Heh, my answer was probably pretty disappointing. :p But for what it's worth, I agree with what you said. I think most of the mainline comics are pretty much like soap operas, read 3-6 issues and you'll have a pretty good handle on what's happening. Some are more difficult to get into than others, though, it's true.
That may be why I'm not reading many comics nowadays, and the ones I am reading are fairly non-traditional... I'm tired of reading the latest writer's take on a 40-50-60 year old character.
"That may be why I'm not reading many comics nowadays, and the ones I am reading are fairly non-traditional... I'm tired of reading the latest writer's take on a 40-50-60 year old character."
Interesting. There are certain characters I like enough that I could read them over and over--Spidey and Batman being the top two--in which case I prefer for the writer to stick to the traditional formula, or to do something creative building on the traditional formula. In that instance a writer will lose me if their take on the character departs radically from the character's history, like for instance happened with Spidey during the recent clone saga, IMO. Now that's for characters I'm used to. I guess new series with new characters would be a different category. I prefer for writers with radically new concepts to invent their own characters rather than apply their ideas to traditional ones, if that makes sense.