Each section I edit of Robert Wicks’s “Unofficial Chronology to the Marvel Universe” seems more heavily revised than the last. This is due, in part, to my elimination of the infamous “sliding time-scale” in establishing the history of the Original Marvel Universe. However, it is also due to my having added a great deal of additional content after consulting the excellent online Appendix to the Handbook of the Marvel Universe. As before, I have re-written some of Mr. Wicks’s language for brevity, clarity, and style.
Note: The following timeline depicts the Original Marvel Universe (anchored to November 1961 as the first appearance of the Fantastic Four and proceeding backward from there. See previous posts for a detailed explanation of my rationale.) Some information presented on the timeline is speculative and some is based on historical accounts or scientific theory and is noted as such in the text.
Time flies when you’re having… The True History of the Original Marvel Universe!
Part Five: Dark Days
circa 1400 A.D.
The kingdom of Latveria is founded in the Carpathian Mountains by nobles of the Haasen family, who have emigrated from the German-speaking lands to the north. They wrest the territory from the land barons of western Transylvania and establish their capital city of Haasenstadt.
1430
Vlad Dracula is born in Schassburg, Transylvania, the second son of Vlad Dracul, a.k.a. Vlad the Elder, a Transylvanian nobleman. [Date based on historical accounts]
1437
Vlad the Elder ousts his brother from power and becomes ruler of Transylvania. He allies himself with the Ottoman Turks. [Date based on historical accounts]
1444
Vlad Dracula and his younger brother Radu are captured by Sultan Murad II, leader of the Ottoman Turks, to force Vlad the Elder to adopt policies which favor Turkey. At Murad’s court Dracula learns the effectiveness of extreme cruelty. Radu is eventually tortured to death. During this time, Dracula’s father and older brother Mircea are murdered. [Tomb of Dracula Magazine #2]
1448
Vlad Dracula escapes from Murad’s court and returns home to seize the throne of Transylvania. Dracula rules for eight months before fleeing from the conspirators who had helped kill his father, a cabal led by János Hunyadi. [Tomb of Dracula Magazine #2–3]
circa 1450
Keeping residence in Kamar-Taj, the Ancient One discovers a young man roaming the ruined city and takes him in as his first apprentice. Over the next two decades, the young man studies under the Ancient One while aiding him in collecting books of black magic, which the Ancient One is stockpiling to keep out of the hands of evil sorcerers. Secretly, the apprentice studies these books to increase his own mystic powers. [Strange Tales v.2 #11] [Date is speculative]
1451
Dracula returns to Transylvania to ally himself with János Hunyadi, from whom he learns the arts of war. [Tomb of Dracula Magazine #3]
1454
Dracula marries Zofia, a Hungarian noblewoman. The marriage had been arranged by Dracula’s father, and Dracula hates his new bride. [Tomb of Dracula #60]
1455
Shortly after the birth of their daughter Lilith, Dracula orders Zofia to leave his sight forever. Zofia gives Lilith to a gypsy woman named Gretchen to raise, then commits suicide. [Giant-Size Chillers #1]
1456
With the aid of János Hunyadi, Dracula is restored to the Transylvanian throne. Dracula dedicates himself to eradicating the Turks. His violent methods of putting them to death earn him the nickname “Vlad the Impaler.” [Tomb of Dracula Magazine #2]
1458
Dracula marries a woman named Maria, whom he loves deeply. They soon have a son, Vlad Tepulus.
1459
Lord Turac of the Turks leads an army to invade Transylvania and attacks Castle Dracula. Dracula is defeated in battle and mortally wounded by Turac. However, Turac wishes to make an example of Dracula and so takes his prisoner to the gypsy Lianda to heal his wounds. Lianda turns out to be a vampire, and she drinks Dracula’s blood, making him a vampire also. Rising from the grave three days later, Dracula is recaptured by Turac and witnesses the death of his wife Maria. Breaking his bonds, Dracula slays Turac, turning him into a vampire as well. Realizing that he has become a monster, Dracula leaves his infant son Vlad Tepulus to be raised by gypsies. [Dracula Lives! #2]
Tired of his ages-long existence, Varnæ, Lord of the Vampires, decides to hand over the reins of power to Dracula. Varnæ commands his servant Nimrod to pose as the leader of the vampires and draw Dracula into a confrontation. Dracula defeats Nimrod and is proclaimed the new Lord of the Vampires. Suddenly, a group of priests raids the gathering and kills Dracula, his first “death” as a vampire. However, Varnæ arranges for Dracula to be resurrected soon after and imparts to Dracula much of his own power by making Dracula drink his ancient blood. Varnæ then commits suicide by exposing himself to direct sunlight. [Dracula Lives! #3, Bizarre Adventures #33]
Blaming the gypsies for his transformation into a vampire, Dracula slaughters many of them, including Gretchen’s son. In revenge, Gretchen casts a spell transforming Dracula’s daughter Lilith into a fully-grown vampire with special powers, such as an immunity to sunlight. Gretchen also casts a spell on Lilith whereby if she is killed, her soul will be transported into the body of an innocent woman who wants her father dead. Lilith sets out on her mission of vengeance to destroy her father, and she and Dracula will battle a number of times over the following centuries. [Giant-Size Chillers #1]
Dracula begins amassing a collection of vampire “wives,” many of whom take up residence in his castle. He generally considers these undead women to be expendable.
