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Not wishing to criticise, Keith, but you are not on GM's side on this. GM is not complaining about the failure to keep a continuous storyline between Countdown, DotNG and Final Crisis, merely recognising it as a consequence of events out of his hands. He is complaining that people discussing the Crisis crossovers online are not ready to accept that the reason for this is that the events depicted elsewhere were shaky and apocryphal accounts - that they are, where necessary, taken to be dreams, stories or imaginary tales - and move on as if everything they had purchased so far did indeed lead up to and dovetail with Final Crisis.
Looking at this dispassionately, it's hard to criticise too much - it's an oft-repeated maxim that the fans pay the wages of entertainers, but actually this is not true. The employers pay the wages of entertainers, and it is therefore considered good practice, I imagine, to follow the party line. Most of the time, fortunately, fans will do likewise so that, should the entertainer pop round for tea and swingball, there will not be any awkward pauses in the conversation. So, those who were expecting story coherence from DC's multi-year crossover event are identified as having concerns quite simply beyond the pale bordering acceptable comic-book geekiness - much like those who saw in the beginning of a series such as Wildcats or the Authority an implicit undertaking to provide some form of middle and end.
One interesting thing about this is that I think the difference between activists and base is far smaller with comics - you don't get 100,000 people talking on the Internet and 8 million people just watching/reading, as you might with a movie or an album - you just get 100,000 talking on the Internet _and nobody else_. What that does to the dynnamic? It's an interesting question, but probably outwith the scope of this discussion. |
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