[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by Jadon

I've no doubt encountered it in books, but since I don't memorize books, I couldn't tell you when. The only example recent enough for me to recall comes from comics, where a character enters a morgue and starts a "did X kill Y because of..." speech and I'm left wondering how the corpse got there. Had to track down a four-episode side-series to fill that in. I do think they could do a "previously on our show" bit to provide enough background to follow the current work even if you haven't been fanatical about reading every side-work.

I will second this about comics. It is very common for events that occur in other comics to have an impact on the series that you are reading.

The scene with Crispus Allen (the corpse) was from "Infinite Crisis" and leads to him becoming the new Spectre. To get the full story you had to be a regular reader of monthly series "Gotham Central" (which provides the back story on who shot Allen and why) and also the four-issue miniseries "Day Of Vengeance." To the casual reader Allen becoming The Spectre was a surprise considering the setup in the other series (where it appeared to be so obvious who would become the new Spectre).

In the current DC big event, "The Blackest Night," besides the main miniseries you have to read both "Green Lantern" and "Green Lantern Corps" along as many miniseries which shows the impact of "The Blackest Night" on other characters (such as Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman). Added to this are many series "brought back from the dead" (such as "The Phantom Stranger" and "Catwoman" which had been cancelled) for a single issue.