Thursday, October 18, 2007

Time in comics?

Well, I mentioned yesterday how much I hate that BMB (Brian Michael Bendis) messed up his own continuity. Here is how:
In "Civil War: The Initiative", in which the Thunderbolts take out some renegade hero and Ms. Marvel and Spider-Woman take out some random villain, Ms. Marvel tells Spider-Woman that Cap is alive and being held at the Raft.Later, in New Avengers, Spider-Woman tells the New Avengers and they decide to check to see if it is true that he is there. When they get there, they realize it was a trap set up by the Mighty Avengers. Iron Man releases something that makes the New Avengers lose their powers. Doc Strange makes the Mighty Avengers live out their greatest nightmare and the New Avengers escape. They go back to Doc's Sanctum Sanctorum which looks like it is going to be turned into a new Starbucks, although Iron Man doesn't believe this and scans for them, failing to find them thanks to Doc's magic. Iron Man then brings in Brother Voodoo who fails to find them with his weaker magic. Iron Man, still believing they are there, shouts at them. Then Hawkeye shows up and is drafted into rescuing Echo from Japan. He takes the Ronin costume and helps out the New Avengers in rescuing her. They realize that the Elektra leading the Hand was a Skrull (Yay, Skrulls!), and are on their way back to NY when Ultron's EMP goes off and their plane crashes. Everything seems fine unless you read Mighty Avengers.
Mighty Avengers starts with the team about an hour after they are brought together initially. Mole Man is attacking and the Mighty Avengers try to stop him. Then Iron Man's armor goes wacky and where there was once Iron Man now stands a female Ultron looking a lot like the Wasp. They fight and eventually, Ultron releases an EMP that knocks out all the power around NY and is the same EMP that knocks out the New Avengers' plane. That would mean that they took a break from fighting Ultron to go and set a trap for the New Avengers and then 3+ days later, they resume the battle with Ultron. No, that doesn't make much sense, which means he screwed up his own continuity, since BMB writes both.

Time in the Marvel Universe, and in other universes, I might add, is screwy. They will note that Spider-Man was started in 1962, although he would be approximately 62 today if the age was true to what happens in our universe. Since Pete is not 62, time must move slower in the MU, although it is also true that is 2007 in the MU, which just makes everything confusing. People do age, although not much in comparison to real time. Sometimes, this really annoys me and sometimes I just don't care.

My least favorite error:
In the late 60's/early 70's, Spider-Man and his girlfriend Gwen Stacy were as happy as happy could be. They loved each other truly. During a battle between Doc Ock and Spidey, Spidey invented a chemical that made Doc lose control of two of his arms, making them fight each other. They knocked over a chimney on top of a building which would have crushed a small child, if not for the efforts of Captain George Stacy. He pushed the child out of the way, but was crushed under the debris. Spider-Man, seeing this happen from the rooftop, jumps down and tries to take George to a hospital, but he dies, letting Peter know that he knows Pete is Spidey. After this, Gwen hates and distrusts Spider-Man to the extent of leaving New York altogether to live with family in London. After a small amount of time, Pete tries to visit her, but has to do something as Spidey, thus making him believe that she would never believe that Spidey and Peter both being in London would be a coincidence. In this, she appears, still missing Peter and hating Spider-Man. After a few months or so at most, she returns from London and Pete and Gwen get back together. Eventually, she dies, unfortunately, at the hands of Norman Osborn, the Green Goblin.
J. Michael Straczynski later wrote Sins Past, in which he dramatically revealed that during Gwen's trip to Europe, she had two kids with Norman Osborn. Straczynski basically destroys one of the characters I have always loved. Ruining Gwen's reputation is bad enough, but he does it poorly as well. In issue 93, she leaves for London. In issue 98, she returns to NY. Now, in terms of our time, she would have been gone for a max of 5 months. She would have had to have been pregnant before that point in time. I have never been pregnant, nor do I think I ever will, but after 4 months or so, she probably would have been showing before she left for London and when she was there, although she doesn't show any signs of pregnancy. Also, Norman and Gwen both seem to have forgotten about this by at least issue 121(Death of Gwen), and so this is my least favorite because it doesn't make any sense even in normal terms of time and doesn't make sense with the characters. Also, I hate it because I personally think Gwen is the girl for Pete, which I will go over some other time.

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