KC COLUMN: TIME keeps ON SLIPPIN’, SLIPPIN’, SLIPPIN’…

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by KC Carlson

Captain America: guy Out of Time

So, the other day, I’m reading (and truly enjoying — you should inspect it out! one of Marvel’s finest so far this year!), mark Waid, Jorge Molina, as well as Karl Kesel’s five-issue Captain America: guy Out of Time – as well as suddenly I’m hit in the deal with with a metaphorical Tex Avery-sized frying pan! BWOOOOING!

Avengers #4

Ostensibly, the restricted series is a retelling of exactly how world war II-era Captain America ended up in the contemporary marvel world via explosion, frozen in a block of ice, as well as being found by the Avengers soon after their formation. It’s one of the pillars of early marvel continuity, originally told in the pages of Avengers #4, cover-dated March 1964 as well as created by Stan Lee as well as Jack Kirby. It’s been reprinted (or excerpted) at least a lots times as well as re-told – often with new details – at least as many more. As longtime marvel visitors know, the story is not just about moving Cap from point A to point B to re-introduce him into contemporary marvel continuity. up until just recently (relatively speaking), for over 40 years, it’s likewise been the tragic story of the death of Bucky Barnes.

Amazingly, the Bucky angle is not a part of Captain America: guy Out of Time, except as a background element. (There are likewise other aspects typical to most re-tellings, such as the involvement of Baron Heinrich Zemo — present in a flashback in Avengers #4, however not determined up until later — or Namor the Sub-Mariner that are not important to the CA: MOoT series.) The primary focus of the story is to highlight Cap’s man-out-of-time condition as well as his extremely moving reaction to all the modifications in the world since WWII, something that was a minor aspect of Cap’s early stories during Silver Age Marvel, however mainly glossed over.

This is where the animation frying pan comes in. Cap is rescued from his suspended animation (in a remarkable two-page/panel shift that clearly indicates that – for Cap – absolutely no time has passed) by the exact same early (and inexperienced) Avengers – Iron Man, Thor, Giant-Man, as well as the Wasp – however Cap doesn’t get reinserted into time in the early 1960s of the original story. We quickly recognize that Cap is wandering around nyc at some point soon before Y2K, about 11 years back right here in the “real world” – a world full of smartphones, the internet, as well as gangbangers with handguns. That was rather a slap in the head for an old-time comics visitor like me, who checked out the original Avengers #4 sometime fairly close to its actual publication date. In my mind, the events in the story were quite much burned into my brain as always being set in the early 1960s, when phones still had cords, computers were mainly science-fiction to daily people, as well as the most evil thing “juvenile delinquents” did was checked out comic books.

This realization is not so shocking for somebody who is well versed in fictional shared universes, sliding timelines, “topical references”, as well as the other ephemera of fictional world building, largely as well as loosely lumped under the classification of continuity.

I online in both worlds. Or at least I did. more on that next week.

THE EVER-SHIFTING SANDS OF TIME…

What we see in Captain America: guy Out of Time is an element of continuity that is usually called a floating (or sliding) timeline. It’s a composing gadget utilized often in heroic fiction to explain why characters never seem to age, in spite of real-world markers (historical events, people, technology, etc.) utilized in the work, even when the lead character(s) have origins in the amazing (aka: superheroes).

It’s a type of so-called retroactive continuity. The short-hand term “retcon” has ended up being a somewhat poor buzzword in the comics neighborhood for suggesting an arbitrary modification in the history of a character (or series). The sliding timeline really does the opposite – to protect the character’s (implied) constant age, the world history that occurs around the character is altered instead, ideally keeping events in the character’s history intact.

In Captain America’s case, his WWII career is still in location (although constantly embellished), as well as he exits that time period in the exact same method that he always has (plane explosion complied with by suspended animation). The difference right here is that he now comes out of suspended animation soon before the year 2000, instead of the previous 1964. Although we don’t see it right here (as it’s not a part of this specific story), we presume that all of the events of Cap’s documented history (1964 to today) in the contemporary age now take location between the marvel world calendar years of 1999 as well as 2011. (I suspect they may have to re-jigger the background of the trick Empire/Nomad storyline, originally tied to the Watergate detraction of the early 1970s. Although if they do that, they likewise have to be cautious not to mess up the subsequent Destiny war (aka Avengers Forever) storyline that counts on that original story really happening.)

The method the marvel world has always worked, if you make a major modification somewhere, it will most likely set off a ripple impact of modifications in other areas, since whatever in the marvel U. theoretically interlocks together. We’ve already seen an example of this. a number of years ago, just before the movie, Iron Man’s origin, long connected to the war in Vietnam, was subtly altered to have taken location more just recently in Afghanistan (after a previous revision which put it in the very first Gulf War). Long-time marvel visitors may recall Ben Grimm (The Thing) reminiscing about fighting in world war II. That got written out long ago. as well as don’t even get me started about actual WWII vet Nick Fury as well as his colleagues, whose history is constantly being rewritten as we speak. (In mainly great ways, I may add!). These as well as other tweaks are constantly being added to present stories to update “topical references” that are now long out-of-date because of shifting timelines.

When I very first pitched the concept of this column to Editor boy Roger Ash, I found that he was not only not familiar with the sliding timeline idea (which meant I had my work cut out for me trying to explain it), he likewise believed that the Cap book (which he had read) was a “What if?” story or a story about an alternating world Cap (something that marvel has been doing with increasing frequency in the last few years). After I explained that all of Cap’s experiences were now supposed to have occurred in a time period of only 10 or 11 years, he stated “This makes my head hurt to believe about it as well much. exactly how might Cap experience the exact same things in 11 years that he’s experienced in 47 years?”

