Might Marvel have an Earth-2 ?

[John Asperger]

Might Marvel back into declaring an " Earth-2 " of sorts to " explain " some of the Marvel stories:
(1) From the first couple years of Marvel , especially of " lesser " characters ( I guess the FF and Spidey themselves would be forever exempt from this , though the FF's andecedents...) , which tend to have something of a " Fifties " feel to them , and often had not that much involvement by Lee or Kirby ?
(2) That are a little too tied to 1960s events , the Cold War especially...As it recedes further and further into the past , FTM , might Disney be unwilling to possibly offend their rising new markets by mentioning , or even implying , " Commies " too much ?
I'm thinking of Thor's stories and Ant-Man's...and Iron Man !
IIRC , that John Byrne MARVEL: THE LOST GENERATION showed a Thor active in the MU's " Sixties " , encountering first-generation hippies ( Paralleling something in Stan's day . ) , so already the " The Marvel Age started with FF #1 and no Marvel-started ' real ' character predates that ! " has already been broken .
Communist villians ...perhaps the Red Ghost's first encounter with a Richards could be Reed's ancestor...and an Air Force/Company man who was Ben's mentor when he first joined the USAF ?
This could be something that was mentioned in-between panels in the first FF Red Ghost story , just not chronicled then .

[John Asperger]

...More.........
Hank Pym was married to a Hungarian refugee from Communism who was exected by them Commies .
And , the early Ant-Man didn't really have the " galloping inferiority/f*uck-up " thing goin' yet .
Mebbe the first 12-18 Ant-Man issues were of this first Hank Pym , replaced by his nephew?? son?? who immediately improved on the technology but started exercising his rampant mental issues ?
Something like the first 12-18 JIMs could be of this first time on Earth by Thor...Then , he could have disappeared for a while and come back some time post-FF#1 !
It's a bit hard to dump out Iron Man's 'Nam-era action , but he is under 30 max , I guess...Tony Stark's father was apparently a munitions Tony Randall , to be active before Pearl Harbor but have a son that young...Maybe a never-mentioned son , from an annulled?? illegitimate?? early European ( for this Tony's old-school look ) marriage had , even if he never wore the Iron Man armor (or did - the real clunky early suit , especially) the classic original " North Vietnamese warlord " origin happen to him ?
These wouldn't have to mean changing the original stories , when reprinting them...
Yes ,NOW__ I'm finished (for now) .

[rick]

Actually a few years ago they had a Fantastic Four Annual where the Thing gets zapped into another dimension where the FF had first formed in 1961, with Johnny having married Crystal, where the last time anyone had ever seen Spider-Man was a night in the early 70's when a girl named Gwen died on a bridge, and were the Hulk had died that very day from a massive heart attack while changing forms.

It was a great story that I don't think has been mentioned since, but it was a cool visit to Marvels Earth-2.

[John Asperger]

...I DON'T mean " an actual planet/another dimension " , I mean " an explanation for older-style stories" , NOT " a seperate dimension " , again .

[M. Bushbug]

Originally Posted by John Asperger

...I DON'T mean " an actual planet/another dimension " , I mean " an explanation for older-style stories revolving around ' first ' versions of those heroes , which was the substance of Schwatz/Fox's E2 ideer , NOT " a seperate dimension " , again .

Um... what?

[ArachnidAvenger]

In my opinion sliding timescale is much better than the multiverse. Multiverse just gets way too confusing. Rendering things non-canon via sliding timescale is easier. And the way to get around all the setting things is just to update them. There will really always be a modern day analogue to older events.

[Westgarth J]

Originally Posted by ArachnidAvenger

In my opinion sliding timescale is much better than the multiverse. Multiverse just gets way too confusing. Rendering things non-canon via sliding timescale is easier. And the way to get around all the setting things is just to update them. There will really always be a modern day analogue to older events.

If the stories are rendered non-canon, it doesn't really matter if it's multiverse or sliding timeline-related, does it? Multiverse would actually make more sense, however, as it means that we only saw a possible version of events rather than what actually happened (and arguably we only need the general gist for stories that build upon older tales anyway), whereas sliding timelines need constant maintenance - every story that featured Spidey swinging past the WTC would need to be explained, for a start, as his sliding timeline origin will soon be canonically post-911, and what about all these teen heroes whose origins don't feature appropriate cultural flotsam like cellphones, or period-appropriate clothing and hair? Early Peter Parker wears a suit to school and has parents who died spying on the Soviets, and early Runaways watched once-popular show 'West Wing', hadn't heard of the constantly-culturally-referenced A-Team, and seem to set a lot of stock by something called 'Myspace' (which is like the prototype of old person's networking tool Friendster, I think).

A multiverse renders all tales valid by dint of happening 'somewhere out there', whereas sliding timelines renders older tales invalid or terribly dated - fine if you're selling origin redoes every five-ten years, but not so much if you're a longtime fan.

[Sighphi]

Marvel has like 5 Earth 2s

[PyroTwilight]

Originally Posted by rick

Actually a few years ago they had a Fantastic Four Annual where the Thing gets zapped into another dimension where the FF had first formed in 1961, with Johnny having married Crystal, where the last time anyone had ever seen Spider-Man was a night in the early 70's when a girl named Gwen died on a bridge, and were the Hulk had died that very day from a massive heart attack while changing forms.

It was a great story that I don't think has been mentioned since, but it was a cool visit to Marvels Earth-2.

That's what I was going to mention. It was in effect E-2.

Same could be said for MC2 which is essentially Marvel Comics 2/ the Spider-girl Universe,

[John Asperger]

Originally Posted by Westgarth J

If the stories are rendered non-canon, it doesn't really matter if it's multiverse or sliding timeline-related, does it? Multiverse would actually make more sense, however, as it means that we only saw a possible version of events rather than what actually happened (and arguably we only need the general gist for stories that build upon older tales anyway), whereas sliding timelines need constant maintenance - every story that featured Spidey swinging past the WTC would need to be explained, for a start, as his sliding timeline origin will soon be canonically post-911, and what about all these teen heroes whose origins don't feature appropriate cultural flotsam like cellphones, or period-appropriate clothing and hair? Early Peter Parker wears a suit to school and has parents who died spying on the Soviets, and early Runaways watched once-popular show 'West Wing', hadn't heard of the constantly-culturally-referenced A-Team, and seem to set a lot of stock by something called 'Myspace' (which is like the prototype of old person's networking tool Friendster, I think).

A multiverse renders all tales valid by dint of happening 'somewhere out there', whereas sliding timelines renders older tales invalid or terribly dated - fine if you're selling origin redoes every five-ten years, but not so much if you're a longtime fan.

...At soime point in the Eighties Marvel reprined early Spider-Man stories w/the topical refernces to Ed Sullivan , et al , changed to David Letterman and the like - In MARVEL TALES ? - and later used those " masters " in a TPB of the earliest Spidey issues !