How long have superheroes been around in the Marvel universe?

[Digifiend]

The people with fixed dates (ties to World War II for example) have a different problem - how to explain that they're still alive when they should be at least 100 years old by now. The Invaders and DC's equivalent Justice Society have both been hit with this issue.

[phonogram12]

The people with fixed dates (ties to World War II for example) have a different problem - how to explain that they're still alive when they should be at least 100 years old by now. The Invaders and DC's equivalent Justice Society have both been hit with this issue.

I'm generally okay with the explanations for the JSA. I'm not as familiar with the Invaders.

[Phoenixx9]

The people with fixed dates (ties to World War II for example) have a different problem - how to explain that they're still alive when they should be at least 100 years old by now. The Invaders and DC's equivalent Justice Society have both been hit with this issue.

I think most are dead (Union Jacks, Whizzer, Miss America) and/or have a good explanation (such as Cap, Magneto, Master Man, Warrior Woman, Black Widow, Bucky, Thin Man, Jack Frost, Spitfire, Wolverine, Namor, Android Torch, Inhuman Toro).

The one that sticks out to me is old Professor X, but he has died and then has had cloned bodies so I guess that problem is solved?

Who else would be a problem with the dates?

[JudicatorPrime]

The people with fixed dates (ties to World War II for example) have a different problem - how to explain that they're still alive when they should be at least 100 years old by now. The Invaders and DC's equivalent Justice Society have both been hit with this issue.

For the normal mortals, I agree. Sadly, Marvel's response tends to be something along the lines of either making them clones or superhumanly "long-lived."

The part that I don't understand is why, then, doesn't that longevity benefit these characters in ways other than fighting prowess?

For example, Blue Marvel is supposed to be a super scientist and engineer on the same level as Reed, Stark and Doom. Give those 3 gentlemen almost a hundred years of productivity, while also the superhuman power of never tiring and never needing to sleep, all the while forcing them into superhero/supervillain retirement like Adam and they'd create enough technological advances to reshape the entire planet twice over. But not Adam. Seems to me that he should have far more significant inventions and discoveries than have been shown.

Longevity really should serve a better purpose in character development than just rationalizing the oddities of a floating timeline.

[phonogram12]

The one that sticks out to me is old Professor X, but he has died and then has had cloned bodies so I guess that problem is solved?

Yeah, I wanna say Magneto and Punisher are as still as vital as they are the same way. Well, I think with Magneto he was once reduced to an infant, but then later was brought back to adulthood. They might've even said he was returned to the prime of his life.

I figure with Punisher, they did the same thing when the whole Angel of Vengeance or whatever ended and Ennis' run started. Then also when he became whole again after Frankencastle.

[Phoenixx9]

Yeah, I wanna say Magneto and Punisher are as still as vital as they are the same way. Well, I think with Magneto he was once reduced to an infant, but then later was brought back to adulthood. They might've even said he was returned to the prime of his life.

I figure with Punisher, they did the same thing when the whole Angel of Vengeance or whatever ended and Ennis' run started. Then also when he became whole again after Frankencastle.

Yes, Magneto was reversed to infancy and that took a good 50-55 years off of him, although he was then aged to "adulthood", so about age 20-25? Maybe Magneto is 25-35 years younger than before being de-aged?

[phonogram12]

Yes, Magneto was reversed to infancy and that took a good 50-55 years off of him, although he was then aged to "adulthood", so about age 20-25? Maybe Magneto is 25-35 years younger than before being de-aged?

I hate to say this because part of me thinks this stuff is a really, really cheap way to cheat aging in comics, but another part of me thinks stuff like this is freaking brilliant. I mean, Magneto's origin is intrinsically tied into WW2 and there's really no way around that. And at least as far as the comics are concerned, Punisher's origin is partially centered around Vietnam, although I guess they can make that a later conflict the way they did on the tv show, but I'm not sure if that would feel right.

[Reviresco]

The people with fixed dates (ties to World War II for example) have a different problem - how to explain that they're still alive when they should be at least 100 years old by now. The Invaders and DC's equivalent Justice Society have both been hit with this issue.

I think most are dead (Union Jacks, Whizzer, Miss America) and/or have a good explanation (such as Cap, Magneto, Master Man, Warrior Woman, Black Widow, Bucky, Thin Man, Jack Frost, Spitfire, Wolverine, Namor, Android Torch, Inhuman Toro).

The one that sticks out to me is old Professor X, but he has died and then has had cloned bodies so I guess that problem is solved?

Who else would be a problem with the dates?

They are dead, but there's a problem if they showed up in comics after the creation of the FF. Whizzer and Miss America are allegedly once the parents of Wanda and Pietro. That storyline makes zero sense, timewise, now.


