Comics are harmed by being part of a shared universe. Why do we still do it?
Shared universe comics are a double edged swordIt CAN work and HAS worked but there's a reason why standalone Elseworld type stories are a thingThat said, if you read something that you know is part of a shared universe AND has multiple crossovers that's on youThere's plenty of standalone comics you can read from
Batman should have been his own separate world. Gotham does not fit in with the rest of the colourful DC world. Whatever street level stakes Batman is up against is immediately undermined when anyone with super powers can come in at any time and turn the place upside down and do a better job than him.The whole crime noir thing doesn't exactly work when Green Lantern can conjure up a giant green fist and crush everyone in Gotham with.
>>152048091Because normies enjoy them. If you don't like it there are literally millions of comics that are not part of a shared universe, including within Marvel.
>>152048091>comics were harmed by being a part of a shared universefalse
>>152048586Shared universe for ongoing stories leads to convoluted inconsistent lore where believability breaks down when more and more plot holes open up.
>>152048091It's only harmful when comics are interrupted by events or unwanted crossovers. And the thing with mutants has always been weird.
>>152048616>Shared universe for ongoing stories leads to convoluted inconsistent lore where believability breaks down when more and more plot holes open up.false
>>152048616there is convoluted and inconsistent lore without a shared universe
>>152048091Comics are harmed by being neverending company shit that aren't allowed to reach their natural conclusion.
>>152048091>Comics are harmed by being part of a shared universe. Why do we still do it?
>>152048091Wrong. Retarded. Kill yourself, weeaboo.
This is falseYou're just upset about the shitty company wide events
>>152048091For the same reason we still have proto-oncogenes: they were incredibly helpful to get to this size and still have uses, even if not always. They cause cancer, but that's not the only thing they do. It's a risk factor that requires management, not a fatal flaw that defines the entire thing.
X-Men and Avengers should be seperate universes at least
>>152048126to bother the average capetard is to retarded and blinded by nostalgia to understand this
>>152048091it's become their appeal
>>152048091Only for DC because its a mix of random superhero IPs. Marvel's is fine because it was put together by Stan Lee, Kirby and Steve Dikto.The only things that stick out is Eternal, since they are redundant with both Asgardians and the Inhumans, but they managed to make it work.
>>152048762Many solo stories start to become "Why wasn't X able to come help X out of a jam when they work together all the time".
>>152050578But that's false? Many stories have other heroes crossover with each others, like that time Falcon tried to arrest Spider-man only for Captain America to defuse the situation.In fact, any new titles will have Miles Morales shived in there, and back in the day it was Peter.It mostly happen in titles that have the same writers, like how the X-men were used to explain who did the Avengers job when they went after Kang in Jed Mackay's run.
>>152050578>They were busy
Does Batman work well in a setting where other superheroes don't exist like The Dark Knight Trilogy?
>>152050578Almost nobody cares, though. That's the editors and writers' fault if they try to pander to the people who care.Almost all readers understand the idea that the shared universe is a gimmick for crossovers, it doesn't mean they need an explanation for why Superman doesn't show up to fight Batman's villains or why Captain America: The Winter Soldier didn't have him get help from more powerful heroes.Shared universes are just a fun way to have crossovers and stuff, the fact that characters don't call on each other is just a convention like the fact that they never learn from their mistakes.
>>152050968Yes. Batman: TAS was a big success and they more or less banned superpowered characters (some of the villains stretched the point but usually had fake scientific explanations), to the point that Zatanna could only appear if there was no reference to her having real magic powers.
>>152048888Seriously, cape fans think weeaboos are their biggest threat? Not any other mediums or genres that actually have restraints on how the depict their fictional worlds and thus don't suffer the same pitfalls?
>>152048091>Comics are harmed by being part of a shared universe.that wasn't a issue any year before 2006-2007, so it must be other thing.
>>152050968Honestly he works best when there isn't other superheroes >>152048091A shared universe is fine, though it can be messy at timesI'd say the actual main problem is characters/stories being passed between multiple writers
>>152049161X-Men at least on its own. Sort of undermines things when some people just have powers because and some because they're mutants but only the mutants really get the rug of it.
>>152048126I agree, Batman is truly exceptional in a universe of Men, ergo all the talk of "contingency plans against JL" sound silly. Likewise, I think it benefits otherwise strange concepts like a "teen gets spider abilities from a spider bite" when you have also "astronauts gain strange abilities from cosmic forces" and "some people are just born to shoot tremendous amounts of energy from their eyes."It depends strongly on the character and universe.
>>152049111Events, crossovers, cameos, and other cheap stunts. The logistics in place are not good enough to make shared universes actually function. All that ends up happening is writers trip over each other, or they ignore things and fuck up.
>>152051562>>152052467This is little issue if the company has functional mandates to glue things together
>>152053104>This is little issueIt's a glaringly massive gaping issue lol.The mandates are not enough.
>>152048126You could use this logic against all street level heroes of the DC Universe though, not just Batman. Usually it feels like this is brought up like Batman were an unique situation, when there are many other street level heroes, even part of teams too.
>>152050968The issue with the DKT is that it's a fairly closed story where Batman makes fairly limited appearances through the years. You can't really use it as a model for a long running Batman series.>>152051091Batman TAS had super powered villains though. You can say "scientific explanation" as much as you want, but it had stuff like Mr.Freeze, Poison Ivy and freaking Clayface. Maybe there was a "no magic" rule, but scientific super powers seemed to be allowed.
>>152048091Betabux. The sois who are guaranteed to always buy this slop are okay with it.
>>152048091Comics are harmed by the system of being made to go on forever & having no strict oversight on anything. Shared universes aren't a problem on paper unless one of those comics is really bad. Like Marvel in the 2000s suffers being a shared universe because Bendis of all people led almost all the major events happening that everything else revolves around. Not to mention writers like Jason Aaron though he only really got retarded later after his Thor run.
>>152049992Did they though? No one cares about The Eternals.
>>152048091>Why do we still do it?bcuz it's COOL
>>152048091This pic raw asl
>>152056230what?
>>152050644You never see stories of the Avengers coming in to help Spiderman with the Sinister Six, or the Fantastic 4 helping the X Men out with their villains.
>>152056858The Fantastic Four did help Spider-Man with Venom though
>>152056888They have a lot more crossover that got more prominent in the 2000s.
Shared universes are cool in concept but difficult to get right in practice. The Valiant 2012 reboot did a good job at first of keeping writers in line and keeping it coherent, but it only took a few years before it started to fall apart. Shared universes work better when the different titles within it are mostly separate from one another. It can give a nice sense of scale to the background of an individual story, but you don't need everybody to be friends with everybody else. You should have characters who don't know each other and never meet.
>>152048091Yeah, it sucks.
>>152048091Without it everyone in that picture series's would have been over a long ass time ago and forgotten. Most comics have had sales slumps where they either got canceled or almost did. Without the shared universe gimmick Marvel wouldn't even exist as Superhero comic company, Batman wouldn't have World's Finest and JLA to lean on and would have gotten canceled before "the new look" era. All we would have is Superman and he'd probably be an Archie tier property.
>>152057667for you maybe