Can we have a thread for autism about comic characters' ages?
Can be trivia, trying to make sense of character's ages, or complaining about DC/Marvel not knowing what they're doing.
Ages obviously never make sense due to the ongoing nature of comics along with reboots, deaging, rapid aging, etc. But some writers can't really help but mention a character being a certain age and it either follows them for a while or it ends up being ignored as people point out that it doesn't make sense.
>Damian is now 14 while Tim finally reached 18 thanks to Bernard (yet Kon is still in high school??) when they were originally 10 and 17
>from COIE to Infinite Crisis Dick and Diana were within 2-3 years of each other and from new 52 to rebirth they were again 2 years apart, Dick being 21 and Diana being 23
>Zatanna was originally around Dick's age as well when she was first introduced, got aged up due to Dini shipping her with Bruce
>Priest thought Rose Wilson was in her early-mid 20s and was going to write a romantic history between her and Dick, while also planning a more mature storyline for her. scrapped both when editors told him she's 16-18 and has been since mid 00s
>pre Flashpoint Dick became Batman at roughly 28 ie the same age Bruce was when he was became Batman pre Flashpoint
>Irey, Jai, and Maxine seem to have now been aged up to about 12-13 when they were like 8 in Adam's Flash (when Irey was 2 years older than Jai pre Flashpoint due to accelerated aging)
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I thought Diana was 1000s of years old pre Flashpoint again?
DC has a sliding timeline. You're literally not supposed to think about their ages.
Caring about the ages is peak autism along the lines of caring about why no one kills the Joker. There's no deeper reasons it's literally just whatever keeps status quo.
It doesn't make sense because it can't make sense.
Yeah im pretty sure OP understands that and is just trying to have some fun. Did you read the post?
No I read that they admitted it was autism and replied. Hopefully someone will actually understand and direct their autism elsewhere like can Superman's cum blow a hole through Lois Lane.
The answer to that question is yes if he edges
The big characters stay the same age always while the lesser characters age whenever. Damian can be 10-16 while Bruce is always 35 through all of it.
So how old are the legacy heroes in marvel at this point? It feels like they want to keep them 14-16 high-school level but with the spiderverse movies and insomniac games slowly aging Miles I wouldn't be surprised if they try to push him up a few years. The only reason I say it is because I notice both are bringing up college.
Kamala is 16; Miles is 18. Spider-Gwen is a ambiguous since she was aged down in her series, initially starting out in her early 20s.
Batman and Superman should be mid 40s to early 50s. Bruce cones off as a bitter middle aged guy most of the time and him being older would justify the amount of sidekicks he has.
Wonder Woman's age is irrelevant.
You got their ages mixed up, Kamala is a first year college student and Miles is still in high school.
Donna's problem is less about age and more about all the contradictions tied to her.
Dick is probably mid 20s to early 30s at this point.
Reminder that in Endgame Bruce was fricking 32, with 4 Robins.
Pre COIE Bruce was 32, being ~14 years older than Dick, who had turned 18.
Batman having four Robins at 32 never made sense .
Kamala and Miles are both high school students. Both roughly 16. People get confused with Kamala, but she did a high school internship at Oscorp, and is at a high school level summer program with Orchis.
The most important character is the one who's forced the aging of the DCU since 1940: Robin. His age defines sacred timeline.
You establish everyone else's ages in relation to Dick, then Tim, then Damian.
In modern continuity Dick starts at age 12.
Dick turns 20 during COIE. Jason dies, Tim is introduced, immediately turns 14, and becomes Robin.
Tim turns 16 in between Graduation Day and Identity Crisis. Dick is 22.
Infinite Crisis, 52, and OYL create a firm one year jump in the timeline.
Damian is introduced after OYL. Damian is 10. Tim is 17. Dick is 23.
Damian turns 13 after DC Rebirth. Tim Drake, no longer a teen, leaves the Teen Titans. Dick is 26.
Current books. Damian just turned 14. Tim is currently 21. Dick is 27.
Next you can establish the other characters around these guys.
I swear it works. The only outliers are the characters like Lian Harper who should only be ~8 but dress like a loose teenager.
Great now explain Donna Troy's complete timeline.
I dunno why everybody thinks Donna is confusing. She has multiple origins yes, but only once does DC try to mash more than one together into a confusing mess. They mostly just replace each other and then DC snickers thinking they’re clever for being self referential and meta.
Anyway her first origin up until COIE was her house burning to the ground, her parents dying, Wonder Woman saving her, and then bringing her to Themyscira.
Second one post COIE was the same, except Titans of Myths rescued her due to post COIE Diana being new to man’s world (meaning yes, Donna was a hero before Diana).
Third one was Byrne’s 90s Wonder Woman run, where he wanted to connect Diana and Donna again. He made Donna a magic mirror image and playmate of Diana on Themyscira. To explain why Donna is younger, he created Dark Angel to kidnap her thinking she was Diana.
Fourth one in mid 00s was more 2.5, as it was just the second origin, Titans of Myth rescuing her and her being goddess of the moon but with Dark Angel kidnapping her, freezing her in time, then releasing her, and the amazons adopting her.
Then in new 52 she had the clay origin, being created to challenge the throne.
However leading up to Rebirth, Titans Hunt they had Donna be Wonder Girl in the past… despite having just been created as an adult the year before.
Then in rebirth writers Abnett and Orlando clearly wanted to do her first origin, but DC (probably just Didio tbh) insisted on the clay origin being canon. So she was the massive clay b***h but with false memories implanted of her first origin that fricked her up.
Now as of Infinite Frontier, writers have been allowed to use her first and best origin due to Diana being old.
You'll notice that I said nothing about Batman. You can fit in whatever origin you like. Personally I prefer Year One, but that would make Batman 42.
