This may sound anal, but, again, this isn't like a regular blog where after a few days the post gets buried in an archive somewhere. People are going to be coming back and finding these posts for months and years. So having random off topic comments can be annoying. It's definitely the case that some comments will span multiple issues/entries, and that's totally ok. But keep it limited. And it's ok to promote stuff you've written elsewhere if it's relevant to the entry in question (and as long as you're not spamming every entry with a link to your blog on the same topic). And don't take anything too seriously; it's ok to make jokes or post stray thoughts. But for certain types of comments, there are designated areas, and i prefer if you leave them in the appropriate spots:

• For general comments and questions about the site ("This is a great site", "This is a terrible site", "Why do you organize things in such-and-such a way?"), the place for that is the General Comments page, which can also be accessed via the Contact link on the sidebar.
• Totally off topic comments ("The latest Avengers movie was great!" or "Here's my analysis of Chris Claremont's entire run on X-Men") go in the Forum.
• Comments about typos or other administrative errors (problems with images or HTML formatting) go in the Thread of Shame in the Forum. If you leave this kind of a thing on the site, i will most likely correct the problem and delete your comment and file you away in my head as an annoying person.
• But i do want to make a distinction: errors about continuity (e.g. where i've placed a comic, or possibly even if i've listed a Character Appearing) can be reported in the Comments. It's good to keep that discussion preserved with the comic since (for one thing) it's not always as simple as they seem. (You can use your discretion here; if it's an obvious mistake like leaving Spider-Man out of an Amazing Spider-Man entry - and i will do stupid stuff like that sometimes! - the Thread of Shame is probably better.)
• Questions about whether i'm going to cover a particular comic should go on the Out of Scope page or on the Are you gonna cover forum thread. If you're sure that i'm missing something, you can still leave a comment in one of those two places, or on the What's Missing page. I know the multiple choices make it a bit confusing, and any one of those three is fine, but the main request is to not put it on a random comic entry.

Ok, this Comments Policy started off really serious but devolved into some persnickety stuff, huh?

My final request is that you actually just read all this stuff on the sidebar. Keep the Comment Policy in mind. Read the rest of the Rules below. Read the Q&A. Especially read the stuff about the Quality Rating since that's a regular source of anger and confusion.

If you ever feel i'm being unfair about something and want to discuss it with me privately, you can Private Message me on the forum.

I do want to say that despite all of the above, which probably makes me sound like a cranky person (and i am a cranky person), i really love the commenters here. I've managed to attract a really great group of commenters and i'm really happy about that. I never expected this site to be more than a place for me to collect my own thoughts as i organized my comics collection. But i've wound up with a great group of people that have insights far more interesting than my own. People who share their memories and experiences and give me a different perspective. That random comic i rushed through and wrote up in a 20 word review was someone else's first comic that they read to pieces and will love forever. That helps keep me balanced, as do the people with different opinions. And there are also so many people with a deeper knowledge of this stuff that make corrections, alert me to important things that are coming up, or make connections that i would have never thought of. People that are just really helpful about pointing out things i've not considered or areas where i just didn't read carefully enough. So if i sound overly prescriptive in writing the comments policy, it's only because i'm trying to preserve and grow that community without seeing it overrun. When i go to some places, like the CBR forums at times, it can get so odious that i don't want to go back. And i don't want that to happen to anyone here.

The Rest of The Rules!
Now let's move on to the rest of the Rules, which are really the rules for how i create the entries.

The goal of this project is to create an order for (my) Marvel comics so that the entire collection can be read from start to finish and be in the actual order that they have occurred within the Marvel Universe. This means that if Spider-Man appears in an issue of the Avengers, that appearance must fit within the stories going on in his own issues (Is he wearing the right costume? Is he worried about things that have already passed in his own book? Is he looking healthy at a time when he's supposed to be sick?).

To me, the Marvel universe is the best thing about Marvel comics. That may sound like a truism, but what i mean is that the shared universe itself, the fact that all of these comics are part of a larger epic ongoing story, is what makes the Marvel universe great. Even when you're dealing with a lot of random doldrum comics that, read individually, aren't that great, when they come together, the sum is greater than the parts (to coin a phrase). The Marvel universe is a pretty unique thing, in terms of the length and breadth of the "story". That makes it as interesting, "artistically", as other great works of art, even if the individual parts can't compete at that level. So this site is a celebration of that. I want to put all of the pieces together and show how awesome it is.

