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5/07/2023 7:29 am  #181


Re: Things people keep getting wrong (Round 2) redux

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.

 

5/07/2023 7:48 am  #182


Re: Things people keep getting wrong (Round 2) redux

Pinball_Lizard wrote:

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.

Short answer: No. There's no official rate. 

One Marvel year to four real years roughly works, but though nothing has been specifically said, it does seem that Marvel is reluctant to let Spidey leave his twenties, so it's possible we might see that unofficially slip into one to five. But since there's no mandated rate agreed on at Marvel, it'll always be a bit messy, since different writers will handle it differently, which is why some young characters seem to grow up really quickly while others never seem to get noticeably older.

 

5/07/2023 7:49 am  #183


Re: Things people keep getting wrong (Round 2) redux

Thank you!

 

5/07/2023 7:53 am  #184


Re: Things people keep getting wrong (Round 2) redux

I was about to post something similar:

I doubt Marvel will ever pin this down, in part to allow for inconsistencies. Kid characters (Julie Power, Cassie Lang) seem to eventually have growth spurts that make late teens/young adults but at the same time there's an effort not to age older characters out of the period that makes them who they are (Spider-Man), while other characters like the FF you want to make sure you don't age them beyond the point that they are still viable main characters. Mind you come to think of it, Mr. Fantastic with arthritis would probably open up some plot possibilities.


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5/07/2023 9:12 am  #185


Re: Things people keep getting wrong (Round 2) redux

 

5/07/2023 11:17 am  #186


Re: Things people keep getting wrong (Round 2) redux

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?

 

5/07/2023 11:33 am  #187


Re: Things people keep getting wrong (Round 2) redux

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).

 

5/07/2023 2:11 pm  #188


Re: Things people keep getting wrong (Round 2) redux

I'm not sure if this site is the originator of the Franklin theory, but it may to be the most prominent exponent of it:
https://www.tedagame.com/zak-site/Great-American-Novel/

 

5/07/2023 2:46 pm  #189


Re: Things people keep getting wrong (Round 2) redux

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)

 

5/07/2023 2:58 pm  #190


Re: Things people keep getting wrong (Round 2) redux

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.

 

5/07/2023 3:06 pm  #191


Re: Things people keep getting wrong (Round 2) redux

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.

 

5/07/2023 5:57 pm  #192


Re: Things people keep getting wrong (Round 2) redux

I'm definitely a big proponent of the Richards theory, as long it's it's only being done subconsciously. I don't see that sort of thing as something he'd do consciously. Event resets also works.

I know some writers aren't entirely fans of the floating timeline idea. Kurt Busiek actually wanted the J. Jonah Jameson-like character in Marvels #1 to be J. Jonah. But now he'd be about 100 if that was really him.
 


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5/08/2023 12:51 am  #193


Re: Things people keep getting wrong (Round 2) redux

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. 

 

5/08/2023 12:54 am  #194


Re: Things people keep getting wrong (Round 2) redux

Andy E. Nystrom wrote:

I'm definitely a big proponent of the Richards theory, as long it's it's only being done subconsciously. I don't see that sort of thing as something he'd do consciously. Event resets also works.

I know some writers aren't entirely fans of the floating timeline idea. Kurt Busiek actually wanted the J. Jonah Jameson-like character in Marvels #1 to be J. Jonah. But now he'd be about 100 if that was really him.
 

Which is why we went with him being the similarly named and lookalike Walter Jameson, taking advantage of a comment made by the wife of a late Daily Bugle reporter in one of Alan Moore's Night Raven stories, who mentions that her husband worked for the previous editor named Jameson, not the current one. That provided the opening to explain away all the 1930s/1940s Jameson appearances, not just the Marvels' one.

 

5/08/2023 9:39 am  #195


Re: Things people keep getting wrong (Round 2) redux

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".

 

5/08/2023 12:23 pm  #196


Re: Things people keep getting wrong (Round 2) redux

zuckyd1 wrote:

Loki wrote:

zuckyd1 wrote:


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.  

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.

Ah, gotcha. It still probably depends on the fanon. Stuff like confirming a fan theory such as the "young Peter Parker in Iron Man 2" is fairly innocuous, and I know the Highlander creators were very involved with their fandom (one of my friends, sadly passed away now, was so heavily involved in Highlander fandom that she even had a cameo in the episode where Duncan returned to Scotland). And writers who are the sole creators/contributors to a given universe can obviously adopt any fanon they want. On the other hand, using the name of a character introduced in fanfic into the "canonical" version of things, as in the Phasma example you mention, strikes me as potentially risky, leaving an opening for lawsuits; what might be considered by Lucasfilm as a nice gesture to a fan could become less so if the fanfic writer starts demanding their share of the toy sale revenue for Phasma figures. The other instance where I am less fond of fanon being canonised is in shared universes, where a writer adopts fanon, either because they didn't realise it was unofficial or because they just thought it would be cool, that contradicts established continuity. Though that's more to do with my general dislike of messing up continuity than fanon, per se. 

 

5/08/2023 12:58 pm  #197


Re: Things people keep getting wrong (Round 2) redux

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.

 

5/08/2023 2:22 pm  #198


Re: Things people keep getting wrong (Round 2) redux

zuckyd1 wrote:

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.

Though the circumstances were unrelated to fanon, the case of Charcoal sprang to mind. 

 

5/19/2023 7:47 pm  #199


Re: Things people keep getting wrong (Round 2) redux

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.
 


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6/25/2023 8:34 am  #200


Re: Things people keep getting wrong (Round 2) redux

From a quiz on marvel.com:

 

1/06/2024 11:11 am  #201


Re: Things people keep getting wrong (Round 2) redux

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?

 

1/11/2024 4:28 pm  #202


Re: Things people keep getting wrong (Round 2) redux

Andy E. Nystrom wrote:

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.
 

Agreed on both counts. And I do like your caveat "barring any older characters using the name being unearthed", something way too many "xxx is the first yyy" statements fail to make. 
 

 

1/11/2024 4:29 pm  #203


Re: Things people keep getting wrong (Round 2) redux

zuckyd1 wrote:

From a quiz on marvel.com:

Sigh. TRN. Blech.

 

1/11/2024 4:45 pm  #204


Re: Things people keep getting wrong (Round 2) redux

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.

 

1/11/2024 5:30 pm  #205


Re: Things people keep getting wrong (Round 2) redux

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!

 

1/12/2024 11:04 am  #206


Re: Things people keep getting wrong (Round 2) redux

Pinball_Lizard wrote:

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!

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.

 

1/12/2024 12:44 pm  #207


Re: Things people keep getting wrong (Round 2) redux

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.

 

1/12/2024 1:10 pm  #208


Re: Things people keep getting wrong (Round 2) redux

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.


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1/12/2024 5:07 pm  #209


Re: Things people keep getting wrong (Round 2) redux

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. 

 

1/17/2024 7:40 pm  #210


Re: Things people keep getting wrong (Round 2) redux

Incorrect: Drax's soul was in Adam Warlock's Soul Gem along with Adam, Gamora, and Pip's, and he was reborn along with them.
Correct: Drax died after the other three, his soul was in the realm of the dead, and he was reborn earlier when Thanos was unstatued. I saw this in Infinity Countdown: Adam Warlock.
 

 

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