I'm updating the listing at https://cmro.travis-starnes.com. Is this Captain Scotland's first and only appearance?

I think this points to one thing to remember about comics storytelling: especially if they have dialogue or perform some significant action, identify the characters by dialogue or captions. I'm not singling out any one writer here, but there's been times when I've been reading a comic and felt that to understand what was going on I should know who someone is for the story to work but didn't. I get in this case Captain Scotland probably wasn't a big player in that story, but the resulting confusion some people had there reminded me of a larger problem in comics storytelling (at least in my mind).

I've just watched The New Mutants movie (don't worry, I was socially distanced - there were only three people in the cinema including me). The following bit isn't spoilery imo - I've deliberately avoided saying anything that I think amounts to being an actual spoiler, but for the sake of those who want to avoid anything even vaguely spoilery, I'll put things into spoiler tags until I get to the "thing that people keep getting wrong."

Personally, I don't think it's the disaster some thought it would be; there's some good stuff in there (the visualizations of the main threat, and the depiction of the characters' powers, for example), the acting is fine, there are a few nice nods to the other X-Men movies (some more subtle than others), and the script is...okay. No outright terrible bits like the stuff that plagued the first two Wolverine movies, both Dark Phoenix movies, and Apocalypse, but nothing that makes you go "Woah!" either. But why am I mentioning this here, in the "Things People Keep Getting Wrong" thread, rather than as a movie review? Because it also showcased one of the common errors I've previously overlooked. 

There are some continuity issues - I know that it's not the comics, so they can change things, but I still wince every time a movie changes continuity for no good reason. If it serves the story, fair enough, but if it's just change for change's sake, or because the movie maker apparently doesn't understand the source material, that annoys. There's some stuff I won't mention, because it amounts to potential spoilers, but there are some I feel safe to mention. I think anyone who has seen the cast listing knows they didn't cast black actors to play two characters that are black in the comics. Not fond of that, though I suspect one of those was perhaps because they were trying to match the established continuity of the previous movies, which had already changed the appearance - I'll explain why in another post properly reviewing the movie, with spoiler tags. But that's not the one I want to mention here, which is:

Common error: Rahne Sinclair is a devout Catholic.
Truth: Rahne Sinclair is a devout Protestant, specifically a Scots Presbytarian. 

Rahne's specific denomination was revealed in New Mutants I#12. And it's noteworthy that depicting her as Catholic is a big error, given how far from Catholic her actual denomination makes her, as evidenced by what Reverend Craig told her about Catholicism:

So to see websites and even comics and films depict her as Catholic is irksome. 

Just to be fair, a lot of the story depicts a good understanding of the characters and their comics' continuity, which only makes the times they veer from those more noticable.

Andy E. Nystrom wrote:

I only glossed over the last post because I'm waiting for now to watch New Mutants (due to the virus not keen on going to a theatre), but on the topic of movies,  to follow up on a previous question, are you also tracking in your summaries at the start of the thread things people get wrong about Marvel movies and shows, or just things people get wrong about Marvel comic stories? Because most people don't pause movies and shows while they watch, people sometimes miss details or fill in incorrect details.

I am happy to track things people get wrong in the movies and shows, though obviously because the movies and shows are outside 616 continuity, some things are not so much wrong as just the different continuity of the movies or shows. That said, some of those things that differ are unintentional, and caused by the common errors I've listed. I doubt the makers of the Captain America: First Avenger movie actively chose to give Steve Rogers a different real name from the comics version, or spell the Red Skull's real name differently from the correct comics spelling. Instead they assumed what was an error in comics (Steven Grant Rogers rather than the correct Steven Rogers, Johann Schmidt rather than the correct Johann Shmidt) was correct, and made it the correct version for the movies.

That said, now that you mention it, there is one "things people keep getting wrong" regarding the movies that springs to mind, and which appears to be perpetuated across the various wikis.

False: The not yet-gamma powered "Doc" Leonard Samson appeared in The Incredible Hulk movie.
Truth: We've yet to meet the MCU's Leonard Samson. 

This is a very understandable one. In The Incredible Hulk we met Leonard, psychotherapist boyfriend of Betty Ross. A psychotherapist called Leonard associated with the Hulk has to be the future Doc Samson, right? But when it came to the Guidebook of the Marvel Cinematic Universe that covered that movie, we were told he wasn't Doc Samson. Note that the movie only refers to him by his first name. Presumably the plan had to been that if the first MCU Hulk movie had been more successful and spawned sequels, then Leonard might have been revealed as Doc Samson down the line, but when that plan was dropped, a decision had been made to keep the options open for how to use/introduce Doc Samson down the line by no longer tying him to Betty's boyfriend of similar name and profession. 

One more, though this one may be a case of who do you believe.

[Probably] Incorrect: Bruce Banner's name was changed to David because CBS thought Bruce sounded too gay.
[Probably] Correct: The name change was done to avoid the comics trope of alliteration.

