Board Thread:Administrative/@comment-61022-20160912200936/@comment-61022-20160915144043

Nah that's fine Copeinator, I don't mind a moderators opinion on this subject.

As for the Timescale, I think what people misinterpret is that -- as it's implemented right now -- is that it's a standard unit of measurement. I quantified it here. Some people will argue the specific cut off points because that is a matter of interpretation.

Where we differentiate is based on perspective. You have to differentiate between what's recent and was published a long time ago.

The period of time between Fantastic Four #1 and now doesn't shrink. It moves a year away in Marvel time every four years of publications. Right now, the origin of the Fantastic Four happened "14 years ago", it will still have happened roughly "14 years ago" until November of 2018 when it becomes "15 years ago" and so on. So even though time is being compressed, it's still moving forward, just at a 1:4 ratio to real time.

I've put this theory to the test reading the entire run of the Fantastic Four and in the very few instances they have mentioned how many years ago their origin was (from the perspective of that story) it has been generally been accurate. I think there was maybe 1 or 2 instances where it was inaccurate based on the 1:4 scale, I would suspect that some writers just don't pay attention or make a mistake. These aberrations in time measurement can be dismissed as inaccuracies.

So applying a Year One, Year Two, Year Three, sort of model is feasible because those "years" remain the same, at this point in time, they're not going to get compressed yet again unless Marvel says otherwise, which I doubt they will. It's too much work and there are easier ways to keep their characters young and vital.

This is something I should have explained a little better in the glossary entry, and that's regarding the issue of "time compression"

This is particularly an issue with the big events of the last decade -- House of M, Civil War, Secret Invasion, Siege, Dark Reign, Age of Heroes Etc. -- that a character will say the Civil War was "one year ago". But it's an issue that applies across the board. In those cases you really have to look at when the story they said it in was published, and the measurement of real time that has passed between issues.

For example, when someone in Secret Invasion said that the super-hero Civil War was "a year ago", that's true in the sense of publications. Also from point of reference to readers who were reading those stories AT THAT TIME, it would make more sense to refer it to a year ago. Eventually Civil War and Secret Invasion are dated references (they already are) and that's when the time compression happens. Based on the Sliding Timescale BOTH of those events happened in the same year and that was "two years ago" relative to now.

The compression works like this: Anything that is within that 1:4 ratio bubble is measured in "real time" at the time those stories are being published. Once you get out of that 4 year period, that's when it's all compressed into a single year and it slides backward.

Using the events of Civil War to Siege as an example this is how it all plays out:

Civil War - Late 2006/Early 2007 Secret Invasion - Mid 2008/Early 2009 Siege - Early 2010

When these stories were published, any story published around the time of Secret Invasion would have stated that the Civil War was "about a year ago", when Siege happened stories published around that time would state that Civil War was "about two years ago" and Secret Invasion "about a year ago".

This would have been true at the time of publication, but if you do the math the 1:4 ratio cycle for this period started November 2006 and ended in October 2010. Once we land on publications in November 2010, everything prior is condensed together so all publication in the four years prior to November 2010 become a single "year" of Marvel time.

So if you measured from Fantastic Four #1 to that period of time the measurement is "twelve years". If you were to measure backward from today's publication those events happened "two years ago"

That's basically how the Timescale works.

Again, it's a matter of interpretation where the compression point starts and stop and how the years divide, but the model I've developed really does work the best. It's never going to be exact, especially if you're trying to interpret the flow of time between characters, that's why any time we state a measurement of years we just need to make a point of saying that the measurement of time is both an estimate and a matter of interpretation.

For example, if you look at any of the Fantastic Four comic summaries I've done recently, particularly the "Continuity Notes" section, I always make a point of saying "roughly" or "approximately" when factoring the measurement of time between that story and whatever is being referenced.

It's to give a general idea, it's not supposed to 100% exact down-to-the-minute. However that measurement is never going to suddenly change drastically unless it's otherwise stated.

Hope that clears everything up about Sliding Time.

Back on Point:

I would only strongly recommend a yearly count for the members of the Fantastic Four, because the point where they became the Fantastic Four is the starting point in which the measurement of time in the Modern Age is calculated.

Basically anything prior to Fantastic Four #1 that happened to those characters (since there are decades of their lives that happened before) would be in a "Early Life" page, then the year count would begin.