The comic book 'Marvel Universe', which is known to publish books in a span of 50 years, has decreased its timescale to 10 to 12 years.
This year in order to keep its characters young, Marvel has decided to create a fictional war in the second issue of 'History of the Marvel Universe.'
This decision was jointly made by Mark Waid and Javier Rodriguez to create one equal timeline out of the thousands of stories published by Marvel across its 80-year existence and addressed the fact that how Marvel has unintentionally aged its characters.
"I've been contending for years that, just as the origin of the FF 'floats' a perpetual 12 to 13 years behind current day rather than forcing the characters to age in real-time as if they really went up in their rocket ship in 1961, we should also create a 'floating conflict' to serve a similar purpose for characters whose origins are tied to specific wars," Waid told Marvel.com about the new conceit, reported by The Hollywood Reporter.
Adding, he said, "The Punisher's origin, for instance, was originally tied to Vietnam, but the longer it's anchored specifically there, the stranger it gets that Frank Castle isn't 70 years old."
"Likewise, over the years, we've moved Iron Man's origin from Vietnam to the Persian Gulf War and so forth to keep Tony Stark from being over 80, and it's time we found it a permanent home. Now and forevermore, those characters, along with veterans like Rhodey, Reed Richards, and Ben Grimm will be said to have fought in the Siancong War, a single conflict that will hang perpetually about 15 years behind current continuity -- and about which you'll read more someday soon."
As the studio continues to push the timeline of its new comic book stories forward, it may need to employ more narrative tricks in order to portray the fictional war.