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Post by spoon on Mar 13, 2022 19:53:51 GMT -5
I've been reading a bunch of Amazing Spider-Man over the past month, and it made think about the ways publisher have handled multiple titles published for the same character (or team): like Amazing Spider-Man, Spectacular Spider-Man, and Web of Spider-Man. For most part, I was able to read Amazing and get the whole storyline without reading the other two titles, and citations to the other titles were fairly limited. There were exceptions, like two Secret Wars II crossovers that jumped between titles (one in ASM & SSM & the other in ASM & WoSM). There was also a couple issues of Web that were important to the end of the Hobgoblin arc in Amazing. There was also an issue of Amazing where Spidey is missing and the focus is on Silver Sable to fit the continuity around Spidey going missing out-of-state in a Web story. It was a little funny, though, when there offhand mentions of the Black Cat, who was a frequent presence in Spectacular, but rarely in Amazing.
But then, I got to Kraven's Last Hunt, which was a different approach. One storyline with the same creative team ran through all three titles over two months. The Afterword to the TPB explained the approach and reaction. Originally, it was planned to run in just Spectacular Spider-Man, but the new editor Jim Salicrup decided it would be better to run it in all the titles to avoid the continuity issues of Spidey buried alive in one title over several months but running around in the other two titles. However, there were critical fan letters from fans who only followed one title and were disappointed they couldn't follow the story without buying another. This include mail subscribers who didn't have an LCS nearby.
What are your thoughts and preferences regarding multi-title heroes? Do you like it when there's a hierarchy with a clear flagship title? Or how about when each title has a different plotline or focus, but without the hierarchy? Or when the titles reference each other a lot, and directly cross over at times? Finally, there's the Kraven's Last Hunt approach, where all it's basically treated as one series published multiple times a month?
Sometimes the A/B/C hierarchy doesn't always hold up. Amazing was clearly supposed to be the A title, but my twin brother was the one who mainly bought Spider-Man comics in my household when I was kid. His focus was on the Conway/Sal Buscema Spectacular run, so that was the Spider title I was most familiar with. And it sounds like a lot of folks here preferred Brave and the Bold at times over Batman and Detective.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 13, 2022 20:52:54 GMT -5
It's an interesting question. I've got to think about it a bit more, but my initial thought is the only reason I've ever liked multiple titles is because it was more content of my favorite characters. When Peter Parker started in the 70's, I wasn't really thinking about what would make it different from ASM (or that ASM was technically the "flagship"), I was just glad to get more Spidey stories. Action/Superman, Batman/Detective, it never really mattered to me much which was which, and if there was an occasional brief crossover of stories, fine, but as long as the continuity was vaguely in the same ballpark, it was all fine.
I guess as the 80's proceeded and stuff like Web was happening as you mentioned, at first I thought it was just more of a good thing. But regular crossovers/related continuity just felt more like dragging storylines out, and kind of a confusing reading order. I get bored with long story arcs, so I guess I'm landing on no real hierarchy, maybe independent approaches just in the sense of "let the respective creative teams do their best" and I'll buy the stuff that appeals to me.
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Post by spoon on Mar 13, 2022 21:14:22 GMT -5
I guess as the 80's proceeded and stuff like Web was happening as you mentioned, at first I thought it was just more of a good thing. But regular crossovers/related continuity just felt more like dragging storylines out, and kind of a confusing reading order. I get bored with long story arcs, so I guess I'm landing on no real hierarchy, maybe independent approaches just in the sense of "let the respective creative teams do their best" and I'll buy the stuff that appeals to me. And "independent approach" can mean different. You pointed out that it can be as open-ended as just letting each creative team come up with their stories. Sometimes there's a mission statement or parameters. There was the period when Peter Parker, the Spectacular focused its Peter Parker content on Peter as a student, so its supporting cast was college folks like Deb Whitman rather than Daily Bugle staff. Weren't there periods when one Bat title would usually have Robin in the stories while another would have more solo adventures. |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 13, 2022 21:30:27 GMT -5
I guess as the 80's proceeded and stuff like Web was happening as you mentioned, at first I thought it was just more of a good thing. But regular crossovers/related continuity just felt more like dragging storylines out, and kind of a confusing reading order. I get bored with long story arcs, so I guess I'm landing on no real hierarchy, maybe independent approaches just in the sense of "let the respective creative teams do their best" and I'll buy the stuff that appeals to me. And "independent approach" can mean different. You pointed out that it can be as open-ended as just letting each creative team come up with their stories. Sometimes there's a mission statement or parameters. There was the period when Peter Parker, the Spectacular focused its Peter Parker content on Peter as a student, so its supporting cast was college folks like Deb Whitman rather than Daily Bugle staff. Weren't there periods when one Bat title would usually have Robin in the stories while another would have more solo adventures. Yeah, absolutely, and that's a good clarifying point. In the case of Peter Parker again using that as an example, while I was aware that was the intended "independent approach", I didn't intentionally pick up the title for that reason. Usually it was a cool villain on the cover that would make me pick up either title at any given point. Probably easier because I was buying off the newsstand each month versus any subscriptions/pull service, so whatever looked good on the "buffet" I grabbed. |
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Post by codystarbuck on Mar 13, 2022 23:34:18 GMT -5
In the days when you had fewer multi-chapter stories, it didn't really matter. Superman had his stories in Superman and Action had similar stories and occasional back-up pieces. I don't know if I would say that Action was more "action-oriented" than Superman, in that age. later, post-Crisis, the titles had different focuses. Superman was the main title, where Byrne was doing his continued revamps, while Adventures of Superman focused more on the broader cast at the Daily Planet, in relation to Superman. Action Comics featured Superman in team-up stories. Then, with Legends, the Superman story continued through all 3 titles, which was fine and worked well. That didn't exactly continue; but, they soon started interlinking more, until we had the consistently linked continuity storylines and the Triangle Era. Man of Steel was added and you could have a 4-part Superman story in one month, which I preferred to carrying it over 4 months.
