I had forgotten I had written a post about this back in 2018. I've updated it a bit here. To allow their characters to stay evergreen, both Marvel and DC have established "sliding timelines" so that the present is always today, and modern Heroic Ages of their respective universes are only 10 or 15 (or some less specified number) of years old.
(There is some evidence Dan DiDio was looking to kind of abandon this at DC in favor of "generations," but then he got the boot before he could do it.)
As I've mentioned before, this was not always the case. George Olshevsky's Marvel indices argue that in the early years, Marvel seemed to preceded in real time. While most are unfazed by this, at least this guy thinks abandoned it ruined the Marvel Universe. While I wouldn't go that far, I do think there are certainly tradeoffs. The eternal present comes at the sacrifice of allowing characters to truly grow and inevitably means big changes are impermanent.
Anyway, here are the "Marvel Years" as outlined by Olshevsky. He measures them by years in Peter Parker's life. The actual calendar years are my addition and relate to the most likely real-world translation (if your were inclined to do that) based on the time of publication.
YEAR ONE [1960-1961] (PP-HS-SophY):
June*- FF spaceflight.
Sept. - Peter Parker is a junior in high school.
Winter – events of FF #1.
(Hank Pym in the Ant-Hill) (The Hulk)
Spring (March-April) – Peter Parker becomes Spider-Man [Aug 62]
intro Thor
debut Ant-Man
YEAR TWO [1961-1962] (PP HS-JunY)
debut Wasp
Intro. Dr. Strange
YEAR THREE [1962-1963](PP HS-SenY):
Sept. – PP is a senior in high school.
Sept. – The Avengers form.
Oct. – The X-Men go public. [Sep 63]
November – Ant-Man becomes Giant Man.
mid-Dec. – The Black Widow first appears.
March – Iron Man fights Hawkeye and Black Widow.
May – Reed and Sue engaged. Johnny and Ben almost meet the Beatles.
June – Hawkeye joins Avengers. PP and JS graduate High School. Quicksilver and SW join the Avengers. Reed and Sue marry. Nick Fury named director of SHIELD.
July – Galactus arrives. Sentinels. Quentin Quire is born. (this wasn't in Olshevsky!)
YEAR FOUR [1963-1964] (PP-CY-1):
Peter Parker’s freshman year of college.
Winter- Captain Mar-Vell arrives.
Feb. - Bobby Drake (Iceman) turns 18.
Late May-early June – 1: Lorna Dane
Summer. Franklin Richards born.
YEAR FIVE [1964-1965] (PP CY-2):
September. The Vision is created. Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne are married.
Late Sept-early Oct – 1: Sunfire
June-July: Hank McCoy goes to work for Brand Corp
YEAR SIX [1965-1966] (PP CY-3):
October – Beast gets furry.
May – GXM#1. The New X-Men
YEAR SIX [1966-1967] (PP CY-4):
Sept – Thunderbird dies.
Jan – Jean Grey replaced by Phoenix.
If Jean Grey was 24 when she is presumed to have died (based on the dates on her tombstone), and she is the same age as Peter Parker, then she must have died around 1968-69. This might jibe well with X-Men #101, which depicts snow in New York City on Christmas, something that has only happened 18 times since 1900, but did happen in 1966.
As I've mentioned before, this was not always the case. George Olshevsky's Marvel indices argue that in the early years, Marvel seemed to preceded in real time. While most are unfazed by this, at least this guy thinks abandoned it ruined the Marvel Universe. While I wouldn't go that far, I do think there are certainly tradeoffs. The eternal present comes at the sacrifice of allowing characters to truly grow and inevitably means big changes are impermanent.
Anyway, here are the "Marvel Years" as outlined by Olshevsky. He measures them by years in Peter Parker's life. The actual calendar years are my addition and relate to the most likely real-world translation (if your were inclined to do that) based on the time of publication.
YEAR ONE [1960-1961] (PP-HS-SophY):
June*- FF spaceflight.
Sept. - Peter Parker is a junior in high school.
Winter – events of FF #1.
