Comics spidey616?

[R00K1]

ive been glancing in certain threads reading up on different ppls opinions and views on spidey and such and stumbled ontol spidey 616. and i asked myself wtf is that.

now i consider myself a big spidey fan and supporter, but ive never heard of this b4, but everyone speaks of it as if its old news (which probably is)

i feel like a spidey noob now. so can anyone clarify as to what spiderman616 actually is?

 

[Shin-Natsume]

marvel universes are split into different alternate realms.
the regular comics take place in the universe 616.

in the ultiamte universes theory, realities are stacked upon each other and each other, with the oldest universes are below and the newer ones are above.

thus, the ultiamt euniverse must be above 616, wich is the classic universe.
then there is the TV universe, the movies universe, the mangaverse ect...

you got the point^^

 

[Webz14]

ive been glancing in certain threads reading up on different ppls opinions and views on spidey and such and stumbled ontol spidey 616. and i asked myself wtf is that.

now i consider myself a big spidey fan and supporter, but ive never heard of this b4, but everyone speaks of it as if its old news (which probably is)

i feel like a spidey noob now. so can anyone clarify as to what spiderman616 actually is?

don't feel bad. took me a little research to clear things up too. Shin-Natsume gave a good definition. I nevery really got why they called it "616" rather than just Marvel Universe and Ultimate Marvel Universe. Go figure.

 

[Citizen_Kaine]

[EMAIL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_616"]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_616
[/EMAIL]

 

[Spiderluke]

ive been glancing in certain threads reading up on different ppls opinions and views on spidey and such and stumbled ontol spidey 616. and i asked myself wtf is that.

now i consider myself a big spidey fan and supporter, but ive never heard of this b4, but everyone speaks of it as if its old news (which probably is)

i feel like a spidey noob now. so can anyone clarify as to what spiderman616 actually is?

It's okay. I don't call it 616, I call it the Core Marvel Universe.

 

[MyPokerShirt]

i think its supposed to be official classification. if richard reeds was to classify all the different universes (like the way DC used to have earth 1 earth 2 etc) he'd have to give the universe a number. he cant refer to it as "core marvel universe" now can he? so its an attempt to be all technical and further more may be a teeny bit of a dig.../ may be in honour of... DC's many universes before they sorted it out with Crisis on Infinite Earths.
Marvel has many universes themselves but most books are concerned with 616 and ultimate universe books are clearly marked. universe x, "the end", MC2 universe and other miniseries have all been desribed as possible futures but are just alternative possible futures for the marvel universe that were eventually determined as their own timeline, and so are all assigned a number as well.


I recommend looking such things up on Wikipedia. Im obviously not telling you to not ask questions on here, but i know it can make you feel like a noob and wikipedia is pretty reliable. Anything disputed will be stated on their discussion boards to the article in question. Heck its the only way i could make head nor tales of Infinite Crisis...

 

[CConn]

Many fans believed that "616" was a reference to the Number of the Beast in the final chapter of the Christian Bible, the Book of Revelation (or the Apocalypse of John). While most early manuscripts give the Number of the Beast as "666", the earliest existing fragment of the Greek text of this book gives it as "616". Moore, a student of mystic esoterica from a very early age, could well have known about this alternate rendering. For many years, the headquarters of DC Comics was located at 666 Fifth Avenue in New York City. Thus, the name could be a subtle joke that the DC Universe was Earth-666 while the Marvel Universe was Earth-616.

I always liked that story. Probably not true, but it really sounds like something Moore would do.

 

[D-day]

As far as I'm aware the 616 comes from the Exiles comic. They are constantly reality hopping to different Earths and when they came to the regular Marvel universe it was designated as Earth616. It's kind of stuck since then. I'm not sure if it was called 616 before the Exiles though.

 

[Captivated]

I always liked that story. Probably not true, but it really sounds like something Moore would do.

Misinformation about the Bible abounds... it's not 616...

This explaination makes more sense (from the same article):

Since the name was first used, fans had put forth many theories on why Alan Moore chose to name the Marvel Earth "616". One theory is that Moore simply chose a random number to show the "mainstream" Earth was inherently no more important than any other (unlike DC Comics, whose primary Earth was known at the time as Earth-One).


Some fans speculated that Moore's choice was inspired by the release date of Fantastic Four #1, which is considered by most to be the date the modern Marvel Universe was launched. Although the cover date of the comic book is given as November 1961, there are claims that the comic book was released as early as June 1961, hence, "61/6". The date listed on the front of most modern newsstand-distributed comic books is actually the date on which newsagents are supposed to remove the comic book from their shelves, and are almost always two months ahead of the actual date of publication; if this were true of Fantastic Four #1, then the comic book would have actually been released in August of 1961, and was almost certainly not released any later than that month. However, earlier comics may have been published with a larger lead time between the actual sale date and the cover date and this may account for claims that Fantastic Four #1 was available in June 1961.