Is there an "official" rate for Marvel's floating timeline relative to the real world? What I always used to hear was four real years equals one Marvel year, but I can't recall a primary source for that, hence why I'm bringing it to this topic.

Thank you!

Pinball_Lizard wrote:

Another floating timeline question: in my younger, foolish days on CBR, I used to see people saying of the floating timeline, especially people who didn't like it and wanted real-time stories, say that it's been implied that Franklin Richards is causing it. Nobody ever cited a specific story for this; the most I was able to pick up was "probably something from the 90s."

Does this implication actually exist, or is it just blowing smoke?

I've heard the same supposition too, and from one standpoint it kind of would make sense, as the early 60s didn't show signs of the sliding timeline; for example, Peter Parker graduated high school in more or less real world time. Franklin's birth more or less heralded the need for the timeline to slow down, as otherwise he'd have grown up too fast (bizarrely, long running TV shows often do the opposite - if a baby is born they tend to rapidly age them up as infants make for both terrible actors and story devices of limited scope), plus if anyone was going to have the power to detach multiple people from the timeline so that Earth moves along normally but all the characters starring in the comics don't, it would be him. However, afaik, it's only ever been a supposition. Not sure where it originated, and it's entirely possible that sooner or later a writer will slip confirmation into a story, if only because writers have a track record of mixing up the difference between confirmed in comics canon and popular internet theories (e.g. errors).

I feel like a lot of the anti-floating timeline people from CBR must've been at least familiar with that site, if not actually involved with it; I remember "realism" being a big talking point in such topics, which is something the site is a proponent of as well.

Last edited by Pinball_Lizard (5/07/2023 2:47 pm)

Pinball_Lizard wrote:

I feel like a lot of the anti-floating timeline people from CBR must've been at least familiar with that site, if not actually involved with it; I remember "realism" being a big talking point in such topics, which is something the site is a proponent of as well.

Yeah, we had some interesting discussions about the floating timeline on the Complete Marvel Reading Order forum a few years ago.
One of my pet theories is that every time the Marvel universe "resets" itself—after events like Sise-Neg, House of M, etc., not everything resets exactly the way it was before and so time can get shifted a little.

zuckyd1 wrote:

Loki wrote:

writers have a track record of mixing up the difference between confirmed in comics canon and popular internet theories (e.g. errors).

What are your thoughts on Ascended Fanon? I have no problem with it when it's done deliberately. I think it can be kind of cool actually.

It really depends on the why and how of the particular cases. Like everyone, I have my own pet theories about stuff, and if I were to write stories I'd likely work some of them in. And lots of pro-writers do so, admitting to having come up with ideas when they were young fans and then used them once they became pros. Where I dislike it is when it either comes about accidentally because of misreading/misremembering past stories, or when it is done in contradiction to past stories. Note that the latter can be done well - e.g. the effort is made to explain the apparent contradictions. I'll give examples below:

Misrecalling past stories: In his first appearance Kenneth Crichton ceded his chance to inherit the mantle of Union Jack, previously passed down in his family, to his college friend Joe Chapman, because Joe was a better fighter and so had a better chance of surviving against Baron Blood. Note that Kenneth knew this was because he and Joe were on the same college wrestling team, and Kenneth didn't say he ceded the role because he was sickly (being on a wrestling team would suggest he wasn't) nor that he was a weak or bad fighter - just that Joe was stronger. However, the 1990s Union Jack miniseries revealed that Kenneth was dying from a rare blood disorder and had been sickly and weak all his life. It seems very much like the writer of said series misremembered Kenneth's reason for passing on the role of Union Jack. 

Example of well handled Ascended fanon retcons: Avengers Forever by Kurt Busiek, where he happily fixed via deliberate retcons many flaws in past stories, but always with an explanation of why we'd misunderstood what we'd seen previously. 

Loki wrote:

zuckyd1 wrote:

Loki wrote:

writers have a track record of mixing up the difference between confirmed in comics canon and popular internet theories (e.g. errors).

What are your thoughts on Ascended Fanon? I have no problem with it when it's done deliberately. I think it can be kind of cool actually.

