In today's issue of Spider-Gwen (#7), there is a "Marvel Handbook" page for Jessica Drew. The first sentence reads, in part "The long and ridiculously convoluted history of Jessica Drew began on the Prime Earth (formerly designated Earth-616)..."
So, the "main" Marvel Earth is now known as the "Prime Earth". Not sure what makes it more "Prime" than any other Earth, but there it is.
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The notion of slightly divergent parallel worlds has a big hole in it, as they should diverge rapidly once they start diverging. On world one a soldier lifts his head slightly, and a bullet whizzes over it before it's fully raised. On world two he lifts his head a second earlier, and is killed. On world one Peter proposes to Marie, and her reply is drowned by a ship horn. On world two he proposes a few seconds later, his proposal is drowned out, he puts off proposing until they're away from the dock, they have a fight, and he ends up not proposing at all.
So one can argue similar parallel worlds must be connected in some subtle way that keeps them from more radically diverging. Perhaps one is the prime world and the others reflections of it, as in the Amber series.
Another way of saying Earth One.
Didn't DC have an Earth Prime?
Yeah, Earth-Prime was supposed to be our Earth.
So will it be Spider-Man Prime that punches a whole in time...?
To me, "Prime Earth (formerly designated Earth-616)" means...
"Earth-616" equates to "Pre-Crisis Earth-1"
"Prime Earth" equates to "Post-Crisis DCU"
Why are they even bothering to try and make sense of something that they'll most likely change in a year anyway?
It gives them something to do.
Mark S. Ogilvie said:
Why are they even bothering to try and make sense of something that they'll most likely change in a year anyway?
Well, Marvel hasn't rebooted until now* while DC has done it several times. Marvel's reboot is likely to last longer.
* except for small tweaks
I liked Jessica's first origin, now origins and histories are so malleable it's like the comics are printed in Silly Putty.
There's a memory that hasn't flashed into my mind in years :) Anyone else ever press the Silly Putty onto the comic page?