How did you become a continuity buff?
Posted: Mon Nov 01, 2010 2:15 am
I am curious at what fired many of the regular posters love of Superhero lore and specifically the often convoluted continuity that accompanies it.
For me it was 'The Great Superman Book' by Michael Fleisher when I was nine.
To this day it is the greatest reference work on any fictional character or world I have ever seen. This book made any official handbook index or DK book you ever saw look lightweight by comparison. It was a scholarly tome that treated Superman's ridiculous world with utter seriousness and exhaustively chronicled every character place location gadget and adventure the man of steel had ever encountered in exhaustive (and exhausting detail) It treated the characters as real people and assumed that all adventures happened on their date of Publication.
An example entry might read: In late April 1952 Brainiac gained control of every animal in Metropolis Zoo by means of his Magneto Ray. (Superman 246)
I can recall being particularly in awe of the mock historicity supplied by the recorded dates.
The Lex Luthor entry alone was thousands of words long analysing his long villainous career and meticulously detailing every single ridiculous plot he ever hatched against Superman.
The book was in black and white with only occasional illustrations. For the most part it was just hundreds of pages of densely packed text formated similarly to the Encyclopedia Britannica. The idea that the essentially silly world of superheroes could be treated in such a serious scholarly manner as if it were real history was a fantastic revelation to me. It fired my love of Superhero comics and their convoluted continuity like nothing since.
I would pore over this book on a regular basis as a child, losing myself in the bizarre and often nonsensical details of superman stories published decades before I was born as if I were reading a real historical reference book.
When Crisis on Infinite Earths happened, I remember my childhood self feeling irrationally furious and betrayed. I didn't understand the details of the Crisis at the time but I deeply resented what it was trying to do. (Erase the historical record)
Despite being far too young to have experienced much of this continuity first hand I was infuriated at its deletion.
For me it was 'The Great Superman Book' by Michael Fleisher when I was nine.
To this day it is the greatest reference work on any fictional character or world I have ever seen. This book made any official handbook index or DK book you ever saw look lightweight by comparison. It was a scholarly tome that treated Superman's ridiculous world with utter seriousness and exhaustively chronicled every character place location gadget and adventure the man of steel had ever encountered in exhaustive (and exhausting detail) It treated the characters as real people and assumed that all adventures happened on their date of Publication.
An example entry might read: In late April 1952 Brainiac gained control of every animal in Metropolis Zoo by means of his Magneto Ray. (Superman 246)
I can recall being particularly in awe of the mock historicity supplied by the recorded dates.
The Lex Luthor entry alone was thousands of words long analysing his long villainous career and meticulously detailing every single ridiculous plot he ever hatched against Superman.
The book was in black and white with only occasional illustrations. For the most part it was just hundreds of pages of densely packed text formated similarly to the Encyclopedia Britannica. The idea that the essentially silly world of superheroes could be treated in such a serious scholarly manner as if it were real history was a fantastic revelation to me. It fired my love of Superhero comics and their convoluted continuity like nothing since.
I would pore over this book on a regular basis as a child, losing myself in the bizarre and often nonsensical details of superman stories published decades before I was born as if I were reading a real historical reference book.
When Crisis on Infinite Earths happened, I remember my childhood self feeling irrationally furious and betrayed. I didn't understand the details of the Crisis at the time but I deeply resented what it was trying to do. (Erase the historical record)
Despite being far too young to have experienced much of this continuity first hand I was infuriated at its deletion.