It really depends on the why and how of the particular cases. Like everyone, I have my own pet theories about stuff, and if I were to write stories I'd likely work some of them in. And lots of pro-writers do so, admitting to having come up with ideas when they were young fans and then used them once they became pros. Where I dislike it is when it either comes about accidentally because of misreading/misremembering past stories, or when it is done in contradiction to past stories. Note that the latter can be done well - e.g. the effort is made to explain the apparent contradictions. I'll give examples below:

Misrecalling past stories: In his first appearance Kenneth Crichton ceded his chance to inherit the mantle of Union Jack, previously passed down in his family, to his college friend Joe Chapman, because Joe was a better fighter and so had a better chance of surviving against Baron Blood. Note that Kenneth knew this was because he and Joe were on the same college wrestling team, and Kenneth didn't say he ceded the role because he was sickly (being on a wrestling team would suggest he wasn't) nor that he was a weak or bad fighter - just that Joe was stronger. However, the 1990s Union Jack miniseries revealed that Kenneth was dying from a rare blood disorder and had been sickly and weak all his life. It seems very much like the writer of said series misremembered Kenneth's reason for passing on the role of Union Jack. 

Example of well handled Ascended fanon retcons: Avengers Forever by Kurt Busiek, where he happily fixed via deliberate retcons many flaws in past stories, but always with an explanation of why we'd misunderstood what we'd seen previously. 

I was referring not so much to professional writers who insert their OWN pet theories into their stories or try to retcon past errors (both of which I think are natural parts of being a writer), but rather when a writer deliberately adopts OTHER fans’ nicknames/theories/etc, not under some mistaken idea that those ideas are already canon, but simply because they like what the fans came up with and/or as a means of acknowledging the community.

Some examples, according to TVTropes:

• After The Avengers (2012) came out, fans coined the term "Science Bros." to describe the friendship between Tony Stark and Bruce Banner. The term was later used in solicitations for the Avengers Assemble comic book before officially making its way into canonicity in Original Sin: Hulk vs. Iron Man #1.
• When Flash Thompson gained a hold of the Venom symbiote, the fact that he was acting in a spy-like manner and a soldier would lead fans to call him "Agent Venom". When Flash joined the Secret Avengers, the name became canonical.
• Frozen: A fan sent [writer/co-director) Jennifer Lee a tweet saying that the fans had been calling Hans' horse "Lemon". She liked the idea and named the horse the Norwegian equivalent, "Sitron".
• The LEGO Movie features several characters referring to LEGO pieces by their Fan Nicknames, such as a 3063 Brick, Round Corner 2x2 being called a "macaroni brick."
• DC Extended Universe: The idea that Calvin Swanwick (Harry Lennix) was secretly the Martian Manhunter originally started as a fan theory all the way back to Man of Steel. Zack Snyder liked it enough to canonize it in Zack Snyder's Justice League.
• MCU: On June 26, 2017, both Kevin Feige and Tom Holland confirmed a popular fan theory, that the kid in the toy Iron Man helmet whom Tony saved from one of Justin Hammer's out of control military drones in Iron Man 2 was in fact Peter Parker.
• Star Wars: Long before The Force Awakens, the name Captain Phasma existed way before Disney registered the trademark for the name, in the fan fiction Tarkin's Fist published in 2009, Phasma was the 10-year-old daughter of an Imperial Admiral. Her name was eventually adopted by Lucasfilm for the commander of the First Order Stormtroopers, and she was geared with a chrome Stormtrooper armor originally designed for Kylo Ren.
• Harry Potter: Near the end of Deathly Hallows, a singing Peeves uses the name "Voldy" to refer to Voldemort. The fandom invented this dismissive name: Rowling said on her official site that she "thought it was very amusing when [she] found a chat room full of people calling him 'Voldy'." Examples of other terms that originated in fandom discussions, later to be adopted by Rowling herself and used in the last two books, include DADA (for Defense against the Dark Arts), the Trio (for Harry, Ron and Hermione) and the Marauders (for Peter Pettigrew, Remus Lupin, Sirius Black and James Potter; note that although their Marauders' Map is introduced by Rowling in Book Three, they were first collectively called "the Marauders" by the fans).
• Highlander: The city where the North American half of Highlander takes place in was officially named Seacouver after fans began using the name to refer to the previously unnamed city.
• Stargate SG-1: The well-known, but largely insignificant, character of Walter Heriman got his name through this. He originally had no name at all in the script and was never addressed by name on screen, but in an early episode when General Hammond referred to him as "Airman" (a member of the Air Force) fans misheard it as Heriman and took it to be his last name, the writers caught on and it soon became official. 
• My Little Pony: The official pony trading cards refer to the mayor of Ponyville as "Mayor Mare", a Fan Nickname that had been used by the fans since the character's introduction.
• Fans of the Ace Combat series had long referred to the games' setting (an alternate version of Earth populated by fictional nations and cultures) as "Strangereal", derived from the teaser trailer for Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies referring to the setting as "This strange, real world." The nickname didn't become official until it was used for the official marketing campaign for Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown, with the creative team promising fans that the game would allow them to "return to Strangereal".

