Continuity can be a huge thing. As comic book readers, we tend to cringe when we see an event happen that contradicts another or simply doesn't fit in with other happenings. It's something that has slowly been ingrained into our thinking. We become so invested with the characters in which we spend so much of our time and money on. We want it all to make sense.

This wasn't always the case. Comic characters appeared in several titles and it really wasn't questioned. Look at Batman in the 90s with BATMAN, DETECTIVE COMICS, SHADOW OF THE BAT, LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT, and numerous appearances with the Justice League, Superman, and other books in the DCU. The same could be said for Spider-Man with his various appearances. The late 90s showed us characters like Wolverine, Punisher, and Ghost Rider also had the ability to appear practically everywhere.

When DC launched the New 52, continuity really became a concern with readers. We had that mysterious "five years" and we all wondered what the heck happened in that time, particularly how could there be four different Robins (since Stephanie Brown got retconned out of being one). This month's ACTION COMICS #40 shows us maybe we really don't need to obsess over continuity.

ACTION COMICS #39 wrapped up a bearded Superman's adventures in Smallville. Even that story may have raised some questions since Clark (or Superman) didn't have a beard in SUPERMAN, BATMAN/SUPERMAN, SUPERMAN/WONDER WOMAN, or JUSTICE LEAGUE. Issue #40 simply begins with Superman traveling through a portal, with no explanation how or why this was happening. He even mentiones, "But this Wednesday...I don't know where or how...I find myself spiraling miles beyond unpredictible...straight past continuity..."

The result was Superman ending up on Bizarro World with a pretty fantastic encounter against the backward character.

Besides the lack of explaining how this story followed the previous issue, there was also the fact that we had just been introduced to Bizarro in the New 52 during FOREVER EVIL. Barely a year and a half later, we see this other, more classic version.

It seems writer Greg Pak was allowed to tell a wacky and entertaining story which also seems to be setting up the Bizarro miniseries coming in June. It doesn't matter that this issue didn't explain how Superman ended up going through a portal or the fact that Bizarro World and its inhabitants exist despite a more serious Bizarro having already appeared. We got a comic that was entertaining. When it comes to readers spending their money on comics, that seems like a huge selling point. Even on the comic review aggregate site, ComicBookRoundUp, ACTION COMICS has a combined average review score of 9.2 out of 10. People seemed to like it.

A looser continuity is something that DC Comics Co-publishers Jim Lee and Dan DiDio told us they'd be leaning towards when we visited the DC Office in February. This doesn't mean all continuity is being thrown out the window. We can see in the June 2015 solicitations for DC that there is a Superman story, "Truth," that will take place in ACTION COMICS, BATMAN/SUPERMAN, SUPERMAN/WONDER WOMAN, and SUPERMAN. So we can still have continuity. The characters and creators just don't need to be locked down to making sure every single issue lines up or connects to another. It's more about the big picture.

This isn't anything new either. We've been seeing this more and more lately. What immediately comes to my mind is Captain America appearing in AVENGERS, UNCANNY AVENGERS, and CAPTAIN AMERICA.

We had Captain America spend 13 years in Dimension Z (time flowed at a different pace). We didn't know how this fit in with his appearances in the 616 Universe. Two of the books were even written by the same writer. It just didn't matter. Knowing where Cap's Dimension Z adventure took place would spoil the outcomes of other stories. If you didn't worry how it fit together, you could easily enjoy some great stories.

Having a looser continuity allows us to have different stories told at their own pace. This won't mean they'll contradict each other. Wolverine is still dead in the X-Men books. Thor (or Odinson) still is without Mjolnir. Lex Luthor is still seemingly a good guy. We won't have a character drastically affected or changed in one book and then see this ignored in another. In the big picture, these separate events will fit together to give us the definitive version of who the characters are today. This is likely what readers that wait for the trade paperbacks experience. It's not always clear where they fit in with the other titles due to the various printing schedules.

Continuity can be a good thing. We just don't need writers chained down and not allowed to take a character to different places because it would be too difficult to explain how they got there in another title. Writers and publishers are aware of this and we've been seeing this change slowly become more and more evident.

There will be some readers who fight this feeling of a looser continuity. As long as we keep getting great stories or even better ones, we all win. No one needs to map out a comic book character's day to day schedule and line up all the books. Just enjoy the great stories.

