If that is true, then how depressing! And what a strange mentality to have.

Personally, and I'm sure others here will say the same, I never bothered myself about fitting it all together. If Thor appeared in three titles in one month, and had a cameo in a Spider-Man title, then so what? Just because, say, three books are released in the same month, doesn't mean the adventures all took place at the same time.

Sometimes you just have to go with the flow and enjoy each and every tale on it's own merits.

The contextual evidence is usually very much against this notion (especially in these days of "decompressed storytelling"). The FF may be in part three of an adventure which, for them, takes maybe half a day, while Spider-Man is in part two of an adventure that has so far covered several weeks of his life. Obviously, these cannot be "moments" that happen at the same time.

I did what I thought to be a subtle parody of this, in an issue of SUPERMAN where is powers were running out of control. When it came time for his super-hearing to be on the fritz, I had the editorial office gather balloons from all the books that came out the same month. Unfortunately, rather than seeing this as my little "joke", many readers apparently took it as confirmation that all those moments were happening at exactly the same time.

QUOTE: The problem of "fitting it all together" -- and you might be surprised to learn who some of the people are who have this bug! -- seems in part to spring from a parallel notion, that being that all the books that come out in a given week HAPPEN in that week.

I can't understand why anyone would even want to fit it all together.

Suppose one issue of Spider-Man has him chasing a burglar across town, capturing him and handing him over to the cops, before going to change into Peter Parker and help Aunt May. That may equate to one night in Spider-Man's book.

Over in a Thor comic, released that same month, Thor could be trapped in a demonic realm for weeks. So despite both books being released in the same month, the adventures can't be happening at the same time.

Really, it's quite bizarre to even expect it to happen. A three-part FF adventure, which from our perspective takes 3 months to be told, could well equate to one night in New York. On the other side of the coin, one Spider-Man issue in a month could equate to several months in Spider-Man's world.

I always keep it simple if anyone gets too pedantic when discussing "real time". If Spider-Man gets beaten up by The Rhino in an alley in one issue and then awakens and recovers in the next issue, well it may take one month between stories for us, but I doubt Spider-Man spent one whole month lying in an alley.

Incidentally, it seems that the Hulk's entire classic supporting cast have now become Hulk-like monsters.

Rick Jones became a new Abomination, called "A-Bomb".

General Ross is the Red Hulk.

Betty Ross is the Red She-Hulk.

And the Hulk himself has a Hulk-like son.

Surely, these developments would have been laughed off as bad fanfic or bad "What If?" stories back in the day, right? And they would never have been printed in actual, canonical, professionally-published Marvel comics, right?

Remember the days when there was only ONE Hulk, who would become furious at even the idea of there being any other Hulk, or Hulk-like creature?

Today, these other Hulks are fully-canonical story developments, and are the basis of action figures and the like.

Up is down. Black is white. Left is right. Everything is wrong and absurd. It'd be hilarious if it wasn't so pathetic.

QUOTE: Surely, these developments would have been laughed off as bad fanfic or bad "What If?" stories back in the day, right? And they would never have been printed in actual, canonical, professionally-published Marvel comics, right?

Indeed. The "What If?" title used to be the perfect place for such stories, but it seems that, with a lack of "What If?" now, all the crazy stuff is in the mainstream books now. It's depressing.

 It'd be hilarious if it wasn't so pathetic.

...........................

It's a joke. I've read interviews in which the writers say they had a "DUH" moment.  "Why didn't we think of this sooner?"  The reality is every writer from Stan Lee on DID think of it!  Along with most comics readers in 7th grade!  They just didn't use it in a story because it's pityfully lame and if they did try to write it in a story, it would've gotten shot down by editorial.  At least before about 1995.  They actually think they are being cutting edge and provocative, when in reality they are writing story arcs that wouldn't have a chance of making the cut in years passed.

I'm not talking just about the Hulk Corps.  but Spider-Man and Wolverine being Avengers, I know there are many other examples but I've blocked them out. 

How has this happened?  How did the bar drop so low?

1963:

1977:

2011:

At least they didn't bring back Bucky as a porn star named "F***y".

••

There's probably another factor at work here, besides a lack of creativity. When I joined Marvel in the 1970s, a general mantra from "creators" was "I am not going to create anything for Marvel! I don't want to give them the next Spider-Man!"

Generally, we were well aware that the people making this claim were highly unlikely to "create the next Spider-Man" (and nobody noticed that "the next Spider-Man", Wolverine, had already been created!). But it sounded lofty, and was a good disguise for creative bankruptcy and/or laziness.

Now that properties are being sucked up by Hollywood in huge quantities, it seems not altogether unlikely that this kind of thinking is once again informing the "creative" process. Put Spider-Man in the FF, and the fanboys sit up and take notice -- and you haven't risked "losing" some brilliant creation of your own!