Adjusting the Timeline

I was never a good student when it came to history. I loved English class, Art class, even math had a certain appeal to me. But history? I just couldn’t get into it. I think I just had lousy teachers because as an adult I find myself very interested in history. It is a wonderful source for inspiration for my writing. But I never took serious classes about it. So basically my understanding of the past, like my understanding of almost everything, mostly comes from comic books. Many of my favorite characters are tied to events in history. Which presents a bit of a problem because comic book characters like most fictional characters are supposed to be immortal. So what happens when it is no longer believable for a character to have witnessed an event in history?

What exactly do I mean? Okay, I’ll give you an example. The Fantastic Four were initially greatly tied into the Space Race. When they first debuted, part of their origin was tied into the fact that America wanted to beat the Russians to space. Well the Fantastic Four debuted and the space race pretty much ended in 1969 (after a man walks on the moon, there’s not much more you can do to top that). So roughly 40-50 years have passed since both these events occurred. Reed Richards (Mr. Fantastic) is supposed to be in his mid-thirties at the oldest. So sadly we have to remove the Fantastic Four’s role in history if we wish them to remain the age they are.

Now the Fantastic Four can still work as characters without having participated in the space race. Mankind will always have an interest in space and as long as we are reaching for the stars, stories about characters who do likewise will still be relevant. But how will a character who was forged in a war that is long since past still be relevant today? I am speaking of Frank Castle, The Punisher. The Punisher is such a product of the Vietnam War it is hard to imagine him existing without such a conflict. The Punisher, long before mobsters murdered his family, was forged in the crucible of the jungles of Vietnam. He was grizzled and tough long before he ever put on a skull shirt and started a war of his own. He is not like Batman, training to avenge his murdered. Frank Castle was already trained to kill, he was just looking for a new target. Granted, America has been involved in armed conflicts since Vietnam. American troops are stationed all around the world in a number of different conflicts. But there is something about the Vietnam war that seems to inspire images of the brutal and damaged American soldier prone to fits of violence. It is hard to imagine a Punisher who had not served in that conflict but eventually the character will simply be too old to have served.

Another character linked to the events of a war is Magneto. As depicted so perfectly in Bryan Singer’s big screen adaptation, Magneto is a Holocaust survivor. His family was Jewish and he survived the concentration camps while the rest of them did not. This has done much to inform the characters strong feelings about the plight of mutants. He sees a similar atrocity occurring to mutants as occurred to the Jews. Not only does it justify his brutal actions, it gives him a great deal of sympathy from the audience when he threatens humans. He’s seen the worst that humanity can do. But as I’ve said, while fiction characters are immortal, time marches on. We will reach a point where it will be impossible to believe that Magneto had been alive during World War II. Even now in the comics writers are making excuses like “Mutants age slower than humans” to give Magneto some vitality and make him a threatening character. But even with that excuse it only buys so much time and throws a huge wrench into the X-Men universe because now ALL mutants have to age slower than humans. This takes away some of the uniqueness of a character like Wolverine, whose healing factor is supposed to slow his aging. If all mutants age slowly, then Wolverine is just a guy who can’t cut himself shaving.

There are a lot clever cheats used in fiction to get around a character forged in one time living in another. Captain America was frozen in ice so he can still be the man from the forties living in modern time. Most characters simply adapt to the new world they are in, leaving behind the character traits of the time of their creation and becoming to avatars for the world they currently inhabit. Instead of battling the social ills of the past, they fight the social ills of the present. And the majority of characters can do this with ease. But that works for characters whose identity are not linked to a particular time. Captain America must always be a person who was frozen and woke up. There is no way he could have first been created in modern times. He is a product of World War II patriotism and his origin must always remain there. Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, they can all adapt to the times no matter how long their stories are published.