The Axis #7 Reveal *spoilers/poll*

[PennyD]

This is the part that is confusing though

Welcome to Counter-Earth, where the future of your species is being developed by crack evolutionists. A better future awaits and is only one evolutionary updated away.

...since the High Evolutionary's Counter-Earth was destroyed during Infinity Gauntlet by Thanos. Unless the H.E took over Franklins HR planet, which is still out there in an orbit opposite to MU Earth.

That would be awesome to see the HR planet again

[vitruvian]

This is the part that is confusing though

Welcome to Counter-Earth, where the future of your species is being developed by crack evolutionists. A better future awaits and is only one evolutionary updated away.

...since the High Evolutionary's Counter-Earth was destroyed during Infinity Gauntlet by Thanos. Unless the H.E took over Franklins HR planet, which is still out there in an orbit opposite to MU Earth.

Yeah, I wonder what they've thought of Tony Stark building a section of Dyson Sphere between them and the Sun all this time... have they been suffering from a regular eclipse, or was he at least thoughtful enough to have the Shi'ar contractors offset it a little?

[vitruvian]

The point is not to say that World War II happened in the 1970s or 1980s, but to say that our 2010 may be their 1970. A decade's worth of our time might be condensed into a year or two. This is simply pointing out the base theory, not going to great lengths to construct precisely how it would work. We're talking about a fictional world that has teleporters and space ships able to reach other galaxies, ergo our speed of scientific advancement doesn't apply to the Marvel universe. Likewise, cultural change has come more rapidly in the past couple decades in our world than in prior decades, which means Marvel can equally have a very quick pace of cultural change.

So, do the sliding timeline the other way, with it only being the 1970s now in the MU? It's a cute idea, and one with enough appeal that I've thought about playing around with it in fan fiction or an RPG campaign, but directly contradicted by too many later specific dates and topical references, including it being the 21st century in the current MU and Blue Marvel having faced a Y2K evil AI before the turn of the century/millennium.

There are no real limitations here. Sure, certain comics may have explicitly said "this happened in 1995" or "this happened in 2000," but frankly, I think either ignoring that or adjusting it to make all this work makes a heck of a lot more sense than retconning a daughter and son away from their father under the flimsy excuse that their father is too connected to a certain decade when we know the real reason it happened.

If it were just dates, no - but there's a great weight of stuff that doesn't make sense if it's still the 20th century. The Y2K thing is just one of many examples, then there are all the topical reference pop stars and public figures who weren't even born by the 1970s, references to disco having been over for decades (which left Dazzler a bit in the lurch, though, it's true), and so on.

But even more than that, even though all we long-term readers know the MU isn't really much like the 'world outside your window' plus some superheroes, Marvel probably wants to maintain that pretense for ease of entry by new readers, so I would bet they're going to keep having the current year in the MU always be the same as the current year in RL, and not risk confusing people by saying that things are happening decades earlier, except for specific flashback stories like Invaders and 50s Avengers and the 70s issues of Mighty Avengers. They'd rather deal with the implicit retcons involved in adjusting dates and topical references from older stories to accommodate the sliding of the timeline, than have to make it more obvious that we're reading about a severely alternate universe by having it be a different year there now. This is for the same reason that we're never going to see all gas-burning automobiles replaced by the repulsor tech-powered vehicles Stark Reliant was selling a while ago, or SHIELD tech for flying cars reach the mass market, or lots of medical supertech eliminate stories about people getting incurable cancer, or lots of (public) interaction with alien cultures beyond the occasional invasion attempt.

[emac1790]

So, do the sliding timeline the other way, with it only being the 1970s now in the MU? It's a cute idea, and one with enough appeal that I've thought about playing around with it in fan fiction or an RPG campaign, but directly contradicted by too many later specific dates and topical references

This reminds me of a song by A Tribe Called Quest named Vibes and Things( I think that's the song). In the song, Q-Tip says don't say dates on the song because it makes the song dated.

My point is, once the comics started using dates (for example, a caption box in the story that says "May 1970" or something like that), they put themselves in a corner. Now that story is linked to a certain date. That makes the sliding time scale harder to justify and now certain parts of the story has to be ignored.