Now both Stan Lee and Lou Ferrigno have claimed the former while showrunner Kenneth Johnson has claimed the latter. Lee had a notoriously bad memory and Ferrigno may not have been privy to things going on in the executive level. However, Johnson as the showrunner would definitely have known if there was any validity to the "too gay" claimed and he's denied that claim, so I'm more inclined to believe the latter. He also wanted to make the Hulk red so he was certainly not shy about moving things away from the comics without any push from CBS.

Pinball_Lizard wrote:

Not sure if this is a "things people KEEP getting wrong" question, but it is a question about the accuracy of fan site claims. So, in X-Men #71 and #73 in 1998 (Joe Kelly's run), Sebastian Shaw is shown plotting something with a mysterious person he addresses as the "wraith," and like many '90s plots about enigmatic characters, this ended up going nowhere. Now both the Marvel Appendix and Marvel Wikia state that, according to comics historian Paul O'Brien, this was probably intended to be Shadow King (who does in fact show up a few issues later in the same run)... but neither provides a link to the primary source.

So, is this attribution accurate?

The Official Uncanny X-Men Index confirms that Shadow King appears bts in X-Men #71.

I'm glad you asked even though the info proved to be accurate. Misinformation spreads like wildfire on the Internet, so it's always good when people check before bad info spreads too far.

Pinball_Lizard wrote:

Well thanks! Now here's a question about an issue where the Appendix and Wikia directly contradict each other. In Weinberg's run on Cable, we meet a mutant hacker named Key, who assists the title character against the Undying. He is later mentioned in New Avengers as one of the mutants whose powers were absorbed by Weapon Omega. Later, in the Marvel Comics Presents story arc starring Omega, we see him "conversing" with the mutants in his head, among them being a guy called Key, who has the exact dame codename and powers as the Cable character, but looks completely different.

The Wikia claims these two are the same guy, but the Appendix says they're different. I'd normally happily side with Appendix over the Wikia, considering it's staffed by people who have worked for Marvel, but that seems like an Occam's Razor violation.

Is there any info on who is correct?

The Chronology Project also considers them to be the same person.

Loki wrote:

Pinball_Lizard wrote:

Well thanks! Now here's a question about an issue where the Appendix and Wikia directly contradict each other. In Weinberg's run on Cable, we meet a mutant hacker named Key, who assists the title character against the Undying. He is later mentioned in New Avengers as one of the mutants whose powers were absorbed by Weapon Omega. Later, in the Marvel Comics Presents story arc starring Omega, we see him "conversing" with the mutants in his head, among them being a guy called Key, who has the exact same codename and powers as the Cable character, but looks completely different.

The Wikia claims these two are the same guy, but the Appendix says they're different. I'd normally happily side with Appendix over the Wikia, considering it's staffed by people who have worked for Marvel, but that seems like an Occam's Razor violation.

Is there any info on who is correct?

Can you clarify exactly where on the Appendix it says this? It'll help me figure out which Appendix writer said this, so I can check with them.

Here is the entry for the MCP Key, by Proto-Man. Note it says he is "not to be confused with" the Cable Key.
 

Thank you very much, Stuart. It really does just sound like it was an uncanny (har har) coincidence after all, then!

Sidney Osinga wrote:

Let me know if the following statement is correct:

Just because there was an symbiote named Riot in the Venom movie, it does NOT mean that one of the five spawns of Venom in the mainstream comics is also called Riot.
 

Several answers:  

In general, just because a movie names someone previously seen but unnamed in the comics, it doesn't mean the comics version automatically adopts that name. The Burglar who killed Uncle Ben has not been identified as Dennis Carradine just because the Raimi movies called him that (and nor his he even "someone Carradine" just because his estranged daughter had that surname - plenty of reasons why they might not, heck probably wouldn't, share a surname). 

That said, such movie-related revelations do sometimes transfer back to the comics, sometimes deliberately, often because a writer who has seen the movie doesn't realise the info depicted therein isn't canonical to the comics. Blade was identified as Eric Brooks because of the movies (that was a deliberate case - the handbooks checked if the info also applied to the comics, and were told by editorial that it did in this instance). 

Riot is called Riot in the comics, not because of the movie, but because he got named in Carnage USA#2 (2012). Annoyingly, that was a case of bad wiki information transferring back to the comics, neither the first nor sadly last time that has happened. Online sites had wrongly named the Life Foundation symbiotes for years, with a mixture of toy names (understandable, and one of those, Scream, had legitimately been adopted by the comic version), misapplied toy names (fans applied names or partial names of toys to symbiotes that didn't even resemble that toy), and outright fan-made names. Unfortunately, eventually a writer didn't realise the names were bunkum, and used them in comic.

