Ok, I've been out of the loop, comic wise, for the past couple months. So can someone tell me what the 616 is? I've seen it mentioned a few times, but I no idea what it is. ?????

 

the 616 is basically the 'normal' marvel universe. How the numbers correspond, I have no clue. I'm sure someone else might have a better idea of that.

 

Source: The Unofficial Marvel Comics Reference HQ

 

Cool, I had been wondering the same thing.

 

Wikipedia article on the (potential) origins of the '616' designation:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth-616

 

Fun fact (I blame Kickback for making me type that)

The term 616 actually came from Marvel UK's Captain Britain series.

 

We need a comics section FAQ sticky  

 

Wow. I never would have thought of that. I've been trying to figure it out for a while. Thanks  

 

More fun facts:

- The Ultimate Marvel Universe is designated Earth-1610.

- The reality where the 'Earth X' continuity occurs is Earth-9997.

- The reality where the '1602' story occurs is Earth-311

- The 'Age of Apocalypse' reality is Earth-295

- The 'Days of Future Past' storyline occurs on Earth-811.

- The original Marvel 2099 stories (ie - Spiderman 2099) take place on Earth-928.

- The 'Marvel Knights 2099' world is Earth-2992.

- The 'Guardians of the Galaxy' series takes place on Earth-691.

EDIT - OK, enough writing them out, found a link to a whole list of all the Marvel Universe designations:

http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix/appalte.htm

 

I can see Marvel doing they're own version of Crisis on Infinite Earths one day.

 

Around the time the minor reboot Zero Hour came out, one of the creators of that miniseries (Dan Jurgens?) mentioned in an interview that he figured it was inevitable Marvel would need to do a 'Crisis'-style reboot at some point and DC would need another one. From the looks of Infinite Crisis, the time for DC's second major reboot has come; Marvel's probably going to have to accept the necessity of it for their company in the future.

I'd say the thing that allows Marvel to put off/avoid a reboot, though, is that there isn't a lot of interaction between the various alternate realities (excluding books like Exiles where that's the focus of the plot). For instance, we're not seeing Earth-616 Spider-Man visiting Earth-617 Spider-Man every year (substitute 'Superman'/'Justice League' and the appropriate Earths and that would be pre-Crisis DC). The majority of the alternate Marvel Universes are actually 'What If?' universes created for a single story and have never popped up again. IMO, Marvel does have a problem with an over-abundance of alternate futures, especially in the X-titles.

I think there's two possible circumstances that will force a Marvel Crisis:

(1) The inevitable 616/1610 crossover. It's going to happen. Eventually, an editorial crew will get lazy, some writer will get desparate or the potential money will be too tempting. Once it happens, that's going to essentially set up Marvel Earth 1 and Marvel Earth 2. Even if they show restraint in the amount/frequency of crossovers, the same problems DC had with their multiverse will show up at some point.

(2) Flash forward 10 - 15 years. The 1610 universe has built up a significant amount of continuity and is getting as confusing for new readers as the 616 universe is now (1610 already has some continuity glitches, so those are certain to increase in a decade or so). If, in order to draw in new readers again, Marvel starts up yet another new universe (Ultimate Ultimate Marvel?) there will be three very similar universes lying around (Marvel, U-Marvel, U-U-Marvel). Don't think there's much they could do to avoid a Crisis-style housecleaning at that point.

Rant over