Well, I think that you know more about it than I do, and you have done a great job on it.
I have just finished reading all of the issues in the God War arc in UFF, and I was wondering if it is in a seperate universe. Because on page 7 of issue 36, Thanos descrubed the FF as "Aliens from another plane."
Thats how it appears at the moment. I was going to wait until the arc completed before officially designating it as so (instead of it being a case of teleportation to another part of the Ultimate universe itself--a different galaxy or whatnot).
Marvel_Boy said:
I think the Mad Thinker arc from UFF should be moved up a little, since it's supposed to happen right when they come back from Denmark in "Doom".
Are you forgetting about the N-Zone arc?
Neriak said:
I thought that it happened after they came back from LV at the end of the N-Zone arc. I am sure that it comes right after it, and they are in the 'copter from when they left it.
Right. That is how its listed. I'm not sure what Marvel_Boy's talking about.
See, this is the thing I don't like about the timeline. The UU doesn't take place in 2004, it takes place now. When they put 2004 in the comic they don't mean "2004" forever, they mean "today." In Ultimate Spider-Man 12 the date listed on the Kingpin's security disks is 2001. Three years hasn't passed between USM 12 and Ultimate Nightmare.
I agree. However, this can be explained away as the dates on the security cameras being incorrect. Not likely, but more believable than the date expressly given for the story to be taking place in.
But, when a character specifically references how long its been since they got their powers, should we ignore that as well (ie, the reporters asking Reed and company about when they got their powers, or specifically dated flashbacks as in Hobgoblin)? That plays a large part in the organization of the timeline as well.
And if they referred to the year as 2007 in the next issue of UFF or something it wouldn't mean three years has passed again.
Quite true. But I think they'll try to avoid that at this point. I don't expect to see many (if any) more specific date placements in the Ultimate books, probably as a direct result of both from what you were talking about, as well as the already present continuity mistakes themselves...the less specific dates used, the easier these are to avoid.
I think it's very dangerous to take the years and refrences in comics literally. Back in the day they always said things like "I guess I'm the biggest bonehead of 1963!" and stuff like that. That doesn't mean the Fantastic Four have been around for 44 years.
As I've said before (a hundred times or so at least), once it gets to a point of it no longer being manageable in that fashion, I'll remove the specified year marks (2003, 2004, etc) and replace it with a zero-mark fashion (10 Years Before, Year 0 being the creation of the Ultimates and the other teams, +1 Years for Ultimates 2, etc).
As far as I'm concerned, we haven't reached that point yet. From all intents and purposes, the biggest snafu to the Ultimate continuity is Ultimate Power right now...no big surprise, thanks to Bendis. But, as I said, this can be explained by some type of time-travel in addition to the dimension hopping on the Supreme characters' part. And as such, I'll alter the timeline to show that.
But for the time being, give it a break on this same old song and dance.
Well, I remember the USM thing, and it showed you peter holding a disk which had a date in 2001, and never said that it was the actual disk.
Also, I donot remember any new issues referencing 2007. Could you please be a boit more specific, I want to see where it said this.
I think he means because the next UFF arc involves time travel, and one of the solicits referred to them travelling to the past (1432 specifically, or something like that). He means its possible they could list the year of the UFF's current timeline as 2007 to reflect our own.
Oh, and, you can't really expect the comics to be in real time. They are released once a month, and that is if they are on time. There is no way that the writers could have a months story in 22 pages, and still keep it interesting.
Exactly. Most of the story arcs occur over a day, or a few days at most. However, in between arcs (or even issues, or during issues), there are often multi-month jumps in time within the title's timeline. This often helps the title play catch-up, somewhat.
But, I see where you mean. They could at least make it clear where it is set, and, if it is always so much slower than us, then how far behind will it be in 10 years? I am guessing that they may do something to make the time catch up some how.
Lets face it, a HUGE reason for the Ultimate universe's timeline not keeping pace with the real world is due to the delays of The Ultimates monthly title. The first volume started in 2001 and listed its in-title real-time as beginning in 2002, spanning at least several months and ending in 2003--which coincided with the series conclusion in our timeline. Ultimates 2 started in 2004, and reflected that in real-time by reflecting that it occurred a year after the conclusion of Ultimates 1 (which works in both cases, as in my timeline Ultimates 1 ends in 2003 and U2 starts in 2004). However, the constant delays on U2 have pushed its run well into 2007 (March), though the timeline of the story itself is only in 2004, maybe into 2005 at latest.
The fact that Bendis doesn't want to have Peter age more than a year per 100 issues doesn't help with the other titles, either.
However, I think the titles are becoming less dependant on the other title's respective continuities (the main titles' storylines are much more self contained than the early Ultimate issues, though still cross over and reflect plotlines from each other occasionally). This will hopefully serve to have less continuity screw-ups and questions in the Ultimate books in the future. I hope.
Joe Kalicki said:
The point is, it isn't behind us! It's on a sliding time scale. USM 1m released in 2000, takes place in 2007 (or 2006 if you like, but no earlier). Every year that passes in real time is the same year that the UU is set in. EVery event moves forward one year.
So if a character said something happened two years ago in a 2004 issue of USM, it happened in 2002 then. But now it happened in 2005, since that issue of USM takes place "now," whenever that may be at the time.
That isn't completely true, for the reason I listed above. It doesn't account for the actual progression of time within the title itself. According to dialogue itself in the title, a certain amount of time has passed since the inceptions of those particular heroes or teams. Therefore, it isn't always a case of a sliding scale mirroring our own timeline.
By the way, updated for USM #104 and UXM #78.