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I thought everyone had forgotten about the Eternals. That was a plot point in Gaiman's series. So maybe they've forgotten about the Celestials as an extension of that.

I would say it's perfectly fair. Nobody put a gun to Brubaker's head and said, "Use the Celestials in X-Men!" He could have decided to steer clear of continuity, and made some new alien race. But he chose to use a pre-existing race, one that has an established Marvel history, and yes, that does carry with it the expectation that you should take about five minutes and ask, "Hey--Cyclops ever meet any Celestials before?" It's not like there aren't metric tons of fans who know the answer.

As with the many other times this has come up , I'm not saying Brubaker needs to be a "slave" to continuity. He can choose to not deal with it at all. But if he is going to use continuity, I don't see any reason to defend a half-arsed job of it.

I love Brubaker..at least on Daredevil and Captain America and what he brings to the table on Iron Fist....I don't read his X-Men.

X-Men history/time-lines/alive..oops dead...back alive again...whatever is such a train wreck I can see how even one of the best could miss something...even something this big. (that's why I don't read X-Men)

Cyclops being a Skrull would be cool that would explain the whole relationship with the White Queen....maybe he's been dead for years...which would also be cool because Cyclops stopped being an interesting character around Uncanny X-Men #144.

Isn't that the editor's job? Not that I'm sure what a comic editor does these days. I often wonder what they do now that they don't sprinkle the pages with footnotes.

This is terrible, but when I first read the headline, I thought you wanted to know how much real-world research a writer should do for a story. Like, how familiar should the writer be with military equipment or global politics or even which exit off the Jersey turnpike goes where.

But you were asking about research into comic history.

Oh. Um...

Nevermind.

So there was an X-men story written 25 years ago that Brubaker might not have read?

Gasp.

Horror.

Whatever.

I do think writers should try'n work with established character concept and themes. But, honestly, trying to pretend that all 1,000 or-so issues of X-men continuity happened in a ten year span is a pretty major blow to my suspension of disbelief.

Yes, even given that I'll happily swallow the non-science that allows mutants to shoot lasers out of their face.

Even more than that, a strict adherence to imaginary structure basically deprives the writer of all the strengths of writing fiction... IE, the total freedom and flexibility to set up their fictional situations for maximum impact.

Writers are supposed to do research. It's base level part of the job. But when I think of writers research, I don't think or reading back comics. I think of what Robert in comment #5 thought of.

I also figured you meant real world research. Anyway with the freakishly long and desperately convoluted history the X-Men have I don't think it's even humanly possible anymore to know the whole thing. Are you sure that Cyclops meeting the Celestials haven't been undone in one of those world-shattering crossovers or relegated into some alternate reality or something?

Plus I have read all the pages posted in the linked article and I haven't noticed anyone calling the big robots Celestials. Maybe Scott simply doesn't know what they are called?

I'm with MarkAndrew. It's one comic out of about a thousand the character has appeared in, and it's not like it was in any way significant enough to be remembered by all but the most anal of retentives. It's unreasonable to expect any writer to have encyclopedic command of every comic his characters have ever appeared in. Some people would to well to remember that the Marvel Universe is a storytelling gimmick, not a sacred idol.

None of you noticed the Juggernaut line?

Brubaker either did some research,or has a familiarity with the X-men. An absolute basic requirement for his job.

All it would take is for someone at marvel to put together a database and writers and editors would be able to check this stuff out.

I'm with the 'it's lazy' party - you want to use some obscure characters/race that's appeared before, then do your research, or, gasp, invent something new.

You want to work for a company that screams 'this all matters, it's all one big universe' then you should respect what's gone before.

The writer who brought back Bucky because his death happened in a flashback should try a little harder, especially as all this stuff is available online and in reprints.

But to summarize, if you don't want to be a slave to continuity, then come up with something new.

And that X-factor artists website is weird shit.
What's with the mason stuff?

I think that being bogged down by decades of continuity ultimately hurts comic writing in general (and leads to Crises).

My opinion.

brubaker just wrapped up a lazyily spun 11 issue story arc, so he is certainly no stranger to laziness. i think he stretched the whole mr. fear (with editorial insistance no doubt) to satsify a combination of trade & '100th issue' requirements and that the last year of daredevil could have been taken care of in a sharp 5-6 part punch.

realistically, more than lazy though, he's probably just too busy writing too many major/plot driven books, as i know he's capable of better work sometimes. i loved his earlier daredevil issues, all of iron fist so far and have checked out the new criminal series, but not cap or x-men or whatever else he is penning.

