Star Trek versus Marvel: Fight of the ages.
Because Trek vs. Wars is a tired debate.
Written while listening to Berdreyminn by Sólstafir.
I love the culture of “continuity MUST be reasonable — we will MAKE it reasonable” in the Star Trek fandom. Them and the Marvel comics writers. Their dedication to cohesion inside fraying universes should be an inspiration to us all.
On the opposite end of that spectrum, I do actually admire how comfy the DC cats are with saying, “Yeah, no, screw that. THIS story will be a good story. It fits into the imaginations of the people, not into some contrived map of a group psychosis gradually growing more unhinged.”
That’s how I imagine the DC people talk about it.
Sort of a curious thing, now I think about it, that the outrage over Star Wars timeline issues sort of, like, wasn’t outrage. The Star Wars cats…much more relaxed about timeline issues, it seems.
And you can’t leave Star Wars out of this debate. For cultural reasons.
Although, honestly, I think that, in a world where reasonableness actually worked, it would be possible to leave Star Wars out of a debate where you mentioned Star Trek. I have a lot of reasons, but this thing about the timelines is an important data point. The different responses to timeline issues that the Star Trek fan base and the Star Wars fan base have suggest something about metaphysical lessons inherent to the worlds.
Which, in my view, suggests the impotence of any debate between clans Star Trek and Star Wars.
On the other hand, I can see a great deal of fascinating debate mileage in an argument between Marvel fans and Star Trek fans about timeline management.
I’m not interested, at this point, in tossing my lot in with one side or the other, or going into too much detail about what exactly might be said about timeline management in Star Trek and in Marvel. Alls I feels like saying just now about it is that I find it an interesting point that the timeline in Star Trek is, by and large, policed by the fans, but the Marvel timeline is policed by its writers.
That, in itself, is a more interesting debate to me — Marvel timeline management versus Star Trek timeline management — because that’s a debate with a lot of things in common. Like, for instance, that both sides have a neurotic sense of the importance that the timeline MUST be maintained. Doesn’t matter how many hoops and rules of logic we need to get over, past, through, or bent. There NEEDS to be continuity.
But what’s different in the Marvel camp versus the Star Trek camp makes it interesting, because, in a sense, it’s a debate of aristocracy versus populace.
To me, that’s a more interesting clash of ideologies. Because Marvel, the entity, dictates the continuity of their universe. I’m sure they have complex internal diagrams and tables to keep track of things like the lifecycle of Vision and when Cable’s allowed to show up and when he’s not. I have seen the “official Summer’s family tree,” and it’s a mess all by itself, but it’s an internally consistent mess. And, as far as I can tell, them inside the Marvel corporation are devoted to making sure it all fits together. Dictate that this is how it all works, and you readers can catch up.
While Star Trek people have often just made stuff, and the community has done a lot of the debate to explain and police the continuity of the Star Trek universe. Which feels much more collaborative.
But is collaborative “better” for timeline management, or is it better to submit to Marvelous Dictum from on high for timeline management?
Better is a bad word, obviously, because it invites opinions. Although you can start an okay sort of debate with opinions, and that’s not so bad.
All’s I’m trying to say is a debate about timeline management is a more interesting debate to me than a debate about what are, fundamentally, metaphysically dissimilar universes.
Marvel versus DC — Star Wars versus Star Trek — those are specious debates, because they’re based on flawed premises.
It’s a flawed premise to propose that two franchises in a similar “genre” have enough in common to be compared in ALL ASPECTS. Just because these two universes full of stories are full of space ships, we think we can debate them. Because they kind of look same, we suppose that they must be similar, and so we argue about them, even though an objective comparison of the two turns up more differences than similarities. Which makes them not only frustrating to debate but actually examples of how to judge how insane your friends are, because of their ability to insist on seeing things that aren’t there. So it’s a stupid debate, and we should stop having it.
But that’s just my opinion.
So that’s a boring debate to me.
If you proposed to debate some particular and demonstrably comparable aspect of two franchises, then color my interest piqued.
Such as “timeline management.” That is a demonstrably comparable feature of Star Trek and of the Marvel universe. And it’s fascinating how they’re managed. That’s interesting to me.
But the question, “What’s the better science fiction franchise — Trek or Wars?” is a flawed question to begin with for a myriad reasons.
You could, hypothetically, get me a little interested in, “Which has the more interesting political landscape — Trek or Wars?” or “which has more interesting robots?” or “Which one has more Jedi in it?” or a question like, “Which one has more good performances by Patrick Stewart in it?” I might be interested in a conversation like that.
But shut up with your attempt to compare one entire franchise to the other. That’s a pointless argument, in my view.
Star Wars versus DC: which has better spiritual lessons. That’s an interesting debate.
The lesson I hope we can learn is do not mistake packaging for purpose. We can all take that one to the bank, I think.
I guess I only have one other comment to make about this…
See you, space cowboy.