If you go with Zero Year then Batman is only 38. Seems OK either way.
Donna's timeline is straightforward. If you ignore the retcons and resets and go with whatever the current origin is then it's easy. Don't over complicate it.
You'll see I ignored characters like Batgirl and Jason Todd because they kept having their ages changed.
>Next you can establish the other characters around these guys.
>I swear it works
No, it doesn't. Especially with Jason who doesn't fit in this.
Jason's timeline didn't make sense when compared with Jason's own Robin comics, let alone the larger DCU.
There was a timeskip after his Post-Crisis Origin. Remember, they were following on from Pre-Crisis where Jason was the current Robin. Like Batman, they wanted to give Jason his own Year One. He was Robin for a few years.
Not what I'm talking about. Jason Todd's age didn't make sense when he was Robin. Starlin wanted him older so suddenly he was a high school student instead of a 12 year old. No point in trying to fit in the characters whose ages don't even make sense within their own stories. Better to go with the current word of god on the character ages.
For the past 20 years DC has said that Jason is just a little younger than Cass.
Cass was 17 when introduced. Tim was 15.
Jason, like Cass, is 2 years older than Tim.
You have to do the same thing with Barbara. Too many age changes. Current comics say she's the same age as Dick, just leave it at that.
>No point in trying to fit in the characters whose ages don't even make sense within their own stories
This literally almost every character. Neither Batman or his Robin's ages make any sense in their own stories.
Reposting my Rogues age autism, broken into age chunks as a set “this person is older than this person” would be impossible
>Al
Was described as 30 in the Bronze Age. No notable deaging.
>Mick
Described as 40 in Johns’ run.
>Snart
He and Heatwave seem about the same age. Got grizzled in Johns’ run.
>Digger
Had a receding hairline pretty early on in his publishing career and was a career criminal even prior to joining the Rogues. Has an older kid.
>Mark
Went to jail just twice before becoming Weather Wizard. At least aged more gracefully. This is based on vibes.
>Roscoe
One of the last OG rogues and when he debuted he got the idea of becoming Top the 2nd time he went to jail. Also based on vibes.
>Sam
Was only arrested once prior to becoming Mirror Master. Also based on vibes.
>Lisa
A few years younger than Len obviously in Johns’ run but old enough to have ice skating as a career and date Roscoe.
>Evan
He’s hard to place because he went from having a nice head of hair to receding back to nice head of hair. But left orphanage at 16 and spent “years” working as a hitman.
>Hartley
said to have finished college and got a job in the Bronze Age by his dad but that may have been a lie for them to save face, but either way he was definitely deaged by Waid’s run due to being Wally’s friend. Was described as “30+” in Johns’ run and Johns had Mick and Snart call him “kid” in flashback of same run.
>James
IIRC originally was canonically in his teens when he created his air shoes and modern retelling made it seem he became a criminal right as he became an adult. Also he never seemed to age like the others.
>Roy
Came later than most of the others, stated to be 21 when he got the goggles. Was also called “kid” by the other.
>Owen
Stated to have been 19 in an interview around Identity Crisis.
>Axel
Forever 16.
How old do you think some superheroes were when they first started? For me its
>Batman: 23
>Superman: 21
>Flash: 23
>Aquaman: 25
This is almost identical to my guesses, except Batman and Superman's ages are reversed.
GL started as a Captain in the USAF and WW in the golden age in the Lieutenant Diana Prince ID, so their minimum ages should be 25 and 22 as befitting those ranks.
in my headcanon
superman is about 25
batman about 26
wonder woman about 3000
Superman is too much of a “dad” figure to other superheroes and frankly the population to be mid 20s imo.
So with the way he's written and how people fancast him you'd assume this blue dibshit is in his 40's to 50's but actually he could only be in his early to mid 30's at the absolute oldest. The bigger surprise is that Cyclops is technically younger then Spider-Man. While they can try to retcon it all they want Scott is around 14-15 when Xavier adopts him and this is after heroes like the FF and Hulk already made their debut in the Marvel world. Now the X-Men have dealt with a lot more time travel bs and being brought back from the dead then any other heroes so I'll give them some leeway on aging a bit more then they should've despite following the sliding time scale.
TL;DR- Storm and the original X-Men minus Jean could only be late 20's and early 30's at the oldest.
Slide timescale aside, he mentions in the adjectiveless run in the early 90's that he just turned 30 so yeah, that checks out
Mentally Cyclops and Jean are a decade or so older than their bodies.
Beast always came across as being older than his actual age. Mid 40s to early 50s makes more sense than him being early to mid 30s.
Cyclops makes the most sense as someone in their mid 30s to early 40s.
I always saw Storm as someone one in their mid thirties to be honest.
Spoken like someone who grew up on the 90s cartoon or the Kelsey Grammar movie appearances.
How old are Nightcrawler and Colossus?
Nightcrawler and Colossus are in similar boats to Beast in how adaptions have made people think they're way older then they really are. If I remember correctly Kurt barley turns 21 sometime after Kitty Pryde joins the team. So at the moment he'd only be about in his mid to late 20's at the oldest. Pitor is a little more confusing but he's about 18 at the start of Claremont's run and turns 21 during it. Unless I'm forgetting something he's roughly in his mid 20's. Slightly older then the new mutants but also slightly younger then Kurt.
>x-men
The problem is that they canonized Magneto as an Holocaust survivor. Eventually they would need to stretch professor X age or do some time-line retcon. Xavier and Juggernaut are still supposed to be Korean War veterans, right? We're talking about people post 90 years old. While Cain can be handwaved by his Cyttorak magic... Xavier forming the x-men will be more and more stretched in time
>Characters are all older than me because I don't wanna feel old.