Comic Dictionary - Nepotistic Continuity
NEPOTISTIC CONTINUITY
This is when a writer uses strong continuity in his or her comics, but only when it is in reference to something (a work or a creation) that THAT writer did in the past.
Chuck Dixon was big on this, having minor characters from one of his four Bat-books show up constantly in his other Bat-books.
The funniest point of Dixon's nepotistic continuity history is when he had the clone of Guy Gardner show up in Birds of Prey.
This is when a writer uses strong continuity in his or her comics, but only when it is in reference to something (a work or a creation) that THAT writer did in the past.
Chuck Dixon was big on this, having minor characters from one of his four Bat-books show up constantly in his other Bat-books.
The funniest point of Dixon's nepotistic continuity history is when he had the clone of Guy Gardner show up in Birds of Prey.
posted by Brian Cronin at 1/15/2005 04:22:00 PM
6 Comments:
Chris Claremont's Fantastic Four run had tons of this as well.....
Funny you should mention Fabes, David. I have an interview with him where he says that, in his early days at Marvel, when he was doing filler stories, backups, and eight-pagers for Marvel Comics Presents, he tied a lot of those stories together via a villain character called The Bengal. If you bother to track down Bengal's appearances during that time and read them in chronological order, they form a multi-part Bengal series of sorts, culminating in a three-parter during the early days of New Warriors.
Oh lord, I remember the Bengal!!!
Does Greg Rucka's obsession with Renee Montoya count?
Rucka's love affair with Renee Montoya, in of itself, is not nepotistic continuity.
If he starts making references to his stories with her in Wonder Woman and Adventures of Superman, then yes, it is definitely nepotistic continuity.
Some other examples that always jumped out at me....
Referring to Nighthawk's new powers in the Earth X series (that Nighthawk had only gained very recently, in a series also written by the fella who wrote Earth X).
Nicieza (there's that name again) having a character in Thunderbolts be the daughter of a supporting cast member during Nicieza's New Warriors run.
Busiek's current JLA arc (everyone must be dying to know what came about of the first few pages of JLA/Ave ngers #1, right? Right? RIGHT?!?!)
Every Spider-Girl character seems to be referring to SOME storyline DeFalco did on Spider-Man. I mean, PHIL URICH? The STEEL SPIDER?
While I love him anyway, Peter David is clearly guilty of nepotistic continuity. Take Spider-Man 2099, where PAD pulled the New Universe Justice (whom David worked on) into 2099, along with a mysterious villain eventually revealed to be Rick Jones. Naturally, the revelation took place not in Spider-Man 2099, but in Captain Marvel about eight years later. The Maestro showed in that story arc as well.
Or how Fallen Angel? Sure, Lee is meant to be Linda Danvers, conplete with veiled references to the time she got knocked up by Pre-Crisis Superman, but he also had Sachs and Violens show up. They're characters from PAD's Marvel Epic miniseries in the 80's. Sachs turned out to the sister of the local Bete Noir madame.
Don't get me wrong, it's all good stuff (except Spider-Man 2099, really), but that's some serious self-reference.
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