Continuity and Disposable Entertainment
Last time I wrote about the static nature of comic book super heroes. This is primarily the sense that the characters and scenarios one generation read about should be identical to those of the previous generation, and the next generation. I believe this idea stems from the original publishing structure, a system that it has outgrown without properly adapting to a new structure.

Originally, comic books were intended as disposable entertainment. Publishers assumed that their customers would pick up the latest issue of, say, Action Comics, then throw it away once they were finished with it. When the next issue came out, there was no expectation on either side of the printing press that stories would carry on. Each story, while sharing a few characters, was completely self-contained. In another medium, "Looney Tunes" and "Tom and Jerry" follow the same pattern.

Comics published in the Forties and Fifties also expected a rotating readership. A publisher in 1955 assumed that buyers hadn't read an issue published in 1952. As a result, writers tended to recycle stories from earlier issues (hence, why looking through Superman's early publication history, one finds stories where either Superman or Jimmy Olsen is turned into a gorilla every two or three years).

The industry began changing in the Sixties when Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko introduced a host of new super heroes for Marvel Comics. Marvel's new stories would frequently reference events from previously published issues, sometimes even from a different title. Many issues featured multi-part stories and sub-plots extending through several issues. As Marvel Comics established a rough continuity, their titles began drawing a large audience that followed the various titles for years at a time.

As an example, and to reference my previous post, consider Mary Jane Watson's early subplots in Amazing Spider-Man. MJ was introduced long before her actual appearance in the title. For two years, MJ was mentioned but unseen as Peter Parker's Aunt May tried to set up her nephew with her best friend's niece. Peter and the readers assumed Mary Jane was, shall we say, undesirable, until her stunning first full appearance at the end of issue 42.

Mary Jane joined Amazing Spider-Man's supporting cast, starting another long sub-plot as she competed with Gwen Stacy for Peter's affections. Gwen and MJ's friendly rivalry was one of a number of sub-plots extending through the title. The series was as much about the interaction between the various cast members as about costumed derring-do.

Lee, Kirby, Ditko and others laid the groundwork; new creative teams followed. Characters grew and progressed, altering the status quo. Peter Parker graduated high school. Reed Richards and Sue Storm got married. Flash Thompson enlisted for Viet Nam. The original Avengers went on hiatus, being replaced by three reformed supervillains. Slowly, the idea of comic books as disposable entertainment was replaced with the idea of a long term continuing story.

However, as this change was taking place, so too did the publishers change the way they looked at their characters. As their popularity grew, children's comic characters became icons. The Big Two realized their profits came from sales of the continuing adventures of the same characters. As a result, their characters were effectively frozen. While some were allowed to develop, it was always with an eye toward sales figures, rather than narrative logic, and always reversible. The more popular the character, the more resistant to change.

This stasis was sustainable during the Forties and Fifties, when each issue was self-contained, irrelevant to those before and those after. With the current status, with each title presumed to be a continuous, unending story, such stasis is unsound. Sub-plots are never truly resolved; they are left dangling or forgotten, or a small measure of closure is attempted before the situation is reversed.

Which is where mainstream comics sit today, caught between two publishing paradigms. There is no impetus to resolve this situation, despite the artistic pressure to do so. The reason, of course, is that the Big Two are no longer in the business of selling stories.

More on this later.