QUOTE: Not once did I mention Reed and Ben having been in WW2. And -- and this is the important part -- it took no effort. I just wrote my flashbacks AROUND the Second World War, rather than making it integral to them.

Simple, but effective.

Why can't some people see that "imaginary stories" or your approach to WW2 are a much better and simpler approach than cataloguing earths and writing series which 'explain' the multiple earths, timelines, etc.

I began reading SUPERMAN more than a hundred issues into the run. Yet, by the end of the first issue -- heck, by the end of the first STORY -- I knew who everybody was, and what their relationships were. Today, how many American superhero comics can make such a claim?

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That's exactly how it was for me. While there was, by the time I got into comics in the mid 1980s, a lot more continuity based history involved, the way it was hinted at made me WANT to know more, but not NEED to know more about previous stories. You, JB, specifically introduced me to the Fantastic Four and the Hulk, and by the time I'd read my first issues of those two titles, among others by other writers, I understood everything I needed to know about the basics of each character. Did I wish I could go back and read FF from the beginning? Sure, but there was nothing to keep me from reading subsequent issues without doing research.

What other form of entertainment requires its customers to have to do research to understand the stories? I can't think of any. It's ludicrous.  

I recall one current writer -- one who is quite popular with fans cut from the same cloth as he -- stating, when someone said that his work was confusing and did not contain enough exposition and explanation of who the characters were, "If you don't already know this stuff, why are you even reading this?"

***

The motto of a suicidal industry.

Some of my favorite "Imaginary Stories" had the "imagination" as PART of the story: the tales of Dick Grayson as Batman II and the son of Bruce Wayne as Robin II (complete with the Roman numeral "II" underneath their emblems!), which were written by Alfred for his own (and, fortunately, our) amusement. 

No ridiculously overcomplicated, convoluted, contrived machinations, Machiavellian manipulations, or colliding universes necessary; just plain FUN, from start to finish!

Makes current continuity seem just a little more nightmarish, doesn't it?

QUOTE: What other form of entertainment requires its customers to have to do research to understand the stories? I can't think of any. It's ludicrous.

Exactly. A friend of mine wanted to get into some comics a few years ago and wondered if I knew of any limited series or magazine articles he needed to read in order to jump on board a particular title. I couldn't help him and it seems frustrating.

I believe a good comic or TV show should be able to be read without lots of prior knowledge. Watch, say, THE A-TEAM and you'll have a voiceover at the beginning explaining who they are, but you don't need to know their history and previous exploits to enjoy it. With comics, those boxes with a brief origin recap were always handy.

I can think of dozens of comics I picked up without needing to know all the history. By the end of an issue of WORLD'S FINEST COMICS or THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, I knew all I needed to know about the characters and the worlds they inhabited. Sure, I sought back issues in order to read as many adventures as possible, but I didn't need to buy the back issues to understand anything.

QUOTE: No ridiculously overcomplicated, convoluted, contrived machinations, Machiavellian manipulations, or colliding universes necessary; just plain FUN, from start to finish!

Yes, it's that FUN word again, an underrated word if ever there was one in comics.

"Imaginary stories" and the "real stories" were fun. You never knew what you were going to get and the covers really hooked you. One month, you might see Batman and Robin on the cover of their title fighting against wild animals, then you'd pick up a Superman comic another month and see Lex Luthor or Jimmy Olsen flying in a superhero costume. Things like that really hooked me as a reader.

Time and again, I have been asked what would be a good "jumping on point" when I was working on FF, ALPHA FLIGHT,SUPERMAN and others. My answer was "the current issue".

I even encountered people who insisted that back issues must be read before starting on HIDDEN YEARS. The very fact that it was an X-Book was, for some, enough to trigger an assumption that it was hopelessly inaccessible!