Is Continuity Overrated?

[seank]

Given all the hubub over the Secret Invasion and Marvel's recent erasure of 20 years of Spidey, I wonder if continuity is overrated and/or necessary.

 

Golden age comics thrived for decades without continuity. Carl Barks produced dozens or hundreds of great Duck stories without continuity. Archie's been going strong (or strongish) for sixty years without continuity.

 

So, is continuity something we need? Or is it merely something to give the breadstick-armed dateless fanboys something to argue over? If Marvel and DC were to abolish it, would the world end with a great sucking sound?

 

[joe_collector]

I don't think that continuity is needed, but it is irritating when a company purports to maintaining continuity for the fans, while its editor and writers hack it into little pieces.

 

Marvel want to have it both ways.

[mica]

Carl Barks produced dozens or hundreds of great Duck stories without continuity.

Actually in one story the nephews earn a reward for capturing a criminal and then next month they are shown still going through the money bags from the past issue.

Now granted this was a rare occurrence but us comic readers like to point things out.

[hesdeadjim]

Actually I thought the covers were pretty cool. But the writing and the art sometimes... Oh wait, you ain't talking about Neal Adams' company, are you???

[Jayman]

I guess it's only relevant if the title/series has storylines that are based on past events.

That's probably why I was a fan of anthology books, you don't get lost by missing a couple of issues.

[Scrooge]

I'd like to add other examples of great non-continuity or loose continuity series: Conan, Jonah Hex, Spirit, Unknown Soldier, Sgt Rock, ...

 

All of those series have a more or less clearly defined timeline and universe and never got quagmired in continuity issues. This allows for multiple art teams to create stories at the same time and with a good editor , it's never created any continuity issues in their respective series.

[Old Fashion PB and J]

I'd like to add other examples of great non-continuity or loose continuity series: Conan, Jonah Hex, Spirit, Unknown Soldier, Sgt Rock, ...

 

All of those series have a more or less clearly defined timeline and universe and never got quagmired in continuity issues. This allows for multiple art teams to create stories at the same time and with a good editor , it's never created any continuity issues in their respective series.

 

2 of my favorites Jonah Hex and Sgt.Rock. I like the one and done stories.

[gaz973]

I think continuity gives a sense of character growth and overall story development that can be very enjoyable. If readers didn't enjoy the continuity, then no one would care when the writers trample all over it.

Having said that, there are many obvious examples of it being too heavily relied on.

[lizards2]

I think continuity is pretty well rated correctly - I tried incontinuity and the chicks really didn't dig it at all

[lizards2]

I think continuity is pretty well rated correctly - I tried incontinuity and the chicks really didn't dig it at all

 

Not that you guys would know what chicks are, or anything....,

[lizards2]

I think continuity is pretty well rated correctly - I tried incontinuity and the chicks really didn't dig it at all

 

Not that you guys would know what chicks are, or anything....,

 

and, not that there is anything wrong with that........., :shrug:

[sckao]

The Kree-Skrull war found in the Avengers from #89-93-97 in 1971 came about because of events in Fantastic Four #2 which was printed in 1961. Now, it's almost 50 years later from FF #2 and they are attempting to build on the past.

 

Continuity has always been a cool part of comic books...

 

 

[Duffman_Comics]

The Kree-Skrull war found in the Avengers from #89-93-97 in 1971 came about because of events in Fantastic Four #2 which was printed in 1961. Now, it's almost 50 years later from FF #2 and they are attempting to build on the past.

 

Continuity has always been a cool part of comic books...

 

 

Agreed.

 

It can be argued that it is the presence of continuity in comics that ignites the "collecting" wick.

 

No continuity? Then why not collect gag cartoons? I know those collectors exist but there are not too many of them.

 

It is the knowledge that there has been a prior issue that directly impacts with the story in the current issue that makes lots of titles neat.

 

God bless Stan and his multitudinous footnotes.

 

DC's GA stories had a sort of quasi continuity. A new character or concept would be introduced and then almost be frozen in time, changes moving at a glacial pace until the sixties (and Marvel) gave NPP a big wake up call.

 

My 12c

[brasseye]

My personal experiences with continuity came from reading early x-men issues.

 

In my nievity I read most of the first 130 issues, not including the reprints. And there were so many threads left open, I always thought they would be picked up, and tied off at a later time. And in my desire to see things completed, it was something that kept me reading.

But of course it never happened. Forward momentum with the new team meant so much was left unfinished, but in this case the new x-men were so well done it almost didn't matter.

 

I came to realise those early issues I read were spread over years, so many years ago. The idea that someone new would come along and tie off all the loose story lines was impossible. If anything they would grab pieces of stories long past at best.

[rjpb]

In the early 70's when the Kree-Skrull war storyline came out, Marvel's total output was only a decade old and consisted of probably less than 1200 superhero books. Stan Lee and Roy Thomas were pretty much in charge of everything and keeping a coherent continuity alive was still possible, though much of Marvels pre-history (In particular Timely & Atlas Post-war Cap stories) had been thrown out the window. Trying to reconcile that earlier era, made for entertaining reading, but by the mid 70's the cracks had to be showing, with awkward attempts to explain why characters with a history going back to WW2 weren't aging.

 

DC's attempts to reconcile its Golden Age with the Silver Age and beyond were even more convoluted, compounded by each editor setting an entirely different tone to their books during the 60's. Heck, the 1964 "new look" Batman didn't seem to exist in the same universe as the 1963 "old look" Batman.

 

When I was a kid it was still possible to collect a publishers entire "universe" with paper route money. I get the impression that few collectors buy everything in Marvel or DC's output anymore, so I imagine following these continually rewritten continuities becomes increasingly difficult.

 

 

I say let it go - and don't expect a writer to honor anything more than the basic outline of a character's continuity, and to pull from the larger "universe" what he needs to keep a story interesting.

 

[Juswuh]

Worst thing that ever happened to comics.