Comic Book Reboots and Timescales

As an avid Marvel comic book reader and collector for many years, it surprises me that it has taken this long for me to understand how time works in that universe in relation to their books. In fact, I just took it as a fact of comics that the heroes and villains would never really age. For some reason, my brain was able to accept that even though Peter Parker had been around for 50+ years, he still looked like he was maybe in his thirties in the comics.

The way I justified it was that each comic typically represented a day or two of time. Therefore, even though the character had been around since the 60's, he would only have aged a few years. I was able to ignore the fact that we had gone from sock hops and civil rights protests to a fully digital and globalized world in just a few years. I mean, it could be explained away pretty easily with all of the alien invasions and super geniuses that the universe has. But then, I read a book that destroyed my perception of time in the Marvel Universe, and now I can't unsee it. Frankly, it bugs the crap out of me.

A mini-series was recently released called "Amazing Spider-Man: Learning to Crawl". In this series, it explores a new character from the early days of Spider-Man's career. So, we're taken back to the mid-sixties. No problem, right? I was ready to settle in and enjoy some corny period-dialogue and nostalgic 60's memorabilia. Imagine my shock when I saw the people of New York walking around with cell phones, browsing the internet! Sure, they dressed like people from the 60's, but there they were, posting on Facebook. I started trying to figure out why they depicted it this way. Was it an alternate dimension? Some kind of time-travel thing?

J. Jonah Jameson types up an article on his laptop

No, it turns out that the Marvel Universe (among others) has what's called a "sliding timescale". Wikipedia defines it thusly:

"A floating timeline (also known as a sliding timescale) is a device used in fiction, particularly in comics and animation, to explain why characters age little or not at all over a period of time — despite real-world markers like notable events, people and technology appearing in the works and correlating with the real world. A floating timeline is a subtle form of retroactive continuity. This is seen most clearly in the case of comic book characters who debuted as teens in the 1940s or the 1960s but who are still relatively young in current comics. Events from the characters' pasts are alluded to, but they are changed from having taken place years ago to having taken place more recently."

This means that even though Captain America did indeed fight in World War 2, the date that he was unfrozen continues to slide forward as time goes on. Teams like The Avengers and Fantastic Four weren't formed in the 60's, but much later. For as many problems as this might solve, such as characters not aging, it creates many more.

The circumstances in which many of these characters were created were highly dependent on the time that they were introduced. This is especially true for technologically-based heroes such as Iron Man. Originally, he was captured by communist Chinese forces and told to build weapons. Instead, he builds a crude suit of armor that he uses to escape. Other than the obvious Cold War overtones, the crude armor could be seen as realistic, since he built it with whatever was on hand. His subsequent suits, however, weren't much better.

In 1963, Iron Man gets an upgrade

Now this wouldn't be a problem for me if this was 1963, but it's not, according to the sliding timescale of the Marvel Universe. This is supposed to be what...the late 90's? It's very hard for me to reconcile this, especially given that some Marvel books use a lot of time travel, such as the X-Men. Recently, the X-Man named Beast pulled the original X-Men from the past. Now, that's totally fine in comic book terms, but if we're universally using this sliding timescale, he would have pulled them from the 80's-90's, not the 60's. Instead, they come to the present and are confused by things such as the internet and other modern technology. It hurts my brain to try and reconcile this.

DC Comics, on the other hand, does things a bit differently. They periodically 'reboot' their entire universe, starting all of their characters with a clean slate. This first occurred during the 'Crisis on Infinite Earths' event in 1985. Until that point, DC used a much longer version of the sliding timescale. Characters such as the original Flash and Green Lantern grew old and passed the torch to a younger generation. Popular characters such as Wonder Woman and Superman aged much more slowly or not at all, but this was explained in the comics. Batman was something of the exception. Having been introduced in the early 40's, he was still running around and punching bad guys right up until the Crisis storyline.

Batman would prove to be the exception in the most recent reboot as well, called the 'New 52'. This was another line-wide relaunch of the DC universe, and while some of Batman's early adventures were altered, much of his history remained intact. In fact, the title Batman Incorporated references many events that happened prior to the New 52 reboot. Batman was the only character whose history survived this event, even if it was only a portion of that history.

The Crisis on Infinite Earths

Marvel did try their hand at an alternate universe in the form of several books published from 2000 to present called the "Ultimate" universe. This universe was an experiment of sorts that said "What if the Marvel Universe started today?" It didn't destroy any of the continuity in their main universe, more commonly known as the "Earth-616" universe, and it allowed them to play with several ideas and turn characters and teams on their head. Peter Parker died, and was replaced by Miles Morales, which became a hugely successful book. Colossus of the X-Men was gay, and in a relationship with fellow mutant Northstar. Mr. Fantastic turned evil, and became Dr. Doom. All of these things created an interesting universe of "what-ifs" without overwriting anything in the traditional Marvel U.

With the upcoming event of Marvel's 'Secret Wars' storyline being teased, many of the fans online cried "reboot!" as Marvel promised a line-changing event. They have stated several times that it is not a reboot, but rather a "consolidation" of sorts, merging the Ultimate universe into the 616 Universe. They saw the reaction regarding DC's New 52 reboot, and they know it's not what the fans want. What they do want, are hit characters like Miles Morales to be a part of the Marvel Universe, and for the company to bring back many dead characters and unresolved stories. Only time will tell whether the shake-up of Secret Wars is a success, but it's sure to be interesting.

So what's the 'right' way to approach comics continuity? It's largely a matter of opinion, of course. I know many people who hate the idea of DC's New 52 reboot, and I doubt many people even realize the sliding timescale approach that Marvel takes, so maybe that's the answer. Whatever doesn't interfere with our enjoyment of the characters and stories that we know and love. I know that Marvel has learned many lessons from it's competitors, and will likely never reboot. I can't help but feel like that's for the best.