Case (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
case) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomsecrets2013-02-24 03:21 pm
case) wrote in fandomsecrets2013-02-24 03:21 pm
[ SECRET POST #2245
⌈ Secret Post #2245 ⌋
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
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Notes:
Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 098 secrets from Secret Submission Post #321.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 1 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 2 3 4 - come on, troll with a little more subtlety ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.
Re: tl;dr but this may help if you're interested in the old continuity
DC is more straightforward. Post-Crisis DC continuity -- 1986-2011 -- follows a set series of events. Characters in books written in the 2000s still reference the Invasion event from the late 80s, for example. Batman, Superman, Green Lantern, all the others, all operate in the same continuity with each other, and often will work together (Justice League, for example.)
That being said, there are many, many books, usually one-shots or minis, that are considered non-canon. Some of these are explicitly and obviously AUs, marked by the "Elseworlds" symbol on the cover, such as a film noir Batman AU set in the 1940s. (While predating the Elseworlds concept, The Dark Knight Returns is also AU, but it's part of Frank Miller's All Star Batman and Robin continuity which is best ignored. The only part of Frank's canon that also applies to mainstream post-Crisis continuity is Batman: Year One.) Not everything will be marked as such, but will be obviously non-canon due to being an inter-company crossover (Green Lantern vs. Aliens, for example) or due to obvious conflicts from established canon.
Sometimes DC will fold a deliberately non-canon work into canon (Superman: Birthright was briefly canon despite the havoc it wreaked on some 20 years of established canon, only to be booted out of canon again three years later.) Perhaps most famously though is Batman: The Killing Joke, which, aside from telling a possible Joker origin, saw Barbara Gordon (aka Batgirl) shot and crippled (and implied to have been raped) by the Joker. Alan Moore never intended for it to be canon, but the story proved popular enough that it was folded in anyway. Whether this is good or bad depends on whether you like Barbara more as Batgirl, or more as the superhero icon for disabled folk named Oracle.
Crisis on Infinite Earths, while serving as the beginning of the new continuity, brought to a close the stories of the old continuity. The Superman of the 60s and 70s is not the same Superman of the late 80s and 90s and 00s -- and, indeed, Alan Moore wrapped up Silver Age Supes' tale in a book titled Whatever Happened to the Man of Steel?
With regards to your second question: It does seem arbitrary at times. I remember when The Dark Knight Returns was considered the pinnacle of Batman books (and at the time it was written, it was sort of meant to be the Batman equivalent of Whatever Happened.) But I picked it up a little while ago and flipped through it and my god it hasn't aged well. However -- comics fandom has been around a long time, and most of the "recommended reading" lists you find will generally have some sort of consensus on what's worth reading. The shorter lists will mostly consist of mini-series and oneshots; the longer lists will pick out "best single issues" (such as Batman #424, "The Diplomat's Son") or major arcs (No Man's Land for example.) I wrote up my own recommended reading list a while back for F!S, I should dig that up and update it and post it again.