Many superheros have their origins in/around world war 2 or older events, Wonder woman was a nurse, captain america was a soldier, but other these characters very super powers explain their lack of aging and general fitness. Other characters who have a defined back story, like Batman or the Flash, rely less on real-world dateable events.  Magneto on the other hand, in the year 2019, is getting a bit old for his backstory -- which is integral to his character motivations. Having survived the holocaust he wants to prevent the same thing from happening to mutants. Even assuming he were born in the last year of WWII, he'd be 75; more likely at least 80 given he was old enough to remember it.   To my knowledge he has no powers that would keep him from aging or showing infirmity, yet he's generally shown as middle aged or slightly older and still very fit. Has any author attempted to explain this away in universe?  (Obviously the out of universe explanation is he's recognizable with a relatable story and marvel wants to keep cashing in)
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Magneto currently resides with Cyclops on utopia and is barely showing any signs of aging, despite being born in the 1920s. I realize that this is also the case for many other characters in cartoons and comics who aren't portrayed by actors and thus aren't constrained by consistent casting.  I know in the X-Men: Evolution cartoon he undergoes some process to heighten his mutant abilities, which also seems to have strengthened him in general, but this is the only instance of his age being reduced or otherwise fortified that I can find. I also know he was supposedly 'de-aged' but it turns out that was merely a clone.  How has he aged so gracefully then?
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I have very vague impressions of a book I must have read as a child/teenager in the 1980s (so probably published in the UK in the 1970s or early 1980s).  It featured a man who had been technologically enhanced with special powers that he could activate only for short periods (probably because they took a lot of energy), possibly by tonguing one of his teeth.  They gave him:   Much faster reactions; everything around him slowed down. Greater strength/speed. Metal fingernails/claws. Possibly some sort of enhanced vision, too.   I think it described him engaging these powers as: He activated. or similar.  He may have been a mercenary type, who had paid a lot for them; they were rare or unique.  I don't recall any plot or other characters; it was probably a techno-action story.  (No magic, armies, warrior races, telepathy, vampires, or mutants, and I don't recall aliens or space travel.)  It may have been part of a short series of 2 or 3 books.  I'm afraid this isn't much to go on!  I'd completely forgotten about this book until recently, and my impressions are very hazy, so any of the above could be wrong.  (I remember enjoying it, though.)  I've not found anything I recognise on this site, or others; nor in lists of adult and young-person's SF for that period (so it probably wasn't a big-name author).  Does it ring any bells for anyone?
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Adaline is 100-something years old, and her daughter appears to be 90 years old. Well, Adaline gave birth to her in her mid 20's, and to be precise, she should be 80.   Anyways, Adaline's old lover's son (Ellis) is probably in his late 20's/early 30's. And Adaline has stopped aging at 29, which is pretty close to Ellis. Her old lover is said to be a few years younger than her and still, his son is so young. Also, Adaline could make him believe that she is the daughter of her own old self.   Then,      how can Adaline's real life daughter be so old?   I can't make sense out of this.  Why is it this way? The age pattern of the actors and actresses is inconsistent. It seems to me that the filmmakers have exaggerated some things.
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When Superman goes back to visit his home planet (using his ability to travel through time, I guess), is he:    an exceptionally strong and athletic Kryptonian? just an average Kryptonian male? a weakling on account of spending a lifetime in the comparative microgravity of Earth?   A possibly related question: why is Superman so muscular? What kind of weights does he lift to stay in shape?  The answers to  are all about Superman's superpowers on Earth compared with other visitors from Krypton; I'm asking about Kal El without his superpowers.  Clarification: I'm asking about the "classic"  Superman, say late Golden to early Silver Age, roughly 1945-1960. (Yes, I know the concept evolved during those years.) I'm not sure what that would be in terms of "numbered Earths", those came along after my time. I'm pretty sure the Kryptonians of that era had no superpowers in their native milieu, nor would Kal El if he were deported in space-time to his native world.