Linking Magneto to WW II was fine in the 80's, but becomes a problem in 2014. How old is Mags suppose to be? How old are the Twins?

[jmc247]

Linking Magneto to WW II was fine in the 80's, but becomes a problem in 2014. How old is Mags suppose to be? How old are the Twins?

Magneto was deaged so he is around his late 30s/early 40s.

As for Wanda and Pietro they were put in a deep freeze by the HE so they were supposed to be in their early 30s biologically.

[emac1790]

Magneto was deaged so he is around his late 30s/early 40s.

As for Wanda and Pietro they were put in a deep freeze by the HE so they were supposed to be in their early 30s biologically.

That I know. But ten years from now, will that still fly?

Solution? Say Mags was a victim of ethnic cleansing back in the mid to late 70's and the Twins born not long after that. Mags could have met Prof X in Israel while the Prof was on his travels.

UGG. Just typing that out gives me a headache.

[salarta]

So, do the sliding timeline the other way, with it only being the 1970s now in the MU? It's a cute idea, and one with enough appeal that I've thought about playing around with it in fan fiction or an RPG campaign, but directly contradicted by too many later specific dates and topical references, including it being the 21st century in the current MU and Blue Marvel having faced a Y2K evil AI before the turn of the century/millennium.



If it were just dates, no - but there's a great weight of stuff that doesn't make sense if it's still the 20th century. The Y2K thing is just one of many examples, then there are all the topical reference pop stars and public figures who weren't even born by the 1970s, references to disco having been over for decades (which left Dazzler a bit in the lurch, though, it's true), and so on.

But even more than that, even though all we long-term readers know the MU isn't really much like the 'world outside your window' plus some superheroes, Marvel probably wants to maintain that pretense for ease of entry by new readers, so I would bet they're going to keep having the current year in the MU always be the same as the current year in RL, and not risk confusing people by saying that things are happening decades earlier, except for specific flashback stories like Invaders and 50s Avengers and the 70s issues of Mighty Avengers. They'd rather deal with the implicit retcons involved in adjusting dates and topical references from older stories to accommodate the sliding of the timeline, than have to make it more obvious that we're reading about a severely alternate universe by having it be a different year there now. This is for the same reason that we're never going to see all gas-burning automobiles replaced by the repulsor tech-powered vehicles Stark Reliant was selling a while ago, or SHIELD tech for flying cars reach the mass market, or lots of medical supertech eliminate stories about people getting incurable cancer, or lots of (public) interaction with alien cultures beyond the occasional invasion attempt.

As always, there are ways around it. If we were real sticklers for keeping this stuff intact, then it can all, again, be condensed. Translate decade into year, for example. Translate year into month. So on, so forth.

Of course, this is assuming we even have to be obsessively strict with this stuff. I maintain that if retconning two characters out of being the children of their father is considered acceptable, then so is completely blowing off "this happened in this year at this time." If Disney and Marvel are able and willing to do something on one end of the spectrum, then it's exact opposite on the other end of the spectrum is equally permissible. If you can radically change decades worth of characterization in a couple pages, then you can radically change decades worth of timeline "rules" in a couple pages.

And again, that's if any of this is even necessary, which it's not. Suspended animation is one option. Changing when they were conceived and born to a much later date is also possible, since again, allowing one retcon on flimsy and tenuous reasons means another retcon is equally permissible.

Overall, we know there is no legitimate excuse for the forced retcon Disney and Marvel just pulled. Nobody was beating down Marvel's door demanding everything become more realistic because a sliding timescale is too unrealistic for a world full of magic and highly advanced spaceships and robots. Then again, maybe that's what Disney wants after all, and next summer is going to be a reboot to make the Marvel universe less fantastical and more gritty and "realistic." Whether that happens or it's pure unqualified conjecture, it'll be interesting to see how much of what makes the Marvel universe what it is they're willing to throw away come next summer, if this is the prelude. If they're willing to destroy this, just imagine what else they're willing to destroy to get their way.

[vitruvian]

This reminds me of a song by A Tribe Called Quest named Vibes and Things( I think that's the song). In the song, Q-Tip says don't say dates on the song because it makes the song dated.

My point is, once the comics started using dates (for example, a caption box in the story that says "May 1970" or something like that), they put themselves in a corner. Now that story is linked to a certain date. That makes the sliding time scale harder to justify and now certain parts of the story has to be ignored.

