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The Great Marvel Chronology Masterlist
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Please note: This version of the chronology is now obsolete, and no longer being updated. Please refer to the new and improved version here:
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https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1CBNSuugGcT1-CIFgJVIe1_xZxPeBbWxQ5_pzaDfJyRk/edit?usp=sharing
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Welcome to my best efforts at aranging all of Marvel's main continuity into a coherent whole. A few notes about my methodology and goals with this project:
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The endeavor was concieved principally because I found it impossible to judge from the titles/descriptions/numbering of graphic novel trade editions what order anything should be read in. Marvel's habbit of re-numbering and re-titiling every damn thing at the drop of a hat makes it very difficult to guess where any given book fits into the whole. Accordingly, the main chronlogy is a list, not of individual issues of comics, but of collected edtions. Where it made sense to do so, multiple titles have been merged into single columns (ie, "Fearless Defenders" is to be found under "Defenders", etc.), but it is noted in the header for each column where multiple titles are present, if necessary to avoid confusion.
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"Full Chronology" is the main masterlist. Titles are grouped thematically here, rather than alphabetically, with titles first sorted into six main groups, and then within those groups, things that crossover with each other more are closer to each other. The main groups are 1. X-men major titles 2. Avengers-related major titles 3. Other Heros, major 4. X-men solo titles and minor team books 5. Less major heroes and 6. Cosmic titles. [Section 5, "less major heroes" *is* alphabetized, because it's incredibly large.]
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Important to note: the Full Chronology page is presenting a list of trade editions, not individual comics. Not all comics were ever collected into trade, and not all that were remain in print. Large gaps between volumes may therefore indicate either gaps in what was collected, or just reflect a period where issues came out more sporadically, or just that the volumes in question are quite large. Information about what issues, specifically, are contained within trade volumes can be found on page 2 of the chart, "Raw Data".
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"Raw Data" is a bit messy; it's the sheet where I coalated individual issues.
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"House of M Breakout" does exactly what it says on the tin; since House of M does not fit within continuity, but affects it, the titles related to that event are sorted chronologically on their own page.
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Some choices were made in presenting this information that were semi-arbitrary. For older material, the "Marvel Essentials" series offers by far the most complete collected editions, but because they're easy to work out the chronology of (being numbered consecutively, wonder of wonders) and in black and white, the trade editions represented on the chart do not come from this line whenever there are other trades produced. The series is shaded to indicate what portion of the material is covered in Essential trade editions.
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Because this series is an effort at creating a chronology, some things do not appear on it. 1. Books that are not properly part of canon, such as Zombie Marvel, or Deadpool Killustrated. 2. Books that are thematic collections, and which contain collections of issues from many different series spanning dozens of years. 3. Books from the "Max" imprint, which are usually not treated as canonical by the rest of 616.
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