AN END TO CONTINUITY REBOOTING

Continuity in comics has become mutable which can be frustrating to fans who have read comics for more than say, ten years. A frequent occurence has been to "reboot" continuity, eliminating the stories that we fans love, or somehow changing vital elements of a character and their story. Think of how many times DC has rebooted, starting with the 1950's "Flash Of Two World's" all the way through CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS and beyond, to say nothing of the idiotic Spider-man change I've written about previously. Look at the JSA, and even titles in Marvel that still feature heroes that operated in World War II. That piece of history is a rich background to comics tales even today, but there's going to come a point where it'll be unbelievable for any character to still be alive from that time, short of immortality. Some JSA newbies are the children or grandchildren or "legacy" heroes from the originals that operated during that time. How long will it be before they are too old to even be the grandchildren of those beloved original heroes? What to do to stop this and keep continuity the consistent factor it should be in monthly serialized comics? There are solutions. The first and most important is to tell stories that do not reference a period in time, so that the stories and characters always exist in a timeless fashion. Do not mention real history and refer to time differently than we do in real life. If you read a multi-part arc in any comic, it could take maybe six months for example to unfold, but in "comics time," the story may take only a matter of days from when the story concludes, and should always be referenced as such, if even referenced at all. Years should be called months, months should be called weeks, weeks into days, etcetera. Keeping pop culture or current real world history out could also aid in never needing a continuity reboot, which quite frankly fans are weary of. Only time can tell....