BAB Classic - Continuity, Part Three: When You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling

This post was originally published on February 26, 2010.

Doug: Last chance to weigh in on continuity, O Faithful Followers. Our little triad of posts on this love/hate topic is drawing to a close. To recap -- in Part One, Karen and I just gave some general venom toward events over the course of the life of the Amazing Spider-Man. In Part Two, we examined the fall-out from DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths. Today we'll wind down with a look at a couple of things that have been bugging Doug and Karen, and then close things out with some suggestions of very good out-of-continuity stories.
Doug: What happens when you don't like continuity for a character? How do you feel when a good guy you really like just seems to get treated like dirt? Now I know in the real world we're not all alike, that some of us have advantages over others, more money, better-looking spouses -- whatever. And I'd even submit that there might be some among us who have it so rough they just feel like born losers. But when it's a fave comic do-gooder and the poor guy gets put through the wringer for, oh, almost 50 years, at some point continuity could maybe be ignored and the guy could get a fresh start. I'm talking about Dr. Henry Pym and the burden he's borne from the panels to the right.

Doug: I am not always a big fan of retcons, but if ever a guy needed one it's Hank Pym. I don't know where longtime Avengers fans rank Pym's court martial in terms of "great stories" -- while I have a complete run of the title, the DVD-ROM, numerous trades, etc., I've never read that story. I was out of comics during the years that was on the newstands and have just never gone back to read it. And you know why? I don't want to. Hank had been a long-tortured soul by many writers, starting with Stan Lee and moving to Roy Thomas and then to Steve Englehart and Jim Shooter. In my Pym essay that is supposed to be a part of Van Plexico's Assembled 3, I deal with these issues. Writers after the infamous "slap" have chosen to dwell on that singular incident, unsavory as it may be, and pigeonhole Hank Pym as some neurotic case. Even in the few moments where he's been close to redemption, another telling of his adventures slides him back into the muck. Maybe someday the guy will be made a hero again.

Karen: I've warmed up to Pym the last few years. I had no particular interest in him as a kid, and when the infamous slap (looks like more of a karate chop in that image!) occurred, I drank the kool-aid like many others and thought, "What a bum!" But as I've had time to go back and read more stories with Pym I have grown to appreciate him, and really wish that Shooter hadn't decided to go that route with him.

Karen: As I understand it, Shooter wanted to have a long-standing hero become a villain, and he chose Pym as his tool. Of course, we'd see this happen again with Phoenix over in X-Men. I think I've even read that Shooter liked the idea of her becoming a regular villain for the team, but this wasn't at all what Claremont wanted. But I digress.

Karen: I think writer Steve Englehart did a lot to try to redeem Pym in West Coast Avengers. When I contacted Englehart about one of the articles I was working on, he told me that he had pitched a Hank Pym series to Marvel which would take Pym from loser to a top hero. It was going to be called "A-Man", as in Ant-Man but also "the story of a man". I sure wish we'd had a chance to see that, instead of all the derogatory stuff that has been published. I think Brian Bendis has really propagated this idea that the super-hero community looks on Pym as a joke.

Doug: My biggest complaint is perhaps how Hank was treated by Mark Millar in The Ultimates. Millar had a tabula rasa and went with the old "crazy Hank" stereotypes that had come before in the 616 universe. Nothing new or redeeming; shoot, more brutal would be a more accurate description.

Karen: That depiction of Hank was one of the reasons I couldn't buy Ultimates for a long while. I really hated that; as it seemed to seep over into the regular universe, at least in the sense that everyone seemed to despise him.

Karen: You know, this is a small complaint, but another character that I wish they hadn't messed with is the Black Panther. We've got this whole back story now that he joined the Avengers so he could spy on them. This just really bothers me. The Panther was always a noble hero, just as virtuous as Captain America. But recently he's been transformed into Marvel's Batman - scheming, never trusting anyone, covered in gadgets. While I appreciate the elevated status he seems to be enjoying, I don't like the fundamental changes to his character. There was a way to increase his standing in the Marvel Universe without completely making him a different person.
Doug: Agreed. The Silver Age idea that Wakanda was this technological wonder of a country that controlled an infinitely important resource had so many story possibilities. For example, one complaint I'd seen about the Panther was that if he was such a benevolent ruler, why didn't Wakanda help the rest of Africa? Many possibilities there, and some poignant stories could be written even today with all of the unrest on that continent involving Sudan, Congo, etc. All written without him being a jerk, that is.

Doug: Shifting gears, we'd like to recommend some fine out-of-continuity stories that can just be enjoyed without any fear of baggage.

1. Justice (DC) -- Alex Ross paintings over Doug Braithwite pencils. Doesn't get too much better than that. Throw in words from Ross's buddy Jim Krueger and a bevy of Silver Age/Bronze Age good guys and bad guys, and it's a really, really fun ride. Ross provides cameos from just about everyone, including the Teen Titans and the Metal Men. While the premise of the story may not be entirely original, the pretty pictures more than make up for it.