Detective, traditionally, focused on mysteries and detective work, while Batman was more adventure, particularly in the 70s, when Batman was going all over. Brave and the Bold was team-up stories, with their own continuity, since Bob Haney ignored what happened in other books and vice versa.
Personally, I think the linking, extended stories were massively overdone and the evolution to write titles with trade collections in mind led to a devolution in the storytelling. Stories were padded to fit the length of a trade, timeframes stretched out beyond plot. If you can't write a story that can fit into a single issue, as well as 6 issues, you aren't much of a writer; or, at least, not for monthly storytelling. Not every story calls for an epic. I'd rather have 2 or 3 parters to 6, 8 or 12-part epics, unless the story really calls for it and few really do.
It's probably because I was weaned more on DC and Gold Key, than Marvel, that I tend to prefer more self-contained stories and continuity. Not everything that happens in a story needs to filter over into other titles or down the road, unless there is a good reason for it. Continuity is over-rated; I'll take a good yarn over that any day. It may be why I always thought Bob Haney got a bad rap. I do think more emphasis on tight continuity and crossover, and multi-part stories, was a significant factor in losing the mass audience, in favor of a smaller base of dedicated fans.
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Post by Cei-U! on Mar 14, 2022 6:30:07 GMT -5
In an ideal world, I'd prefer if they didn't publish multiple titles of the same character at all (team books excepted). I'd much rather see that time, money, and talent spent on new characters or concepts. But since it isn't an ideal world, I like it best when the titles feature standalone stories interconnected by ongoing subplotting.
Cei-U!
I summon my druthers!
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Post by majestic on Mar 14, 2022 7:23:48 GMT -5
I feel those of us that started reading off the news stands like the approach that each title stands on its own. I bet readers that started with comic shops and late 80s prefer the interconnected titles.
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Post by tartanphantom on Mar 14, 2022 8:16:01 GMT -5
I feel those of us that started reading off the news stands like the approach that each title stands on its own. I bet readers that started with comic shops and late 80s prefer the interconnected titles.
I agree. I don't have a problem with cross-title connectivity or continuity, but considering that the medium originated as cheap, disposable juvenile fiction, continuity wasn't an issue or priority for a long, long time.
Nevertheless, when a medium's fandom reaches a point that it demands some form of continuity (regardless of medium, i.e. film, comics, novel series, etc), then things get tricky. While I don't mind interconnected titles, I don't necessarily see it as a requirement as some people do. In fact, I enjoy stand-alone stories as much as continuous ones... sometimes more, because I don't have to worried about what happened three years ago back in issue #235 of a different book.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 14, 2022 8:30:48 GMT -5
Personally, I think the linking, extended stories were massively overdone and the evolution to write titles with trade collections in mind led to a devolution in the storytelling. Stories were padded to fit the length of a trade, timeframes stretched out beyond plot. If you can't write a story that can fit into a single issue, as well as 6 issues, you aren't much of a writer; or, at least, not for monthly storytelling. Not every story calls for an epic. I'd rather have 2 or 3 parters to 6, 8 or 12-part epics, unless the story really calls for it and few really do. Totally agree! If a character ‘must’ have 3 or more books, then I’d like each to have their own distinct identity. Back in the day, and codystarbuck has already commented on this, SUPERMAN was one thing, ADVENTURES was another, ACTION COMICS was yet another thing. There were definitely different flavours, ADVENTURES seemed more grounded with semi-believable plots, ACTION and SUPERMAN not so much. I don’t necessarily want everything to tie into everything else. As much as I like the Punisher, did fans crave WAR JOURNAL and WAR ZONE? G.I. JOE: SPECIAL MISSIONS was good, but aren’t all G.I. JOE missions special? Isn’t that kind of the point of the team? I feel wrestling (WWE anyway) and comics have taken parallel paths in many, many respects. One thing I do like, although this may be changing, is how RAW and SMACKDOWN are their own entities, as was NXT. We got the occasional “crossover” such as SURVIVOR SERIES, when wrestlers from each brand fought for supremacy. But for the most part, I think they are distinct entities. There is some overlap, but NXT is (or was) more wrestling-oriented, SD in a way, too, while RAW emphasised the “sports entertainment” aspect more. So with that wrestling analogy in mind, I do wish we could see books for a certain character remain distinct entities. From 1990 to 1992, Marvel UK published THE COMPLETE SPIDER-MAN, which reprinted the 4 core Spidey titles each month. Without that book, I would not have been able to keep up with Spidey’s world:  |