Having only read X-titles on and off for the last 15 years, I'm certainly no expert on matters of continuity [For example, I have no idea if Psylocke is dead/alive/cloned/in suspended animation/infected with the Legacy virus/a Skrull/etc].

I'm not sure whether the Cyclops-Celestial scene was done intentionally or out of laziness, but either way it was really poorly written. It made Cyclops look like some country rube straight out of Mayberry with his whole "Gee, gawsh, what's that thar newfangled robot contraption standing in the park?" line. I would love if it turned out that Cyclops is a Skrull and this was hint given to the reader, but honestly I don't think Marvel has the wherewithal to go peppering their stories with clues to the secret invasion. Personally I thought that whole conversation was a waste of panel space.

When I checked out the link, I saw the "Fall of the Mutants" across the top of those covers, which was a terrible, terrible crossover, which I recall got me to finally drop this and New Mutants (I can't check right now, but I'm pretty sure I'd given up on Uncanny quite some time before). I'm pretty sure, though, that I definitely had bailed before any Celestials showed up, and didn't come back until Peter David's first run, with the new line up and the comic relief bits.
So, I guess, basically, I'm saying that ignoring this storyline doesn't bother me, because I didn't care for or about it.
Now, you could say "well how would you feel about things you like ignored this way", and I'd have to say I've seen that happen tons of times, so whatever.

X-continuity isn't a train wreck.. it's a plane crash that lands on a train wreck and then falls into a ravine.
I'd pin this on editors, whose job it is to know stuff like that.

his is terrible, but when I first read the headline, I thought you wanted to know how much real-world research a writer should do for a story. Like, how familiar should the writer be with military equipment or global politics or even which exit off the Jersey turnpike goes where.

No, no, I'm TOTALLY with you here.

I think this kind of research is absolutely vital to being a professional-level fiction writer. Grounding fantasy in realism helps with the insane suspension of disbelief required of superhero comics.

And I do think of fiction as a teaching tool. Any writer worth a damn is trying to enrich or challenge the audience, to some degree. And you can TEACH better if you know stuff. I'm not saying that comics have to do the Social Issue of the Week ala the Neal Adams Green Lantern, but their should be some understanding of real world truths

In comment #11, it was said "You want to work for a company that screams ‘this all matters, it’s all one big universe’ then you should respect what’s gone before." Is this really what the public thinks of Marvel? The same company that undid YEARS of Spider-Man continuity through a deal with the "Devil?" I must be living in an alternate universe...

And, yes, I did just beat that dead horse...again.

Isn't this what an editor is for?

Where the f*** were they? I can't expect bru to know 25 years of X-continuity.

And no, Daredevil could not have been wrapped up in a 5 or 6 part punch.

I'm also one who thinks this is the editor's job. I'm speaking as an editor, albeit one of technical books, rather than comics (not that I wouldn't love a job at Marvel, if they happen to be reading this), and it's part of my job to think of the questions the readers will have, and make sure the author addresses them. I don't know precisely what's in the job description for Marvel editors, but I don't think that's too much of a stretch.

There are a lot of people here who seem to think that it's unreasonable to expect either author or editor to know about an old X-Factor story, which really surprises me. With the resources available online, it only takes a few minutes to find those old stories (admittedly, if you look right now, most of the hits for "cyclops" and "celestial" are references to #496). If you'd made that argument in 1991, I'd accept it. Nowadays? Editors don't have to have every bit of continuity in their heads, but they can certainly know where to find it.

If it was one isolated story where Cyclops met a Celestial, I might say, "Big deal."

But, as the blogger states, Cyclops spent ONE ENTIRE YEAR of X-Factor continuity headquartered in a Celestial ship. That's a fairly significant chunk of the character's history, and SOMEBODY up at Marvel should have remembered, or made it their business to find out. If Brubaker didn't know this, then the editor should have, or else the "Continuity Cop" at Marvel should have.

And if Marvel & DC don't have Continuity Editors, they should. The simple reality is that keeping track of 45-70 years of constantly-rewritten comic book continuity is a full time job in itself.

This points out exactly why the whole Secret Invasion thing is unfair to readers. There are so many inconsistencies in characters that it is impossible for readers to know if something is a mistake, bad writing, or a clue. There isn't any way to detect a Skrull short of killing them and so all that leaves is characterization which writers routinely ignore or screw up. Therefore there is no way for us as a reader to know who the Skrulls are.

