how little continuity can you get away with?

The problem with continuity rockists is that they put too many facts into the 'long-term' bin.

There were several threads on RACMX about how Uncanny X-Men #337 was an unmitigated disaster because it showed Psylocke at a breakfast table with fruit on her plate and a salt shaker in her hand. Around this same time there was an uproar because Franklin Richards was shown drinking orange milk.

Yes, I did mock them at the time.

(xpost, dammit)

"Singlet: An electron energy state in which electron spins are all paired."

Back to the stacks I go!

The moral of the story is: DO NOT PLAY "Got your nose!" WITH THE BEYONDER

This is another Marvel/DC difference: DC -- with a Superman who at one point can only jump and gets his powers because Kryptonians are just like that, and at another point can fly and is yellow-sun-powered -- always had a looser quality to their stuff, even if they did take the trouble to tag some stuff as imaginary stories. Marvel has always made the stronger reality claim, which is ultimately what we're talking about when we talk about "continuity."

It was brilliant at first, because people really would continue to write in months later about the same goof, and encouraging other readers to explain said goofs away wrapped everything up. But of course, it also encouraged people to look for goofs, and eventually people were demanding No-Prizes just for pointing out (without explaining away) coloring mistakes or factual errors like Captain America getting something wrong about a WWII battle.

(The same phenomenon showed up briefly with DC when Waid introduced Hypertime -- the "there are multiple universes even though Crisis said there weren't, and here's how" cosmology -- with people jokingly saying "Oh, look, someone got Despero's eyes wrong in this panel, it must be a Hypertime crossover," etc. It's kind of a drinking game mentality -- when you have a way to interact with something, whether it's a mistake or a cliche or a trope, you end up looking for it.)

Morrison was going to use it, but I don't remember for which title (was he going to do a longer run on Flash, maybe?) -- he apparently really dug the concept as Waid explained it to him (according to Ellis, iirc, so this is like thirdhand I guess).

It's one of those devices that I don't love or hate. I think it was a huge mistake for DC to attempt to cockblock alternate universes -- as huge a one as if Marvel had shot the moon and done away with superhero costumes for that stretch in the 90s when it seemed they wanted to. You don't kill conventions. You don't need to require them, of course -- the FF don't have secret identities, Spider-Man went for half of his career to date (HOLY CRAP VENOM IS THE HALFWAY POINT ALMOST) without an evil doppelganger, etc. But just because they aren't necessary for every story doesn't mean they're terrible for all of them.

(Again, the problem with shared universes; it's like the Surreal Life or the Real World house or Big Brother I guess, you have to keep the fridge stocked with tofu dogs for Corey Feldman even if Hammer won't touch em.)

Hypertime worked its way around that cockblock without requiring anyone else to do anything new or change their approaches to what they were already doing. That's good enough for me.

Hahahahaha, I found this really funny for some reason.

I don't notice things like that but there's always that feeling of "So... what happened last month?" whenever I settle down to read a new issue.

Even if you just compare him to how much Kitty Pryde's aged -- even with the unaging -- he should probably be a teenager.

Genuinely G*R*A*T*E continuity moment: when Mek Quake showed up in Nemesis, suggesting that all of 2000AD (or at least Ro-Busters/ABC Warriors, Judge Dredd, & Nemesis) were all part of one THRILL POWERED universe.

Dredd is GRATE even with the added continuity of the recent stuff. I suspect Tom's aversion towards it comes from the innumerable 'I am OLD yes OLD OLD and WRINKY look at my SCARS' stories that plagued Dredd during the Lean Years. 'The Pit' was all about the continuity and that was fantastic - a 'graveyard shift' story that lasted for half a year.