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Spoilers Ahead. If you haven't watched Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald yet, please do not read further.  According to  and many other such fan pages, Minerva McGonagall, Harry's Transfiguration teacher was born in 1935 (although Pottermore , and no year). Now, in The Crimes of Grindelwald, we see a "Professor McGonagall" when the Aurors come to question Dumbledore about the whereabouts of Newt Scamander, which must have happened at least in the late 1920s if not exactly in 1927, if we follow the timeline shown in Fantastic Beasts. The same professor is also seen in a flashback which may have happened around ten years before this incident, when Dumbledore is teaching Newt and Leta's class. This would have happened in the 1910s then?  I even conjectured that maybe this is a different McGonagall teaching at the time Newt was a student, but the credits show Minerva McGonagall! If she was born in 1935 and these events occurred in 1927 or so (and earlier in the flashback), she wouldn't even have been born yet. How come she is fully grown and teaching in 1927? Was this some Minerva McGonagall senior? An ancestor to our beloved Transfiguration teacher and headmistress?
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Under the  tag I have seen many questions on earth-616. Are there any other versions of earth as well? How do they differ from each other?
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How old is Wolverine? Wasn't he in the civil war or something? It seems like movies keep showing flashbacks of earlier and earlier events.
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At the end of Iron Man 3, all of the Iron Man suits are destroyed with the very strong indicator that they will not be re-done &mdash; rather, Tony Stark will go it alone without the suits.  However, in Age of Ultron, there are clearly Iron Man suits. Where did they come from? What changed? Or am I just getting the timeline wrong?
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I'm curious whether any canonical explanation has ever been given. It seems that Time Turners must be extremely difficult to create, seeing that it's mentioned in the books that their use is tightly controlled by the Ministry of Magic (so obviously a wizard can't just wave their wand over an hourglass and turn it into a Time Turner); also because they mess with the very fabric of reality (so it's hard to imagine there being some naturally occurring magical material that just happens to be able to enable time travel.)
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This is a follow up to   Logan  in Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma and other wilderness locations.  Besides the obviously sci-fi elements (cybernetic mutants and their weapons, medical technology, etc, for example, which in the X-Men universe are not necessarily futuristic) what else is there in the appearance of film that would indicate that this is 12 years into the future?  This is a question about  -- the appearance of things, people, and settings, indepedent of the story elements.   I.e. we agree it takes place in the future; the question is about what visual elements there are that were influenced by that story element -- and, for the purpose of this question, that are different than present day real-world things.
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After       the attack on Earth where Doctor Strange is abducted and Iron Man and Spider-man rescue him, Doctor Strange starts asking how they plan to get back to Earth.   Why couldn't he just use his sling-ring teleportation to return? There is later confirmation that he can still do it (locally, at least). I understand they later decided against returning in general, but in the moment they seemed to preclude that option.
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Update to the question, contains spoilers for "Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald":      In the speech that Grindelwald gives to his supporters in Paris (in 1927), he references future events, including WWII, the holocaust and the atomic bomb. One can assume that the events leading up to his battle with Dumbledore have a definite connection to WWII, although it is not clear exactly what that connection is.       Dumbledore defeated Grindelwald in 1945. From the books you get the impression that Grindelwald was the most terrifying thing to happen at the time. But we know that among muggles, that was the time of the holocaust, WWII and the first nuclear attacks. As scary as the war with Grindelwald would have been, the world as a whole was facing a much bigger problem.  We also know that wizards interact with the muggle world, why else would the minister of magic talk to the British prime minister? Presumably, good wizards care about muggle well being as much as they do about magical people's well being. They could also intervene in the affairs of muggles and cover their tracks or make whatever happened look like natural events.   But then that raises the question, why didn't Dumbledore, given his powers, intervene in WWII to stop Hitler and the holocaust?   I can think of 3 possible answers:    In the Potterverse WWII never happened, and so Grindelwald was the biggest problem facing humanity (both wizards and muggles) at the time.  As good as the wizards seem in the books, they actually are pretty self centered and don't really care about muggles at all. As long as the wizarding community is safe, the muggles could commit all the genocides and nuclear attacks they wanted, magical people wouldn't care less.  The events of WWII were all actually side effects of the battle between Dumbledore and Grindelwald (Or Grindelwald and the Nazis were both side effects of some greater underlying evil phenomenon). That's why both Grindelwald and Hitler were defeated in 1945.      Which one of 1, 2 or 3 is most likely? Or is there another explanation?
