Sadly, we really need this now…
by Martin Skidmore 02-Nov-10
Marvel have announced that a bunch of their titles appearing from Feb-Apr next year will have ‘.1’ appended to the issue number. These are official ‘jumping on’ points, where the stories for the next twelve issues will be set up.
Marvel have announced that a bunch of their titles appearing from Feb-Apr next year will have ‘.1’ appended to the issue number. These are official ‘jumping on’ points, where the stories for the next twelve issues will be set up.
This is addressing something I’ve been complaining about for over 20 years: the big company’s titles are all but fucking incomprehensible. In the late ’80s, when editing the print FA, I suddenly got onto Marvel’s comp list. I received everything. I love comics, and I read almost everything, certainly all of the Marvel Universe titles (I couldn’t face one or two things like GI Joe). I’d read countless thousands of Marvel comics up to a few years before that, and I read all the titles for a year: and in some, I still had little idea what the hell was going on. Unsurprisingly the X-titles were the worst. I said then that this would make grabbing new readers highly unlikely and that sales would crash from the lofty numbers they were doing then.
Obviously there is far more to the massive plummet in sales than that (the internet and computer games are huge factors), but I do think that fundamental impenetrability has been a real factor. So this is a good move, even if it is rather a mechanical way to do it; and of course it is ONLY established comic fans who will know about this, who will know that Amazing Spider-Man 654.1 is a good bet, so it may well work at letting in new readers to some of their titles, but not new comic readers in any significant numbers.
Except, just maybe, this will be such a big success that they start thinking that maybe making their comics comprehensible to someone who doesn’t know everything about the characters’ million previous appearances is not such a bad idea in general, rather than just for a special occasion…
Tags: Marvel
I’ve often thought that one really obvious thing that the super comics could do with is to begin each issue with a recap of what has happened previously. Comics are a sequential medium, at least with issues, but not all of us have the astonishing ability to remember everything we read a month previously.
On the other hand, the internet has made it easier than ever to find out what it is you’re missing, whether through dedicated projects like the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen annotations, or simply reading Wikipedia. I know a fair few people who will browse Wikipedia, following the interlocking histories of characters which ultimately stems back to a character who confused them in an issue they read. And funnily enough, most of them are young women – exactly the demographic to which the big two supposedly find it hardest to appeal.
(In particular, I don’t think I know anyone reading mainstream DC titles beyond a few big authors/crossovers who *isn’t* young and female)
A lot do that already, but it can still be hard work keeping up. Used to be that they could do it quite simply, generally with a page or two of flashbacks or some awkward exposition, but now so many stories are so immensely complex that it becomes less feasible, or less comprehensive.
Yes Alex, I do that sometimes, so that is one advantage compared to 20 years back.
I’m interested in your point about young women. That’s not at all what I would guess from who I see in my local comics shop.
I agree with the need to cut down on the excessive continuity references, but I don’t see how inluding a tag will really solve the problem.
I’m predominently a Marvel reader, and they at least tend to have a brief synopsis at the start of each issue, but when I first came back to comics, after about 15 years in 2000, the titles tended to have a two page spread containing the background on what happened previously and key characters. The downside was that sometimes they would list a character who would only appear as a “shock” in that issue.
However I feel that if stories went back to mainly being contained within one to three issues, that would ease the problem incredibly. Instead we have a story stretched over six issues each time, which under the new system would only allow for two jumping on points a year at most (not taking into account that said story is probably part of a story arc anyway !).
When continuity is used, Quesada’s ban on footnotes is annoying, because footnotes are a good memory jogger, and without them it makes even searching on the net that much more difficult.
Another source of annoyance is clashes in continuity: a few years ago the Black Widow was appearing in Captain America in her 70’s look, complete with long hair; whilst at the same time, in the Mighty Avengers, she was in her 80’s Miller outfit, complete with short hair ! Around the same time, Killgrave was both trapped in one of the prisons in the Avengers, yet roaming around freely in Thunderbolts. Now if you only read one of the titles, you’d be none the wiser, but if you decide to try the other you’d be wondering what the hell was going on – and that was before you even tried to suss out the plot !
