About comic continuity: Yes, with long running titles it's almost impossible to escape continuity. That comes with the territory of having been around so long. However, every now and then a series will have a good jumping-on point for new readers. Marvel, for example, is doing their .1 issues with exactly that idea in mind. The only one out so far is Iron Man 500.1, but it did a really good job of highlighting the important parts of Iron Man's past (and in a clever way - Tony Stark was telling his story to an Alcoholics Anonymous group). There are plenty of other examples of this (namely when a series starts over at issue #1). And some writers (like Matt Fraction of the previously mentioned Iron Man), understand that every comic is someone's first, and write considering that.
Then you have newer series popping up that don't have that continuity issue. Sure, these tend to be non-super hero books that don't take place in the Marvel or DC universe, but many of them are really good (and some would argue better).