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Pariah said:
Mxy, that example be invalid. Birthright isn't set in continuity.



Exactly, it doesn't use continuity. I'm glad there's space for books like that outside the sporadic Elseworlds line.

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And are you gonna tell me I'm wrong?



No.

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We know that the writers CAN do it. We also know that they're NOT doing it. We also know that they're SUPPOSED to do it.



That's where you're wrong. They CAN, if they don't WANT TO, then there's no reason why they SHOULD. If continuity gets in the way of the story they wanna tell then fuck continuity. If, on the opposite case, continuity helps make the story better, then yay for continuity. I'm not against continuity. What I'm against is a forced continuity for every book.

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ALso, It's not a matter of whether you want to do it or not, it's a matter of using continuity in the first place and screwing it up inadvertantly by doing so. Technically, it's not inadvertantly because they know their add in isn't apart of continuity.



If by "using continuity in the first place and then screw it" you mean "using some elements of continuity and ignoring others", then it's just that. Just like they ignored a part of continuity (that in your mind is "screwing it") someone after them may choose to ignore what they did and reinstate the part ignored in the first place (that in your mind SHOULD be "fixing it").

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That's a huge part of my point. It means things just keep getting worse.



Why? What you don't like can be deleted. You can have a perfect continuity in your mind, if you want.

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And if this is about agreeance, then there's no excuse for not justifying his changes to continuity. All you have to do is add some references and dialogue that clear up the past mistakes. THAT'S ALL. I can't tolerate laziness or carlessness.



Why add that when it's unnecessary, or when the writer simply doesn't want to do it? That right there would be useless forced dialogue (those explanations are often long), and that's a great source of lameness and mediocrity. Imagine if, for some reason, Moore had been forced to set Watchmen into the DCU. All the explanations required to do so would have ruined the book. Maybe you find pleasure in reading explanations like that, but they annoy the fuck out of me, especially when you can tell the author doesn't really want to add them.

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Dude, I give an infinite amount of room for creativity and the new writer's imagination. All I ask is that he has it make sense. As I explained earlier, that's not hard to do.



What I meant is this: okay, we have forced continuity and optional continuity.
With optional continuity the writer chooses wether he wants to use continuity or not, so there's a space for those who love continuity just like there's one for those who don't. You can have a perfect continuity simply by ignoring the books that don't use it. Readers and writers who like continuity can have what they want, and readers and writers who don't like it can too.
Now, with forced continuity, which is what you seem to want, there's a space for continuity lovers, but no space at all for those who don't, besides the few elseworlds that come out. It's basically continuity or nothing. A reader or a writer who doesn't like continuity (and believe it or not, they have the right not to) doesn't have a space in this forced continuity.

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Mxy, the character is what I'm whining about mostly (Batman's character namely). The writers don't know to morph the SITUATIONS at their whim and NOT the character. That's the problem. They think because the character is the main attraction to the story that they have to change him/her to something THEY find interesting. They seem to think that multiple take on a singular personality is the procedure when it's the situation itself that gives the character the defining moments.



Bear in mind that these characters are icons. There can be multiple interpretations to how their personalities are. These are not real people, these are fictional characters.
Your idea of the character might not coincide with my idea of the character. Why should the conception of the character you like have more priority than mine?

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Mxy, I don't give a fuck what the situation is. As long as it doesn't have any crucial past (unless they're explained) elements and is stand alone, the story will probably get a good review from me. I MOST look at character.



I think there can be emphasis on the plot, the character, or both. As long as the result is good I'm happy. You can have an excellent plot with a lame character (or a lame interpretation of a character) or vice versa. I hate Miller's interpretation of Superman in DKR, but I love that book.
If you open a book with a preconception of the character in your mind and that's not the same conception the writer used, then obviously you're gonna think the book is lame. I prefer to be open to new and different interpretations. I don't look at the comic as a continuing story started decades ago unless that's how the writer looked at it.

