" You can spend a lifetime looking for a wiseman, but guess what, HE'S NOT THERE.
Unless you're in a nativity, then it's one of the three guys in beards. You'll probably find one in about 10 minuites of careful looking, unless it's lunch time, but then you can just grab a sandwich and wait....course the it's not quite so quoteable this way.
Continuity is pretty flexable in comics. Nobody ever questions why Wolverine can be on seven teams and a solo book at one time, or why Spidy is in his black suit in one book and his red one in another, or where the hell Nextwave and Howard The Duck fit in realisticly. Big characters have editorial guidlines on how they should be writen (the Bat Bible of DC probably being the most famous), but there's a lot of bending of the rules allowed if the story demands it. At the end of the day, you're reading these characters for the continuity. If we didn't care about the pre-established history and character traits of Superman then we'd read an original comic. The sense of being able to come with our favorite characters as they journy through a constantly evolving world, is what sets these kind of comic books apart and gives them their mass appeal. _________________ Blog archive 2006
OK i'm gonna throw in my two cents here (cos everyone knows the dollar is worth nothing)
Does events like civil war restrict writters because they must stick to continuity?
No! It makes writters earn their pay!
Events like civil war stop characters from becoming stagnent and dull. Everyone needs a push or motivation to develop depth and story. Whining that you can't do this really awesome story you just thought of because everyone is registared is tough S***. I would have been a fantastic hippy, i missed that and the world moved on, i got over it.
The best thing about events like civil war is it gives writters a new angle to look at things from and lets them tell stories they could never have told before, keeping us entertained.
continuity doesn't restrict the writters, it keeps them to the guidelines of the character and his/her current state of mind. Continuity is for us and them.
I personally feel that continuity should be adhered to wherever possible, if for nothing else than to make sure things make sense. _________________ Pro Massacre Boy!
I think that DC have had the right idea at the moment, although the crisis may have sucked it let things go free. Superman has changed again, he has still died, but most of the past can now be forgotten. So he isnt stuck in the rut of old storylines boggin him down.
Initially I was like 'I loved the 90s Superman, bring him back', now I think, well its the 00s I'll live with it.
However there is a difference between heroes [superman, Spidey, Bats etc.] who have a defined past and team books [X-men in particular].
Without continuity characters like Longshot and Storm just have very basic pasts. You can't retcon out the Australian X-men, then there was now Longshot as an X-man, or Storm in charge, or British Pslocke. As Holds true for many different arcs in the past. But also true for those times, these characters can be seen on TV screens, cause that would be hard to do for so long.
Some continuity needs to be there, some doesent. I dont like it when I see a character say something out of character, but if chris claremont still wrote all the X-men comics it would be bolox. _________________ Itchy... Tasty
Does events like civil war restrict writters because they must stick to continuity?
No! It makes writters earn their pay!....
I want my money to go to writers who tell the best stories possible. Not to watch them turn through hoops to try and keep everything matched up. If I want to watch a contortionist performance I can go to the circus.
Xeall wrote:
The best thing about events like civil war is it gives writters a new angle to look at things from and lets them tell stories they could never have told before, keeping us entertained. ...Continuity is for us and them.
But it should be something you can use if you want to, to tell a good story with. If you have an idea that would make a great story you should be able to write it.
Actually I have been told that a lot of writers have basically ignored it - is that true?
Xeall wrote:
I would have been a fantastic hippy, i missed that and the world moved on, i got over it.
You can still be a hippy if you want to...
Reaper wrote:
I personally feel that continuity should be adhered to wherever possible, if for nothing else than to make sure things make sense.
I'm not saying it should all be chucked out of the window, it works well for some things, but it should not be creative handcuffs.
Longshot wrote:
Some continuity needs to be there, some doesent. I dont like it when I see a character say something out of character, but if chris claremont still wrote all the X-men comics it would be bolox.
Exactly .No doubt some continuities would run for years if there is that much character to develop and that much story to tell and the readers all love it.
Why should a better writer be tied to rubbish ideas from a worse writer that came before? Even if this is not the situation tastes move on culturally.
I think a good example of this (from film , not comics) is what happened with the James Bond franchise. By the last few films, until they rebooted with Casino Royale (which I loved) the character had become ridiculous. That is not to say you can't watch the old films (Connery is still the best, after all) and enjoy them, but you do so in the knowledge that they are "of their time". When they started with - "hmm, James Bond is ladykiller, but oh no, must show safe sex, lets have a bit deal about getting out a condom and he can only have one girl...." it all fell apart. _________________
In terms of the Bond film they've started from scratch and inserting new material into the past, they aren't re-writing whats already happened (a la One More Day). Regardless though it still has to be in keeping with the character or atleast you must be able to see how the character changed to how they are now, an example from Bond would be that in Casino Royale he doesn't sleep with the woman from the hotel. He leaves her to go after the bad guy, at this point Bond didn't use women quite how he does later on in his life but you can see as the film progresses the things that might cause him to eventually do that.
Continuity shouldn't stifle creativity but it has to handcuff it to a certain extent so that you don't get random characterisations of a particular character e.g. Iron Man in the last year, how many different personalities does the tin can have?! _________________ Pro Massacre Boy!
ok CatFang unfortunatly you haven't read new avengers or thunderbolts (yet). these stories would not exist if the writters had ignored continuity. I think there is something to be said for it. If you want to do something the old way do a seperate mini series, like silver surfer 'in thy name', silver surfer is again the herald to glactus if you read the continuity of annialtion, however the writter had an idea outside of that and did a mini.
Continuity is important for characters in my mind _________________ Ninjarific
k CatFang unfortunatly you haven't read new avengers or thunderbolts (yet). these stories would not exist if the writters had ignored continuity
True. I'm not saying writer should never build on what has gone before if it sparks their imagination, though. Many good stories have come from that.
I started thinking about this because I while I enjoyed Civil War I really can't only read it as a stand alone thing, can I? Look how hampered I am just trying to have a chat about comics we're into because I haven't got all this "wider picture" stuff.
I'll clarify what I meant a bit.
I think a character should still be recognizable as the same person. If they were not why would you want to tell a story about them and not someone else?
Of course problems arise this way as well as much of what makes a character is what they have experienced. I don't have an answer to that.
Maybe the problems come from trying to keep an entire universe of characters in sync?
But if you wanted to tell a story about a character doing a particular thing then you shouldn't be hampered because he was "officially"doing something else at that time. I know there can be mini-series and "what ifs" but the very fact that they have to be marked out as such makes them in some way not "proper" in the eyes of many comics readers I have spoken to (although no one here has been so fanatical). I just wonder why that is the case.
To paraphrase the Joker in The Killing Joke "If my characters have pasts I'd prefer them to be multiple choice." _________________
Spider-man is a classic one for being able to do a million things at once, he had 3 comics running at the same time, i believe certain character recently actually mention this one even saying "i always thought there were clones of him, because he appears to be everywhere at once"
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