I actually agree. After reading Action Comics #40 I might start reading Superman again......and just maybe Bizarro as well.

Definitely agree if this is what to come in June for dc then I fully welcome it.

@saint_wildcard I think your thoughts will be well appreciated here.

Issue 40 was canon. It hapened to Earth 0 Superman, so it is canon.
The issue here is that people use canon to determine if something happened to a certain character or if it was an "else world" story that happened to a different Superman. And canon is also used as its actual name suggests, meaning continuity. In this case, issue 40 didnt happen between issues 39 and 41, so the continuity is off, but its still canon in that it happened to earth 0 superman and therefore a part of his life.

so if someone wanted to use a feat from this issue, and claim it as a new 52 superman feat, theyd be perfectly right in doing so.

I feel like im going to end up writing a blog or thread about this to ease some confusions among the viners,

PREACH

~MiB

I completely agree with you, Tony. I have never worried about how in one book a character can be in one place, and in another book be someplace else. As long as the story is good that's all that matters to me.

Lets not forget Thor's disappearing and reappearing arm throughout axis. I think if they don't care about the little things like how the Death of Wolverine kind of made no sense with Sabertooth and Nuke showing up it was still in the marvel universe and you just shouldn't sweat the minor details and just know it happened at around that time.

My only worry for DC is that they will over do it since DC can't do anything without over doing it. There should still be things that take place all in one universe, and not just a bunch of books in their own universe. I hope they just have lots of titles like Hawkeye which was super self contained but still in the same universe as everything else.

Lots of comparisons to Marvel, but Marvel is the only other huge comic book company and they have used this model for decades and never needed to restart their whole universe over and over every 6 years, so it's about time DC tried it out.

DC released a time line for the five year gap explaining the Robins. Besides even if they didn't that's all you really need, just that bit of info and then continue on with the story. We don't need full details of what happened in that time, it's just to make the heroes feel like they have some experience and to allow the writers a place to insert background for the sake of a story they want to tell, which is always good.

The one thing I say we need to ignore continuity wise are costume changes, publishers want characters to have consistent looks for characters and will often insert them in places that don't make a lot of sense, simply for better recognition. That's something we just need to accept and ignore since it really has no effect on the story or characters.

As for Captain America it doesn't matter when that story took place, since it was isolated time travel it could have taken place at any time so we don't need to worry.

Also they don't need to explain two Bizarros, one was a clone and the other is just from Bizarro world. That's like explaining why so many earths happen to have their own Justice League's just like Earth-0, or why even though Flash broke reality (twice) everything ended up mostly the same (relatively speaking).

Aw man someone deleted my comment, not cool.

Never mind, it's back now, thank you to whomever is responsible :)

"As long as we keep getting great stories or even better ones, we all win. No one needs to map out a comic book character's day to day schedule and line up all the books. Just enjoy the great stories."

Well said!

@g_man: I definitely agree with you on this one and it's argument/debate I'm standing on when I talk to my friends who thinks continuity should matter. I use to feel that way too. But I start seeing more and more errors or different universes telling many great stories, I started to realize to not care about continuity and comics should just tell great stories. It's up to us to make our own continuity as fans base on what we like and in that everyone has their own continuity and I hope Marvel will follow suit with DC eventually because it seems like Marvel are following to DC's demise on trying to follow continuity since they are reboot their universe which didn't work out too well continuity wise for DC like Superboy for example. His origin was rewritten like 5 times in the time of the new 52. So, yeah continuity cannot work out in a non-perfect world. So, I'm hoping this new era comics will wipe out continuity eventually and have writers tell good stories to their full potential.

I am going to miss all of these overly complex crisis stories. I loved Crisis of Infinite Earths and i'm sad this new model will likely mean we will never have another crisis again.

I am blown away by what I am reading in the comments here. What you guys are saying completely contradicts what people are saying over on Yahoo.

Personally, I find this time line skipping and stories that just appear out of nowhere and unexplained to be completely lazy story writing. I read any and all New 52 Superman related comics, Justice League and Supergirl. I hate to say it, but Supergirl has the best read as far as I am concerned. Supergirl's stories are one right after the other, they make sense, they continue from the last comic, there are no unexplained events.