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Yes, I know. That means you have to take part of your run time time to justify those actions with passible excuses. Use plot devices to illustrate why the character was being OOC. Again, not hard, just arduous.



Those justifications may take one panel, but they also may take 10 pages. They may fit into the story nicely and even add to it, but they may also ruin the story. For that reason, making the justifications should be an option and not a requirement.

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Did you hear me say we should retcon everything or disregard it? No, you didn't. While it would be really cool if a lot was retconned, I don't support that action in any way. It'll just make more of a mess. Disregarding is even worse.



Why? If it was a real universe, I can see why that would have. You'd have paradoxes around every corner. But this isn't. This universe is, literally, in your mind. It's what you make of it. That's what's so great about it, and why there's so many disagreements about how things are and how they should be.
Is it so hard to take, I don't know, Hush or Last Laugh and say to yourself "this never happened" and move on?

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I already explained that continuity based stories can be stand alone and enjoyable from both angles Mxy.



??
Of course they can. I enjoy a lot of continuity based stories. When did I say they couldn't be enjoyed from both angles? I said the opposite, I think.
I can enjoy a story that uses continuity. You're the one who's unable to enjoy a story if it doesn't use it.

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First of all: The other writers who can make a good story without using it could just as well use it while making a good story. Don't pull that bullshit with me.



No. In some cases, maybe the could. But there are also cases where they continuity is nothing but a big fat cow on one side of the row. Should the guy get off the car and push the cow outside the road and ruin his whole fucking trip (he's gonna be late! the wife's gonna fucking chop his head off! and he's got a bad back, he could break the fucking thing while pushing the fucking cow!), or should he simply change lanes and continue his trip?
You think he should get off the car, and in some cases that may be the best option (maybe it's a hot chick dressed as a cow), but not always, so there's no fucking reason why the writer should say "Yeah, I'm gonna add 20 fucking pages to explain how this fits in with Crisis so that Pariah guy on the boards doesn't bitch".

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Second of all: The main line of books are BASED off of continuity, they were MEANT to be continuous/harmonious with eachother and NOT have other storylines overlapping.



That's how you look at them. I look at them as monthly books that should be producing good stories but in most cases aren't. The only reason why I call them "main" books is because they're monthly and open ended.

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Mxy, a lot of people think the contrary of those stories. Many people in fact. I agree with you, but the fact is they exist.



Well, duh. There's people who liked the past four years of Superman comics. The general consensus was that they sucked, otherwise Crisis wouldn't have happened. Most writers and the readers found that the multiverse got in the way of telling good stories, so it was dealt with. Had the multiverse been loved by most people back then, there would have been no reason for removing it.

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Also, this is only supposition on your part. I'm given no reason to disbelive that the writers just wanted to fix continuity and change the heroes to a degree where they would be given more breathing room when writing them.



It's a supposition on my part and it's my opinion. I don't think of my opinions as unquestionable facts.

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The creators my have made the character, but what do you think kept the character going and made his character change into something no less desirable than what the creators made?



The writers who followed the creators.

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Batman's EXTREMELY dark persona during the eighties, which was appealing to many many people, was in direct response of Jason Todd's death. The very same after Knightfall happened as well and people were still.



I haven't read A death in the family or Knightfall, in fact, I haven't read many in-continuity The Bat-Man comics, but I like the character. When I see a The Bat-Man book that attracts me (like Year One, DKR, Arkham Asylum or Killing Joke) my decision to buy it has nothing to do with how it stands in continuity or if the portrayal of the character is consistent with what comes before.

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Mxy, I don't have to speak for myself. Many others do that for me.



Okay, for yourself and others. What I meant is, don't speak for me or for the other people in this thread on this subject.

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In short, 100% of Batman's characteristics NOW weren't made by Kane/Finger. 100% of Superman's characteristics NOW weren't made by Shuster/Seigel. 100% of Wonder Woman's characteristics NOW weren't made by Marston.



