# Explain comics (Marvel, DC etc.) and how to read them

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-comics-marvel-dc-etc-and-how-to-read-them/686782>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [April 23, 2014, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-comics-marvel-dc-etc-and-how-to-read-them/686782 "2014-04-23T16:25:26Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Cartoonacy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/848f3c/32.png) [@Cartoonacy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartoonacy)\
**Post date:** [April 25, 2014, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-comics-marvel-dc-etc-and-how-to-read-them/686782/21 "2014-04-25T21:52:13Z")

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> [@Little\_Nemo](#):
>
> The problem is that comic books are ongoing works of fiction. You can’t put the characters in a realistic timeline.

Especially when you consider that the average comic book comes out once a month, but that doesn’t correspond to a month in real time. A story that takes place over a span of a few hours might take a year to tell. And sometimes a year or more of comics-time might pass in a single issue.

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**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\
**Post date:** [April 25, 2014, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-comics-marvel-dc-etc-and-how-to-read-them/686782/22 "2014-04-25T23:05:20Z")

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Of course, the same is true of other genres than comics. For instance, Star Trek, where one spaceship crew has had some 79 adventures.

Or take Robin Hood: in a very few short years, he had how many incredible adventures, escapades, fights, escapes, chases, hunts, robberies, contests, and triumphs?

Series dramas of this sort absolutely require a kind of “amnesia.” Otherwise, you get the absurdism of Jessica Fletcher, in “Murder She Wrote,” being just coincidentally on the scene of 264 murders. Every old friend she visits, every class reunion, every vacation, every business trip… Another murder. Real life can’t support that kind of thing, but fiction can. (Mark Twain notwithstanding.)

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