Loki wrote:

Pinball_Lizard wrote:

Since I know this is the place to come foe reality number flubs, here are two questions along that regard:

* In Far From Home, Beck's fake backstory is that he "came from Reality #833 to Reality #616." Thing is, 616 is the main COMIC reality; the MOVIE reality is number #199999. Just an error, or an early hint to super-geeks that Beck is blowing smoke out of his nether regions?
* Speaking of, I've heard three contradictory origin stories for the "616" number itself, though they all agree the legendary Moore run on Captain Britain was the first to use it. They are as follows: Moore picked a random unimportant number to contrast DC's main universe being #1; it's a tribute to the release date of Fantastic Four #1, June 1961; OR it was slipped in by Moore's editor, who hated his job, as an extremely obscure "up yours" to his bosses, as 616 is an alternate reading of the Number of the Beast (usually read as 666). Which of these, if any, is correct?

As Andy said, the first one is probably a nod to the numbering from the comics. We saw the same thing in the animated Into the Spiderverse. The thing is, I'm not sure the filmmakers get that the number should ONLY be used if you mean the main comics universe. The same problem arose when a Panini UK Spider-Man comic identified the world a story was set on as Earth-616, despite the continuity of the Panini UK stories being utterly incompatible with US depictions; we acknowledged this story and worked round the numbering issue in relevant handbook profiles. And we've discussed how we can make it work as and when a cartoon, TV show or movie applies 616 to a reality that can't be the 616 we know.

Andy's other point he raised, that different Earths could have their own number systems, is completely correct. There will be a lot of places that think of themselves as Earth-1 or Earth-Prime. Heck, even within DC the comics versions and the Arrowverse versions duplicate/overlap numbers. The handbook numbering is meant to be the CCD - the "Core Continuum Designations" used by the Dimensional Development Court of the Hub (where Saturnyne used to work) and Merlyn and Roma. They seem to be the numbers used by realities that have a lot of interdimensional travel and know about one another, at least in Marvel's corner of the Omniverse. At the Appendix website that many Handbook writers contribute to, we have kept a list of CCDs, and to minimise overlaps, we also track numbering and other designations mentioned in non-Marvel media - we've tracked the numbering mentioned by DC, Luther Arkwright, Red Dwarf, etc., and we treat the numbers they have used as CCD unless we see an incompatible contradiction arise. When those do arise, we assume that's because the non-Marvel number is a "local area code" and not the CCD.  Sometimes numbers get duplicated across different companies, but there's not necessarily a problem created - for example, Saturnyne is from Earth-9. We've never seen it, nor been told much about it. The comic Top Ten also has a character from Earth-9, which is mentioned to be a highly technological world dominated by robotic lifeforms. But the dominant lifeform being robotic doesn't mean humans can't exist, and Saturnyne is no stranger to technology, so no reason these two mentions can't be talking about the same Earth-9.

On the second point you raised:

The tribute to FF#1 is a fan theory that came from pure speculation and just doesn't want to die, no matter how often it got debunked. It doesn't even work as FF#1 was cover dated November, not June, and even though it would have come out a few months earlier than that cover month, it wouldn't have been as early as June - August at earliest. So forget that version altogether.

We do have two accounts that seem to hold some truth, and they relate to the other options you mentioned.

The first is that Moore picked it as a random number for precisely the reasons you stated. This is one I personally got directly verified by Moore, so it's not hearsay. I know Alan's daughter and son-in-law, and I asked them if they would check with him. They did, and he gave that answer. 

However, David Thorpe, who wrote the Captain Britain series prior to Alan Moore (so not Alan Moore's editor - that bit at least is wrong), has said he came up with the number 616, and it was a nod to the Number of the Beast. However, crucially he (a) intended it to be the number of the dystopian world Captain Britain had landed in, the fascistic world Moore later identified as Earth-238, and (b) he never actually used the number in a comic. 616 didn't appear until a year after Moore took over the story.

