Could the comics pull off something as big as the Snap?

[Revolutionary_Jack]

The "Snap" in the MCU happened in a single real-time year and transpired in five years within the story. To approximate that in comics:

You would have to essentially take some Marvel titles (say Spider-Man, X-Men) and others who are quote unquote younger or coded-younger than older teams like The Avengers and the Fantastic Four, and then essentially snap them out so that means for one full calendar year -- no Spider-Man, no X-Men anywhere on the comics stands.

That just wouldn't work. Marvel publishing would fall apart without Spider-Man and even though X-Men had lean years between House of M and Hickman, it never got outright canceled unlike Fantastic Four.

Likewise you would have to age-up the Fantastic Four and the Avengers and make them five years older. That might not make much of a difference since those characters have always been coded as being middle-aged for the most part, but that also means Franklin and Valeria Richards (unless one or both are snapped) would age up too. It also means Johnny Storm, only slightly older than Peter, becomes much older than him.

So logistically in terms of continuity it would create a lot of problems. What made it work in the movies was that actors were aging out of the roles and this allowed for a grand hurrah for them to bow out and a new altered status-quo.

[Frontier]

The "Snap" in the MCU happened in a single real-time year and transpired in five years within the story. To approximate that in comics:

You would have to essentially take some Marvel titles (say Spider-Man, X-Men) and others who are quote unquote younger or coded-younger than older teams like The Avengers and the Fantastic Four, and then essentially snap them out so that means for one full calendar year -- no Spider-Man, no X-Men anywhere on the comics stands.

That just wouldn't work. Marvel publishing would fall apart without Spider-Man and even though X-Men had lean years between House of M and Hickman, it never got outright canceled unlike Fantastic Four.

Likewise you would have to age-up the Fantastic Four and the Avengers and make them five years older. That might not make much of a difference since those characters have always been coded as being middle-aged for the most part, but that also means Franklin and Valeria Richards (unless one or both are snapped) would age up too. It also means Johnny Storm, only slightly older than Peter, becomes much older than him.

So logistically in terms of continuity it would create a lot of problems. What made it work in the movies was that actors were aging out of the roles and this allowed for a grand hurrah for them to bow out and a new altered status-quo.

Probably wouldn't carry on for five years in-universe but for maybe a year or two you could get away with taking some supporting characters/team members and see how the characters react to that.

Or take out one or two big players to throw in a legacy story.

[king of hybrids]

There’s also the issue that, considering how drastically the world can change in a year with a big enough disruption, that even a one year snap/blip means the end of the ‘world outside your window’ once and for all

[Orbus]

The movies didn't exactly get all that daring with the snap. All the original Avengers conveniently survived leaving behind all the important characters at that point.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

The movies didn't exactly get all that daring with the snap. All the original Avengers conveniently survived leaving behind all the important characters at that point.

Well the snap in the movies included a time-skip for five years which changed the status-quo in a big way. The original Infinity Gauntlet had the snap done and undone in short order by comparison leaving no trace.

Whereas in the MCU, the five-year timeskip means Ant-Man's daughter has aged up and he's missed years from her life, Tony Stark becomes a Dad, Hawkeye's spent five years on a killing spree and so on. Rocket Racoon is now the oldest and most experienced of the Guardians of the Galaxy and a space-faring hero who's pals with Carol Danvers working to keep order in the galaxy for the last five years. Thor spent 5 years getting drunk and depressed. So I'd say the movies did get daring with the "snap". Captain Marvel/Carol goes from being the Avenger introduced as a retcon between Infinity War and Endgame to a respected veteran superhero thanks to the "Snap".

Of course it's more or less an "illusion of change" in that the actors playing the Avengers with all their story potential exhausted survived and retired while the ones who didn't age up were those who still had stories left to tell and roles to play going forward. But in character terms it was quite unexpected.

[king of hybrids]

In fairness, wasn’t the issue that the snap would have caused massive changes something marvel only noticed while doing reshoots in lockdown?

[Revolutionary_Jack]

In fairness, wasn’t the issue that the snap would have caused massive changes something marvel only noticed while doing reshoots in lockdown?

A lot of the big changes happened in ENDGAME itself and that was made and released Pre-COVID.

The stuff that you see in the Disney Plus series is the aftermath of the return of the "snapped" and I guess that stuff is mapped out in more detail there.

[ChrisIII]

The "Snap" in the MCU happened in a single real-time year and transpired in five years within the story. To approximate that in comics:

You would have to essentially take some Marvel titles (say Spider-Man, X-Men) and others who are quote unquote younger or coded-younger than older teams like The Avengers and the Fantastic Four, and then essentially snap them out so that means for one full calendar year -- no Spider-Man, no X-Men anywhere on the comics stands.

