I’ve already aired my grievances against the ever-egotistical, ever-elitist, ever-demanding-that-you-share-their-exact-opinions-or-die Byrne/Jurgens Sycophants™. But the purpose of this rant is to vent my spleen against the hateful and insufferable group the Byrne/Jurgens Sycophants™ splintered off from…what DC Online’s Zugernaut aptly called "The Continuity Taliban®."
These are the guys who go beyond just demanding that Superman begin with Byrne and end with Jurgens, with nothing before or after those two men being allowed a fair shake. Oh, no. See, that’s what their SUBSET espouses. No, these guys take it even further by bleating, screeching, whining when a new comic even DARES to contradict a comic that was published years, even decades ago. These beat-offs bitch and piss about how writers and editors are "disrespecting and screwing up the reality" established decades ago by DOING NOTHING MORE THAN TELLING THE STORIES THEY WANT TO TELL. They expect—no, worse, demand—that each and every writer slavishly copy and conform to their pet continuity at all costs, no matter how much it stifles said writers or hurts their stories. To hell with quality and creativity, these assholes want stagnancy and mediocrity all because they can’t bear to have a story that doesn’t neatly fall in line with their rigid, lockstep continuity. (Kilgore can back me up on this; he knows exactly of what I speak.)
Obviously, the controversy over Birthright and the Byrne/Jurgens Sycophants™ demanding that any creators or fans who don’t worship or adhere strictly to the Byrne/Jurgens vision should be burned at the stake for heresy (one such zealot has been fouling this MB with his presence and arrogant dogma) played a part in my finally getting angry enough to vent against ultra-rigid continuity, but what really pissed me off raw was the ongoing pissing and whining their parent group has been doing over Matt Wagner’s Trinity. For those of you who’ve read it, it’s a great story. Between it and the much-disregarded Birthright we have a case for the best Superman stories of the year. But the Continuity Taliban® is screaming for Wagner’s head because his story allegedly contradicts the late-‘80s miniseries Legends. Over and over again, it’s the same ****ing thing: "This story is invalid because Wonder Woman didn’t meet Superman until Legends! Hey, this doesn’t adhere 100% to the first post-Crisis Batman/Ra’s meeting! This story conflicts with Wonder Woman #1! It’s an outrage! Wagner’s defiling Man of Steel by having Superman embrace his Kryptonian heritage and making the Superman cape a Kryptonian ceremonial robe, and he’s disrespecting it by having Bizarro still be alive! Wagner’s a dirty hack bastard because he isn’t conforming to every single detail that came post-Crisis! And his editor is lazy because he’s not forcing Wagner to slavishly copy and adhere to everything that’s been done post-Crisis! This story is inherently shitty because we can’t force it to fit in exactly with OUR continuity! DC has no right to publish this and Birthright without Elseworlds labels, because they’re both insults to the history created as of 1986!"
I just have to ask…WHERE THE HELL DO THESE PEOPLE GET OFF AT?!?! My God, they honestly don’t care if a story is good or not. They don’t even WANT the given story to be any good. All they want is for it to be something they can file into a straight line that can be followed without any deviation, and if it even slightly variates from the straight line these jack-offs bleatingly demand, they angrily shriek that it’s not fit to be published unless it’s slapped with an Elseworlds tag. These people—both the Continuity Taliban and their Byrne/Jurgens offshoot—don’t give a damn about quality, nor do they even want it. They want repetition. They want sameness and endless rehashes. They want mass-produced mediocrity that can be traced in a line without question. They just want lockstep, unswerving mediocrity that they alone can follow because they’re too stupid and selfish to accept creative freedom. Whenever a creator even DARES to show any kind of innovation or even just a fresh perspective, these assholes wave their beloved continuity as if it was a holy relic, screaming and wailing and doing damn near everything they can to stamp out said innovation or fresh perspectives. And I tell you, it’s maddening. Does anybody in their right mind really give a damn whether it was Dick or Jason who was Robin when Batman first fought Ra’s? Does anyone really give two shits when Superman and Wonder Woman first met? Does a normal person give a piss when Batman wore the plain black bat or the yellow halo on his costume? Does anybody honestly give a flying **** when Superman first got the Fortress of Solitude, or when he and Bizarro first clashed? NO! NOBODY WITH HALF A BRAIN CARES ABOUT ANY OF THIS SHIT! NONE OF THIS EVEN MATTERS IN THE SLIGHTEST! This stuff is all petty, unimportant details, all of which are expendable. But because this stuff was published post-1986, the Continuity Taliban® clings to it and bleats that it all be held as a sacred text.
The bottom line is, the Continuity Taliban® is full of shit. You want stuff that matters? THIS is what matters:
1. A baby rocketed from the planet Krypton shortly before it explodes, claiming his family and his people in its victims. (Note: This does NOT automatically mean that he was the ONLY one to make it out alive. The door’s open either way.)
2. Crash-lands on Earth and is raised by a Kansas farm couple.
3. Grows to manhood possessing powers far beyond those of mortal men, among them flight, nigh-invulnerability, increased speed and strength, and augmented senses.
4. Moves to Metropolis as mild-mannered working stiff Clark Kent, moonlights as a guardian angel in red and blue whose mission it is to protect and safeguard his adopted planet.