Continuity often gets a bad rap, from comics critics and even from creators and editors at Marvel. I think it is literally the reason one would read a Marvel universe comic over something else.

Here is how the entries are laid out. Depending on specific circumstances, sometimes the layout will have to be modified, but this is generally the way it goes.

Issue(s): If it's not a single issue, it's a run of consecutive issues that make up a single story. If Super Monkey #1-3 are part of one story, they will usually be included in one entry. If #4 is not part of the same story, it will usually not be included in the same entry even if it is the next issue in my collection. Sometimes a story will contain stories from multiple titles, in which case they may or may not all be included in a single entry, depending on how tightly woven the stories are. For compilation trades or issues, they will all be included in the same entry as long as the stories can fit together chronologically. Otherwise i will have already torn the trade up into smaller pieces and placed them accordingly in my collection. I list every issue included in the entry individually, separated by commas, to maximize search-ability, even though it's a little awkward and repetitive.

Regarding my use of adjectives ("Mighty", "Uncanny"), see this Q&A entry. I haven't quite figured out how to handle multiple volumes yet (for example, the Avengers series that started in the 60s, the Heroes Reborn reboot, the Heroes Return reboot, etc). I really don't want to clutter up the titles with volume numbers. So far i'm just listing them by their title and hoping that the fact that i include the cover dates will make it clear.

Cover Date: This is the date of publication listed on the indicia (i.e, the cover date), which is generally a few months ahead of when a book was actually released. For annuals and other special editions i usually just list the year.

Title: I'm only keeping track of the titles to see how many appearances by Dr. Doom are called Doomsday and how many by Apocalypse are called Apocalypse Now. For entries with multiple issues, pay attention to the quotes. If a single issue has multiple titles (because the story is broken into multiple parts, or there's a back-up story) you'll find it all included in one set of quotes. Issues are separated with a slash outside of the quotes. So: "Main story title / Back-up story title" / "Story title" is listing two issues, and the first issue had two titles. Confusing? I hope not.

Credits: I list the writer, penciller, and inker, and the editors (although i was inconsistent about the editors for a while)). Some people will feel that i'm slighting the colorist and letterer, but i don't usually pay attention to who is doing that (sorry). Golden Age books often don't have credits, and when they do it's usually just the artist/writer. Starting in the 90s, with painted and computer generated art, the credits for artist need to be a little more customized.

I list creators by what i think is the name they are most commonly known by. So Al Milgrom, not Allen Milgrom. Barry Windsor-Smith, not Barry Smith. Christopher Priest, not Jim Owsley (that was a tough choice). That way you can search for one name and get all of their listings.

For entries with multiple issues, i only list each creator once for each category, unless s/he's teamed-up with someone in another issue. For example, if Joe Sinnott inks issues #1-4, and on issue #2 Al Milgrom helped with the inks, you'll see: Joe Sinnott / Joe Sinnott & Al Milgrom.

I'll usually mention the details in the credits, letting you know that Milgrom was only on issue #2.

Regarding uncredited art assists: Sometimes people will let me know in the comments that some pencils in a book were redrawn, or that there were additional inkers on a book that weren't credited. This information is always appreciated. If possible, i request that you also cite your source, although i know that some people just have an eye for recognizing certain artists. In terms of actually updating the credits, it can be kind of a judgement call. If the additional art is done by someone that was probably on staff as an art director or assistant, like John Romita Sr. or Jr. (at different times), Marie Severin, Dave Cockrum, and others, i generally won't list it in the credits. I consider those type of changes to be editorial, and just like i don't give writing credits to editors even when they've had a hand in shaping the plot or updating a line of dialogue, i don't think it makes sense to add a credit for the in-house Marvel bullpen art staff. More generally, even if the change is done by a freelancer, i might not add to the credits if it seems like a last minute correction of some kind. As i said, it can be a kind of judgement call. I'll definitely defer to the UHBMCC or the GCD; if they add the credit, i will too. If the changes are extensive, that's another reason to list them. Otherwise, i'll let the comment stand on its own. It's still very much appreciated.

