Re: Superboy has always been the ultimate problem.

There's an early story (reprinted in one of the archives) that shows
Lois looking through a scrapbook and remembering adventures from
previous issues of Superman/Action. So to that extent there was
continuity.

But in the first few years, the city, the name of the paper, the editor
of the paper, all changed several times. Superman's costume changed
and I don't mean simply "evolved."

So there was basically the same kind of continuity that comics have
always had -- and probably always will as long as the characters don't
age -- which is the continuity that let's writers pick and choose what
events happened and didn't and change and add as the
story/editor/public demands.

Forgetting just plain sloppy editing, the problem has always grown out
of a combination of two things. First is the fact that the characters
don't age. In the first few years of comics this wasn't a problem.
But after even a short time of 20 years, readers see 20 Christmas
stories, 20 years of Lois and Clark take a summer vacation, 20 years of
Teen Titans go back to school, etc. And if no time really passes in
the comic world, then not all of those 20 stories can really have taken
place. Unless we can overcome the second factor, which is the
inability of some readers to just deal with it. The Simpsons play with
this idea all the time, making jokes about nothing ever changing and so
forth. And viewers can deal with it just fine.

But for some reason a small number of comic book readers simply can't
handle it. They have to make it all work out and fit it into a
timeline. If Bruce adopted *** X number of years ago, and *** was
12, then if he's out of college now, *** has to be 22 so it's at least
10 years later, but Bruce has only aged 5 years, but he's older than
Clark and Clark married Lois 3 years ago, but Jason was Robin then. . .
and that way madness lies.

The other small problem is when writers/editors ignore major plots
points. We don't care if a writer tells us to forget about the issue
where Superman arrested yet another minor gangster. There are a
million of those stories. But we care if the writer tells us that
Invasion never happened. In theory, all stories are equal and all
stories are equally ripe for wiping out of existence. Just because a
story was hyped by the company and had a huge crossover shouldn't make
it special in that sense.

My way of thinking about it is that any plots/stories over 5 years old
are open for forgetting about. Notice I say plots/stories, not
characterizations. If Batman has always been portrayed as an over the
top paranoid who can't get along with anyone and antagonizes people
left and right for the past 20 years, you need a reason to wipe out
that characterization. It can be in a story, that's fine. It can be a
major retcon/crisis. But they shouldn't do it without a reason. The
reason can be forgotten over time, and that's fine, but the readers
need a reason as the change happens.

Just my 2 cents.

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