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In the climax of Captain America: Civil War (2016), Zemo showed Iron Man how his parents really died, and that the Winter Soldier was responsible.  Afterwards, Iron Man asked Captain America whether he knew about it. Captain America admitted that, while he didn't know that Bucky (the Winter Soldier) was responsible, he did know that Howard and Maria's deaths weren't accidental.  But how? How did Captain America know the truth behind Iron Man's parents' death? How did he know that it was not an accident, but murder? This incident happened on 16 December 1991, and Captain America was buried in ice at that time. Did anyone tell him after he awoke? Am I missing something here?
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Through the X-Men film universe (X-Men 1-3, X-Men: First Class, X-Men: Days of Future Past, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and The Wolverine), we see at least three distinct timelines/alternate realities.  The "Original" Timeline  Through X-Men 1-3 mutants are a largely unknown factor. X-Men 1 opens up in "the near future" (relative to the year 2000, when the film was released) with the public largely unfamiliar with mutants or their abilities. The "Mutant Registration Act" aims to identify and register mutants. The following films deal with mutants still being very much hidden, but there is no indication that they are being hunted or even identified in any large scale way until X-Men: The Last Stand when mutants voluntarily come forth. In these movies, the only mention of anything even remotely close to a Sentinel is a robot head in the Danger Room in X-Men: The Last Stand. In this timeline, when mutants appear, police are called, not Sentinels, and       Jean Grey and Cyclops both die (Jean dies twice).   The Days Of Future Past Timeline  In this timeline, Sentinels are used to hunt mutants and anyone with mutant genes.  The whole premise of the movie/Wolverine's mission is that       the assassination of Bolivar Trask in Paris in 1973 sets off anti-mutant hysteria, leading the US government to activate Trask's Sentinel project. In addition to the Sentinels, Trask has a device which can detect mutants (he has it with him at the Paris meeting which he is to be assassinated in). When the assassination fails, Trask already has a number of Sentinels built and ready to deploy, proving that while the updated Sentinels with adaptation ability are still a ways off, the technology for the Gen-1 Sentinels is largely ready - in 1973.   These two timelines are definitively different as      there are no Sentinels hunting mutants, nor is there any massive anti-mutant hysteria in X-Men 1 (at least, not to the level described in Days of Future Past)   The Altered Days of Future Past Timeline  Prior to Wolverine embarking on his mission, Kitty explains that should he succeed,       he will wake up back in their present (2023, I believe), but with history changed around him. Only he would remember the original Days of Future Past timeline with mutants having been hunted to near extinction.   In the end, we see this timeline      with Jean and Cyclops still alive and well in the 2023 present time.     Phew... Got all that?  The present story of The Wolverine opens with Wolverine having nightmares of when      he was forced to kill Jean Grey.   By itself, this doesn't mean that The Wolverine takes place in the "original" timeline, but we see a world where, as with the "original" timeline, there is no indication of mutants being hunted. Nor are there any mentions of Sentinels.  Conclusion: It is reasonable to assume that The Wolverine takes place in the same timeline/continuity as X-Men 1-3.  Right until we get to the post-credit scene  The Wolverine ends with      Logan flying off with Yukio, but only has bone claws.   The post-credit scene takes place later (2 years, IIRC). In this,      Wolverine sets off metal detectors, and is then approached by Professor Xavier and Magneto, hoping to recruit him for an upcoming battle. In the background, we see a commercial for Trask Industries playing on a TV.   The insinuation, of course, is that this scene is meant as a direct lead-in to X-Men: Days of Future Past, and that      Xavier and Magneto are recruiting him to fight the forthcoming Sentinels.   If we assume that The Wolverine and the post-credit scene are in the "original" timeline, then the post-credit scene is not a true lead-in.  If we assume that the post-credit scene is in the Days of Future Past timeline, then we are left to explain why no mutants have are being hunted by Sentinels already.  So... Which timeline does this post-credit scene take place in, or why is the history described in DOFP not reflected in X-Men 1-3?