Well I think we can both agree that introducing ideas that contradict established continuity is bad, regardless of where those ideas originate!
The legal angle is interesting; I never considered that.

Incorrect: Marvel Comics' first Spider-Woman was Jessica Drew
Truth: Barring any older characters using the name being unearthed, Marvel's first Spider-Woman appears to be Valerie the Librarian, in Spidey Super-Stories #11.

Incorrect: Marvel could use the Valerie the Librarian version of Spider-Woman character again if they really wanted to (suggested in at least two articles).
Truth: While Marvel owns the Spider-Woman code name, Valerie out of costume was a recurring character created for the Electric Company and is thus not owned by Marvel.
 

Been thinking about Destiny's family due to certain recent events and remembered her grandson Trevor Chase, who was a sort of "living MacGuffin" in Howard Mackie's X-Factor. Specifically, Marvel Wikia/Fandom says X-Factor eventually rescued him from his captors, but other sources say that plot thread was dropped.

Is there an actual source for his rescue, like maybe a Handbook or small appearance entry I overlooked?

zuckyd1 wrote:

From a quiz on marvel.com:

Sigh. TRN. Blech.

Loki wrote:

Pinball_Lizard wrote:

Been thinking about Destiny's family due to certain recent events and remembered her grandson Trevor Chase, who was a sort of "living MacGuffin" in Howard Mackie's X-Factor. Specifically, Marvel Wikia/Fandom says X-Factor eventually rescued him from his captors, but other sources say that plot thread was dropped.

Is there an actual source for his rescue, like maybe a Handbook or small appearance entry I overlooked?

Hmm. Nothing I recall offhand. I'll ask the other handbook writers.

Thanks! Good to hear from you!

Loki wrote:

Pinball_Lizard wrote:

Loki wrote:

Hmm. Nothing I recall offhand. I'll ask the other handbook writers.

Thanks! Good to hear from you!

Slight update from handbook writer Markus Ettlinger: 
Still missing according to the letters page in X-Factor I#149, the final issue of the original X-Factor run.

Me: Obviously that doesn't mean his rescue wasn't confirmed anywhere else, but it seems less likely. No handbook entry mentions him at all as far as I can tell, bar of course Destiny's entry listing him as a relative.

Thanks. Those Fandom Wikis really are unreliable.

Andy E. Nystrom wrote:

Pinball_Lizard wrote:

Thanks. Those Fandom Wikis really are unreliable.

When making clues for the Collage games, I'll sometimes do a search and see if someone is based on comics. Sometimes they do hit upon an interesting connection to a comics character even when they have a different name, but other times I find myself thinking that it's a serious reach to claim that a character from a show or movie is a version of a particular often minor comics character.

That's the nature of any wiki. Their main strength is also their main weakness. Since anyone can contribute, sometimes the combined observations and knowledge pick up on things that might otherwise be overlooked. The trouble is, every contributor has (mostly) equal ability to modify pages, and by the very definition of expert, experts on a given topic are massively outnumbered by the non-experts. Really obvious vandalism is likely to be quickly spotted, at least on heavily trafficked pages, but subtle examples of deliberate misinformation, as well as plain old errors and massive assumptions, can go unchallenged for literally years.