Yeah, it just seems real lazy to show Scott say that and not have spent five minutes to look up if he had ever met them before. I am really not understanding Marvel's seeming position on continuity as of late. It just seems they want to bank on the years of established history, but the minute the get called for a simple mistake, or are too lazy to check a simple fact, they holler that continuity is too hard to write. After OMD, and Civil War I've got to the point I almost wish they would just abandon this history and tell complete stories that you do not need to have read that last 40 years to understand. Of course that would eliminate all the mega crossovers....

In comment #11, it was said “You want to work for a company that screams ‘this all matters, it’s all one big universe’ then you should respect what’s gone before.” Is this really what the public thinks of Marvel? The same company that undid YEARS of Spider-Man continuity through a deal with the “Devil?” I must be living in an alternate universe…

And, yes, I did just beat that dead horse…again.

Read what they say in interviews, like before the Skrull Elektra was revealed, Joe Q was all 'this book is important' etc.
In fact, such a poor story to divorce Spider-Man from his wife shows how seriously they want everything to matter - they themselves all but admitted that it was a poor story, but needed to be told to get them where they wanted (which is bullshit), and also stressed 'this isn't a reboot, we don't do those'.
Which says 'it all happened, everything is important'.

That's why it annoys me if they do something like this - it might've been geeky fans (like Roy Thomas) who wanted it all to fit together, but then the companies started playing along as well.
If you're going to use continuity, then use it right.
If not... come up with new ideas!

First of all, I accept that it's not an either/or thing, but given the choice between a 'lazy' writer who can write a good story and a continuity obsessed dweeb writing incompetent fanwank, I'll take the former.

Personally, I'm sick to the gills of guys who get all the minutiae right, but wouldn't know a decent narrative if it started humping their leg.

Yes, Geoff Johns, I'm looking at YOU!

"Laziness" is a little harsh. It was just a fuckup. Everyone fucks up.

Guy shouldn't have to know everything, but if you're gonna write an entire conversation about Celestials, then I'd say it behooves you to take 10 seconds and type "Cyclops" and "Celestial" in Google to see what comes up.

OR.

It was done on purpose for a reason we're not supposed to know yet. Which is, actually, extremely possible.

Not that Cyclops has ever been known to have the most stable of memories, due to that whole childhood accident causing brain damage thing. Poor guy would probably forget he's even on the X-men had Professor X and Jean Grey not been there to mentally remind him all those years.

Honestly, given that the Thing never got sent a Beatle wig, Flash Thompson never served in Vietnam, Reed Richards isn't a WWII veteran, Teen Stark and Spider-Clone never happened, The Fantastic Four weren't racing the Reds to the moon...

I think getting yer knickers in a twist about the 'integrity' of the 'history' of fictional characters is somewhat ridiculous.

Guy shouldn’t have to know everything, but if you’re gonna write an entire conversation about Celestials, then I’d say it behooves you to take 10 seconds and type “Cyclops” and “Celestial” in Google to see what comes up.

Ok, ten seconds there, but if you're Brubaker and you're writing, what? three, four, five books a month, which is like 40-50,000 words, polished, ready for publication. And, oh yeah, researched, 'cause real writers do real research.

And in the middle of this you're writing X-men where you're stuck doing this big crossover with 27 different lead characters who have conversations with each of the 56 different minor characters.

Well, if this was ME, I'd weigh the time spent googling against the time spent actually writing to make my scripts decent times the number of fans who are actually going to (A) notice, and (B) care....

And add to this that Marvel really HAS forgotten the original, TRUE meaning of continuity from way back in the Stan days.

IE, it's a marketing gimmick you use to introduce, say the Fantastic Four to people reading Patsy Walker comics, and hopefully interest the Patsy Walker fans enough to buy the Fantastic Four comic and fatten Stan's pockets....

Well, honestly, until Marvel remembers how to use continity to effectively market their back-list, A LOT of which is in-print, either in trades, essentials, or CD-ROMS, they don't have much incentive to keep niggling continuity points, aside from pissing off whatever percentage of fans care ENOUGH to break their 30 year run of X-men comics.

And, honestly, from a creative end: At some point you're going to have written the best (character A) meets (Character B) scene in the world, and find out it's not gonna work because it contradicts established continuity. So you gotta either re-write (and, remember, 30-40K words a month. Polished,) or ignore the crappy scene in Darkhawk # 14 that the writer has most-likely long since forgotten.

