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  1. #1
    Incredible Member deadboy80's Avatar
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    Default reducing continuity

    So the idea here is that once upon a time, our individual titles wre self contained. So what happened in Flash didnt matter to Batman or Wonderwoman, so on. With the birth of the summer event, we saw the death of this. And i believe it was the death, or at least slow demise of better story telling. When you have to include an issue of your ongoing, in the middle of your own arc, to fit some other stupid event, it fucks things up. This has really gottten bad in the last twenty years or so. Perhaps sliding back to basics would not be so bad. Stopping the yearly event would be a large step forward. It is not essential. Drop them off for a couple of years. Then have one. fans will feal that it means more that way. The team books can always tie the Universe together. The individual monthly should not. Used to love continuity, now im starting to loath it.

  2. #2
    Mighty Member brandnewfan's Avatar
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    I only want to read books if they matter to an overall continuity. That’s not to say I’d reject standalone books; but I want the titles I read to occur in the same shared universe.

  3. #3

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    IMO the Multiverse became open not with Flash Of Two World’s but All Star # 36 in 1,947 first crossover wit JSA, Superman & Batman. This late Golden Age when Flash is 2 Yrs from cancellation and JSA 4-5 Years away. Robin got his own feature in Star Spangled Comics where he was clearly 15/16 and no longer the Boy Wonder. While the Legion Of Superheroes had yet to come about Batman had a future going all the way to the year 3,055 with no Super/Meta People but advanced science at best with a civilization that had encountered aliens but nothing outside the Solar System had come through. This is kind of why Batman has to constantly get Batgod treatment because at his core is not from a Universe meant to take on Super Threats that extend beyond the Solar System. There is always going to be a crossover Universe but IMO through hypertime those original universes still exist.

  4. #4
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    I hate events, and they are one of the major reasons I got out of mainstream superhero comics.
    You pretty much have to follow them if you want to know what is going on with the A-listers.
    And if you don't care even a little bit about what happens to the Justice League, well, Ultimate Crisis will often still mess up the small, 'unimportant' books you are following.

    If nothing else, events created a division between important and unimportant books, which has done a lot of damage to the 'unimportant' ones because those are the ones that get dropped when you need to get the 50 tie-ins to the latest big stupid event.

    Quote Originally Posted by brandnewfan View Post
    I only want to read books if they matter to an overall continuity. That’s not to say I’d reject standalone books; but I want the titles I read to occur in the same shared universe.
    Books that are not part of a shared universe are not part of this topic. The OP didn't mention anything of the kind.

  5. #5
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    Events sell big, so they're not going away. But yes, the fact that they disrupt the stories in quite a few comics is a problem.

    A solution I've suggested here before is to publish the tie-ins as extra, one-offs. In other words, let's say the Flash is going to tie in to the event. Instead of including the regular Flash #52 and #53 in the event, go ahead and keep those issues as part of the regular Flash storyline, and also publish Flash #52-E and #53-E as part of the event. "E" would stand for event.

    That would sell more comics and would not screw up whatever was going on in the Flash.

    Problem solved.

  6. #6
    Extraordinary Member kjn's Avatar
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    Events (which I'd define here as big crossovers) are a double-edged sword. Yes, they sell a lot of copies, but they do so by selling a lot of copies to a limited group of people, ie the core audience. They do less well in bringing in new readers, where it is more important to sell just a few titles to lots and lots of people. So I'd say events are great in the short term, but can be damaging in the long term.

    Continuity is a slightly different beast, and here I think it's important to look at different forms of continuity. One, and probably the weakest one, is simply a shared world as a basis for stories. All the stories within the continuity happened in the shared world, but not necessarily in a given order or within a fixed chronology. (To take one example, I saw people raising an issue with "Ladies Night" with Babs, Diana, and Zatanna having a night out sometime before "The Killing Joke", with LN being set sometime in the 2008-2010 period but TKN is set in the 80s. To me, they're all in comic book time which is disconnected from our time and all set in an eternal vague "nowish" or "recent-ish" or "long ago-ish".)

    Now, a stronger continuity with more fixed points where different comics had crossovers or many issues that are in a fixed relation to each other can help drive sales and it's alluring to many fen. But at its core it creates many small events, which makes it harder to get into the titles in the first place if they become too common.

    Requiring all the titles to follow the same fixed chronology is just asking for trouble, IMO. That's what forces events to disrupt specific titles. But encourage cooperation between writers, so stories can tie in and refer to each other in a non-disruptive way.

    The shared universe should also leave wiggle room for one-offs, experiments, stories set in the cracks, and so on.

    ETA: This also ties in to what I have written over in the Wonder Woman forum, in that story arcs should generally be limited in length. Shorter arcs are easier to get into, gives more jumping-off points, and arguably makes it easier to coordinate crossover issues.
    Last edited by kjn; 06-27-2018 at 06:20 AM.

  7. #7
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    Yeah, there are different kinds of continuity. When done right, continuity can be a very good thing. But the event crossovers were often bad for the individual continuities of different heroes--because each title had to break from its continuity to fit in with whatever event was happening.

    Or take, for example. Atlantis. At one time, long ago at DC, there were several versions of Atlantis. Wonder Woman had one, Aquaman another, and Superman (with Lori Lemaris) still another. As long as you didn't pay too much mind to this, it all worked okay. But once they tried to "fix" this continuity, then they had to bend each version of Atlantis to fit one general idea of it.