2. Superman: Secret Identity (DC) -- Kurt Busiek and Stuart Immonen made a nice story about a real guy named Clark Kent who suddenly discovers that he has the powers of the fictional Superman. It's a quaint tale that gave me a smile as I read it. A feel good story that's part superhero yarn, part slice-of-life.


3. Kingdom Come (DC) -- As we discussed last time, this one may no longer be considered "out of continuity", and that's a shame. This apocalyptic story, from Mark Waid and Alex Ross, is very, very good. The panel where Captain Marvel shows up to combat the Man of Steel is among the finest splash pages ever crafted, in my opinion. This mini-series is one I return to often.


4. Hulk : Future Imperfect (Marvel): I don't think this is in continuity -at least, I hope it's not! Modern Hulk vs. Future Hulk, who happens to be ruling what's left of Earth. Great Perez art, a well-written script by Peter David, and a story that makes it easy to understand why the heroes would feel the need to shoot the Hulk off into space.
5. Superboy's Legion (DC): The Legion in their classic Silver Age costumes, the Fatal Five, and Alan Davis on the artwork -- what's not to like?

BAB Classic - Continuity, Part Two: It Takes a Crisis... or Does It?

This post was originally published on February 10, 2010. 

Doug: Since we had such a nice conversation on part one of this old series, why not finish it up this weekend? Enjoy.



Doug: Hey, back for another installment of continuity conundrums. Today we'll focus on DC's mid-80's answer to housecleaning, Crisis on Infinite Earths and the reboots that came in its wake.

Karen: As I mentioned last time, some retroactive changes can be a good thing. Going back to the Byrne Superman, I never liked the idea that there was no Superboy. Now decades later, Superboy has been quietly inserted back into continuity. It may still leave us wondering exactly what stories have or haven't taken place, but what felt like a wrong has now been righted. And speaking of Superboy, would any discussion of continuity be complete without some comments on the original arch-enemy of continuity, Crisis on Infinite Earths?

Doug: It was an adjustment that took me many years to, well, adjust to! And I think what made it worse was the fall-out that affected my fave DC book, the Legion of Super-Heroes. Although Superboy had not been in the book for some time, the removal of him as the inspiration for the team's existence in the first place seemed to cause the book to creatively wander in the years after the Crisis. Shoot, one could argue that it's still trying to return to it's pre-Crisis heydays. While I'm not presently a reader, I did enjoy some moments here and there in the 1990's.

Karen: Although ostensibly designed to streamline the DC universe and make it more accessible, this razing of years and years of material seemed to gut the DC universe and leave readers everywhere mystified as to what now was and was not in continuity, with the Legion and many other titles.

Doug: I'll go back to a point I made last time -- I really never felt like continuity was an issue at DC. Sure, I understand the powers that be wanted to move away from all of the Kryptonite colors, they wanted to de-power Superman, the Earth-1, Earth-2, etc. stuff was confusing for newer readers. But when you look at the 25 years since the Crisis and what a mess that ended up becoming -- and to some extent is still a mess with DC moving from one event to another (just like Marvel) -- one has to question just how wise the Crisis was in the first place. DC seemed to take what was uniquely its own (the multi-Earth DC universe) and just chuck it out the window.

Karen: Doug, I think I would agree that Silver Age DC didn't worry too much about continuity, but certainly by the 80s, DC was fairly steeped in it. If you think about it, Crisis was not so much about cleaning up continuity -which is to my mind a linear progression - than taking multiple parallel paths and combining them into one. But that combination -forcing all those universes into one - did result in continuity issues. The initial problem was not one of continuity, as each universe had its own distinct continuity. To be honest, I never understood why they thought readers would be so confused by the multiple universes. I was a casual reader of DC but completely understood that the Justice Society was on a different Earth than the Justice League, that there were two Supermans, two Batmans, etc. As a matter of fact, I liked the idea a lot!

Doug: Agreed on your last point -- to me, that was a part of the DC Universe that was very charming. In those pre-Crisis days, the Earth-One and Earth-Two characters could interact and they'd be the same age. However, over at the House of Ideas in the 1970's the Invaders became a popular series, so some of the characters from that series started to pop up in the then-present; I just wasn't buying that Bob Frank (the Whizzer) could all of a sudden show up and be any sort of factor in battle at the approximate age of 70! Marvel's reality-based stories, which we discussed last time, virtually forbade any mingling amongst their Golden, Silver, and Bronze Age characters. So advantage to DC on that point. Then they changed it...

