DC's biggest problem is that whenever their continuity has a problem or a badly written event they just hit reboot rather than sticking with the mistakes and making the best of them. Making it impossible for a reader to stay invested when it seems that nothing matters because it's just going to be reset in several years.Marvel for all it's flaws as a company at least still has one central main continuity (The 616) continuing on from the original comics in the 60s. Marvel editorial didn't hit the reset everything button when Avengers Disassembled or Secret Empire shit the bed, and those were both infamously bad. But DC does this every time an unpopular decision is made with one of their flagship characters.
>>150655131Nothing matters in either comic universe. It will be unmade twisted or destroyed fir controversy or if their owners tell them.No one trusts the current stewards of either company. And they are right to do so.
>>150655181But they still haven't hit the reset button to restart everything from the ground up. They didn't shut down the 616 continuity for good to make people start reading the Ultimate comics.But that's what DC did with Crisis On Infinite Earths and similar multiverse rebooting events.
>>150655131That shit doesn't matter. Comics dealing with this are no good.
Crisis on Infinite Earths saved DC
>>150655233>But that's what DC did with Crisis On Infinite Earths and similar multiverse rebooting events.There was only two big reboots on DC (three if you count the Silver Age revamps of Flash and Green Lantern) one in 1986 and another in 2011. The last one criticized because there actually didn't reboot things enough to the point of the return of the status quo before it.
I will say that it's much easier to read Marvel stories than DC's because Marvel's continuity changes very rarely involve more than a costume changer or a roster adjustment. Meanwhile DC is on their fifth iteration of New Earth.
>>150655131>DC's biggest problem is that whenever their continuity has a problem or a badly written event they just hit reboot rather than sticking with the mistakes and making the best of themCouldn’t disagree more. I’d argue it’s exactly the opposite. For instance:Make Jon kent a straight kid againMake Alan straight againDon’t explain them, don’t waste page space, just fix them and move on as if it never happened.Their problem isn’t fixing mistakes it’s trying to explain and fold them in rather than just admitting fault and fixing things.
>>150655131>they just hit rebootThey've only done it twice of the course of like 80 years. And the second time they double backed on.
>>150656611>Make Jon kent a straight kid again>Make Alan straight againThey won't undo either of those because they know what a PR shit storm that would be.
>>150655131>whenever their continuity has a problem or a badly written eventThey don't reboot half as often as they would
>>150655131>Marvel for all it's flaws as a company at least still has one central main continuity (The 616) continuing on from the original comics in the 60s.Marvel also makes it impossible to stay invested it.
>>150656273Lying this boldly when the original X-Men are retconned every relaunch.
>>150656890NO ONE CARED IN THE FIRST GODDAMNED PLACETHEY DID IT FOR WB SHARE HOLDERS That's why none if this matters.
>>150656890Make John a kid again and then never have him talk about girls is the best we can shoot for
>>150656978I honestly believe if it wasn't for social media if you dropped all of this stuff, in both marvel and dc, got rid of all the newer diverse characters, not a single one of their "fans" would even notice.
>>150655131Just as a fun game, try to count what iterations of Steve Rogers and Tony Stark we’re currently on.
>>150656976Would you believe if I said I've never read a full X-Men book?
>>150657112>what iterations of Steve RogersI know about the mess with the cosmic cube and the universe reboot with Secret Wars... 4? 5? What else?
Continuity shouldn't be so tight it's a straitjacket preventing stuff from being done, neither should it be so loose that everything is meaningless. It requires a balance. Ultimately, to some extent, every new creative team is a new continuity and comics are hard to get consistent since every good run comes to an end. I think that often continuity acceptance comes down to whether or not the stories are good enough for people to justify change, since so much change doesn't always feel natural. The additional big problem now is that every new creative team just does something big and wild and following it feels impossible because even if people do enjoy it, then it's hard to follow. Immortal Hulk was well received generally, I have my issues with it, but the run following it was eh. Big calamitous change over and over leads to burn out. But then going back to basics doesn't always work either. It's funny but both DC and Marvel's best books currently have been Absolute and Ultimate books which are elseworlds/alternate universes. >>150655131It's weird because I understand what you're saying but sometimes I think these complaints are like, complaining about the medium and how it has always been. Disposable cheap entertainment with super short creative turn arounds throwing shit and gimmicks at the wall to see what sticks and having to course correct when it doesn't. I think part of the issue is that audiences really need their entrainment to matter and fear of missing out (FOMO) and other forms of anxiety in the internet/streaming age drive people away from some types of fiction/entertainment. You tune into and tune out of creative teams and not just a series. It's ongoing soap opera so of course it'll never end. To some extent it's like complaining that an ongoing soap opera isn't a prestige limited series. It's like wanting something different out of a format that doesn't do that.