I say this every time it comes up, but I'll mention it again. Betty Dean Prentiss. She's tied to the fixed WWII, actually pre-WWII, and she has a role after the creation of the FF. She really can't fit on the sliding timeline anymore either.


Also, to a lesser degree, Toro's wife, Anne Raymond.

[Chris0013]

I think most are dead (Union Jacks, Whizzer, Miss America) and/or have a good explanation (such as Cap, Magneto, Master Man, Warrior Woman, Black Widow, Bucky, Thin Man, Jack Frost, Spitfire, Wolverine, Namor, Android Torch, Inhuman Toro).

The one that sticks out to me is old Professor X, but he has died and then has had cloned bodies so I guess that problem is solved?

Who else would be a problem with the dates?

Xavier had the clone thing done to him too. He was infected by a brood egg and they cloned him and did the old mind transference gimmick to cure him. This was around the time he founded the New Mutants.

[Alan2099]

There's explanations for Magneto and Xavier being younger now, but has anybody ever bothered to tell us what they did with the fifty or so years between the time they decided their views weren't compatible and when Magneto attacked the military based and Xavier founded his school?

[JudicatorPrime]

There's explanations for Magneto and Xavier being younger now, but has anybody ever bothered to tell us what they did with the fifty or so years between the time they decided their views weren't compatible and when Magneto attacked the military based and Xavier founded his school?

Good question. I think Marvel will just keep walking right along like they didn't hear you and no one notices the huge fissures in their attempts to use a floating timeline to resolve everything, when it can't.

[Phoenixx9]

Good question. I think Marvel will just keep walking right along like they didn't hear you and no one notices the huge fissures in their attempts to use a floating timeline to resolve everything, when it can't.

I think you are correct my friend. It seems this is the case with Marvel.

[9th.]

I always assume it's at least 20 years, if not then very close to it. 15 at the very least.

[Kaitou D. Kid]

To quote Grant Morrison when he was asked how old Batman and Robin were... "it doesn't matter; these people aren't real."

Honestly, there's always going to be some inconsistencies with the ages, although it's still fun to speculate and talk about.

[bat39]

There's explanations for Magneto and Xavier being younger now, but has anybody ever bothered to tell us what they did with the fifty or so years between the time they decided their views weren't compatible and when Magneto attacked the military based and Xavier founded his school?

Yeah, this is the BIG time-bomb (pun intended!) that X-men continuity is sitting on.

The fact that Xavier and Magneto both got de-aged later on doesn't mean anything when their pre-deaged lives too were pretty damn long!

Charles and Eric (or whatever he called himself then, Magnus I think) met in Israel while treating Holocaust survivors at a clinic. This was probably sometime in the early 1950's at latest. Lets say they're both in their twenties.

Lets say that the events of X-men # 1 occur around 15 years ago, as per the sliding timecale. So say, the mid-2000's as of now.

We basically have a gap of around 50-odd years. If you play it straight, Professor X and Magneto are both in their seventies, if not pushing 80, when the X-men have their first clash with Magneto. A decade from now, they'll have been in their eighties, and so on. And there were no de-aging events that occurred before X-men # 1...

This is actually a bigger issue with Charles than with Eric. With Eric, maybe we can assume that he carried out some experiments that de-aged him long before he attacked Cape Citadel (the X-men Evolution cartoon went down this route to explain Eric's relatively youthful appearance on the show). Or he was in suspended animation or something (though that would change a lot about the character's backstory and how he views the world I guess). But with Charles it gets trickier, because we're meant to believe he lived a relatively normal life before founding the X-men and he's a public figure who hides his true identity as a mutant and the X-men's founder...not really someone who can go on TV and be asked questions like "Why do you look 40 when you should be 80?"

I suppose, moving forward, one solution is to retcon the circumstances of Charles and Eric meeting, and have them first meet, say, 25-30 years ago on a sliding timescale (which means Gabrielle Haller can't be a Holocaust survivor anymore). But then that changes the dynamic between Charles and Eric...instead of contemporaries, Eric is more than old enough to be Charles' father (even if he looks about the same age thanks to de-ageing experiments or whatever). Their relationship can't be one of equals anymore, at least in terms of life experience. Eric would think of Charles not as his philosophical rival but as a naive young fool who hasn't seen half the horrors the world can offer that he has. (Come to think of it, its an interesting angle to explore...)

But in the long run, they need to fix this one way or the other...either suspended animation or de-ageing experiments for Magneto, making him a generation or two older than Charles (the suspended animation at least might make them equals in life experience, but makes Magneto a lot like Cap).