Supergirl 11 Non spoiler
Planeis
Posts: 980
Ok. I know I'm kinda late. But I'm playing catch up and I don't think 12 or the zero issue changes anything About what I have to say.
Issue number 11 brings up another point that makes me wonder when are all these issues supposed to be happening and why is there no clues as to how much time has passed.
It's been 11 issues or almost a year for us. I'm assuming that it has not been a year for Supergirl but at the very beginning of this issue she states that she has not slept or eaten anything since she got to earth.
Not eaten anything? Or slept? Sure, she has super powers and super metabolism. But she's also been fighting a lot. And like I said, just how long has this been???
I don't read a TON of comics, but I've read Superman, Batman, Supergirl, JLA consistently and a few others here and there. I feel lost in terms of how much time has passed within each title and also where titles are in relation to each other.
I like the story and I'm not trying to complain, I just feel like there is no frame of reference. It makes it hard to put characters relationships into context and their actions, especially for someone like Kara who is young, learning the language and meeting new people. Just how long has she known these people she is friends with? They seem close. But has it only been a week? A month? A couple months?
Issue number 11 brings up another point that makes me wonder when are all these issues supposed to be happening and why is there no clues as to how much time has passed.
It's been 11 issues or almost a year for us. I'm assuming that it has not been a year for Supergirl but at the very beginning of this issue she states that she has not slept or eaten anything since she got to earth.
Not eaten anything? Or slept? Sure, she has super powers and super metabolism. But she's also been fighting a lot. And like I said, just how long has this been???
I don't read a TON of comics, but I've read Superman, Batman, Supergirl, JLA consistently and a few others here and there. I feel lost in terms of how much time has passed within each title and also where titles are in relation to each other.
I like the story and I'm not trying to complain, I just feel like there is no frame of reference. It makes it hard to put characters relationships into context and their actions, especially for someone like Kara who is young, learning the language and meeting new people. Just how long has she known these people she is friends with? They seem close. But has it only been a week? A month? A couple months?
Comments
* With the rare exception of characters that age in real time like Judge Dredd and John Constantine.
It isn't so much a concern with real time overall, as much as it's a concern with believable relative time. Supergirl meets Superman at point A; they go their individual ways; they meet again at point B, several issue later -- but during that interval, the stories crop up a time inconsistency in which a handful of days have passed for Supergirl, but several months for Superman. Anybody only following one title or the other isn't likely to notice, but someone who reads both books is going to be confused and will want to know 'wha hoppened???'.
It's one thing to not be overly concerned with real time in comics, but another thing altogether to completely ignore any semblance of chronal consistency.
Because it is funnybook time and issues are just units of story. Some stories take longer to tell than others. From what I know of Supergirl, it is the story of her traumatic crash to Earth and being a stranger there. That may be the sort that has important incidents in just the first days or weeks.
By contrast, Batman has been Batman for five years when we meet him. That lends itself to time spreading out a little more, as he has a more stable status quo.
I don't see that as a problem.
Now, if you are just not enjoying Supergirl, that is another thing. But that probably has more to do with bigger matters than clear chronology.
Time is a flexible thing in comics. I'm not saying it be taken very strictly, but it shouldn't be taken very lightly either. Any comic series depends upon a suspension of disbelief, but if you strain that suspension, the reader gets bounced out of the stories. Time anomalies or a lack of simple continuity are the results of poor planning, usually on the editorial side since this is something they should be keeping track of.
The lack of a common continuity within a family of titles shouldn't happen. If several months or weeks are supposed to have happened in one book, the same amount of time should, more or less, also pass in the other family titles, unless there's a specific reason for it to be otherwise. It's not hard; you just insert a break every now and then and note that a few days have passed.
Footnotes are wonderful things, and would go a long way to helping straighten out the continuity mess of the Batman titles.
I got no problem with comic book time. If there's been 8 issues covering one week, fine. I just have no idea in this case.
But that's when something interesting is happening in Supergirl's life. So I "suspend my disbelief" and imagine we're not reading about when she's reading a book, having a coffee, taking a dump, flying from point A to point B, talking with Superman about stuff we don't care about, etc. It's one way to reconcile that the first time she and Clark met they were duking it out but the next time we see them they're on more cordial terms.
Lord knows the books would be pretty boring if they threw in the minutiae, but I can't see anyone buying a book of Supergirl taking a cra...well, scratch that, there probably *IS* an audience out there for that, but I don't want to know about it.
There are enough top down editorial mandates from what we hear, that I don't see the gain in someone writing a Bat book being told that Snyder has slowed things way down, and too much time is passing in your title. Or that Morrison has really sped up so Supergirl has to jump ahead. What does that gain?
If there is one thing Big 2 superhero comics don't need is more rules for their creators live by. You ever notice that some of the best and most memorable Big 2 stories came at times where those books were not so worried about being in step with everyone else?
I do get what @Planeis is saying about clarity. That time can be flexible, but it shouldn't be jarring to know how much time is or isn't passing. And it sounds like Bendis did a better job of being clear about that in USM.
