Alright Comic-GAF, I'm really hoping you can help me with a question that has confused me forever - I don't understand continuity or cannon in comics, and more specifically I don't understand how people who are into comics keep up with everything.
1. Are characters the same across all series even if they're written entirely differently? For instance, Fraction and Aja's Hawkeye is the same guy fighting aliens on Mars in Avengers?
2. I had always assumed that comic books rebooted themselves fairly often to prevent the history from becoming too bloated, but I'm learning that that isn't the case and that all heroes have super bloated backstories. So Peter Parker of today is the same Peter Parker from Amazing Spider-Man #1 and has done everything the character has been depicted doing on Earth 616? That's a huge resume. Does all of this history matter much, or is it something like how Homer Simpson has had hundreds of jobs in the cannon of The Simpsons but that doesn't matter because it's just a cartoon?
3. How on Earth do comic book fans keep up with it all? I'm assuming they don't buy all the comics that come out each week because that would be quite expensive. Can you just keep up to date on a few series and kind of get the gist of whatever is going on in the universe?
Phew, I think that's it. I'm really hoping I can get some answers. There's just a lot to wrap my head around.
Hi there! Welcome!
Continuity is a hell of a beast. But it's also one that can easily be handled by a few simple things; First, continuity doesn't really matter. We like to pretend that it does, and yes at times people will reference something that happened in the past, but you need to realize that writers rewrite characters backstories or the events they were in all the time. You have to think of continuity as a general, nebulous concept. Pull basic details out of it to help you understand characters, but never allow yourself to be so hamstrung by understanding what is happening and how it relates that you can't enjoy the comic for what it is.
On to your specific issues:
1) Generally speaking, no matter where a character is written, so long as it is in the same "universe" it is the same character. Makes sense, right? Well, except that writers will sometimes gloss over stuff that other writers are doing or not include it into their current storylines. So the Batman you read in Batman may not act the same as in Batman and Robin and hey, wasn't he in space when he was also fighting the Joker? You just have to "handwave" away those kind of things away. It matters but it doesn't. Find the version of the character you like and read it.
2) Different comic companies handle continuity a bit differently. Marvel tends to use the sliding time scale; So events that happen "now" will happen in the future in regards to the current now. Basically, if something happened in the 90s and we're in the 2010s, then when it's 2020, that stuff actually happened in the 2000s. Another way to think about it is that everything has happened say, 5 to 10 years ago, so if you read a book in the 80s, it happened in the 70s, but if you read a story that references it *now* then it happened in like 2010. It's like stretching and contracting time as you need it. DC on the otherhand, tends to do what you said, and reboots its universe to condense or reset (usually condense and adjust). But the key to enjoying comic timelines is that never pin anything down to specific dates. It's MUCH better to say "5 years ago" or even better "A few years ago".
3) Comic fandom is a learning process. You start small and grow into it. If you start with just Captain America, eventually you get into the Avengers. Now you want to know more about their crazy adventures so you read up on what they've done in the past or pick up old trades, or research it in wikis. Then you start reading Thor, so you do the same for him. Over time, like any hobby, you just absorb it via osmosis.
Don't ever try and rush yourself to know everything right now. Grow into it organically. You'll enjoy the process more. Just accept that you'll be confused on occasion and don't be afraid to ask questions.
