I ain't talking Kingdom Come, which was a completely badass Elseworlds tale, I'm talking about the mess that came in the wake of that story's massive success.
First, DC declared Kingdom Come the "official" future of the DCU, wounding all us Dark Knight Returns fans a little. Then, they launched a massive cash-in event called The Kingdom. Side-story miniseries about Kingdom Come supporting cast and a central series where the Kingdom Come reality and regular continuity DC collided.
Superman and Wonder Woman's child was kidnapped by a villain named Gog, who traveled back in time killing Superman over and over again. He intended to raise Clark & Diana's child as Magog, and the modern-day heroes had to team up with their counterparts from the future and ... and make fanboys throw up in their mouth a little, I guess.
At the end, a gold-plated Superman explained the concept of Hypertime. Basically, DC was done trying to establish a "correct" continuity, or even decide which ones didn't apply. Every story about DCU heroes was rendered "true". Everything pre-Crisis? True. That issue of Lois Lane: Superman's Girlfriend, where she's the "fattest woman in Metropolis"? True. Batman: Digital Justice? True. Every creepy piece of Robin and Superboy slashfic? True. It's Hypertime!
We know what the Kingdom is. It is an Elseworlds and Hypertime hasn't been used in quite a while.
Man, before I even heard about hypertime, I just assumed that's how things were in the DC universe. It just makes so much sense with how it all runs.
It's kind of like how everything in Marvel seems to have a sliding scale of continuity.
Everything that happens in the core books is in continuity for those characters. The X-Men, for example, have their own continuity. When the X-Men appear in, say, Runaways, their appearance is part of Runaways continuity, but not necessarily X-Men continuity, because Runaways isn't as important as X-men. Kind of difficult to explain.
Everything that happens in a book happens in continuity for that specific book, but not necessarily for the other books. The more important books can create continuity for the peripheral books, but not necessarily the other way around.
If they keep the single series consistent, I don't really feel like I'm going to freak out if Typeface breaks an arm in Thunderbolts then pops up again a month later in Spider-Man with a miraculously healed arm.
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Continuity sprawl isn't a bad thing at all. The DCU is like a fat kid in a room of ding dongs, rollin' around and stuffin' his face. The MU is like the prim and proper lil' girl of continuity, taking polite little nibbles and quietly spreading a pea or two around the plate.
Everything that happens in a book happens in continuity for that specific book, but not necessarily for the other books.
I think Erik Larsen is the one who stated that's how continuity works for Image titles. So when Deena Pilgrim or Invincible meet up with Savage Dragon, they're meeting up with their Savage Dragons, but not necessarily the Savage Dragon from Larsen's book. Of course, that also leaves some wiggle room for stuff like The Pact, where writers can each agree to do a specific story that with another person's character that will affect both their own character and the other creator's. It's kind of brilliant in its simplicity.
Still, I kind of like the big, sprawling continuity of other books where you can read an issue from twenty years ago and see it being referenced/utilized somehow in a story being published today. Of course, such occurences seem to be getting rarer and rarer, to the point that all the continuity hardly seems to matter.
I ain't talking Kingdom Come, which was a completely badass Elseworlds tale, I'm talking about the mess that came in the wake of that story's massive success.
First, DC declared Kingdom Come the "official" future of the DCU, wounding all us Dark Knight Returns fans a little. Then, they launched a massive cash-in event called The Kingdom. Side-story miniseries about Kingdom Come supporting cast and a central series where the Kingdom Come reality and regular continuity DC collided.
Superman and Wonder Woman's child was kidnapped by a villain named Gog, who traveled back in time killing Superman over and over again. He intended to raise Clark & Diana's child as Magog, and the modern-day heroes had to team up with their counterparts from the future and ... and make fanboys throw up in their mouth a little, I guess.
