Mxy... if you read comics to have something to read while in the crapper then of course you don't need consistancy in the stories and what happened 20 years ago doesn't matter.
If, on the other hand, you read comics for the stories, then consistancy/continuity does matter.
The most succesful stories in TV, movies and comics, are those that that use continuity and are consistant with what came before.
From Star Trek to Buffy to Terminator to Matrix to Starman (the comic), these concepts used continuity and consistancy that was 40, 8, 17, five and 7 years old respectively and they caught the attention of a varied chunk of the mainstream.
Star Trek for one went from being a 60's cult classic to being a complete franchise made up of movies and four separate TV shows, all of which were consistant with themselves AND with each other.
Buffy was a succesfull 8 season TV show that was a spin off of a crappy movie... the quality of which didn't stop the creator from being consistant with it to the point of using it (remade, but used it anyway) as continuity for the TV show.
So yes, continuity DOES matter.
Consistancy DOES matter.
It doesn't matter if it was an idea that came out 20 years ago (like say the genetic link Kryptonians has to their planet) or an idea that came out 40 years ago (like say Klingons), the point is that if the story is ONGOING then it has to be consistant, not catter to the toilet heads like you and King Krypton who go to the comic book store in the hopes of finding something to kill time while dropping a load...
Today for example I stopped by the comic book store to pick up a bag of backing boards and I saw two girls (and I say girls in the loosess of terms. They were clearly in the their 20's but if I said women it might give you the wrong visual) shopping for comic books.
One of them grabbed a comic off the table and showed it to the other one and said "hey, do you remember this toon?"
The comic was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles from Dreamwave...
These two girls are clearly going to read this comic with the continuity pre-conceptions brought upon from watching the TV show.
They're going to see the characters and mentally compare them to the ones they saw on TV and expect them to act the same way.
Will they be disapointed when they find out that they won't, that instead the characters are less cartoony and little more darker?
Maybe... it's 50-50 odds that they will either drop the comic and not buy the next issue or that they'll like what they see in it and want to read what comes next.
Comics are like a Rorschach test; everyone has a different opinion on what they are and can be...