How do we reconcile these conflicting accounts? I can see a few options:

I don't believe either man is lying. Neither has a reason to. It's not like Moore would want to "claim credit" for coming up with 616. He's no fan of current comics, and he's a man who holds himself and others to high standards of being honest and honourable, especially in areas of crediting creators. 

It could be coincidence - Moore just happened to come up with the same number. However, the odds against both men coming up with 616 when even just one of them was picking a random number seems pretty remote.

So maybe one of them might be misremembering. Thorpe's account is ratified by Alan Davis, who did the art for both men, so that lessens the odds that he's the one who has forgotten the details. If Moore read Thorpe's notes for the series and where it was intended to go, perhaps he saw the number and it stuck in his subconscious, so that when he picked what he thought was a random number he actually chose that number lurking at the back of his mind. But I'm not sure if Moore did read the notes; he shifted the series in an entirely different direction the moment he took over, so he may well have avoided learning what Thorpe had intended to do in order to avoid copying any elements of it. Perhaps when Moore had decided to come up with a random number he mentioned it to Davis, and Davis recalled Thorpe's number and added 616 to the options Moore had already come up with, and Moore went with it without knowing where Davis had gotten it from. Thus the two statements from the respective creators would be true - Thorpe came up with the number, but Moore picked it believing it was random. Thorpe deserves credit for the specific number, Moore for identifying mainstream Marvel as 616.

Wow, this is great stuff, thank you!

Loki wrote:

New one that seems to be somewhat widespread for such a minor character. In Joss Whedon's time on the Runaways he introduced some 1907 superhumans known as Wonders. One, a member of the group known as Street Arabs, was called Hoyden, and also Megan. As a result:

False: Megan Hoyden was one of the Street Arabs.
Truth: Megan, surname unrevealed, was one of the Street Arabs, using the nickname/codename Hoyden.

The character was a tomboyish female. Hoyden is slang, outdated nowadays but not back in 1907, for a boisterous girl.

Umm... you might want to correct it on your Yellow Kid profile. 

Heh. Speaking of the Wonders, while it's not definitely incorrect, it is a mistake to assume that Dead George Pelham's real name must be George Pelham. There's a reason who someone from the early 20th century who is undead might pick that as a codename.

Also - do people really think that Hoyden fought actual bulls, as in male bovine animals? Sigh. People need to read more closely. There's a couple of big clues in the statement that mentioned her fighting bulls that tells you she fought people, not animals, even before you consider the possibility of slang being used.

New one: 

Wrong: Garrett Castle (home of the Black Knight) was transplanted stone by stone by Nathan Garrett from England to the USA.
Truth: Garrett Castle still stands in England. Someone unrelated as far as we know moved a different castle stone by stone to the USA, and Nathan Garrett later procured it and renamed it after the English castle he owned, even going so far as to modify its interior to match the one still in the UK. 

The reason for the confusion is because in Tales of Suspense I#73 Iron Man tracks Nathan Garrett to an English castle that he is using as a base. Per Tony it has been relocated brick by brick to somewhere near Washington ("not more than thirty miles"). However, it wasn't moved by Garrett - Tony recalls it was moved by an English baron who died before he could move in. This is (presumably) the same castle Dane Whitman inherits and is seen staying in during Avengers I#47, 48 and 54 (plus several later stories - see below), as Av#47 notes it is an English castle that has been transplanted to the US, and in those issues it is called Garrett Castle.

