Avengers, flow and continuity

[AgentFelix]

For those of you (ok us) who are continuity nuts I have a question. If you read Avengers and any combo of Iron Man, Cap, and Thor, do you prefer when there's natural "breaks" in Avengers stories between arcs? Ones that make realistic holes where those solo adventures can be occurring? If a team book is read as one continuous adventure that's great for the layperson following only the team book but it must drive the bigger fans nuts. Especially in regards to titles like Avengers/Justice League where the heroes reputations formed the team and not the team creating spinoff solo titles cough Wolverine cough.

Just wonderin...

[Cap10nate]

I really try to think them as separate entities. I think issues arise when you try to reconcile the titles together. An arc of one of the books may take place during one day while the arc on another one takes place over a large period of time. It is difficult to reconcile that to what they are doing together on the team at any one point in time. Is it in the characters future or past? If the titles were forced to reconcile with one another, then it would greatly stifle the creativity of the writers on all titles.

Take Cap for example. The first page of the most recent issue says "Eleven Years Later." Obviously, Cap isn't going to be missing from the Marvel U for 11 years. He might return from Dimension Z 15 seconds after he goes in or a day or a month. If the titles were forced to reconcile to a linear timeline along with publications, how would this story even be able to happen and fit in to a timeline with the other books. Either he would have already returned from Dimension Z during the events of Avengers/New Avengers or he shouldn't be involved in the story.

[Corey W]

It doesn't bother me too much because there is usually enough of a gap to make it work or not think about it.

I picked up the Marvel Team-Up Essentials volume that was recently released. The first year of issues take place over six days of story time. So you often don't need much of a gap.

[dreyga2000]

Six or seven issue adventure of one title usually has duration anywhere from a couple days to a couple of hours... They are all really easy to place together when you keep that in mind...