The Stomper Files Special Superguy Edition "Topical References and Continuity" As many readers and Authors are well aware, continuity is a very thorny issue, especially when the "in continuity" time difference between two stories posted on the same day is as much as a full year. It's fairly safe to lay most of the blame for this sort of convoluted continuity at the feet of Marvel Comics, which introduced the modern idea of inter-title continuity in the 1960s and proceeded to make a royal mess of it soon after. Other companies were dragged into this new concept, resulting eventually in not one, but two full reboots of continuity at DC, and general chaos (no relation) elsewhere. In the 1980s, various chroniclers started to make a serious effort to nail down all the loose threads of Marvel continuity, using various "in continuity" milestones like the high school graduation of Peter Parker to mark time by. Now, this paper is not concerned with the full, ugly business of keeping the continuity straight. The Author is not insane enough to tackle that entire cargo ship of worms. But the effort to straighten out all of the snarls of Marvel continuity generated an interesting little byproduct, the "topical reference" excuse. Consider this. As a general rule of thumb, a comics character will experience about a week of "in continuity" time per issue of his title, on the average. So, back before every major character had 4-10 titles of his own, you'd see the character age a year for every four to five "real world" years. But during that time, there'd be references to Christmas in just about every December issue of the title, making for four to five Christmas celebrations per year. A similar, if less severe, problem was had with other holidays, like Halloween. Obviously, some of these Christmas issues would actually fit into months like July in the continuity. Rather than try to explain how it's December 25 in July, keepers of continuity came up with the clever idea of simply labeling these inconsistencies as "topical references" and ignoring them for purposes of placing the issue in continuity. So useful was this invention that it started to be applied to more than just intrusions of the real world into stories. Often, a story will refer to events in another title, but since this is done without the normal exacting attention to detail of the average crossover...please stop laughing. I said, stop laughing, get off the floor, and pay attention. Anyway, because these mentions are often done without consulting anyone, they often turn out to have been impossible to reconcile with continuity. Stories that couldn't have happened yet are mentioned, or events happen in reverse order, such as a reference to the Road Race From Hell(TM) as if it were happening right now in this episode, even though episode 2 seemed quite clearly to have been set in continuity with Winner Take All. Since no actual crossover occurs, standards are much laxer when making these sorts of reference, and chroniclers can rightly ignore them as mere "topical references," like the extra three Christmases are ignored by Marvel continuity people. Of course, it's also possible the Author in question is deliberately disrupting continuity to see if anyone's paying attention. In cases like that, the Author should be severely Nerfed. From orbit. =========================================================================== CRAZYPL LOTCRA AZYPLOT .|, COHERENT COMICS PRESENTS CRAZYP OTCR ZYPLOT ---X--------------------------------- CRAZYPLOTCRA OTCR LOTCRAZYPLOT '|` CRAZYPLOT LOTCR AZYPLOT CRAZYPLOT LOTCR LO ZYPLOT 36 CRAZY PLOTS CRAZYPLOTCRA OTCR LO ZYPLOT #6 - Second Plot: "No One Quits!" CRAZYP OTCR LO ZYPLOT by the Dvandroid CRAZYPL LOTCRA AZYPLOT CRAZYPLOTCRAZYPLOTCRAZYPLOTCRAZYPLOT (copyright 1996 by Dave Van Domelen) =========================================================================== [Hi, this is the Author. Speaking, for the moment, as a creator of characters, I think it's safe to say that when you create a leading character for your series, you have certain hopes and expectations of the creation in question. You'd like to think, that when under duress, the leading man (or woman) would be able to react in an intelligent, or at least witty, manner.] [For example, say that you've just detonated a firebomb under the seat of a motorcycle your character is riding, as happened at the end of 36 Crazy Plots #5. I, for one, would hope that my character's first thought would be something insightful, like, "I've been betrayed," or "Shen was lying to me!" Failing that, something funny would be nice, like, "I guess I shouldn't have taken the cycle that was rigged to explode for a stunt in scene 46."] [But, NOOOOOOO. Characters being what they are, even immortal ones, they just have to disappoint you by screaming something like...] "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!" Jack screamed as he rode down the street, his legs on fire. [And to top it off, once they recover what passes for their wits, they tend to add something blindingly obvious and not particularly insightful OR funny, like....] "MY LEGS ARE ON FIRE!" Jack added as pedestrians started to notice the flaming motorcycle career down the street. Barely keeping the cycle under control (the explosion had been mainly fire and little force, so the bike was okay for the moment), Jack steered into a nearby restaurant, crashing the motorcycle into a lobster tank at the front of the lobby and putting out the fire, but covering himself in angry lobsters. [I say, if they're not gonna be funny with their dialogue, they deserve to be subjected to slapstick.] "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!" Jack screamed as the lobsters latched onto various sensitive and burned parts of his anatomy. [Sigh. Here we go again....] * * * * A few minutes later, a somewhat fire-blackened motorcycle with a somewhat fire-blackened Jack riding it very gingerly pulled up in front of "Slow Moe" Shen's office. Not the building that contained the office, mind you, but the office itself. Carefully getting off the bike and making sure the tablecloth he'd wrapped around his legs was secure, Jack knocked on the door. REALLY hard. Now, if it had been hinged to open inward, this probably would have had the desired effect of blowing the door totally off its hinges. The "WHUMP" of the door hitting the floor in front of Shen would have been VERY satisfying and dramatic. Sadly, the door was hinged the other way, and the doorframe was very secure. More sadly, the door was solid mahogany. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!" Jack screamed as he jumped up and down clutching his broken fist. Just not his episode, is it? The door opened and Mr. Shen poked his head out, causing Jack to very quickly hide his hand behind his back while it started to heal. "Ah, have you reconsidered my offer of working together?" he asked, pretending not to notice the scorched Suzuki in the hallway. "You tried to blow me up," Jack said, pointing to the casing of the firebomb under the cycle's seat. "And don't give me any nonsense about not being the kind of guy who plants bombs, because all you had to do was send someone down to the street to start the timer while I was on my way out of the office." Shen opened his mouth, then shut it again. He narrowed his eyes. "Do you usually drive motorcycles that have bombs strapped to them?" he finally asked. "I mean, outside of stunt work." "Well, no. But I was in a hurry, so I took the one we were going to use in a stunt shot," Jack admitted. "If you were in a hurry, why didn't you take a commuter airline, then? Or a minor airship carrier?" "Look, I didn't come here to discuss my bad travel planning. This is your territory...if someone armed the bomb on my motorcycle, it had to be with your knowledge and approval." "Are you sure it had to be armed here?" "Positive. The timer couldn't be set to more than three minutes," Jack said, pointing to the analog dial-type timer that was half-melted to the chassis. "Odd. I gave no such order. If I'd meant to betray you, I'd have waited until you were far enough away to not draw suspicion, after all. Especially since I know someone's trying to frame me for one attack. I don't like the idea that someone could do this on my doorstep without my permission. Come, let us review the security tapes." Shen strode down the hallway, pausing only to beckon the suspicious Jack to follow. * * * * [8:04:40 PDT] Camera one shows normal foot traffic. Motorcycle is at lower left corner of shot in a parking space curbside. No one is near it. Camera two shows the entranceway, which is empty. [next two minutes show no real changes on either camera] [8:06:45 PDT] Camera one shows no real change. Camera two shows Jack at the door, just starting to push it open. [8:06:50 PDT] Camera one shows Jack approaching the cycle, no other real changes. Camera two shows the once again empty entranceway. [8:06:55 PDT] Camera one shows Jack getting on the cycle and starting the engine. Camera two shows a janitor approaching to empty a recycling bin. * * * * "Wait...the cycle exploded within a minute of my leaving, and no one came near it within two minutes before I saw it..." Jack scratched his head in confusion. "I've been meaning to ask, how did you come out of the explosion so unharmed?" Shen asked. "Uh, well, these charges are more flash than bang, and I put out the fire before it did more than give me some sore spots. And the gas tank is specially insulated to keep it from exploding...whoever set the timer may not have known that." Shen nodded and smiled, as if he knew that was largely a load of fertilizer but didn't want to press the point. "Still, there's only the five second gaps between frames for someone to have gotten to the cycle, tripped the timer and gotten off shot. How could that have happened?" Jack asked. "Did anyone maybe mess with it earlier, add their own timer? An external timer might have fallen off after the explosion...." Shen looked to his security head, who shook his head. "No, sir. During the time you were inside, no one got close enough to your vehicle to do more than look at it," the man at the console confirmed. "Perhaps our mutual enemy has hired the Dash to bedevil you?" Shen smiled. The security guard tried (and failed) to suppress a chuckle. Jack just cocked his head. "Hmmm. Someone DID hire that Ban Shi person [That's spelled Ben Sidhe. - Ed] to attack me, perhaps they found a very speedy saboteur to take her place." Shen nodded to the guard, who stood and left. "Jack, I might be able to find out who in the area could have been hired for such a job, but I would only make that effort for someone who was at least a temporary ally. Don't give me that look. Chinatowns are run by the Tongs or Triads, not the city government. And my Tong, at the very least, is not as bad as those thugs Li Ning and Pei Man, even if we don't meet up with your quaint sense of honor. I'm not asking you to become one of my enforcers on a permanent basis, I just want to know you're more for me than against me. Who knows?" Shen broke into a wide grin, "Having you around might force me to stick closer to the straight and narrow for a while, which can't be a bad thing, eh?" He held out his hand to Jack. Jack paused, then reluctantly shook Shen's hand, hoping that he hadn't just made a terrible mistake (although it'd be hard to beat the mistake he'd made in taking the exploding cycle (or in driving into a tank full of live Maine Fighting Lobsters)).... HAS JACK JUST MADE A TERRIBLE MISTAKE? WILL HE FIND SOME NEW PANTS BEFORE NEXT EPISODE? IS SHEN ON THE UP AND UP, OR IS HE BEHIND THE WHOLE MESS AFTER ALL? DOES THE AUTHOR KNOW THE ANSWER TO THAT YET? DOES THIS EPISODE ACTUALLY COUNT AS RESOLVING THE SECOND CRAZY PLOT, OR IS IT MORE LIKE IGNORING THE PLOT? DOES THIS MATTER? AND WHAT ABOUT THE RRFH REFERENCE WE WERE PROMISED? Some of this, and a new Crazy Plot (Yay!), in the next...SUPERGUY!