Searching for coherency

So, i’m attempting to explain what a crossover is in my thesis. This makes sense to me, but I’m not sure someone who hasn’t read comics would get it.

Here’s my description:

…many comics are marketed as “more important” than others, which can boost sales considerably. “Importance” here refers to a narrative quality very particular to comics—it refers to importance within continuity. As mentioned earlier, many comics take place within a shared universe, and, in the course of their narrative, will refer to something that previously happened within that universe. This “consistent backstory” is known as continuity.

Because every comic that takes place within the shared universe is considered “in continuity,” every comic published in that universe adds a small piece of story to the much larger metanarrative of that universe. After years and years of publishing comics, each company’s universe has developed a rich and detailed history that provides a backdrop for every current “in-continuity” comic published. However, this metanarrative is not completely static: in order to help the writers create new situations for the characters that inhabit the universe (“keeping things fresh,” in comic speak), comic companies will have “big events” that promise to radically alter the conditions of these shared universes. These “big events” often involve the characters from multiple books “crossing over” into each others’ stories. Not surprisingly, these stories are called crossovers.

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