Hey brian, I know it's not comics-related, but if you ever do a special videogame-related column, I'd love to hear the real story about the law the Japanese Diet passed requiring videogames be released on weekends after thousands of people skipped work and school the day Dragon Quest III came out. Some reports say it was a law, some that it only applied to DQ games, and smoe that it was merely a "request", which bears much more weight in Japanese culture than in ours.

-”If you’ve got data to disprove that last claim, I’d sure like to see it.”

By that same token, shouldn’t YOU present evidence of your claims first?

Well, I sort of did present evidence: I said there was little evident objection, and what there was (comments in the letters pages), the editors and writers didn't show much of a response to. Now, inasmuch as it's the business of comics to make money, and the amount of money you make is dependent on the size of your audience, you'd think that if the DC powers-that-be had felt that Haney's (and others') continuity-breaking threatened their bottom line, they would have done something about it: gotten him to clean up his act, replaced him, whatever. But they didn't.

I'm perfectly happy to admit that this argument is not conclusive. You can certainly claim that they would have done better business if they had taken those steps, that they only employed Haney out of loyalty, that the old-timers were too slow to catch up to the Marvel-style storytelling that would have earned them bigger bucks, and so on. And you might be right. But that presumes you know more about the comics business in the '60s and '70s than they did, which seems unlikely.

But, let’s not go there; as far as I know, we are simply comparing opinions here, not proving anything, and we are doing it because we enjoy talking about the subject- the moment it becomes boring or distasteful, neither of us has to continue. That’s a point that fans often blindly miss in their online arguments.

Fair enough, and I hope I'm not stepping over the line.

Still, my point is that, using a character and blatantly ignoring not just his or her continuity, but even his basic personality (Plastic Man being an example) only because the writer felt like doing it, IS technically wrong, even if nobody really complained., in the same way that a robbery is wrong, even if no one reports it. And presenting such a story without any warnings to the buying public, is even more wrong.

I'm going to join others in saying that my real beef with you is over your use of the word "wrong." There's a massive body of moral philosophy (about which I'm no expect) devoted to considering what makes something wrong, and one important aspect is the violation of the rights of others. Robbery is wrong because it involves violation of someone's property rights. What rights are violated when a story is not labeled as out of continuity? Is there some human right to have all one's fiction line up neatly? I'm with MarkAndrew here when he says:

It’s not wrong because there isn’t a Plastic Man. One writer pretends an imaginary character has one set of characteristics. One writer pretends an imaginary character has another set of characteristics. Neither is less made-up than the other. Fiction that disagrees with other people’s fiction is still fiction.

I have no problem with your saying that, given your tastes and your approach to reading comics, you would have liked to have stories labeled according to which world they took place in (though it sounds to me like what you really would have wanted is to not have those stories exist at all). You can even say that there are plenty of others like you. But to lay a moral judgment and call the lack of labeling "wrong"? That's just silly. And, as I've said before, anachronistic. (By the way, I'm still curious about your age.)

I think Rolf really nails it when he says:

since the point of the book was to pair the enormously-popular Batman with other heroes, no matter how far-fetched the plot, I really didn’t care. I mean, Batman and Kamandi? Batman and Scalphunter? It was more exciting just to see how Bob Haney would pull it off… and to enjoy Jim Aparo’s art on a character I enjoyed.

Those books were fun (no, they were not high art, but neither is the vast majority of interconnected superhero continuity), and the fun was in seeing Batman teamed up with the full range of DC characters. Coming up with "rational" explanations for how Batman could be meeting someone whose "earth" he didn't share would have in many cases just bogged things down.

(The art sure was great, tho.)

And here we agree! All hail Jim Aparo!

-”But why don’t the fans of Archie require it if it’s such a universal desire?” Because the WHOLE point of Archie is that NOTHING ever changes: sure, they may change the character’s fashions or gadgets to fit with the times, but in general the series WAS invented to provide utterly interchangeable humorous stories with the same characters and no carrying on of effects from one story to the next. ... Now try to sell most other comic titles with that same approach, see what happens.

