Board Thread:Policies/@comment-16461120-20161107075255/@comment-61022-20161108155651

ADour wrote:

And now linking this to a point brought up by Duellante magic: I don't believe comic adaptations of movies should be considered to be set in a different reality. They're the equivalent of those comics from the Silver to the Bronze Age when they used to go over the origin of the protagonist once in a while because getting to read back issues was hard and you couldn't really google "How did Peter Parker become Spider-Man?" Those types of stories do feature some differences from the original telling, but aren't considered non-canon.

If we're speaking strictly from a 616 standpoint, these later tellings usually update dated references and sometimes add embellishments that expand on events. A lot of it just reframes the story to fit the era in which it was written, usually putting the points that were changed in the history into the realm of topical references. Things like how much money Peter Parker could have won fighting Crusher Hogan and where the Fantastic Four were travelling on their space flight are perfect examples.

I would say from the perspective of documenting everything on the Wiki is not so much a need to "retcon" things because Marvel doesn't really do any heavy retconning on a regular basis (that's more DC's bailiwick). I think from a stylistic standpoint we need to analytically look at what we're reading and decide what could be construed as a topical point and write those points in as general terms as possible so we're not falling over ourselves to go back and change those details whenever they're changed, and putting the specifics in a notation (much like what I do with expanded history pages)

On the other hand, there are some conflicting facts or errors but these are always on such minor details that they could also be put into the realm of topical referencing/generalizing or putting the most common source in the main body and explaining the differences in a notation. A good example here is who Jack Murdock fought on the night that he died (If you take a look at the early work on my Expanded History of Daredevil, you'll note that there were many.)

ADour wrote: In addition to that, WarBlade mentioned some inconsistencies between prequel comics and the source film. They should probably be treated as such, in the same way Luke Cage shouldn't be able to crack Iron Man's armor because Iron Fist couldn't even dent, for example.

Those are certainly points of artistic license and I'm sure people could go into some No-Prize territory explaining these things (if people invested the energy in that sort of thing anymore).

ADour wrote: Maybe we're holding movie-related material to a higher standard than comic stuff. Inconsistencies and retcons in comics are common currency, so we shouldn't be spitting hairs because it happens in movie-related material.

I wouldn't say that we're holding it to a higher standard in so much that the people who have previously added supplement material (like comics, novels etc) might not be familiar with the mechanics of the lore. Most importantly the multiversal structure, the timescale, and how to interpret topical references.

With due respect to contributors, I would fathom that a lot of them are probably relatively new to Marvel related things, or are not as well versed in how the mechanics of things work. I think that if anything the lack of policy on such matters doesn't help much.

ADour wrote: The events from those ignored X-Men movie prequels could simply be considered retconned, the same way Ulysses Klaw went from Dutch physicist to Belgian hired assassin.

Again, I'm not necessarily seeing the need to bandy the phrase "retcon" and just move on.

Also the analysis on Ulysses Klaw doesn't necessarily negate one profession being valid over the other or creates any continuity issues. In that, Dutch is merely a language, not a nationality. The Dutch language is a commonly used language in Belgium.

The fact that one story presents him as a physicist and another depicts him as a hired assassin don't truly negate themselves either. The idea that a character could shift professions does require a bit of suspension of disbelief, but certainly given the fictional works we are speaking of here, it's not so outlandish to consider. Another, more plausible, explanation could be that perhaps Klaw was merely posing as a physicist. The Marvel Universe is rife with examples of characters posing in professions while really being hired mercs, spies, or other neer-do-wells.

This of course is all speculative, but the point I'm trying to make here is that just because there are no links between one statement (Klaw is a physicist) and another (Klaw is a hired assassin) doesn't negate the two facts, it just makes the transition between one fact and the other unknown. Looking at the Marvel Handbooks (particularly more recent volumes) whenever there are instances where there is a massive change in a character without a logical connection between the two truths they usually toss in something like "the reason for x now being y is unknown, but this is totes what happened" (I'm paraphrasing of course). ADour wrote: Some of the comic tie-ins, at least in the case of MCU tie-ins, have Marvel Studios personnel credited, so it's very possible they were written under some kind of supervision.

Shoe on the other foot: Every Marvel comic is overseen by an editor and editor-in-chief whose main job (among other tasks) is to make sure that the story fits within established guidelines (continuity, editorial mandate, and so forth) and sometimes they still make mistakes or include items that are eventually ignored later on.