No, they were made by whoever is writing the book now. I'm indifferent to wether the writer chooses to make his interpretation be consistent with the previous ones or not. I think a good characterisation that happens to be consistent with the character's continuity is as valid as a good characterisation that isn't.

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Um, let's see if there's a word to describe this.........Oh yeah! Chaos.



Only if you wanna look it that way.

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No, it's because the writers followed continuity. The best examples of their evolution are in the last earlier decade. And as you know, it was running very strong then.



Evolution? What evolution? I can't speak for The Bat-Man or Wonder Woman, but Superman hasn't evolved in about a decade. In fact, the same writers that made his latest evolution (the Jurgens squad) were the ones that undid it.
What I meant is how the character has changed through the decades. The 80's and the 90's are just another step.

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It's kinda funny how when you say that writers evolve them yet completely over look that past and future evolution by saying they should do what they want.



I was talking about evolution OUTSIDE continuity. Example: How Superman changed from the 60's to the 90's. That evolution didn't happen in continuity. It happened in the stories, but it didn't happen in continuity.
I know that evolution can also happen within continuity. I'd cite the first years of the post Crisis Superman as an example of that. However, that evolution is nothing when compared to how the character has evolved out of continuity.

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Batman, Superman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, etc. would NEVER change if this were policy.



So those characters haven't changed outside continuity?

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Mxy, I can't tell you're talking about the continuity policy or the evolving character, because if it's the latter and not the former, then you just made a huge chunk of my argument. If that entire sentence was made from my view that characters should be able to change from the events that they go through, then WTF are you going on about? This is getting awfully contradictory on your part Mxy.



I see making past events affect the character's personality as a valid option. I've read comics where that's used to improve the story (for example, Superman/Aliens, that took an element that had been ignored for years and used it to improve the story, which is one of the main reasons why I like that comic), but I've also read great comics where past events are ignored so they don't get in the way of the story (like Superman/Doomsday: Hunter/Prey, done by the same author around the same time. Completely ignores the point raised in Superman/Aliens).
But what I meant was something completely different. About a decade ago a status quo was set in the DCU, and it's stayed pretty much that way since then. The characters are pretty much the same. There have been some changes, the possitive ones thanks to the occasional great writer, but to make up for it even more changes have been undone. That's what I call a permanent status quo.

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:?!: That's not what I said at all. I didn't even mention other characters Mxy. I said; that while these guys followed continuity because they used plot devices to change her (like every good writer should), they still didn't focus on the way she would be regularly. All they did was make a one different dynamic for each run (Phil did the best job in leading away from this though), and those dynamics came out of NO WHERE with their foreign monopoly on Diana's character.

I was using Wonder Woman as an example of having multiple writers do THEIR different takes on a singular character. She's a perfect example of an industry fuck up through writers just wanting to go their own route.



Then take my previous reply to you on that and replace "interaction with other characters" with "takes on the main character". I still don't see the problem. Separate interpretations should be able to be enjoyed separately. If they're awkardly intended to fit on the same continuity it's only because of policies like that ones you love that say all runs must be in the same continuity. So the writers didn't go through the trouble of explaining how their interpretation came to be? Good for them, I say. Don't push that fucking cow, skip it.

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That's flawed reasoning. Just because the moment was ignored, it doesn't mean that it ceased to exist.



I thought that's what we were talking about. Moments being ignored by a writer so that they never affected the character's personality. That's a reasonable explanation behind what you consider mischaracterisation.

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That's BULLSHIT!! If I were writing these characters, I'd definitely make the situation better/sensical. But I'm not gonna like a cop out asshole writer and just take what I want from the characters that were made into what they are because of the writer before me. That is exactly the perpetuation of crap I'm talking about. In short, if this happened, I wouldn't be anymore happy then than I am now. I'm not gonna overlook principle simply for enjoyment when it is SO. DAMN. EASY. To simply follow continuity and get this fixed while making sense.



