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Post by wildfire2099 on Apr 24, 2015 22:10:09 GMT -5
So, just a few minutes after reading on CBR how Axil Alonso thinks continuity is very important, I read that Bendis X-Men train wreck.
Worse, in Superior Iron Man, we get yet another back up Tony Stark that Tony didn't know about. Worse yet, it specifically states that it's from 8 years ago.... right after Tony Fought the Black Lama (around Iron Man #50)... so Iron Man #50 is only 8 years ago??!?!? Come on, it was bad enough when they said a couple years back the entire MU was about 13 years long... if Iron Man #50 is only 8 years ago, that's giving the entire MU history 10 years tops... *sigh*
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Post by hondobrode on Apr 24, 2015 22:31:33 GMT -5
I don't know the Axel can say that with a straight face.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 25, 2015 7:36:42 GMT -5
Yeah, Marvel's continuity is not broken at all.
HA!
And this is why we keep getting mostly crappy current books.
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Post by The Captain on Apr 25, 2015 9:41:58 GMT -5
According to Bendis, continuity is unimportant and should be ignored if it keeps the writer from writing a good story.
Hopefully one day, someone at Marvel will prove him right, but I'm losing faith rapidly that will ever happen. More often than not, they ignore continuity while churning out garbage like the crapfest that is "Superior Iron Man", which is one of the few books I've ever dropped mid-series, a feat that many of you know is dang near impossible for me and my completionist tendencies.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 25, 2015 11:40:09 GMT -5
According to Bendis, continuity is unimportant and should be ignored if it keeps the writer from writing horrible fanfic. There I fixed that for you.  |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 25, 2015 14:24:19 GMT -5
So, just a few minutes after reading on CBR how Axil Alonso thinks continuity is very important, I read that Bendis X-Men train wreck. Worse, in Superior Iron Man, we get yet another back up Tony Stark that Tony didn't know about. Worse yet, it specifically states that it's from 8 years ago.... right after Tony Fought the Black Lama (around Iron Man #50)... so Iron Man #50 is only 8 years ago??!?!? Come on, it was bad enough when they said a couple years back the entire MU was about 13 years long... if Iron Man #50 is only 8 years ago, that's giving the entire MU history 10 years tops... *sigh* Marvel has been operating on the idea all of the MU has been about 10-15 years and the starting point keeps sliding forward in time for over two decades now, that's not an Alonso, Bendis, or Architects thing, it came about during the Heroes Reborn/Heroes Return era, the latter of which everyone lauds and was hailed as an ingenious solution to the problem by fandom at the time. However, it is essentially unworkable if you want to maintain a strict continuity as moving things forward makes many stories nonsensical if they are tied to real world events that do not have a parallel in later times. For every replacing Vietnam with Afghanistan trick that works, there are hundreds that don't. Having a stock set of characters that are semi-permanent in the universe, having the stories set in real time, and having an ongoing continuity that covers all of their existence in publishing are mutually exclusive propositions. You can't even really have 2 of the 3, so which one should Marvel choose? Which should they abandon? Which one would satisfy everyone? I don't think any one choice will satisfy all of their customer base, so they have to do what they see best to keep the ball moving forward and the revenues coming in. Don't like it, don't buy it. Complain all you want, but dollars speak louder than words, and as long as the revenue keeps coming in, nothing is going to change, and as long as you have a fanbase who keeps buying despite complaining about it, the revenue keeps rolling in. And the people who keep buying, some of whom actually like what Marvel is doing, provide enough revenue for them to keep on keeping on. If/when the revenues stream dries up (as it did in the 90s with the bankruptcy) then you will see changes enacted. Until then, not so much, and since overall sales are growing (albeit slowly) over what they were 5-10 years ago), they have zero incentive to change currently. -M |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Apr 25, 2015 18:01:14 GMT -5
IMO, they had no choice but to do heroes reborn/return... they had completely broken the Avengers (Tony Stark evil, Wasp an actual Wasp, Cap dying, etc.) and FF was on life support (though really, it never recovered). I agree all we can do is vote with dollars, but that doesn't mean I can't voice my distress Besides.. 15 years (which is what I last heard.. I think in an Dan Slott interview).. is alot different from 10. |
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Apr 25, 2015 18:43:01 GMT -5
Oh the rant. The rant I'd love to rant.
Ah well. MRP said a lot of it.
