Are shared universes shit?

Superman would be better off without the rest of the DC Universe, for example. And Spider-Man too, with the Marvel Universe in his case.

The only problem I see is with concepts and characters that have different origins and destinations, like for example, Black Canary originally (and still to some extent) being part of Batman's world instead of getting hooked up to Green Arrow's world, or Spider-Man's world being basically the originator of half of Daredevil's villains and supporting cast.

What does Holla Forums think?

Yes. They do nothing but dilute good characters, settings, and themes by artificially shoving in other shit which doesn't fit tonally for purely monetary reasons.

Shared universes are what happens when you let the fanboys run the show. Fanboys are never good writers.

It's too mixed of a bag to give a single universal answer… but I can agree that more often shared universes cause confusion and lead to bullshit writing and contradictions/retcons, rather than allow for better plots.
For example X men are way better off without any connection to the rest of the marvel universe. Despite that, I always cheer a little whenever an adaptation references/straight up shows Wolverine being buds with Cap during WW2.

Shared univetse is what really distinguishes Western Comics from Eastern Manga. They both have pros and cons, but more chefs per pot means that it's much easier to fuck up a shared universe than a closed one.

Shared universes are better when done well, but closed universes are better in general.

They create a lot of dumb situations, like how people hate and fear mutants, but are fine with most any other hero even when they have no idea what the origin of their powers is.

Or, No Man's Land. Superman has an agreement with Batman to stay out of Gotham, which he keeps to even when the city is absolutely, cataclysmically fucked. City-wide disaster relief needed in the wake of an earthquake? People abandoned and left to fend for themselves as the streets descent into a war between the different forces of Arkham escapees? Superman could save so many lives here, but sorry to those who died, he promised not to.

I like to imagine Guy Gardner ignoring this agreement, cleaning up the situation single-handedly and burning "You're welcome, Bats" into the sky in bright green letters.

Shared universes are only good if the writers have that as the plan from the get go, otherwise the rules for one series end up contradicting rules for another series and you end up with a mishmash of retarded bullshit.

Though a person hating Batman being mixed with super-powered shit I have to point out that corruption under the shadows is a more demanding issue to resolve than flying around and preventing violent crime and generic mayhem. That's why Batman tries to make a symbol of darkness out of himself instead of a solar deity.

I was just talking specifically about No Man's Land. Obviously one man can't solve all of Gotham's problems, superpowered or not, but taking out the major players in one night to give the cops a chance to reclaim the lawless city, that he can do.

This is the correct answer. Marvel and DC superheroes were not originally conceived as part of shared universes, and results are rarely any good. Especially with current writers and big two's love for events.

Meanwhile, Mignola's and Jodorowsky's shared universes only add to the world and the story. Tie ins and references feel more natural, there are less "plotholes," and worlds are far more coherent.

X-Men should have been a separate Universe.
It's retarded that mutants are feared while heroes with similar powers get praised within the same world.

Yes

mutielover detected

Has there been any mutant in the comics that bullshitted about the origin of there powers considering how hated/feared the mutants are?

You think with people like Captain America and the Inhumans you could just lie about getting your powers through stuff like:

Depends on the IPs involved. For example, X-Men sharing the same universe with Marvel really makes the hatred of mutants weird when people are okay with other people having super powers.

Also, maybe it's just because I watching the 90s tv series and the Sam Raimi movies a lot when I was a younger, but I really like Spider-Man being it's own thing without other Marvel stuff (I'll make exceptions for minor stuff that's on par with Spidey's tone like Daredevil).

This should have never been a movie fad?

I agree a lot with this. The POTENTIAL of a shared universe is amazing, and can lead to amazing moments that fans of many characters will talk about fondly for decades. But there is also the chance for horribly stupid things if the writers' are incompetent or purposefully biased toward certain characters.

Take the three big events here. The first is mostly just a fun romp, a meeting of tons of characters and a pretty solid use of everyone involved. It strove to give many characters key moments that made them shine (Hulk holding up the moutain range, Spidey beating all the X-Men) and was a celebration of a universe that hadn't often come together on such a scale at the time. The second, I consider the last big crossover I really loved, was much more focused on key players, but treated each addition of the story well. Each character made the stakes higher and personal to the fans of all involved. The third was terrible, many characters written in ways that didn't make sense, canon attitudes thrown out the window to fit a story that never felt like it flowed naturally.

To me, these are some of the highs and lows of a shared universe, and everything ties into the skill of the writers and the intent. Secret Wars didn't actually shake up too many books for very long, She-Hulk joining the FF and Spidey's black suit were the biggest changes I remember, and the biggest one wasn't even initially intended to be as huge as it got. Infinity Gauntlet was naturally set up, for over a year before it came out, in Silver Surfer. Civil War… just sorta happened. Because Identity Crisis sold well. That's it. I mean, the original plan was to kill Happy Hogan at the start to give Tony a reason to care, but I guess they figured 300 or so children was just as good. And then the now EVIL super heroes create and unleash a murderous clone of Thor because… fuck, I don't know. I guess the biggest thing is that as long as pissing of the fans creates quick sales, characterizations are thrown out the window, and that's the only real strength of these crossovers. Seeing well defined characters interact logically with other well defined characters. If there is no love for the pieces on the board, the whole game falls apart, and that's why OP probably asks the question. Because the shared universe game sucks now.