Eventually it's gonna counteract quality.

If I may wildly speculate:

I'd wager there's a reason folks like Alan Moore and Frank Miller don't do any work in continuity anymore. (And Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns, probably the two defining superhero books of the last thirty years, WEREN'T in continuity.)

There's a reason why the best reviewed Marvel book (Criminal) and DC book (All Star Superman) aren't tied to continuity. In fact, looking over Dick Hyacinth's best-reviewed meta-list. I do believe the ONLY in-continuity titles in the top fifty were written by Ed Brubaker.

Don't know what that reason is, mind.

But I don't think it's coincidence.

The bad thing about that scene is that Brubaker had Scott asking what a Celestisl was exactly to have someone explaining what a Celestial is and what is it doing there so new readers could understand it better. So, if it had just switched the roles, with Cyclops explaining, since he already knew what a Celestial is, and if there is one X-men who would try to know everything about that giant thing in the middle of San Francisco for months, it would be him, no one would be talking about it.

Actually, now that I think about it, I hadn't cared for it at all, but not only it goes against the character's history, but goes against the character itself too; no way someone like Cyclops wouldn't at least try to find out what the giant alien thing in the middle of San Francisco was, if he didn't knew it already. And, like it was said before, you could just Google it to know.

Or even better: they could just have asked at CBR. Why not?

Well, if this was ME, I’d weigh the time spent googling against the time spent actually writing to make my scripts decent times the number of fans who are actually going to (A) notice, and (B) care….

And you know I'd almost always agree. I'm just saying, this particular case? A minute on Google. If that. It'd literally take less time to do than it would to consider doing it.

Having said that, I don't actually care that he goofed. But he did goof. (Unless, again, it was intentional)

And, honestly, from a creative end: At some point you’re going to have written the best (character A) meets (Character B) scene in the world, and find out it’s not gonna work because it contradicts established continuity. So you gotta either re-write (and, remember, 30-40K words a month. Polished,) or ignore the crappy scene in Darkhawk # 14 that the writer has most-likely long since forgotten

I will go out on a limb here and say, that has never happened in the entire history of comic books.

If they don't want to deal with continuity, don't write for books that require it, or tell stories that depend on it.

Ed Brubaker references the past histories and contemporary events in other books a lot. Not occasionally, not a detail here or there, but pretty damn often. Captain America is a veritable Grunwald villain's reunion. MR Fear,of all people, is behind DD recent troubles. Iron Fist is a tangle of character threads. He made Hepzibah an X-Men regular for Odin's sake!

He usually does it well. He may still be doing it well. A good deal of Cyclops' recent behavior is inexplicable. Brubaker has earned the benefit of the doubt.

Then again he added a third Summers brother, so maybe Marvel should have an editor watching over his shoulder 24 hours a day.

I will go out on a limb here and say, that has never happened in the entire history of comic books.

It happens all the time. Didn't we get two different "Superman meets Jimmy Olsen for the first time" stories just last year?

^^^ And one of those was the "best (character A) meets (Character B) scene in the world", but was re-written because it contradicted continuity?

No, it was the second thing Mark said. It "ignored the crappy scene in Darkhawk #14".

I had no problem with that scene when reading it, because I had no idea Cyclops encountered a Celestial before, until Tim O'Neil wrote about it. And still I don't see any problem with it. Because like Mory Buckman said in comment #1: Neil Gaiman's Eternals established the fact that the Eternals and Celestials were forgotten. Or at least that's what I remember. It was the same story that in the end of it the Dreaming Celestial remained standing in the middle of Golden Gate Park waiting for the end of the world.

At some point, I feel like it should be an editor's job to point such things out; shouldn't it?

Regardless of continuity, someone like Cyclops would absolutely know what a Celestial is. That guy has been all around the Marvel Universe and back, and met everyone along the way. If he hadn't seen a Celestial for himself, he would have found out from someone.

I'm just sayin', Marvel puts out these great "Essential" books.

Because they're essential reads. It's a clever name.

I mean, essential unless you're writing and/or editing the book currently...

I just liked that somebody has finally mentioned the 2000 foot tall space good who will bring the end of the world that has been standing in San Francisco for a year.

The thing is that if it was just for exposition, the entire conversation would have worked by reversing the dialog. Just leave out the "osmosis" bit. Just from the standpoint of publishing history, who'd be more likely to have encountered a Celestial, Scott or Emma?

