What's wrong with comics? Continuity?

[Jeffro.]

This would allow the characters to stay young, aging very slowly, while allowing the writing to remain relevant, as styles of speech, manners of clothes, changes in society can be addressed a little at a time. Basically keeping the characters aging very slowly, while the world around them transforms as time goes by.

This is exactly what I think doesn't work. And I think shared universes are another huge problem. All 50+ titles offered by a publisher looking the same is not a good thing in my opinion.

 

Saying it can't work is incorrect. It worked for Marvel from the early 60's into the 90s. Why can't it work now?

60's-90's is a 30 year time span. That's a stretch, but not too much of a stretch. Marvel was mostly new characters, or recently rebooted and reintroduced characters. I'm not talking rebooted from last month, but from the 50's.

 

DC is publishing monthly installments of characters who have been in print since the 1930's. It doesn't quite work as well over the course of 80 years as it does the course of 30 years. Characters just plain get stale. A guy running around in red and blue gauntlets, knee high boots, briefs, and a cape was probably awesome to ten year olds during the depression. Today it just doesn't look right. And I don't even know if Marvel was doing it all that well in the 80's and 90's. Look at how transformed some characters were over the course of just a few years. Different costumes, different personalities, Spiderman went from geek to bodybuilder during that period and got that sleek black totally 80's alien costume. That was my suggestion, that if characters who first saw print in the 30's had concluded their stories in the 50's-60's it probably could have ended on a perfect note.

 

I don't think anyone is saying that continuity can be done seamlessly. There are always going to be variations and straying from the formula. However, in a more general way, the universe can be held together, creating a shared universe, instead of some writers and/or editors going off on their own and just creating what is essentially multiple one-off storylines that cannot be tied together with what is going on in other parts of the universe. You just need a strong editorial direction at the top. Sadly, I'm not sure that approach works anymore in comics.

[TupennyConan]

Continuity is what's wrong with continuity.

 

Some inconsistencies wouldn't hurt.

[Dale Roberts]

Continuity is what's wrong with continuity.

 

Some inconsistencies wouldn't hurt.

 

There is some truth here. Some inconsistencies don't hurt, however, stuff like we talked about earlier with the Spider-man titles is crazy, abberational type stuff that just doesn't seem to fit anywhere.

 

Jeff is right. You need strong editorial control at the top, and obviously, Quesada is not that person, since almost all of this ridiculousness has occurred under his watch.

 

Would be so nice if someone with more than half a brain would take over Marvel Comics publishing line.