Anyone thrown off by characters in several simultaneous, distinct adventures?

[Lightning Rider]

This post contains SPOILERS for the following titles: Superman, Nightwing, Super Sons, and Batman.

Now usually, I can understand characters popping in and out of other titles despite being in a sort of bind in their own title. I can figure that their appearance is either before or after or in between events that are happening in their own book. But there are too many discrepancies with Damian, Jon, and Batman to ignore.

In Super Sons, Jon and Damian are supposedly helping a young girl with possession powers escape her evil multiplying brother.

But this can't be happening while the events of Superman are taking place, because in that story, Damian and Jon are helping Superman track down Batman, who got captured while investigating a suspicious dairy farm.

Meanwhile, Batman is getting messed up by Reverse Flash in the batcave, totally not captured by a dairy farmer.

And even more confusing is Damian being kidnapped in Nightwing. That would make 3 different places Damian is in at the same time, doing totally different things.

This isn't even counting Action Comics, which I don't follow, and could possibly have Superman on a totally different mission than the one he's on in the Superman title.

It's not ruining the stories for me, but it is giving me pause when I read the issues back to back, forcing me to keep track, and also giving me a mild sense that some books "count" in terms of what's currently happening and importance, and some don't. What do you guys think?

[Lee Stone]

This used to not be such a problem in the old days where stories were generally one or two issues long.
But I can see how multiple Superman, Batman and Spider-Man books, not to mention their respective teams and guest-appearances, can become confusing in the the modern day decompressed era where a story can last for up to six months.
If Batman's on Rann for four months, how could he be tracking down Catwoman in Gotham? The writers may make a note to mention at the end of one of the two stories that it took place before or after the other, but then by the time they wrap up the storyline, they've forgotten about the conflict.

Or, worse, Batman takes place after Detective and before JLA (Detective>Batman>JLA). And then Detective references a character death in Nightwing, which happens to take place after JLA (JLA>Nightwing>Detective).

If I was faced with that problem today, I'd probably end up dropping one or more of the titles to make it easier to keep up with.

[NeathBlue]

It's only a problem if you think about it too much, just enjoy the separate stories for what they are.

[BeefBourguignon]

Do not assume that issues released concurrently are about events taking place concurrently. This first arc of Super Sons for example, is take place before Reborn. Current Superman story take place after.

[ayanestar]

I don't really care about stuff like this that's why I never pay attention to it.

[WillieMorgan]

The only one that comes to mind straight away was the way that 'Darkseid War' depicted Hal Jordan and the rest of the Corps. It didn't synch with the ongoing GL titles of that time in the slightest.

You could explain away the huge difference between Hal in the Justice League and the 'Renegade' Hal being concurrently published in his own book by saying that 'Darkseid War' happened first. That would also explain how John Stewart and the rest of the Corps made a brief appearance despite being lost in Relic's universe at the same time. There is more than one reference made to background events taking place on Oa though, which is currently nothing more than a pile of debris. The Corps are presently stationed on Mogo, not Oa.

Would it have killed Johns to make the dialogue in DW match up to what was currently happening in the GL books? At least by name-checking Mogo as opposed to Oa? I wouldn't go so far as to say that it ruined the story for me but Johns could have easily made more of an effort to make DW fit the narrative of the GL titles without changing his story in the slightest.

[Rincewind]

Would it have killed Johns to make the dialogue in DW match up to what was currently happening in the GL books? At least by name-checking Mogo as opposed to Oa? I wouldn't go so far as the say that it ruined the story for me but Johns could have easily made more of an effort to make DW fit the narrative of the GL titles without changing the story in the slightest.

The problem with that approach is that you can wind up with the situation that happened to Dwayne McDuffie when he was writing Justice League.

[WillieMorgan]

The problem with that approach is that you can wind up with the situation that happened to Dwayne McDuffie when he was writing Justice League.

I don't equate the two circumstances to be honest. Johns has way, way more clout than McDuffie 'enjoyed' at DC. I felt for McDuffie at the time and still do.

This cartoon strip always summed it up best for me:

http://comiccritics.com/2009/06/16/t...ayne-mcduffie/

[Ascended]

This post contains SPOILERS for the following titles: Superman, Nightwing, Super Sons, and Batman.

It's not ruining the stories for me, but it is giving me pause when I read the issues back to back, forcing me to keep track, and also giving me a mild sense that some books "count" in terms of what's currently happening and importance, and some don't. What do you guys think?

Never bothered me.

Just assume the stories dont take place at the same time even though they're published that way.

The stuff happening in Superman happens before (or after) the stuff happening in Nightwing or Batman. Simple enough.

Comics aren't designed to be taken as a literal construct; it's all metaphorical and you have to internalize and self-rationalize 75% of what is on the page and fill in a lot of blanks for your own head canon. They've never, in all their eighty years, made any sense.

Think of them as modern day mythology and that'll give you all the leeway your brain needs to get around the mountain of inconsistencies.

[Frontier]

I usually just work out the timelines in my head and don't assume all books released together happen at the same time, especially when they feature the same character .

[Buried Alien]

One way to minimize this is to have an editor-in-chief such as Jim Shooter overseeing the entire line the way he did at Marvel in the 1980s. That held together surprisingly well for years, but Marvel Bullpen members don't have fond memories of working under Shooter during the 80s, even though the quality of product in those days was quite good.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[dan12456]

No. A year from now no one will even remember they came out at the same time. Trying to think of timelines will inevitably mess you up because there is no week-week DC timeline. It's just a general "period" thing.
Sometimes Batman is in a 6 issue arc that takes place over 1 day while Wonder Woman's arc is also 6 issues but takes place over 6 months. Meanwhile the Justice League issues they are both in take place over a week but is also 6 issues. Trying to force all the books to fit a day-day timeline would hurt the creative ability of writers. You'd have to force your story to make sense in an arbitrarily constrained timeline for no reason other than the people in the very week it came out might think its weird.

If you string together all the things that are suppose to have happened to Batman since the start of the N52 it probably would need 10-20 years, instead it happened in 1 or 2.

[Anthony Shaw]

One way to minimize this is to have an editor-in-chief such as Jim Shooter overseeing the entire line the way he did in the 1980s. That held together surprisingly well for years, but Marvel Bullpen members don't have fond memories of working under Shooter during the 80s, even though the quality of product in those days was quite good.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

IIRC, Mark Gruenwald (RIP) would list together Captain America's recent appearances in various books on the letter's page every so often back in the 1980's.

I still wish Shooter played some part with the big two today.

[Lightning Rider]

I guess I'll just keep on doing what I'm doing, but I can't say it isn't a bit confusing when I read the issues back to back.

Do not assume that issues released concurrently are about events taking place concurrently. This first arc of Super Sons for example, is take place before Reborn. Current Superman story take place after.

That's a helpful way to think about it.

[popestu]

Nope. I only read some of the comics released monthly, not all of them. I love to debate and bicker about continuity and details because its fun to play with the things I know and learn new things along the way. However, for me, the fun stops when I have to rectify all the discrepancies of imaginary stories (unless the discrepancies contradict my headcanon...you know what I mean). I find I also treat different titles, even differnt arcs from a single title, as an alternate reality (or is it dimension? elseword? timeline?).