Can we talk about the sliding comics timeline?

[BroHomo]

I don't know; I think the sliding timescale falls into that range where it would be worse to get rid of it then keep it, and that most of us don't really want it to go away. Quite frankly, I don't want to see my favorite characters age out of the stories; that's the only reason I read the stuff. As someone else pointed out prior, comic book time is going to be a given since so many of the big name characters need it.

Eh I'd rather the characters progress in life/age with me.... there's only sooooo many stories dealing with Mutant teen angst a person can read and still relate to especially nowadays with kids and their hip Hop/MDMA music

[Havok83]

how old would ororo be? I didnt think she was older than most of the 05 when she joined with the exception of iceman.

I thought she was at least Beast's age if not a year or 2 older

[WebLurker]

At least you can admit it it’s not what you want to see.

When ppl say, it’s brcause they don’t want to rob the new generation, I’m like, who are you to decide who they want to read about?

Fair enough; we all have quite different reading lists.

They really need to stop adding new generations of X-men

Don't know about that; some pretty good stories have come out that.

Eh I'd rather the characters progress in life/age with me.... there's only sooooo many stories dealing with Mutant teen angst a person can read and still relate to especially nowadays with kids and their hip Hop/MDMA music

I wouldn't say there's a place for stories like that. Some pretty popular stuff, like MC2, got their own corner of the sandbox to explore the subject. Thing is, I think that the classic characters will always be kept around in their most established status quo in one form or another, esp. in the "main" series in question.

[Tazirai]

Cannonball, the second oldest New Mutant after Karma(who is 2 years older), was 21 as recent as the Utopia era. There's no way it was only 5 years from 82-09, but more than five years from 09-18.

Here's a better way to think of it:

Year 1(1963): After assembling the team and beginning their training, Xavier invites Jean to join them. Iceman is 16. Jean, Warren, Scott are 17/18. Hank is 18/19. They stop Magneto at Cape Citadel. Celebrated as heroes, they work with the government. They fail initially to stop Vanisher and the people begin to doubt them. Xavier is showing devious tactics as he stops Vanisher, and the Blob, with the help of his teenaged students.

Year 2-4(64-75): O5 celebrate one year together, fight the Brotherhood, further adventures, Mimic, Havok, Polaris, Banshee, Sunfire, Factor Three, repel the Z'Nox invasion, hidden years, get captured on Krakoa.

Year 5 (75-80): All new all different team saves them, Thunderbird dies, Jean goes Phoenix, saves the universe, vs. Magneto, Savage Land, Japan, Alpha Flight, Vs. Proteus/reunited.

Year 6(80-84): Hellfire Club, Kitty, Dazzler, DPS, N'Gari X-Mas, DoFP, vs. Doom, Belasco, vs. Rogue, Brood Saga, New Mutants, Morlocks, Rogue joins, Cyke marries Maddie, Storm loses powers.

Year 7(84-89): Secret Wars, Magneto joins/Xavier leaves, Nate born/duel, Jean comes back/X-Factor founded, vs Nimrod, Mutant Massacre, Psylocke/Dazzler/Longshot joins, Fall of the Mutants, Excalibur formed, Outback era begins, Inferno.

Year 8(89-94): Jubilee introduced, Outback dissassembled, Banshee and Forge reunite, Gambit/Cable appears, X-Tinction Agenda, reunite with Xavier in Shi'Ar space, Muir Island Saga, X-Force forms, Blue/Gold teams, Acolytes, Hellions die, Bishop introduced, X-Cutioner's Song, Logan loses Adamantium, Scott and Jean get married, Gen X forms, Angel/Psylocke begin to date.

Year 9(95-99):Legion Quest/Age of Apocalypse, Cannonball/Joseph join X-Men, Onslaught, Operation Zero Tolerance, Maggot/CC/Marrow join, Kurt/Kitty/Piotr rejoin, the Twelve, Cyke/Poccy merge.

Year 10(00-05): Morrison era, X-Treme forms, Academy X, XSE formed, Astonishing X-Men, House of M.

Year 11(06-11): Storm marries BP, No More Mutants/X-Ghetto, Greymalkin Industries, Utopia era begins, Second Coming, Schism.

Year 12(12-17): AvX/fall of Utopia/death of Xavier, Storm returns to the X-Men, Cyke's revolution, O5 brought to present, Wolverine dies, Secret Wars, IvX, Kitty's era, Jean returns.

