DC and Continuity

[LordUltimus]

So with creators like Tom King and Brian Bendis freely picking and discarding stories as they please, I'm wondering how people around here think about continuity. How do you think creators should handle it? And how do you feel about how DC is handling it currently?

[Restingvoice]

I wish I have a gif for what I feel but sadly I don't, so I'll just go with my avatar.

What should be done is simply be consistent.
Have continuity? Be consistent and don't just change things all over the place especially without telling the others.
Don't have continuity? Be consistent and don't start one.
Picked which continuity? Be consistent and don't mix them with the other continuity.

Unless rebooting/relaunching.

[NexusTenebrare]

Honestly, I've resigned myself to the fact that DC's continuity has become a hot mess that makes no sense whatsoever. The New52 might not have been totally clear about what was and what wasn't in continuity, but at least most of it followed the same basic direction. Since Rebirth however, DC just has no idea what they're doing. Ages go up, ages go down. Writers just write what they want. No matter if it means one book contradicts another.

[Jackalope89]

So with creators like Tom King and Brian Bendis freely picking and discarding stories as they please, I'm wondering how people around here think about continuity. How do you think creators should handle it? And how do you feel about how DC is handling it currently?

Creators should at the very least look at events that happened recently within the title they're taking over.

Bendis STILL hasn't explained why and how Jor-El is suddenly alive/existing again since he took over the Superman line. And the last we saw of him, Jor-El was turned into space dust. Suddenly, he's there with a ship preaching about Jon needing to go with him for "reasons".

And King got Booster Gold right after they did a great arc with him with Superman and saving the timeline, only for King to completely screw up Booster literally right after.

Needless to say, I haven't touched anything by either since.

[king81992]

I can't decide if I love or hate the idea of continuity.There are some stories that should be forgotten because they character assassinate everyone involved and some stories that should be forgotten because writers constantly try to rehash them or use them as an excuse to avoid taking the franchise/characters in a new direction.

At this point,I think that each book should have its own continuity.If you treat each run as an AU it makes it easier for fans to ignore the ones they dislike instead of wondering what's Canon or not.

[Buried Alien]

DC = Disjointed Continuity

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[astro@work]

I try not to think about it too hard, but DCs continuity is really a hot mess right now.

The real issue was nu52/rebirth making such a point about things NOT being in continuity anymore (like the Perez/Wolfman New Teen Titans roster, Martian Manhunter's membership in JLA, etc)...only for other books to reference it. It's SO out of control, I'm really hoping Doomsday Clock reveals Dr Manhatten has been continuously tampering with the timeline (but is then forced to stop of course).

While Marvel's continuity is somewhat convoluted, at least they'll give a perfunctory explanation before they move forward. DC, on the other hand, continues to undo their own history, even if it's just recently been established.

[9th.]

I don't think anyone can answer that to be honest with you, they've been picking and choosing for a while now.

[Robotman]

I think I’m in the minority but I really like the loose continuity. If it makes for a better story, then it happened.

[Adset]

It's so ambiguous I find I bridge the gaps with the stories *I* prefer. I know that doesn't help literally anybody else.

[Ascended]

Well, right this moment I don't have a problem with continuity being as broken as it is. It's *supposed* to be this way because of the Manhattan stuff. I don't really care much for how long we've been dealing with a broken reality where history is just a vague outline, but I can't hate on the concept itself; considering how often DC's reality is endangered it's honestly sorta surprising that we've never seen an approach where everyone is just sorta....living in it, instead of fighting to fix it.

Generally I want consistency with characters, but I'm not terribly concerned about the nitty gritty of continuity, if that makes any sense. Most stories never carry any impact after they're told so whether they "happen" is a non-issue. I mean, Gotham was cut off from the entire country and left to die after suffering earthquakes and epidemic. But six months after No Man's Land ended, the only reason you knew it had happened at all is because Cass Cain was running around in Huntress' Batgirl costume. So I expect characters to act the way they're supposed to act, and I expect "major" moments (like Clark's death or Bruce having his spine broken) to be visible milestones, but past that I don't worry or sweat the small stuff.

I'm more concerned with the entertainment value of the issue in my hands right now than I am with whether that issue lines up with an issue from years or decades ago.

[oasis1313]

Discarding continuities and timelines sure makes it easier to write funnybooks.

[NexusTenebrare]

I try not to think about it too hard, but DCs continuity is really a hot mess right now.

The real issue was nu52/rebirth making such a point about things NOT being in continuity anymore (like the Perez/Wolfman New Teen Titans roster, Martian Manhunter's membership in JLA, etc)...only for other books to reference it. It's SO out of control, I'm really hoping Doomsday Clock reveals Dr Manhatten has been continuously tampering with the timeline (but is then forced to stop of course).

While Marvel's continuity is somewhat convoluted, at least they'll give a perfunctory explanation before they move forward. DC, on the other hand, continues to undo their own history, even if it's just recently been established.

Doomsday Clock doesn't even feel like it's in continuity itself.

[SiegePerilous02]

I'd ideally like continuity to be coherent, but we lost all hope for a coherent DC universe when they did COIE, and it's gotten worse and worse ever since.

At the end of the day, I want a comic/run to be well crafted and enjoyable as a self contained work. Whether it lines up or not with older comics that I may or may not have actually read or will ever read is secondary. If the contradiction is something I view as an improvement, it bothers me even less.

[superduperman]

The short answer is: there isn't one. The long answer is: Its obvious certain creators are being allowed to make their own rules and everyone else is just required to go along with it. We saw this with Geoff Johns prior to New 52, we saw it with Dan Didio during New 52, and we're seeing it today with Bendis on Superman. No one can get on the same page with each other and you have certain people just doing their own thing. So Superman is some sort of weird amalgamation of New 52 and pre-Flashpoint or whatever the hell the new continuity is while Didio has New 52 Superman running around the multiverse, which is infinite again now, apparently.

I don't know when this all went off the rails. In some ways, it's been a problem since COIE depending on which character you look at. Characters like Donna Troy and Power Girl have been problematic ever since. So in some ways DC has never had a stable continuity. I don't think they know how to fix it. The best analogy I can think of is that Simpsons episode where Homer keeps going back in time and changing history and settles on the timeline where everyone has lizard tongues.

To be honest, the best solution at this point might just be to ignore continuity because anything you make up will be most stable than whatever they are doing in the books anyway. If you come across something you don't like, ignore it. It can't be any more convoluted than what they are actually doing.