This attitude is common. For too many fans, the reaction to books set in the past is "Who cares?"

This attitude is common. For too many fans, the reaction to books set in the past is "Who cares?"

***

I know this phrase is usually yours, JB, so I hope I don't have to pay royalties for using it, but those people really need to FIND A NEW HOBBY!

One thing drew me to comics as a kid, and one thing alone can keep me interested. That one thing is GOOD STORIES! If it's a well-told, interesting story, with artwork to tell it properly, then I'll care. It doesn't matter one bit when in time or "continuity" it takes place. If its worth reading, its worth reading.

Continuity: I am really beginning to hate that word. 

JB wrote:
"This attitude is common. For too many fans, the reaction to books set in the past is 'Who cares?'"

Well, what can I say, but... exhibit A, far too many fans are nutters!
Some of the best stories I've read or seen (books, comics, films) are set in the past, and anyone who can't see a good story for what it is... well, pity the fool!

Aaron Smith wrote:
"Continuity: I am really beginning to hate that word."

Ah nothing wrong with the word, Aaron, or the concept. Whether it should be applied in superhero comics set in either of the two big companies' universes is another matter completely however.

I think the problem here is actually twofold:
1) the idea of an on-going continuity does not perhaps work at its best if the fictional universe is supposed to continually adapt to the here and now and not be exposed to "real time"*. There can only ever really be the illusion of on-going continuity under those parameters.
2) even at the best of times a big fictional universe with several strands of stories going mostly works best if the continuity is underlying, skeletal in nature, where a great beast can be seen below the surface of separate narrative streams. The big two's current policies seems to be all out continuity all the time, which more or less translates as read everything (since every little bit is the chapter of one overly big (and not too well constructed) novel, rather than telling a lot of stories that are part of a bigger whole.**

My penny!

* I use the term "real time" here as either "one month of reality time equals one month of comicbook time" or as realted to a fictional universe freer from reality's temporality, but continually aging within its own parameters (as opposed to a lot of comic books and fictional universes that requires a form of stasis time – just look at Watterson's Calvin & Hobbes and you see what I mean).

** This latter comment actually also applies to the problem of writing for the trade where a similar approach would provide both better stories and trades.

1980.  Because it was fun!  Too bad the people who made it fun had to move on.

I'd like to see the end of the Dark Phoenix Saga without Shooter interference.  Mutants as a minority, again.  Wolverine was a pre-Miller/Claremont, prone to berserker raged X-Man and wasn't in every book stamped 'Marvel'.  Iron Man was a somewhat flawed Tony Stark in the classic red and gold armor...and he was still the billionaire industrialist.  Micronauts!  Marvel Two-In-One and Marvel Team-Up! 

Pre-Crisis DC. Flash was Barry Allen.  Green Lantern was a non-mass muderer Hal Jordan.  Justice League splash pages with all participating heroes listed. 

The best parts...Byrne, Allen, Buscema, Adams, Golden, Romita and Jr., Michelinie, Claremont, Perez, Layton, Mantlo, Greunwald, Garcia-Lopez, etc... 

Writers/artists were comic book professionals and enjoyed it...no apologists.  Pre quesada, morrison, austen, et al.

Bad guys were, for the most part, bad guys...all the time.

AND...if my parents had gone to the comic shop with me they could've read everything that was on the rack and would still be cool with me buying them.  If my kids pick up reading comics they won't be so lucky. 

It'd be great to see comics go back to 1980...but not with the current "creators" at the big 2.  You'd have to bring back the guys who made the comics good in 1980 and before.  The comic professionals who seemed to be proud of what they did and seemed to enjoy their work.  The people working on the books now'd just screw everything up again and I'd have to give up comics all over again. 

I would rewind back to some year in the late 70s.  Comics seemed magical to me back then.  I think it was because not only did these characters have fantastic adventures and or powers, they also had real life concerns.  That was the storytelling standard in those days of the superhero genre.  You needed the "real life" aspect of the story to balance out the fantastic elements.  Creators back then fully understood that -- this quality appears lost in the comics of today.

The X-Men was my re-introduction into comics, back in the day, and I was entranced by the stories and the art.  During the Claremont, Cockrum and Byrne run those characters went through the gamut of experiences, which is some part the reader could relate.

Comics back then didn't seem gimicky and stood on their merits.  I rarely read them now, because it's more about style rather than substance. Though the art and storytelling varied greatly back then, the underlying structure of the character remained intact.  I wish they would do a REAL rewind of this genre in the big two!