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Post by spoon on Apr 25, 2015 19:29:43 GMT -5
So, just a few minutes after reading on CBR how Axil Alonso thinks continuity is very important, I read that Bendis X-Men train wreck. Worse, in Superior Iron Man, we get yet another back up Tony Stark that Tony didn't know about. Worse yet, it specifically states that it's from 8 years ago.... right after Tony Fought the Black Lama (around Iron Man #50)... so Iron Man #50 is only 8 years ago??!?!? Come on, it was bad enough when they said a couple years back the entire MU was about 13 years long... if Iron Man #50 is only 8 years ago, that's giving the entire MU history 10 years tops... *sigh* Marvel has been operating on the idea all of the MU has been about 10-15 years and the starting point keeps sliding forward in time for over two decades now, that's not an Alonso, Bendis, or Architects thing, it came about during the Heroes Reborn/Heroes Return era, the latter of which everyone lauds and was hailed as an ingenious solution to the problem by fandom at the time. However, it is essentially unworkable if you want to maintain a strict continuity as moving things forward makes many stories nonsensical if they are tied to real world events that do not have a parallel in later times. For every replacing Vietnam with Afghanistan trick that works, there are hundreds that don't. Having a stock set of characters that are semi-permanent in the universe, having the stories set in real time, and having an ongoing continuity that covers all of their existence in publishing are mutually exclusive propositions. You can't even really have 2 of the 3, so which one should Marvel choose? Yup. Having a sliding history that keeps pulling the starting date of the heroes careers forward is necessity if you want to keep using the same heroes. If you Marvel's heroes aged in real time, any non-immortal Silver Age hero would be dead or retired by now. Compare them to athletes. Roger Maris had his famous 61 home run season in 1961, the same year Fantastic Four was launched. He retired in 1968, the year Silver Surfer first solo series premiered. He died 30 years ago in 1985. If they age in real-time, you can't keep the crimefighters and adventurers of the 60s or even the 90s. |
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Post by Cei-U! on Apr 25, 2015 19:43:56 GMT -5
A sliding history is only necessary because a bunch of professional fanboys can't or won't fathom the characters being ageless/timeless like their newspaper strip brethren while the world around them progresses in real time. When was the last time you heard someone bitching because Dick Tracy isn't in his hundreds or the kids in Family Circus grandparents? No wonder so much of contemporary Marvel blows when it's in the hands of such constipated imaginations!
Cei-U!
Pardon me for ranting!
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Post by Spike-X on Apr 25, 2015 19:51:32 GMT -5
So, just a few minutes after reading on CBR how Axil Alonso thinks continuity is very important, I read that Bendis X-Men train wreck. Worse, in Superior Iron Man, we get yet another back up Tony Stark that Tony didn't know about. Worse yet, it specifically states that it's from 8 years ago.... right after Tony Fought the Black Lama (around Iron Man #50)... so Iron Man #50 is only 8 years ago??!?!? Come on, it was bad enough when they said a couple years back the entire MU was about 13 years long... if Iron Man #50 is only 8 years ago, that's giving the entire MU history 10 years tops... *sigh* Whaddya want? Iron Man's origin to still be set in the Vietnam war, in which case Tony Stark would be around eighty years old by now? Yeah, that works. The sliding time scale doesn't always work perfectly, but it's the best solution you're gonna get to explain how characters created fifty years ago aren't all in a retirement home by now. When these characters were first created, with a lot of their origins tied in to current events at the time (Vietnam War, the Space Race), I'm sure Stan, Jack, et al never dreamed that a: their characters' stories would still be going in fifty years, and b: still being read by some of the same fans. It's a fictional reality, sometimes some trimming and pruning needs to be done or the whole thing would collapse under its own weight. Continuity is a useful storytelling tool, but it should be there to serve the stories, not the other way around. |
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Post by thwhtguardian on Apr 25, 2015 20:28:13 GMT -5
So, just a few minutes after reading on CBR how Axil Alonso thinks continuity is very important, I read that Bendis X-Men train wreck. Worse, in Superior Iron Man, we get yet another back up Tony Stark that Tony didn't know about. Worse yet, it specifically states that it's from 8 years ago.... right after Tony Fought the Black Lama (around Iron Man #50)... so Iron Man #50 is only 8 years ago??!?!? Come on, it was bad enough when they said a couple years back the entire MU was about 13 years long... if Iron Man #50 is only 8 years ago, that's giving the entire MU history 10 years tops... *sigh* Whaddya want? Iron Man's origin to still be set in the Vietnam war, in which case Tony Stark would be around eighty years old by now? Yeah, that works. The sliding time scale doesn't always work perfectly, but it's the best solution you're gonna get to explain how characters created fifty years ago aren't all in a retirement home by now. When these characters were first created, with a lot of their origins tied in to current events at the time (Vietnam War, the Space Race), I'm sure Stan, Jack, et al never dreamed that a: their characters' stories would still be going in fifty years, and b: still being read by some of the same fans. It's a fictional reality, sometimes some trimming and pruning needs to be done or the whole thing would collapse under its own weight. Continuity is a useful storytelling tool, but it should be there to serve the stories, not the other way around. I don't think he's railing against the concept of the sliding time line, just the compression we often see that goes with it. |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Apr 25, 2015 21:45:48 GMT -5
What do I personally want? I'd like the Marvel universe to progress and develop as a cohesive whole, which it stopped doing quite a long time ago. I'd be totally fine with the characters being ageless/timeless, as long as things changed and grew over time. I'd prefer if they let the character have a career grow old, perhaps die, and then move on, but I know that's not really an option. I'd be happy to have Tony Stark be 50 years old... in fact, I think that would make for some great stories. There are TONS of great characters that don't get used because Marvel can't move on... how about an X-Men team with Iceman in the Professor X role, because Cyclops really DID retire to Alaska and has 5 grandkids? It's the one thing where I wish American comics would learn from Japan.
But that wasn't even my point... my point is not sliding time forward, it's compressing it further and further, even as more events happens. It's just getting silly. If you want to have ageless and timeless characters, stop making time references!
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Post by Spike-X on Apr 25, 2015 22:00:36 GMT -5
If they insist on telling stories about the same characters forever, there's never going to be a perfect solution. Luckily, it's all fiction, so we can pick and choose for ourselves what 'counts' or not.
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Post by hondobrode on Apr 26, 2015 0:00:24 GMT -5
Valiant hasn't been around as long, but there's no sliding time scale there.
Sometimes smaller is better.
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