those Superman titles don't prevent other books from getting published.

A book that sells is a book that sells.

If DC could turn more copy publishing nothing but Batman spinoffs, I'd want them to do that and hope for a BATMAN'S PAL, SUPERMAN and LEGACY OF GOTHAM: JSA.

Ultimately, it comes and goes in cycles anyway.

Right now we're seeing some pretty tight continuity between the Superman titles and the return to the diamond numbering.......at some point this will run it's course too and we'll see a return to a more isolated kind of storytelling with each book having its own voice and direction.

Ideally I would love for DC to have a 'reader friendly' jump on title to get folks into Superman without having to buy a bunch of other issues and specials, but as it is if you want to read Superman books you have to deal with New Krypton.

stealthwise

11-11-2008, 11:38 PM

Kingdom Come is DC mythology heavy though.

Mythology heavy, NOT continuity-heavy. You can read that book without having to know all the minutia that comes with DC comics over decades. I like All-Star stuff, and Elseworlds, and out of continuity tales just fine. Hell, I like the stuff that's supposedly in-continuity that will stand out fine on its own.

Astro City has continuity. It has a huge continuity. And bits interlap with other bits.

So does Invincible, etc, but they didn't start that way. Once those books get even as close to as convoluted and retardedly complicated, I'll stop reading them too.

He also did Marvels, which is completely based around continuity. Avengers, that was continuity-heavy too; Amazing Fantasy and Untold Tales Of Spider-Man, same again.

He's got a reputation for it.

I've only read Marvels, and again, while it's based in continuity, it's already "tainted" by the Gwen/Norman affair from Sins Past, if you actually give a shit about what Marvel has been trying to do with their books over the past few years. I don't care for it, so I pretend that shit never existed; however, it makes it damn hard to keep reading Spider-Man, so I dropped that book. On that basis, Marvels works well if you read it the same way you read Kingdom Come, as a story that takes place on its own, built around MYTHOLOGY.

Let's put it this way - his Thunderbolts run? Popular, and also very fun. It's full of continuity.

Also the latter half of Transmet is set up in three panels in one scene in a seemingly standalone issue. Very continuity.

His Thunderbolts is set within continuity, but it really doesn't rely on too much older stuff, other than a bit of confusion when you're trying to figure out who Moonstone or Doc Samson are. And Transmet is self-contained within its own universe, it's not tied into frigging Sandman or Preacher or anything.

They include Swamp Thing, Marvelman and Whatever Happened To The Man Of Tomorrow.

All of which use continuity, albeit Marvelman "altering" it.

And then there's Watchmen, From Hell, V For Vendetta... Most of what Moore managed to accomplish within continuity came from trying to circumvent the frigging things that DC set up in the first place.

Whereas Don Rosa's "Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck" did - you have whole scenes and chapters done because of off-hand references in one panel in a Carl Barks story - and won an Eisner for it.

Because it was good.

Is that kind of like All-Star Superman? I'm trying to picture what you're saying here.

Anyways, look, I'm not saying all references to any story should be shot out the window, just that it's ridiculous trying to jam so many years worth of, let's face it, bad stories into the past of a character or characters, because it doesn't ring true after a while. Corrina's dead on when she's talking about emotional continuity, and Patrick brings up a good point when you're talking about corporate characters and the key iconic components (first tier) that go hand-in-hand with, say, Superman or Spider-Man.

I'm just saying that when it comes to Marvel and DC, they're clinging far too much to the past when it's easier to just move forward and selectively use things that came from yesteryear.

MacQuarrie

11-12-2008, 12:42 AM

My favorite continuity bit: Hawk & Dove at Donna Troy's wedding.

A few years before, the Brave & Bold had run a story showing Hawk & Dove as having become superheroes in the '60s and followed them as they grew up and began families of their own, concluding with Hank & Don pushing 40 and looking back on how being polarized as Hawk & Dove had altered their lives and relationship.

When they later showed up as young adults in Teen Titans, somebody remarked "I thought you'd be older" and the boys replied "yeah, we get that a lot." End of discussion. No explanations, no contrivances, just a good solid door-slam on an ill advised continuity disruption.

My second-favorite is Showcase #4, the beginning of Barry Allen as the Flash. Panel 1 shows Barry reading a comic starring Jay Garrick. Boom. "That was then, this is now. It's a whole new game. Try to keep up." No 12-issue maxi-series explaining how it all fits together, complete with elaborate contrivances to smooth over the contradictions, just a simple one-panel wiping of the slate.

I wish they'd done that instead of Infinite Identity Crisis on Random Earths.

