Historical text from Comxfan:

Eric J. Moreels

Dec 17, 2008, 11:42 pm

Coming from Marvel in March...

OFFICIAL INDEX TO THE MARVEL UNIVERSE #3
Written by VARIOUS

Continuing the chronicle of the Marvel Universe, starting with Spider-Man (from Amazing Spider-Man #113 on), Iron Man (from Iron Man #6 on) and the X-Men (from Uncanny X-Men #126 on). Follow the history of the Marvel universe as it unfolds month by month with the All-New Official Index to the Marvel Universe. Each issue provides synopses for dozens of individual comics, including back-up strips, introducing you to the characters, teams, places and equipment that appeared within, providing vital information about first appearances, where they last showed up and where they appeared next!

64 PGS./Rated A …$3.99




Sidney Osinga

Feb 7, 2009, 02:03 am


I guess it's going to be from Amazing Spider-Man # 103 on, Iron Man # 12 on, and X-Men # 109 on. I suppose that the changes were made because some of the entries in #2 run longer than originally predicted.




Stuart V

Feb 7, 2009, 07:01 am

Sidney Osinga wrote:

I guess it's going to be from Amazing Spider-Man # 103 on, Iron Man # 12 on, and X-Men # 109 on. I suppose that the changes were made because some of the entries in #2 run longer than originally predicted.

Yes. The solicits have to be placed months ahead of time, so they are likely to be somewhat out of sync with the actual starting points, as we reallocate space to fit entries that need to be longer or shorter than originally anticipated.




rplss

Feb 7, 2009, 12:25 pm


The cover should be changed then. The cover to UXM#109 should be replacing #126, Spider-Man #103 replacing #113, etc. You can't print this with the wrong covers! Stop the presses!

I'm a huge fan of UXM#109, one of my very cherished very all-time favorites, so I have to try.

Love,
rplss




Stuart V

Feb 7, 2009, 01:17 pm

rplss wrote:

The cover should be changed then. The cover to UXM#109 should be replacing #126, Spider-Man #103 replacing #113, etc. You can't print this with the wrong covers! Stop the presses!

I'm a huge fan of UXM#109, one of my very cherished very all-time favorites, so I have to try.

Love,
rplss

The covers will reflect the actual contents. The previews covers, like the solicits, are estimates of the starting points.




rplss

Feb 8, 2009, 10:20 pm


Ok so the cover of UXM#109 will be reproduced on the cover!! :cloud9:

Yay! I love that comic so much. Make sure it's placed right in the middle, not at either of the ends where 1 millimeter might be cut off.

Love,
rplss




Sidney Osinga

Mar 5, 2009, 01:35 am


This was scheduled to be out this week, but it wasn't. Anyone have an idea when we'll see it?




Stuart V

Mar 5, 2009, 05:01 am

Sidney Osinga wrote:

This was scheduled to be out this week, but it wasn't. Anyone have an idea when we'll see it?

I believe our editors mentioned it had been bumped back a week.




rplss

Mar 10, 2009, 12:05 am


Yay, UXM #109 made the cover of the index! ME HAPPY!

(I saw a solicit with the correct cover on another site)

I can't describe how awesome this is. My all-time favorite comic made it (albeit through a flukey process involving hundreds of other entries through multiple other titles, rendering the decision nearly random) to the cover of the official index! This is great news!




ToddCam

Mar 11, 2009, 09:35 pm


I'm partway through this, but I have a couple questions.

ASM #113's entry appears to be cut off. How does that sentence end?

In the entry for GSSM #3, it mentions all the Doc Savage characters. That makes me wonder what will be the normal MO for handling non-Marvel owned characters. I am guessing that the licensed ones (like Savage, I assume) will function the same as in the handbooks, but what about crossovers? The only appearance of a character in a regular series like that I can recall is Invincible, in the recent Marvel Team-Up. Then there is stuff like JLA/Avengers.

In IM #19, there is a mention of a Jose Santini. Yet he is not listed in any of the appearances lines. Is there omitted info?

In IM #23, it mentions the only app of the Mercenary. He is given no real name here. Wasn't that recently established somewhere? I think I read it in a handbook.

Thanks!




Stuart V

Mar 11, 2009, 10:24 pm

ToddCam wrote:

I'm partway through this, but I have a couple questions.

ASM #113's entry appears to be cut off. How does that sentence end?

Ack. That's annoying. Thanks for pointing it out - we'll print a correction in a later volume. It should end:
"Spidey finds and dons the harness, using it to beat Ock, even though the harness runs out of power before he’s through. However, Hammerhead and his men arrive and train their guns on him"

ToddCam wrote:

In the entry for GSSM #3, it mentions all the Doc Savage characters. That makes me wonder what will be the normal MO for handling non-Marvel owned characters. I am guessing that the licensed ones (like Savage, I assume) will function the same as in the handbooks, but what about crossovers? The only appearance of a character in a regular series like that I can recall is Invincible, in the recent Marvel Team-Up. Then there is stuff like JLA/Avengers.