The Eternals "everyone forgot" answer doesn't work here because then Emma shouldn't know anything either.

With something like Secret Invasion in the offing, things like this really need to be researched. It's likely to be heavy on continuity since they're saying certain characters may have been Skrulls for years. You can't say hero X has been a Skrull since April 1, 1999 and here are the things to back it up and then ignore other inconsistencies. These are their rules, not the readers'.

Because of this, I'm calling it. Scott's a Skrull.

Since others mentioned it. On the subject of real world research, I'd like to see some basic stuff applied. I hate stories like War Games that hinge upon not applying basic computer security procedures. You know, things like fired employees have their access revoked.

I think that writers SHOULD do a great deal of research when taking on X-Men. (They don't need to do as much when relaunching the Human Fly).

That said, an editor should have caught it. That's part of the editor's job.

I think if you're going to write a story that is part of a shared fictional universe, the writer has an obligation to know enough about the history of the series they are writing to not make major mistakes. It should be a job prerequisite, and definately one of the jobs of the editor.

Why have the history if you're going to ignore it?

Ignoring it unknowingly by not doing your research? Yeah, that's lazy. Come on guys, these are comic books, it's not like researching a major thesis for college. Hell, I don't even follow comics regularly any more and even I probably know more about the history of some of the characters than certain writers.

I'm not talking about minor errors. It happens. But you should at least know if the characters you are using are dead or not.

Good God, this is the 21st century. Don't they have a character database that records the printed history of the characters or at least refers you to the issues the character appeared in?

> Then again he added a third Summers brother, so maybe Marvel should have an editor watching over his shoulder 24 hours a day.

Ach! Post got eaten.

Anyway, in response to the quote above: the idea of a third Summers brother wasn't Brubaker's invention, as it was one of Marvel's numerous unaddressed X-Men plot threads from the mid-90s. They hinted at it for years, then forgot about it after some creative team change and it wasn't until Brubaker came along that someone remembered it.

We're not talking about a huge, major plot point in X-Continuity here.

Jeeeeeebus. It was a throw-away scene.

I think it was a bad scene for the reasons Apodaca mention. Cyclops would know what a Celestial is just because of his history. He's been all over the universe, been a super-hero since he was a teen-ager. You don't even have to look it up to just realistically assume Scott would know what one is.

That being said, it's still not that big of a deal. A couple of lines in what appears to be a relatively unimportant scene. Not the best writing, but it's not like he had Scott saying "The Starjammers? Never heard of them."

Cut the man some slack. It took place in a spin-off book. Brubaker could very well have boned up by reading every issue of X-Men ever and missed one of the stupider storylines from an ancillary x-book.

I do understand why people get annoyed. My geekdar went off when I read the scene too. But as it turned out, my life wasn't ruined by this minor continuity error.

No, I do not.

See, I didn't even know that Scott had already met a Celestial, and the conversation still struck me as off because of the people involved. One of them has been all over the galaxy, had several important storylines in outer space, and, oh, is the son of a space pirate. The other is clearly earth-based and practically never used in storylines that involve huge galactic threats. So having Emma explain to Scott what a Celestial was made me think "And next, she's going to tell him about the Shi'ar political system, because clearly, he's totally ignorant about that stuff". The exposition would have worked better if they'd been switched. Or he's a skrull. Or Brubaker didn't even wonder which one was more likely to know about the huge aliens.

Hmmm, They didn't know Ship was a celestial device until it was hijacked by the Celestials in that story. I don't know if anyone actually named the Celestials in that issue either.
'And a giant space god, wow, I bet he's related to Galactus!' - I'm surprised that reaction doesn't happen more often.

I don't think that just because Scott's fought a few aliens he should have an encyclopedic knowledge of all alien races. Seems kind of contrived. And the Celestials aren't really 'supposed' to be a common occurance.

Another vote for reversing the dialog would fix it. Or even just reversing the last question.

Because he's Cyclops and is supposed to be the top leader in the MU after Captain America and would at least have heard of Celestials because it's what he does, even ignoring that he's dealt with them before...that he lived on a ship of theirs...a ship his son bases all of his technology off of.

It just seemed sloppy.

I don’t think that just because Scott’s fought a few aliens he should have an encyclopedic knowledge of all alien races.

That's not the argument.

He's supposed to be a world-class tactician. You know how someone gets to be a good tactician? Experience and knowledge. Ignorance is the bane of any tactician.

