In the middle of the storyline, Thorpe was fired by Marvel, so the first to put the now-famous number in a comic was the writer who replaced him: a fresh-faced upstart called Alan Moore. However, Moore decided to use “616” for the regular Marvel U instead of the dumpster fire reality, just because he disliked how DC always talked about “Earth-2” and such but “never any higher numbers.” After all, if there are truly “Infinite Earths” as DC liked to say, what are the chances that all the ones the heroes run into would be in the top 10?
Marvel Comics
It’s possible that this was also Moore subtly letting Marvel know how he felt about them after the accounting department jerked him around over unpaid invoices. In fact, one of the reasons the “616” designation didn’t catch on right away was that Moore refused to allow Marvel to reprint his Captain Britain stories in the US, not because they’re terrible but because Marvel is. In the ’90s, the 616 number popped up again in Excalibur, a comic about some of the X-Men moving to England and shacking up with Captain Britain. By the next decade, the number had spread among other writers and fans, even as Marvel’s higher-ups talked about how much they hated it. That didn’t stop movies like Thor: Dark World, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, or the aforementioned Far From Home from referencing it.
Marvel Studios
Marvel Studios
It’s kind of funny that throwaway Alan Moore lines would become massively important in companies he despises, like when DC based two major crossovers on a couple of eight-page Green Lantern stories Moore wrote over 20 years earlier. Also, for the record, it’s Thanos. Thanos does the most butt-crunches. Come on.
Follow Maxwell Yezpitelok‘s heroic effort to read and comment on every ’90s Superman comic at Superman86to99.tumblr.com.
Top image: Marvel Studios
Related: 5 Bonkers Marvel And DC Comics That Almost Happened
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How Alan Moore (And Satan) Named Marvel's 'Earth-616'
Source: Pinoy Daily News
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