However, in Marvel Super-Heroes I#17 Dane Whitman visits Garrett Castle which is explicitly in England. It's a story set after those Avengers issues (Dane recalls the events and a footnote confirms those exact three issue numbers), but it is clear that this is Dane's first visit to Garrett Castle.  So that issue alone confirms (the original) Garrett Castle to still be in England, but we have additional confirmation in other stories. Av I#84 sees Quicksilver call Garrett Castle, and he asks the operator for an international call to England (interestingly, he asks for an area code [01] that would have been for the London region at the time, though this clue is later contradicted in the original handbooks). Av I#100 has the Avengers gather at Garrett Castle and confirms that they are in England and that Rick Jones in NYC is "4000 miles away." Avengers I#115, Defenders I#4, Doctor Strange II#36, 37 and 68 also say it is in England. The original OHOTMU entry for Black Knight (Whitman) confirms the castle to be located "near Stroud, England." In New Excalibur#10 Dane is on the phone to Captain Britain when he is possessed by Sir Percy, and within minutes all of Excalibur are at the castle, despite lacking any long-range teleport options (they have Nocturne, but she couldn't teleport the entire team across the Atlantic). Dane clearly kept the second, American-located castle, as in Avengers I#366/2, Blood Wraith fights in Washington DC while Dane is a "short distance away in Garrett Castle," though in Avengers Annual#22 he seems to have renamed it Whitman Manor, which is said to "survey downtown Washington DC" Avengers Spotlight#39 has Dane fight crime in Washington and then fly home to the castle, so again that's the American one. Ditto Black Knight II#1, which again notes it to be near Washington. Conclusively, Uncanny Origins#11 explicitly confirms there are two castles, as it shows Dane first visiting Garrett Castle "just outside our nation's capital" 


and then later in the issue show him flying to England to visit what is called here Bridgewater Castle (since it's explicitly called Garrett Castle in every other appearance, I'm thinking Nathan's vanity had him rename both castles after himself). 

Dane even notes the similar appearances within, the writer of this issue thus cleverly covering why both had secret passages down to the dungeons:
   So we have Bridgewater Castle (Garrett Castle#1) near Stroud in England, and Whitman Manor (Garrett Castle#2) near Washington DC in the USA.

Last edited by Loki (1/16/2021 10:47 am)

zuckyd1 wrote:

Would you consider identifying sites where you've found erroneous information? On the one hand I could see you not wanting to give certain sites any "free publicity". On the other hand, being cited in this thread would not exactly be a badge of honor, and it might help anyone who wished to correct the information (or at the very least inform the sites of their error).

Frequently it's more than one site, as often one site copies another. And people post the info on forums too. I don't really want to "name and shame" sites too much, though I take your point about trying to correct the errors. 

One site just did an article claiming that the MCU Earth is Earth-2500 when it's actually Earth-199999. I won't name the site but the article is "WandaVision's Home Address Is a Quiet (But Critical) Nod to Marvel's [SPOILER]"; if you Google that you'll find the article easily enough. The article of course has spoilers to WandaVision episodes 1  and 2.

BAD: using http://marvel.fandom.com to "prove" your claim
WORSE: using https://marvelcomicsfanon.fandom.com/ 

Whoa, I think I found an actual error in the Appendix. Specifically, the recent update by MarvellousLuke to Rubbermaid's entry; it says she's the blonde girl who hugs Sofia along with Surge, but I'm pretty sure that's Wallflower, wearing her black two-piece outfit from New Mutants v2 #8. Rubbermaid IS in the issue, though, at the party. She's seen from behind, between Kyle and DJ, wearing gray, and has shorter hair than Wallflower, who's watching TV in a different room in the same scene.

...I'm kind of a NXM geek.

Last edited by Pinball_Lizard (1/22/2021 5:35 pm)

Another one. 

Wrong: Kiber Island is a mile offshore from the coast of Kenya.
Correct: Kiber Island was in the South Atlantic until it got blown up. A platform named after it was built off the coast of Kenya.

This is one that appeared in the Marvel Atlas, and probably originated there, when the map of Africa showed Kiber Island off the coast. 

and it has since been reinforced in Totally Awesome Hulk#1, where we see this:

Note that the "island" here is an artificial platform. Note also that they are not saying "KIber Island's platform" - that apostrophe at the end of island is an abbreviation rather than a possessive, so he's saying "Kiber Island is melting" rather than "Kiber Island's platform is melting".

As one of those who worked on the Atlas, I can confirm this was not an intended retcon. Someone made an oops. And the reason for this is because every prior appearance of Kiber Island placed it in the South Atlantic, not the Indian Ocean.