Year 13(just beginning): Gambit/Rogue married, O5 return, Iceman turns 28.

The only downside to this timeline for my selfish purposes is Psylocke was 30 when she joined, and spent 2 years on the team before becoming ninjafied.
She has a legit birthdate. 4/23/1956
But as of the last event she's like a month old, lol.

[butterflykyss]

I thought she was at least Beast's age if not a year or 2 older

hmmm u might be right. she was in her mid-twenties when was bit by Dracula.

[Killerbee911]

Don't know about that; some pretty good stories have come out that.

Yes but there is a log jam

Morrison and Whedon stuff- Quire, Cuckoos,Dust, Glob,Armor etc

New X-men- X-23,Hellion,Surge, and way way more

Young X-men- Graymalkin,Ink,Cipher

Hope and Lights- Hope, Oya,Primal ,Transonic,etc

Wolverine School Broo,Kid Gladiator,Genesis

The Cyclops Group Tempus,Triage, Goldballs, Highjack

Everybody has a dumb name- Eye boy, Nature Girl, Shark Girl, Sprite,Hindsight

Yeah we have gazillion student but I have still to create someone new : Trinary, Metus, Kid that spits whose name I don't remember, Girl in Iceman book who is new that I have never seen before

(PS don't kill me over how they are listed)

Every character is someone favorite but they can stop creating new X-men student characters especially since they have no intention of them making them X-men or even age up them to mere 18 adulthood. To make matters worse freaking Glob Herman is constantly showing up in books and you get books like Young X-men and newest Gen X where nobody is asking for those rosters. I love new character but they can stop adding them and flesh out the many characters they have around.

[ExodusCloak]

The only downside to this timeline for my selfish purposes is Psylocke was 30 when she joined, and spent 2 years on the team before becoming ninjafied.
She has a legit birthdate. 4/23/1956
But as of the last event she's like a month old, lol.

Psylocke has the same birthday year as Jean Grey

[yogaflame]

how old would ororo be? I didnt think she was older than most of the 05 when she joined with the exception of iceman.

Claremont aged her at mid 20's around the same time Jean was 24 as well(in the grand scheme of things, I think Jean has to be about two years younger for the DPS to work within the larger frame of reference). But, yeah, I think of Ororo, Jean, Scott, and Warren to be the same age within a few months. Older than Bobby, and younger than Hank. I think Shiro is about their age too. If Bobby just turned 28, Ororo should be 29.

[yogaflame]

The only downside to this timeline for my selfish purposes is Psylocke was 30 when she joined, and spent 2 years on the team before becoming ninjafied.
She has a legit birthdate. 4/23/1956
But as of the last event she's like a month old, lol.

In the grand scheme of things, some of their ages have to be tweaked. Jean was aged at 24 in the DPS, for example, but Scott was still 25 in the Onslaught era, so I would retroactively make Jean 22 in the DPS. Another example is Xavier. He says in #1 that he was born to scientists who developed the atom bomb, which is why he is a mutant. In 1963, that's only 18 years after the bomb was first tested. Even if we scale back to the first scientific inquiries, that only allows him to be 25. I think of him more as 30 in that opening issue. So, while Betsy may have explicitly been called 30 in her first joining the team, it may be better to skew her a little younger. If Hank is only about 30, or 31 now, I don't think Betsy should be more than 33, even if its been about 6 or 7 years since she joined in this rubric.

[WebLurker]

Yes but there is a log jam

Morrison and Whedon stuff- Quire, Cuckoos,Dust, Glob,Armor etc

New X-men- X-23,Hellion,Surge, and way way more

Young X-men- Graymalkin,Ink,Cipher

Hope and Lights- Hope, Oya,Primal ,Transonic,etc

Wolverine School Broo,Kid Gladiator,Genesis

The Cyclops Group Tempus,Triage, Goldballs, Highjack

Everybody has a dumb name- Eye boy, Nature Girl, Shark Girl, Sprite,Hindsight

Yeah we have gazillion student but I have still to create someone new : Trinary, Metus, Kid that spits whose name I don't remember, Girl in Iceman book who is new that I have never seen before

(PS don't kill me over how they are listed)

Every character is someone favorite but they can stop creating new X-men student characters especially since they have no intention of them making them X-men or even age up them to mere 18 adulthood. To make matters worse freaking Glob Herman is constantly showing up in books and you get books like Young X-men and newest Gen X where nobody is asking for those rosters. I love new character but they can stop adding them and flesh out the many characters they have around.