>>150657374>To some extent it's like complaining that an ongoing soap opera isn't a prestige limited series.The way some people talk about superhero comics you'd think they'd missed the memo.
>>150657792They did miss the memo and it's weird. Comics has a bunch of perception issues that create a barrier to entry. And some of these perceptions are kind of silly and should be simple to overcome but rather than spending a little bit of time and effort to overcome this it is just enough to stop people. That isn't to say that some of these barriers to entry aren't problems, they are, but people stress over stuff in weird ways.
>>150657860The irony is most of the perception problems of comics today was caused by people who thought 90s (and pre-90s) comics had a perception problem
>>150658396More people talk about comics on social media than buy the actual comics themselves. As a medium, it's like it's perception is dictated by people who know little about it. A huge amount of comics talk on /co/ comes from outrage tourists or people who read comics and stopped long ago rather than people who actively read comics or enjoy the medium. There is plenty of industry and creative problems I could talk about but they pale in comparison to this sort of kvetching.
>>150655181>Nothing matters in either comic universe. This. If you bother with them(nothing wrong with that) you have to learn that you aren't in it for things that "matter".
>>150656611There's a lot more to fix than that.
>>150658513I've been thinking about that, after reading a lot of stuff from old fanzines and seeing the Lee/Kirby debate on social media and forums. It feels as though it's been a problem for a long time but it got worse as it's like the audience gets more and more less informed over the decades.
>>150658956>the audience gets more and more less informed over the decades.I can't blame people for being uninformed.>On YouTube you get culture warriors, who often know nothing about comics, calling the same few things woke or acting like some alternate universe mini series ruined a character like it's the main universe version. Or you get channels shilling collected editions with no in-depth opinion. Or you get someone reading a wiki synopsis of a comic event and summarising stories. Cartoonist Kayfabe, which just shoot the shit on a bunch of topics, was weirdly basic and yet actually interesting in it's variety, but that ended.>Social media is just small clips of some "totally obscure" piece of lore that isn't obscure at all, repeating some weird shit in comics or stuff like that. >Comics "journalism" is mostly pop culture marketing nonsense or lists of Easter eggs tier articles. Culture wars. Movies.>To find out about comics you need to watch videos of YouTube people or actually read the solicits. There isn't really much in the way of marketing. Unless you follow specific creators on social media.>Comic book stores live and die on word of mouth and business owners knowing how to recommend books and tailor choices but far too many shops are just for the dispossessed to complain and shill the same few things. Also comic shops have just become full of the dregs of consumerist nerd culture.>Then you have the websites/forums who go between extremes of: like everything with no discernable taste or hate and bitch about everything. The same few conversations, the same few autists. No real conversation.>Conventions are mostly awful for obvious reasons owing to their size and focus but there are a few smaller conventions that cater to actual artists and creators that are fun.>Recommended lists just encourage people to read the same few comics as the "only good ones" which completely prevents people getting into the medium as they read a couple books at most.
>>150657860I've said it a bunch to people but comics are funny in that they're something that's hard to explain but really easy to understand. People get too fixated on the minutia over the actual stories. If you just read the books you will follow it fine. If Villain Y suddenly shows up for revenge on Hero X you don't need to get the full story because their history is made clear from context. The history isn't unimportant but it's often not that essential. It's not like you missed the first act of a movie.
