I, Crisis

Infinite Crisis #1 (Jim Lee cover)I got myself into a bit of a fracas with Jason over at BBn earlier this week — okay, this past weekend — with respect to fanboys. I seem to have found myself bashing the Momma’s basement dwellars when it comes to defending this Summer’s Superman Returns. You can read more about that over on the BBn post, but it did get me thinking on continuity in comics.

Okay, so many of you just read that last sentence and started thinking you might stop reading this particular post. Well, I don’t blame you. If you don’t really have an interest in comic books, then this post probably isn’t for you. If you have an interest in bashing fanboys, then this post might be for you. We’ll see how it goes, but my intention is to quickly review a couple DC Comics mini-series that I read earlier in the week and a few barbs may be tossed at DC fan(boy)s.

It is my intention to start writing more about comics, but I promise not to do so more than once a week. Heh, yeah, that’s exciting you, right? No, I thought not, but I would like to do quick reviews of the stuff I read in a given week. Not sure how long that will last either because I tend to fall behind quickly, but I posit that this practice might be curtailed if I were keeping up with the blog as a way to stay on track. In this way, I might also keep up with TV watching this year, but I’m no Ed when it comes to reviewing (or thinking) about shows like Lost or 24.

So, the commentsation I had with Jason got me thinking about continuity and I threw out there that DC was using it as a way to make some cash. The thing was, I hadn’t read it yet since I tend to buy a mini-series in its entirety before actually reading it in one shot. However, I couldn’t start with Infinite Crisis because I still hadn’t read Identity Crisis from the previous year and I perceived a heavier relation between the two which turned out to really not be there for me because I didn’t get it.

I’m not positive, but I am pretty sure the word “crisis” has been trademarked by DC Comics. At the very least, it is their favorite word. The Infinite Crisis is really a follow-up to DC’s Crisis on Infinite Earths which was a 12 issue maxi-series from the mid-80’s. You can read about it in the Wikipedia if you really want to, but I did not bother and I did not read the maxi either. I have already skipped over Identity Crisis, so let me get back to that before going further.

The Identity Crisis mini-series was very well received when it was released and I must say, I am glad I finally got around to reading it. Again, you can read more about it in the Wikipedia, but it states part of the title meaning comes from “the importance of and consquences of exposure of superhero secret identities.” What it really turns out to be is an old fashioned murder-mystery. If you want the spoilers, then maybe you can find it in the wiki, but I’d recommend you pick up a TPB if you are interested in this series. It was really well done and I am not at all a fan of DC or most of the characters involved in the story.

Funny enough, the wiki for that series features a “Continuity errors” section and that is the real point of all my babble. I have to believe that DC has more trouble with continuity than Marvel Comics, even if it is only because they have been around longer and have more characters. Of course, they also make a big deal of it by now having had two special series, one maxi and one mini (although the latest is truly a maxi or event series due to all the tie-ins, but more on that later), to clean up their continuity errors.

Continuity errors are a fact of life when it comes to the comics genre. Given the funky play of time in comics — I am sure Jason can point something out that explains this for those that don’t know — and the way real time don’t mesh. My perception is both companies have a 1:5 ratio of comic time to real time, or maybe it is a 1:7 reverse dog years, but it would seem to me that 16 year old Peter Parker (Spider-man) is only in his early 20’s after 40 years of real time. Given how slowly time moves in comics and the hundreds, or possibly thousands, of writers and artists that have touched some of the older characters over the years, it is easy to see how errors are made. This isn’t George Lucas, who has continuity issues of his own, and his Star Wars trilogies.

So, continuity errors happen. You can either ignore them, not notice them or point them out. Fanboys, it would seem, wear it as some kind of Bizarro badge of courage to point out even the smallest of errors out. I’m sure, as Jason noted, sometimes it can be fun to find them, but when they get really bent out of shape over it, someone needs to raid Mom’s freezer for an ice cream and chill out. I realize you blew your allowance on comics, but that was your choice.

Let me get back to DC and all their crises. DC has now twice decided to clean up its continuity with their events. I’m sure the first one did a bang up job, but after reading this second one, it would seem not much of anything happened at all; except maybe that they made a lot of money off it. After reading the Inifinite Crisis mini, and that’s all I read outside of a few issues of Teen Titans that tied in, nothing happened. Started with one Earth and ended up with one Earth. They killed off a few characters I never heard of from regular continuity and cleared out a couple from alternate Earths (still left around from the first series). Big deal.

What DC did do was make money and set themselves up with a maxi, maxi, maxi-series called 52. DC took its entire timeline and shifted ahead “One Year Later” for all its titles. Fifty-two, as well as all the regular series, will now fill in the blanks of that year which was “52: A year without Superman; a year without Batman; a year without Wonder Woman…but not a year without heroes.” It comes out one issue a week, hence the name, and a guaranteed extra $2.50 per week for the next year from hard-core and casual DC fans alike.

I got sucked in for the seven issue mini, but the real story is what takes place over the next year. Well, is that continuity clean-up or just good marketing? I’d call that good marketing, but I didn’t fall for it because I’m not a DC guy and by having nothing really happen in the mini, I was pissed off enough not to go out and start buying up the issues of 52 already out.

In fact, I was pissed off enough to decide I won’t be trying any new DC books for a very long while. I have always been a Marvel guy anyway, but over the last few years I have picked up various Superman and Batman books for different stretches (mostly Jim Lee or Michael Turner arcs). With Jeph Loeb leaving Superman/Batman, I am dropping that. I did start up with Batman now that Grant Morrison is writing with a Kubert drawing (who cares which one). I’ll keep getting Supergirl, even though Loeb is off that too, until it starts to suck like SB already has been. Teen Titans will keep going as I am interested enough to see what happened over the last year, but barely and I really only started reading that one because I like the cartoon!

Finally, I realized that the DC universe has way too many characters. They have so many, they can kill them off with a single panel and no one knows who they were except the really, really hardcore. If they want to really do something to help get new readers on, kill half of them off. Pull a Marvel House of M and cull the herd. Make those left over more important. They’ll become more important when you don’t have some junior guy with the same exact powers waiting in the wings to take over the mantle. I’d like to believe Marvel realized there were suddenly way too many mutants and that’s why they whacked them, but more likely, it is another long-term marketing event like DC’s 52. We’ll see, but those mutant books got a whole lot more interesting post M-Day.

Anyway, as I said earlier you’ll be able to track what I keep up with if I write a weekly review. I sort of got long in the tooth with this post and probably lost my point along the way. I’m good like that.