Black Panther I#13:

A barren peak far from which you can't sight other land (so more than a mile offshore) in the South Atlantic. T'Challa reiterates this the next issue, Black Panther I#14:


But maybe, you say, T'Challa got it wrong - misread the stars and was facing east, so he couldn't see the continent of Africa only a mile away to the west?

Nope. Black Panther III#43, and a time travel visit (why it had to use time travel will become apparent below):


Again, it's an island in the South Atlantic (per Everett Ross, though note that no one corrects him, so he's presumably right about the location).

And then there's Defenders I#84:
In the Atlantic again. Stated to be off the coast of Africa (I'd argue a good distance off the coast, based on the next couple of panels), but definitely Atlantic, so not next to Kenya.

And the final nail in the coffin of the platform in Totally Awesome Hulk being the original Kiber Island? This was its fate in Defenders I#84:


Nuked out of existence. If it was only a mile off the coast of anywhere, such an explosion could not fit what Namor said. The whole point of the heroes' actions in TAH is that a nuclear meltdown a mile offshore will cause death and devastation on the nearby land, so if Namor nuked the same location in Defenders I#84 he'd have killed millions. Plus, after what he did, no more island, and what sane person would then build a reactor on the site, which is presumably going to be radioactive for centuries? 

So - Kiber Island was in the Atlantic. The platform seen in TAH has to be a namesake, built in a different location.

To anyone who worked on Earth's Mutant Heroes, what made you decide there were two different Neo with the codename "Tartarus," one with a helmet and one without? I always assumed, and most fan sites do, that it's the same guy, who sometimes wears a helmet and other times doesn't.

Pinball_Lizard wrote:

To anyone who worked on Earth's Mutant Heroes, what made you decide there were two different Neo with the codename "Tartarus," one with a helmet and one without? I always assumed, and most fan sites do, that it's the same guy, who sometimes wears a helmet and other times doesn't.

Sorry for the delay - I was waiting to hear back from the writer of the profile in question.

He says:The one without helmet was first seen and identified as Tartarus in X-Men #101 (June, 2000). He gets captured by the criminal Rufus Delgado in this issue and is the same size as his sister Elysia, who is seen next to Wolverine in #106 and she is smaller than him.

The one with the helmet was also first seen in X-Men #101 (June, 2000), but only identified as Tartarus in X-Men #110 (March, 2001). In #101 he is seen at the end of the issue with a group of other Neo and is the same size as Salvo and Rax. Nothing is known about his powers at that time.

I suspect Tartarus in #110 was supposed to be the kid due to the description of his powers, but instead of the kid the helmet guy was depicted and became the second Tartarus by accident. This issue was written by Lobdell unlike the previous Neo issues, which were written by their creator Claremont, which might account for the discrepancy.

However in the previous issue it is described as being off the coast of Bermuda.

While checking things for my new No-Prize thread, I noticed that a number of sites claim that Reed Richards has a black belt in judo. This one is slightly tricky because the Invisible Girl did claim that Reed was a judo expert in a single panel of Fantastic Four #17 while fighting Doctor Doom, but no evidence bears this out in any fight scenes with Reed. One landmine for fan sites is that Stan in his dialogue was sometimes prone to throwing things against the wall and seeing what stuck. So even if it happened in a story he dialogued, absurdities like that should not be seen as gospel unless they reoccur. I get why fans want to have every panel be canon, but sometimes it's just not plausible to do that.

FWIW my recollection is that Reed's skills are brought up several times in early issues of Fantastic Four (and perhaps Strange Tales as well). I think he might have even given one of his teammates lessons.

EDIT: Actually as far as the lessons go, I might just have been thinking of that exact panel.

Last edited by zuckyd1 (2/02/2021 4:34 pm)

Another possible explanation, which I put in the other thread but will expand upon here is that Sue might have been bluffing. At the time she was inexperienced and she was fighting Doom, who was a lot more formidable than her especially back then. This was before she knew she could create force fields and weaponize them. While Doom certainly knew Reed from college years, it wasn't for that long and years passed before their reunion, so if a bluff it had a chance of working.