I wish you guys would read what people are saying on Yahoo....they clearly do not agree with the writer here, and to be blunt, neither do I. Lazy story writing, plain and simple. These writers do not want to do their homework, they want to come up with stories all their own, without having any clue what happened in the past, so they take the cheap way out. Boring....

@wraiven: I'm feeling the same as you, but I suspect our views are not very welcome here.

@ms-lola: Our views may or may not be welcomed here, but the way I see it, if these writers want to continue with this kind of writing, they need to know how all of the comic book readers feel about it, not just the minority few who follow comic vine. Like our views or not, they are the views of the flip side of the coin. Besides, I am sure as hell not here to win any popularity contests, nor am I here to walk on egg shells. I am here to express my opinion, regardless of who likes it.

Good to see there are others who read Comic Vine who share similar views as my own though, there is hope for comics yet. ;)

My personal opinion, if these writers want to write good stories, they need to follow the path they have taken with Supergirl. Even in the cartoons, they have learned that continued story lines work better than random and out of place stories...networks have figured out they can pull in a lot more viewers by continuing story lines, than with randoms. I would think these comic book writers would learn a thing or two from them.

i like continuity, i like things to be explained and have some sort of structured time line because otherwise whats the point of having a shared universe? If Batman can find the time to fight one villain on his own in 'Batman', then another with Robins help in 'Batman & Robin' and another in 'Detective comics', I want to know where all of that fits in with his adventures with the Justice League. This is however more of a problem for characters that are over-used like Batman, over ones you hardly see because its believable that Larfleeze may get in to a scuffle once every year or so, but is it likely that Hal Jordan could have healed from so many more fights in the same time span?

I have to agree with the both of you.

And yeah, Supergirl has been great, I'm disappointed it's being canceled. And as far as I've heard there is no relaunch of her book or anything mentioned yet.

I'd rather continuity play an important part in story telling. There are minor things I can look past at times but overall I'd rather they keep what's being written in mind and try to abide by them.

I have always disregarded continuity for a better story, but it is strange to hear this from someone from this website. So many of the articles from this website are based on battles, which are heavily invested in continuity, i.e. this character managed to do this one time so the other character will lose. Without continuity the battles lose their ability to be debated. It is not that I don't agree with the point of this article, but more so that the writer seems to be making the case only because Jim Lee told him to, and almost seems like he doesn't believe what he is preaching.

@blueecho: not sure if you meant me. I actually made this case in an article back in 2011. Also, I'm not saying completely do away with continuity. I never said that. "Looser" means not having to have everything line up exactly from moment to moment but they will line up in then long run. The Big Picture. You couldn't have that if it was a bunch of contradicting stories.

Continuity shouldn't be something to shackle writers. Problems only come when writers don't respect it, due to whatever reason. This then creates contradictions that spiral out of control.

A character appearing in multiple titles isn't an issue, and it never was. Those issues can tell stories taking place at any time in the characters history, they don't have to intersect chronologically, so no issue there.

As long as writers don't contradict or negate something, there really shouldn't be any issue. When you contradict or negate something you introduce inconsistencies, which hamper the larger story. If writers don't want the responsibility of having to stick to continuity, they should write elseworlds .

@g_man: I am completely fine with it as a concept. If continuity was attempted to be implemented away from the big two it would seriously affect the quality of stories. The problem is that this site has such a focus on battles which means that people will consider things to be continuity if they occurred within a single panel and then argue for hours about the merits of that one thing. It is therefore strange to have a writer for Comic Vine advocate for looser continuity when it would debase a significant part of the users

I totally agree with your points Image comics has shown that it is important to give some freedom to the wirters to tell the best stories.

oooh oooh people who finally agree with me.

It's wild that an article had to be made cause of issue 40. It was obvious that it was "canon" because it was New 52 Superman. It's the same character and his adventure.

@dernman: We are out there!

continuity is important.....loose continuity is good...tight continuity is better ...with heroes like spidey and batman superman and wolverine appearing in multiple comics tight continuity has been impossible ....its all been somewhat loose continuity at marvel since the 90's and it was too at DC before the reboot ...now they are going back to the DC of old in a way ...also limiting to 52 earths if handcuffing dc ...infinite earths is best ...it easily explains away a lot of continuity discrepancies...a smaller cast of heroes like what valiant has is good for tight continuity ...read those books for a tighter timeline with great stories ...read image for zero continuity with great stories

I agree with looser continuity in the sense of not needing to explain how or where Superman encountered the portal, but it's not like the Earth-29 Bizarro was unfounded in the New 52. The Multiversity guidebook established this and Action 40 even used the Sramian Snitch introduced in the guidebook. Thus, I think DC can have its cake and eat it too in a sense.

