On Continuity and Comic Books

This here's going to be the last one of the day, folks. I know it's been slow and I apologize for that, but I'm taking it slow now because of this wrist thing and I can only do so much. Still, you've got 2+ years' worth of archives to enjoy and I implore you to do exactly that! I'll be here tomorrow and throughout the rest of the week, so no worries.

Anyway, after the One More Day debacle, a lot has been made of continuity in comics. To be sure, there are a lot of pros and cons to be weighed in both directions (strong continuity vs. none at all), but as a fan and reader, I have to admit, I enjoy continuity. I like to experience the trials and tribulations of these fictional characters, and if nothing ever changes for them, then I might pick up a single issue every few years or so, as opposed to subscribing. In fact, if comic books had no continuity whatsoever, I never would have gotten back into them in the last few years; after I hit about 17-18 or whenever and started getting laid on a somewhat regular basis, unless Frank Miller did a DD/Elektra wedding book, I would have been done. The bi-annual pulling-out of my collection for a short-run read-through would have sufficed for the rest of my entire life - truly!

To this day, the real passion I felt for the genre and hobby is almost never there. The last time I felt it was with GA: Y1 (that looks so bad as an acronym - Green Arrow: Year One is better) and XXXombies - and the latter is something I would have enjoyed, anyway. Nothing else has really - literally - hit me in the pit of my stomach the way comics used to, and just to see if they still could or if the fault lay with me, I have pulled-out the old magazines from time to time and felt that surge of true passion - not nostalgia, not a wistfulness; true, unfettered, unbridled passion for the form and genre - so I know the fault lay with the material, not with me. Hawaiian Dick excites me (stop right there) but until I get more of the run, I can't say for certain; it looks like it may be a return to greatness and I sincerely hope it is, but let's not jump to any conclusions just yet.

So I have been considering the points so many have made on continuity lately and then I ran across my run of the Marvel Handbooks and it hit me all at once: continuity is not the problem. Continuity is not really an issue at all: it's all of the discombobulated continuity.

Iron Man has its own continuity, yet Iron Man within the Avengers has a continuity which is often at-odds with the former. And Iron Man within the context of, say, Spidey's continuity is an absolute mess - and this all leads to overall continuity issues. The real problem is that some creators want strong continuity, while others prefer none, and they tend to fight it out through the titles themselves instead of instituting an overall, storewide policy and sticking to it.

And how you fix this problem is as easy as I am after 4-5 stout beers: institute a generalized continuity and demand all creators stick to the program.

Instead of having all those * - Ed Notes telling us when, exactly, this issue fits between Iron Man's recent Power Pack and Civil War exploits and whatever has been happening the last 20 issues, why not just rewrite the content to provide the readers with the general idea that it happened somewhere within this general timeframe?

Yes, I am a comic book writer and artist, so I know exactly how frustrating and time-consuming rewriting anything in the form is, but hear me out. I am not suggesting scrapping four pages and rewriting an entire sequence just to "fit it in" - why would you have to do that unless you actually really screwed-up and should have to? (that squeaking was the simultaneous wincing of artists throughout Comicdom, as they considered the possibility of working for me as an editor) - why not just redo the dialogue to suggest something and leave it up to the reader to fill-in his own No-Prize continuity?

Great example: "Haven't you tangled with n before, Iron Man?" He doesn't even have to respond; that the secondary, speaking character mentions the fact suggests a generalized continuity that exists throughout the universe - not just within the title and not just to be retconned later. Voila!

"But it isn't always that simple, MD!"

Then you screwed-up and you should rework the sequence and scrap the entire story, if that's the case. It's your effing job; deal with it. Three weeks to print? Pull out the "Elseworlds" logo and run the story with the *We'll be back next month! - Ed. Note you wouldn't have to be writing if you hadn't screwed-up! (That very loud gasp was the combined efforts of said creators throughout Comicdom as they just realized that I may very well be an editor one day.)

Go with the generalities and leave the details to be filled-in by the fans; this keeps continuity while still allowing a lot of room for play.

Further, stop with all of the inane (and very forced) parallel continuities. Why are there so many SAME characters running around, doing SAME things? Do we really need a Lana Lang and a Lois Lane (we do on Smallville - those young lasses are HOT!)? Note that most of these faux-pas arise from - what else - retcons and continuity problems, anyway (Carol Danvers in every form; Madelyne Pryor and Jean Grey and Dark Phoenix and Phoenix and Phoenix II and...). All of these people get killed, then a doppleganger shows up in their place, then is retconned, then appears 50 issues later as a real doppleganger and no one questions where the hell she's been for the last 10 years nor why she's suddenly returned...

Superheroes are supposed to comprise about ¹/₁₀^th of the world's population, so if they need a PI agency, wouldn't they already know about Dakota North or Felicia Hardy's operations? And wouldn't they probably go with one or the other? Why are there so many characters with the same powers, the same basic personalities, the same basic appearance? You want to ramp-up the drama here and there, why not "bring back" about half the rip-off characters that fill the MU Handbooks and wack 'em!?

It's such a dumbing-down of the form and such a slap in the face to the audience... I would stand up in my living room and cheer if I read one character walk past another and say, "Weren't you retconned? Where the hell have you been?" Apparently, I'm the only fanboy who would question his ex-girlfriend's sudden reappearance some four years later - particularly when I walk in to find her folding my clothes as though nothing ever happened.

I propose - because it's going to happen anyway, so I'm proposing on the back-end to take credit for it later - calling this whole matter "The Quesada Factor."

Have Wolvie walk by Maddie Pryor and go, "Weren't you Quesadaed? Where the hell have you been?"

© C Harris Lynn, 2008