In the news
• Grant Morrison responded to the various Countdown / DONG / Final Crisis continuity problems in a recent IGN interview.
MORRISON: There were a couple of discrepancies which affected the early issues of Final Crisis and which came about because of the way the two books were being written out of order and to different deadlines.
Ultimately, it comes down to me as the last guy in the chain to fix it all, which is what I’m going to do. I’m actually going to make all the discrepancies work and tie in, and I’ve got a plan to fix it. To me, it was just like, “Oh guys, don’t worry about it.” Sometimes human error just creeps into the system. But I also realize that a lot of readers have a genuine emotional investment in the strict coherence of these patchwork fictional universes, so it seemed only fair that I should use the Crisis to clean up any lingering problems.
I was very glad to see this comment, even if it is a little backhanded in its approach to making things right, so to speak. As should be obvious, the desire for consistence in continuity has nothing to do with worshiping imaginary characters and timelines. If you read Morrison’s guided tour through FC #3 at Newsarama, you’ll see you need to know who Überfraulein is, be familiar with Jack Kirby’s original OMAC visuals and know about the history of the Tomorrow People (among other things) to fully understand important parts of the story. The point, of course, is that if a story drops the ball on extremely simple things, the reader has no reason to wonder about meaning hidden in subtleties like the color of the sky or Aquaman’s facial hair.
I’m very much looking forward to how Morrison wraps things up, particularly how he writes away the contradictions. The big-picture things he describes in the IGN interview have the potential to be great, but their greatness only works if readers understand and appreciate the years — if not decades — of meaning built into those characters. Considering he doesn’t care about “…people who respond to [his] work with personal insults and slanders,” I hope we’ll see an end to mockery of those who desire adherence to continuity for stories that depend on extensive knowledge of it.
• The writer formerly known as Doomkopf’s Jean-Claude Van Doom broke the news that Chuck Dixon will be a new G.I. Joe book for IDW. Dixon, along with writer Larry Hama, will be rebooting the G.I. Joe franchise for IDW, dropping the mythology that began with the 1980s cartoon.
Dixon’s fallout with DC earlier this year reached a new level when he broke his silence in the comments section of a June CBR column.
• There might be a Ghost Rider 2.