@muyjingo: @wraiven:

Completely agree. While I'm not that concerned with explaining how multiple appearances occur in different titles I do think a character's established history is extremely important. Being invested in a character and following them on a continued adventure is one of the best aspects in comics.

I never understood why people even assume there should be a conflict. Batman fighting Anarchy in Detective Comics takes place either before or after endgame. It doesn't even need to be specified that it does, since it's obvious if it isn't an endgame tie-in. That goes for every character in every book. It just leaves me scratching my head when people say there is an issue with a character having multiple adventures across multiple books.

I really like what do is doing, they will have 25 books that follow continuity and 25 books that the writers have free reign in. I think it will allow great stories for both sides of the coin. Even Scott Snyder is behind the new business plan so I think they are going in the right direction.

I've been saying for a while now that I don't mind continuity discrepancies if it meant we can get good stories.

this was a fun story. i dont know how i feel about a whole book on bizarro , a mini perhaps not an ongoing. i also liked the concept of B-0 and hope we get to see that again

I don't mind a loose continuity, but half the DCU still lacks a clear origin of any kind. Kyle Rayner is being killed post-Convergence in Omega Men #1, yet over three years into the New52 we still don't know exactly what his origin was. We see a panel here and there that contradicts everything, hell since the New52 began writers are retconning stuff they put in the comics themselves! I am one of those who believes this is just lazy writing and an example of writers not doing their homework. If a writer has never read a Superman story, why go out of your way to hire them and produce a comic from somebody who has virtually no idea of who the character is or what they've done? How does that even begin to make sense?

Its clear, when a fan of a character like Scott Snyder is put on something like Batman magic happens. He's even a perfectly good example of how to use continuity more loosely, just look at his Court of Owls story. Connecting multiple stories isn't the problem right now at DC, the problem is we as readers know nothing about the origins and early adventures of these New52 characters we're supposed to still love and adore like we did decades ago... and the universe is now over three years old. I used to enjoy Hawkman quite a bit pre New52, but since the New52 happened I don't know what's going on or why. Was he a hero at all during the 5 year gap? Did he look like the more traditional Hawkman before the first issue took place or did his armor always look ugly even when the Nth metal wasn't inside his bones? He's actually a Thanagarian now? Why's he in NYC now rather than Midway or St. Roch?

Writers aren't writing anything that makes any sense. When that much has changed, it's hard to stay invested when we're given quite literally NO EXPLANATION AT ALL. I'm sure DC wouldn't hire a writer to come in and base Batman in Opal City, with a new suit, new Robin, and no gadgets and let it still be Bruce Wayne. So why would they let this happen to characters like Static, Hawkman, Black Lightning, Capt. Atom, etc?

~KL~

Continuity died in superhero comics a long time ago, I don't get why it's even a debate.

This.

Exactly.

I'm not saying that Continuity its everything, but its very important, its a fundamental part of any story or any saga...As for DC writters, if they don't like it, then they should not writte comics, period. Or just stick for the else-worlds stories.

Looser continuity doesn't bother me at all, but here's what does. In that interview, didn't Didio and Lee state that they were not going to be focusing on events and crossovers for awhile so the individual creators could focus on their own stories and establishing their own books? Yet, here we are right out of the gate with a Superman crossover. Want to read a Superman book, sorry, but you need to read these four different books to get the whole story. I really thought you meant well after that interview, but sorry DC, I'll keep adding more Image books to my pull list.

IMO either you have continuity or you don't. There's nothing wrong in not having continuity, in fact, i believe that in some cases that can be great since writers would have way more freedom to do what they want and so that could lead to many great stories. Just look at what people like Alan Davis, Frank Miller, Mark Waid or Mark Millar did with stories like The Nail, The Dark Knight Returns, Kingdom Come or Superman: Red Son. Awesome stories that are awesome because they'ren't attached to any continuity. But if you're going to have continuity you should stick with it. Not sticking to it when you have it is just lazy writers and careless publishers not really caring about what they're doing.