Review/plot: The primary purpose of this project is making sure the comics are in the right order. But in practice i tend to ramble on and do full plot summaries, armchair analysis on various topics, reviews, opinions, and sometimes silly nonsense. When i started this project and i was really just doing it for myself, i was less wordy. But the reviews have grown in length over time, in part because i've attracted a modest audience so i can't just write, "You know this one, fnord. It's the first appearance of Nimrod!". I've gone back and updated a bunch of older entries, but not all of them. So you'll find reviews of different length, different amounts of detail, different amounts of seriousness, etc., on the site. Because i'm covering issues from a lot of different angles, reviews may become rambling messes, or i may deliberately cover things out of order, or i may switch from a straight plot description to a rant about why such and such a development sucks.

It's worth noting that some comics i bought in "realtime" (i.e. as they came out), some i picked up over the years, and there are some that i'm buying and reading for the first time in this project. So sometimes i'll be describing my childhood experiences with the issues i'm reviewing. And in some cases i'll be reviewing stuff knowing full well how it will all play out, and in other cases i'll be reviewing issues without any clue how it will all end. So different entries will have different flavors based on that.

As a warning, i tend to be a critical curmudgeon. So while i do try to be positive and praise the things i like, i'm more likely to focus on the things that struck me as weird or wrong. I still consider this entire site to be a celebration of my love of comics, but i think one thing about being a comics nerd is we like to do a lot of quibbling and complaining too. And that brings us to...

Quality Rating: This is a rating based on how well done the story is. It should not be modified based on the age of the story ("oh, it was good for the time") or the significance of the events that are occurring. It takes into account the plot, the dialogue, and the art (both storytelling ability and whether or not it "looks good"). I'm always willing to let the art slide a little if the story is good, but less so when the reverse is true. A comic being "totally awesome" won't necessarily result in a good grade the way i am doing things. Realistic, natural dialogue, a plot that makes sense and doesn't resolve based on things introduced at the last minute out of left field, a theme that successfully reaches beyond "good guy fights bad guy", will result in a higher grade. I expect that grades will be distributed on a bell curve, with very few As and lots of Cs.

Essentially the consideration for the ratings is as follows:

• A - So good that i would expect anyone to like it, regardless of whether or not they are a fan of comic books (once they got past any anti-comics biases). It doesn't have to be a work of high art, but it should be as good as, say, The Matrix - good action, good "special effects", and a little subtext or some kind of "higher" message beyond "here's some guys in tights fighting each other" (not that there's anything wrong with that).
• B - Good enough that any comic book fan ought to enjoy it. It may have flaws - corny dialogue, generic plots - but it's at least as good as your average Hollywood action movie.
• C - A comic only a Marvel fan can enjoy. It probably has its moments and may even be really fun, but it isn't something that you could show your English professor to prove that comics books can be literature. Most of my comics are going to be Cs, and it doesn't mean that i don't love them.
• D - Even i'm not so sure. It's really bad. Not bad enough to throw out, but bad.
• F - You will never see this rating because if it gets an F, i've thrown it out.

Historical Significance Rating: This is a 1-10 rating on how important this comic is to the overall story of the Marvel Universe. It is unrelated to the quality of the story. Here are the considerations for an entry's historical rating. These are guidelines.

• +1 - +10 for being the first published appearance of a character. The more significant the character, the higher the rating. When it comes to minor characters, i look at how many appearances they have, and how many of those appearances are in books besides the ones that they were introduced in, and how many of those books were written/drawn by characters other than the original creators. For major characters, it's unusual to get a higher grade than a 5, so the normal range for new characters is 2-5. But characters that wind up pawning franchises of their own will get higher ratings.
• +5 - +10 for an event that changes the status quo of the Marvel Universe (Examples: formation of the Avengers, discovery of the Negative Zone, destruction of the Savage Land, passage of the Superhero Registration Act)
• +1 - +5 for an event that changes the status quo of a character in the Marvel Universe (Examples: Hulk changes color, Spidey changes costumes, Storm loses her powers, Reed Richards and Sue Storm get married)
• +1 - +3 for meta-events - something that has to do with the creation of the comics books as opposed to the story (Examples: first Graphic Novel, first painted art, debut of John Byrne)
• +1 - +3 just for being printed before 1968. A Stan Lee issue of the Avengers is going to get a 3 just for being an early issue of the Avengers even if nothing significant is happening. These are the issues that formed the basis for everything else.