(Hank Pym in the Ant-Hill) (The Hulk)
Spring (March-April) – Peter Parker becomes Spider-Man [Aug 62]
intro Thor
debut Ant-Man
YEAR TWO [1961-1962] (PP HS-JunY)
debut Wasp
Intro. Dr. Strange
YEAR THREE [1962-1963](PP HS-SenY):
Sept. – PP is a senior in high school.
Sept. – The Avengers form.
Oct. – The X-Men go public. [Sep 63]
November – Ant-Man becomes Giant Man.
mid-Dec. – The Black Widow first appears.
March – Iron Man fights Hawkeye and Black Widow.
May – Reed and Sue engaged. Johnny and Ben almost meet the Beatles.
June – Hawkeye joins Avengers. PP and JS graduate High School. Quicksilver and SW join the Avengers. Reed and Sue marry. Nick Fury named director of SHIELD.
July – Galactus arrives. Sentinels. Quentin Quire is born. (this wasn't in Olshevsky!)
YEAR FOUR [1963-1964] (PP-CY-1):
Peter Parker’s freshman year of college.
Winter- Captain Mar-Vell arrives.
Feb. - Bobby Drake (Iceman) turns 18.
Late May-early June – 1: Lorna Dane
Summer. Franklin Richards born.
YEAR FIVE [1964-1965] (PP CY-2):
September. The Vision is created. Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne are married.
Late Sept-early Oct – 1: Sunfire
June-July: Hank McCoy goes to work for Brand Corp
YEAR SIX [1965-1966] (PP CY-3):
October – Beast gets furry.
May – GXM#1. The New X-Men
YEAR SIX [1966-1967] (PP CY-4):
Sept – Thunderbird dies.
Jan – Jean Grey replaced by Phoenix.
If Jean Grey was 24 when she is presumed to have died (based on the dates on her tombstone), and she is the same age as Peter Parker, then she must have died around 1968-69. This might jibe well with X-Men #101, which depicts snow in New York City on Christmas, something that has only happened 18 times since 1900, but did happen in 1966.
*Obviously the start date is speculative. Fantastic Four #1 was published in August of 1961 so the events must have occurred before that.
2 comments:
Yeah. I'm pretty much of the opinion that Marvel Time sucks.
Laziness and capitalism are both to blame in varying/shifting degrees. I don't buy comics with any regularity anymore, though, so I'm not the target demographic of the company. All I can do is shrug and shake my head while (continuing) spending my money elsewhere. Movies, for example, where the heroes age somewhat.
RE RPGs (the tie-in with your original post on the subject)
D&D can operate in elastic time (rather than "real time") because of a couple factors: 1) each campaign is its own, independent world, and 2) each table focuses on its own (small) group of protagonists.
A supers RPG set in the past (say, one that starts in the 60s, 70s, or 80s) *could* do elastic time...with an understanding that given enough time, it would eventually catch up to the real world (and run into issues regarding "real time"). Alternatively, one could set their campaign on a parallel Earth (similar to the DCU...with "Metropolis," "Gotham," "Coast City," etc.) where real world technology and historical events have no impact on the heroes reality. However, such gaming might end up feeling shallow, unless you bring in "shadows" of the real world, as DC occasionally does.
I'd also note that this is an issue for ANY RPG found in a modern-future setting: ran a lot of White Wolf games (like Vampire, Aberrant, etc.) back in the day, and would run into this. Same with games like Top Secret, Over the Edge, Twilight 2000, etc. You end up having to go full "alternate history" OR else defaulting to something like "Marvel Time."
OR you can just go back to playing in the timeless, "no when, no where" land of fantasy D&D...and never have to worry about it.
; )
There was a lot wrong with the 5G nonsense but I really liked the "spine" they were working on. Having WW and Supes be the tentpole for their generations seems like a great idea. Having modern continuity contain the children of those heroes as the current incarnations is cool too. Maybe steal some stuff from Byrne's series that did similar things. I mention all this as my wife is interested in running a DC (MEGS) Legion game with her podcast friends .
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