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Robert White
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Joined: 16 April 2004
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| Posted: 30 July 2013 at 2:10am | IP Logged | 1
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All this illustrates why finite productions like Batman: TAS and the Arkham series of video games have such a big advantage over the serial adventures we read in the comics. It's simply impossible to maintain fidelity when you don't have one creator's vision at work, or a small core of like-minded creators, from beginning to end.
This is why as I've gotten older I see how absurd being a continuity nerd really is. If superhero fans could see superheroes as slightly more realistic concepts as compared to the Simpsons or Peanuts, we wouldn't have these problems. We could simply have fun stuff like the Aparo/Haney Brave and the Bold comics. It's always been ironic to me that the "cartoony" stuff like the Simpsons, Peanuts, Bark's Duck comics, etc, is held in such high regard critically, yet it's the superhero comics that are most frequently the object of justified contempt. Someone is clearly not seeing the big picture...
Edited by Robert White on 30 July 2013 at 2:14am
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Robert White
Byrne Robotics Member
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| Posted: 30 July 2013 at 2:13am | IP Logged | 2
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I will say that I do love a good fictional history. It's why I love Tolkien's written so much. But, as I said, this only works in the finite or "limited" sense. If Marvel and DC weren't factories and produced comics as limited series and graphic novels only when a good story or good creative team wanted to tell a good story, history wouldn't be a problem. It could all be maintained with minimum effort. Of course the main plus to all that is that the stories would be better.
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Erin Anna Leach
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| Posted: 30 July 2013 at 8:11am | IP Logged | 3
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Shouldn't the STORY do that? *** Yes. you're right, it should.
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Joe Zhang
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| Posted: 30 July 2013 at 7:14pm | IP Logged | 4
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" If Marvel and DC weren't factories and produced comics as limited series and graphic novels only when a good story or good creative team wanted to tell a good story, history wouldn't be a problem."
The two publishers are already moving towards this, with the "Earth-1" and "Season 1" graphic novels. I have no idea if these are "good" stories, though.
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Jeffrey Rice
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| Posted: 30 July 2013 at 9:22pm | IP Logged | 5
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| The two publishers are already moving towards this, with the "Earth-1" and "Season 1" graphic novels. I have no idea if these are "good" stories, though. | |
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Not so far Joe.
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Robert White
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| Posted: 31 July 2013 at 6:15am | IP Logged | 6
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I think that's the way to go given the current climate. Comics are far too expensive to be produced "disposably" using the old monthly model. Not to mention that the decompression method makes it all absurd. Now, if Marvel and DC sold comics for a buck, like that should be doing, digitally (like Darwyn Cook has stated) I'd be all for keeping things monthly.
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Ed Love
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| Posted: 31 July 2013 at 6:31am | IP Logged | 7
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See, I consider those "Archaeology stories" in that they are going back and re-inventing the wheel, giving us yet another version of the origin story, with their own continuity.
Same problem I had with Jeff Smith's "Monster Society of Evil". He was proud that it was going to be "in continuity" but by the same point, he couldn't be bothered to be beholden to continuity already established. As such, it was bogged down by having to go over the origin again, re-explain all the characters' relationships, revamp their looks, etc. How much greater that book would have been if all he did was sum up the status quo in the first page or two and then get along telling a story featuring a new Monster Society of Evil with slam-bang action.
I tire of creators wanting to tell continuity driven stories while retconning/contradicting chunks of said history, some of which just months old because their continuity driven story actually doesn't fit.
It's what mires the continuity and history, that every creator seems to set out to purposely contradict and retell the past instead of just telling stories with the characters in set status quo. I pretty much know who Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman are, or at least supposed to be. If they'd simply aim for a consistency of characters and of creators to simply not contradict in telling new stories, I think it would be a healthier market. Just as if the movies aimed for the same thing, to try for being consistent as much as the differences in media allow. Instead, you have the nu52 Superman origin and status quo, the Earth 1 graphic novel Superman origin/status quo, a Smallville comic Superman, and the movie Superman. All of them significantly different from each other as they are from the "standard" that more or less existed for decades that can still be found on merchandising.
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Joe Zhang
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| Posted: 31 July 2013 at 8:04am | IP Logged | 8
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I think ideally stories would take place in a bubble of time, bound by the recent past and near future, anchored by a mostly fixed origin story. This prevents really momentous stories like the death of Jean Grey or the marriage of Peter and MJ unless they were to be undone fairly soon. But then again, that's probably the best thing anyways.
Edited by Joe Zhang on 31 July 2013 at 8:09am
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Robert White
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| Posted: 31 July 2013 at 9:19pm | IP Logged | 9
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I don't think it's a fluke that some of JB's best DC/Marvel work in the somewhat recent past has been Galactus vs Darkseid: The Hunger, Batman/Captain America and Generations. Even as a layman, it's easy for me to see how editorial, and corporate, are going to be more hands off with the meddling and injection of differing philosophies with finite series like these.
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