Four years ago DC made it so that all the history is remembered so your take is ice cold.There's nothing wrong with starting fresh every 20-30 years which is the amount of time that passed between the golden age, Earth One, the Crisis and Flashpoint, their previous problem was that their way of doing it was inconsistent and too many people couldn't let go of the old stories.The Marvel method of saying that Boomer Peter Parker and Gen X Peter Parker and Millennial Peter Parker and now Zoomer Peter Parker are all the same guy has problems of its own.
>>150659356The comics paradox. Someone tells a kid in the 1980s: hey X-Men is cool, read X-Men. A kid picks up a Claremont X-Men issue, they have no idea what's going on. Sure the powers get explained in some superfluous dialogue (Shooter said every comics is someone's first) but those plots were all over the place! But their friend said it was cool and the art and the characters look cool. So they get it as they go along via context. Maybe a friend lends them a couple back issues at most.Expectations are the thief of joy. If you expect something big and it's not you're disappointed. A kid would give that comic the benefit of the doubt, find something to like and get on with it.Comics now. Cast of character pages or summary pages (particularly team books or events). Constant mention of new creative teams and jumping on points. Easily accessibly collected editions. And yet people bitch that it's harder than ever to get into things. The buy in of effort gives them anxiety. An old comic would say "villain from x issue". But now people worry, they didn't read that issue. But like you said, it isn't essential. I think it's the double edged sword of modern consumerism. They push fanatical consumerism, buy into our universe, our ecosystem. But they don't realise that easily burns people out. People should go back to more casual ways of seeing their entertainment. The way criticism, particularly online criticism has gotten, shows you how popular culture no longer has big things aside from a few examples because the battle for attention is so damn fierce that a piece of casual entertainment can seem daunting to someone.
>>150659509Yeah there's a few instances were the sliding timeline sort of gets in the way of things. Especially when there's so many younger generation teams. The younger gen of X-men especially stand out.
>>150659509>The Marvel method of saying that Boomer Peter Parker and Gen X Peter Parker and Millennial Peter Parker and now Zoomer Peter Parker are all the same guy has problems of its own.It's always been rolling continuity. It's not really meant to always be the same person. Stuff does change. Origins shift as time goes on. For example: Siancong War is their floating Korea/Vietnam type war for a bunch of characters to have experienced. >Conceived by Kurt Busiek,[5] the Siancong War is an idea that History of the Marvel Universe (Vol. 2) writer Mark Waid had contended for years. The Marvel Universe works on a sliding timescale in which the beginning of the Age of Heroes is perpetually drifting in time roughly fifteen years behind current day. The Siancong War functions as a "floating conflict" that serve as a backdrop for characters whose origins were originally tied to specific wars that occurred in real life and cannot be held by the sliding timescale, mainly the Vietnam War.[6]
>>150655131Continuity is something that is influenced by several factors. Even in independent publications, it is not set in stone. And it is even worse in superhero series. In some cases, continuity was only established after 40 years of the character's existence (Superman), or it is something that always changes per “run,” so it is better to hold the continuity of the runs. In this case, there is Morrison's Animal Man continuity, Delano's continuity, Peter's, etc. If we see these versions of the characters as authorial compositions, it is better than a single, comprehensive “continuity.”
>>150656890Literally nobody would care. This is just the narrative the faggots behind the scenes spin to scare everyone out of doing it. Gay people make up like 2 percent of the population. Nobody would care if Superman’s son was de-aged and stopped being gay in the processs. Nobody would care if the character that was around for 80 years, had two wives and a pair of kids before being made gay was no longer gay.
>>150659536Back then back issue hunting and learning about the history was also part of the fun. You didn't know everything because you couldn't know everything. But you talked with people, read what you could and it was fun. Comics were read because you liked comics. You wanted to read as much as you could because you were fan not because you wanted to do homework.>And yet people bitch that it's harder than ever to get into things.Oh god. This is what kills me. Some kid in the 1980s or 90s would go in pick up Super Hero Issue 275 some assorted cheap back issues and they were a fan for life from then on. There were comics when I was a kid I never thought I'd ever get to read either because I couldn't find them or they were expensive as hell. Now we got collected editions that not only collect entire runs but some entire series are almost collected. You can, in some fashion or another, read every single Fantastic Four comic ever printed. And it's still too hard. You're right. They get hyper fixated, need the "community" to tell them what to read and think, and then get paralyzed with information overload when they try to understand 50 years of X-men in a single afternoon.