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Spoilers ahead! Plot points are revealed here, I'll put the deeper plot points in spoiler boxes.  Time travel features heavily in the plot of Endgame. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the MCU seems to subscribe to a multiverse of sorts. This makes any alterations to the past fine, and the "present" people making those changes return to the future they left from unaffected.  So, the plan is:      pop into the past to gather the Infinity Stones, wield them to perform a reverse snap, then pop them right back where you found them as if they'd never left at all.   This plan succeeds. However, as a result,      the pre-snap Thanos journeys into the future to protect the job he has yet to do, and is defeated in the process. This means that, although the Stones are placed back in their respective times (the Cap's last job before retiring), there's now a universe short of Thanos.   So, my question: is there now a universe out there in which the snap never occurred as well as several of the Avenger's adventures (anything after 2014, I think that's where Thanos travelled from), while at the same time there is a universe (the one we see in the films) in which all of the events of the MCU films transpired?  A further point, we're told that traveling back to kill a baby Thanos wouldn't work because they'd still be in the timeline they left from upon return (the snap one), while the other timeline would exist to no benefit of their own. This is why the mission was never about killing a pre-snap Thanos - your own past is unchangeable, the snap is locked in. Therefore, the Thanos that travelled to 2023 is forever locked in to travelling to that point and being defeated, meaning the time he came from must no longer have him.  This could also explain how the universe that we watch through the movies has a Gamora now. Because she came from a timeline in which Thanos never sacrifices her, she can be alive (remember, we're told that there's no way to reverse the sacrifice made to retrieve the Soul Stone - the only way she can be alive is if she's from a universe where she was never sacrificed (i.e. no Thanos after 2014)).
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When I was a teen and Superman II came out, when Superman realized he and Lois were in love, he de-supered himself in the Fortress of Solitude so he could be with Lois.  Right after he emerged from the crystal cage that drained his powers, the first thing he does is take Lois' hand and escort her to a conveniently placed bed that we had never seen there before.  This implies it was necessary for him to lose his powers so he could have sex with Lois.  The problems involved in this situation are well covered in the wonderful essay by Larry Niven, .  But I also know that Superman has been in the comics for decades.  A friend of mine once said, "Oh, he tells her who he is a lot, but he always makes her forget it again later."  So how have the comic books (since this is Superman's primary medium) handled this?  Were there different ways it was handled, or was it always handled the same way?  Have they literally kept Superman and Lois from having sex for decades?  Or have there been times when they've ended up in bed together?  How do they deal with the issues of the Man of Steel having sex with, and not killing, a woman of Kleenex?
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In Thor: The Dark World, Odin and Loki are discussing Loki's actions during The Avengers.  Loki argues that he would have ruled Earth as &quot;a benevolent god&quot;, and Odin replies:  Odin: We are not gods! We are born, we live, we die, just as humans do.  Now that's pretty definitive.  And Loki's snarky reply (&quot;Give or take five thousand years...&quot;) would seem to confirm that Asgardians have a limited lifespan, and will eventually die of old age.1  And we know that Asgardians can die in battle, because we've seen it happen over and over with supporting characters and Asgardian soldiers. Now, I've always been more of a fan of Thor stories (like Jason Aaron's Thor: God of Thunder arc) in which Thor and the Asgardians are gods.  Straight-up, genuine, higher-level-of-existence gods, not von-Däniken-esque wannabes playing on the tired old notion of magic just being super-advanced science.  BUT, despite my preferences, this exchange would seem to confirm once and for all that in the MCU, the Asgardians are not gods, but rather were mistaken for gods because of their ram-horns full of awesome-sauce and their magnificent bulging pecks. But wait!  Watch that movie for about 30 seconds longer and we come across this exchange:  Thor: She is ill. Odin: She is mortal. Illness is their defining trait.  Wait, what?  I thought Asgardians weren't immortal?  They can die in battle, and they naturally die of old age.  In my book, that makes them long-lived, but entirely &quot;mortal&quot;.  Surely Odin isn't splitting a hair so fine as to say that resistance to disease alone makes one &quot;immortal&quot;? So, if the Asgardians of the MCU aren't actually gods (grumblegrumblegrumble...), and they can't live forever (or even particularly long in a cosmic sense), and they can be killed in battle, in what sense are they &quot;immortal&quot; at all?  1 Fun fact: adjusted for a roughly 5,000 year lifespan, 1,048-year-old Loki is currently in the tail-end of his rebellious teenage phase.