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.

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.

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.

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.

It’s annoying that they care.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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?

******

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.

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)

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.

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. Seems kind of contrived. And the Celestials aren’t really ‘supposed’ to be a common occurance.