Marvel shook up the comic book world Wednesday with its announcement of the new Secret Wars series that's totally not a reboot. The plan is to ditch both the Marvel Universe and Ultimate Universe and move forward with just one, Battlefield. It's confusing, and scary, and sparked a lot of questions. And now we've got an explanation for the issue of continuity.
Publisher Dan Buckley said in an interview with ICv2 that the comics aren't trying to align with the cinematic universe. Marvel's films can influence the comics, but the relationship won't get any stronger than that.
"[There’s] no way that these movies, which are seen by millions of people, are not influencing what we’re doing in the books, but we’re not looking to align continuity between the two storytelling worlds because, frankly, that would be a venture into madness," Buckley said.
"People can see what Marvel’s done over the years. It’s pretty complex what we’ve pulled off from a continuity and context standpoint through the last 50 to 75 years. It’s pretty impressive. To try to take comic continuity and tie it into movie continuity? Believe me, I work in both the movies and live-action television shows, and it is hard enough to synch those two things up. I’m not looking to invite 70 books a month into the equation."
As an example Buckley talked about the relationship between the X-Men books and movies:
"We all remember picking up our X-Men books in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. The Professor would go in to put Cerebro on and he’d wear a helmet in a room, and whatever room that was and whatever it looked like was up to the artist du jour. But that room now, after the X-Men movie when he rolled into that big open area with the metallic globe that he is sitting inside of with the ramp, and then he puts the helmet on, you go into a Marvel comic now and that’s what that room looks like. The movie defined the mass market perception of what Cerebro looks like. The comics guys are looking at it and thinking, 'That’s pretty cool, I think I’ll do that!' So, to say that one medium does not influence the other a great deal would be lying."
So there you have it. Ain't nobody got time for continuity between the comic and film worlds when there are already enough complications.
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[via Uproxx]