Dracula finally gains his revenge on Sultan Murad II, luring him to Castle Dracula and killing him, tossing the sultan’s corpse to the Turkish soldiers waiting outside. [Tomb of Dracula Magazine #2]
1460s
Dracula extends his mortal power base by cementing his rule throughout Transylvania and finally drives the Turks from his domain. Dracula also encounters a member of the Van Helsing family, beginning an enmity that will endure for centuries. [Dracula Lives! #12]
Dracula learns of the existence of the Darkhold and its spell to destroy all vampires. Wishing to acquire it for safekeeping, Dracula forces Murgo, a gypsy thief, to steal the book from the Vatican library. However, Cagliostro, a gypsy sorcerer, intervenes and steals the Darkhold for himself. Though the Latin translation is left behind, the original Darkhold’s whereabouts remain a mystery for centuries. [Dracula Lives! #4]
circa 1470
The Ancient One discovers his apprentice secretly studying the tomes of evil magic they had collected and banishes him from Kamar-Taj. Over the next few centuries, the former apprentice extends his lifespan by absorbing the life energy of evil men. He eventually assumes the name Mister Jip. [Strange Tales v.2 #11] [Date is speculative]
On an expedition to purchase rice in the foothills, a party of monks from a remote monastery high in the Himalayas is lost in a sudden blizzard. The sole survivor stumbles upon a network of caverns inhabited by a race of “abominable snowmen.” When they see the monk’s mirrored amulet, the primitive beast-men proclaim him a god. Stranded there, the monk begins educating his worshipers, hoping they will one day attain enlightenment. The beast-men eventually start calling themselves “the Chosen” and referring to the monk as “the Master.” [Fantastic Four #145]
1471
Dracula loses interest in ruling his human subjects and abdicates his throne. Transylvania eventually falls under foreign rule, but its subsequent rulers generally leave “Count” Dracula alone to do as he pleases. [Dracula Lives! #13]
1475
A royal dynasty is established in the tiny Balkan kingdom of Symkaria that will rule the country down to the present day. [Amazing Spider-Man #322]
early 1500s
The H.M.S. Drake, a British ship trying to find a southern passage to the Pacific Ocean, is exploring the Antarctic seas when it strikes an iceberg and sinks. One of the sailors survives, carried by ocean currents into the Savage Land. Exploring this strange jungle, the sailor comes across a giant idol of Garokk, a god worshiped by the tribe of the Sun-People. While drinking from a cup that had been placed in front of the idol, the sailor is discovered by tribesmen and flees. Eventually, he makes his way back to England and discovers that the potion he drank has made him immortal. The sailor regards this as a curse as he watches his loved ones grow old and die while he remains perpetually youthful. Over the next few centuries, the sailor searches for a way to end his life. Over time, his skin gradually becomes rock-like, and he comes to be known as the Petrified Man. [Astonishing Tales #3] [Date based on historical accounts]
Dracula is finally forced to kill his son, Vlad Tepulus, who has spent his life trying to destroy his father. However, Dracula’s grandson has also sworn to destroy him, with the vendetta being passed down through the subsequent generations. [Tomb of Dracula #60]
1530
Solomon Kane is born to a Puritan family in Devonshire, England.
