An ongoing issue for any fan (or creator) of serial fiction is continuity and keeping things interesting in the face of an existing body of work. It's as true with comic books as it is with wrestling.

Speaking of Flair, his "appearance" a few weeks ago as a "co-owner" of the WWF exhausts me. When, oh, Kurt Busiek or Fabian Nicieza or Christopher Priest digs up some half-forgotten character, brings 'em to the forefront, makes 'em cool and lets 'em fade, that's good stuff. However, running on fumes creatively, digging up yesterday's headliners and having them do the same routine and gags they did fifteen years ago...

Danse Macabre Studios' Vince Moore talked to me once about how DC loves the "reboot" button, from Crisis to Zero Hour and so on. (Moore worked for several years at Comics Ink, Spinner Rack's favorite L.A. area comics store, and took the time to sit and read.) DC just keeps moving forward Superman's debut through the years to keep its universe fresh. By the same token, how many people were stunned when they realized the Undertaker had been wrestling eleven years? How about clips from Wrestlemania I showing a Vince McMahon who could easily fit inside the current extra-wide incarnation? It's a lot harder to press "restart" when people really age, and not well in some cases.

So in comics, you can bring back, say, Colleen Wing and she can look great and nobody will bat an eye. Drag out Pete Ross' corn-fed self (not his televised African American version) and it's all good. Take a good, hard look at how Ric Flair has failed to age gracefully. Try to keep from averting your eyes when you gaze upon Diamond Dallas Page. And for god's sake, don't let them drag out the octogenarian former Women's Champion from the days of Vince's daddy.

It's not as though there's not a wealth of live, relatively fresh and usable talent. Rob Van Dam is amusing but a one-trick pony who needs some work. Billy Gunn coulda been a contender. The Hurricane was chock fulla room for character development, and his new "secret identity" was all too short-lived. MTV Tough Enough winner Maven seems to have been shipped and signed for, sans any form of personality whatsoever. In these maddening times, the APA's "protection agency" should be busier than a backside in a rumpshaker contest.

This is not to advocate the senselessly slipshod concepts of time in comic books. Ben Grimm, Nick Fury and Reed Richards could simply not have served in WWII at this point in continuity, short of liquidating every comics fan over the age of 14. That would be wrong. This is to say that making people see Vince McMahon's ass is wrong under almost any circumstance, unless you have been convicted of a crime or are married to him. This is to say that anybody over the age of, oh, 42 should probably know better and move into a management or announcing position with the organization (who the hell is Coach?). This is to say that Stone Cold Steve Austin's rapid-fire changes of allegiance need to be spaced out more, that Kurt Angle needs to settle on "loveable goofball" or "ferocious grappler" as a personality and stick with it and that nobody has ever cared about who's better, Torie Wilson or Stacey Kiebler, as long as they keep dressing like video whores.

Think through some things. Plan for the long term. Take continuity into consideration, while understanding how to balance it with new fans. In short, I ask of wrestling what I ask of comic books:

Entertain me. Consistently.

NOTE: Hannibal will, in the interests of full disclosure, note that he's chasing down a contact in the world of wrestling to get a gig helping craft the messages he's been complaining about, and if this column hurts those chances, hey, life's rough.