Continuity Complaints
Remember when Marvel were called 'The Continuity Comics'? Yeah, that was
quite some time ago, and obviously time has taken its toll on the continuity
and cross-title continuity of the Spider-Man titles. It's more of the cross-title
continuity that I'm talking about, but there have been some normal continuity
issues. For example:
In MK: SM #1, Peter's room is exactly the same as it was when he moved out, but
as the review of that particular issue says, his room has been rented out
before in the past, and when Howard Mackie was on the re-boot titles, Anna Watson
owned that house!
There's more, (Peter saying he's never visited the bridge where Gwen
was killed in ASM #514, etc.) but let's get onto the cross-continuity stuff,
for instance:
- Aunt May being kidnapped in MK: SP. Aunt May has been kidnapped in
Marvel
Knights: Spider-Man, a story arc that has been running for the last year now.
But in the other two titles, they have ignored it! They've even shown her in
a story or two!
- Talking to bugs and organic webbing in Spectacular Spider-Man.
In Spectacular Spider-Man, Spider-Man has followed in the footsteps of the movie
(with a dash of "Ant Man") and now shoots organic webbing from his wrists, and
talks to bugs! Firstly, what the freakin' hell was Paul Jenkins thinking!?!
That's a John Byrne Spider-Woman (Vol. 3) trick - changing the character's
powers instead of writing stories. More to the point, where's the follow-up
in the other titles?
- Chameleon: Dead? Kraven? Or just can't make his mind up? Did
he die jumping off the bridge? Did he die being shot by Kraven II? Should
we discard the Ron Zimmerman looney bin story? Mark Millar is somewhere
in between those two because in his 'Last Stand' story, in parts two and three,
Chameleon is alive...but is just the Chameleon. Not Kraven. Can we please
have some agreement on this?
- What about Peter's Supporting Cast? Everyone knows Peter Parker has
got lots
of friends: Flash Thompson, Randy Robertson, Glory Grant... and many more.
But J. Michael Stracynski seems determined to last as long as he can without
featuring them! Well, he's done 3 and a bit years! I think it's time just to at
least cameo one of them!
Whenever I complain about this on the message board I post at, they just say
that the story arcs are "all in a different time order, one after another."
Well, I'm sorry, but I just don't like that! They should have the core titles
at least connected to one another! I don't mean all those cross-title story
arcs like they did in the Clone Saga. I just mean at least presenting a
single consistent universe would be nice, wouldn't it?