>>150655131I’ve only ever gotten confused with New52, they wrote it off in a really awkward weird way, I’ll also never understand anything about the Linda/Kara shenanigans Post crisis where another variant fucking marries Superman, death metal was also a little crazy to get… yeah you’re right
>>150659641>and then get paralyzed with information overload when they try to understand 50 years of X-men in a single afternoonThey'd watch the heck out of a two hour YouTube video explaining the 50 years of X-Men but they wouldn't read comics!Like I said on my post:>a piece of casual entertainment can seem daunting to someone.People have made casual entertainment into this daunting thing and it is both sort of understandable in some ways, I get it, but it's also very absurd and retarded at the same time.Rec list mentality has trapped a lot of people. Collected editions circles are some of the worst because people will overhype and recommend something as best thing ever, people read it, some like it or don't like it, then these people either overhype it and appeal to the authority of it, like what was done to them, or call it overrated, which is meaningless criticism and more meta commentary on how communities hype things and how people easily believe bullshit. Then the same books get reprinted, the same stuff talked about. Comic recommendations require a level of care and curation that other mediums don't seem to require and it's really absurd sometimes. I mean some people will say it's the comic shop model but hey, in my country some normal stores will have anthology type books (like Batman will have two different issues of current books), then we have comics online, digitally, collected editions in book shops. But then we have all these perceptions, problems, entrenched issues. To some degree my main theory is just that comics aren't cool. That cultural baggage going all the way back to the Comics Code Authority have infected perceptions and ideas. Other industries don't have the same cultural baggage issues.
>>150659587Can't really say it's all one continuity that's easy to understand when retcons happen all the time and the history that gets referenced no longer happened the way they were depicted in the published issues.
>>150659700New 52 was originally meant to be a post Brightest Day line refresh. Line refreshes happen all the time at both the big 2. DCs recent line refresh is called All In. It's just a marketing gimmick, jumping on point. Brightest Day resurrected a bunch of characters for new books and brought in Vertigo and other characters to the main universe proper. Dan Didio and other decided to make it a full reboot with an incredibly short turn around. Only a few main books were made with this full reboot in mind...So some stories are pre-New 52 continuations: Batman Inc carried on Morrison run, Green Lantern the Johns run, Batwoman etc, all continued. Other stuff was changed, Snyder's Court of Owls was originally a story about Dick Grayson Batman (hence the Talons connection to the Grayson Circus and Lincoln Marsh being like Bruce) but was changed to Bruce Wayne. Aquaman and other stuff was already planned as part of that Brightest Day reboot, as was Swamp Thing. Then other stuff was meant to be new.So yeah, they changed a line refresh into a reboot and it was messy but plenty of people are now weirdly nostalgic for the era and it did weirdly get some people into DC.
>>150659846I never said it's one continuity. Rolling continuity is literally about explaining away changes and retcons with shit like the example I gave. No continuity will ever make sense because of multiple creative teams but even a singular creator can create retcons.
>>150659783>Collected editions circles are some of the worstI love being able to read comics in different collections but good fuck are you on the nose. It's a huge FOMO hype wagon made to get people to buy into this shit without knowing if it's even up your alley. Someone will panic buy the new X-men Blue and Gold omnibus because they know it's gonna sell out fast when there shouldn't be any reason marvel doesn't keep their more sensible epic collections in print. Someone can get an Epic or a Finest for a fraction of the omnibus and it's not only more readable it's also less of a gamble on something new. But here we have people posting "I want to get into CHARACTER BECAUSE MOVIE AND BOUGHT 70 POUNDS OF HARDBACK! OMG OVERRATED."
