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Frame Trap - Episode 149 "Scrying Into 2022"

🕑 Added 2022-01-05 19:26:27 +0000 UTC

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Duff

The thing about shared universes, I’ve realized, is that they really only work retroactively. Like the best twists, revealing things are connected feels worthwhile only when it gives new context to what came before. For example: Marvel recently elevated the narrative significance of Venom, The Black Knight, a one-shot minor villain from the 1960s named “Mister E,” and a concept that never really got off the ground called “Captain Universe,” by tying their origins together in a storyline called The King in Black. These characters had no ties before, but this one storyline that recontextualized who they are by relating them to one another made them more interesting than they were before. This only worked because they had their own identities outside of their interrelationships, and this story simply connected dots that didn’t need to be there, but suddenly made a bigger picture out of their individual, unique ones. This is why shared universes that want to start with that shared context like Universal’s Dark Universe don’t gain steam: they’re reliant on a bigger picture that they cut into smaller ones that don’t work by themselves.