shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Dec 9, 2019 10:53:42 GMT -5
These are mine and they're a bit scrambled, but perhaps there's something in there worth consideration... I think if you try factoring in characterisation when determining what's in continuity and what isn't, it'll be difficult to keep from constantly revising your timeline as new writers jump aboard. Chuck Dixon's Batman for example, was a much colder character than Alan Grant's and I'd argue even Jim Starlin's. This is certainly a slippery slope. Marv Wolfman's Batman is different than Mike W. Barr's, but not glaringly so -- nothing you couldn't chalk up to having a rough year or a better week. However, When you look at Miller's Batman, he is a completely different character from what pretty much every other Post-Crisis writer depicts. I suppose I could try to argue this extensively, but it seems self-evident to me. And (as I'll mention again later on here) Starlin's Batman is all over the place, drastically changing from issue to issue. Or, more simply, it was the end of Jason's transformation for Collins, and Collins clearly depicted it that way. But Starlin wanted Jason gone, so he brought the problem back. No matter how carefully you explain it, a retcon is still a retcon. Jason was better now. That was the entire point of Collins' arc. But they can all work together. I've argued how the pieces can and do fit together. But if we're looking for a definitive starting point where all the confusion and contradiction is gone, it's Batman #426. Much of the stuff before that issue can be made to work, but it doesn't jibe perfectly. In the case of Barr's run, you can chalk the whole thing up to happening in between Collins' run and Starlin's run since the Batman title does so much time hopping at that point anyway. The only part that doesn't fit is Barr's Pre-Crisis depiction of Catwoman. I'd take issue with literally any other villain treated this way, but it works for the Joker. Shouldn't all of his antics seem out there and borderline implausible? At least at this point in the Batman reviews, I think the character being written in both core titles owes more to the Pre-Crisis Untold Legend of The Batman than the oft-referenced Year One. The continuity is tidied up, the more outlandish elements removed, but this Batman is unquestionably a hero with a soft side who rescues strays (both Ace the Bathound and Harold) and is mostly only dark for appearance. He's gotten past the loss of his parents and Jason but hasn't forgotten the pain. In regard to Jim Gordon, his cheating on his wife has not been referenced outside of Year One, nor has his son. And Barbara Gordon not being his biological daughter was mentioned once in the pages of Secret Origins and never here. For most intents and purposes, this is the classic Jim Gordon, only engaged to be remarried. Thus my point about conflicting characterizations. Popular understanding is that this is the Batman of the Post-Crisis, but literally only Miller and Giffen ever wrote him this way. Starlin and Wolfman allowed him to become unhinged after Jason died, but Starlin showed a more sane Batman before that happened, and Wolfman allowed him to recover after. We definitely see evidence he is struggling with this in those in between stories. My favorite is the one where Gordon awkwardly asks him where Robin's been and gets no response. As for Batman being far worse by the time of Lonely Place of Dying, I have no trouble accepting that. Sometimes grief works like that -- you think you can handle it, and then you realize you're struggling far worse than you suspected. It's nowhere near the glaring jump in characterization we get between Miller and everyone who came after. Starlins run is all over the place in terms of characterization. If you decide you want to accept the Felipe storyline, which has Jason transform in those pages and then seem wide-eyed and innocent again in the next issue until learning about his real mom, then you can backtrack a few issues earlier to the KGBeast and Dumpster Killer storylines that had Batman suddenly going over the line and willing to kill, which doesn't even reconcile with Miller's grim and gritty persona. Starlin was clearly making it up as he went, and Death in the Family is where he finally truly decided who he wanted these characters to be and what Jason's character arc should have looked like in retrospect. |
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Post by shaxper on Dec 9, 2019 11:01:46 GMT -5
I read some of Year One (borrowed) back in the day (actually had bought the four Dark Knight Returns issues) but really had no part in whatever Batmania was surrounding the first modern movie other than seeing the merchandise around. It's funny how at the time how serious people seemed about the darkness aspect. If anyone saw Troma's Kabukiman parody I thought it was a lot more fun, especially when they parodied the scene of Keaton rasping "I"m Batman". Who knew we'd come to see that as lightweight next to Ledger's Joker and a Bats that sounds like a chain-smoking Clint Eastwood who just gargled straight Whiskey on a good day? I remember Jason Todd's introduction but I missed the part where reader's voted to have him die (lucky me). I'm still only semi-trying to place the major events properly in any kind of order, most of the info in these thoughful reviews are new to me. 'My' Batman would probably be the Englehart, but I obviously didn't dislike Mike Barr as I did buy a fair number of issues of titles while he was on. The Miller neo-Trashman extreme Batman and his giant bat god behind him since childhood is still unofficial in my world, some briefly interesting but no future alternate elsewhen character. It was strange for me, growing up as a young adolescent when the new Batmania hit in 1989. I grew up on the Challenge of the Super Friends cartoon, the West/Ward reruns, and my Super Powers action figures. MY Batman was campy and colorful. So the '89 film hit, and I was as huge a fan as anyone else, but I didn't really understand or embrace the grim and gritty Batman at all. That's why I was so excited about Tim Drake becoming Robin (as nauseating as the decision now seems to me as an adult). To this day, the grim and gritty Batman isn't really for me. I'll take a Doug Moench or Mike W. Barr approach any day, where the inner darkness is there and evident, but the playful side of the character and franchise still dominates. |
