|
|
Post by Reptisaurus! on Jan 12, 2015 19:12:46 GMT -5
I don't think it would have been all that crazy, if in the late 1930's, they decided to make Batman and Superman age, have lasting wounds, eventually retire and mentor a new hero with a new name and a new costume, and ultimately die. I don't think it would have been a waste of intellectual property. I think it could have made comics something much more than they are. Excuse me, I meant American mainstream superhero comics. But now, as it is, with Batman and Superman being reliable money makers for 70 years, it would be crazy. Especially since the precedent of A list characters never dying or having any sort of real lasting change has been set, by Superman and Batman. But I do believe it holds the genre back from being something more. It isn't the publisher's fault. They're giving the modern fan what they want. I just think if comics had been different when my grandfather was a child, the modern fan would be a much larger demographic today more open to new things, making it so Thor doesn't have to become a woman because they could just create a new female character and it would sell. Power Girl wouldn't have to become black, because they could create a new black character and it would sell. I think maybe if the hands that guided the mainstream for the first fifty years or so had guided it differently, comics wouldn't sell better when they have 80 variant covers. But catch phrases, gimmick covers, and needless deaths and rebirths is the market that had been cultivated through decades of work, and now it's what we're stuck with in the direct market, probably until the eventual death of the direct market. Basically, I blame the comics code. |
|
|
|
Post by earl on Jan 13, 2015 0:42:27 GMT -5
I think the real problem with continuity and long running super hero series/characters is bad comics and having to adhere to mistakes made by previous creative teams. The longer some of these series have run, the weight of these bad stories becomes a millstone on moving forward, sometimes even when the comics are often good. The obvious thing is to reset characters and give new artists a chance to work with a clean slate, but often times these creative teams go into such odd directions or just end up aping stories that have already happened. To me, while there are potentially good comics that can be made with the classic Marvel and DC super hero characters, I think their time is kind of done. It seems continuity is often leads down to the same dead end story angles.
What I think is interesting is in other types of long running media like TV shows and movie series is how they handle continuity. They are often just as loose and weird with it in TV and films as what has happened in comics.
|
|
|
|
Post by dupersuper on Jan 13, 2015 2:50:09 GMT -5
Meh, If you have a story that you think is great that doesn't work in continuity, you can have an Elseworlds/What if/alternate Earth type story. Pas de probleme.
|
|
|
|
Post by DE Sinclair on Jan 13, 2015 10:40:49 GMT -5
I'll take both if I can get them, but I'd rather read a good story that breaks with established continuity than one that's faithful to the minutiae but reeks as a reading experience. Cei-U! I summon the best of both worlds! What he said. |
|
|
|
Post by badwolf on Jan 13, 2015 11:09:16 GMT -5
A good story is the most important, of course, but I think continuity is important too. Otherwise, why bother "following" a character or series? Especially us oldtimers, we've been reading the books for decade, it hurts to have old, beloved stories disregarded. Sure, mistakes happen, but they should do the best they can. I'm amazed that encyclopedic minds like Mark Gruenwald and Kurt Busiek did as well as they did!
