Friday, February 24, 2006

Comic book fans are a notoriously finicky, picky lot, especially when it comes to continuity. A recent storyline in Spider-Man saw a character have her arm broken at a highly dramatic moment in one issue, and appear fine and healthy in the next issue. Of course, comic fans spotted the gaffe, took to the forums and chatrooms to discuss A) plausible explanations B) editorial sloppiness and C) how this could lead to the end of Western civilization. Typical post: "The MJ arm fix... That's just sloppy, sloppy editing. Man, that's just lazy..." This type of error can happen when you have the same storyline passed between multiple writers and/or artists.

Writer J. Michael Straczynski thought he’d have a little fun in a recent issue of Amazing Spider-Man. A discussion between Peter Parker (Spider-Man) and Tony Stark (Iron Man) explains away this continuity error, while having fun with the readers. The fourth wall between character and reader blinks off and on for a second with all the timing of a sitcom. Hah!

Click image for larger (readable) image, good for a laugh.

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