Doug: Not only did DC destroy much of their history, but at least for the immediate future they wiped out a whole bunch of characters. Now admittedly, many of them were just chaff, but I'm sure there were fans attached to them. However, besides death and taxes, the third thing in life that's guaranteed is that due to American copyright laws any comics fan can rest assured that their faves will pop up every seven years or so.

Doug: So, weird alien Supergirl, Wally West Flash? Anyone bothered by those things? I certainly didn't care whether Wally was the new Flash, but I didn't understand how removing Superboy from the new DC meant that Supergirl also had to be removed. I only read the first couple of issues of Peter David's Supergirl series; of course the character originated in the pages of John Byrne's Superman revamp. I quit due to a) economics and b) just really didn't care. I enjoyed Byrne's little homages to the recent-past: Luthor's battlesuit, the return of Supergirl, etc. But like you, Karen, the complete overhaul of the Super-mythos didn't set well with me. And shoot, I'm on record as saying I was never a Superman fan -- I was a Superboy fan!

Karen: The Supergirl revision was one of the worst "rethinkings" ever.

Doug: And what about when out-of-continuity stories become in-continuity? I think Jason Todd's fate as Robin was sealed the second Frank Miller wrote Alfred's comment to Bruce Wayne "after what happened to Jason" back in the pages of The Dark Knight Returns. Additionally, we've seen both Magog and the Kingdom Come Superman enter current JSA continuity. Good or bad? I guess it was nice as it was -- not sure the leap into the mainstream was necessary.

Karen: Yes, I have some concerns about Kingdom Come now becoming a part of the regular DCU. Is DC dooming itself now to go down a certain path? I suppose the exact outcome of KC can be avoided but I just don't know that it was wise to incorporate any of that stuff.

Doug: Good point -- as much as we've discussed writers' hands being tied by certain events, how about apocalyptic events set far in the future? It would seem to me that writers would have to be constantly thinking about getting their ducks in a row.

Doug: Which brings us to next time, when we'll discuss certain events that various writers/editors keep coming back to, as well as out-of-continuity stories that work just fine as standalones. See ya then!

BAB Classic - Continuity, Part One: Decry it or devotion to it?

This post was originally published on February 5, 2010

Doug: We're re-running this post, as it ties in with a conversation we had about a week ago. There are two other parts in this series if you feel like spelunking.

Doug: I've been reading a few of our esteemed Bronze Age colleagues' blogs, and have noticed repeated aversions to that comic universe foundation known as Continuity. Karen and I would like to toss forth our evaluations and opinions and we certainly welcome comments at the conclusion of this post, which might further this as a discussion.

Doug: I suppose at the root of the problem is that word "universe". Once a creative team and/or editorial staff begins to craft real-life events for the protagonist and his/her supporting cast, things inevitably are set up to become sticky later on. This fictional realm where the title's cast, or as in the case of Marvel and DC (et al.), titles and casts, dwell now has moments frozen in time. This predicament is the main point of separation between the comic strip and the comic book.

Karen: Marvel had the relative luxury of being new to the scene, whereas DC was carrying around baggage from the last 20+ years. Marvel could do whatever they wanted - because as many of those early writers and artists have noted, they never thought these characters would be around so long! Marvel essentially created the comics continuity fever that most of us grew up with, by creating a fully integrated universe. We saw that the characters interacted with each other. Past events would be referenced repeatedly (remember all the footnotes the comics used to have?). Marvel built a sense of reality and history that had rarely been seen outside of such universe-building works like Lord of the Rings. 

Doug: It's funny to me, re DC. Of course at some point in this conversation Crisis on Infinite Earths will be brought up, but I'll be quite frank -- I never thought (as a kid) that continuity was anywhere close to a big deal at DC. Marvel, sure -- continued stories, characters and villains crossing over all the time, big events (and I mean pre-1980's big events, like one of the FF's break-ups or an Avengers line-up change -- not the marketing junk)... DCs mostly contained one-and-done stories, and it never seemed like they were referenced later on. Even when villains popped up after a few years' hiatus I couldn't see that the new story built off of anything from before.
Doug: So concerning Marvel, it's hard to imagine that what was once the best thing about The Amazing Spider-Man has become the worst. As soon as Stan Lee and Steve Ditko chose to have Peter Parker graduate from high school (ASM #28), Peter entered our world and was marked by time. Now characters in the Marvel Universe could age. Charles Schultz's Peanuts gang didn't; over at DC Dick Grayson had been ~15 for over 20 years. Spidey was now unequivocally 18, and off to college. So Pete and the rest of the characters began to age, to experience life, and then to die.

Karen: I think Stan Lee had it right when he said the goal for Marvel was the illusion of change. Changes in relationships, powers, costumes - all of these contribute to the feeling of excitement and newness but don't really affect the main character in any significant way. Going with our Spider-Man example, even the death of Gwen was not an event that altered the Spider-Man universe in such a way that the basic core of the character was altered or violated. It did however bring an element of reality heretofore unseen in comics, and allowed the readers, many of whom were probably young men themselves, to relate to and grieve with Peter. But the basic concept of Spider-Man was unchanged. 