So for me, the best way to ease this problem would be to (a) have consistency throughout the titles; (b) have a more detailed synopsis; (c) bring back footnotes; and most importantly, (d) learn how to tell a tale in a single issue – regularly !
Cheers, Mike.
Following on from my previous rant (this was the bit I was going to include, but wasn’t sure if there was a word count limit); if we look at Doctor Who in the 80’s and the 21st century, two consecutive Dalek stories show how continuity can go overboard and how to handle it sensibly in a way that will keep (almost) everyone happy.
About halfway through the first episode of Remembrance of the Daleks (1988), The Doctor explains to his companion the origins of the Daleks by referencing the war against the Thals, the invasion of Earth and their creation by Davros. There were probably a few other points as well, but it was a fanboy checklist, lasting a few sentences and minutes. If we go to the next Dalek story, Dalek (2005), The Doctor explains to his companion the origins of the Daleks by saying “They were created by an evil genius”. That’s it. He doesn’t even mention the name of the genius, he doesn’t have to, because it’s not important – the fans know who he is referring to, as do casual viewers of a certain age. But if you didn’t know, it didn’t matter to the plot.
I loved all the continuity references in the 80’s, be they in Who or in comics, but in hindsight I realise that they have a negative effect on new viewers / readers.
Less sometimes really is a whole lot more.
Ian – Marvel already do that with the recaps page, though it varies massively how useful they are. Some are works of art in their own right (X-Statix was especially good), others omit enough basic information to render themselves useless.
Martin – I think a lot of them torrent issues, then buy or borrow trades outside the direct market. Or else they shop mainly at cons, where they can also cosplay.
Mike – the worst excesses of decompression have been stemmed, I think. Six issue stories are still common, but plenty of trades now include two or three shorter tales.
To my mind there’s a difference between sophistication and clutter. I’m currently watching the final season of ‘Battlestar Galactica’ and I think it would be almost impossible to explain to a newbie what’s going on, but there’s been a whole accumulation of events now coming to a head which means all that effort has a payoff.
Too much comics continuity is just clutter. The stories haven’t got any more sophisticated, just more convoluted.
In short, I agree with Mike. The solution is to de-clutter, not sort the clutter into blocks.
If you’re watching the final season of BSG, then you have my sympathies. So much build-up, so little resolution, and what was resolved was mostly done badly. If they did have a plan all along, it wasn’t a very good one.
Whereas when someone like Grant Morrison dives into the cluttered toybox of a massively convoluted continuity and starts playing with everything he finds there – and even finding interest in the inconsistencies – the results, even if they don’t always cohere, are never less than fascinating. I frequently have no idea what he’s referencing, but in so far as I need to know, I can easily find out. Usually, it makes sense even without that.
Yes, there are plenty of second rate comics which make little sense if you don’t know who Wolverine fought in a spin-off mini 15 years ago, but the problem isn’t continuity or its lack, but talent or its lack. The writers of those stories would still tell boring, confused stories from a clean slate.
(Bear in mind also that even if you mandate a clean slate, then unless no story is allowed to have consequences, it soon becomes cluttered again. Consider Marvel’s Ultimate universe, or DC’s Justice League Unlimited. Both of which I love – at least in parts, for Ultimate – but both of which necessarily developed their own history)
“The writers of those stories would still tell boring, confused stories from a clean slate.”
I don’t really see why this should be the case. Aren’t they more likely to tell boring, straightforward stories? Instead of fighting some bloke from a spin-off mini from 15 years ago, Wolverine would just fight some bloke. Which, right now, would feel like an improvement.
“unless no story is allowed to have consequences, it soon becomes cluttered again.”
I don’t really see why this should be the case either. Why should ‘developed’ mean the same thing as ‘cluttered’? Aren’t Mike’s two examples from ‘Doctor Who’, given above, rather good counter-evidence? (Davros = evil genius. Job done, move on…)
If you want stories where Wolverine just fights some bloke, then Marvel do plenty of pointless little one-shots where that happens. Several are collected in the two recent trades ‘Flies to a Spider’, and ‘Dangerous Games’. Maybe one of them, Mike Carey’s ‘Firebreak’, is any good. Others think they’re making a point but trip over themselves, or fail to clarify the villain’s motivation, or just don’t have clear enough art to follow. There are dozens of ways a story can be confused without a hint of continuity.