When their Master dies of old age, members of the Chosen steal his body and place it within an “entropy globe” that returns him to a semblance of life. Unable to leave the globe, the Master continues to guide the development of the secret sect that tends to his physical needs. [Fantastic Four #146]
1531
Georg von Frankenstein is killed while trying to save his true love from one of the dragons living beneath his castle. Georg’s brother Hans then inherits Castle Frankenstein and soon discovers there are other dragons inhabiting the caverns. [Savage Sword of Conan #22]
circa 1550
The Ancient One joins an old order of sorcerers who are all dedicated to protecting the people of Earth from black magic. Eventually, his prowess becomes so great that he is visited by Eternity, the manifestation of the cosmos itself. He is the first human to receive such a visitation, and Eternity presents him with an amulet called the Eye of Agamotto, a powerful magical item created by the first Sorcerer Supreme. Using the amulet, the Ancient One first battles Dormammu, the demonic ruler of a mystic realm known only as the Dark Dimension. Over the following centuries, the Ancient One successfully keeps Dormammu out of Earth’s dimension. [Date is speculative]
1553
Returning to England after several years abroad, Solomon Kane saves the residents of Torkertown from a deadly ghost by helping it avenge its own murder. He also witnesses the severed hand of a condemned necromancer strangle the man who turned the sorcerer over to the king’s men. Kane then kills a couple of werewolves outside Torkertown. [Monsters Unleashed #1, Savage Sword of Conan #13–14]
While wandering through the mountains of France, Solomon Kane comes across a dying girl in the woods and vows to hunt down her killer, a notorious bandit known as Le Loup. Over the next few months, Kane kills off Le Loup’s band of thieves, then confronts the master criminal in his hidden lair. After a vicious swordfight, Le Loup escapes into the darkness. Kane distributes the stolen treasure among the local villages, then continues his relentless pursuit. [Marvel Premiere #33]
1554
Solomon Kane tracks Le Loup to a remote African village, where he meets the sorcerer N’Longa. Having become the chieftain’s advisor, Le Loup arranges for Kane and N’Longa to be burned at the stake. However, N’Longa sends his astral form into the corpse of a human sacrifice victim and reanimates it long enough to assassinate the chieftain. Le Loup flees into the jungle, but Kane hunts him down and kills him in another swordfight. Feeling he has finally avenged the French girl’s death, Kane returns to Europe. [Marvel Premiere #34]
1559
Wandering through the Black Forest in Germany, Solomon Kane escapes from a couple of serial killers, both of whom become victims of their own evil ways. Then, with the help of a fellow Englishman named John Silent, Kane battles the devil-worshiping mutant Baron von Staler, ending his series of ritual murders. [Savage Sword of Conan #18–19]
Hearing rumors of dragons, Solomon Kane visits Castle Frankenstein outside the German city of Darmstadt. Discovering that Baron Hans von Frankenstein is trying to appease the monster by offering human sacrifices, Kane forces the baron to accompany him into the caverns to slay the creature. Frankenstein panics and runs away, but Kane manages to kill the dragon and destroy its eggs. [Savage Sword of Conan #22]
Learning that the daughter of a friend has disappeared in Transylvania, Solomon Kane goes there to search for her. He is set upon by Turkish highwaymen, then attacked by a pack of werewolves. Kane is saved from the werewolves by Dracula, who invites the Puritan back to his castle. There, Kane discovers the missing girl has been turned into a vampire. After destroying her with a wooden stake, the outraged Kane battles Dracula and defeats him. However, since Dracula earlier saved his life, Kane feels honor-bound to let his foe go free. [Dracula Lives! #3]
1560
Overcome with guilt at not having destroyed Dracula when he had the chance, Solomon Kane makes his way back to Transylvania. While passing through Romania, Kane is waylaid by a Roman-era succubus whom he inadvertently resurrects. Though he nearly falls victim to her seductive charms, Kane is able to destroy the succubus once and for all. Kane then returns to Castle Dracula and manages to stake the vampire with a wooden crucifix. However, Dracula is inadvertently revived hours later by gypsy looters. [Savage Sword of Conan #25–26]
1566
After searching for several years for a missing English heiress, Solomon Kane finds her living as a slave in the court of the savage Queen Nakari of the lost Atlantean colony of Negari, located in the mountains of Africa. Though captured, Kane escapes from the dungeons to prevent the Englishwoman from being sacrificed to the false god Nakura. Kane destroys the city’s idol, the Skull of Nakura, with his pistol, causing the mob to riot. In the ensuing violence, Nakari is killed by one of her own subjects. A sudden earthquake annihilates Negari, but Kane and the heiress make it out alive. After returning the heiress to England, Kane joins the crew of Sir Frances Drake and sails to the West Indies. [Savage Sword of Conan #34, 37, 39]
1588
The Latverian nobleman Count Sabbat orders construction begun on a castle for his king, which will overlook the capital city of Haasenstadt. When the 110-room castle is complete, the royal family takes up residence there.
1590s
Solomon Kane returns to Africa, where his old friend, the sorcerer N’Longa, presents him with the ancient magical artifact known as King Solomon’s Staff. The staff helps Kane and N’Longa wipe out a colony of African vampires. Kane takes the staff with him as he continues his wanderings. He soon comes upon the tribes of Bogonda, where he wipes out the last of the mythological harpies. Next, coming across a gang of Arab slavers, Kane learns more of the staff’s history from one of their number. Kane is then able to use the staff to destroy a shapeless demon that is accidentally freed from its imprisonment in an ancient crypt by the greedy slavers. [Kull and the Barbarians #2–3, Savage Sword of Conan #53–54, Marvel Preview #19]
1597
Dracula’s diary is stolen and some of his vampiric weaknesses are discovered. Before he can retrieve the diary, though, it is transported to England. He is unable to track it down. [Dracula Lives! #12]
circa 1600
Dracula moves his base of operations to the new Castle Dracula at Borgo Pass in Transylvania.