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Post by chadwilliam on Dec 9, 2019 23:10:36 GMT -5
Interesting timing that you should even raise the matter of continuity now since with your recent reviews of Robin II and Destroyer I've been struck by how O'Neil seems to be giving thought to the issue in ways he hasn't before. About twelve issues of Detective Comics passed before Jason Todd's death was even referred to in that title. Major events such as Bruce Wayne being confined to a wheelchair in Detective 600 (along with the death of Roy Kane whose sister blames him for his death and knows his identity) were immediately forgotten about an issue later. Vicki Vale, not an insignificant character, was reintroduced in Batman 445 as a journalist who had photographed Wayne Manor a year before that story and not as the long time acquaintance she was in Batman 408. Lapses such as these strike me as too big to be mere oversights and more a result of not worrying so much about continuity from one title to another or one team to the next. However, Robin II needs Batman to be out of town? Then Batman and Detective better come up with an explanation for his absence. We want Gotham to look like Anton Furst's designs? Then we better get a storyline going that will explain why Gotham has changed rather than just say "artistic licence". I suppose O'Neil might be trying to streamline things here simply to draw attention to those other series he wants to promote ("What's going on in Gotham without Batman? Buy Robin II to find out!") rather than trying to create a cohesive whole, but it is interesting that the effort's being made. Not sure if I really like it - "The Idiot Root" really didn't need to be drawn out and I don't know if we need a three-part storyline just to explain why Gotham's going to get a makeover - but it is there.
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Dec 10, 2019 5:59:10 GMT -5
Interesting timing that you should even raise the matter of continuity now since with your recent reviews of Robin II and Destroyer I've been struck by how O'Neil seems to be giving thought to the issue in ways he hasn't before. About twelve issues of Detective Comics passed before Jason Todd's death was even referred to in that title. Major events such as Bruce Wayne being confined to a wheelchair in Detective 600 (along with the death of Roy Kane whose sister blames him for his death and knows his identity) were immediately forgotten about an issue later. Vicki Vale, not an insignificant character, was reintroduced in Batman 445 as a journalist who had photographed Wayne Manor a year before that story and not as the long time acquaintance she was in Batman 408. Lapses such as these strike me as too big to be mere oversights and more a result of not worrying so much about continuity from one title to another or one team to the next. However, Robin II needs Batman to be out of town? Then Batman and Detective better come up with an explanation for his absence. We want Gotham to look like Anton Furst's designs? Then we better get a storyline going that will explain why Gotham has changed rather than just say "artistic licence". I suppose O'Neil might be trying to streamline things here simply to draw attention to those other series he wants to promote ("What's going on in Gotham without Batman? Buy Robin II to find out!") rather than trying to create a cohesive whole, but it is interesting that the effort's being made. Not sure if I really like it - "The Idiot Root" really didn't need to be drawn out and I don't know if we need a three-part storyline just to explain why Gotham's going to get a makeover - but it is there. This exactly. In terms of Blind Justice, I'd bet you anything O'Neil never even read the finished story. It was just a promotional stunt to sell more comics by getting the writer of the Batman film to do a major Batman storyline. It likely also played well with the higher ups at Warner who cared more about promoting the film than selling comics. I suspect this was a motivation behind Destroyer as well. The first time I see O'Neil caring about continuity at all is Batman #431, where suddenly every issue for the next six months concerned itself with all the people who trained Bruce to become Batman, starting with Kirigi. After that, it really isn't until Marv Wolfman takes over the Batman title that we start seeing any real concern for the continuity of the world surrounding Batman, let alone his own complicated past. And yet, because Batman #426 was such an important storyline, everything that came after was careful not to contradict any part of it. Jason goes unmentioned for a long while in the 'Tec stories, but his story is never contradicted there either. |
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Dec 10, 2019 10:27:43 GMT -5
I mean, good.
