Any way to improve "coherence" of the Marvel Universe?

[JudicatorPrime]

And even THEN you have the absurdity of a cosmic powerhouse doing that and NOT completely wrecking half of Queens in the process. Heck, but for the artwork showing the damage inside the condo you wouldn't even have know 20+ heroes just died by looking from the outside. I think that issue did a good job though of showing who lasted longest and why. Wonderman showed resiliency as did Hercules, Cap's shield giving him protection, and then the scene towards the end with Thor, Vision, Iron Man, and Starhawk blasting away as the most powerful present.

Yes. In the back of my mind there is always the notion that Korvac could have simply snapped his fingers and killed them all that quickly -- or do what Doom did in the first Secret Wars when he gained nigh-omnipotent power and just blast them with a bolt from the blue. But the writers were determined to show a battle and I appreciate them for at least making it a fairly believable fight/slaughter.

[Sutekh]

Much as I cede first place to no one in my love of the good old Gruenwald 1st and 2nd editions of OHOTMU... I do have to mention that much as they did a generally good job of codifying things to date, and the 'blueprints' and so on were awesome to my teenage geek mind, the official strength rankings were never really consistent with the characters' actual appearances and feats, and there were plenty of Marvel stories at the time in which even characters not given the open-ended 'Class 100' rating (that open endedness in itself a retcon with the second edition) lifted and threw objects that weighed far, far in excess of 100 tons unless they were made of styrofoam. E.g., Sasquatch's entries was obviously erroneous, given Sasquatch being listed at 70 tons but lifting and chucking football field distances a 200 ton plus DC-10 in his first ever appearance, and there were many more examples of this kind of inconsistency.

Ooh, very true! I remember that scene well, and various other scenes where strength feats went way over the 'ratings,' or other inconsistencies cropped up, like Thor *not being bulletproof* and having to 'spin his hammer' to stop bullets, and yet also being able to take a blast to the chest *from a Celestial* and just have a torn shirt. Are Celestials *really* less powerful than handguns?

And yet, it's gotten even crazier, lately.

Thor (the Jane Foster version) recently-ish punched Odin so hard that he flew back to *Jupiter* in less time than it took me to type this (it takes *light* 35 minutes or so to reach Jupiter, from the Earth) which is very definition of Spaceballs 'ludicrous speed.' That's just silly.

[JKtheMac]

@Vitruvian The point about Tolkien is he isn’t really telling multiple stories in a unified universe. Almost everything else he wrote about Middle Earth was in support of LOTR and anything tangentially expanded upon has exactly the same incoherence issues. The Hobbit would need another editorial pass to line up properly with LOTR for example, and even then it would have tonal issues. Look at the horrible attempt to make it work in the movies. Tolkein isn’t particularly bothered by these inconsistencies of tone, style or content and neither should we be. He has the excuse that he was building a kind of artificial folklore corpus, which is contradictory by design.

On a fundamental level, Tolkein is not a perfect analogy, not just because he is a single author, but under deeper analysis it is possible to criticise Middle Earth in exactly the same way, both across his corpus and within his central work.

This to me only highlights how this often heard desire for coherence is actually a demand for something impossible to achieve. Stories don’t work like that. So from my perspective Tolkien is on my side of the argument, as any writer will inevitably find themselves if they attempt to write multiple genre stories in the same setting.

To use a slightly more obtuse example, this idea is never more evident than the lovechild between the Marvel Universe and Tolkein that is Glorantha. That is a platform for multiple stories that seeks to do precisely what Marvel does and has direct inspiration from Marvel, with the techniques and approach of Tolkein.

[JKtheMac]

What can I say, I'm human and humans often want that which is within the realm of possibility. And a few things that are not yet there, say, in the way that the first humans wanted a faster way to travel, but lacked a combustible engine or knowledge of it.

I'm reminded of an old issue of What If? where Thor has asked his friends in the Avengers to join him in his fight against Odin and Asgard. Sure, the Avengers could have walked into the battle as-is, but the writer decided that maybe, just maybe the team did require some type of augmentation before even attempting to battle godlike beings. It's not too difficult an ask that even comic books science should have some type of consistent rules. Spider Man should not be able to punch Firelord, a being whose natural coronal aura melts bullets, without having his hand instantly incinerated. When you think about it, it really is a simple ask.

On a fundamental level it is too much to ask. It is theoretically impossible.