And personally, I don’t think of continuity as clutter – but then I’m not a minimalist with home design, either. As long as it’s handled deftly, I like the place full of treasured old stuff. But if we want to stick to the Who example…well, look at how the new series, in five years, went from that streamlined explanation of the Daleks, to the gang’s-all-together exercise in dealing with loose threads that was the story in which Davros finally reappeared. Then reprised in the isn’t-this-over-yet? farewells closing ‘The End of Time’.
(And ‘Remembrance of the Daleks’ was better than ‘Dalek’ anyway. The latter had something which was supposedly an impregnable war machine developing feelings because a girl touched it. See what I mean about there being plenty of other ways a story can be confused?)
Thanks for the recommendations, Alex, but I’m afraid you’ve grasped the wrong end of the stick. I don’t want to read stories where Wolverine fights some bloke, I’d just like to see a few more of them. Something to make the world of so-called ‘mainstream’ comics a little less hermetic, a little more reader-friendly.
“fail to clarify the villain’s motivation”
“Prepare to fight me, good guy. Otherwise there isn’t a story.” Something like that would be adequate.
“or just don’t have clear enough art to follow”
A common enough problem, to be sure, but you’re really talking about a whole different kind of confusion there.
Your two ‘Doctor Who’ examples can be put down to the styles of two different writers, one who went in for fanwank, the other for stories. The fact that one came after the other doesn’t mean that one automatically leads to the other.
“See what I mean about there being plenty of other ways a story can be confused?”
Umm… not really. Of course you’re perfectly entitled to say you preferred one story to the other, but I really don’t see what ‘confusion’ has to do with it.
Finally, could I challenge you to a domestic clutter contest? I’m not sure sure where all those piles of books, comics, CDs and old newspapers come from. But I suspect it’s me…
I have to say that I agree with Gavin, in that my using Doctor Who examples wasn’t to allow a discussion on the overall stories quoted or even the direction of the series, but merely snapshot examples of good and bad. And I don’t always agree with Gavin….
Back to the original topic raised by Martin.
I still feel that adding some symbol to signify the start of a new storyline will not even work in a papering over the cracks way as it fails to tackle the route cause. Furthermore, you are actually telling people “don’t read this issue, it’s the middle of a convoluted storyline !” for all the issues which do not have the .1 suffix. At the risk of using another Doctor Who analogy (but I shall refrain from stating which era), one production team favoured four part stories to six parters, because it allowed for more “first nights” in a season. Hence we need to reduce the number of issues in a particular story. Yes, I’m in favour of the occasion Kree-Skrull War type epic, but not the fit/stretch the story into six issues because that makes a nice TPB attitude. I first started to like Bendis’ Avengers run during his Civil War issues, because he was having to write single issue stories – of course what he did was write six such solo Avenger stories in a row, which could then be compiled very neatly into a TPB….
But here’s another f’rinstance: Avengers #4 (vol.1). Captain America lives again ! In this story, Captain America is brought from the 1940’s into the 1960’s without aging. If you had never heard of Captain America before, it didn’t matter. The background to the story was that Captain America and Bucky tried to defuse a nazi flying bomb and failed, resulting in Cap being frozen for 20 years. There was no mention of Cap’s origin; no description of who Bucky was, other than dead (yes, yes, I know !); even the nazi villain was anonymous (for two issues) – all of that information was superfluous to this particular story. What mattered was that this WWII hero was alive again, and had joined the Avengers. Even the villain was a bit rubbish, but then to have a major villain would have distracted from the main story. And, now wait for this, because this is the killer: they told all of this in ONE issue !!! Amazing ! You didn’t need to know that Cap had actually had his own comic in the 40’s (and revived, temporarily, in the 50’s) or even that someone has impersonated him in a Human Torch story just a few months before. None of that mattered to this story.
See also FF #4 regarding the return of Namor.