>>150660027This kind of reminds me of something I'd been thinking about since that recent thread about Hush and Long Halloween, I remembered that people liked Long Halloween back when the book was being serialized monthly, but many disliked the mystery reveal when the book concluded. But in the time since somehow it got considered One Of The Best Batman Stories on people's lists (I almost want to say that turn happened in the 00s)
>>150660538>but many disliked the mystery reveal when the book concluded.I should also add, the reason I distinctly remembered this is because Loeb was also getting flack for his and Liefeld's version of Fighting American over at Awesome Comics and people brought up TLH in that conversation
>>150656273Too bad 98 percent of Marvel sucks shit
>>150660538Like parts of that thread said, it's hard to get passed meta issues and the art carries it hard. The Long Halloween works because it's an early year's accessible Batman story and Two Face origin with some nice art. Perfect trade material too. Batman rec lists have some bias in that they will almost always go towards that accessibility, because like what we've been saying, people have perception issues around this stuff. I liked The Long Halloween personally, despite it's flaws.
>>150660027I'm in a collected editions Facebook group that has grown exponentially over the last few years. I've seen people buy every Kirby FF omni because of collected editions hype. I like Kirby FF, it's recommended for a reason, but dropping all that money on that without necessarily knowing if you're going to like it implies some loose impulse control. Epics should have been the dominant format, but omnis won, and now they languish a bit. Because people want hardcovers and deluxe, people want shelfies and full collections. And these things are connected to what we were saying before. People have difficulty getting into comics because of perceived issues and omnis overcome that issue by just giving them a huge wedge of stuff. Because they have to have everything for continuity sake.
>>150660027>>150660630A lot of things tend to get hyped up as they get released. And early on it's easy to get caught up in the swing of things. You trust and assume that whatever it is you're reading isn't gonna end up screwing up much so a lot of shortcomings will get forgiven easily on the assumption that it will pay out or make sense later and when it doesn't it ends up being a real let down. But in a lot of cases you remember the hype and excitement so something like Hush will still get praised.
>>150660027It sucks that we live in two extremes, one set of people don't want to get into anything because it's too much effort and other people spend loads of money on crap because of FOMO. All or nothing thinking.
>>150660670>Epics should have been the dominant format, but omnis won, and now they languish a bit.it's so weird because like I get wanting a nice hardcover but for runs of any length there's nothing wrong with a nice set of paperbacks. There's a couple of omnis that I wanted but I made myself wait for paperbacks (ROM, Grell Green Arrow, Spectre) and like your Kirby example I'd kill for a nice set of his FF and Thor in Epics but some are out of print and I'm too lazy to dig
>>150660670I think Omnis "won" because Marvel knows that they can push those and their dollar share in the bookstore market will look high despite not having their own TPBs rank anywhere in the Top 750 of the Bookscan list. It's a problem because it only attracts the high-spenders and not the people who just want to get into reading
>>150660685People even now get fooled by the same hype in comics and the same gimmicks. Things being a let down is an expectation problem that often ignores the journey. Not every series will stick the landing, doesn't mean it can't be enjoyable along the way. I dunno, we can't uncouple entertainment from the meta conversations, we can't experience it in a vacuum. I just think some people take it too far in either direction. Meanwhile us in the middle just want to enjoy a few good things.
>>150660740Yeha, I'm not condemning it, a weak ending is a huge disappointment but I think there's a lot of value in the moment to moment parts of the story telling. Honestly that's really where comics should excel, in making each part of the story as exciting as it can be. You want more not just because of a cliffhanger but because each new issue or episode is engaging.
>>150660670There's an element of prestige to a big hardcover which makes it fanciful to show. And that's what a lot of people want now. It's trendy. It's the same logic that killed retro game collecting.
>>150660737Omnis aren't really being heavily pushed in the bookstore market desu. Omnis won because:>Epics are unreliable, slow, come out in random orders, numbering issue.>Masterworks too expensive, less content, hence they've been cancelled.>Omnis offer a lot of bang for your buck, fill out full runs.>Shelfies, uniformity, aesthetic. >YouTubers heavily into omnis, pushing omnis.>FOMO.>Whale consumers. >Deluxe feel.Marvel didn't set out to just push omnis but certainly pivoted that way. Only now they've gone too far, it's creating a bubble that will eventually burst.
