If a great deal of the work being published by DC Comics today can be classified as “continuity porn,” then The Brave and the Bold: The Lords of Luck has to be the continuity equivalent of the hottest, raunchiest porn you’ve ever seen, starring every girl you’ve ever dated, engaged in scandalous acts with every actress and lingerie model you’ve ever fancied. Plus donkey dicks, if you’re into that sort of thing.
That said, it’s still pretty good.
The phrase “continuity porn” is more often than not used as a strike against a story, not as a checkmark in the “positives” column. I can see why that is; there’s always the danger that any given comic will sacrifice the quality of story and character at the altar of the Almighty Shared Universe Stretching Back Decades.
That happens. But when continuity in comics is used properly, as a means and not the end itself, it possesses a heft that you won’t really find in any other method of storytelling, save perhaps episodic television, and then only when a series has been given a good several seasons to evolve.
When Buffy, Willow, Xander and Giles are standing around in the halls of Sunnydale High right before the big fight in the final episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the danger of death has never been more present, and our main characters are nonchalantly discussing the mall and Giles makes his snide comment about how the world is “certainly doomed,” it’s a touching moment for any viewer. But for the True Fan, bringing over one hundred previous hours of television to bear on that moment, it has a very particular resonance; it hearkens back to a similar scene at the end of the two-part pilot, and shows us that no matter how far these characters have come and how much they’ve endured, they’re still the Buffy, Willow, Xander, and Giles we all loved back in 1997. And one of the series’ central themes – a group of all-too-natural young people granted access to vast powers in order to battle the all-too-supernatural forces of evil – sings out loud one last time.
But nothing in The Brave and the Bold really hits that level; it’s continuity as a tool, but not to build meaning. Continuity is the foundation of the story; it’s the floorboards and the ceiling beams and the drywall and the granite countertops in the kitchen. The “story” is what holds it all together – the nails, or the plaster. And there are parts of this comic book house (come on, work with me on this metaphor; it’s Friday at 4:56 p.m. and I am FRIED) that don’t hold together so well, to be honest.
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