You're right; after I sent my previous post I realized I was too glib in making that point. Archie is basically a gag strip, and that's not a genre that cries out for continuity. That said, there's no reason why superhero strips can't function in a very similar if not quite identical mode. Some of the best Batman stories, like Detective #439's "Night of the Stalker," could take place at virtually any time in the character's history - because they're straightforward tales driven by classical storytelling principles. ("Night of the Stalker" is, admittedly, not the best example, because you can't tell stories like that - stories that touch so deeply on the emotions of Batman's origin - every month. "The Joker's Five-Way Revenge" might be a better example. And short runs like the Englehart-Rogers Batman stories have their own self-contained continuity but otherwise don't rely much on their "interconnection" with Batman's history or the greater DC Universe.)

Now I admit those stories don't violate continuity - but they don't depend on it either. It's a different style of storytelling from the strong-continuity, soap opera approach: as others have labeled it above, more mythic. And ultimately, comics creators are going to violate continuity one way or another: As others point out above, the number of different stories Wolverine appears in (not to mention the number of different stories any long-running character will appear in over their history) makes no sense if you're trying to maintain a truly logical continuity.

I'm reminded of my reaction when people say, "I don't understand why Batman doesn't just shoot the Joker - or lock him up in a truly unescapable prison - after all the times he's escaped and killed more people." The answer is simple: Batman doesn't do that not because the Batman doesn't kill (though that's an OK in-story excuse) or because there's no such thing as an inescapable prison for the Joker, but because the Joker is a popular character and we fans want to see more Joker stories - logic be damned. We all want whatever degree of continuity, logic, consistency we want - up till the point where it deprives us of stories we'd enjoy.

By the way, there are certainly some comic book series where I get great enjoyment out of long-term development and continuity. The first one that leaps to mind is Nexus (if only it were published regularly), which reads very much like a very gradually developing novel. Not surprisingly, its continuity is under the control of a single creative team (not counting the relatively few issues where Steve Rude was absent) and doesn't tie in with any larger universe (not in any way that matters: the Badger crossovers are just fun and are by the same writer, and the crossover with other First Comics characters has no bearing for the larger story).

There were some really cool Earth 2 stories that did fit pretty well, not to mention the way cool Brennert stories later.

"Earth-Twinkie" was the joke, with the ads running through DC Comics... sometimes in "Brave & Bold," "World's Finest," and other books which didn't depend too heavily on continuity, but also in the books more rooted in continuity, like "Batman" or "Superman".

That was the Earth-2 Batman. The storyline took place during WWII. No contradiction at all. The main way to identify the Earth 1 and 2 Batmen at that time was that the former didn't have the yellow oval on his chest.

Earth-B doesn't sound like an explanation; it sounds like a joke. I'd consider it DC's equivalent to Marvel's No-Prize, the only difference being Marvel asked readers to explain the inconsistency while DC merely pointed out "Yes, this does contradict continuity, just ignore it and enjoy."

(And I'm a long-time comic reader, too. VERY long time...)

Blackadder, The writers of that programme wrote each episode and then decided the order afterwards. The only exceptions to this were the final episodes of each series

I will admit my ignorance about the written James Bond. I don't recall reading any original Ian Fleming story; and since my exposure has been only through the films, that is the only logical idea I can come up to tell me why the character with the same name looks like Sean Connery in one film, George Lazenby in another, Roger Moore, etc. Yeah, real life actors get tired of the same role, want more pay, etc. and the person with the ultra cool self-introduction changes his looks... Obviously they're not the same person.

In the comics media... there are no characters that I know of that are begging for higher wages... Writers, maybe, but anyone can write a Batman story (or so it seems). But it would be hard to do if you don't put Bruce Wayne in the suit because of the specific origin on the character. I am not sure how many fictional characters have had their parents gunned down in front on them, and then had the wealth and the intellectual wherewithal to turn that into a very strong obsession against social injustice. Bruce Wayne is the ONLY one who fits that profile. Now, granted, he has taken several characters under his wing, and has groomed them to someday take over the role if they so choose, but since each of them has quite a different personality, none of them may be as obsessed about it as Bruce was.

Yes, Azrael was Batman for a while, but had he quite a different take on it, so much so that Commissioner Gordon saw the difference, enough to question who was in the suit. Dick Grayson was Batman for a while, but there were still notable differences. And I am fine with that. But those instances followed a specific continuity, and Bruce Wayne did come back to the Bat-suit. Eventually, maybe the torch will be passed permanently. Who knows? (I kind of doubt it.)