MacQuarrie

11-12-2008, 01:05 AM

Anyways, look, I'm not saying all references to any story should be shot out the window, just that it's ridiculous trying to jam so many years worth of, let's face it, bad stories into the past of a character or characters, because it doesn't ring true after a while. Corrina's dead on when she's talking about emotional continuity, and Patrick brings up a good point when you're talking about corporate characters and the key iconic components (first tier) that go hand-in-hand with, say, Superman or Spider-Man.

I'm just saying that when it comes to Marvel and DC, they're clinging far too much to the past when it's easier to just move forward and selectively use things that came from yesteryear.

When fans turn pro, they can't seem to resist the urge to go back and answer all teh questions that they had when they were reading comics. Worse, they can't resist the urge to go back and "fix" things that the original writers glossed over. Constantly retreading the same ground looking for little corners to stick things into is not particularly compelling writing.

I wish somebody could convince Geoff Johns to go 12 issues or any comic without once referring to any prior stories. Just to see if he can do it.

Gilda Dent

11-12-2008, 01:53 AM

I've always looked at continuity as a group of related concepts.

Internal continuity is most important. Amazing Spider-Man 226 should be consistent with 225 and 224 and so forth.

External continuity matters less to me. Spider-Man should be the same basic character when he shows up in Fantastic Four as in his own book, but I'm not going to concern myself with where, exactly, that guest appearance fits into ASM. Heck, I don't even have a problem with two books centering on the same character having parallel storylines that don't overlap or synch up with each other. It doesn't bother me to see one storyline going on in Amazing Spider-Man and a separate one in Spectacular, and I don't need to know how or when they fit together. It's nice if they do, if that makes for telling a better story, but if not, screw it.

Universe-wide continuity matters to me not in the least. The idea that stories occurring in one ongoing or mini have to be referenced or even used as core story elements in other ongoing books has led to more bad stories than good.

Long term internal continuity is another that doesn't matter a whole lot to me. If including references to previous stories helps the current story, wonderful, put it in. If someone wrote a story twenty years ago that contradicts the current story, ignore it, or dismiss it with a handwave as with Mac's example above.

It should all be about what makes for a good story. Stories that are about fixing continuity simply for the sake of fixing continuity seldom are any good.

JKCarrier

11-12-2008, 09:02 AM

When they later showed up as young adults in Teen Titans, somebody remarked "I thought you'd be older" and the boys replied "yeah, we get that a lot." End of discussion. No explanations, no contrivances, just a good solid door-slam on an ill advised continuity disruption.

Yup, this is what I call the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" school of continuity. When some writer has a brain fart and pulls off something dumb, don't bother trying to justify it or explain it away, just quietly sweep it under the rug.

Anyone remember how Barry Allen got his Flash powers from an extradimensional imp named Mopee? Or how about Batman's long-lost older brother, who escaped from the asylum and became a serial killer? Or how Superboy found Jor-El and Lara floating in a space capsule in suspended animation, but couldn't free them without killing them? Nope, they're all wisely forgotten. The writers don't need to tell us that the Mopee story is bunk; just don't bring him up again, and let us forget him.

Charles RB

11-12-2008, 10:17 AM

Mythology heavy, NOT continuity-heavy. You can read that book without having to know all the minutia that comes with DC comics over decades.

You can, but there's still a lot in there done so people who do know the minutia will go "OMG it's such-and-such yay!".

So does Invincible, etc, but they didn't start that way.

Well, nah, a completely new book when it starts is likely to not be continuity heavy. But boy, did Astro City go that way very quickly - there's a huge amount of detail in just the first six issues, and it kept growing and growing and this bit called in to that bit and here's this character standing there...

It's possible to follow a story without knowing all the continuity, but the continuity's still there.

On that basis, Marvels works well if you read it the same way you read Kingdom Come, as a story that takes place on its own, built around MYTHOLOGY.

But it's based around continuity. It specifically mentions minutia, it goes out of its way to tie bits together and use them for its own ends (like Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck). Marvels is one of the most continuity-filled comics I can think of.

His Thunderbolts is set within continuity, but it really doesn't rely on too much older stuff

The first storyline brings in Jack Flagg, Steel Spider, Sepulchure and American Eagle, extremely obscure old people, and has specific mentions of old stories (Jack having been shot in the ear, Sepulchure's previous name) - added to direct fallout from the previous Thunderbolts run, a direct callback to an old Daredevil, and of course Civil War.

He's using continuity.

And then there's Watchmen, From Hell, V For Vendetta...