>>150660708I've bought too much stuff sometimes and marketing does influence everyone. I've felt the pull of deluxification: games, tabletop games, comics, books. But after a while you realise it's a fool's game. With comics, the story matters, not the format. Hardcovers are nice but not everything.>Grell Green ArrowI bought the trades as they were coming out years ago. Do they have a new printing? DC changed their logo half way through just to annoy me with different spines. Then the omnis collect more content as they left out content from those trades. Proper incompetent stuff.
>>150660779>numbering issue.This is probably Epics big weakness. The format is fantastic, and any single volume can be read on it's own most of the time. But someone sees Avengers Vol 17 and their lizard brain goes into gap filler mode. This is one thing I really love about DC Finest. They don't put a number, they put the years covered. On the back. It makes it nice and easy to line up but doesn't jump out that there's gaps.
>>150660812All publishers have the number 1 drop off problem. People buy number 1 and then volume or issue 2 has a big drop. A few years ago DC would cancel so much stuff that no one would buy volume 1 as they knew volume 2 wouldn't come but then the low preorders would make them cancel it, creating this cycle of cancellation.Epics numbering had a promise that it wouldn't do that kind of thing because gaps would be filled but at this point it's just become a mess of unreliability. Big numbers put people off. Other people do like you say, want to fill gaps. It's a mess.
>>150660809They've started doing Grell GA in the DC Finest format. 1 came out this year and 2 is next year. >>150660812>>150660873The Epics started with the gimmick of focusing on out of print stuff which is why it's so random. But at this point they do need to have like some sort of schedule about it and be better about reprinting stuff. DC has been way better about starting at the star of SOMETHING with the Finest with a few exceptions.
>>150655131I prefer the continuity resets of DC to the endless retcons, sliding timescales, and status quo changes over at Marvel. If I don't like the current state of the comics (like the continuing relevancy of Batkek) I can just wait for it to reset again and pick up from there.
>>150655131>DC's biggest problem is that whenever their continuity has a problem or a badly written event they just hit rebootNo they don't retard. DC has rebooted twice: COIE and nu52
>>150656273>Marvel's continuity changes very rarely involve more than a costume changer or a roster adjustment. Marvel does massive retcons all the time. Secret Invasion, all the Xavier is a bastard revelations, Norman Osborn fucking Gwen, Peter Parker has a secret sister and his parents were spies who now knew Wolverine and he witnessed their death, Bucky was a plucky teenage sidekick lol just kidding he was a brutal black ops operative who did things Cap couldn’t do and also he was a secret brainwashed soviet super assasin for decades during the time he was supposedly dead and he had a relationship with Black Widow that never came up before, Magneto is just a mutant supremacist no actually he was gypsy no a jew who survived the holocaust also his name is Max and not Magnus and he’s the real father of Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch lol just kidding their parents were obscure golden age superheroes lol wrong again it’s a gypsies also Polaris is now half-related because she’s Magneto’s another secret child, Nick Fury is a CIA agent actually he’s a much cooler James Bond type SHIELD agent and was given a super secret serum to slow his aging because he’s a WW2 veteran also his buddy Dum Dum from ww2 is an LMD now LMAO but also Fury is revealed to be an LMD when he was killed by the Punisher but now the real one’s back actually now he has a son who now suddenly wears an eyepatch like him and used his name because movie synergy lol now Fury’s actually an even more secret super spy way beyond SHIELD that nobody knew about and he’s been singlehandedly stopping threats everywhere and also now he’s Uatu’s servant because Fury killed him but then he got… better. Because comics!
>>150661531You know what’s sad I understand all of this shit
>>150661531It's astounding to me how many of these are from the Quesada/Alonso/Cebulski eras and how few from that list are from before
>>150661667Almost the entirety of the post 2000s era marvel feels utterly incomparable with the pre. Even some of DCs reboot shit lines up better. Marvel just likes to pretend things did or didn't happen and we should all shut up.
>>150660812This is retarded.
>>150661686>Marvel just likes to pretend things did or didn't happen and we should all shut up.I almost swear this is basically Brevoort's way of doing things, I forgot who pointed this out.
>>150662147>I forgot who pointed this out.Probably Brevoort himself with how flippant they all are.
>>150655131We have our own Crisis, no thank you very much!