BTW Caps example is horrible. Cap spent 13 years in Dimension Z but in the real world it was just a day. And that day took place between Uncanny Avengers first fight with the Red Skull and his S-Men and the second arc, Wasp and him even talked about it at some point.

Hypocrisy, thy names are Didio and Lee. Couldn't agree more on Lee and Didio contradicting their own words in their Post Convergence June solicits. I've dropped the Superman Family post June too and I'm a big Superman fan myself.

I agree with you for the most part, especially when it comes to the Bizarro thing.

Now we have Superman-clone Bizarro from Earth-0, and Bizarro World Bizarro from Earth-29. You can tell different kinds of stories with both of them, and both kinds could be quite good.

@zearing: Exactly

Also thanks for indirectly telling me my comment was back

@bat_girl_cc said:

I'm not saying that Continuity its everything, but its very important, its a fundamental part of any story or any saga...As for DC writters, if they don't like it, then they should not writte comics, period. Or just stick for the else-worlds stories.

@the_kid_lantern said:

I don't mind a loose continuity, but half the DCU still lacks a clear origin of any kind. Kyle Rayner is being killed post-Convergence in Omega Men #1, yet over three years into the New52 we still don't know exactly what his origin was. We see a panel here and there that contradicts everything, hell since the New52 began writers are retconning stuff they put in the comics themselves! I am one of those who believes this is just lazy writing and an example of writers not doing their homework. If a writer has never read a Superman story, why go out of your way to hire them and produce a comic from somebody who has virtually no idea of who the character is or what they've done? How does that even begin to make sense?

Its clear, when a fan of a character like Scott Snyder is put on something like Batman magic happens. He's even a perfectly good example of how to use continuity more loosely, just look at his Court of Owls story. Connecting multiple stories isn't the problem right now at DC, the problem is we as readers know nothing about the origins and early adventures of these New52 characters we're supposed to still love and adore like we did decades ago... and the universe is now over three years old. I used to enjoy Hawkman quite a bit pre New52, but since the New52 happened I don't know what's going on or why. Was he a hero at all during the 5 year gap? Did he look like the more traditional Hawkman before the first issue took place or did his armor always look ugly even when the Nth metal wasn't inside his bones? He's actually a Thanagarian now? Why's he in NYC now rather than Midway or St. Roch?

Writers aren't writing anything that makes any sense. When that much has changed, it's hard to stay invested when we're given quite literally NO EXPLANATION AT ALL. I'm sure DC wouldn't hire a writer to come in and base Batman in Opal City, with a new suit, new Robin, and no gadgets and let it still be Bruce Wayne. So why would they let this happen to characters like Static, Hawkman, Black Lightning, Capt. Atom, etc?

~KL~

I couldn't agree more. Internal continuity and consistency isn't at odds with good storytelling. It's a fundamental part of it.

I support loser continuity. They are fictional stories anyway, anyone can decide what they want to consider canon. Too bad this probably won't go over well on battle forums

I agree with the part about looser continuity

Grant Morrison's run in Action Comics 1-18 explained Superman's history post flashpoint. Most of Superman's historic events remain valid i.e. his death at the game of Doomsday, but with time crunched in order to fit in those 5 years. Essentially the Superman we have now is the same as the one pre-flashpoint, but different because he experienced those events on hyperdrive. Explains the slight change in personality, because he's seen all the horror of pre-flashpoint Superman with less time to process those events.

What I like about DC is that they don't always spell things out right away, which gives us time to speculate when certain things are happening. My theory right now is that the Superman we see in Acton Comics currently already experienced the events of Convergence right after Doom #2 when he punched Doomsday out of existence.

It's a sad day when professional writers can't work with continuity. This reminds me of the NFL. "

Too hard to throw touchdowns? Then make a bunch of rules to cripple defenses! Don't bother becoming more creative or smart with offense, just cripple defense!"

Continuity isn't the enemy of good stories. Lazy writing and editing are.

@sog7dc: Exactly. Continuity is there to keep things on track and add a bit of reality to a world of unrealities. There is no reason continuity can't be established. Its complete laziness for the sake of making the writer and editor's jobs easier. These are people supposedly paid good money for their talent and skill. If something as simple as continuity gets in their way, maybe they're not the right person for the job.