Yes, there is, but that doesn't discount that some of his best and most famous works used continuity. And a lot.

Is that kind of like All-Star Superman? I'm trying to picture what you're saying here.

I'm saying that Don Rosa wrote a story on Scrooge McDuck's history that decided every single Carl Barks story and every single throwaway reference took place, and he was going to work as much of it as he could into his story. So random bits of dialogue from decades-old stories, where Scrooge throws out places he's been to, become the basis of entire chapters.

There's no way around this, this is massive use of continuity. This is practically the embodiment of nerd-turned-pro continuity-playing stories.

And yet, it won an Eisner because it was really good. It's also entirely possible to read it without having read a single Barks story.

just that it's ridiculous trying to jam so many years worth of, let's face it, bad stories into the past of a character or characters

Which is different to the idea of the idea of continuity as a dangerous hindrance that restricts writers so they can't make good stories. They can. It's been done.

Charles RB

11-12-2008, 10:22 AM

Worse, they can't resist the urge to go back and "fix" things that the original writers glossed over.

That said, in 2006/7 John Wagner did an entire multi-parter for Judge Dredd (which he created) which was almost entirely sorting out a proper future-history timeline and smoothing out the inconsistencies, which was not only good but was used to spark off a whole run of entirely new stories.

Mind you, Wagner's a master.

MartinRedmond

11-12-2008, 11:18 AM

But throughout the 60's to mid 80's they had MORE than one Superman title out there every month.

Supeman
Action Comics
Adventure Comics
Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane
Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen
DC Comics Presents
World's Finest

And I'm sure I'm forgetting a handful.

As of now we have:

Superman
Action Comics
Supeman Confidential
Superman/Batman
Supergirl

Compare that to a decade or so ago when we had

Action Comics
Supeman
Adventures of Superman
Superman: The Man of Steel
Superman: The Man of Tomorrow
Showcase

And, again, I'm sure I'm forgetting a few.

We have FEWER Superman titles every month now than we've ever had unless we head back to the Golden Age.

Don't corner me with facts. But seriously, you have a point. Though if I'm right, in the 70s, besides Superman's basic story, the repercussion to any story were completely inconsequential. The bottled city could be destroyed 500 times and it'd be back the next issue no explanation given, right?

Rev. Calibos

11-12-2008, 12:35 PM

Don't corner me with facts. But seriously, you have a point. Though if I'm right, in the 70s, besides Superman's basic story, the repercussion to any story were completely inconsequential. The bottled city could be destroyed 500 times and it'd be back the next issue no explanation given, right?

Oh to be sure. Stories were all 'done in one' pretty much and if you picked up Action Comics and Jimmy Olsen you weren't missing anything of import in the other titles as there were no massive arcs connecting the everything.

Lois could find out that Clark is Superman or get superpowers in an attempt to woo him in Action and in Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane nothing would have been said about it and the overall Superman offerings for that particular month will still have made sense.

I think that's the price we pay for being savvier fans nowadays. If the Death of Superman was kept solely to the Superman book and Action/Adventures of/Man of Steel just kept plugging along doing their own thing the story would have lost all meaning.

The Death of Superman/Funeral for a Friend/Reign of the Supermen was a massive, complex storyline that thrilled fans while at the same time drained their wallets, lol.

So it comes down to what you would prefer as a fan: Single issues that are Done in One or linked titles that force you to pick up EVERYTHING to get the whole story.

Meh, for me it's a mix just as the books are. We just wrapped up the Braniac story in Action and the Atlas story in Superman and now we're at the start of New Krypton. Once New Krypton is over we'll have another cycle of self contained stories.

And it's because we as fans expect more that we have linked titles in the first place.

I guess they could have kept New Krypton in Action and just have a massive arc there (maybe with a handful of specials) but that would take a considerable amount of time.

I don't know honestly, the state of things now I think is the happy medium. Individual arcs that are contained in the specific title balanced out with a massive storyline that links them all together.

stealthwise

11-12-2008, 07:24 PM

You can, but there's still a lot in there done so people who do know the minutia will go "OMG it's such-and-such yay!".

Fuck 'em.

Well, nah, a completely new book when it starts is likely to not be continuity heavy. But boy, did Astro City go that way very quickly - there's a huge amount of detail in just the first six issues, and it kept growing and growing and this bit called in to that bit and here's this character standing there...

It's possible to follow a story without knowing all the continuity, but the continuity's still there.

I think we have different definitions of "continuity." You seem to be referring to "world-building" more than "continuity," the latter of which is obsessed with cataloguing and keeping track of everything that every character ever did.