At the end, a gold-plated Superman explained the concept of Hypertime. Basically, DC was done trying to establish a "correct" continuity, or even decide which ones didn't apply. Every story about DCU heroes was rendered "true". Everything pre-Crisis? True. That issue of Lois Lane: Superman's Girlfriend, where she's the "fattest woman in Metropolis"? True. Batman: Digital Justice? True. Every creepy piece of Robin and Superboy slashfic? True. It's Hypertime!
the only good thing fromm The Kingdom was this:
Of course it then lead to this:
I guess he couldnt find that door after all huh guyz, ololol
Bad Karma - Please don't think I'm trying to start a thread battle or anything of that nature. I sincerely want to enjoy DC books more than I seem able. And while the Hypertime itself is no longer referred to directly, it seems that it's practice is still very much alive. The core realities of the mythos are subject to drastic and sudden change at any time. It sounds like it ought to be exciting, but it just leaves me lost at sea. DC can't seem to pick a core timeline to stick on and run with, so what we're left with instead is Crisis Fatigue.
It would be so much easier to appreciate the weight of these character changes and world developments if they weren't so ephemeral. I can remember DC declaring for years that Hal Jordan had gone mad and that Kyle Rayner was the new Green Lantern so we'd better get used to it. But sure enough, just wait a few years and everything changes again forever. They even retconned the gray sideburns out!
So I apologize if my tone has come off as too harsh. There's been plenty of DC tales I've really loved. Starman, for instance. That was eighty issues of good times. I've got boxes devoted entirely to Batman. Hell, even during IC, I found moments to enjoy - the "last time you inspired anyone" argument between Superman and Batman, for example. But I just get this feeling that all these Big Events aren't necessary for anything but artificially jacking up sales. And it has to be frustrating for the writers to have the rugs yanked out from under their characters every fourteen months or so.
Toji - Marvel's continuity is also quite puzzling. A recent release puts Captain America back out of the ice before or during the Vietnam war. But if the accepted reality is that the Avengers found him, then wouldn't that make Tony Stark damn near geriatric? It seems their approach to the continuity problem is to just kinda not talk about it - the opposite extreme from DC. Coming at it from that angle, I have to commend DC for at least attempting to address the problem, though the results are often confounding.
The first couple years of Ultimate Marvel were a lot of fun. Continuity enema, woo-hoo! But now those books have been around long enough to have their own impenetrable backstory. Necessary evil, maybe.
Toji - Marvel's continuity is also quite puzzling. A recent release puts Captain America back out of the ice before or during the Vietnam war. But if the accepted reality is that the Avengers found him, then wouldn't that make Tony Stark damn near geriatric? It seems their approach to the continuity problem is to just kinda not talk about it - the opposite extreme from DC. Coming at it from that angle, I have to commend DC for at least attempting to address the problem, though the results are often confounding.
The first couple years of Ultimate Marvel were a lot of fun. Continuity enema, woo-hoo! But now those books have been around long enough to have their own impenetrable backstory. Necessary evil, maybe.
I wouldn't exactly call the disconnect between real years and comic years a problem with continuity. It's just something that happens that's impossible to explain away, and doesn't really need to be since comics never claim to be running realtime.
Marvel does have plenty of continuity snags, though.
The one and only problem I have with the floating timeline in Marvel is that it will eventually call for some tweaking of the Punisher's origin. Which is unfortunate, because I don't think that "Frank fought in a war" is a sufficient explanation for his outlook on the world. Frank fought in Vietnam, and it is precisely the madness and despair of that particular war which is key to that character's core.
In the movie and in the Ultimate line, Frank is portrayed as a veteran of the first Gulf War. Meaning what? He ran across the desert while air power knocked out the enemy before he got the chance to fight them? Hardly seems the place for Frank to develop his bloodlust.
As it see it, Marvel will have two choices for the Punisher in the 616 in the years to come. Either he gets a dose of Nick Fury's infinity formula and things continue largely unaltered, or his military experience gets retconned to the current Iraq war, which has the same quality of hopeless, endless violence which is crucial to the Punisher's creation.
As it see it, Marvel will have two choices for the Punisher in the 616 in the years to come. Either he gets a dose of Nick Fury's infinity formula and things continue largely unaltered, or his military experience gets retconned to the current Iraq war, which has the same quality of hopeless, endless violence which is crucial to the Punisher's creation.
While that's a valid point, they're probably better off if they just don't address it. I don't see why they really have to unless it pertains to the story. I don't read many Punisher books, but I'd assume that he doesn't go around talking about 'Nam all the time.
Toji - Maybe so. Garth Ennis makes the most use of this element of Castle's background, often with fantastic results. If you've not read them already, I would heartily recommend Born, Do Not Fall in New York City, and Frank's first speech to Microchip in the MAX series. Yeah, it doesn't come up constantly, or even frequently, but when it does, it's clear that this is an indispensable facet of the character.
Worse still, the floating timeline will one day mean that the West Coast Avengers never appeared on David Letterman!
Well... considering the third part of 52 is meant to be World War III, and the secret of 52 is that the multiverse exists... yeah, I don't think anyone in that picture is from the main DCU.
And Ray Palmer is alive post-OYL. I think. Certainly, it's been strongly implied he's the cabbie from All-New Atom (which is beginning to get interesting).
And as for the picture being "terrible"... come the fuck on. It's not fantastic, sure, but it's far from awful. This isn't Newsarama, people.
Some speculation based on the latest issue of Ion from both Newsarama's and DC's message boards and posted on the former. Just tossing it in as new food for thought. Spoilers for said issue of Ion, so look only if you know or don't care.
[spoiler:3f78d90341]SPOILERS for ION #10 (BIG, UNIVERSE SHATTERING NEWS!)
Posted: Jan 31, 2007 9:12 AM
ION doesn't make it to the Tangent Universe, he makes it to THE BLEED! As in the Bleed from Wildstorm comics! There he runs into Captain Atom (in his Monarch armor) who tells him that the Bleed is the one place they can hide from the monitors! There's even a cool one page spread featuring all of the Wildstorm heroes. Grab a copy of this book because it sets up the big things coming from dc regarding the return of the multiverse!
Ron Marz had even been teasing us about it:
01-04-2007, 11:22 AM
NRAMA: So - on the Kyle side of things, and just summing up, we've got the Guardians under threat/attack from forces unknown; Kyle's mom sick; and now - the Tangent universe. That about sum it up?
RM: Actually, there's something in issue #10 you don't know about -- a character appearance and a location readers probably aren't expecting. So there.
I am beginning to suspect that the "Teaser image" and the "cry of destruction" are not related to Earth-2, but to the WildStorm Universe. Which wouldn't be a bad thing, if it wasn't so damn likely that DC management will screw up characterisation and WS characters will be "put in their place" by the oh-so-moral DC heroes.[/spoiler:3f78d90341]
Given Didio's comment about distance in the picture possibly representing emotional distance, it looks like Ollie and Dinah are in for some hard times. I wonder if it also means that something might happen between Superman and Wonder Woman. He does have his face in her breasts, after all.
I also wonder if Didio's failure to identify Batman as "Bruce Wayne" might mean someone else will be taking up the mantle, either between now and the end of 52 (but not after 52) or post-OYL. Also, if Red Robin is from the same Earth as the other characters, I wonder if maybe Bruce adopts that identity after ceding the mantle of Batman.
If Kingdom Come is not Earth-1/New Earth continuity, it kinda bugs me that any character would coincidentally create an outfit identical to an Elseworlds character. Maybe it doesn't matter. One could theorize that if Kingdom Come is an alternate future, then it comes about after the Red Robin costume and name are created. But that's a bit unsatisfying.
If Kingdom Come is not Earth-1/New Earth continuity, it kinda bugs me that any character would coincidentally create an outfit identical to an Elseworlds character. Maybe it doesn't matter. One could theorize that if Kingdom Come is an alternate future, then it comes about after the Red Robin costume and name are created. But that's a bit unsatisfying.
JSA #1. Last page.
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If Kingdom Come is not Earth-1/New Earth continuity, it kinda bugs me that any character would coincidentally create an outfit identical to an Elseworlds character. Maybe it doesn't matter. One could theorize that if Kingdom Come is an alternate future, then it comes about after the Red Robin costume and name are created. But that's a bit unsatisfying.
JSA #1. Last page.
What? I guess I better get out my copy of JSA #1 when I get home and refresh my memory.
If Kingdom Come is not Earth-1/New Earth continuity, it kinda bugs me that any character would coincidentally create an outfit identical to an Elseworlds character. Maybe it doesn't matter. One could theorize that if Kingdom Come is an alternate future, then it comes about after the Red Robin costume and name are created. But that's a bit unsatisfying.
JSA #1. Last page.
What? I guess I better get out my copy of JSA #1 when I get home and refresh my memory.
New series. Not the James Robinson/David Goyer one.
If Kingdom Come is not Earth-1/New Earth continuity, it kinda bugs me that any character would coincidentally create an outfit identical to an Elseworlds character. Maybe it doesn't matter. One could theorize that if Kingdom Come is an alternate future, then it comes about after the Red Robin costume and name are created. But that's a bit unsatisfying.
JSA #1. Last page.
What? I guess I better get out my copy of JSA #1 when I get home and refresh my memory.
New series. Not the James Robinson/David Goyer one.
The one that just started up a couple months ago, right? The one with the Star Boy (or whatever) from Kingdom Come as Starman?
I also wonder if Didio's failure to identify Batman as "Bruce Wayne" might mean someone else will be taking up the mantle, either between now and the end of 52 (but not after 52) or post-OYL. Also, if Red Robin is from the same Earth as the other characters, I wonder if maybe Bruce adopts that identity after ceding the mantle of Batman.
He said it is the Batman we've been reading about, which is Bruce Wayne. Plus, whenever Batman has a cutlass, good ol Ra's isn't far behind.
I also wonder if Didio's failure to identify Batman as "Bruce Wayne" might mean someone else will be taking up the mantle, either between now and the end of 52 (but not after 52) or post-OYL. Also, if Red Robin is from the same Earth as the other characters, I wonder if maybe Bruce adopts that identity after ceding the mantle of Batman.
He said it is the Batman we've been reading about, which is Bruce Wayne. Plus, whenever Batman has a cutlass, good ol Ra's isn't far behind.
Arguably, the Batman we've been reading about is Batman, i.e., whoever is in the suit. Most recently, Bruce Wayne has been in the suit, but I think there's a little wiggle room for the guy in the suit being someone else, even just temporarily.
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That little flashlight dealie appeared in this months issue of Hawkgirl. While Hath Set was Pharaoh, a creature from Apokolips accidentally ended up in his temple, after a faulty 'boom'. He had with him a weapon from Apokolips, which Hath Set then took from him and placed in a jar, which then turned up in the St. Roch Museum.
Long story short, someone tried to take it, got hit by a car, and the thing flew back and broke. It then rebuilt itself into a spider looking thing and crawled away. The solicit for next months issue has Hawkgirl dealing with a few Furies.
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It's kind of like how everything in Marvel seems to have a sliding scale of continuity.
Everything that happens in the core books is in continuity for those characters. The X-Men, for example, have their own continuity. When the X-Men appear in, say, Runaways, their appearance is part of Runaways continuity, but not necessarily X-Men continuity, because Runaways isn't as important as X-men. Kind of difficult to explain.
Everything that happens in a book happens in continuity for that specific book, but not necessarily for the other books. The more important books can create continuity for the peripheral books, but not necessarily the other way around.
If they keep the single series consistent, I don't really feel like I'm going to freak out if Typeface breaks an arm in Thunderbolts then pops up again a month later in Spider-Man with a miraculously healed arm.
I have no idea what that means.
I think Erik Larsen is the one who stated that's how continuity works for Image titles. So when Deena Pilgrim or Invincible meet up with Savage Dragon, they're meeting up with their Savage Dragons, but not necessarily the Savage Dragon from Larsen's book. Of course, that also leaves some wiggle room for stuff like The Pact, where writers can each agree to do a specific story that with another person's character that will affect both their own character and the other creator's. It's kind of brilliant in its simplicity.
Still, I kind of like the big, sprawling continuity of other books where you can read an issue from twenty years ago and see it being referenced/utilized somehow in a story being published today. Of course, such occurences seem to be getting rarer and rarer, to the point that all the continuity hardly seems to matter.
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the only good thing fromm The Kingdom was this:
Of course it then lead to this:
I guess he couldnt find that door after all huh guyz, ololol
It would be so much easier to appreciate the weight of these character changes and world developments if they weren't so ephemeral. I can remember DC declaring for years that Hal Jordan had gone mad and that Kyle Rayner was the new Green Lantern so we'd better get used to it. But sure enough, just wait a few years and everything changes again forever. They even retconned the gray sideburns out!
So I apologize if my tone has come off as too harsh. There's been plenty of DC tales I've really loved. Starman, for instance. That was eighty issues of good times. I've got boxes devoted entirely to Batman. Hell, even during IC, I found moments to enjoy - the "last time you inspired anyone" argument between Superman and Batman, for example. But I just get this feeling that all these Big Events aren't necessary for anything but artificially jacking up sales. And it has to be frustrating for the writers to have the rugs yanked out from under their characters every fourteen months or so.