That just wouldn't work. Marvel publishing would fall apart without Spider-Man and even though X-Men had lean years between House of M and Hickman, it never got outright canceled unlike Fantastic Four.

Likewise you would have to age-up the Fantastic Four and the Avengers and make them five years older. That might not make much of a difference since those characters have always been coded as being middle-aged for the most part, but that also means Franklin and Valeria Richards (unless one or both are snapped) would age up too. It also means Johnny Storm, only slightly older than Peter, becomes much older than him.

So logistically in terms of continuity it would create a lot of problems. What made it work in the movies was that actors were aging out of the roles and this allowed for a grand hurrah for them to bow out and a new altered status-quo.

Didn't that happen anyway with FF (At least with Reed, Sue, and the kids)?

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Didn't that happen anyway with FF (At least with Reed, Sue, and the kids)?

You mean after SW'2015? Well it's not made explicit how much time actually passed and eventually comic book time will reduce that to thinner and thinner intervals.

An actual "snap" would be something that sticks which can't be skirted. In the MCU, the Snap means that characters like MCU Rambeau went from seeing their mom on a hospital bed to waking up five years later in the same ward in a mess. That cannot be waved away.

[Noek]

The movies didn't exactly get all that daring with the snap. All the original Avengers conveniently survived leaving behind all the important characters at that point.

That would be neat. Have something make a bunch of heroes disappear and durring that time the Avengers are Ironman, Thor, Ant-man, Wasp, and Hulk. But ya a year of keeping this status quo in comics would be cool. Could get 3-4 arcs per book with this status quo. Launch some new books with a 12 issues in mind, and if any do good then they continue if the team behind them is good with it.

[jackolover]

The way I would see the snap is during World War Hulk, where Hulk actually kills all the Illuminati.

The FF become the Fantastic Three, with maybe Dr Doom.
Dr Strange is killed and there is no Sorcerer Supreme, and Dr Doom steals the amulet and cape off the body of Strange.
Professor X is dead and they notice at the next AGM, where the accountant is told, so he tells the X-Men to vacate Westchester, because Charles left the place to his sister.
Namor is dead, so all the sleeper cells return to Atlantis and there is a rush to see who is the next king.
Iron Man is dead and Stark Industry doesn’t exist because there are no more new inventions, so the CEO steals all Starks armours for their use. The Avengers lose all their backing, and all their cool club houses, and quinjets. They return to being individual detectives and Rick Jones is their coordinator.
Black Bolt is dead, and the Inhumans are defeated in Silent War.

Then you have a world where the main superheroes are gone and you see the whole thing descend into chaos for a while till we learn months later the Hulk just put the real Illuminati away in a cell underground.

You could do it as a secret history, and it is discovered in a secret file Fury had on the incident and everybody was mindwiped on the planet about it. It’s been done before with Sentry and Spiderman. It’s the chaos that was the interesting part. The Hulk would have loved that. The Hulk releases the Illuminati, and he says, “Welcome home boys. And thanks for my little holiday on Sakaar”.

[Mike_Murdock]

The "Snap" in the MCU happened in a single real-time year and transpired in five years within the story. To approximate that in comics:

It happened five years within the story and one year from our perspective, but from a broadcast content perspective, it was maybe two hours. It affected zero movies or television shows in the meantime. So far, nothing has been set during the five-year gap (except possibly Agents of SHIELD while not acknowledging it). It's the equivalent of having something happen during a story and resolve in next issue without an impact on the remaining books. I would argue Marvel does this quite frequently. The only thing they don't do is take a year to publish the next issue while not publishing anything else.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

It happened five years within the story and one year from our perspective, but from a broadcast content perspective, it was maybe two hours. It affected zero movies or television shows in the meantime. So far, nothing has been set during the five-year gap (except possibly Agents of SHIELD while not acknowledging it). It's the equivalent of having something happen during a story and resolve in next issue without an impact on the remaining books. I would argue Marvel does this quite frequently. The only thing they don't do is take a year to publish the next issue while not publishing anything else.

I agree. It's just the nature of the medium, movies and comics, that give that impression.

From a "broadcast content" perspective as you put it so well, moviegoers are willing to go a year or two without seeing a Spider-Man movie, but they aren't going to go a year without a Spider-Man comic.

The movies could make the "Snap" work in a way the comics couldn't.

[your_name_here]

Hickman destroyed the multiverse.

For a brief period, most books were cancelled and everything tied into Secret Wars.

Probably the closest thing I can think of.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Hickman destroyed the multiverse.

For a brief period, most books were cancelled and everything tied into Secret Wars.

Probably the closest thing I can think of.

Only for a few months and cancelled books were replaced with AU takes on same characters in battleword.

It’s not the same thing.