Go to know that Flash is showing up these days. I loved it when Peter had a big cast, especially when a writer knew how to make it work. Before I stopped reading JMS’ Spider-Man, I was struck by how small Peter’s world seemed, even when he went to work at the high school. I kept thinking, “Doesn’t he have any friends?”

And Matthew, I think DC has gone too far to the other extreme, where their sense of history is too obsessive so that it interferes with the story. I don’t mind the continuity-heavy story every so often, but, as I mentioned, Infinite Crisis was a mess because, it seemed, they tried to fit everything into it. But that’s just my opinion.

I think the whole “noone hears the final word” thing is a quasi-urban legend that built up because a guy who was under that impression asked Welles about it one time, and Welles forgot for a second that the guy was wrong, and said to him, “… and let us never speak of it again”.

Which is the awesome answer that should be given to just about any continuity blunder, really.

You’ve got me wanting to watch Kane for about the trillionth time to check now…

Flash has actually been back in Peter’s life for the last few months in the pages of Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. He’s a gym teacher at Peter’s school, but has amnesia, and so he still thinks of Peter as “Puny” Parker.

I think continuity is a good thing. I love the idea of a past history. I love superheroes interacting with one another and making it meanwhile. I love the universal resets and the idea of a malleable reality. But that’s just me.

I’m not sure what you mean about DC losing its sense of history though…Marvel yes, DC, not really.

Notice the fact that Scott still hasn’t done any mourning, or even considered that this might feel wrong in some way. That has to do with other writers dropping the ball and not dealing with the obvious conclusion, where Scott gets pissed and leaves the X-Men for good. Period.

I am sure that I am going to be shot down for this by the real comic book readers (I am a dabbler at best)…

Ryan, we’re all dabblers. Carrying on about comics like we do here, it’s SUPPOSED to be recreational. If it isn’t, than we’re not doing it right. You never need to apologize just for HAVING an opinion.

I don’t know about the rest of it. I’m mostly of the opinion that it’s time for the pendulum to swing back the other way, that “continuity” as we talk about it in comics is really out of control at this point. I still think JLA #1 was pretty damn unfriendly to new readers but I had nine or ten people telling me in comments that it wasn’t THAT bad, and they clearly regarded it as similar to your Excalibur experience.

So who knows? The REAL problem, which is what I probably should have explained better last week, is that Marvel and DC are betting the farm on guys like us now who ALREADY KNOW THINGS, instead of trying to go in a different direction and after different markets with their main characters. There’s no INTRODUCTORY mechanism in any of these books… for characters that are routinely creating interest for new readers through movies and TV. That’s frankly idiotic. And everyone in comics knows it but rather than step aside for a newer generation we insist it all be for us. Fans always are like that, they were when Excalibur came out; but that goes beyond idiocy into some kind of a death wish when it is coming from publishers too.

I do have a test “new reader,” actually: my wife Julie is not up on superhero continuity AT ALL, and I can hand her something like Rebirth and say, “Do me a favor and see if this makes sense to you, if it actually is a story you can follow.” She’ll struggle through it but later she’ll say that it seemed way too wordy for a comic, or something like that. Sometimes she’ll add a rider like, “Gee, the Justice League sure aren’t acting very nice, I thought they were the good guys. And why is everyone clenching their teeth?” I keep telling her she should really sit down and write some of these first-impression, outside-looking-in things down, it’d be a nice guest column. But she is too shy.

Jordan, I don’t remember Jean screwing with his head. I remember her telling him to be happy, but I wasn’t sure how much she messed with him. I suppose the whole thing makes me grumpy because I still don’t like the fact that Scott “cheated” and I don’t like Emma as a good guy (and I assume someone can let me know if she still is, as I don’t read Astonishing X-Men). Morrison did an okay job of trying to explain it, but it felt like he just loved Emma so much that he was jamming her into the story without really thinking about it. In other words, I didn’t buy his explanations, and felt he could have done a better job on it.

I am betting that a lot of people would like to see Sherlock Holmes show up in Dracula. I have a novel coming out next month which does exactly that. In “Sherlock Holmes and the Plague of Dracula” I fit the events and characters of “Dracula” into the Holmes universe, and I stay strictly within Sherlockian continuity to the best of my ability. I also explain what really happened at the Reichenbach Falls, what Holmes was really doing during the Great Hiatus, and even delve into the true nature of vampirism. I have been told that one particularly hard to please critic liked it a lot, so I am hopeful the general readership will, too.

I well understand how you can be of two minds regarding continuity. The last time I read “X-Men” it had been a while since I picked the book up and they were drowning so much in old continuity I just couldn’t follow what was going on. However, I will probably skip the next “Star Trek” movie if they try to get away with Kirk and Spock being fellow students at Starfleet Academy: it just didn’t happen. Spock is about 15 years older than Kirk and they first met when Kirk was given command of the Enterprise. In this case, the issue is more than continuity. It’s history.

In my own book, whenever a small point of continuity in the Holmes canon or in “Dracula” got in the way, I did what I felt was best for the story. In the end, I think you’re right: if the story is good enough, then old continuity points can safely be laid aside.

Here’s the link if you want to learn more about my book:

http://www.mountainsidepress.com/mystery.html

–Steve Seitz
Springfield, Vt.

However, I am not with you on the Scott/Emma front. I thought Morrison did a really good job on this front. Scott didn’t jump into bed with Emma after Jean died. He abandoned her, to mourne for his true love, Jean. He regretted cheating, and would have left Emma forever. Jean made him go back with her. She screwed with his head. He would not have done it on his own. The other characters even bitched about how he’d jumped in bed with her so quickly, so it was even acknowledged in-comic how that was out of his character. Because Jean made him do it. The cheating was all him, but the decision to stay with Emma was not.

An example might be in the current Ultimate Spider-Man storyline where the Fantastic Four are making a minor gust appearance. When Reed Richards decides to call Nick Fury with a problem, not only does the dialog and setup reflect Peter’s shaky relationship with SHIELD (as it should, it’s his book after all) but it also reflects Reed’s relationship with Fury.