I don’t think it’s either. It just is. If you use an established character, you should be true to the personality and “bio” established for the character. Simple as that.

… within a story.

They just disagree about what constitutes a “story”.

Is a story …
–all the issues that form a tale (ala The Dark Phoenix Saga, Fall of the Mutants, Titans Hunt),
–all the issues within a crossover event,
–a run of issues told by one writer (or team of writers),
–all the issues told by a single writer (or team of writers) of a series,
–an entire series,
–a character’s history within all the series they have ever starred, guested, or even just cameod in,
–a character’s history within all media formats (ala comics, novels, comic strips, cartoons, live-action tv, movies, video games),
–a single issue, episode, film, comic strip or book,
–the tales that YOU yourself have personally checked out,
–a mix and match of the above that you’ve cobbled together because they “made sense” in that they were “in character”, something I call “subcon” (subjective continuity),
–or something else?

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/rec.arts.comics.marvel.universe/RPggU0-tkww/7BVkre6dG2AJ

– Ken from Chicago

P.S. “Subcon” (and “Obcon”) defined:

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt.tv.angel/s_NeBHGXq9E/Q4A34IP2BDYJ

I don’t see how following the history of a character prevents any creative person from telling a good story. Comments like “coloring between the lines” really just sounds like the excuse of someone who just doesn’t want to bother to do the work to make the story fit the character he’s writing about, to be honest. Ultimately, egregious lack of continuity throws me out of the story — which is part of my definition of bad storytelling.

My solution is to drop shared universe books when their lack of coordination makes the pebble in the shoe too big. Fortunately, there are folks out there like Kurt Busiek and Erik Larson who create whole mostly-consistent universes within their own books, and provide much of the same excitement I once got from the Marvel Universe and the DC multiverse.

I think continuity, at its core, is simply respecting the contributions made to the character by the writers and artist who came before you. The folks who handled the character before you kept the character around long enough for you to be able to work on it, so doing a story that ignores or repudiates continuity is a minor form of disrespect for those prior creators’ work.

“We tell great stories because that’s all that matters!”

“Oh, but to get this great whole story you need to buy all 58 tie-in issues, and we can’t guarantee there won’t be inconsistencies between some of those parts of the stories, or complete revisions of great stories you hold dear to your heart.”

The balance is this: Great self-contained stories that draw upon the greater shared universe and its rich history. We sure don’t see many of those today from Marvel or DC.

SRS

“Continuity is a wonderful thing, but continuity isn’t more important than the stories themselves–that’s a sure-fire way to get a lot of crummy stories that color within the lines but that few people are interested in.”

Isn’t that exactly what we get, though? All change is superficial or temporary because the characters have to remain in their iconic form. Steve Rogers was always going to be Captain America again because real change can’t happen in comics like this.

I agree that story is king, but the idea that Marvel (and DC) aren’t already coloring within the lines seems off to me.