[JackDaw]

@Vitruvian The point about Tolkien is he isn’t really telling multiple stories in a unified universe. Almost everything else he wrote about Midfle Earth was in support of LOTR and anything tangentially expanded upon has exactly the same incoherence issues. The Hobbit would need another editorial pass to line up properly with LOTR for example, and even then it would have tonal issues. Look at the horrible attempt to make it work in the movies.

On a fundamental level, not only his example not a perfect analogy because he is a single author, but under deeper analysis it is possible to criticise Middle Earth in exactly the same way, both across his corpus and within his central work.

This to me only highlights how this often hears desire for coherence is actually a demand for something impossible to achieve. Stories don’t work like that.

But stories do form a range of “coherence”.

Look at the fantastic fiction of HG Wells or John Wyndham. They tend to make a fantastic assumption right at start of story, then work out with considerable logical rigour what might happen if that assumption was true.

Compare that to Jules Verne’s stuff where he allows fantastic coincidences, etc to happen frequently throughout the story.

The styles are very different. And Marvel is very much in the Jules Verne style...massively so. I find it fine in small to medium doses...but prefer the Wells approach for most of my reading.

[JKtheMac]

Much as I cede first place to no one in my love of the good old Gruenwald 1st and 2nd editions of OHOTMU... I do have to mention that much as they did a generally good job of codifying things to date, and the 'blueprints' and so on were awesome to my teenage geek mind, the official strength rankings were never really consistent with the characters' actual appearances and feats, and there were plenty of Marvel stories at the time in which even characters not given the open-ended 'Class 100' rating (that open endedness in itself a retcon with the second edition) lifted and threw objects that weighed far, far in excess of 100 tons unless they were made of styrofoam. E.g., Sasquatch's entries was obviously erroneous, given Sasquatch being listed at 70 tons but lifting and chucking football field distances a 200 ton plus DC-10 in his first ever appearance, and there were many more examples of this kind of inconsistency.

Which only made things that much more fun to nitpick! The thing a lot of people don't get about getting into the details of comic book stories is that for a lot of people who grew up on them, arguing about those details doesn't take anything away from one's enjoyment of the story; on the contrary, getting into the nitty gritty is sometimes half the fun!

I agree with everything you say here including the ‘half the fun’ bit. My caveat is that it would be far less stressful for all concerned if people had this fun with an understanding of the reality of storytelling.

Geek culture has a huge blind spot when it comes to how stories are actually written. Usually areas of ignorance are slowly closed or closely examined over the decades, but geek culture is instead making it bigger. The prevailing geek culture theories run entirely contrary to every established cultural theory, causing widespread dissatisfaction with huge swaths of media based on flawed notions of how things ‘should be’.

An entire subculture trapped between Hume’s ‘Is and Ought’.

The MU is a representation of a universe for the telling of stories therefore it ought to be a coherent universe where all stories are compatible. The fact that nobody has been able to make this happen ever and the more one examines the problem the harder it gets should provide a clue that there is a fallacy in there somewhere.

[JKtheMac]

But stories do form a range of “coherence”.

Look at the fantastic fiction of HG Wells or John Wyndham. They tend to make a fantastic assumption right at start of story, then work out with considerable logical rigour what might happen if that assumption was true.

Compare that to Jules Verne’s stuff where he allows fantastic coincidences, etc to happen frequently throughout the story.

The styles are very different. And Marvel is very much in the Jules Verne style...massively so. I find it fine in small to medium doses...but prefer the Wells approach for most of my reading.

Within a single story anything is possible. And as discussed Tolkein proves this can be done if great skill is applied. But he also proves that a hypothetical critic could pull the whole thing to pieces if they used the standard comic book reader approach of picking holes in inconsistency.

Take Lovecraft if we are going to talk about horror. A large number of his stories have a coherence precisely because they are all part of the same wider theme, are written in broadly compatible styles and mostly in the same genre (even though his genre was brand new). Lots of readers would like his entire corpus to be coherent and seek to reconcile his Dunsany and Poe pastiches with his Cthulhu cycle stories. They fail miserably.

[JKtheMac]

Coincidentally I am currently reading 'Thor: The Deviants Saga'. Surely the Eternals and the Deviants are proof positive that Kirby had zero interest in coherence. If we imagine he did for a moment we would need to conclude he was terrible at it.

[JackDaw]

Within a single story anything is possible. And as discussed Tolkein proves this can be done if great skill is applied. But he also proves that a hypothetical critic could pull the whole thing to pieces if they used the standard comic book reader approach of picking holes in inconsistency.