1606
Dracula encounters Countess Elizabeth Bathory, a sorceress. Immune to his control, she proposes an alliance but then double-crosses him. Dracula soon has his revenge and sees to it that the “Blood Countess” dies a horrible death. [Dracula Lives! #4]
circa 1610
After a lifetime of wandering the world, Solomon Kane returns home to Devonshire, intending to live out his remaining days in peace. However, when he learns that his childhood sweetheart, Bess Morgan, has died, he leaves his hometown to resume his wandering. [Savage Sword of Conan #20, 162]
An alien from the extradimensional world known as “the Coconut Grove” visits Earth and meets the English playwright William Shakespeare. Shakespeare bases his character Ariel in his play The Tempest on this alien. [Fallen Angels #7] [Date based on historical accounts]
1618
Sir Francis Bacon, an English mystic, meets the time-travelers Doctor Strange and Clea and presents them with the manuscript for his book New Atlantis. [Doctor Strange v.2 #17]
1623
The Marquis de Rais translates The Thanatosian Tomes, a book of black magic. [Marvel Premiere #4]
1624
The Dreamqueen encounters the astral form of Nanquato, the shaman of the Chickaqua Indian tribe, while he is searching through numerous dimensions for a god willing to end the drought that threatens his village. She tricks him into taking a magical totem back to Earth, through which she can torment Nanquato’s people with terrifying illusions and use their fear to build a bridge between the two realms. Though the Dreamqueen manages to pass a mystic weapon through the still-forming portal, Nanquato is killed by one of his tribe’s warriors before she herself can cross over to Earth. While the tribe buries their shaman alongside the mystic weapon in a cairn, Nightmare appears to the Dreamqueen and reveals that he foiled her plan by forewarning the warrior in a dream. He intends to keep her trapped in her pocket dimension, he reveals, so he can enjoy her suffering. [Alpha Flight #67]
1670
An English religious leader, Caleb Starke, leads his sect to escape persecution by settling in a remote valley on the coast of Massachusetts. Their town is named Starkesboro in his honor. Eventually, an ancient totem is found that activates the residents’ latent genetic heritage from the Serpent Men, causing them to mutate into more reptilian forms and come under the domination of the demon Sligguth. [Marvel Premiere #4–5]
Rupert Kemp, England’s 7th Baron Darkmoor, turns to sorcery when his lover, Demelza, is burned at the stake as a witch. When he sells his soul to a demon passing itself off as “Satan” in exchange for power and immortality, the devil fulfills the bargain by arranging for Kemp to become a vampire. [Super Spider-Man and Captain Britain #235]
1685
Braddock Manor is constructed in the countryside some miles northwest of London, England. [Mighty World of Marvel #16]
1691
Dracula travels to America for the first time, visiting Salem, Massachusetts. He falls in love with a woman named Charity Brown, the first time he has felt such emotion for a woman since the death of his wife Maria. As a result, Dracula’s dealings with women begin to take on a more sensual tone. While in the area, Dracula turns a West Indian woman named Tituba into a vampire. [Dracula Lives! #1]
Cotton Mather, a servant of the ancient wizard known as the Dark Rider, arrives in Salem, Massachusetts. He seeks practitioners of magic so his master can feed on their mystical energies. To flush out his victims, Mather incites a wave of anti-witch hysteria. [Marvel Team-Up #42]
1692
The combination of Tituba turning several other people into vampires and Cotton Mather’s rabble-rousing leads to the Salem Witch Trials. During these events, Cotton Mather and the Dark Rider battle the time-traveling superheroes Spider-Man, the Scarlet Witch, the Vision, and Moondragon, as well as Doctor Doom. [Marvel Team-Up #41–44]
Feeling persecuted, a number of witches from New England decide to isolate themselves. Founding a small town in what is today Colorado, these practitioners of the occult name their town New Salem to remind them of the persecution they have suffered. [Fantastic Four #186]
1698
A family of seafaring Dutch settlers in America begins construction of a mansion on the shore of Breakstone Lake, in the Salem Center area of New York’s Westchester County. The mansion will remain in the family’s hands up to the present day.
Part Six: The Age of Elegance
1700 A.D.
The Massachusetts Academy, a private preparatory school, is founded in Snow Valley, Massachusetts.