Dude, none of this is real. These are not real lives that are being tampered with. These are characters, characters made so that stories could be told with them, stories that are meant to be enjoyed. I just understood why you take Barbara Gordon's rape so seriously.
To me, this line sums up what you're saying:
"I'm not gonna overlook principle simply for enjoyment"

A principle?! A fucking principle?! And "SIMPLY FOR ENJOYMENT"?! What are you reading comics for, then? To get a fucking heart attack?

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And no, strict continuity DOES NOT negate the possible changes. You just have to think of a proper defining moment for the characters that would evolve or de-evolve them



The point is that I shouldn't have to.

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No, because it works best that way.



AH-AH! For you maybe. For me, and for most people in this thread, it doesn't work better that way most of the time.

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If they decided to be smart and properly versed themselves in the guidelines of comic writing like every writer should be, they'd be KEEPING everything honky dorey. They'd put in their stories that you love so much more. And they'd keep the critical character (which hasn't changed, evolved, or adapted for......QUITE a while due to lack of organization and disregard for continuity).



Exactly like I said before: you're assuming that the writers are idiots simply because they have different views on comics than you.

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You know, I already went at great lengths to illustrate that writers can do anything with continuity as well as their own sense of satisfaction in knowing they have a book ALL to their very own and the power to do what they want with it.



A. No, you didn't.
B. Being forced to respect continuity isn't being able to "do whatever they want".

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You know, maybe I should get creative while driving.



Okaaaaaay...

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I don't think there's any sort of agenda, I think these writers are dumb fucks and assholes. Pure and simple. If they feel FORCED by continuity, then they are in no way talented.



I suppouse I'm a dumb fuck and an asshole too.
That's called being intollerant to opinions different than yours.

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I didn't agree with Denny's run on Azreal, but that doesn't mean I hate him or think he's an idiot. He may be making a crap story on JLA right now, but do I think he's an idiot? No. I may have been pissed at Byrne for his run on Superman, does that mean I think he's an idiot? No. I still like them both and agree with them on a lot. If they don't follow continuity, that means my respect for them as comicbook writers goes down.



To me, a good writer is a good writer. I have more reasons to hate O'Neil and Byrne for being lame (I don't, BTW), than to hate Waid or whoever for fucking continuity in the ass with a fork.

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Heh! $20 bucks says it will be included as a reference even so.



I hope you're wrong.

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Dude, a single line of dialogue about past events included for the sake of keeping the story running smooth is not gonna get people curious.



Oh, we could hide it so people don't get curious. We could include the references and clarifications in the copyright stuff in the first page, so that new readers don't see it but old ones can sleep at night.

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A small summary or flashback if it plays a huge role, an even smaller line of literature that's referencing the situation--What's the problem with that? It won't negate the story's movement in any way.



It may. And in those cases, fuck it.

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That's total bullshit using popular reference. Not everyone as seen said show. I'm obsessed with Fight Club, and everyone here knows the movie and its big secret but I know at least thirty people who don't. A lot of little ought kiddies don't know that Darth is dear ol' dad. I could go on and on.



We were talking about TV shows. It's easier to get into the X Files than it is to get into fucking Everybody Loves Raymond.

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I'm talking about individual episodes. My mother hates X-Files but watched one episode because she saw that the Night Stalker was guest starring. She didn't know what the hell was up with the other characters Mulder and Scully because she never watched the show before, but she still liked the story alone because of the fact that every ep. shows Mulder as a paranormal freak, an FBI agent, and his partner as a smart skeptic. She didn't need any hints.



If she hates the X-Files then she probably knows what's it about.

[quoteYou're completely overlooking the principle and the intention of my argument here. Just because there's past continuity to be seen, it doesn't mean that the story that is still enamoured in continuity can't be enjoyed by a non-casual reader. If procedure were followed, people wouldn't be bewildered.



But EVERY event shapes the character! How is anyone gonna understand the character if they don't know the events!