quote:
Originally posted by I'm Not Mister Mxypltk:
One comic every week for 17 years. One (at least) 22 pages addition to the story every week. That's a convulted story. And every single page has to be respected.
Say you're a Superman writer and you have a cool idea about the first meeting between Superman and another character. Oh, whoops, can't do it, the first meeting was in Adventures of the Man of Action of Tomorrow featuring Superman #674.
Going back to the Silver Age isn't good either. It's just as bad as staying in the 80's.
That's as good a metaphor as any...

You just nailed the problem on the head. The whinners want to do things first but when they find out that someone beat them to it they make this claims that continuity is the work of the great Satan and that anyone that follows it is damned.

In my case, if I found myself in that situation (i.e. I want to do something and think I'm the first one to do it but find out that someone did it before me), I won't whine, I'll just accept it and use it.

If I can't do it first, then I'll just do what comes next...

To follow upon your metaphor, say I wanted to write about the first meeting between Hal Jordan and Clark Kent... damn, I can't do the 'first' meeting, Neil Gaiman already did that.

What I can do?

I can do the SECOND meeting.

What did Gaiman miss? What did he do, what didn't he do?

Hey, Gaiman wrote a great story but he missed the coolest part of them all... he didn't have Hal give his ring to Superman!!! I can do that, I can be the one that does the first in continuity story that shows Superman using Hal's ring, how cool is that?!?!

What else did Gaiman miss? He didn't show Carol and Lois meeting, he didn't show Hal and Clark compare power levels just for fun (these are the two most powerful members of the JLA!!).

And so on and so forth, like every GOOD writer I'd find my own story to tell without whinning that someone else got to it before me, instead I'll study what that someone else did and try to do a follow up that picks up on what that someone missed AND add my own take on things...

That's the difference between a GOOD writer and a BAD one...