Floating timeline

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A floating timeline (also known as a sliding timescale) is a device used in fiction, particularly by DC and Marvel Comics, to explain why characters created years or even decades ago, seem to have aged little or at all since their inception. Characters who debuted as teens in the 1940s, such as Robin (now Nightwing); or the 1960s, such as the X-Men, are still relatively young in today's comics. Events in the characters' history are still alluded to but they are simply changed from having taken place years ago to having taken place more recently. This enables the company to continue to use their characters for as long as they wish.

The use of a floating timeline is usually abstracted from that of historical events, but containing (mostly non-canon) subtle references to the real timeline. Thus, any relative dates given within the work are relative to the publishing date of the comic (i.e. "10 years ago" means "10 years before you read this"). In practice, this often manifests itself as incongruities between the art and colloquial dialogue in a comic book and contemporary culture: for example, early Spider-Man comics appear to be set in the 1960s, but that is simply the interpretation of the Marvel universe in that particular era. This makes storylines ambiguous, at times, and increases the importance of interpretation in the reading of such a text. Certain aspects of a work may need to be retconned due to this. For instance, during the 1960s, the Marvel character the Thing said he had fought in World War II alongside Nick Fury; during the 2000s, the Thing himself considered that the idea of him fighting in the World War II was ridiculous, as he would be much older. Another instance is the DC character Wonder Woman, who was an active heroine in the 1940s, but as of her most recent adventures implies that she began as a hero in the mid-to-late 1980s. The fact that there was a Wonder Woman in the 1940s is explained that Diana is the second Wonder Woman, having inherited the mantle from her mother, Queen Hippolyta. A similar situation exists for the DC characters called Black Canary.

Such a timeline often creates confusion due to major historical events such as World War II or the Vietnam War, which many characters, such as Captain America or various members of the Justice Society of America, need to be based on. It seems that only storylines (apart from those based on real-world events such as 9/11, World War II, etc.), character designs, and dialogue abstracted from current affairs are truly canon, though as many of these fade into the distant past it remains to be seen whether characters will be tied to these origins still or retconned for a more recent war.

Continuity-based webcomics often exhibit floating timelines as well; 1/0 often mentioned the fact that an hour from the characters' perspective could translate into months to the author and readers, while Megatokyo, since the end of its first year, has had just over one day of in-comic progress per real-world year. Thus, for instance, preview posters for Metal Gear Solid 2 and Metal Gear Solid 4 have been seen within mere months of one another (see [20] and [766]).

Outside of comics, many anime and manga series also feature a floating timescale; Kochira Katsushika-ku Kameari Kōen-mae Hashutsujo (started in 1976) and Golgo 13 (started in 1968) are two such examples. However, the use of a floating timeline is rare in eastern comics as most publish weekly rather than monthly.

Certain franchises, such as Doctor Who or Highlander, can follow our current date and time without need for a sliding timescale due to time travel, or slowly aging characters.

Floating Timelines can also be accounted by a "dimension shift hypothesis." In this approach, which might be accounted by the many-worlds interpretation of Quantum Mechanics or by the multi-dimensional spacetime of Robert A. Heinlein's Number of the Beast, creators on earth view a series of alternate timelines which contain successive versions the characters, rather than an alternate timeline which linearly follows the characters. For example, when Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created the Fantastic Four in 1961, Reed Richards and Ben Grimm were reasonably 40 year old characters who fought in World War II. By, for example, 1981, the then-creative team in Fantastic Four was viewing a different alternate timeline where the characters were the same age or slightly younger, perhaps three or four years had passed since they had gained their powers, but all of their adventures from twenty years of comic stories had been compressed into that three or four year period. This mechanism can also encompass retcons as natural variations in background associated with the shift in core time-line, and What If? (comics) and Elseworlds variations as stories set in other non-core timelines.

Floating timeline

See also