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Post by tarkintino on Mar 14, 2022 9:13:08 GMT -5
I selected "Hierarchy of A/B/C tier titles" thinking of Spider-Man. When Marvel Team-Up launched, it tried to maintain some sense of continuity with the parent title (e.g., MTU #13 had S.H.I.E.L.D. agents accusing Spider-Man of murder--a reference to TASM #122 - #123), but after a time, all of the "Last seen in..." blurbs and attempts to justify Spider-Man's numerous appearances in the same time frame proved an impossible, often unbelievable task, as he would need to be in costume and/or as his civilian side around the clock in order for the character to have that many adventures. For that reason, TASM was the all-important, "real" stories that took priority. If any other titles fit with the parent--fine. If not, they should be disregarded until someone was capable of providing that needed structure / time management of a character.
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Post by badwolf on Mar 14, 2022 10:01:06 GMT -5
Independent titles with just enough continuity so that nothing directly contradicts the other. Continuity details for flavor and a sense of the larger world are fine. I'm not a fan of stories crossing over from one title to another and back again, although it did make sense for "Kraven's Last Hunt." (I don't think I knew the reasoning behind it before.)
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Post by Deleted on Mar 14, 2022 12:59:17 GMT -5
…but after a time, all of the "Last seen in..." blurbs and attempts to justify Spider-Man's numerous appearances in the same time frame proved an impossible, often unbelievable task, as he would need to be in costume and/or as his civilian side around the clock in order for the character to have that many adventures. I have thought about this. With Spidey and others. Spidey had 3 books a month during the MTU era, right? With WEB OF SPIDER-MAN appearing around the same time (hope I have my dates right). Presuming each adventure in each monthly book took 2 days, then 3 times 2 is 6. So that would have given him 6 days in a month to just have adventures, taking many other days off that month.  Not being factious, just thinking out loud. Because I had similar thoughts about Punisher and Wolverine in the 90s. With Wolvie, he did seem to be working around the clock. |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 14, 2022 13:11:14 GMT -5
I loved it when the Superman Family of books had the "numbered Triangles" on the cover. . that told you exactly what order to read them in.
the "Main" stories tended not to flow from title to title (with some exceptions, such as the lead up to Death of Superman), so for the most part, the storylines were contained within the main book it started in. However repurcussions did show up in the other books, and background/subplots flowed thru all titles.
you weren't forced to pick up a title you weren't really reading.. but if you were, you could get all the nuance that followed in the subplots/b-plots.
I read most of the Superman family at the time, so I didn't mind that Action, Superman, Adventures of, Superboy, Supergirl, and occasionally another book dropped in to the "triangle reading order"
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Post by berkley on Mar 14, 2022 13:38:26 GMT -5
It's hard for me to judge because I don't think any of my favourite characters ever had more than one title at a time. It didn't really bother me when they introduced the Spectacular Spider-Man as separate title to Amazing, but it didn't excite me either. But perhaps if thee had been two Black Panther books I would have been more enthusiastic.
OTOH, looking at another favourite, Doctor Strange, I liked what Englehart was doing so much that I probably would have been almost as suspicious of a second Doctor Strange book done by other creators as of a new creative team on the original book: come to think of it, my ideal would have been two Doctor Strange series, both written by Engelhart, but one drawn by Colan and the other by Brunner!
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Post by Deleted on Mar 14, 2022 14:27:03 GMT -5
I loved it when the Superman Family of books had the "numbered Triangles" on the cover. . that told you exactly what order to read them in. the "Main" stories tended not to flow from title to title (with some exceptions, such as the lead up to Death of Superman), so for the most part, the storylines were contained within the main book it started in. However repurcussions did show up in the other books, and background/subplots flowed thru all titles. you weren't forced to pick up a title you weren't really reading.. but if you were, you could get all the nuance that followed in the subplots/b-plots. I read most of the Superman family at the time, so I didn't mind that Action, Superman, Adventures of, Superboy, Supergirl, and occasionally another book dropped in to the "triangle reading order" Did DC drop those triangles, around 2002? Bad decision. If I’d been an American, I’d have written to my congressman to complain about that. |
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