In order to make sure I'm not missing any of those old stories, since there really aren't very many of them and they're scattered wildly throughout the characters' sixty-plus year history, I'm checking against various lists and websites online. So far, all of the ones that I couldn't remember offhand were all very small and ultimately inconsequential, but you never know when you'll come across a gem. But in reading through these sites, I've noticed two things. First, the vast majority of these people don't cite any sources. They'll say, "Here's what happened" or "This is why things are like this" but they don't point to where this was actually said in the comics. They'll frequently have a picture from the story in question, but just don't tell you where it's from. Which is obviously a problem for my current research but also undermines the writer's credibility. Are they explaining what actually happened, or are they putting their own spin on things, or have they just wildly misinterpretted the story? There's no real way you can check.
Second, and as something of an extension of the first bit, they don't care about continuity. These articles will frequently talk about events from the past 5-10 years, but most everything beyond that is a crapshoot. They talk about the more recent developments as if they were wholly new and not built on the foundations of a story from forty years ago. Oh, they'll make reference to some character first appearing a few decades ago, but there'll be no context. Is this current story/character following along in the same vein as before, or have they been totally reimagined for one reason or another, keeping little more than the original name? Everything outside of the past few years is ancient history, and only worth mentioning in the most oblique, tangental way possible.
This is the direct result of Marvel deliberately spending the past twenty years eschewing continuity. I've complained here before about how the last Marvel comics I really enjoyed were the ones that embraced old school continuity, and I've seen almost nothing like those in two decades. I don't say this to slag on Marvel; I get why they made the change. Beginning in the 1990s, continuity was being used as a crutch and it actually acted as an impediment to new readers. By scrapping continuity for a perpetual now and making every post-origin story irrelevant, a new reader can pick up effectively any new book and get a pretty good handle on what's going on.
Of course, this concept is countered by the continued use of company-wide crossovers (the latest issue of Fantastic Four was impossible to follow for several pages because it tied directly to this "One World Under Doom" storyline that I've not bothered with). In fact, the "nothing will ever be the same" crossovers means nothing since there's no continuity anyway. As soon as the crossover is finished, everyone picks back up with their current now and the big crossover isn't mentioned again.
What strikes me as ironic about all this, too, is that back when continuity was important, comic writers and editors would themselves cite past issues. Spider-Man might come across Hobgoblin in Amazing Spider-Man and quip, "Didn't I just fight you?" and there'd be a caption box that said, "Yes, he did! Check out Web of Spider-Man Annual #3!" This was useful to devoted readers who wanted to read that story, of course, but problematic because it was difficult to find those stories in the days before the internet and healthy reprint programs. You had to physically find an original copy of that exact issue in a comic shop or maybe at a small convention. (There were no such thing as "large" conventions! Back then, even San Diego Comic-Con was topping out at around 6,000 attendees.)
Now, though, when you've got the internet readily accessible on your phone and you can look up dozens of places to buy a copy with a couple clicks, or check out all the places it's been reprinted, or get a digital copy to read immediately -- now that you have all those options to take advantage of those caption box annotations, they're no longer provided. When handling and figuring out continuity is easier than it's ever been, that's when Marvel (and DC from what I can tell; I don't read much from them to confirm first-hand though) decide they're going to just chuck continuity to the curb. EVEN AS their movie franchise has spent the same two decades showing how continuity can, when handled well, be attractive to all audiences, not just nerds like myself.
This rant came about because I just read YET ANOTHER piece claiming that Marvel has reduced the age gap between Reed and Sue Richards when there is literally nothing in the comics to even suggest, much less state that. The fans who are writing these pieces are likely in the 20s and 30s, after Marvel stopped focusing on continuity, and the result is that they're basically presenting their own head-canon as fact, despite being repeatedly and regularly contradicted by the actual stories. Since all that matters is the perpetual now, though, they can claim whatever they like so long as it doesn't contract whatever the current 5-6 issue storyline is. Marvel decided to forgo continuity to be more inviting to readers, but they've since trained those readers to not care what happens outside of 'right now.' It's their right to do that, of course, but it's why the only Marvel comic I read any more is Fantastic Four -- the fewest number of titles I've gotten since 1987.
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