But it's based around continuity. It specifically mentions minutia, it goes out of its way to tie bits together and use them for its own ends (like Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck). Marvels is one of the most continuity-filled comics I can think of.

My point is: You don't NEED to understand the significance or those events of those stories to enjoy the book. It doesn't get deeply involved with the background of each event and doesn't worry about jamming in references to every single plot point, not like something such as, say, Sins Past, which was a bloody travesty.

The first storyline brings in Jack Flagg, Steel Spider, Sepulchure and American Eagle, extremely obscure old people, and has specific mentions of old stories (Jack having been shot in the ear, Sepulchure's previous name) - added to direct fallout from the previous Thunderbolts run, a direct callback to an old Daredevil, and of course Civil War.

He's using continuity.

He's using it, but any of those characters could have been completely original, without the story suffering much. He's using past characters that are a part of continuity, but he's not referencing tons of old stories that geeks masturbate over constantly.

I'm saying that Don Rosa wrote a story on Scrooge McDuck's history that decided every single Carl Barks story and every single throwaway reference took place, and he was going to work as much of it as he could into his story. So random bits of dialogue from decades-old stories, where Scrooge throws out places he's been to, become the basis of entire chapters.

There's no way around this, this is massive use of continuity. This is practically the embodiment of nerd-turned-pro continuity-playing stories.

And yet, it won an Eisner because it was really good. It's also entirely possible to read it without having read a single Barks story.

Then it's miles ahead of the shitpile that is modern-day Marvel and DC.

Which is different to the idea of the idea of continuity as a dangerous hindrance that restricts writers so they can't make good stories. They can. It's been done.

It's been done, but it's such a fuckpile of acrobatics to get around some of the stupid stories of the past; I mean, why would you want to worry about that crap in the first place? I'm just dreading the day that some idiot decides he wants to go back and make the Clone Saga make sense. Spider-Man's bad enough as it is, it went from a forward-looking book that was always on the cutting edge of superheroics to becoming a complete nostalgia title.

Charles RB

11-12-2008, 07:56 PM

Fuck 'em.

Since Mark Waid specifically added those bits for them, and knows all that minutia himself and likely enjoyed including it, you're saying "fuck Mark Waid".

You seem to be referring to "world-building" more than "continuity"

The events of the Confession storyline are tied directly to #5 of the original miniseries - that's definately continuity.

And we get part of Samaritan's backstory told to us in #6, which is then used as the backstory for Infidel and a specific caption from #6 is deliberately harkened back to.

My point is: You don't NEED to understand the significance or those events of those stories to enjoy the book.

That still doesn't mean they're not using continuity. Continuity is that the events happened at all.

It doesn't get deeply involved with the background of each event and doesn't worry about jamming in references to every single plot point

Don Rosa's Life and Times did get deeply involved in the background and deliberately jammed in references though.

And, again, it's still entirely possible to read the story without knowing the references (or that they are references) or the previous background as it gets explained in the story.

He's using past characters that are a part of continuity, but he's not referencing tons of old stories

He does reference old stories though. He references Flag being shot in the ear - now that is an obscure bit of continuity. I'd go so far as to call it nerdy.

Then it's miles ahead of the shitpile that is modern-day Marvel and DC.

This is true, it is.

It's been done, but it's such a fuckpile of acrobatics to get around some of the stupid stories of the past

Not really. Garth Ennis managed it for the Punisher in two pages (and that was brief narration while he killed someone), Paul Cornell manages it in Captain Britain with a few bits of dialogue here and there, Grant Morrison on New X-Men managed it again with dialogue.

Spider-Man's bad enough as it is, it went from a forward-looking book that was always on the cutting edge of superheroics to becoming a complete nostalgia title.

Except right now, Spider-Man's not just ignoring continuity, it flat-out magically undid huge chunks of it and is ignoring other chunks - and then it brought in multiple new characters and plotlines.

And it's still getting seen as a 70s throwback because of the stories being told and how they're being told.

MacQuarrie

11-12-2008, 09:55 PM

The test, I think, is whether you can describe the story without having to explain prior stories.

Astro City isn't continuity-bound. Busiek has the whole history all mapped out, but the reader isn't privy to it, so when he writes about a "past" event, it's being revealed to us, rather than reminding us of something we read in the past. It's self-contained, and not terribly self-referential in the way a Roy Thomas or Geoff Johns DC story would be.

A continuity-bound story, in my opinion, is one that takes two or more contradictory elements from a character's past, and finds a way to fit them together into a non-contradictory resolution, usually through the use of some elaborate contrivance (such as, say, a yellow fear monster), with the primary motivation being to fix the back-story rather than to tell a new story.