It's poor characterization.

One thing people are missing: X-Factor wasn't an "ancillary" X-Men book during the time period discussed; it was almost co-equal in terms of stature with Uncanny, as it was the book put together for people who liked the original X-Men more than some of the more out-there plots Claremont was putting together (these were the Dazzler / Longshot years, if I'm getting my timelines right) during the same time period.

Uncanny was more popular, no doubt, but X-Factor was in the solid #2 position that Uncanny would later take over during the launch of adjectiveless X-Men. Probably hard for younger readers to imagine, but we're talking about a time when any property - even the X-Men - getting a second title was a really big deal.

(And, yeah, New Mutants was always around, but they were sort of off to the side by the time X-Factor rolled around)

The perfect (and obvious) solution would be for Marvel to hire a half-dozen of the more continuity-obssessed fans they can find in the Internet and form their own squad of fact-checkers.

Marvel would have continuity-perfect stories. It would save Brubacker the task of reading the 5.000 comic books the X-Men have already appeared in. And, best of all, we wouldn't have to hear the continuity crazies complaining anymore abour how a comic is ruined because a minor scene contradicts something that happened a thousand years ago.

Everyone would be happy. So, c'mon Marvel, give these guys their dream job, if only to shut them up.

Can't say I'm really all that familiar with this specific situation, but as for 'fault' when these things happen... bad writing (regardless of the specifics of how or why it's bad) is both the writer's and the editor's fault. The writer for not doing their job well, the editors for not catching them on it and having the writer correct it in some manner. But at the end of the day, people are human and mistakes ('planned' *wink wink, nudge nudge* or accidental) happen.

I don't necessarily have a problem with continuity gaffes. I'm more against the cheesy dialogue, ill conceived plots and unresolved plotlines, and completely wrong science. But since that doesn't pertain to this specific example (to my awareness), I'll refrain from expanding on that here.

******

Rene:

Marvel did / does have a "fact checking group". Peter Sanderson headed it for years. How do you think the Marvel Universe Handbooks were produced in the first place?

******

I don't think this particular mistake is a big deal really. Pretty minor.

However, as he was writing the scene, and he's specifically having Scott ask what a celestial is, he probably should have asked himself "wait a minute, has he ever seen one? I'd better check that out!" Or shifted the question to some other character's dialog that he knew for a fact had never seen one.

But - it's not a big deal really, just annoying. I have a much bigger problem when writers have characters acting totally out of character, displaying abilities they don't really have, revolving major plot points around something that doesn't jive with past history, using dead characters without any reference as to why they are still alive, etc. Brubaker's thing here was just a minor mistake that doesn't really effect anything, so I can live with it.

If there's a giant alien armour thin in San fran, surely it would have been all over the news, and some kind of superhero expert would have said what it was?

"The perfect (and obvious) solution would be for Marvel to hire a half-dozen of the more continuity-obssessed fans they can find in the Internet and form their own squad of fact-checkers."

That's not a bad idea. They could run a "continuity check" forum where Marvel writers could interact with fans and ask continuity-related questions when they are unable to do their own research (without spoiling upcoming plots of course). Stuff like "Hey where was the last time Longshot appeared" or "Is Viper 2 still alive?" or "Hey can someone list for me all of the Hobgoblin's appearances?"

It helps make fans a part of the creative process and gives Marvel a free resource while allowing them to interact directly with fans who care about this stuff. Win-win!

They should also put their interns to work on developing a comprehensive comics database that has synopsis for every Marvel comic and a cross reference of all major characters and their histories. If they don't already have that, that is. And make it accessable over the web so that their creators can access it from anywhere.

That's a terrible idea. Continuity fans should not be encouraged or even given a living wage. Natural selection demands they perish from the earth.

John Seavey said …you should take about five minutes and ask, “Hey–Cyclops ever meet any Celestials before?” It’s not like there aren’t metric tons of fans who know the answer.

You are so wrong!!!

Fans don't want to read every Cyclops comic there is! That's just plain stupid. And Marvel doesn't want you to do that, either! They think it's a waste of your precious money.

Besides, wasting money is what communists do.

The bigger crime here is wasting three minutes of Mr. Brubaker's life by having him check the Wikipedia Celestials entry to see where the Celestials were last seen; or to see if there have been any previous ties or crossovers with the X-Men.

That is just plain Unamerican!!! That's 3 minutes of Mr. Brubaker's life (or his Editor's) that he won't get back!

