Is there any hope for comic book continuity? With all the books coming out these days, if you see a character appear in a couple books the same week, shouldn't it be easy to figure out where the events happen in regards to one another? This is something that has bothered me and just came up in conversation yesterday.
Power Girl appears in both War Of The Supermen #3 and Justice League Of America #45. Which story happened first? Wolverine appears in both X-Men Legacy #236 and Avengers #1. Yeah I know when it comes to Wolverine there's really no hope for continuity. With the X-Men we have Second Coming happening. Does this take place immediately after Siege and before The Heroic Age? We did see Rogue and Cyclops at Sentry's "tribute" in Fallen Sun (funny that Rogue was more upset over Sentry's death than she was over Nightcrawler's). Cry For Justice #1 and Blackest Night #1 both had a September 2009 cover date. Where do these two stories fit in? Cry For Justice pretty much goes straight into The Rise And Fall stories without any Black Lantern reference. Should we have a scorecard to keep all these stories straight?
== TEASER ==
In the actual Marvel Comics, we used to see the Time Variance Authority. They were time traveling agents that monitored the timeline to make sure everything was okay. Sometimes I feel like we could use them to watch over all comics.
I know having comic events flow together is asking a lot. The reality of it is I just try not to think about it. I'm not going to get worked up over this. I've sadly accepted that this is just the way it's going to be. I believe the reason is there are simply a lot of comics that come out each week. Editors do the best they can to make sure character appearances make sense. With all the big events happening at the same time, it just seems like it's asking too much for everyone involved in making the comics to make sure we can understand how the stories relate to one another. Spider-Man may be going through tough times in his three-time-a-month comic but can be his normal cheerful self in Avengers? I'll just have to be happy with seeing him in both books and try not to think of the tiny details.
This might be something that bothers me but I've learned to ignore it. Does it have any affect on you? Do you simply enjoy the multiple appearances of characters or do you try to figure out when each issue takes place?
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