That’s the way to do it, and no, they don’t seem to make them like that anymore.
Forgive me, willya ? I-I seem to have something in my eye….
You’re totally right that this doesn’t solve the problem – my main point was that there is this horrible problem, and at least they are realising it and taking one tiny step in the right direction. I am hoping it is a first step towards generally making their comics more accessible again.
And it’s always nice to be reminded of one of my favourite comics ever! When I read that, it was my first knowledge of Cap, and I was (and still am) deeply moved by it – the glorious panel you reference in the last line is a masterful example of telling you a gigantic amount about a character in one moment.
Of course, just as I hit the send button, I realised it should have been “root cause”. Oh dear.
“I have to say that I agree with Gavin… And I don’t always agree with Gavin….”
I hope you’re not only going to agree with me when I’m agreeing with you first!!!
Personally, I can’t bear to read Stan Lee stories. Things happen just so that something happens. Characterisation is paper-thin. Dialogue is embarrassing, implausible and consists largely of characters identifying themselves and each other and repeating things they all already know. Even the weakest modern comics are just about readable, but reading Stan Lee ‘classics’, I find myself feeling suddenbly charitable towards Jeph Loeb.
Stan Lee’s dialogue was always pretty rubbish, but the stories are as good as the artist’s writing abilities, since they were generally responsible for everything except the words you actually read on the page. The characters at Kirby-era Marvel are vastly more substantial and complex than those at DC at the same time, so that seems a harsh comment.
– “Stan Lee’s dialogue was always pretty rubbish” – sorry to jump in here, martin & everybody but that is UTTER BOLLOCKS…!!!
( & unless i’m very much mistaken stan wrote the cap dialogue in avengers #4 which you describe as “the glorious panel” with “the last line is a masterful example of telling you a gigantic amount about a character in one moment” )
( i agree with THAT, btw )
Yes, but it’s the image and idea that carries the weight, not the quality of the words, which just do the job.
Kirby solo was, of course, even worse – I’ve tried reading the Fourth World stuff and have no urge to repeat the experience. Yes, it was better than the same era of DC, but comics has always been bigger than the Big Two – Will Eisner, for instance, was already doing great stuff by that point. Every attempt I’ve made to read ‘Golden’ or ‘Silver’ Age stuff from the big companies has reinforced my conviction that it’s of purely historical interest – as with the myths of Camelot, the later retellings by people who grew up with them are far more entertaining reads than the rough and brutish originals.
I think we are at opposite ends of the spectrum Alex, if you prefer Jeph Loeb to Stan Lee.
I respect your opinion, but I’m never going to agree with it.
I hasten to add that I consider Loeb to be one of the worst writers in comics today. But that’s a mark of how far things have advanced since those terrible, primitive days in which Stan Lee could be hailed, not altogether unfairly, as bringing a new depth to superhero comics.
Gavin – I didn’t think you wanted to read them, per se. I just wanted you to know that they were out there. And you really, really don’t want to see more of them, the market is already saturated.
“Prepare to fight me, good guy. Otherwise there isn’t a story.” – well, again, that’s regrettably common. But it sounds to me like piss-poor writing, rather than a goal for which we should strive.
Re: other forms of confusion – the script of a single episode, ‘Dalek’, directly contradicted itself as to the prime functions and nature of the Dalek armour. That’s confusion.
“But it sounds to me like piss-poor writing, rather than a goal for which we should strive.”
With the current state of many ‘mainstream’ comics, “piss-poor” is a goal which should be strived for.
Sturgeon’s Law: 90% of everything is dreadful. Minimum. But there are more writers doing consistently interesting stuff in comics now than there have ever been. So long as we have Moore, Morrison, Gillen, Cornell, Milligan, Ennis… I’m not that bothered about the amount of crap. Meanwhile, if people want done-in-one superhero stories, they exist. If people want continuity-free all-ages titles, they exist. Eviscerating the mainstream continuities to make *all* comics that accessible would be a foolish and philistine gamble on new readers who may well not even care.
Personally I’m in sympathy with much of what you say, Alex – but from experience I doubt that that’ll prove helpful to your cause…