Sometimes it's interesting, but most often it's clumsy and painful. It's usually painful when it (a) "fixes" a problem that most people were content to ignore ("why are Green Lanterns' rings powerless against yellow?"), (b) attempts to revive a neglected or character (or create a "legacy" version) through the use of an elaborate and entirely coincidental device (see JSA), or (c) tries to resolve a dangling plot-point that nobody else remembers or insert a new plot into an old story in a way that doesn't fit and makes no sense (see Gwen Stacy's affair and children).

Now, if you can tell the story in a way that conveys all the necessary back-story reasonably transparently, and your contrived miracle plot device isn't too clunky, arbitrary, coincidental (coincidences are always weak dramatic devices. Always.), and don't strain credulity too much, AND your story actually has a point and entertainment value beyond just fixing something somebody else wrote 20 years ago, then go for it.

JeffreyWKramer

11-12-2008, 10:23 PM

Now, if you can tell the story in a way that conveys all the necessary back-story reasonably transparently, and your contrived miracle plot device isn't too clunky, arbitrary, coincidental (coincidences are always weak dramatic devices. Always.), and don't strain credulity too much, AND your story actually has a point and entertainment value beyond just fixing something somebody else wrote 20 years ago, then go for it.

Someone mentioned AVENGERS FOREVER. I think that is one that achieved those benchmarks, at least for the most part.

Then there's Johns' JSA, which seems to be designed around going the wrong way with every single one of the principles you mention.

Tobias March

11-12-2008, 10:46 PM

I think stealthwise mentioned Ellis' Thunderbolts, which I found interesting for the way in which these random obscure heroes appeared in the title. As he said, they could have been original characters for how the stories flowed, but if you did know who they were there was plenty of easter-egg like material to entertain.

I wanted a Sepulchre and American Eagle title were they solved mysteries and made love on a yacht after their sequence of banter.

Continuity is a resource ideally. When it's enforced it can be a stranglehold on the writer.

PatrickG

11-12-2008, 11:13 PM

Fuck 'em.

I think we have different definitions of "continuity." You seem to be referring to "world-building" more than "continuity," the latter of which is obsessed with cataloguing and keeping track of everything that every character ever did.

I can see your point.

However, I think good use of continuity is indistinguishable from world building. Everything you need to know is recapped or treated as subtext.

Take Superman having the Titanic in the Fortress of Solitude in ALL-STAR SUPERMAN -- or the use of Nasty Luthor or Van-Zee in Kandor.

All reference past stories. But you don't need to know they come from past stories and many readers even assumed that Morrison created these things.

Charles RB

11-13-2008, 06:11 AM

I wanted a Sepulchre and American Eagle title

YES. Oh god, yes.

Chris Lang

11-13-2008, 01:02 PM

I know I'm a rarity, but I liked GL: Rebirth. I think it's possible to tell fun and entertaining stories about "fixing" continuity, even though it doesn't always happen. Stuff like "Yellow fear monster" and "recton punch" are always used derisively by fans but I never really got the objection to them as story concepts in a reality with little blue guys handing out magic green rings and chicks made of clay with truth ropes. At least, in those cases, we're suffered an explanation, rather than a baffling Deus ex Machina, a la "No more mutants/marriage".

I think the reason all of those things were so derided was that they were what some (including TV Tropes) would refer to as 'Ass Pulls'. An Ass Pull is when something is pulled in completely out of nowhere to be a story element.

The yellow fear monster was never mentioned before 'Green Lantern: Rebirth' so it's an Ass Pull. I think fans might have been happier if an already established character or something had been used instead.

As for 'no more mutants' and 'One More Day', don't get me started on either of those. Both of those could have been avoided if certain editors hadn't let their issues with certain elements of the books (i.e. there being a lot of mutants, Peter and Mary Jane being married) drive them to force a new status quo on the books, and not care whether or not said new status quo (or the means of creating it) makes any sense.

stealthwise

11-13-2008, 08:14 PM

I can see your point.

However, I think good use of continuity is indistinguishable from world building. Everything you need to know is recapped or treated as subtext.

Take Superman having the Titanic in the Fortress of Solitude in ALL-STAR SUPERMAN -- or the use of Nasty Luthor or Van-Zee in Kandor.

All reference past stories. But you don't need to know they come from past stories and many readers even assumed that Morrison created these things.

And I'm fine with that.

But Mac and you and Jeff and Corrina and countless others are saying what I'm meaning much better than I am, so I'll shut up, because apparently I hate Mark Waid now.