Continuity is good?

[carmelo]

I said a while back the idea of characters aging and dying isn't problematic, but perhaps what I should have said was that there ought to be a way of taking time into account. That is, you can have change by characters yielding their identity to their successors (e.g. Flash) and you can have characters that don't age because there's an explanation: e.g. Nick Fury and his Infinity Formula.

And Devil,Spiderman,fantastic four,and 90% of Marvel characters have drink infinity formula too? Because are around from early 60s,and would have 60-70 years almost (Mr Fantastic and the Thing 85 years).

Even if you ignore the baldfaced lie that the aptly-named ASS is in some way a continuation of Earth-1 Superman (a belief that somehow persists despite its obvious falsehood - Jimmy Olsen being seventeen, no Morgan Edge or WGBS, a "jerk" Steve Lombard: a characterization he moved past during in the Byzantine Era), ALL-STAR SUPERMAN is a glorified Elseworld. It has no more continuity weight than that issue of WHAT IF? where Wolverine became Lord of the Vampires.

Maybe ALL-Star Superman is the Superman of SILVER AGE (1956-1970) and not of BRONZE AGE.So,nothing WGBS,Morgan Edge,and others 70s-early 80s things.And in my opinion in this strange times  ALL Superman versions are elseword.

[MatterEaterLad]

All comics are Elseworld to me.

The point about the Bronze Age is actually reasonable to me, I really didn't like the introduced continuity there at all, I would have preferred more science fiction like Superman spending time on a another planet for a decade over WGBS and all the sturm and drang of Lombard, Lana, Edge and Lois trying to find herself etc.  But it all depends on what you are used to and think, all the comics in the world won't change what I prefer.

[Gangbuster]

What about John Byrne's "Generation"?

I only picked up one issue, the one where Superman and Batman's descendants team up with the Legion to fight Darkseid.

I learned several things from this:

1) The Fourth World seriously needs to be given a rest. It was innovative to throw Kirby's concepts into DC-proper when Levitz did it in the early eighties, but like Celtic Myth, "airport novel" theories about Jesus's bloodline, Angels, and Vampires...Kirby's Fourth World has become way, way too trendy. Familiarity has strip-mined it all of coolness at this point.

Yes! Finally someone said it! Kirby originally intended for Darkseid to die at the end of his story, which he didn't get to finish. So now DC mines a character who should be dead for all he's worth, and will continue to do so until he becomes more profitable by dying. Isn't that how DC works?

The only sense of continuity that you'll find in Superman books right now is All-Star Superman,

 

to the power of Infinity.

Actually, your statement might be true if your definition if continuity is "whatever Grant Morrison says is true at any given moment."

Even if you ignore the baldfaced lie that the aptly-named ASS is in some way a continuation of Earth-1 Superman (a belief that somehow persists despite its obvious falsehood - Jimmy Olsen being seventeen, no Morgan Edge or WGBS, a "jerk" Steve Lombard: a characterization he moved past during in the Byzantine Era), ALL-STAR SUPERMAN is a glorified Elseworld. It has no more continuity weight than that issue of WHAT IF? where Wolverine became Lord of the Vampires.

How rude not to include my complete original quote, which was

The only sense of continuity that you'll find in Superman books right now is All-Star Superman, IF you read it with Grant Morrision's statement in mind: This is earth-1 Superman, and several years have passed.

By leaving out half of it, you completely changed the meaning of what I said, which is that, like you said, my "statement might be true" 

[Uncle Mxy]

As interesting as some of the "planned ending" series have been, isn't it possible there are some things that are just not designed to end? Legion of Super-Heroes, for one, can reasonably continue forever even under the worst circumstances.

That's because those stories can be segmented from contemporary DC Earth continuity with a little effort.  It's been the contorted efforts to try and tie them too tightly to mainstream DC universe too strongly that have been responsible for most of their downhill trends.

I said a while back the idea of characters aging and dying isn't problematic, but perhaps what I should have said was that there ought to be a way of taking time into account. That is, you can have change by characters yielding their identity to their successors (e.g. Flash) and you can have characters that don't age because there's an explanation: e.g. Nick Fury and his Infinity Formula.

It can get a little torturous when you start looking at Justice Society, much less all the nooks and crannies. 

The characters trump the stories. and the stories trump the universe.

I don't agree. Stories don't and shouldn't happen in a vacuum. Superhero comics aren't an anthology series like THE TWILIGHT ZONE.