Bingo! This is the heart of the problem. Marvel’s got some work to do to get everybody on board, since Roger is not a stupid person. This is confusing stuff.

THE reason WHY

So why do publishers jump with hoops like this? simple – do the math. In our old marvel U., Captain America is a young soldier fighting in WWII. Let’s state he was 20 years old when he slipped into suspended animation in 1944. He was originally “iceberged” for 20 years, emerging in the marvel world in 1964 – still 20 years old. presuming there was no sliding timeline or any type of kind of time compression, 1964 to today (2011) is 47 years, which makes Captain America a 67-year-old man. Peter Parker, who was in high institution in 1964 (let’s phone call him 16 years old), will celebrate his 63rd birthday this year. WWII vets Namor as well as Nick Fury – both in their late 80s. (Yeah, yeah, I understand all about being a mutant or drinking the Infinity Formula… however still!) even a family member child like Richard Rider (Nova): a teenager in 1976 would be in his early 50s today. Not precisely the typical age of heroic fiction characters.

That’s why there’s a sliding timeline. Fans, publishers, as well as even creators (although some may relish the challenge) want their heroes to be young, powerful, as well as virile. ‘Nuff said.

REAL world CONCERNS

As time marches on, the circumstance gets worse (and even more ludicrous). Both marvel as well as DC are in the exact same boat, as they both keep adding years as well as years’ worth of stories about their characters to restricted timelines. They want to shorten the “official” length of their specific timelines in an effort to keep their primary characters young as well as believable. Both business sometimes toy with putting a different, younger character in specific super-suits, however usually this is a story-driven concept rather than a long-term change. DC in specific seems to go back as well as forth with their occasional “generational” concept of putting the now adult original teen Titans characters into the functions of their mentors, however other than Dick Grayson, this hasn’t truly happened. as well as now they’re starting to kill as well as maim Titans (Aqualad, Speedy) instead. Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, as well as Diana prince obviously aren’t going away anytime soon.

The next few years may be fascinating to watch as real-world difficulties are catching as much as a few of the oldest (and most classic) characters. A few years ago, Warner as well as Disney, among others, pushed with a copyright extension expense that prevented the rights to 1930s-created characters such as Superman as well as Mickey mouse from expiring, which would have put them into the public domain. Now, both DC as well as marvel are fighting to keep their core characters from being lawfully reclaimed by their original creators (or their heirs). provided the success seen so far by the Siegel family, some extremely huge characters are dealing with some fascinating situations.

RE-JIGGERING THE TIMELINES

Brave as well as the strong #28

Getting back to comic books themselves, the huge two have different other issues in dealing with the timelines of their fictional universes – not the least of which is the truth that their earliest characters were “born” just prior to or during world war II as well as are concretely linked to that era. For both marvel as well as DC, a big chunk of their early fictional timeline is anchored firmly to that period (commonly called the golden Age of Comics). Superheroes largely declined after the war (both in genuine life as well as for timeline purposes). In genuine word terms, the large-scale revival of superheroic fiction occurred at two different periods (although both autumn within what is commonly understood as the Silver Age). DC’s superhero revival began in the mid-50’s with the development of the new Barry Allen Flash character as well as the sluggish (but steady) advancement of other heroes. many new versions of golden Age characters like eco-friendly Lantern, The Atom, as well as Hawkman appeared, which led to the team book that they all (eventually) starred in – Justice league of America in 1960.

Fantastic four #1

The success of the JLA book made marvel take notice, as well as editor/writer Stan Lee was instructed to establish a superhero team precisely like it. fortunately for everybody, Stan didn’t comply with orders. He as well as Jack Kirby instead came up with the amazing four in 1961, as well as the marvel world was born. Over the next few years, Stan as well as his artists (mostly Kirby as well as Steve Ditko), came up with the most incredible array of heroic characters (Spider-Man, The Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, the Avengers, the X-Men, Dr. Strange, etc.) ever produced in so short a time. virtually all of them ultimately ended up being extremely prominent – with most still being on a regular basis published today!

For the many fans who were there, the “entry” of these heroes into the world was permanently fixed as being in the 1960s (or late 1950s). Now, you can state that these characters were very first published in 1956 or 1961 or 1964 or whenever. however for almost all of these traditional characters, when you want to talk about when they very first appeared within their fictional Universes, you can no longer authoritatively connect that to a specific date – nor have you been able to do that for a extremely long time, whether you understood it or not. You have to state something like “The amazing four were very first introduced into area 10 years ago.” or “Batman very first appeared in Gotham City about 11 years ago.” It’s all ended up being family member to today.

Yeah, I don’t like it much either. as well as here’s the thing… If you want somebody to blame for it – I’m most likely your guy.

NEXT WEEK: discover out why. Hint: it includes time travel.

Archie Americana: finest of the 70s

KC CARLSON SEZ: If you’re still a bit unclear about the whole sliding timeline thing, I can believe of no much better example than Archie Comics. This cast of teens have never graduated from high institution in 60 years. They still have precisely the exact same teachers, parents, soda jerk — almost nothing about their lives has altered in six decades. However, they have experienced every single teenage trend, fad, or hobby as well as gone with dozens of genres of music, teen idols, as well as movie stars. dozens of eras of style as well as fashion. Parodied countless different movies as well as TV shows. as well as survived superheroes, horror, science fiction, crime, war, western, romance, funny animals, alternative, manga/anime, as well as quite much every comic genre that’s come as well as gone or stuck around. They are medical oddities – the oldest teens in the world! as well as 40 years from now – they’ll still be in high school!

Classic comic covers from the Grand Comics Database.