Fair point about the large number of new characters and that it's tricky given that they're never going to join the main adult roster. IMHO, I think they need their own niche, either in being the stars of a "Lower Decks" type series (like the New Mutants/New X-Men stuff was), given their own teams to graduate to (however that would work), or be expanded in their own direction (like how X-23 has essentially become a solo character and kinda gotten out of the ghetto that the others are trapped in, so to speak). Mileage may vary.

[Anodyne]

Personally, I seldom worry about characters' precise ages. Why expect them to age in real time when stories we read over several months IRL often take place during less than one day in the characters' lives?

[Captain Nash]

I tend to ignore actual dates as I know that's a set time and is going to HAVE to be adjusted with the sliding time scale. On the other hand, giving ages isn't nearly as complicated.
My working idea is that each issue of a series averages out to a week - sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less. That puts every year being about 50 issues. In which case it's been approximately 14 years since the Avengers, the X-Men (if you count the time in the early 70's when they were on hiatus) and the Fantastic Four were introduced.

There's numerous examples where this works but there are also examples where it falls apart. For instance in a working example, somewhere right before or after Onslaught (1996) Jean makes a comment that Scott is 25. That's around issue 350 give or take one of our years (or 3-4 months for them). Which would be 8 years in marvel time (350 divided by 50 = 7 and add in one year for the time they were on hiatus), and Cyclops would be 17 in X-men #1. Another example is this puts Franklin Richard at around 14 years old which sounds about right, at the time of Onslaught he would have been about 7-8. The new mutants would have been around 14/15 at the time they were introduced (Rahne being slightly younger and Karma being slightly older). It would have been 10 years since they were introduced so they'd be mid 20s which sounds about right. Gen Xers would be the same age when introduced, and if you add 7 years instead of 10, they'd be right at 20-21. Rogue was maybe 16/17 when joining the X-Men, she'd be right at 10 years later - 26/27.

This means that most of the younger original characters introduced would be in early 30's, with the exception of Reed Richards who was slightly older. The older characters who may have been 25(ish), taking Gods who have their own aging thing out of the equation, they'd be late 30's to 40. Obviously this doesn't take into account birth age for Captain America but it does for actual age. The biggest problem with this is that of Spider-Man, because Marvel refuses to let him grow up to be 30. Even so, at 14 years past he would have been 16 when he was bit. That actually sounds right give or take a year or two, probably to put him younger. So late 20's at least. The issue will be that marvel will continue to hold him static to his age. Emma Frost is another big problem as her pre-Gen-X appearances made her look to be in her 30's AT LEAST. That would put her more to pushing if not over 40. Which I guess we can attribute to having a lot of work done - that one is quite a conundrum. Other than that, for the most part, it works well enough for me to continue to us it.

[BroHomo]

Personally, I seldom worry about characters' precise ages. Why expect them to age in real time when stories we read over several months IRL often take place during less than one day in the characters' lives?

Yeaaah that ONLY is true for newer characters...the Hew Mutants debuting 36 years ago and Rahhe barely being 21 us redick but I can sorta forgive that
buuuuuuut
I look at characters like Franklin Richards...Artie, Leech, Leong & Nga,Taki Matsuya... All(except Franklin but especially the last 3 ) for some reason latched on to when I was barely older than them and at the start of my XAffair and think it's soooooooo dumb/wasteful they're stuck at prepubescence


EDIT: Finding out Franklin was born 50 (Real World) years ago I definitely subscribe to the belief that he's in charge of the Universe and has stopped everybody aging

[Tazirai]

I wish that one day Comics would grow past this, and let characters age and possibly die permanently. This forces people to develop actual characters that change and grow, and give us the next generation of heroes.

[cranger]

I wish that one day Comics would grow past this, and let characters age and possibly die permanently. This forces people to develop actual characters that change and grow, and give us the next generation of heroes.

Marvel/DC characters appeal to people because they are the same characters. We all jumped in knowing these characters have been around decades and hopefully they will be around for the next group of comic fans. Wanting them to age and die is shortsighted. We live in a time where there are way too many comics trying to find space on the shelves, so anyone tired of reading about Peter Parker becoming an irresponsible bachelor again has more choices than they know what to do with. Leave Spidey for some new fans to draw them into comics before they move on to something else.