Linking Magneto to WW II was fine in the 80's, but becomes a problem in 2014. How old is Mags suppose to be? How old are the Twins?

Magneto's own age is not a problem in the slightest, considering he's already been de-aged into a baby and then recovered since he's started being an X-Men foe. There are ways to deal with the twins, even if it remains the case that both parents were adults during WWII and the Holocaust, and in fact there's a suspended animation aspect to their origin already. Anyway, even if these links weren't manageable, making them not Mags' kids doesn't really help, because it's still the case that everybody thought it sounded plausible for years in-universe, so you still need an explanation for why they thought that sounded reasonable.

In general, though, I think they prefer the annoyance of having to do the implicit or explicit retcons to accommodate the sliding timeline rather than being unable to do any topical references in the current stories or have them implicitly be set in the present year whenever they're published. It's not like there are too many characters who are explicitly tied to dated events like WWII, so all they have to do is ignore Cold War references or other topical references that aren't integral to characters, as they've done.

[vitruvian]

As always, there are ways around it. If we were real sticklers for keeping this stuff intact, then it can all, again, be condensed. Translate decade into year, for example. Translate year into month. So on, so forth.

That's if they were interested in moving away from current stories happening now and WWII happening in the 1940s in the first place, and they're not. The sliding timeline works well enough for them for most characters, and they're good at coming up with explanations for the exceptions.

Of course, this is assuming we even have to be obsessively strict with this stuff. I maintain that if retconning two characters out of being the children of their father is considered acceptable, then so is completely blowing off "this happened in this year at this time."

Depends on what it is. As I said, I'll bet you anything they'll never move WWII from the 1940s to fit their stories. Even Y2K can't really be moved... luckily, just how long that is before the FF debut remains undefined and Brashear don't crack.

If Disney and Marvel are able and willing to do something on one end of the spectrum, then it's exact opposite on the other end of the spectrum is equally permissible. If you can radically change decades worth of characterization in a couple pages, then you can radically change decades worth of timeline "rules" in a couple pages.

Sure, but there has to be a reason for them to want to do so, and with the sliding timeline working well enough for most purposes, there's no reason for them to ever consider having all their 'Marvel NOW' relaunches happening in the 1970s rather than in the year that it is NOW.

And again, that's if any of this is even necessary, which it's not. Suspended animation is one option. Changing when they were conceived and born to a much later date is also possible, since again, allowing one retcon on flimsy and tenuous reasons means another retcon is equally permissible.

That's where we basically agree... there's no need for this retcon in order to resolve chronology issues with the sliding timeline. But that's the thing, not only is there no reason to think that's why they did this, that doesn't even really help things. They (seem to have) retconned whether he's really their dad, not whether everybody in-universe thought it sounded reasonable that he could be.

Overall, we know there is no legitimate excuse for the forced retcon Disney and Marvel just pulled. Nobody was beating down Marvel's door demanding everything become more realistic because a sliding timescale is too unrealistic for a world full of magic and highly advanced spaceships and robots. Then again, maybe that's what Disney wants after all, and next summer is going to be a reboot to make the Marvel universe less fantastical and more gritty and "realistic." Whether that happens or it's pure unqualified conjecture, it'll be interesting to see how much of what makes the Marvel universe what it is they're willing to throw away come next summer, if this is the prelude. If they're willing to destroy this, just imagine what else they're willing to destroy to get their way.

No, it's not a reasonable fix for the sliding timeline, but that's not why they did it anyway. There are other possible reasons for doing this, though.

[emac1790]

Magneto's own age is not a problem in the slightest, considering he's already been de-aged into a baby and then recovered since he's started being an X-Men foe. There are ways to deal with the twins, even if it remains the case that both parents were adults during WWII and the Holocaust, and in fact there's a suspended animation aspect to their origin already. Anyway, even if these links weren't manageable, making them not Mags' kids doesn't really help, because it's still the case that everybody thought it sounded plausible for years in-universe, so you still need an explanation for why they thought that sounded reasonable.

