DC Relaunching Everything? - Part 6

[Anubis]

And terrible readers.

 

[8Diagrams(WU)]

Continuity is only a burden to terrible writers.

I humbly disagree. The more continuity piles up, the less creative freedom a writer has to work with. Writers come and go, but continuity is sustained by the character/title and it gets heavy as time goes on. Its understandable that some people may hold continuity close to their heart but it doesn't make it less of a burden. Even the ultimate titles and eventually this new dc line will continue to gather continuity weight so its unavoidable.

In my opinion I enjoy continuity the most when an old obscure character returns. I hate it the most when it could prevent me from actually enjoying the subject matter. I tend to not put too much weight on it to get by.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

I tend to think that, so long as writers accept the characters as they are and aren't anxious to go and change a bunch of stuff in their past or write them some way they know doesn't fit their personality, continuity just sits in the background enriching everything else. It only needs a lot of work when people insist on trying to retcon it all to hell to suit their personal whims.

 

[Kurosawa]

Unfortunately, the truth is that Batman has come out of this reboot worse off than anyone--because unlike characters who got ground-up reboots (for better or worse), his history just no longer makes any damn sense.

Every Robin has been packed into the last five years (including a year where Bruce was missing and Dick, who is twenty-one, was Batman)--and if you don't know what that means, it means almost every in continuity story happened in the last five years, too.

They say Batman has been operating for years in secret, but basically the only significant story we can attribute to that time is Year One. If the rise of supercrime and the debut of Robin coincide with the five year timeline, that basically means that for years Batman was beating up thugs and nothing else--and then his entire relevant history occurred in a five year timespan.

In five years he's had his back broken and recovered, he's been replaced twice, he took on Dick, Dick left, he met Jason, Jason died, he met Tim, Tim left, he met Barbara, Barbara was shot, he met Cassandra, Cassandra left, he met Stephanie, Stephanie left, Gotham has been destroyed, sat as a No Man's Land for a year, was rebuilt, he's left the city for a Year (OYL, which must still be in continuity if Morrison's work is supposed to remain intact), he's gone missing for a year (ROBW)... and let's not even get started on when, exactly, Bruce fathered Damian.

It's a huge mess, and nothing makes sense any more. The relationships between the characters have been affected (Batman and Catwoman being the obvious), the way history falls together is now impossible to reconcile, and in the end, even though they claim that Batman's history was mostly unchanged, it's probably safer to assume that your favourite stories either didn't happen, or happened completely differently. Hell, I bet No Man's Land didn't even happen, which requires and entirely new origin for a character like Cassandra Cain.

It's the DC version of Marvel's terrible "no more marriage" retcon. It's just breaks continuity.

I think that, as a whole, the individual titles in this reboot have been extremely successful--but when it comes to the structure of the universe as a whole, they have really dropped the ball. Everything is broken because they either can't decide or won't tell us exactly what's different and what's not, or because they want to have their cake and eat it too.

It shocks me that Geoff Johns, who is a master of retcons, would allow something so sloppy to happen. They need to rectify this with a set of stories to establish what's still in continuity for characters like Batman, Green Lantern, and Superman--and truthfully, I'm not optimistic, because any story that tries to compress and retell history is sure to be inferior to the pre-Flashpoint original.

Johns doesn't know jack about continuity and his retcons amount to him doing whatever the hell he wants with characters. It's like how people think he's some sort of Silver Age fanboy-his Hal Jordan is nothing, NOTHING like John Broome's Hal Jordan. Geoff Johns couldn't write a John Broome science fiction plot heavy story if his life depended on it. He doesn't like Hal or Barry, he likes the characters he himself created and stuck their names and images on. He likes his Hal and Barry. All Post-Crisis continuity is a joke and should be treated as such.

 

[Anubis]

I humbly disagree. The more continuity piles up, the less creative freedom a writer has to work with. Writers come and go, but continuity is sustained by the character/title and it gets heavy as time goes on. Its understandable that some people may hold continuity close to their heart but it doesn't make it less of a burden. Even the ultimate titles and eventually this new dc line will continue to gather continuity weight so its unavoidable.

In my opinion I enjoy continuity the most when an old obscure character returns. I hate it the most when it could prevent me from actually enjoying the subject matter. I tend to not put too much weight on it to get by.

I tend to think that, so long as writers accept the characters as they are and aren't anxious to go and change a bunch of stuff in their past or write them some way they know doesn't fit their personality, continuity just sits in the background enriching everything else. It only needs a lot of work when people insist on trying to retcon it all to hell to suit their personal whims.

^This.

 

[Spike_x1]

I was thinking more along the lines of the main ones.

Honestly, Wally wasn't doing s**t that whole time. He shoulda at least been in JLA.

Oh. I was thinking along the same lines as SuperFerret when I didn't include Wally or Kyle in my list.