Take Lovecraft if we are going to talk about horror. A large number of his stories have a coherence precisely because they are all part of the same wider theme, are written in broadly compatible styles and mostly in the same genre (even though his genre was brand new). Lots of readers would like his entire corpus to be coherent and seek to reconcile his Dunsany and Poe pastiches with his Cthulhu cycle stories. They fail miserably.

Of course, if you let hundreds of authors loose over a shared story telling universe over many years...and face other constraints such as need to keep same characters going decade after decade...you find it impossible to maintain tight overall coherence. And run into a stack of other problems...such finding it impossible for your veteran readers to take death stories seriously.

There are...of course.. some compensating advantages. It's clearly not impossible to tell some wonderful stories within the Marvel verse....throw enough talented writers at "it" and some succeed in producing good stuff.

But clearly letting a talented writer create his own story telling world also has advantages. And very good coherence can be maintained over large prose runs...over much more than one story.

Take historical fiction...that has many long runs where coherence is excellent. (e.g. Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe series ran to 20 prose novels.) You will tell me that even then "coherence was not perfect"...but let's be realistic, it's much different to the Marvel product.

As thread has gone on..and as I've thought through issue..I've completely accepted that Marvel story telling model is what it is, because most of its regular readers prefer it that way. That makes perfect sense..but patently so does view that large majority of readers world wide prefer a very different way of story telling.

[JKtheMac]

As thread has gone on..and as I've thought through issue..I've completely accepted that Marvel story telling model is what it is, because most of its regular readers prefer it that way.

Yes, and because it has always been this way since well before Marvel and because it is great fun.

but patently so does view that large majority of readers world wide prefer a very different way of story telling.

It may seem that way. My thesis is that it is impossible. Yes this is partly due to inevitable subjectivity due to lots of voices. That is a truism. But it is an insidious one because it holds out hope for some kind of objective approach to coherence - if only a single person or a like-minded group of people could hold onto the reigns.

That is not my view. I believe it is inevitable even if only one author was writing or if a tightly formed group with similar views was doing so. It is inevitable because of how stories are written and read in our wider culture. A character in a story is only part of the wider tapestry of a single story. The craft of storytelling places constraints on how characters are used and portrayed based upon the type of story being told.

The classic example of early serialised fiction is Holmes. In general his character remains solid over most of the corpus because he is used in the same story types. If Holmes was written into a romantic comedy or recast in a horror story then he would not survive intact. He would be changed. If he was placed into a character driven story he would be explored and to some become unrecognisable. Indeed these have all happened under other writers multiple times and purists tend to pick them apart. Some even play Doyle's stories off against each other, so 'A Scandal in Bohemia' might be criticised because Holmes appears to have been changed by the story, when he usually remains static. Or cast out the clear suggestion that the regard for Adler is more than just admiration for her intelligence because they refuse any tiny hint of romantic possibilities in the character.

Superhero comics are not a single genre and are not of a single type. Every time the writer chooses to shift the story type the characters will be changed.

[Alan2099]

Other problems with marvel come from the shear amount of stories Marvel has, what is and is not in continuity, and the sliding timescale.

I doubt Marvel has a single person working for it that has read every comic they have ever produced. I doubt you can find a single person anywhere that has, so just from pure ignorance little mistakes creep in. There's a good chance the author and his editor both don't remember a throw-away reference to a time Shanna the She-Devil meet Deathlok in a backup story of Marvel comics presents, but if they write a story where they meet "for the first time" odds are somebody that has read that story is going to call them on it.

Continuity becomes an issue because it's easy to forget that comic you read and loved was actually some out-of-continuity thing.... or maybe it wasn't at the time but it later became one. Then there are the series where people aren't 100% sure what's in continuity and what isn't. It gets even worse when there are books that the fans have agreed on "don't count and didn't happen" but it's not in anyway official.

The sliding timescale creates a problem not just for events, but for attitudes. Captain America and Mr. Fantastic both used to smoke. That was just something they did. Then there's all those "oh, they're just girls" comments from everyone. Does this characterize the person as being sexist or was it just the attitude of the time? What happens when it's actually a plot point? Now you have to make the character a sexist jerk when they didn't used to be at all.

[davew128]

Coincidentally I am currently reading 'Thor: The Deviants Saga'. Surely the Eternals and the Deviants are proof positive that Kirby had zero interest in coherence. If we imagine he did for a moment we would need to conclude he was terrible at it.

Well the whole Eternals thing was originally not supposed to be part of Marvel continuity, so this doesn't surprise me in the least.

[JKtheMac]

Well the whole Eternals thing was originally not supposed to be part of Marvel continuity, so this doesn't surprise me in the least.