|
|
|
|
Post by DE Sinclair on Jan 13, 2015 11:14:33 GMT -5
A good story is the most important, of course, but I think continuity is important too. Otherwise, why bother "following" a character or series? Especially us oldtimers, we've been reading the books for decade, it hurts to have old, beloved stories disregarded. Sure, mistakes happen, but they should do the best they can. I'm amazed that encyclopedic minds like Mark Gruenwald and Kurt Busiek did as well as they did! I do agree, but I would also like to say that I see a difference between "continuity" and "consistency". Over obsessing about continuity can lead to stories that explain why the Sub-Mariner was wearing different shorts during a time-travel sequence in an annual from years before (true story). Consistency keeps the reader from wondering "why is he acting like that? He never acted like that before." |
|
|
|
Post by Slam_Bradley on Jan 13, 2015 11:30:14 GMT -5
I'll take both if I can get them, but I'd rather read a good story that breaks with established continuity than one that's faithful to the minutiae but reeks as a reading experience. Cei-U! I summon the best of both worlds! What Lightning Head said. Mostly. But for me the story is the thing. Continuity is a tool. It's not an end in and of itself. |
|
|
|
Post by badwolf on Jan 13, 2015 11:33:05 GMT -5
I do agree, but I would also like to say that I see a difference between "continuity" and "consistency". Over obsessing about continuity can lead to stories that explain why the Sub-Mariner was wearing different shorts during a time-travel sequence in an annual from years before (true story). Consistency keeps the reader from wondering "why is he acting like that? He never acted like that before."  Sure, there's a point at which things become too trivial to worry about--that's what No-Prizes were for! I was thinking of actual events, and yes, character consistency is very important. |
|
|
|
Post by Slam_Bradley on Jan 13, 2015 11:33:35 GMT -5
A good story is the most important, of course, but I think continuity is important too. Otherwise, why bother "following" a character or series? Especially us oldtimers, we've been reading the books for decade, it hurts to have old, beloved stories disregarded. Sure, mistakes happen, but they should do the best they can. I'm amazed that encyclopedic minds like Mark Gruenwald and Kurt Busiek did as well as they did! I do agree, but I would also like to say that I see a difference between "continuity" and "consistency". Over obsessing about continuity can lead to stories that explain why the Sub-Mariner was wearing different shorts during a time-travel sequence in an annual from years before (true story). Consistency keeps the reader from wondering "why is he acting like that? He never acted like that before." This I totally agree with. The internal consistency of a character isn't effected by the niggling little crap that comes in with 70 years of story-telling. But I'll go ahead and echo Badwolf in different way...Why bother "following" a character or series if the story is lousy. Life is too short and there are too many good things to read to read garbage because you once liked a character or series. |
|
|
|
Post by DE Sinclair on Jan 13, 2015 11:47:13 GMT -5
I do agree, but I would also like to say that I see a difference between "continuity" and "consistency". Over obsessing about continuity can lead to stories that explain why the Sub-Mariner was wearing different shorts during a time-travel sequence in an annual from years before (true story). Consistency keeps the reader from wondering "why is he acting like that? He never acted like that before." This I totally agree with. The internal consistency of a character isn't effected by the niggling little crap that comes in with 70 years of story-telling. But I'll go ahead and echo Badwolf in different way...Why bother "following" a character or series if the story is lousy. Life is too short and there are too many good things to read to read garbage because you once liked a character or series. Well said. A hobby is supposed to be fun. Buying crap you're not enjoying isn't fun. |
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Jan 13, 2015 14:50:55 GMT -5
Basically, I blame the comics code. Yeah, comics would definitely be very different today if not for the code. |
|
|
|
Post by berkley on Jan 13, 2015 19:26:04 GMT -5
To comment on the character development question, I agree with Trebor to an extent: character development is intrinsic not to story-telling in general, but to a particular kind of narrative - one that's become so dominant in our culture that we tend to think of it as if it were the only kind. There are lots of stories in which the characters are not psychologically accurate depictions of human beings in their every aspect, but rather in which the characters are representative figures whose nature is set. Myths and legends tend to be like this, for example, and I think Trebor is right when he implies (by referring to them as "these iconic figures") that comics have at least as much in common with that kind of storytelling as they do with the modern novel with its focus on individual character development.