But if it's just Barry and Hal who are part of the Big 7 that are off limits, and not just "Flash" and "Green Lantern" in general, then here's my updated roster:

Power Girl
Nightwing
Green Arrow
Steel
Plastic Man
Captain Marvel
Zatanna
Hawkman
The Flash (Wally West)
Green Lantern (Kyle Rayner)

I'd like to add another brainy team member, instead of heaping all the responsibilities of explaining superscience-based threats onto Steel's shoulders, but I'm unaware of what the Atom's status was at the time. And where's Ted Kord when you need him?

I'd've given the Flash and GL spots to them over Hal and Barry anyway.

 

[SuperFerret]

What I'm talking about is the story. If you break continuity you've broken the ongoing narrative.

You're still leaning on the time constraints too hard. As far as I'm concerned, something happened in the past, and unless it's directly referenced, it's a vague something.

And at this point, there is no ongoing narrative to be broken. This is the beginning of what is expected to be one. Sure, nobody wants their favorite stories or characters to be hand-waved away, but it happens, and I, for one, don't want to be some old whiner who *****es and moans about how comics are just so damn terrible than they were "back when they were good", because all in all, it's the same **** on a different day, with some good stuff and some bad stuff.

 

[Mystirious]

I've just stopped worrying about continuity because trying to work out the timeline is confuzzling and headache causing

As long as the characters and the stories are written the way i like right now I'm going to try not to worry about continuity and what is or isn't canon at the moment

 

[Mystirious]

That said i still want characterization and storytelling to make sense and I don't want zero continuity

So stuff like Starfire or Savant's awful awful characterisation still annoys me

 

[CConn]

I think the less we worry about continuity the better...and I mean that for the writers as much as us readers. As Corp seals, continuity can simply be there to enrich the characters. And generally, as long as you are respectful to the characters, I don't think it's that awful if a writer gets their timelines mixed up here or there.

But everyone is SO concerned about everything fitting perfectly into place, fans endlessly lament that Batman should be 49 years old by now, and writers start to worry about similarly foolish things.

And where does that obsessing always take us? To retcons and reboots and other half-assed reasons to try and continue to make characters viable. When all it ever does is convolute them even more.

 

[jaymes_e06]

^That is the most sense I've heard form this thread in like five pages.

 

[8Diagrams(WU)]

I think the less we worry about continuity the better...and I mean that for the writers as much as us readers. As Corp seals, continuity can simply be there to enrich the characters. And generally, as long as you are respectful to the characters, I don't think it's that awful if a writer gets their timelines mixed up here or there.

But everyone is SO concerned about everything fitting perfectly into place, fans endlessly lament that Batman should be 49 years old by now, and writers start to worry about similarly foolish things.

And where does that obsessing always take us? To retcons and reboots and other half-assed reasons to try and continue to make characters viable. When all it ever does is convolute them even more.

Thats just basically it. Continuity does have its virtue of giving more detail to a character or story but it also creates an ongoing and growing set of very limiting rules that the writer has to work around. While some continuity can be important to a story, a vast majority of it is also useless as the basics of the character are what is important (in most cases are what is known by any reader before picking up the book), not what Batman did in panel 2 of page 3 in batman 178 decades ago.

We have seen many reboots, relaunches, etc to deal with this massive continuity that exists. It certainly isnt an element that creators think its very easy to deal with and the conclusion is to wash away some of it from time to time to be able to tell fresh stories is nessesary. We will continue to see this for the rest of comics history.

Worrying about continuity basically limits the enjoyment of anything significantly and its one of the main reasons there is a negative stigma towards comic fans and their attention for continuity detail. I understand there are people that care about detail to the extreme, and thats ok, but I personally just go with it instead of getting angry at it to maximize the enjoyment value of my investment.

 

[Mystirious]

Yep agree with this

Continuity is important in some ways but its not good to obsess about it. A few minor continuity errors is not a big deal.

Its only when characters are written horribly out of character or stories are awfully retconned that continuity errors become a serious problem

 

[CConn]

And there are times when having a strong sense of continuity can greatly enrich a story. For instance, I'm a big fan of about 90% of the Green Arrow run that started with Kevin Smith's relaunch.

That's a great example of how to use continuity to your own benefit. I had never read any GA before that run, and despite the run incorporating a ton of aspects from GA's past, they introduced it as if it was brand new.

Like how Lucas introduced Darth Vader in A New Hope. You don't need to know everything about the character, you just need to get the sense that they're important and know how they fit into the larger story.

The other thing they did really well with that series was they kept a high level of continuity between writers. From Smith, to Meltzer, to Winick...it all felt like one cohesive package.

That's what a "relaunch" should be. And inclusion of past continuity reintroduced to a new audience and made fresh - not through drastically changing anything - but by simply giving it a strong sense of purpose.

 

[Mystirious]

Agreed

 

[Llama_Shepherd]

While I agree that continuity should be kept looser, the problem with DCnU is that it is FUBAR.

 

[Mystirious]

It's true that in this new timeline past major events must have happened in a ludicrously short space of time but other than that I'm enjoying the majority of the stuff thats come out since the relaunch

 

[Franklin Richards]

Walt Simonson is doing one shot of the Legion. Nice! Ultra Boy looks like Thor. Heh.