Hell! I know for a fact that our forefathers bombed those sorry Nazis' asses out of Pearl Harbor just so that normal Americans like you and I could be excempt from doing the bare minimum!!!

It's in the Constitution!!!

I mean, honestly...

Do you walk into Best Buy thinking that an Electronics Salesman is going to know more than you about TV's? Of course not!

Do you go to the Doctor expecting him to know about new drugs and stuff? Hell No!

And don't get me started on Lawyers and Accountants! Everybody knows that cases are won by arguing! Research is for losers!

Reading through these comments I can't help but get a laugh at the two extremes. One, you have those nitpicking every lil detail of continuity. And while they're annoying it's just as annoying to see comments that seem to chastize anyone that has continuity knowledge.

Yes please let's throw tomatoes at people who have good memories and actually remember what they've read. Now in Bru's defense he's got alot happening on his plate and things happen. No big deal. But don't jump down a person's throat for remembering what was actually a pretty large detail and pointing it out. They paid money for the comics I don't see a problem with them remembering what they've read.

Now to get on Bru and alot of X-Writers in general, 99% of them claim to be these big ol gushing X-Fans in their interviews. Well, a fan in the context they often speak in would remember those details IMO. And even if they did forget it's so easy to hit up uncannyxmen.net or mutanthigh.com to dig up some info. And I KNOW Marvel knows about it, because the editors talked about the site in an interview. So the knowledge is out there. And I understand that Bru is busy, but geezbus the information isn't that hard to find.

So yea I can understand being annoyed at something like that not being referenced, but it's nothing to have a heart attack over. Despite that though that doesn't get X-Writers off the hook. They can't tell me they take that job without knowing the amount of story invested into just about every character. If Mike Carey can nail his guys 99% of the time, then I'm not letting other writers get off that easy. I'm not going to die if the X-Writers don't do a large amount of back reading, but they only have themselves to blame if they don't and something is pointed out.

Personally, I have no problem if a Company says "Ok, folks, the previous continuity no longer applies". But if they insist that it does- well, I expect them to follow through. And for better or worse, that's the case with Marvel.

So yeah, I expect than when a writer uses a character in a Marvel story -no matter how obscure- he either researches it well enough to use it properly, or sets up a reason for any possible contradictions. Nearly anything can be explained, with a little imagination.

And while in the old days, research was hard to do, today we have the Internet. Not to mention that Marvel itself puts out Handbooks to their Universe all the time. If I were to write for Marvel, the first thing I would do is buy every OHOTMU volume I could.

And it's true that this is both the writer's and the editor's fault. The writer must do research, but the editor must catch the errors, and unlike the writer, he has to be familiar with more than one book.

And yes, the fact that Marvel, given the whole multi-decade continuity deal, does not have an official "continuity editor" checking out for these things, makes little sense. Not since Gruenwald, anyway. Maybe it would be easier if they DID have a "Crisis" of their own and started over... just make sure to follow through on that, unlike DC, who ruins its own continuity after their much-ballyhooed reboots because their editors let the writers do whatever they please.

I don't think anyone is annoyed that some people remember things . . .hell, I remember "ship" too.

It's annoying that they care.

Well, the posts seem to portray otherwise. And why shouldn't they care? They spent the money on it.

Do you know how many people they have on big time book series just to make sure the continuity is right? People invest their time and money into something then they have absolutely every right to care about it. To suggest they don't seems a bit childish honestly.

Now should they throw a hissy fit? Naw, I don't think that's even kosher. But if someone intelligently points out a flaw then I have no problem with that.

If you care so much about continuity then that's your pregorative but to make immature comments about the guys who do seems a bit like the bully in the classroom who doesn't know something and decides to make an issue of how stupid it is to know the thing they don't.

There's this automatic assumption that those of use that think strict continuity is silly somehow aren't "nerd" enough, we don't know the continuity. Dude, I know this stuff. I have entire portions of brain wasted by it. I just don't think it's important, and I think letting it affect how you enjoy a story about guys with laser eyes is pretty silly.

Well on my part that assumption wasn't automatic. I mean to be honest your previous responses didn't exactly speak of someone who wanted to even try to approach the subject in a mature manner. Cyclops not knowing about the Celestials doesn't make me want to go and burn down Marvel, but I can understand why some people's enjoyment level would be affected.