In general, though, I think they prefer the annoyance of having to do the implicit or explicit retcons to accommodate the sliding timeline rather than being unable to do any topical references in the current stories or have them implicitly be set in the present year whenever they're published. It's not like there are too many characters who are explicitly tied to dated events like WWII, so all they have to do is ignore Cold War references or other topical references that aren't integral to characters, as they've done.

And before that, the Twins were the kids of the Franks. That was plausible then. And before that, no one knew their parents were. Stories change all of the time. This is just another example.

As for an reasonable explanation why the Twins thought Mags was their Dad, I thought the book had one, as silly as it sounds. Wanda made a spell that made her and her brother are no longer the kids of Mags.

I feel another headache coming on...

[salarta]

That's if they were interested in moving away from current stories happening now and WWII happening in the 1940s in the first place, and they're not. The sliding timeline works well enough for them for most characters, and they're good at coming up with explanations for the exceptions.

Depends on what it is. As I said, I'll bet you anything they'll never move WWII from the 1940s to fit their stories. Even Y2K can't really be moved... luckily, just how long that is before the FF debut remains undefined and Brashear don't crack.

Sure, but there has to be a reason for them to want to do so, and with the sliding timeline working well enough for most purposes, there's no reason for them to ever consider having all their 'Marvel NOW' relaunches happening in the 1970s rather than in the year that it is NOW.

That's where we basically agree... there's no need for this retcon in order to resolve chronology issues with the sliding timeline. But that's the thing, not only is there no reason to think that's why they did this, that doesn't even really help things. They (seem to have) retconned whether he's really their dad, not whether everybody in-universe thought it sounded reasonable that he could be.

No, it's not a reasonable fix for the sliding timeline, but that's not why they did it anyway. There are other possible reasons for doing this, though.

When I say condensed, I mean that for example, the Y2K bug for us may be 20-30 years out from World War II in the Marvel universe because a year passes much faster for the Marvel universe. Perhaps their year is 182 days, as an example. The rules of time in Interstellar may apply between fiction and real world.

Frankly, I wouldn't be suggesting any of this if not for this retcon. Before this retcon, I would've said the ideas I'm proposing here were a bit of a stretch, unnecessary, the sort of thing you might see in fanfiction but not applicable to the Marvel universe. Now, I think these ideas are perfectly valid. This retcon drastically lowered the bar of what sounds like something Marvel can and should do with the Marvel universe. I would dare to say that it made fanfiction more valid as a representation of the Marvel universe than it ever was before. Some people aren't going to like that sentiment, but I'm not going to budge from it.

All that said, I'm glad we can basically agree that there was no reason for this retcon.

[ROSA13]

Wanda You can't blame your not dad for everything.blame your negative attitude.".if you can't open your mouth without blaming someone, just shut up. No one wants to hear your bullshit right now.

[Lucyinthesky]

Well at least now Wanda and Pietro will have to deal with their own guilt and bad deeds witout blaming their no-father Magneto or at least I hope so

Now after reding some wiki it seems probable Magda will still be their mother but without magneto as their father so they can keep their Romany heritage and well at least is something interesting about them they will keep even on marvel movie verse. Marvel just needs to bring back Magda for the drama imo.

[jmc247]

Well at least now Wanda and Pietro will have to deal with their own guilt and bad deeds witout blaming their no-father Magneto or at least I hope so

There is always Doom.

Anyway, the past decade shows anything Marvel can have two universes going on at the same time and at times even more. Imagine one Marvel line of comics tailored to becoming in effect promotional material for fans watching the films. Though obviously it has to be more subtle then just that otherwise it won't sell any better then the x-comics based on the x-films as fans will say to themselves why buy this when I can just watch the film. A second universe that is the 616 and allows writers to take risks and come up with new ideas and new stories that can be adapted to the films.

While both universes could come up with stories that are adapted to the films I have the feeling the House of Ideas will produce better stories then the House of MCU IPs.

[Lucyinthesky]

Poor Doom

It does seem possible the secret wars crossover is about that dividing the Marvel Universe on "regions" in which even alternative universes can co-exist. Maybe not exactly that but it´s possible something similar can develop. I am not adverse at that idea but I like it more when characters from different parts of the marvel universe get to interact. Still I am excited about how secret wars will tackle all those alternative realities together. My guess is that Thanos team will find some resistance in the near future