thedeadairchannel006
Continuity in comic book worlds is an endlessly thorny subject, with hundreds of different valid takes. There are readers who would prefer everything be set in stone. That a superhero's stories (cos let's face it, we're mainly talking about that) should be tick-off-able on a calendar. This happened, then this. Then this. It does not, and cannot work like that.
The joy of these universes to me is their elasticity. There is a foundation of stories underfoot on which to build. A sliding timeline for characters who, in many cases, have lived through more events than any person reasonably could have. Certainly more than any person could have survived.
For me, where continuity matters is in the story that's in front of you. Does the tale you're reading make sense? Does it have an internal logic which it stays true to? Beyond that, things become a little malleable.
Ram V and I were both posting about this today after a conversation we had. Ram wrote a little on Twitter about perceiving canon as the myth of these characters, and how myths are intrinsically self-contradictory, by design and nature.
I find a certain irony that in my own work, I leaned most heavily on this idea in the final arc of Lucifer. In issue 23, we outlined two distinct origins for the character. One in which he was the angel who fell after a war in heaven, who built his own kingdom of agony in the barren place he landed. A mythological origin drawn primarily from the Bible and Milton.
The other was the story of a caveman who perceived a shadow on a wall he took to be the shadow of a figure judging him for his misdeeds. He spread the word about this shadow being, thus conjuring the devil into existence. A psychological, Jungian origin for this being in a universe where belief makes things real.
Two origins that contradict each other. It says it, right there in the text. And yet more than any other comic, this is the one I get pressed for answers, online and at conventions, about continuity- how the book sits in formation with Mike Carey and Peter Gross's stupendous Lucifer run, or the DC universe at large. The point is it doesn't matter. It's a myth. It matters within itself. If you want to make it fit, be my guest... but I'm not going to define it for you. It would lessen it for me.
Myth aside, I actually have another way I think about continuity in slightly more solid continuities such as the mainline DC universe. Those old stories? I treat them as memories.
Memories are not crystallized recordings by the brain, but constructs our minds put together when we recall an event or a time. The brain uses a variety of stimuli to puzzle-piece them together meaning, more often than not, they aren't all that accurate. Eyewitness reports of traumatic events often don't end up being that useful to police putting together reports. Everyone remembers it differently. There are even theories that the more we remember something specific, the more that memory becomes warped.
This means something that happened to (for example) Dick Grayson in a comic in 1942? Potentially happened just the way it was depicted. But very possibly not. Something a bit like that happened, and now it's coloured by the distance of time. But things that happened in the comics six months ago? Those memories are far sharper, and the consequences of those actions might still be actively playing out. It's not about rejecting or tossing out what came before your story, but building on it in a sustainable way. It's never about trying to undo things, it's about how those beats and arcs and dramas serve the story you are currently telling.
Caveat: this is very much my way of thinking about it. I suspect if you asked ten comic writers, you'd get ten different answers.
No comics on the shelves from me this week, but there were three last week so you're probably sick of the bloody sight of me.
A lot of this weekend was eaten by the FOC for Nightwing #119, the first of Dex and my run on the book. For the uninitiated, that's 'final order cutoff' when comic stores have to commit to how many copies they want on their shelves. Preorders matter very much, so I was beating the drum online, as were others who had their own FOCs on the same date. The internet is very much not real life, but the volume of excitement and support I saw this weekend for our first issue of Nightwing was something wholly new for me in my comics career. Thank you. Sincerely.
In the process of all this, I got to read some phenomenal comics that are also coming out of DC All in, sent to me by mates.
BATMAN AND ROBIN #14 is a beautiful jumping on point from Phillip Kennedy Johnson and Javi Fernández. A simultaneously modern and haunted Gotham, and a story that reaches down into the city's old roots for pain and drama. This feels to me a little like a companion to what Phil is doing over in his Incredible Hulk run; but where that is sprawling, this is nebulously focussed on Gotham. I love Phil's work in this mode. It calls to mind Peter Ackroyd's fiction, particularly Hawksmoor, which has been one of my favourite novels since I was in college. A modern detective solving murders that happened directly after the Great Fire of London. Which makes sense when you read it. Sort of. When we read that book, a professor walked us around East London, pointing out markers and symbols left over from far earlier incarnations of the city.
A place haunted by itself. That's the Gotham being conjured here.
Out October 9th.
I also read Chris Condon and Montos's story for GREEN ARROW #17, which is a precursor to their first full issue which I believe drops in November with issue 18. Chris exploded onto the comic scene a few years back with the first volume of That Texas Blood with Jake Phillips, a book that gobsmacked many of us older and colder comics writers with its sheer excellence as a debut comic. Your first one is not meant to be that good, that confident, that gripping.
His Green Arrow promises to be very much in that vein. Both as a gritty, crime focussed story, and as an excellent one. Also, for my money, Green Arrow has never had a better look.
Also also: ABSOLUTE WONDER WOMAN #1. My fellow Energon Universe alumni Kelly Thompson and my Batman: Dark Patterns co-conspirator Hayden Sherman unleash a whole new vision of Diana. This one feels like it was made for me, quite frankly. A touch of brimstone, monsters and skeletons, and an origin that feels even more mythic than the classic Wonder Woman lore. I honestly suspect this version of the character might just become the primary one in people's minds. It's that good.
And God, it's gorgeous. Hayden is drawing both this and Dark Patterns simultaneously. I have no idea how they do it. An actual legendary artist walks among us. And they just keep getting better. Look upon Hayden's works ye mighty and despair.
We're launching our Nightwing among such a powerful crop of books. All books with such voice, and such audacious swings for the fences. It feels really good. There's blood and magic and blood magic in the air.
We're only a few weeks out from New York Comic Con at this point, so I was going to write a bit about prepping for that, but this is longer than I meant it to be already. So I'll save that for next week. When I started this newsletter I worried I wouldn't have enough to write about weekly, but here we bloody are. It's 8:30 pm and I still have to finish a script so I can jump onto a new one tomorrow. I'm looking forward to that. It's a new issue 1. A new universe I haven't worked in before. Once more unto the breach.
This has been thedeadairchannel. A dissemination from the desk of Dan Watters. Please do subscribe.