1749
The Hellfire Club, a social organization for the elite of British society, is founded in England. It is a pleasure club that offers its members indulgences that violate the moral standards of society, but it also serves as a means for its members to pool their resources to influence England’s political and economic matters. [Date based on historical accounts]
1750s
Dracula encounters the female pirate captain known as Hellyn deVill and foils her plan to steal a locket that once belonged to his wife Maria. Dracula exposes Hellyn as a witch hag and leaves her to the mercy of her cutthroat crew. [Dracula Lives! #7]
The Serpent Crown is stolen from Emperor Naga and taken to Antarctica by Lemurian rebels led by Pyscatos and his brother Bekkit. Once there, the rebels change themselves into pink-skinned air-breathers using a chemical formula discovered by Bekkit’s lover, Jhandark, and establish a settlement amongst the ancient technology maintaining Pangea. To reduce the sinister influence of the Serpent Crown, Bekkit encases it in a shielding substance that also disguises its serpentine form. Pyscatos and Bekkit then jointly govern their peaceful community for many years. Meanwhile, Naga sends out agents called Questers to search the oceans for his lost crown. Without it, he slowly begins aging again, which only increases his cruelty. [Sub-Mariner #10, Daredevil Annual #5]
1762
Dracula leaves his castle at Borgo Pass in Transylvania and relocates to France. During his absence, a number of noblemen such as Baron Grigori Russoff take over parts of his domain. [Tomb of Dracula #33]
late 1760s
A fleet of starships from the planet Galador enters the area of space known as the Dark Nebula on a peaceful trading expedition. They are attacked by the Dire Wraith armada, which destroys many of their ships. The remainder of the Galadorian fleet is annihilated when the Dire Wraiths conjure up a demonic creature called a Deathwing. Receiving the fleet’s final transmission several days later, the Prime Director of Galador calls for volunteers willing to become cyborg warriors to fight off the Dire Wraith armada, which is already on its way. A poet named Rom is the first to step forward, and he is followed by millions of his fellow citizens. From their ranks, only a few thousand qualify to be transformed into Spaceknights, their living tissues grafted to gleaming suits of nearly indestructible armor. Unused tissues are placed into cryogenic storage so that, after the war, the Spaceknights can return to their normal humanoid forms. When the enemy armada at last approaches Galador, the Spaceknights intercept it, and a furious battle ensues. Despite sustaining heavy losses, the Spaceknights obliterate about two-thirds of the armada, prompting the Dire Wraiths to summon another Deathwing as they retreat. Following the sacrifice of dozens of his fellows, Rom manages to destroy the demon, for which he will be celebrated as a great hero. [Rom, Spaceknight #1]
Rom pursues the retreating Dire Wraith warships, overcoming a trio of lesser Deathwings with his neutralizer weapon. When the warships scatter, Rom follows the lead ship back to the Dark Nebula, knowing that the Dire Wraiths in the other ships will escape. Nevertheless, he chases the lead ship all the way back to the planet called Wraithworld, which orbits a black star coruscating with eldritch energies. After causing the warship to crash, Rom turns his neutralizer on Wraithworld’s inhabitants, banishing thousands of Dire Wraiths to the extradimensional realm of Limbo. However, some Wraith witches succeed in casting a spell on the Spaceknight, causing him to turn his weapon on illusory foes. This gives the Dire Wraiths the chance to evacuate the planet. Rom is soon rescued by a squadron of other Spaceknights—Breaker, Pulsar, Scanner, Seeker, Trapper, and the Unseen—and they all return to Galador. [Rom Annual #2]
After a state funeral for the fallen Spaceknights, the Prime Director asks the survivors to remain in their armored cyborg forms in order to hunt down the Dire Wraiths before they infiltrate other worlds less able to defend themselves, regroup, gain strength, and launch a second invasion of Galador. Rom objects, angrily pointing out that such a mission could go on forever, but his lover, Ray-Na, convinces him that they could scarcely live with themselves knowing other young couples across the galaxy were dying because they let the Dire Wraiths escape. After a moment of indecision, Rom exhorts his fellow Spaceknights to carry on fighting until the war is truly won. [Rom, Spaceknight #13]
The Prime Director soon grows despondent after sending the Spaceknights off into the cosmos in pursuit of the Dire Wraiths, feeling guilty that so many had sacrificed their humanity in defense of their home world while he had given up nothing. Thus, he experiments with a revolutionary new type of Spaceknight armor which would allow him to animate it through sheer force of will rather than being physically bonded to it. Unfortunately, only the evil side of the Prime Director’s psyche successfully migrates to the robotic armor, whereupon it names itself Mentus. Erasing all memory of the experiment, Mentus retreats to a hidden lair and begins plotting to conquer the galaxy. [Rom, Spaceknight #25]
Receiving a report of Dire Wraith activity, Rom and his fellow Spaceknights Starshine and Terminator travel to the planet Agricon, an agricultural settlement where much of Galador’s food is grown. In the capital city, Rom is horrified to find that Ray-Na is being used as a human shield by a gang of Dire Wraiths. Rom is unable to bring himself to fire his neutralizer at his foes while Ray-Na stands between them. She breaks free, but the Dire Wraiths shoot her in the back. As Ray-Na dies in Rom’s arms, Starshine and Terminator kill the alien invaders. [Rom, Spaceknight #14]