|
|
|
|
Post by Nowhere Man on Jan 15, 2015 8:00:07 GMT -5
That's true, but the distinction doesn't mean that much to me. If the new version is in an entirely new spirit to the previous, I count that as just as important a change as a more literal retcon that explicitly changes something more definable, even if you can reinterpret all the previous stories to fit the one and not the other. Sometimes a clever new retcon of that sort can be more insidious than the more obvious kind because later fans will interpret those older stories to fit the new version without any idea or care that they weren't originally meant to be read that way. Almost anyone who reads a Marvel comic with the Eternals will think of them as the MU version who are just another set of superpowered beings, just as the Celestials are yet another set of cosmic entities. And they'll accept all the later additons and changes - the Dreaming Celestial, the Titan Eternals, the "Fulcrum", Thena's various children, etc, etc. just as if they were part of the concept all along. And if they ever do read the original series, they'll interpret those stories as if all that was part of the entire concept as given. IOW, they'll have lost the entire conceptual basis of the book right from the start - it won't exist for them. That's not good - especially since those readers and quite probably the writers who eventually emerge from that readership will determine how the concept is read and written in the future - so the original idea gets buried ever more deeply. The entire concept of the Eternals and the Celestials has indeed suffered from its integration in the Marvel Universe (even if I thought that Thor #300 was a very good example of a successful retcon). The Celestials as envisioned by Kirby were truly awesome, and remained so for a very long time; but when they started showing up along other "cosmic powers" they lost a lot of their mystique. I believe I even saw Celestial thought balloons in a fairly recent review (from Hickman's FF, maybe?) The Eternals could really (and should have really) remained their own thing, without being spliced into the regular Marvel Universe. Regarding how we view older stories as they get modified by later additions and retcons, I am a bit ambivalent. While I don't mind changes that cause extensive "damage" to an anterior concept if the change is well done and leads to more interesting possibilities than it destroyed (Moore on ST, Miller on DD), I think it often leads to a very cavalier attitude toward a shared universe,s history. I'm sorry, but retcons like Sins past, Original sin and Magneto's ever-changing parental status do very little to enhance my reading enjoyment; they mostly cause headaches (when I bother to read them at all, since some of them -looking at you, One More Day- cause me to permanently lose all interest in a character). I think it can be argued that virtually every specific mythos loses something (yet gains something) by its association with anothers in a shared universe. Daredevil's feats might technically pale in comparison to Thor's, but in context, DD's adventures are just as compelling. Then again, there is something appealing and amusing about a universe where the Punisher and Galactus could technically meet. I do agree that some character universes function better than others in a shared universe. I think it's clear that Kirby's creative impulses took him away from traditional superheroes with New Gods and the Eternals (not to mention The Demon and OMAC) and it can be argued that each would be better served existing apart from the Marvel and DC universes. |
|
|
|
Post by Paste Pot Paul on Jan 15, 2015 15:00:12 GMT -5
At one stage continuity was a good thing, but with over 50 years of conflicting events, or just the sheer quantity of fights each character has had there comes a time when it pulls you out of the story. The idea that Daredevil (well fill in the name of your favourite) has been beaten, stabbed, and shot X amount of times makes me wonder how he walks, let alone runs and fights anymore. How the hell could Batman have ever fought every one of those people AND his JLA appearances AND the Outsiders AND all his guest appearances AND find time to waste as Bruce Wayne ?
For some time I've believed that each character should be published as either an ongoing like Legends of the Dark Knight, with an arc by a different creative team which only has to be consistant within itself, or as a series of mini-series so that creators dont become stale.
I'd rather read a series of good short runs, than 300 continuous issues of mediocrity.
|
|
|
|
Post by wildfire2099 on Jan 15, 2015 16:02:22 GMT -5
At one stage continuity was a good thing, but with over 50 years of conflicting events, or just the sheer quantity of fights each character has had there comes a time when it pulls you out of the story. The idea that Daredevil (well fill in the name of your favourite) has been beaten, stabbed, and shot X amount of times makes me wonder how he walks, let alone runs and fights anymore. How the hell could Batman have ever fought every one of those people AND his JLA appearances AND the Outsiders AND all his guest appearances AND find time to waste as Bruce Wayne ? For some time I've believed that each character should be published as either an ongoing like Legends of the Dark Knight, with an arc by a different creative team which only has to be consistant within itself, or as a series of mini-series so that creators dont become stale. I'd rather read a series of good short runs, than 300 continuous issues of mediocrity. That's essentially what Marvel is doing now... they do a new #1 with every new creative team, and/or every major story line. |
|
Sure, there's a point at which things become too trivial to worry about--that's what No-Prizes were for! I was thinking of actual events, and yes, character consistency is very important.