I prefer the more mythic, continuity light approach to superheroes. (If I haven't made this abundantly clear over the years.)
And, lucky guy that I am, 90+% of superhero comics editors agree with me!
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Post by shaxper on Dec 10, 2019 10:32:52 GMT -5
I mean, good. I prefer the more mythic, continuity light approach to superheroes. (If I haven't made this abundantly clear over the years.) And, lucky guy that I am, 90+% of superhero comics editors agree with me! Like any tool, continuity is an amazing thing when used properly, and it's a disaster when used inappropriately. Some editors use continuity like a golfer who only uses a nine iron. Others don't seem to recognize it as a worthwhile tool at all. I will always maintain that continuity is the single factor that makes comics and pulp publications distinct from other forms of literature. My old argument about this from waaaay back on CBR: Comics can be lots of fun without continuity, and comics can slavishly worship continuity to the point that they aren't fun at all, but the middle road is where the medium thrives. As of 1992, Denny O'Neil is finally starting to understand that after two years of not caring at all, and two more years of only caring on occasion. |
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Dec 10, 2019 11:02:05 GMT -5
Formalistically your continuity-makes-'em-different isn't true. (And I bristle at the term "literature." I like "visual art" if we can't just say "comics.") Comics can do dual narratives (synchronous or time displaced) better than any other format, they can stretch and bend time, they can visually denote the importance of specific events with larger panel sizes. They can use page turns to set up and release tension, and they've denoted a short hand to denote artistic tone more effectively (or at least faster) than any other medai.
I get you about characters growing and changing over the years, though... I think Love and Rockets does this better than any piece of art in the English Language that I've ever encountered, and the serial format contributes to this.
But mainstream comics don't really DO that, long term. Some are worse than others. Everyone who writes Captain America writes a completely different characters, and fans generally don't care. (Or, I think, notice.) Archie or the Thing have been... kind of consistent-ish in some ways, but Batman's been at least a dozen different guys.
It just seems frustrating looking for cogent continuity from mainstream comics, because they don't... really... DO that, long term. Every time the artist changes Batman is going to move differently, react differently, interact with the world around him differently. Every time the writer changes Batman is going to talk differently, think differently. Hell, changing inkers or colorists can make a substantial difference in the look and tone of Gotham city.
And DC has always been trying to force long term continuity onto characters that were. not. designed. to tell interconnected stories, or stories that lasted for multiple issues.
And I think Stan Lee invented the modern idea of comics continuity, and the only, only, ONLY reason for this was to cross-promote different titles and sell more comics. It was a marketing gimmick. It was obviously a marketing gimmick, Stan would joke about how he was using the continuity gimmick, and he assumed the audience was savvy enough to realize it was a marketing gimmick. I think we might all be happier if comics maintained that Silver Age adult, ironic distance from the material.
