What had never been revealed before, however, was that this was evidently the same cab driver from Thor #129, as suggested by the strip's reference!
It's also a seemingly rare digression (these days) on writer Stan Lee's part to pull out continuity nods like that. While he did it pretty regularly back in the 1960s, the writing he's done on the newspaper strip -- while sometimes dated and stilted -- has rarely referred back at his own career like this. It's a different medium with an audience that isn't as attuned to long-term continuity as you find with comic books. It's also a pretty rare nod to continuity in the Marvel Universe overall any more. While some fans complain that there's no respecting a character's rich history, others cite decades of continuity as an albatross around their collective neck. So editorially, anything much further back than the previous storyline has largely been glossed over at most or, more frequently, completely ignored. The throwback in yesterday's strip is very much an anomoly, but it's a curious instance of contrasting previous storytelling norms against current ones.
3 comments:
I've considered writing something about it myself, but I think I can skip it now: This post really sums up why I feel some small but persistent sadness that Marvel is, finally, implementing a reboot.
I can't remember the last time I bought a new Marvel comic. But the idea of something like this continuing to grow, organically, decade after decade like some riotous garden… it still somehow feels like a loss to think that corporate groundskeepers will be going in with napalm and starting over.
It may be that, as I understand it, these days Roy Thomas writes the strip from Stan Lee plots. We all know what a fanatic Roy is with continuity. Anyway thanks for connecting the cabbie dots.
D.D.Degg
It may be that, as I understand it, these days Roy Thomas writes the strip from Stan Lee plots. We all know what a fanatic Roy is with continuity. Anyway thanks for connecting the cabbie dots.
D.D.Degg
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