Board Thread:Administrative/@comment-61022-20121219004415/@comment-61022-20121223173006

@Peter - It certainly would be tricky. But Marvel appears to be advancing the length of time since Fantastic Four #1. I can't recall where, but it was either in the 2004-2005 handbooks or early A-Z handbooks where they stated that the Fantastic Four were birthed 10 years in Marvel Time. While the last few hardcover editions to roll out have stated that it is now 3 years. There is a concurrent passage of time. However, Marvel has noted that it's not exactly perfect (for example, how quickly Peter Parker passed through high school appears to be in advance of the actual passage of time) there are other issues, such as how certain characters have aged, but there certainly is some effort to give it a linear flow. They're making a more contentious effort toward it anyhow.

@Artful - Actually the technological references would likely be classified as "topical" references with the characters, given the sliding time scale. I'd say using technological advances and pop-culture references would not be a good measurement factor in this case.

@Spencerz - Typically all future dates are considered potential futures and considered an alternate reality until the events actually come to pass in the "present" (which in most of these cases they seldom do) so they wouldn't be part of the measurement. If we were to undertake this it would only cover the passage of time from Fantastic Four #1 to what is presently going on in the Marvel Universe.