Next, Rom, Starshine, and Terminator come upon a Galadorian hospital ship that has been infected with a virulent plague created by the Dire Wraiths. To prevent the plague from reaching Galador, Terminator blows up the ship, killing everyone on board. He then explains to his companions that his home planet, Thayri, was infected with the same contagion as the Dire Wraith armada made its way to Galador. He was the sole survivor, only because the Prime Director ordered what salvageable tissues he had grafted into Spaceknight armor. Thus, unlike the rest of the Spaceknights, Terminator has no humanoid body to return to. [Rom, Spaceknight #16]
The trio of Spaceknights then tracks the Dire Wraiths to the planet Thuvria, home to a civilization at a medieval level of development. They are caught off guard when the Thuvrians use advanced technology against them, clearly provided by the Dire Wraiths. When Starshine exposes the Thuvrian king’s court magician as an enemy alien, Terminator goes berserk and kills both the Dire Wraith and the deceived king. Shocked, Rom and Starshine take Terminator back to Galador to stand trial for murder. There, Rom pleads for clemency, citing the unique circumstances of Terminator’s hopeless existence. The Prime Director, accepting some responsibility for Terminator’s misery, offers to let him choose his own punishment. Terminator requests execution, so the Prime Director uses the Living Flame of Galador to incinerate him. Disillusioned, Rom declares his intention to pursue the Dire Wraiths across the trackless universe alone. Leaving Galador behind, Rom sets off into deep space. [Rom, Spaceknight #19–20]
Sometime later, Terminator, who was teleported to safety at the last moment by Mentus, attacks the Galadorian Hall of Science and breaches the cryogenic vault where the Spaceknights’ organic tissues are stored. Taking only Rom’s remains, Terminator returns to Mentus’s lair, where the evil genius transforms Terminator into a mirror-image doppelgänger of Rom. Mentus then drugs the Prime Director to make it appear that he has died and, following a lavish state funeral, steals the still-living body and places it in a stasis tube. Bereft of their leader, the Galadorians are relieved when Terminator, posing as Rom, flies down from space and announces that the Dire Wraiths have been eradicated. In gratitude, they appoint this ersatz Rom as their new Prime Director. Thus, Terminator—and through him the crafty Mentus—will rule Galador for the next 200 years. [Rom, Spaceknight #21–22, 25]
1769
Cagliostro, who has established himself as an important figure in the court of the French king Louis XV, is not pleased that Dracula is now moving in the same circles. Though he no longer possesses the Darkhold, Cagliostro hatches numerous plots to destroy Dracula, without success. [Dracula Lives! #3]
1770s
A number of wealthy English immigrants set up the American headquarters of the Hellfire Club on Manhattan Island in New York.
1774
Victor Frankenstein is born in Naples, Italy, to Alphonse and Caroline Frankenstein.
1775
American diplomat Benjamin Franklin is accompanied on his journey from England back to Philadelphia by the time-traveling Doctor Strange and Clea. [Doctor Strange v.2 #18]
1776
The West Coast Avengers materialize when their time machine malfunctions. Since the defective device will only transport them into the past, the time-lost heroes decide to go back to ancient Egypt, in hopes of meeting up with the Fantastic Four when they first battled Rama-Tut. [West Coast Avengers #21]
1777
When time-traveling mailman Willie Lumpkin inadvertently causes General George Washington to be captured by the British Army, the Watcher sends Mister Fantastic and the Human Torch back from the 20th century to set things right. [Giant-Size Fantastic Four #2]
1781
When their second child, Ernest Frankenstein, is born, Alphonse and Caroline Frankenstein settle down at an estate in Geneva, Switzerland. They are joined by their young ward, Elizabeth Lavenza, an orphan from Milan, Italy. Victor and Elizabeth become very close, and the parents hope they will one day marry.
1784
The 20th-century superhero Captain Marvel (Monica Rambeau) is sent back in time by the sorceress Marie LeVeau, where she encounters both Cagliostro and Dracula. After a brief scuffle with Dracula while trying to obtain a sample of his vampire blood, Captain Marvel returns to her own time. [Marvel Fanfare #42]
1785
Dracula’s conflict with Cagliostro reaches its climax when Dracula overcomes the sorcerer’s spells and turns Cagliostro’s wife into a vampire. Cagliostro’s attempts at revenge come to nothing. [Dracula Lives! #5]
1787
Victor Frankenstein becomes obsessed with the works of medieval alchemists such as Albertus Magnus, Cornelius Agrippa, and Paracelsus, especially their search for the “elixir of life.”
1789
The French Revolution forces Dracula to flee France, so he returns to Castle Dracula in Transylvania. He quickly regains control over most of his lost territory. Cagliostro also leaves France and searches for a means to cure his wife of vampirism. [Dracula Lives! #6]
After witnessing the power of lightning firsthand, Victor Frankenstein abandons the alchemists to take up the study of modern science.
1790
William Frankenstein is born in Geneva, Switzerland, to Alphonse and Caroline Frankenstein.