As a reference book, we can name non-Marvel licensed characters and show them on the covers - we are simply showing a historical image. I'd imagine that something similar would cover Invincible. As for crossover titles, such as JLA/Avengers, I don't know. Personally I'd like to cover them eventually, but legalities might not allow for this.

ToddCam wrote:

In IM #19, there is a mention of a Jose Santini. Yet he is not listed in any of the appearances lines. Is there omitted info?

Yes. It should say
"Dr. Jose Santini(heart specialist, last in Av #69, ’69, next in Av #146, ‘76, fb), CBS news reporter, "

ToddCam wrote:

In IM #23, it mentions the only app of the Mercenary. He is given no real name here. Wasn't that recently established somewhere? I think I read it in a handbook.

That may be the case, but I don't recall for certain.




Sidney Osinga

Mar 11, 2009, 11:05 pm

I noticed another mistake. In the summery of Amazing Spider-Man #104, it says "Kraven brings Gwen back...". I'm sure it should say Ka-Zar instead of Kraven.

Anyways, here's whats covered:

Amazing Spider-Man #s 103-146
Amazing Spider-Man Special (Annual) #s 6-9
Giant-Size Super-Heroes # 1
Giant-Size Spider-Man #s 1-6
Iron Man # 12-65
X-Men #s 109-150 (Uncanny X-Men #142 on)
X-Man Annual #s 3,4




Sidney Osinga

Mar 14, 2009, 03:35 am


For Uncanny X-Men #142, shouldn't it say that the Wolverine of Earth 881 appears next in Heralds #1?




Stuart V

Mar 14, 2009, 07:50 am

Sidney Osinga wrote:

For Uncanny X-Men #142, shouldn't it say that the Wolverine of Earth 881 appears next in Heralds #1?

No. We see his corpse again, so that brief appearance slots in between Uncanny #142 and Heralds #1.




ToddCam

Mar 14, 2009, 11:01 am


Cyclops is not listed as appearing in UXM #145.




Rob London

Mar 14, 2009, 03:49 pm

Another small error - in the entry for ASM #142, it says that Daniel Berkhart next appears in ASM (v2) #8, but he actually appeared several years before that, in Spectacular Spider-Man #241, as Mad Jack.




Stuart V

Mar 14, 2009, 05:05 pm


Apologies folks. It appears some of our proofers were asleep for issue 3.




Andy E. Nystrom

Mar 14, 2009, 09:56 pm

Unfortunately my copy of Marvels is currently lent out, but I think Phil Sheldon makes his first appearance in Amazing Spider-Man#122 as an unidentified bystander. If memory serves, page 5 panel 3 is reproduced in Marvels is such a way as to show that the 4th bystander from the left is Sheldon.




Sidney Osinga

Mar 15, 2009, 01:01 am

Andy E. Nystrom wrote:

Unfortunately my copy of Marvels is currently lent out, but I think Phil Sheldon makes his first appearance in Amazing Spider-Man#122 as an unidentified bystander. If memory serves, page 5 panel 3 is reproduced in Marvels is such a way as to show that the 4th bystander from the left is Sheldon.

Yes, that's true. Alex Ross has said that he did copy that scene for Marvels and put Sheldon in the place of the character that most looked like him.




ToddCam

Mar 15, 2009, 02:35 pm

Stuart V wrote:

Apologies folks. It appears some of our proofers were asleep for issue 3.

Hey, no apologies necessary. With such a vast amount of information, there being so few errors is amazing. I truly appreciate the hard work!

And, BTW, the Mercenary's real name is Archibald Tuskwin, established in the OHMU HC #2 ('08), in the entry for the Controller. (I remembered that it had been discussed on this board somewhere, and did a search, and discovered it.)




Michael Regan

Mar 15, 2009, 02:51 pm

Sidney Osinga wrote:

Yes, that's true. Alex Ross has said that he did copy that scene for Marvels and put Sheldon in the place of the character that most looked like him.

So, is this a confirmed first appearance (cameo) or simply Alex Ross having fun?




Sidney Osinga

Mar 16, 2009, 01:14 am

Michael Regan wrote:

So, is this a confirmed first appearance (cameo) or simply Alex Ross having fun?

In my opinion, it's the later, which is the reason I didn't bring it up in the first place. However, the argument can be made that Sheldon was retconned into the book. This is a subject that needs an official ruling.




Andy E. Nystrom

Mar 16, 2009, 12:51 pm

Sidney Osinga wrote:

In my opinion, it's the later, which is the reason I didn't bring it up in the first place. However, the argument can be made that Sheldon was retconned into the book. This is a subject that needs an official ruling.

