A Shared Universe

Comic geeks, for the most part, have this obsessive focus on continuity and the concept of the shared universe. If every single appearance of a character doesn’t fit together as a seamless, over-arcing whole, the average comic fan will stretch their imagination to its limits trying to explain any discrepancies. It was such a commonplace occurrence that Stan Lee started awarding fans a thing called a ‘No Prize’ (exactly what it’s described as being) if they could find an in-story reason as to why a character had acted strangely or shown up in a place where they shouldn’t have as a result of editorial oversight.

But ever since the first superhero team-ups, the concept that fans have gravitated toward the most is the concept of the shared universe; where Character A lives in the same time and place as Character X, their lives intersecting every so often. I’m by no means exempt from this; I’ve often scratched my head thinking of ways events in Batman Begins fall into the timeline of Superman Returns, or what Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man was up to during the Fantastic Four film, or why he never pays Daredevil’s Hell’s Kitchen a visit.

On a simple level, it’s part of the fun of comics, trying to work out the ways all the characters in a comic company’s stable fit together. That’s been one of the overwhelming joys of Heroes, and why it’s worked so well as a mainstream appropriation of comic book concepts; watching the many different ways the characters interact without knowing it before finally coming together keeps the audience coming back week after week.

But what drives this enjoyment? Is it that we wish for a sense of a greater community? That we feel so isolated from each other that any reminder of being part of a society is something we can’t help but respond to? And is that the reason why people respond to superhero stories in the first place?

In the end, is it just that we all want to live in a shared universe?