Chronological Placement Considerations: This is actually what it is all about. This will discuss why the comic is where it is. Whenever possible, comics will be placed as close to publication date as possible, but due to the events in the comic it won't always be possible. I'll list my assumptions and any roadblocks i've run into. I'll be using 1980s No-Prize rules: the comics can never be wrong and it is up to me to explain why an apparent continuity error is in fact not one. Sometimes i'll just have to throw my hands up, but it works out the vast majority of the time.

Once i place an issue somewhere and i've concluded working on the Year category that it's in, i will fight to defend that placement even if someone can suggest a better one. As long as it can work where i've placed it, that's where it will stay. The reason i don't want to constantly reopen the debate about where something "best" fits is because a fair amount of thought goes into the placement that i settle on, and it is determined by a lot more than just whether or not it reads best there. Consider the guest appearances, crossovers, etc., that the characters in the issue participate in. Moving a book may seem harmless, but it can have a large unintended ripple effect on other books, and i want to avoid that. I also don't want to be in a position where i'm endlessly going back to consider every person's opinion about the "optimal" placement for a book, because that takes time away from the part of the project i'm currently working on. If you can prove that it can't take place where i've put it, that is a different story. But as i said, i'm using 1980s No-Prize rules, and so i can come up with some pretty outlandish reasons why the current placement is ok.

Generally speaking, if a flashback can plausibly take place directly before the main story, i count the appearances as part of the entry, especially if the flashback is just a storytelling device (e.g. in medias res).

Please note that the listing of comics in a given year is not necessarily a sequential list of events. A Spider-Man and Hulk comic might be happening at the same time, for example, since they have nothing to do with each other. And sometimes a character will appear back and forth in two separate comics, and without me cutting up the pages, the best thing i can do is put the two comics next to each other. So a lot of events might be happening concurrently instead of sequentially.

It's worth recalling that this site is a document of my personal comics collection. And that will sometimes cause additional wrinkles with how things are placed. If i have a trade paperback covering 10 issues of a series, i will try my hardest to place those issues together rather than having to cut up the trade. I'll use concurrency to explain that sometimes, or go through some unusual hoops to make it fit. If all else fails i will cut up the trade. Same goes for back-ups in annuals and other such things. I definitely prefer to not break up the back-ups and that will sometimes result in less than "best" possible placements.

This project begins with Marvel Comics #1 and will end with the 2015 Secret Wars event. I don't cover inter-company crossovers. Anything else that is considered canon by Marvel (e.g. listed in a Handbook) during that time period is in scope. I don't necessarily intend to cover everything. For example, i'll just never be able to cover all of the Golden Age. And some of the stuff considered in continuity by the Handbooks - like Captain America vs. the Asthma Monster - is quite silly. But at a minimum anything in scope will be listed on the What's Missing page. See the Out of Scope page to get a sense for what is/isn't part of the project.

References: Here i'll list any references to other comics. Usually i'll go by the footnotes, but i'll also look for other references as well. Wherever possible (i.e., if i have it in my collection), the reference will be a link to the entry for the comic being referenced. I generally won't list references to the last story arc of the same series.

Crossover: Lists the crossover the comic may be a part of (e.g. Secret Wars II). I don't count single title "events" as crossovers (e.g. Assassin Nation), and i'm on the fence and therefore probably inconsistent when it's a story event that crosses over into multiple series that all star the same character (e.g. Kraven's Last Hunt).

Continuity Insert? Indicates whether or not the comic was a deliberate retcon, meaning that it was written to fit into a previous time period. For example, the Untold Tales of Spider-Man were written in the 90s but took place amongst the Amazing Spider-Man comics in the 60s. For non-deliberate inserts, like in cases where a story sat in a drawer for years before getting published and therefore has to take place in the past, i will usually mark it as a Continuity Insert (unless it can take place reasonably close to publication date), but i will try to denote that somehow. A P stands for partial, which usually means a reprint book that adds new scenes or a back-up story (like Classic X-Men).