    Or look at the New Gods versus the Olympian gods. Wonder Woman has her own version of the gods--but Jack Kirby had a different take on the old gods, that died out to create the New Gods. These versions seemed to contradict each other--but I don't think any fans were demanding a resolution. After all, belief systems often contradict each other and we just accept that as what happens when you have so many faiths and cultures. But John Byrne was determined to explain away the contradiction between his beloved Fourth World and the gods of the Amazons.

    A shared universe is great and crossovers are cool, but individual series should stay in their own lane. The fans can make up their own minds how all of this fits together--the writers don't need to explain everything or force all of it to fit together perfectly.

    I wouldn't want every DC comic to be cut lose from continuity. I enjoy seeing the connections between different storylines. But there has to be some freedom for writers to take characters in their own direction.

  8. #8
    Put a smile on that face Immortal Weapon's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Trey Strain View Post
    Events sell big, so they're not going away. But yes, the fact that they disrupt the stories in quite a few comics is a problem.

    A solution I've suggested here before is to publish the tie-ins as extra, one-offs. In other words, let's say the Flash is going to tie in to the event. Instead of including the regular Flash #52 and #53 in the event, go ahead and keep those issues as part of the regular Flash storyline, and also publish Flash #52-E and #53-E as part of the event. "E" would stand for event.

    That would sell more comics and would not screw up whatever was going on in the Flash.

    Problem solved.
    I prefer what Marvel use to do and have a tie-in mini series. #52-E and #53-E could create confusion and screw with numbering.

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by Immortal Weapon View Post
    I prefer what Marvel use to do and have a tie-in mini series. #52-E and #53-E could create confusion and screw with numbering.
    It won't disrupt the numbering. The next issue of The Flash will be #54, and there won't be a 54-E.

  10. #10
    Uncanny Member MajorHoy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by DGraysonWorldsGreatestSpy View Post
    IMO the Multiverse became open not with Flash Of Two World’s but All Star # 36 in 1,947 first crossover wit JSA, Superman & Batman.
    Not exactly . . .
    First, right from the first appearance of the JSA as a team, back in All Star Comics #3, Superman and Batman were mentioned as "honorary members" of the team. (The real reason they weren't full-fledged members was because they had their own solo books in addition to appearing as features in Action Comics and Detective Comics. This is the same reason why both Flash and Green Lantern would soon go from full members to honorary members for a while as well.)
    And even before they had appeared in issue #36 (substituting for The Atom and Johnny Thunder in that issue), they had previously guest-starred in stories for a page or two (such as in issue #7, when they suddenly showed up to help Johnny Thunder).
    And "crossover" would be more of a reference to a story that crosses over between different comic book series (like last year's "The Button" storyline that appeared in both Batman and The Flash); what you've been talking about is more of "guest-starring" appearances that are in a story contained in a single series.

  11. #11
    Amazing Member Heavunion's Avatar
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    I don't mind events, sometimes, it can lead to the various writers writing some stunning ties-ins and I think since Rebirth, we didn't have too much of them.

    What I absolutely hate though is stuff like Mr.Oz or Jason in Wonder Woman, just telling to the writers " Alright, so we have this character, do something with it please ". At least, with tie-ins, you can assume they at least believe that the big event will be a great story but that ? It's just bothering the writers with nonsense for nothing

  12. #12
    Extraordinary Member Restingvoice's Avatar
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    If there's a continuity then I want it to be tight. No inconsistency, no changing backstory, no reboot. If I'm required to read multiple books to follow the same character's story, they need to be consistent.

    But if they can't be consistent in characterization or plot, then there's no point following multiple books. If they keep rebooting or changing facts, then there's no point of having a continuity.

  13. #13
    Astonishing Member Clark_Kent's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Trey Strain View Post
    It won't disrupt the numbering. The next issue of The Flash will be #54, and there won't be a 54-E.
    I think the easier thing, instead of having Flash #53 & Flash #53-E, is to have Flash #53 and then <Event Title>: The Flash #1.
    "Darkseid...always hated music..."

    Every post I make, it should be assumed by the reader that the following statement is attached: "It's all subjective. What works for me doesn't necessarily work for you, and vice versa, and that's ok. You may have a different opinion on it, but this is mine. That's the wonderful thing about being a comics fan, it's all subjective."

  14. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by Clark_Kent View Post
    I think the easier thing, instead of having Flash #53 & Flash #53-E, is to have Flash #53 and then <Event Title>: The Flash #1.
    Maybe. But the point is, print a couple of extra Flash issues for the event and meanwhile let the Flash go on with its regular story. The extra issues would actually make more money for the company too.

  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by Trey Strain View Post
    Events sell big, so they're not going away. But yes, the fact that they disrupt the stories in quite a few comics is a problem.

    A solution I've suggested here before is to publish the tie-ins as extra, one-offs. In other words, let's say the Flash is going to tie in to the event. Instead of including the regular Flash #52 and #53 in the event, go ahead and keep those issues as part of the regular Flash storyline, and also publish Flash #52-E and #53-E as part of the event. "E" would stand for event.

    That would sell more comics and would not screw up whatever was going on in the Flash.

    Problem solved.
    Do they??? Or do they get OVER ORDERED for crappy variants or because store owners can't control themselves?

    I have seen to many bins packed with events-with some bins having the recent issue in the 25 cent bin days after it came out (looking at YOU Civil War 2).

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