Ah but I am not suggesting he was actually terrible at it. He was supposedly somewhat skeptical of the more tied together universe of Marvel. He did help form it, but it seems he never intended it to be overly coherent and allegedly didn’t relish the idea of writing under those constraints when he moved back to Marvel.

Which suggests that if we want good writers we have to accept unique visions.

[vitruvian]

@Vitruvian The point about Tolkien is he isn’t really telling multiple stories in a unified universe. Almost everything else he wrote about Middle Earth was in support of LOTR and anything tangentially expanded upon has exactly the same incoherence issues. The Hobbit would need another editorial pass to line up properly with LOTR for example, and even then it would have tonal issues. Look at the horrible attempt to make it work in the movies. Tolkein isn’t particularly bothered by these inconsistencies of tone, style or content and neither should we be. He has the excuse that he was building a kind of artificial folklore corpus, which is contradictory by design.

I'm not seeing the incoherence or inconsistency in terms of events, plot, or setting; maybe I'm being blind to something, but within LOTR itself I'm certainly not seeing any inconsistency in the setting with regard to the multiple parallel storylines. I'll grant you that there are some unanswered questions so far as taking The Hobbit as strictly in the same world as opposed to a child's version of Bilbo's There and Back Again memoir, with regard to things like the trolls' humorous dialogue and actually turning to literal stone in daylight, but within LOTR itself, or between LOTR and the Silmarillion, no, I'm not seeing it.

As far as inconsistency in tone goes, I don't see that as a bar to saying the setting itself is set forth as a plausibly believable place with its own consistent history. After all, one could say that stories of many types, from comedy to tragedy and everything in between, regularly play out in the real world, and yet it is one reality, not multiple ones. Nor, in any criticism of inconsistencies or failure to justify a willing suspension of disbelief in shared universes such as the MU, have I ever criticized the MU for containing many different types of story, with different content (events), style, or tone, either. In a secondary reality just as much as the primary one, many different types of things can and do happen.

However, I will agree with you that Glorantha was (and I suppose is, although it's been a long time) an astounding creation. Aldryami, Broo, Ducks, Mostali, or Trollkin, or possibly Orlanthi barbarians, whom do I remember most fondly?

[vitruvian]

I agree with everything you say here including the ‘half the fun’ bit. My caveat is that it would be far less stressful for all concerned if people had this fun with an understanding of the reality of storytelling.

Geek culture has a huge blind spot when it comes to how stories are actually written. Usually areas of ignorance are slowly closed or closely examined over the decades, but geek culture is instead making it bigger. The prevailing geek culture theories run entirely contrary to every established cultural theory, causing widespread dissatisfaction with huge swaths of media based on flawed notions of how things ‘should be’.

An entire subculture trapped between Hume’s ‘Is and Ought’.

The MU is a representation of a universe for the telling of stories therefore it ought to be a coherent universe where all stories are compatible. The fact that nobody has been able to make this happen ever and the more one examines the problem the harder it gets should provide a clue that there is a fallacy in there somewhere.

Still disagreeing with you that nobody has ever managed this... with the arguable exception of the one book (The Hobbit) written as a children's story, I tend to think Tolkien very much did create a consistent secondary creation to the criterion of consistency that I and others are actually discussing here.

As have many other authors of series set in the same fictional world, and indeed even some cooperatives of authors working in a shared universe. To take just two examples, while certainly there are significant differences in terms of scale and consequent difficulty between these efforts and the massive corpus that the DC or Marvel universes have accumulated over eight decades, in genre shared universes we have the examples of Thieves' World and the Wild Cards series shepherded by George R.R. Martin. These are both examples of shared universes encompassing multiple books with contributions by multiple authors over years or even decades, and while I'm sure there may be the occasional flub along the lines of Doyle forgetting where Watson's war wounds actually were on his body, by and large they don't seem to have the massive, recurrent inconsistencies (or retcons for that matter) for which the superhero comic book universes are famous.

And do please acknowledge that over the many times we've had basically this discussion in these forums, I've always acknowledged that one of course cannot expect 100% perfection - not even in a single author's series of short stories, much less in either the DCU or MU given the massive size and number of events they contain - so to say that perfect coherence is not possible is to engage with a straw man caricature of my position rather than my actual arguments. But a basic sense of continuity - not in terms of slavish adherence to every detail of every single past installment, but in the same sense that is maintained by the continuity editor in a single film - is not too much to expect in most forms of serial storytelling.