And this has been how continuity has been viewed from the editorial and financial side since. Use it to sell more comics. If it doesn't sell more comics, discard it. Some fans put a lot of importance on it, but the love is never gonna be returned. It just seems like an exercise in frustration to worry too much about it.
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Post by shaxper on Dec 10, 2019 11:08:28 GMT -5
I get you about characters growing and changing over the years, though... I think Love and Rockets does this better than any piece of art in the English Language that I've ever encountered, and the serial format contributes to this. I've only read thru volume 4, but I've read enough to realize you are probably right. I hadn't heard of Love and Rockets yet back when I wrote that piece about continuity. I think we're actually generally in agreement on this. The big companies are primarily worried about their bottom line and will only consider any form of artistic merit (continuity included) so far as it makes them more money. Stan and Jack introduced continuity into the Fantastic Four before Marvel even had a second superhero title, so I don't agree that it was just a marketing tool there, but it certainly served that purpose well. In the end, if the stories are trying to promote continuity, and if I'm having fun studying the continuity, that's all the reason I need to keep looking at this, but let's acknowledge that the larger issue isn't just continuity -- ALL artistic consideration becomes secondary to making a buck when you are dealing with comics that aren't creator owned. |
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Dec 10, 2019 11:35:58 GMT -5
That's fair. I think my point is that O'Neil's approach to continuity isn't an abberation, and a closer attention to continuity when you're trying to pump out as many books as the market will bare featuring one character can get real Clone Saga real fast. And I need to point out from time to time that what you view as problems with editorial are, in at least this readers eyes, as much feature as bug.
I suspect there was a marketing impetus for the first Hulk appearance in Fantastic Four; My guess is that Stan 'n Jack 'n Marty (et. al) thought there was long-term value in the Hulk as a character and (I suspect) were planning to revive him once they were allowed to publish more than 8 titles a month... So they wanted to keep Bob Banner and company in the public eye.
(Also Fantastic Four # 12 is one of the worst Stan Lee penned issues of the series. It did not open a universe of possibilities in my eyes.)
I do like continuity as a concept. I guess I never really read enough issues of a superhero title in a row to notice individual character growth, so that is lost on me.
I REALLY like what Steve Englehart did with continuity in the '70s, integrating the Rawhide Kid and Patsy Walker and Rex the Mother$%^&ing Wonder Dog into the wider Marvel and DC Universes. And I'd be totally down for a set of, say, 4 interlocking titles that keep a strict continuity and had an end date.
But someday I will get around to a "reasons continuity makes supehero comics worse" (Unless you have a long term writer OR artist and a sympathetic editor they personally mesh with who can still push them to their best work.) thread.
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Post by beccabear67 on Dec 10, 2019 12:25:27 GMT -5
As long as you are including "pulp" stories in with comic stories I can agree... although there may be a few who would bristle at Sherlock Holmes or Poe's recurring detective C. Auguste Dupin before that being "pulp", though I think they are genre... hate to mention Falstaff and Hal, but even earlier recurring characters. Didn'y the Ancient Greeks also have recurring characters in Jason, Heracles, and various Gods?
I think continuity might be best in a vague general overall (not tightly worked out) shared existence, and then tighter by one writer or writers working together closely through an editor. It got bogged down someplace where the footnotes to other titles and issue numbers started to number one or more per page!
I've read a fair bit of detective fiction (maybe a hundredth of what my mother has). I first loved Ed McBain's 87th Precinct police detectives series I think. I always love it when that aspect of Batman (or Robin, Batgirl, Huntress etc.) is played up, which they often do.