Good characters aren't brought down by bad storylines -- we're still talking about Superman despite the Iron Age .  But, bad characters can ruin good stories.  Alan Moore didn't just write some good Supreme stories, but had to cleverly scrap Liefeld's Supreme character altogether.  Liefeld's Supreme would be toxic to most Alan Moore stories (at least those ones that don't have "Liefeld's Supreme character gets eliminated as the main focus at the very start" ).  What I was actually thinking of as I was typing this were all the old Batman stories where he's fighting aliens in space and time.  Some of those stories were all fine and good, but weren't "Batman" stories and would've been better served with some other action adventurer.

If a writer has a story that is centered around Ultron being a cold and emotionless robot, whether that is a "good" story or not is totally irrelevant, because that's not how Ultron is characterized as being. It is by definition, a "bad" story because they gpt it wrong: Ultron is calculating and ruthless, but he can be very passionate and violent.

I take it you haven't gotten the memo about Ultron being a "she" (and I'm not talking about Jocasta).

I guess I'm not a slave to some world-without-end illogical congruous canon.

Here's an observation of mine: opponents of continuity (which really, is as nonsensical as opposing gravity) seldom give any examples of what they see as being wrong with the shared universe. There's a tendency to talk in generalities. As in "I think this."

Fundamentally, sequential art implies continuity -- it's a question of what span of time, and what degree of continuity, and what sort of story you want to tell.

I don't know if I agree with that. There have been some moments where writers really got sloppy with the science fiction elements, certainly (introducing something that should have been a much bigger deal), but you have to hand it to the MU in one respect: the introduction of most new fantasy elements is carefully considered. It's not like Reed Richards created a machine that cures paralysis or cancer in one issue, and then "forgot" about it.

The commercialization of unstable molecules in the 1960s alone would've meant huge changes for our way of life now. 

[TELLE]

All comics are Elseworld to me.

The point about the Bronze Age is actually reasonable to me, I really didn't like the introduced continuity there at all,

MEL, I actually prefer Silver to Bronze myself, but have a perverse fascination with and love for it in part because Maggins' LSOK was the first Superman story I consciously read as a kid aside from the animated cartoons and 50s tv show.  So, after finally getting around to actively picking up older Superman comics as an adult, the 70s comics always resonated in a different way with me.  If they had to change Superman at all in the 70s (they didn't), I think they changed it in a respectful, logical way.  One or two major characters were added (I think Lombard as a rival/pest is a good addition, whereas Morgan Edge, the caustic boss, is just a bland, unlikable version of Perry White).  The lack of good new classic villains outside Parasite and Terra Man is also a Bronze Age minus.  But the "sturm and drang" shenanigans with Lois, etc were really nothing new, except in terms of tenor and attempts at maturity --one of the most obvious signs of the aging audience, different editors & writers.
The covers were uglier too, minus Swan.

 

[MatterEaterLad]

Well, its always down to what you are used to.  I actually stopped reading all comics when the Sand Saga ended (as well as Denny O'Neill's Green Lantern/Green Arrow, Wonder Woman giving up her powers etc.). The "relevence" of the more modern update seemed just as artificial as the Silver Age, and not nearly as fun.  Most of the people here are younger than me, I actually thought Maggin and Bates took Superman a little too seriously.

But I have a different attitude toward comics - I like them BECAUSE they remind me of being a kid, not because I would keep reading them for decades.

[carmelo]

At last i think that the best manner to use "multiverse" is give different version of same characters at different type of readers.I imagine two or three regular series,one with a "contemporary" version of Superman,another with the classic Silver age style Superman,another more "cartoon style" for childrens and Kids.

I don't know if that would work.

For one thing, Silver Age-style pastiches are seldom any good. Even Waid himself regrets THE SILVER AGE, and SUPREME is (at best) hardly Moore's best work. At worst, it's a blight on his resume.

I made an observation a while back: if someone wanted to tell a good Silver Age-style story today, if it was sincere, if it was any good, it wouldn't immediately be recognizable as a Silver Age-style story. Paul Levitz's LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES run duplicated the "epic battle" Silver Age Legion story formula, and even directly built on sixties stories.

But because it chose to be sincere instead of half-mocking, maudlin nostalgia...because he chose not to laugh at the characters, his stories didn't dwell on making sure the Legion future looks laughably "Buck Rogers." And so people don't immediately see that Levitz's Legion was so very, very "Silver Age."

Well,i fear to be a disperate case:I love Silver Age Superman and...Batman-Adam West version.

[Super Monkey]

Well,i fear to be a disperate case:I love Silver Age Superman and...Batman-Adam West version.

The one true Batman: