Following the history of our favorite characters isn't always easy. Think about the numerous creative teams that have worked on the longest running titles for the major publishers. How many titles have been around for 40+ years? Lets not forget the multiple dimensions, parallel universes, inner/outer material/astral/mental planes, crossovers, dreams, visions, hallucinations, etc., ad nauseum, that have taken place. Now, I ask you this:

How important is continuity in comics for you?

Do you yearn for a well ordered universe where every title, theme and character plot mesh together?

Are you just happy when the next creative team that takes over your favorite title doesn't ignore or change the past story line.

Or do you just like a good read, continuity be d@mned?

I'll say continuity is important but not overwhelmingly so.

I think continuity is important, some comic book companies on the other hand.

continuity is important, especially when dealing with char's who have died. They should stay dead. I still haven't heard how colossous managed to be brought back to life. He died and was cremated, he should've stayed dead. It's annoying.
Of course, that's just one of many examples.

That's a good point. Do you think a character's death is usually just a publisher's ploy to get more publicity and increase circulation? Case in point: The death of Superman (Superman #75) one of the best selling comics stories of all time. I would say so in that instance. The continuity issues created in those circumstances kind of irk me.

On the other hand, I don't think that the death of Phoenix in Uncanny X-Men #137 was publicity driven. The title was already doing well. I think it was just the end result of a great story arc. So the result of future continuity issues there doesn't bother me as much.

I guess I like as much continuity as possible, but if there are discrepancies for the sake of a good story, I can, and will, overlook them.

His body was stolen, and he was revived before he was cremated. I don't recall how he survived enbalment (sp?).


I think for the most part, that's how I feel. Continuity is important, for establishment of characters and the events that shape them. In some instances, you can fudge with them a little for the sake of a good story (i.e Colossus's return was central to the Astonishing X-Men book). But somethings are more like sacred cows, and shouldn't be messed with (i.e Gwen Stacey).

If they can bring back Jason Todd they can bring back anyone, I wouldn't put it past a hack writer to use Thor to punch the walls of his dimensional prison to bring back Uncle Ben and Gwen Stacy.

Continuity is important to me.

Wild Dog, Strata, and Black Condor DIED in Lobo #62.

Continuity is one of those things that is highly important to me. Without it, Thunderbolts would not have the rich history of the Marvel U for Fabian to draw upon and give us great stories with characters that only he and Busiek could make interesting.

In addition, without continuity, we end up with a situation like this:

NKurt Wagner was born the son of Mystique and a German Baron. Agast of her son's demonic appearance, she thrust him over the cliffside to his impending doom, but his mutant ability triggered, teleporting him to safety. Later, he was found by the gypsy Margali Zsardos, who took him into her family of traveling circus performers. From there, Kurt established a relationship with his "sister" Amanda Sefton and his brother (who's name eludes me now). Kurt took the name of Nightcrawler and performed as an acrobat in the circus. After a scuffle that led to the death of his brother (it was more involved than that) Kurt fled for his life. Eventually, he surrendered himself to the villages who sought to destory him. He was rescued by Xavier and recruited to help locate the missing X-men captured by Krakoa. After helping to free the X-men, Nightcrawler remained on the team and kept his circus uniform because it was sentimental to him and reminded him of where he came from. Time passes, and Nightcrawler remains a valuable asset to the X-men, helping to thwart the various attempts of the Brood, the Dark Phoenix, Arcade (saving the life of Judith Rassendyll, the Queen of Ruritania) up until he became severly injured from Riptide's blades. From there, Nightcrawler went to Muir Island to recover and then joined with Excalibur. After leading the team on many successful missions (as well as leading the N-Men) Nightcrawler finally returned to his home at Xavier's. He studied the priesthood and furthered his pursuit of religion. He's been there ever since, and it's been revealed that he's really a demon and the son of the devil who is trapped inside a dimension and only breeds for the sake of one day being freed from his dimension. It is revealed that Nightcrawler has countless brothers and sisters, is attracted to a hooker mutant, Rachel Summers, Storm, Psylocke and every other woman who lives in the mansion or a 15,000 mile radius of the mansion.

Yup... this is why I like continuity. It keeps the good characters good. When you ignore continuity, you end up with the last few lines of this write-up.

Continuity is good, up until the point it reaches the muddled mess that was the X-Men in the mid-90s. I like a story arc to draw upon the past where appropriate, and not retcon things too much. But the storyarc should also be self-explanatory. The last thing I want is Bob Harras' little editorial footnotes saying "See issue #157!" as a poor explanation of what the heck is going on.

What irks me is when a writer whips up a 'retcon' story to try and wrap up all the previous discontinuity. Just admit its not perfect and move on...

The fans were restless, the Marvel executives knew something must be done. The boardroom hummed with the creative power running through the minds of the writers. "I know!" exclaimed one of the writers "Let's try publishing stories that don't have to tie into continuities, like what if spider-man joined the fantastic 4, but it'd be the fantastic 5"
Another writer said "Yeah, we already have that, they're called what if? tales, and they don't sell very well, our readers want to read new stories with characters they know already, and have for a while. If only there were some way to start all the characters over again, but get rid of all the old stories' manacles of continuity. That way, new readers could also start reading and collecting from issue one."

And thus, the Ultimate universe was born.

We all have different ways of dealing with continuity gripes, reading mostly ultimate universe stuff is mine, since there are only five years of continuity to keep track of. I love reading a story, and seeing an Ultimate version of a character I know introduced.

It reminds me a little of one of George carlin's bits where he says he likes to rent a spy movie with a lot of plot twists and stuff like that, and while watching it, drink a lot, then a few weeks later, rent the same movie and do the same thing again, except now, it's like a different movie, and every fifteen minutes or so, something you already know happens.