So the fact that they have Marvel Studios staff on the credit list doesn't really instill enough confidence that they're going to respect the tie-in comics with any regard in later films. I would even go so far as to say that probably most of those names are on the credits are only there at face value since they're the important people in charge of whatever product the comic book is about.

ADour wrote: I believe comic tie-ins should be considered canon, and have their events held to the same standard as comic books. If the movie later contradicts something from the comic, it can be a simple inconsistency. And if the contradiction is bigger, the events from the source should overtrump the tie-in and what the tie-in stated should be considered retconned.

This is where I don't entirely agree with you, mostly because I think we're on different pages with how Marvel tends to deal with these issues. Also because I don't think stated material should be tossed out because there is no link between one fact and the other.

But perhaps we're digging far too deep into this and perhaps a more simpler approach should be taken, but I'll get into that in a moment...

ADour wrote: The only difference in this approach should apply to video games. Video games feature blatant contradictions and don't really try to find a way to nicely fit what's established in the movie with what they're going for. The developer of the latest Amazing Spider-Man video games even outright confirmed he was doing his own thing, and basically just borrowing the visual style from the movies.

In that case, I think all video games should be considered non-canon (something that I kinda wanted the wikia to do some years ago but the initative ended up in limbo).

This I 100% agree on. Video games are faaaaaaar too disruptive to any continuity that is established in other media. As I said in other posts, game developers have to flesh in elements from the franchise itself in order to make a playable game based on a specific movie. If you think of it this way, pick any game that is based on a Marvel movie, then remove all of the characters that have not appeared in that specific cinematic universe prior to the release of that game. Does it make the game still playable? If so, does it sound like a less exciting game to you? Then I think that proves a point, but I can go one deeper on this.

Take a game based on a specific movie, now isolate a character who had not previously appeared in that movie franchise prior to the release of the game but later made an appearance in said franchise in a later movie released after the game. Does any of that match at all? Probably not in the slightest. You likely can't even make the sore of intuitive leaps that I did with the Ulysses Klaw example used above.

I think with video games we need to make a *hard* stance on them. Unless there is specific reference tying the game to something in continuity (by "hard reference" I mean a specific Handbook says so) then we should always treat those games as a unique TRN (unless it's a sequel to a previous game naturally).

Nausiated wrote: But perhaps we're digging far too deep into this and perhaps a more simpler approach should be taken, but I'll get into that in a moment...

You know we're getting into deep discussion here when we're quoting ourselves in the same post! Ha ha... But okay, shifting back to movies here for a moment and how to consider tie-in material....

I think I can agree with ADour in the fact that perhaps we are splitting hairs on details and perhaps we are looking at the wrong bit of evidence to base our position on this sort of thing.

Marvel has, for the past year, been releasing Guidebooks to the Cinematic Universe. For those who are not familiar, they are basically Official Marvel Handbooks to the MCU. I've paged through a few of them but haven't actually read anything just yet, but I am going to assume that in a lot of cases they are going to be the official "bible" of the MCU.

I can't confirm this (perhaps someone could if they will), but maybe we should see if any of these tie-in comics are mentioned in these Guidebooks. If they are we should use that as the litmus test on the validity of applying them to Earth-199999 (or other cinematic universe) based on this standard.

In that, if they're mentioned in these guidebooks, then lets add them to the base cinematic profiles. If they are not, then I think it's safe to assume that these tie-ins and adaptations are not considered cannon and should be consigned to a TRN.

That said, I don't think it's outside of the realm of probability that there will be parallel worlds based on the various cinematic universes. There are countless iterations of Earth-616 that exist. Various alternate versions of alternate realities (as redundant as that sounds). I mean, look at how many different versions of Days of Future Past exist. How many different versions of Squadron Supreme exist out there? There are alternate takes on numerous stories that exist that look suspiciously like they belong to one universe or the other but are not considered canon to that universe.

The crux here is that if it's not canon it doesn't mean it didn't happen somewhere so perhaps at the end of the day, to save ourselves countless headaches, TRN's are the best way to go with all of this. Much like what we're doing with the All-New X-Men, Spider-Man 2099 and I suspect we'll have to start doing with Old Man Logan as well eventually. Until Marvel officially says "this is truth" about any of this we should perhaps apply it to a TRN.