To give a better perspective on why I can understand why this might irk somebody (particularly a reader during that era) let's take this example. 10 or 15 years down the line you have Writer A who comes on to UXM and has Nightcrawler in his roster. A story point comes up and Nightcrawler asks "Can someone explain to me what the Phoenix is?"

Writer A didn't know that Kurt was around for the phoenix saga because at this point the story will have been some almost 40 odd years in the past and that's not the X-Men he grew up reading. I think if someone got pissy about something like that they'd be well in their rights. And the fumble up with Cyclops was even a shorter amount of time back so when do you stop making allowances for writers who don't want to take the time to research? I'm not accusing Bru of that, but the original question was aimed at writers in general.

Just because details aren't necessarily imporant to you doesn't make the person they are important to somehow "silly" or worrying too much about the details. There are simply too many tools out there for writers not to make slip-ups. Now do I care what color Jean's toenails were in issue 200? No, but Cyclops spent a good amount of time with Celestial tech in a title held in the same regard X-Men is today as a sister title.

I think most people are missing the point of why that scene is bad, which I pointed in an earlier post: it isn't bad only because Brubaker didn't know Cyclops had this 10 issue storyline in X-factor dealing with Celestials in the early 90's, it's bad because Cyclops not knowing a Celestial when he sees one is bad characterization; from that scene, one can assume that Scott is the type of hero that is so careless he doesn't bother to at least try to find out about the giant thing in the middle of San Francisco, which anyone that knows the character understands it's far from the truth, being that he is known for being very obsessed about his job and ofter overly careful.

And, sure, the X-men don't explore the universe as much as the Fantastic Four, but this is the guy that was married to the Phoenix; gods and cosmic entities were a part of his daily life.

I'm amazed that anyone thinks Brubaker doesn't take his work seriously enough to do that research. After all, working within constraints is part of craft -- hell, it's part of having ideas.

I would certainly call it either laziness, or poor planning...IF it were not just a simple honest mistake. But that's only IF this were a fuck-up, which I don't believe it is. I actually find it quite conceivable that Brubaker read X-Factor 'way back when it was actually on sale, and has been fully apprised of the Cyclops/Apocalypse/Ship/Celestials relationship for years and years.

But also, here's another point: I really don't give a damn if Brubaker happens to miss something, whether it's through laziness or not. Clearly not just plain burning all consistency to the ground because you can't think of anything else to do is part of the job you have when you work for Marvel Comics (unless, perhaps, your name is Bendis), and I think Brubaker is probably a very assiduous guy when it comes to using his resources, doing appropriate research and so forth...but on a personal level I don't care about the particulars of his work process, because all that ought to matter to me is what makes it into the book, and that isn't his responsibility alone. He works with an editor. And is anyone seriously proposing that ensuring character histories mesh with current plotlines is not something Marvel requires from its editors? Jeez louise, I've had some slack-ass jobs in my time, but that'd take the cake. "Hey, does Cyclops know what a Celestial is?" "Hell, don't ask me...just slap down any old thing, I'm sure it'll be fine." You can't tell me that's business as usual. And considering Marvel's in the midst of running a big line-wide crossover whose promotion specifically encourages its readers to hunt around for clues to who might be an impostor, the inevitable mistakes that occasionally slip through the cracks have got to be a much bigger deal than usual right now. A continuity gaffe is normally just fodder for someone else's retcon down the line, even if the retcon takes thirty years to come along. Regrettable, but not overwhelmingly important. Just like it isn't overwhelmingly important that what Captain America's doing in his own book dovetails with what he's doing in the Avengers, most of the time -- although it's much more important than forgetting that he once dated Carol Danvers for an issue, or something. No, the really important continuity is the stuff that comes along in a crossover, that synchronizes what's going on in different titles -- that's tough sledding for editors, lots of overtime. But with Secret Invasion (still a really dumb name) that synchronization (it seems to me) must also become entwined with character histories, so the net has to be pulled much tighter. In other words, it's a writing and editing environment where a simple mistake that ordinarily wouldn't count for much one way or the other could snowball into fan outrage at Marvel not "playing fair" -- and if Marvel doesn't care about that, then they must be freakin' NUTS.

So what do you call it, when someone's told "look, just make damn sure about this stuff for the next few issues", and then they blow it up anyway? A fuck-up, sure. And laziness would be a high-probability reason for the fuck-up, in that case. No way around it.

But I doubt that Brubaker's a lazy guy. Besides, I think he reads comics.

I still don't give a damn about Secret Invasion, though.