Terrorbyte - That's an excellent analogy.
The first couple years of Ultimate Marvel were a lot of fun. Continuity enema, woo-hoo! But now those books have been around long enough to have their own impenetrable backstory. Necessary evil, maybe.
I wouldn't exactly call the disconnect between real years and comic years a problem with continuity. It's just something that happens that's impossible to explain away, and doesn't really need to be since comics never claim to be running realtime.
Marvel does have plenty of continuity snags, though.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floating_timeline
In the movie and in the Ultimate line, Frank is portrayed as a veteran of the first Gulf War. Meaning what? He ran across the desert while air power knocked out the enemy before he got the chance to fight them? Hardly seems the place for Frank to develop his bloodlust.
As it see it, Marvel will have two choices for the Punisher in the 616 in the years to come. Either he gets a dose of Nick Fury's infinity formula and things continue largely unaltered, or his military experience gets retconned to the current Iraq war, which has the same quality of hopeless, endless violence which is crucial to the Punisher's creation.
While that's a valid point, they're probably better off if they just don't address it. I don't see why they really have to unless it pertains to the story. I don't read many Punisher books, but I'd assume that he doesn't go around talking about 'Nam all the time.
Worse still, the floating timeline will one day mean that the West Coast Avengers never appeared on David Letterman!
And Ray Palmer is alive post-OYL. I think. Certainly, it's been strongly implied he's the cabbie from All-New Atom (which is beginning to get interesting).
And as for the picture being "terrible"... come the fuck on. It's not fantastic, sure, but it's far from awful. This isn't Newsarama, people.
The Batman Beyond version of Bats makes an appearance in Superman/Batman at one point, collected in volume 4, "Vengeance."
Seeing as that series went to shit after the second volume, though, I wouldn't particularly call it worth picking up.
Edit: Oh, this was brought up a couple of pages ago. My info is more specific, though.
He says that it's Batman, not Leatherwing. The Batman that we're reading now, as he puts it.
He says that all of the characters pictured are from the same earth.
The "book of Genesis" thing is obviously a hint that this is New Gods related.
and he said that Mary Marvel doesn't die in Trials
so he gave 4 hints for 20 questions
and monumentally better than Joe Quesada would do.
Let's Play Final Fantasy 'II' (Ch10 - 5/17/10)
I also wonder if Didio's failure to identify Batman as "Bruce Wayne" might mean someone else will be taking up the mantle, either between now and the end of 52 (but not after 52) or post-OYL. Also, if Red Robin is from the same Earth as the other characters, I wonder if maybe Bruce adopts that identity after ceding the mantle of Batman.
That's the obvious guess. Too obvious.
If Kingdom Come is not Earth-1/New Earth continuity, it kinda bugs me that any character would coincidentally create an outfit identical to an Elseworlds character. Maybe it doesn't matter. One could theorize that if Kingdom Come is an alternate future, then it comes about after the Red Robin costume and name are created. But that's a bit unsatisfying.
I have absolutely no interest in Wildstorm
DCUstorm?
What? I guess I better get out my copy of JSA #1 when I get home and refresh my memory.
The one that just started up a couple months ago, right? The one with the Star Boy (or whatever) from Kingdom Come as Starman?
Don't confuse the kids Axe.
He said it is the Batman we've been reading about, which is Bruce Wayne. Plus, whenever Batman has a cutlass, good ol Ra's isn't far behind.
PSN: OrneryRooster
Arguably, the Batman we've been reading about is Batman, i.e., whoever is in the suit. Most recently, Bruce Wayne has been in the suit, but I think there's a little wiggle room for the guy in the suit being someone else, even just temporarily.
Anally.
This would please me. I think DC really did a disservice to Jean-Paul.
Long story short, someone tried to take it, got hit by a car, and the thing flew back and broke. It then rebuilt itself into a spider looking thing and crawled away. The solicit for next months issue has Hawkgirl dealing with a few Furies.
Dun dun dun.
PSN: OrneryRooster
Once Chaykin left, yeah. Plus the last two issues dealt with where Hawkman was, and crossed over with JSA Classified.
PSN: OrneryRooster