Pinball_Lizard wrote:

What are some other cases of "bad Wiki canon" making its way into the comics? I take it you don't mean stuff like the Appendix's placeholder names for various bit characters (like the X-Statix tryouts) becoming canon when Marvel actually hired the Appendix writers, right?

Sorry for not replying earlier -  I failed to notice there was a new post here until just now.

In terms of bad wiki canon making it back into comics, you are correct to say that doesn't include placeholder names from the Appendix, because those were (a) flagged at the Appendix as placeholders, specifically so Marvel writers wouldn't use them with the mistaken belief they were canonical, and (b) generally those that became canon did so because we asked writers about the characters - as standard, we ask if they want to name someone, or if it is okay for us to do so if they don't want to pick a name, or if they'd prefer to leave the character unnamed. Nobody gets named without us getting permission from editorial, and, where possible, the original writer, and in the instances where a writer has said they'd prefer us not to name someone, they've remained unnamed.

Other examples of bad fan info making it back into the comics? Thankfully it's not happened too often that I know of, but it has a few times. Off the top of my head, some of the depowered mutants who formed one incarnation of the New Warriors got civilian identities that I believe originated on Wikipedia. There's a few others I can't talk about, and there's a few we caught just in time - some of the "things people keep getting wrong" listed above were spotted because they nearly made it into print or on the screen.
 

Loki wrote:

Incorrect: Klyntar is in the Andromeda Galaxy
Correct: Klyntar is in the Milky Way. Dark Origin states that it is 60,000 light years from Earth. Andromeda is 2.5 million light years away.  

Do you happen to know how this mistake originated?

Loki wrote:

(Possibly) incorrect: Beast invented MGH
Correct: Beast distilled a hormone that could give people mutant powers in Amazing Adventures#11. Maybe that's the precursor to MGH, but we don't afaik have confirmation of this.
To expand on this - a recent CBR article alerted me to this claim, and checking I see wikis stating it as fact and citing Amazing Adventures as their proof, which is presumably where CBR got it. But Amazing Adventures#11 definitely doesn't call it MGH, and thus far I've yet to find another story that confirms Beast as the guy behind MGH. Could this change? Sure, a new story might one day reveal this. And maybe I've missed a story where he gets credited with creating it, in which case I'll hold my hands up to me being the one wrong here. However, as it stands, it looks very like the wikis presenting speculation as fact, something they do all too often.
 

An update to this one, courtesy of another of the handbook writers:
Incorrect: Beast invented MGH, shortly after he left the X-Men
Correct: MGH was around before Beast joined the X-Men.Spider-Men II#3 has a flashback to when Wilson Fisk was still an enforcer for Don Rigoletto.  Fisk held this job prior to Peter Parker gaining his powers, and while Namor was still amnesiac (both shown in ASM#-1, and the Namor as hobo bit places it no later than FF#4, and probably before FF#1, given how young Peter is in ASM#-1), and was Kingpin as early as Amazing Fantasy #17 (set between Amazing Fantasy#15 and ASM#1).  In Spider-Men II#3-FB, when Fisk is an enforcer for Rigoletto, before Fantastic Four #4, someone uses MGH in an attempt to kill Fisk.  That means MGH was already a thing before Fantastic Four #4, which is also before X-Men #1, and way before Amazing Adventures #11. Beast couldn't have invented MGH, because he was still in grade school or high school at the time someone used it in an attempt to kill Fisk.  

Adding: none of the above of course would prevent a writer ignorant of this detail from including a claim in a comic that Beast invented MGH, but unless someone can cite a specific comic that actually states something like that, any wiki claiming that Beast is the inventor is leaping to a wrong conclusion.

And frankly, even if a comic claimed Beast was the inventor, it'd then be one piece of evidence against a contradicting one, and so would still not be confirmed until the evidence was weighed and a decision reached. A lot would, for example, ride on how the info was provided - e.g. an in-universe statement by one character that Beast was the inventor wouldn't confirm it, as in light of the above evidence that MGH existed before Beast could have invented it means the character claiming he created it could be lying or in error.

Adding #2: In Dr. Strange (2016)#11 we see Stephen Strange using a drug clearly identified as MGH in a flashback set after he'd injured his hands but before he'd gone to Tibet to find the Ancient One. That would again place it prior to AA II#11, even if the writer was unaware that Strange's accident and becoming a sorcerer happened in the 1960s (in-universe, not just real world).

I think in the first case, probably a combination of the filmmakers winking at viewers who read the comics and, as you say a hint that Beck was lying through his teeth. There is no reason to believe that Beck even knows or cares if there really is a multiverse (or if there is that there are assigned numbers). For that matter, different Earths could have their own number systems. Probably more than a few people who know there's a multiverse would insist they must live on Earth-1 because their Earth feels more real to them than other Earths. If anything Back was being smart by not pushing things too far and claiming that the MCU is Earth-1.