1791
Weeks after his mother dies of scarlet fever, Victor Frankenstein leaves Geneva to attend the University of Ingolstadt in Bavaria, where he is soon recognized as a brilliant student of chemistry and biology. One of his professors renews Victor’s interest in the alchemists, suggesting their esoteric wisdom could be combined with the scientific method to perform wondrous feats.
1793
Victor Frankenstein discovers a means of reanimating dead tissue and begins constructing an eight-foot-tall human figure out of the parts of a dozen corpses. Believing he has discovered the key to immortality, he works obsessively on his secret project, driving himself to the point of nervous exhaustion. [Frankenstein #1]
1794
Victor Frankenstein succeeds in animating his cadaverous creature. Horrified by what he has done, the young scientist rejects his creation, leaving it to wander off into the surrounding forests. Frankenstein’s Monster tries to scratch out a meager living there but is shunned by all other humans as well. [Frankenstein #1]
1795
In an attempt to make Baron Grigori Russoff give up his stolen land, Dracula kills Russoff’s wife Louisa. While attempting to rescue her from Castle Dracula, Russoff discovers she has died and kills Dracula by impaling him with a wooden stake. Russoff then rescues Lydia, a woman held prisoner at the castle. However, Lydia is a werewolf and eventually changes shape and bites Russoff, inflicting him with lycanthropy. Although Russoff’s children are already born, the disease is mystically transmitted to his descendants and awaits a supernatural catalyst to activate it. Dracula is later brought back to life and goes about installing a number of death traps in his castle to deal with intruders. [Werewolf by Night #15]
1796
When his youngest brother, William, is murdered, Victor Frankenstein leaves the University of Ingolstadt and returns to Geneva. He is horrified to discover that his Monster has committed the crime and framed the family’s servant-girl, Justine Moritz. Victor is consumed with guilt when Justine is executed, but he knows no one would believe his incredible tale. He retreats into the Alps, where the Monster confronts him and demands a mate. Giving in to the creature’s threats, Victor agrees to create a female monster. [Frankenstein #1–2]
1797
Having set up a laboratory in a remote house on the Orkney Islands of northern Scotland, Victor Frankenstein assembles a female figure out of numerous dead women, some of whom are murdered by the Monster for their organs. However, fearing that he would be the creator of a monster race, Frankenstein destroys the creature moments after animating it. He flees to Ireland, but his vengeful Monster murders his traveling companion and frames Victor for the crime. Languishing in prison, Victor suffers another nervous breakdown. [Frankenstein #2]
1798
Victor Frankenstein is released from prison due to his father’s efforts to clear his name. They return to Geneva, where Victor and Elizabeth are finally married. That night, however, the Monster sneaks into the bedroom and strangles Elizabeth to death. A few days later, Alphonse Frankenstein dies from the grief. Victor suffers another psychotic break but soon pulls himself together and swears to hunt down and destroy his murderous creation. [Frankenstein #3]
1799
Pursuing the Monster to the Arctic, Victor Frankenstein dies from exposure aboard the ship of Captain Robert Walton, to whom he tells his story. Distraught over his creator’s death, the Monster attempts suicide on the frozen wastes. However, he eventually comes across a remote tribe of Neanderthal-like people who accept him as one of their own. When the tribe is massacred by their enemies, the Monster drags their chief’s body ten miles across the ice to give him a proper funeral. However, the funeral pyre weakens the ice, sending Frankenstein’s Monster plunging into the Arctic Ocean, where he slips into suspended animation. [Frankenstein #3–4]
1800
When Victor Frankenstein’s body is returned to Geneva, his brother Ernest becomes the new Baron von Frankenstein. He uses his inheritance to buy a remote 500-year-old castle in the Swiss Alps, where he takes up residence. The dilapidated structure then comes to be known as Castle Frankenstein.
circa 1801
The Atlanteans encounter a group of Deviant refugees, who teach them the rudiments of technology.
In their Antarctic settlement, Bekkit marries Jhandark. They then take their children for an extended sojourn among the nations of the surface world, leaving Pyscatos to govern their people alone. Over the next several decades, Bekkit becomes a respected gentleman and associates with the most important scientists and statesmen of the age. Through him, his people come to be known to scholars as “the Ancients.” [Daredevil Annual #5]
The Uranian Eternals successfully verify their grand unified theory of everything. However, the answer to the meaning of life effectively eliminates all sense of intellectual challenge, and the Uranians become increasingly depressed and suicidal. However, because of their immortal nature, it is almost impossible for them to terminate their own existence. [Quasar #2]
1814
A crew of extraterrestrial explorers decides to test the human race before making first contact. Having observed the planet for decades, they create a sophisticated robot in the form of the Frankenstein Monster. However, after being sent down to Earth, the robot malfunctions and goes on a violent rampage. The aliens chase the robot into the Arctic, where the extreme cold forces it to shut down. Remorseful, the aliens cancel their mission and withdraw. Over time, a thick coating of ice forms around the inert robot. [Uncanny X-Men #40]
1818
Having read the letters Captain Robert Walton sent to his sister, Margaret Saville, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley publishes Victor Frankenstein’s tale as Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus. [Frankenstein #13]
circa 1820
The undersea province of Skarka attempts an invasion of Atlantis. The invaders are repelled but the city of Atlantis takes heavy damage and Emperor Immanu is killed. The new Emperor of Atlantis, Thakorr, leads the population to the South Atlantic and founds a new capital city off the coast of Antarctica.