 

[Saint]

You're still leaning on the time constraints too hard. As far as I'm concerned, something happened in the past, and unless it's directly referenced, it's a vague something. And at this point, there is no ongoing narrative to be broken.

Of course there is. Everything that happened in the past is a part of the narrative; for every relationship that exists, the past of that relationship is part of the narrative, for every character that exists, the past of that character is part of the narrative. Every reference, direct or implied, to such history is part of the narrative. Prominent examples include everything I referenced in my original post, such as the history of the four Robins and the three Batgirls known to have served, how they fit into the five year timeline we know they adhere to, Damian's birth, events like Knightfall, Batman's 52-sabbatical, the period he spent lost in the timeline--all events we know to have occurred because DC has said as much or because the new 52 has demonstrated as much.

The current combination of what DC has changed and what it hasn't changed, what it's telling us is in continuity and what isn't, creates a lot of logical problems, and a lot of incongruities. The great thing about comics is that continuity problems are very fixable, but until DC gets to cleaning up it's timeline, problems they will remain.

Or, to put the problem another way: I'm interested in the history of Batman, and "Eh, something happened, nevermind what" doesn't really cut it for me.

This is the beginning of what is expected to be one. Sure, nobody wants their favorite stories or characters to be hand-waved away, but it happens, and I, for one, don't want to be some old whiner who *****es and moans about how comics are just so damn terrible than they were "back when they were good", because all in all, it's the same **** on a different day, with some good stuff and some bad stuff.

This doesn't seem to have anything to do with what I'm saying.

 

[Saint]

And there are times when having a strong sense of continuity can greatly enrich a story. For instance, I'm a big fan of about 90% of the Green Arrow run that started with Kevin Smith's relaunch.

Agreed.

Continuity is the difference between an episode of The Simpsons and an episode of, say, Battlestar Galactica (let's sidestep the fact that that show was not always well-planned--and the fact that they're different genres, since both truths are incidental to my point). A few people have said it "limits" writers, but that's crap--it may prevent you from telling one kind of story, but it allows you to tell an entirely different kind of long-form story.

If you want a book where you don't have to worry about what happened one or two or two hundred issues ago, that's entirely your business, and I fully support your desire to read that book--but the story I'm buying comics for doesn't end on page 32 every month.

When somebody says I should "Just read the stories," I always have to scratch my head. I am reading the story. The story I'm reading, I started reading twenty years ago. It's the story of Batman. What about that is difficult to understand?

 

[CConn]

But the thing is, when continuity is used correctly, don't have to worry about what happened 200 issues ago. It can still be a self contained story AND reference past history.

Thats why it's really quite dumb to ever totally forget continuity.

 

[moraldeficiency]

I think the issue that most people have with continuity is not that author's don't reference it or ignore it, it's when they say or do something that utterly contradicts what the character have done in the past. It isn't that everything has to be mentioned but when a statement or act actively takes you out of the story and has you going, "wait a minute, why would they say that when ten, twenty, fifty issues ago a story I read completely contradicts that?" Some is nitpicking and that I don't care for but when something just flies against the face of what's happened in a story you've read you feel a bit cheated. Most of this could be resolved by a good editor and minor corrections so it just feels lazy.

A good example (and yes I'll use bendis) when the hood took power he put together a group of villains many of whom actively hated each other. All that would have been needed was just to swap in other characters to fix this. It isn't like any of those guys were necessary to the story or weren't interchangeable so why not nip that in the bud?

 

[hippie_hunter]

So apparently George Perez left Superman because he wanted to leave by issue #6 and has an upcoming project with DC. Awesome.

 

[SuperFerret]

Of course there is. Everything that happened in the past is a part of the narrative; for every relationship that exists, the past of that relationship is part of the narrative, for every character that exists, the past of that character is part of the narrative. Every reference, direct or implied, to such history is part of the narrative. Prominent examples include everything I referenced in my original post, such as the history of the four Robins and the three Batgirls known to have served, how they fit into the five year timeline we know they adhere to, Damian's birth, events like Knightfall, Batman's 52-sabbatical, the period he spent lost in the timeline--all events we know to have occurred because DC has said as much or because the new 52 has demonstrated as much.

The current combination of what DC has changed and what it hasn't changed, what it's telling us is in continuity and what isn't, creates a lot of logical problems, and a lot of incongruities. The great thing about comics is that continuity problems are very fixable, but until DC gets to cleaning up it's timeline, problems they will remain.

Or, to put the problem another way: I'm interested in the history of Batman, and "Eh, something happened, nevermind what" doesn't really cut it for me.

You seem to be pretty screwed then. Sorry.

This doesn't seem to have anything to do with what I'm saying.

Honestly it was more pointed to Kurosawa and the other guys who voice that opinion like it's gospel.

 

[Mystirious]

So apparently George Perez left Superman because he wanted to leave by issue #6 and has an upcoming project with DC. Awesome.

That's pretty neat I'll be interested to find out what he's working on