5. His primary enemy is Lex Luthor, a brilliant, evil human being without a shred of humanity in him.
Not enough for you? Let’s try this, then:
1. Young Bruce Wayne witnesses his wealthy parents being shot to death on the streets of Gotham City.
2. Vows to devote his life to making sure this never happens to anyone else.
3. Spends his youth training his mind and body to the peak of human perfection.
4. Gets inspired by the sight of bats to adopt a fearsome image in his war on crime, makes himself a bat costume.
5. Lives as a billionaire tycoon by day, vigilante by night.
Still not enough for you? Let’s try this, then:
1. An Amazonian princess grows to adulthood on Themyscira alongside her people.
2. Wins a contest designed to select an ambassador to the outside world.
3. Adopts a costume decorated with a stars and stripes motif, indestructible bracelets, and a magic lasso.
4. Moves to America and preaches peace thru the use of warrior tactics.
THAT’S IT. I just boiled down Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman to their essentials. THAT IS ALL THAT IS NECESSARY. Not the petty crybaby crap the Continuity Taliban® wails and pisses about. THESE are the essentials. So long as THESE are adhered to, nothing else matters. It doesn’t matter than Waid’s Krypton differs from Byrne’s or that Trinity and Legends have Superman and Wonder Woman meeting at different times. It doesn’t matter who was Robin when Batman first tangled with Ra’s. ALL THAT COUNTS IS KEEPING THE ESSENTIALS OF THE CHARACTERS INTACT. Let me give you guys a good example of this: Child of Dreams, the Batman graphic novel by Kia Asamiya. In that story, Batman’s implied to be approaching middle age, there’s no mention of Robin at all, Jim Gordon’s still the commissioner, and Batman alternates between wearing the black bat emblem and the yellow halo whenever the mood suits him. There’s absolutely no way this story can be sandwiched into the rigid, lockstep continuity demanded and championed by the Continuity Taliban®. But is it a good story? The best damned Batman story I’ve read in years, if you ask me. Can it be enjoyed by anybody, regardless of how familiar they may be with the character and his world? Hell, yes. Is it new reader-friendly? Indubitably. And it doesn’t carry an Elseworlds label on it at all (although I bet the Continuity Taliban® isn’t too happy about that). I wouldn’t be caught dead trying to sell an absolute newcomer to comics on the monthly books, but I WOULD direct a newcomer to complete stories that stand on their own merits REGARDLESS of whether or not they fit in continuity.
And this is what the Continuity Taliban® refuses to see and/or accept. They’re so selfish, so stupid, and so egotistical that they think THEY ALONE should have the comics medium all to themselves. They see any story that doesn’t slavishly follow THEIR pet continuity as a personal insult, no matter how good the story is or how appealing it might be to a newcomer. In their eyes, continuity should be the slavemaster instead of the tool, and any story that doesn’t slavishly follow every dinky, insignificant detail of their pet continuity is to be held as an unforgivable heresy. It’s asinine, because the shit they get their panties in a bunch over is so superficial and superfluous that it can’t POSSIBLY have any effect on the essentials of the characters. It’s selfish and greedy, because they would rather hoard the medium all to themselves and thusly strangle it to death rather than allow newcomers and people who may not have read comics in years a chance to come in and hop aboard without being left bogged down in meaningless backstory that’ll only serve to turn them off. It’s close-minded and regressive, because in their quest to force comic companies to make every single story conform to one rigid, unbreakable, lockstep continuity, they’re really trying to promote stagnation and shut out any kind of freshness and/or innovation. And it’s infuriating, because their constant, never-ending screeches and bleats about how evil and "lazy" stories that don’t slavishly follow continuity are and their constant berating of anyone who doesn’t care about continuity and would rather just have a good story goes a long way to spoil people’s enjoyment of the stories. At this point, I really don’t give a shit whether or not a story rigidly conforms to every pissy-assed little detail in a comic published in 1986. I’m almost 25, I’m too old to care about useless crap like that. Continuity, as the Continuity Taliban® would have it, means nothing to me. I just want a decent story I can enjoy. But damned if the Continuity Taliban® will let anybody enjoy those kinds of stories. They just scream and wail so much that they actually manage to ruin the damned stories for me, no matter how good they are. And the more they shriek about "continuity, stability, and sameness" are the only things of importance in comics, the more I realize that they don’t give a damn about the medium at all. They’re only out to enforce their own agenda and shut everyone else out…and frankly, I’m sick to death of it. These assholes are perhaps the BIGGEST reason comics are dying, and their ego-stroking, self-serving tirades and campaigning against anything that counters THEIR pet continuity are going a long way toward ruining the industry and making things miserable for everyone else. I DESPISE these utterly, because they are the most selfish, intolerant, egotistical, stupid, ignorant, elitist "fans" I have ever encountered in my 5 years of being a ‘Net-head. I hate them. I hate them with a passion, and I would dearly love to see them get chucked out of comicdom on their fat, self-important asses and left out in the cold. (And if any such zealots are reading this post and are insulted by what I say…GOOD. You’ve had this coming for a long time, and I for one have had all I can take from you people.)
Back when he did his Sherlock Holmes stories, Arthur Conan Doyle pointed out that the inconsistencies in the stories were largely irrelevant: "I have never striven for accuracy of detail, so long as I hold my reader." To him, the inconsistencies didn’t matter; all he cared about was that the reader enjoy the stories. So it should be for comics, too. Whether a story is 100% compatible with another is irrelevant, it’s the QUALITY that matters. Why is this so ****ing hard for the Continuity Taliban® (as well as their Byrne/Jurgens offshoot) to understand?
