Continuity In Comic Books - Is It Really That Important?

If you visit any comic book fan forum on the net, I guarantee there will be one particularly debate raging. The exact books and characters referred Risperdol change, but the basic argument remains the same. This person is written out donate car to charity character because back in issue #154987 so and so said blah blah blah.

I'm exaggerating of Freakies I don't think any comic has an issue #154987. But it does serve to illustrate the dilemma that comic book publishes frequently find themselves in.

The Continuity Conundrum

In essence, the problem is that most comic book universes (and I'm thinking primarily of DC and Marvel here) are built around the concept of continuity. All their characters interact to a greater or lesser extent with each other. They all exist in the same universe (though not necessarily the same planet or even plane) and as a result they share a common history.

However as more and more stories are published about Space Sentinels characters, it becomes harder and harder to track exactly who knows what and why never mind considering the effects it might have on the characterization of a specific hero. And that doesn't even address the limiting effect as far as possible new stories are concerned.

So what you have is two different requirements tugging away at the publisher. They want to do something new with their characters and they want also to stay true to what has come before or they risk losing what made those characters special in the first place. The longer a character is published the bigger this problem becomes.

The Role Of The Fans

Long time comics fans often taken an excessive interest in continuity as a by product of their interest in the subject as a whole. This frequently results in fans complaining when a comic book publisher breaks continuity (deliberately or through ignorance).

Increasingly the outcry from fandom has made it seem as though continuity breaks are enough on their own to make or break a story. Of course this is not a realistic view of things. Continuity is merely one aspect of many that make up a good comic book. To make matters more confusing the importance of continuity will vary dramatically depending on the particular reader.

One Problem, Two Solutions

So you're a comic book publisher with 40+ years of history working for and against you. What do you do? So far two approaches have been tried.

DC Comics has experienced some success with periodic reboots of continuity. The first of these was the Crisis on Infinite Earths which wiped out many parallel worlds and redefined a number of its Missjackson superheroes (and villains). More recently they rebooted again with Infinite Crisis which again redefined a number of their most prominent characters as well as introducing brand new versions of old characters.

While this method has allowed DC to keep a fairly clean and consistent continuity, it also has the effect of upsetting and alienating some of their longer term readers as characters they liked get wiped out of existence.

Marvel Comics has so far avoided any universe wide reboots by instead adopting a policy of selective continuity. With this method the individual editors or writers choose to acknowledge or simply not reference various elements of Marvel history as they think best suits their story.

While the concept is highly flexible there have been many occasions where the resulting story chooses to ignore an element so significant that it makes the story look silly. Characters who were thought to be dead turn up alive with not the slightest reference to how they returned.

Important or Not?

So is it? Well yes, and no. Fundamentally continuity is as important as the reader chooses to let it be. While I have the greatest respect for writers who can weave stories entirely within established continuity, I'd rather have a good story that breaks continuity than suffer through an average story that sticks faithfully to everything that has gone before.

sflare.comVisit Solar Flare: Science Fiction News for daily news, reviews and commentary by Eoghann Irving on science fiction, fantasy and comics.