I see it as the former myself, with a bit of the latter mixed in as well (the two aren't mutually exclusive). Marvels#4 establishes that Phil Sheldon was clearly present at the events of Amazing Spider-Man#121-122, and the figure in ASM#122 does bear a resemblance to Sheldon. If we argue that the other panels in that sequence are valid but that one panel is just a gag panel, then where is he positioned in relation to ASM 121-122?

And let's reverse the quesiton around: is there any reason why that figure is not Phil? Unlike Li'l Petey/Henry Peter Gyrich, where there's only a loose connection in print between the two characters, in Marvels the connection in print is more tangible. I would argue that where there's a tangible connection, best to go the route that is the most fun.

Finally, since Marvels is about the Marvel world being seen from an ordinary person, and since Marvel has a long tradition of ordinary people in crowd shots reacting to larger than life characters and events, it seems entirely reasonable to me that an ordinary person in a crowd shot would later prove to be Marvels' narrator. Arguably every person in a crowd shot has a life story to tell that we normally don't see; Marvels is about one such person being permitted to tell their story.




Stuart V

Mar 16, 2009, 02:24 pm

Michael Regan wrote:

So, is this a confirmed first appearance (cameo) or simply Alex Ross having fun?

It's a retconned first app. Not the first such to happen - Mysterio falls into the same category.




Sidney Osinga

Mar 16, 2009, 07:08 pm

Stuart V wrote:

It's a retconned first app. Not the first such to happen - Mysterio falls into the same category.

There we go, an official ruling. It was his first appearance. Therefore, he should have been included.




Stuart V

Mar 16, 2009, 10:27 pm

Sidney Osinga wrote:

There we go, an official ruling. It was his first appearance. Therefore, he should have been included.

Yes. That was a retcon appearance we missed. Unfortunate, but those kind of connections are the hardest to keep track of, as you aren't just getting info from the issue you are indexing, but having to remember later revelations in other titles that link back to it.




Andy E. Nystrom

Mar 16, 2009, 10:31 pm

Stuart V wrote:

Yes. That was a retcon appearance we missed. Unfortunate, but those kind of connections are the hardest to keep track of, as you aren't just getting info from the issue you are indexing, but having to remember later revelations in other titles that link back to it.

And of course it was a single panel appearance with others in the crowd, which makes him even easier to overlook. Glad that it's officially considered the case now. You can probably stump a lot of comic fans in trivia contests with this.




Andy E. Nystrom

Mar 16, 2009, 10:33 pm

Stuart V wrote:

It's a retconned first app. Not the first such to happen - Mysterio falls into the same category.

Also the Absorbing Man and probably Misty Knight.




Stuart V

Mar 17, 2009, 12:30 am

Andy E. Nystrom wrote:

Also the Absorbing Man and probably Misty Knight.

Misty not quite, as we didn't see her, just learned she'd been around behind the scenes when Osborn's body was found. So there's no actual appearance.




Andy E. Nystrom

Mar 17, 2009, 12:53 pm

Stuart V wrote:

Misty not quite, as we didn't see her, just learned she'd been around behind the scenes when Osborn's body was found. So there's no actual appearance.

Actually we're talking about two different things. I hadn't even realized that she'd gotten caught up in the Osborn mess or hinted as such. I still think bring Osborn back from the dead was a mistake as he was more dangerous as a legacy than as a human being, so I don't plan to read any story connected to his return. I can't really avoid him since that time but I can avoid reading the return story.

What I meant was that for a time there was a question of whether the unnamed cop in Marvel Team-Up#1 was her or not, whereas nowadays it's generally considered to be her.




WOLVERINE25TH

Mar 20, 2009, 12:18 pm


ASM 142, my bad there. Unfortunately our sources for chronology info aren't as 100% accurate as we'd like to hope. That's something we're watching closer for the next issues.




golden_guardian

Mar 20, 2009, 10:28 pm


First, I want to say how much I love these Indexes. It takes a lot of work to put these together and you guys are doing a great job. If it gets canceled, I will cry. Seriously.

Question: I noticed Wolverine First Class wasn't in any of the chronologies. Is this not in continuity? I was under the impression that it was.




Stuart V

Mar 20, 2009, 11:49 pm

golden_guardian wrote:

First, I want to say how much I love these Indexes. It takes a lot of work to put these together and you guys are doing a great job. If it gets canceled, I will cry. Seriously.

Question: I noticed Wolverine First Class wasn't in any of the chronologies. Is this not in continuity? I was under the impression that it was.

Read the other threads - answer is there. Short version - it's been decided to leave them out the chronologies until we get in-story confirmation one way or the other.




Norman Rocks

Jul 7, 2010, 04:11 pm


Guest Star: Human Torch ( next in FF #180, '73) should be FF #140, '73.




Stuart V

Jul 31, 2010, 08:25 pm

Norman Rocks wrote:

Guest Star: Human Torch ( next in FF #180, '73) should be FF #140, '73.

Thanks for pointing this out.