My Reprint: If the book i have is a reprint, lists the reprint. Sometimes this is significant because stories are often modified in reprint form - pages added or removed, topical references updated, etc. Please be aware that this field isn't meant to be a comprehensive list of all reprints of the issue(s) being reviewed. It's just indicating if my copy is a reprint. The UHBMCC is a good source for finding reprint info. Also note that since i get my screenshots from online copies, i generally take screenshots from originals. So i do my initial read through with my hard copy, which could be a reprint, but i then go through the original in digital format, and sometimes note discrepancies. But i don't always notice.

Inbound References: This field will show up automatically if there are other entries on the site that link to this entry. Usually that means that issue had a Reference to this issue, so it's a good way to see how often a particular comic has been referred back to by other comics. In that sense, the count for this field is perhaps a more empirical measurement of a story's importance than my Historical Rating. The field does also count times when i wanted to make a reference back to the issue even if there wasn't an explicit reference in another issue.

Characters Appearing: This will list all the significant characters in the comic, and they're links so you can click on a character and see just that character's appearances in chronological order. I'll basically list every character that has more than one appearance. When a character has had more than one name over the years, I will try to use the most common name (sometimes i screw up and accidentally split up a character when they have multiple names; let me know). My name choices can be seen on this Name look-up page (but that page is way out of date and needs an update).

By the way, i really hate putting roman numerals after a character to distinguish multiple characters with the same name. For legacy characters (the Black Knights, the Crymson Dynamos), i'm ok with it, but otherwise i try to put some sort of descriptive difference in parenthesis instead.

I don't list real life historical figures like presidents or celebrities since their appearances are basically topical. There are a few rare exceptions where historical figures get turned into super-characters (like Hitler -> Hate-Monger). This also includes comic book creators, even though they could technically be considered "characters" in the sense that Marvel comics exist as comic books in the Marvel universe. I also don't list easter egg appearances of characters from other publishing companies (e.g. the multiple appearances of Clark Kent).

One other note: i don't list the "locals" in time travel stories. So if Iron Man goes back in time and sees Morgan Le Fey in Iron Man #149-150, i won't list Morgan Le Fey. This is because her appearance wouldn't be in the correct place. Morgan Le Fey appears in the present in issues of Spider-Woman #3-41, which were published before Iron Man #149, and Spider-Woman #44 and other places after the publication of Iron Man #149. I wouldn't want Le Fey's appearance in Iron Man #149-150 to appear in between Spider-Woman #41 and #44, but that's what would happen, since the listings on this site are by book, not by character. There's a variation on this when we have characters that are time travelers that appear in modern books at various times. For those i will actually have two listings for the characters. You'll see this for Cable, Spiral/Ricochet Rita, and Kristoff, for example. Note that i only do this for time travel characters when they appear in the present, so you won't see that for Morgan Le Fey situations, since her Iron Man #149-150 appearance takes place in the past.

Your Quality Rating / Reader Ratings: This is a widget from Polldaddy.com that lets you to supply your own opinion on an issue's quality. You can supplement that rating with a comment or just click on a star and leave it at that. Just to be clear, the point is for you to rate the issue(s), not my review. You can complain about my review all you want in the comments.

Comments: See the top of the page for the full Comments Policy. Generally speaking, please be relevant, helpful, and nice.

Right now i have an unsophisticated comments system - no threaded discussions, no ability to go back and edit your posts, no ability to "like" or "downvote" another person's comment. So far i've resisted upgrading to a Disqus or something because those programs are a heavy load and they store the comments on their own server, which i don't like. And they require registration; whereas i want commenting to be as easy as possible. So i apologize for any deficiencies, and don't feel bad about typos that you can't go back and edit.

I used to have major problems with spam but i seem to have defeated them for now. The tradeoff is that comments will occasionally go to Moderation if you have a lot of links or if (it seems) you spend a lot of time on a page before clicking Submit. I usually clear those comments as soon as possible, but give me a nudge under Contact if you think it's taking too long.

One other warning. My comments system doesn't allow me to move comments to other entries. Why is this a problem? Well, sometimes i may have two issues in the same entry and later realize i need to split them up. Or, vice versa, two issues in separate entries that need to be merged. In those cases, i may have to edit or delete your comment. If i edit it, it'll be to put a note in to explain why your comment is about an issue not currently in the entry, or if i delete it i'll add it back to my description ("Commenter X said 'This' but i lost the comment when i merged entries so i'm reprinting it here."). This happens very very rarely, but just wanted to mention it.