On Marvel side, I think Captain America is a perfect example of a character who could have any number of men fill the suit without too much disruption. Indeed, some already have. Steve Rogers is not necessarily the man in the Captain America suit. (On a side note, the return of "Bucky" Barnes is a major 'violation' of the once-nearly-sacred belief that certain fictional characters 'stay dead', but it has worked under the confines of MU continuity , so huge kudos to Ed Brubaker for that one.) To some readers, Steve Rogers may be THE Captain America, and eventually a writer may bring Steve back. (I am amazed that no one has tried to use Steve in the Skrull Invasion stories-- there has GOT to be a Skrull Capt. America, don't you think??) But the thing is, Captain America's origin is not as specific as Batman's is. It's not so hard to find someone who could have participated in a similar test in a universe where there are quite a few very intelligent characters running about... But then again, the Captain America role is very similar to the James Bond role, where S.H.I.E.L.D. or another operation could 'easily' groom someone to fill the suit and supply them with the tools needed to get 'the job' done. .

Rolf - If you are happy to imagine your own personal continuity to explain away the differences in characterisation between Roger Moore's James Bond and Daniel Craig's, then why can't you do that with comic characters? Why do Marvel & DC need to explain every inconsistency?

You can debate that fiction is more or less effective on an emotional or on a craft level, but it can't be "wrong."

I'll argue all day that Jack Cole's Plastic Man is 'jes 'bout the best run of superhero comics ever, and that Haney's interpretation (and everybody else's, for that matter) is a pale shadow of the master.

Honestly, Sijo, I've read your posts here and it seems like at least 90% of 'em are complaining about DC comics.

I read comics as mythology, as art, as historical/cultural remnants - Man, have I learned a lot about American Jewish culture from funnybooks. This makes me happy. I enjoy 'em. Even the bad ones are interesting, because they contain a different interpretation of a character, and can help crystalize my thoughts about how that character *should* work.

You read them for, well, I'm not sure. But continuity is a part of it, and comics seem to mostly make you mad.

I'm just sayin'.

As I see it, comics, especially superhero comics, are entertainment. Entertainment is meant to be enjoyed (or to keep you looking at accompanying advertisement, he wrote cynically). If you read a superhero comic and like it, great. If you don't, oh well. If you want to let "continuity" (which is most assuredly not synonymous with character development- how much have Superman' or Spider-Man's character changed in the last 30+ years?) decide how much you like a story, that's your deal. Me, I'd rather take comics on their own merits and enjoy them, or not.

That's not to say character development being ignored doesn't irk me (e.g. Nightcrawler as written by Alan Davis or Warren Ellis vs. Nightcrawler when Claremont & Austen got ahold of him). When you're dealing with group-written characters owned by corporations, though, you really can't go in expecting every element to fit. I find trying to work out continuity in certain stories gets in the way of my enjoyment.

Oh, and a sucessful t.v. show in which continuity is unimportant? Law & Order. You can watch a repeat any given day, and get the full scoop on what's going on without seeing any other episode. The characters are secondary to the plots 9 times out of 10.

The marketing of comics has changed considerably over the years... Currently, most of them are geared toward being reprinted into TPB form, and each story spans a minimum of 5 or 6 issues, and many times each issue ends with a cliffhanger just to 'hook' you into buying the following issue. One can easily see the padding that goes into the storytelling just to stretch the story over the required minimum issues. I often wonder how any child in the current market could purchase all the comics necessary to follow a favorite character the way I did as a child.

And the 'just enjoy or don't' expression is pretty naive... that would be the way to read comics-- if they were all self-contained stories in each issue, or maybe if we readers were all 8 year old kids who only read comics sporadically and didn't understand the concept of character development, that just might work. Maybe the comics geared towards children still allow the young readers to do just that, but not the mainstream comics that I've been reading.

And as for that James Bond reference--after Sean Connery stopped playing him in the films, it was very easy to imagine that "James Bond" was only the code name given to any number of agents, rather like a badge of honor that was given from agency to agent. I never read any of the books that I recall offhand, but it never did bother me.