Speaking of continuity, I was scrollin through the CBR Spidey subforum and a poster had a great quote/perspective:
Another chimed in:
I dunno what the solution is, but another element is that the top brass (Disney, WB, Sony) only care about mining superhero IPs to feed into their actual money makers (films, games, theme parks, etc), which begets starter-kit versions of the characters that are "modernized" for current times (and not the 1960s packages)... which has a varying trickle down effect with the comics.
the only real solution is to only use future dates, past locations and only use "x years ago"/months when referencing present time.
Like if a story (or part of it) is set in Dallas, 1963, then thats fine. "Dallas, 1963". You can use all the dated references and landmarks you want.
If you wanna say Spider-Man first appeared as a teen and he's an adult now, just say "13 years ago.....". No need to reference Drake winning a grammy or the Control verse. If you show a TV, just have it showing local news relevant to the story being told.
Now is just "Now". Give or take a few years.
The Future, as far as dates go, can be anything and it can look any kinda way. Both Marvel and DC have shyt tons of time travellers as this point. Any future that doesnt come to pass by a certain date can easily be waved away as Kang or Flash or Rip Hunter or Per Degaton forgot to flush a toilet and history changed.
Characters that are tied to specific events (Magneto, for instance), just kill and resurrect as needed. Cap still goes on ice during World War 2, you don't have to say he was found in the 60s. All those stories still happened. What date did the President off himself in front of Cap after being revealed to be the leader of the Secret Empire? Who knows? Coulda been any time after 1980. JSA fought in WW2? They were stuck in Ragnarok. Stuff like that is easily explained away.
That's my take on it. No need for a sliding timeline if you don't pin it down with dates.