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Post by shaxper on Dec 10, 2019 21:37:46 GMT -5
That's fair. I think my point is that O'Neil's approach to continuity isn't an abberation, If you compare what is happening in the Batman office to what is happening in any other core DC title at this point, I disagree. Even with the trainwreck that the Post-Crisis reboot proved to be, sincere efforts were being made by pretty much every other office to pave a consistent path forward, even if some of the basic details were fuzzy. I suspect if you asked O'Neil himself, he would agree. He wouldn't see it as something to be ashamed of -- he was a salesman first, and he was damned good at it. His Bat Office was a sales machine, and it kept the higher ups at Warner very happy. O'Neil wasn't in it for love of the art, nor even love of the character that he'd gained such notoriety for working on a decade earlier. He was middle management working to make the bosses happy. And, on the rare occasion they weren't happy, he'd throw a Jim Starlin or Marv Wolfman under the bus and move on. Was he concerned with posterity? Sure. That's why he was sure to give himself the first story arc on Legends of the Dark Knight, insert his revised origin of Batman into the lead feature of a hastily composed Secret Origins tpb, etc. But the actual artistic integrity of the thing wasn't on his radar at all. He seldom cared what his writers and artists were doing so long as it didn't interfere with his high profile story arcs, inter-title crossovers, bi-weekly publication schedules, one-shots, crossovers, and graphic novels, nor Warner merchandising's ability to count on the characters still resembling what was being sold on toy shelves. Did he ever actually read these stories or do any of the things an editor was traditionally expected to do? Maybe a few times. Continuity was just one aspect of an editor's job that he had a blatant disregard for. But he was a hell of a salesman. Continuity done well, as opposed to continuity as reason-to-keep-obsessive-fan-boys-buying. I think we're in agreement. I've just read more of the good kind of continuity than you have. Once you've read more of the good stuff, I'd be very interested to read such a piece! |
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Post by shaxper on Dec 10, 2019 21:46:43 GMT -5
hate to mention Falstaff and Hal, but even earlier recurring characters. I love your going there, but that certainly wasn't an early example of continuity adherence. After all, Falstaff dies in Henry V and then comes back in Merry Wives of Windsor! Now the Shakespeare histories themselves, I'm totally with you there. I'm a huge fan of the histories, at least partly for this reason. It truly is fun to watch characters, families, and even England itself grow across the course of eight plays. If only Shakespeare could have generated them on a monthly basis! And as for Greek Mythology (or really mythology in general), yes, I think that works. You had hundreds of poets/authors/storytellers trying to maintain consistency across oral traditions over the course of a staggering number of years, so there were contradictions, to be sure, but there certainly was an effort to make it all work together. Part of the problem is that no one really expected comic book publishers (especially Marvel and DC) to endure for as long as they have. How do you possibly maintain a consistent history across so many titles, for so many years, with so many creators and editors involved and constantly switching on and off books? What was reasonably doable in the '60s and '70s is a near-impossibility with four more decades of content and creators piled on top of it all. Add to this the pressures of maintaining a monthly publishing schedule and the indifference of the publisher and upper management to issues of quality control, and it's practically a futile effort, but yes, I agree that it works on those spans of issues controlled by one or maybe a small handful of writers, actually listening to one another, and being helped along by an editor actually worth his/her salt. As for non-Big Two publishers, I think continuity is much easier to handle, especially when the creator remains involved. |
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Post by beccabear67 on Dec 10, 2019 23:36:22 GMT -5
that certainly wasn't an early example of continuity adherence. After all, Falstaff dies in Henry V and then comes back in Merry Wives of Windsor! Someone should've gotten a No-Prize!  |
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Post by shaxper on Dec 10, 2019 23:59:45 GMT -5
that certainly wasn't an early example of continuity adherence. After all, Falstaff dies in Henry V and then comes back in Merry Wives of Windsor! Someone should've gotten a No-Prize!  Psst! Prince Hal, new avatar?  |
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Post by zaku on Dec 11, 2019 8:27:27 GMT -5
Part of the problem is that no one really expected comic book publishers (especially Marvel and DC) to endure for as long as they have. How do you possibly maintain a consistent history across so many titles, for so many years, with so many creators and editors involved and constantly switching on and off books? What was reasonably doable in the '60s and '70s is a near-impossibility with four more decades of content and creators piled on top of it all. It's my impression that the current approach to continuity is "Let's try not to ignore it too much blatantly. If too many inconsistencies pile up, we will reset everything with another crisis!". Even Marvel did something similar with the recent "Secret Wars". |
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