Hell, cape comics could have ended with JLA/Avengers, and I'm sure everyone would be happier overall.

And adding to what I said here, I wouldn't trade this for damn near anything. JLA/Avengers worked so well because it was two very well defined universes, with both teams comprised of very iconic memebers, and call backs to very rich histories on both sides. This is why canon exists, to make moments like this impactful. That's why these characters meet up sometimes, have short shared adventures and then part ways, so the world feels alive. There are problems when things aren't organized, and no one mentions why the Avengers aren't there to help when the FF are fighting a giant monster four blocks away from their base, but at the core it's a very strong set up. This is why people read multiple books instead of just one hero and ignore the rest, little character meetings get you thinking about who people are and what their larger stories amount to. Though it would be nice if characters that had multiple titles could have a 'shared canon' book, and a 'standalone canon' book, because there is a lot of appeal to not needing any other influence on a story, and a lot of writers work a lot better that way.

how much do they pay you to go around the internet using that term?

Shared universes aren't bad per se. At best, they're sandboxes that savvy writers and editors can utilize creatively and efficiently. If anything, they're only a burden when they resort to just throwing shit on the wall to see what sticks.

Besides, trying to enforce bullshit embargos and edicts tend to be more harmful than helpful.

The original X-Factor comes to mind, which had Cyclops and the original class of X-Men posing as human bounty hunters to rescue mutants in need.


To be fair, it was inevitable. To Hollywood, the concept's just another excuse to make sequels

Shared universes aren't bad per se, but can be a disaster of enormous proportions in the Bendis wrong hands.

Because the writer need to do a good research and don't fuck up with the continuity and personality of the characters. Hard work.

And, sadly, future crossovers will suffer as well, because they will have to chose to explain away or ignore some of the more absurd things Bendis and friends did. How do you deal with having a great character for years and then having to explain why someone like Millar was allowed to make them a total asshole? Them mangling characters and continuity just makes it harder for anyone who does respect the readers more, and it's a downward spiral that could take years to fix.

This is why it was so important before, why you'd have things like Byrne making a joking apology for using Tigra in a story she couldn't have been in due to another ongoing story. Because that internal consistency is key to the whole shared universe. Writers have to work together, and any one writer being selfish or foolish makes it harder on everyone else. This is why things like Doombots exist, because a weak Doom story can water down a character who is built up as a threat among threats.

What is a shared universe?
It isn't like a series by the same writer who makes a bunch of Spin-offs.
A shared universe is a scheme by assholes to boost the sales of their products.
They are used to get you to read comics that you have no interest in reading but instead have to read because the character you feel invested in is in it and the crossover event bullshit becomes integral to the character.
I can't see them as anything other than a greed fueled abomination.
I want people graded on the quality of their writing and not what IP they are writing.
Shared universe cape shit cultivates a group of jackasses who will buy anything with a particular IP's name on it.

I have two preferred scenarios.

Both shared universes collapse in on themselves and become what I'd call "Separate Inspirational Universes".
If you personally made your character you get to keep writing them otherwise you'll need to do some basic fucking name and costume changes.
Nobody else can use your characters.
No crossovers.
Sweat of your own brow, meritocracy.
If you come out with an issue #1 than it means it is the first god damn issue in the history of the book.
Superman and many other superheroes are officially dead because their creators are.
Anyone can make a Superman analog and go though his origin story down the letter as long as those letters in the names are different.
People can call you a hack for borderline plagiarization and if you don't want to be called that you have think a little more outside the box.
Nobody can fuck anything up unless the creators themselves choose to.

Never going to happen because asking for creativity is asking for too much.
Scenario 2 is trying to meet them half way.

Every run is a separate story onto itself.
Canon for the most part does not exist.
Nothing makes reference to anything else.
If continuity is not adhered to than it serves no purpose but to make terrible writers seem better by referencing the works of better writers.
People write characters differently making them into different characters on the most meaningful level aka the nature of their very character.
Because of this flaw everything should be self contained.
You sign a contract for a select number of issues and you have 1(one) fucking job which is to create an entertaining story that sells in that number of issues.
No horrible pacing bullshit near the end of your run or else they might not call you again.
If it sells well than they will most likely call you and ask if you want to write some more, maybe a different character.
You can do whatever What If / Elseworld bullshit you want because the difference between your run where Batman is fighting the Joker and kills him is no more canon than the one where Batman is steampunk.

Is that a TTGO screenshot?

Batman, too.

The lone mysterious figure who haunts the streets of Gotham, subduing evil, is more interesting than Batman, the guy who lives on the space station with Superman and Wonder Woman and helps them protect the Earth from aliens.

I think the shared universe in Batman's case is just so he can fight scary/wacky super-powered foes and shenanigans without compromising the whole "realistic" shtick, where Batman only fights generic gangsters in gimp suits and foils standard crimes when he's in Gotham.

To be fair, Batman has always fought against ridiculous threats, well before he started sharing stories with others. Batgod aside, helping other superheroes deal with cosmic and supernatural threats has been within the scale of "The World's Greatest Detective" for decades.


All that bullshit could be easily be rebuked with the fact that neither scenarios would purge the spectre of Bad Writing. And the second suggests that you haven't been paying attention to the BIg Two's output of the last decade.