Doug: Well since you brought it up, perhaps no events are as hallowed in the Bronze Age as the deaths of Gwen Stacy and the Green Goblin in June/July 1973. Both were surprises when they happened, and both carried enough weight that one felt that a chapter had closed in the life of Peter Parker. But then, only 14 months later there was a new Green Goblin, and as 1975 dawned there were hints that there would be a new Gwen Stacy.

Doug: Why? Sales would be the obvious answer. Fixing what many fans felt was a gross injustice? Maybe - but even that quasi-noble gesture oozed potential dollars. And I guess if we use this as a microcosm of the continuity question, we have to dwell for a moment on any publisher's ultimate goal: to turn a profit. In a perfect world, publishers would remain benevolent, always producing magazines within whose pages characters always behaved as we expect them to and change could be unexpected but would remain logical. 

Karen: Peter's growth as a character continued as he got a job and got married. Personally I liked the idea that Peter was still growing, although perhaps at a rate of 1 year for every 5 real-time years. I didn't mind him being married -although I do think it was a mistake for Mary Jane to be a super-model. That took Peter out of the everyman role he should rightfully occupy in the Marvel Universe. It would have made much more sense for Mary Jane to be a struggling actress/model. But despite this, by the time the 2000s rolled around, Spidey had a rich history.Karen: However, that rich history can also be like an anvil around one's neck. New writers may feel constricted by what stories they can tell. And by having any of the characters progress in age, the inevitability of adulthood, old age, and death starts to come into play. You almost have to commit to it fully, ie. have characters age, perhaps much more slowly than in real life, but eventually wind up hanging up their fighting togs and/or passing the mantle to someone else. But is that really what fans want? Can we imagine anyone else besides Peter Parker as Spider-Man? DC has made Dick Grayson the new Batman, but is there any doubt that Bruce Wayne will return to that role? 

Doug: No, no doubt at all. By and large, Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman are untouchable. But one could argue that where it appeared that the entire second-tier of DC characters were allowed to move on with others taking up the mantle of Green Lantern, Flash, Green Arrow, etc., even those changes have been reversed or at least diminished historically by the returns of Barry Allen, Hal Jordan, and Oliver Queen. 

Karen: I realize I am primarily a Marvel fan, so I am sure hard-core DC fans would disagree with me, but I saw little personality at all in characters like Hal Jordan or Barry Allen. Many of these DC characters seemed almost interchangeable. I'm honestly surprised there was so much clamor for their return! And so now DC has multiple people running around with the same name. Those seem like characters where the passing of the torch really could (and I think did, particularly with Wally becoming the Flash) revitalize a title. I'm still surprised that Barry was brought back, although I do think that Geoff Johns has managed to give Hal Jordan a personality now. 

Karen: But getting back to the limits of continuity - apparently the Marvel writers felt that Spidey's situation, which had been crafted over decades by numerous creators, had become unwieldy. And so we got the biggest cop-out in comics: Brand New Day. It was bad enough that they used this deus ex machina to remove the marriage; but then they went several steps further and also used it to alter his entire history. Somehow, vast chunks of Spider-Man history were magically removed, so that Marvel could send Peter back to the Coffee Bean and relive his life. 

Karen: Brand New Day was a complete disregard of not only continuity, but of Marvel's status as the 'reality-based' comics company. Marvel has always taken pride in the fact that they brought a sense of realism to comics. One might have expected them to end the marriage in a realistic fashion - say by divorce or even death. Instead, they just decided one day to revert the series to about 1975 and not make any effort to actually have it make sense. 

Doug: I'm very happy to report that my mind was not polluted by any of the Spider-events of the past 12-15 years or so. I got out way back during the second clone saga, which was just a complete train wreck. It was so bad, as was much of what Marvel was producing in the 90's, that one has to wonder exactly what was going on in those editorial meetings. It wasn't creativity -- no, no -- my guess is the VP in charge of marketing was running each and every editorial meeting. All style (and that's debatable) and no substance. Or at least no substance that made sense.

Karen: This is probably the biggest violation of continuity that I am aware of. DC on the other hand, seems to be fond of continually 'ret-conning' their characters' stories, so much so that I don't even know who the original founders of the Justice League are supposed to be now. It seems as if much of John Byrne's revamp of Superman has gone out the window, which I can't say I mind. But for a casual DC reader like myself, the events of all the "Crises" have only made things more confusing than ever. Back before the original Crisis on Infinite Earths, I had a pretty good grasp on the multiverse and who was on what Earth. Now? No idea.

Doug: Sounds like a nice segue way to Part Two -- catch ya then, friends!