Slott Continuity

One of the reasons that the Marvel Universe is popular is it's continuity. As Brian Hibbs recently noted in his "Tilting at Windmills" column, the Marvel brand is rather saleable in and of itself precisely because of the continuity among its various titles. But Dan Slott goes above and beyond the call of duty when it comes to continuity.

In Thing #1, Ben defeats a villain called Cauldron. As SHIELD carts away the foe, he swears justice and revenge. More recently, in She-Hulk #6, Ben approaches Jen to ask if she would represent him in a case that has recently come up. Interestly, Jen has to turn down the job precisely because her law firm has already given her the same case to represent Cauldron!

The Spider-Man/Human Torch limited series was absolutely dripping with continuity, noting such memorable events as the creation of the Spider-Mobile and the alien symbiote costume saga. As I've noted before, I am on the Board of Directors for the Marvel Chronology Project and it was brilliantly easy to drop each of those issues into context with everything else.

I could go on listing all the instances of Dan's acknowledgement and/or use of Marvel's continuity, but his She-Hulk and Thing titles dovetail each other very nicely, despite the fact that neither is required reading for the other. So the question becomes, if Marvel fans buy their books for continuity and a Dan-Slott-written book is one of the best places to get that these days (I could go on about how Brian Michael Bendis can't even keep his OWN continuities straight, no matter how well written it is) NOT TO MENTION that Slott is an excellent writer with a great sense of humor, how is it that Thing and She-Hulk are not selling better?

Here's a thought: when you go into your comic book shop next, tell them to put those two great titles on your pull list? You'll thank me for it.

Unless, of course, you're a DC person or something and don't care about Marvel continuity or good story-telling or anything. :)

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