But I, personally, don't care if a year has passed in Batman but it has only been a couple of weeks in Animal Man and Swamp Thing. And certainly less time has passed in WW as the girl hasn't had the baby yet. That's okay by me. Tell the best stories you can. These are segments of story, not continuity newspapers. So to me it doesn't matter that they are on the same clock.
We're not talking about doing anything major here. I don't care if Supergirl's current story runs for the next two years -- I won't be reading it unless it's a real sharp story; two years is pretty excessive -- but at the end of that story, there has to be a catch-up to the rest of the DCU. I don't want outside events intruding if those events are seven or eight months further down the timeline than Supergirl's story -- that just turns into a WTF? moment that skews the story.
And this isn't some new rule -- they've been doing it for years since general continuity became a part of comic storytelling. Stories can all go along at their own pace, but the books have to make some adjustment at some point (usually a break where one story obviously ends and before the next one obviously begins) to synch up with everybody else, whether it just be within the family books or throughout the entire company line. The breaks also allow for some belief that the costumed hero has time to check into his other life and take care of the mundane things; even if we don't see him at it, an acknowledgment that he's doing it is all that's necessary. I see Batman running around in costume so often and persistently that I tend to forget he ever had a secret identity. (Thank God Grant Morrison is still getting a lot of use out of Bruce Wayne.)
In the case of Batman, he has four or five major titles that he appears in each month (not counting Justice League): what is the time frame? What order are the stories in? Is there a break in any of the series where you can reasonably expect any of the others to fit? Is it important? Yes!! I want to know! It actually enhances my reading enjoyment if I can believe in the time frame. Like I said earlier, if you're only reading one title, it doesn't make any real difference; but if you're reading them all, it's very confusing.
http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=15750
I think fans tend to fall onto one side or the other with this topic. I tend to agree with Giffen (and David D) on this, but I totally understand the other side, having felt that way in the past.
I have no idea how time is passing in some of the titles. JLA seems to have progressed several years, Supergirl... Who knows? Maybe a couple of weeks? If thats the case fine, but i dont know. Its hard to put the JLAs actions and attitudes into context without having some idea of how long theyve spent together. Its similiarly hard to put Karas relationships and actions into context without having any idea how long shes been on Earth.
I dont mind continuity errors as long as they arent ridiculous, and i dont mind retcons as long as its clear what is changing. I do mind being confused, and ive been confused right from the start on many of the titles.
Every series has to deal with these kinds of things, its not just comics. Take the Simpsons. The characters are ageless, but things do happen in order.
While I get that some people would like more time indicators than they are getting, it is not like there are none.
@Paul That Giffen essay came to my mind during this conversation as well. I know that there are other readers that enjoy continuity more than I do, and that is fine, everyone enjoys different things about comics, and enjoys them in different ways. But to use Giffen's terms, I am fine with consistency over continuity.
Are we sure the title didn't just advance a few months? or a year? Justice League and its implications for the other characters and titles is very confusing.
Again, I'm not saying I want every minute of every day accounted for and explained. In fact, I would say I agree with you, I want consistency over continuity. But I don't think we have either of those.
http://www.ugo.com/the-goods/dc-new-52-timeline-so-far
Some of the things we've been led to believe make everything confusing. Did Hal Jordan go crazy and kill a bunch of people? I think he did right? So there was a Zero Hour type of event in his past? But was there a Doomsday?
From the begining characters past's have been confused because of the half reboot. Some people started completely over, some characters we were led to believe that their past hasn't changed. I think people took an attitude of "hey, relax, lets see how this works" at first. But then we find out things like Tim not being Robin... and not really being Tim. Some might say, well why does it matter that he's not really Tim Drake. It matters because many people experienced Tim growing up, and liked it, a lot. Now we find out its completely different, and they are never going to get an opportunity to explore his past as in depth as we all did when we all saw it unfold over dozens or hundreds of comics. At best we might get a comic or two showing the change, and at worst it might just be some word balloons.
Again, these are not continuity newspapers or RPG guidebooks. The characters and shared universe is just there to get stories from. A page or two telling us what happened feels, to me, like throwing away potential. Limits on future possibities by adding continuity you don't really need that might prevent a future story someone wants to tell.
The team formed five years ago. And now is now. The in between can get told when there is a story worth telling. But to just summarize and commit to a timeline rather than make stories out of that time just feels to me like throwing away future potential in the name of (over)-organization.
Broke me of my need for continuity in any form. Priest is a genius. :)
Spoilers for Supergirl
To me they aren't communicating it clearly. For instance, after several months/issues had passed and superman and Wonder Woman were still together, it was really unclear how long it had been since they first started sucking face. Superman would remember it, but was that supposed to be last week? Last month? Have they done anything in the meantime?
Anyway, not to get too caught up in the time aspect again, the link I posted if you care to look just goes more to show what I don't like about DC anymore and why I largely stopped reading. Everything seems drenched in blood and pain.