circa 1830
Cagliostro comes to New Orleans, by way of Haiti, to steal the secrets of voodoo from the sorceress Marie LeVeau. He soon becomes her lover and shares with her the secret of immortality, which he learned from the Darkhold. However, the spell he gives her is incomplete, and she continues to age at a very slow rate. [Dracula Lives! #2]
1839
Occult researcher Friedrich von Juntz publishes the book Unaussprechlichen Kulten (known in English as Nameless Cults), which contains much information about the Pre-Cataclysmic and Hyborian Ages, as well as various cults and the demonic entities they worship. [Marvel Premiere #4]
circa 1840
The man who will one day be known as the Yellow Claw is born in mainland China. Growing up, he becomes a superb alchemist and uses a secret process to greatly extend his lifespan. Similarly, the man who will come to be known as Fu Manchu is born in China and is raised to be a master of many disciplines.
1848
The Terror and the Erebus, two ships searching for a northern passage to the Pacific Ocean, become stuck in the Arctic ice. With supplies running low, Captain F. R. Crozier decides to lead the remnants of his crew south on foot to civilization. Many men die on the arduous trek. Finally, Crozier downs a potion to slow his bodily functions, hoping that his crew will abandon his body until his life functions return to normal with the spring thaw. Unfortunately, his men decide to bury him, and although Crozier is conscious, he is completely paralyzed. Crozier will remain buried alive for more than a century. [Alpha Flight #37]
1850
John Clay is born in Texas. While still an infant, his family’s wagon train is attacked by a Cheyenne raiding party. His parents are killed and his older brother Frank is kidnapped. His other brother, Joe, flees in terror and manages to save himself. Hours later, the abandoned baby is taken in by Texas Ranger Ben Bart and renamed Johnny Bart. As he grows up on a ranch outside the frontier town of Rawhide, Texas, Johnny doesn't realize he has two brothers out there somewhere. [Rawhide Kid #45]
1852
Spencer Keen, the son of a noted chemist who works at a midwestern college, is exposed to a mysterious form of blue energy when his father’s laboratory is destroyed by a tornado. He is thrown into suspended animation and buried along with the many victims of the natural disaster. [Mystic Comics #1]
1856
Dracula has his first encounter with Abraham Van Helsing, a Dutch university professor visiting Transylvania. Dracula turns Van Helsing’s wife Elisabeth into a vampire, but with the help of a group of vampire hunters, Van Helsing destroys her immediately. [Dracula Lives! #3]
1862
In Vienna, Dracula becomes infatuated with an American student named Annabelle St. John. He sails to the United States to court her at her home in Virginia. After saving her family from an attack by Union soldiers, Dracula turns Annabelle into a vampire and she returns to Transylvania with him. However, Dracula eventually tires of his latest undead bride. [Tomb of Dracula Magazine #6]
late 1860s
Dracula and his daughter Lilith negotiate a truce, agreeing never to cross paths again. [Giant-Size Chillers #1]
Blaine Colt, the son of a rancher in Abilene, Wyoming, straps on a pair of Colt .45s when his father is murdered by Lash Larribee, whose gang runs a protection racket. Colt finds Larribee in a saloon, challenges him to a shootout, and kills him, thus avenging his father’s death. However, a member of Larribee’s gang tells the local sheriff that Colt shot Larribee without warning. Since he’d previously refused to wear a gun, Colt fears that no one would believe that he outdrew Larribee in a fair fight. He flees the town and, calling himself Kid Colt, wanders the American west as an outlaw. Nevertheless, Kid Colt uses his extraordinary skills as a gunfighter to aid the poor and defend the innocent from criminals. [Kid Colt, Outlaw #79]
Calling himself the Rawhide Kid, Johnny Bart starts wandering the American west after his Uncle Ben is murdered. The legend of the Rawhide Kid’s seemingly superhuman skill at gunplay soon spreads far and wide as he encounters some of the worst criminals on the frontier. Early on, the Rawhide Kid injures a crooked rancher in a duel. Despite evidence that it was a fair fight, the local sheriff still insists on arresting him. The impulsive young gunfighter flees in protest, and from that time on he is considered an outlaw. Despite being a hunted man with a fearsome reputation, the Rawhide Kid continues to fight crime and bring evildoers to justice. [Rawhide Kid #17]
Matt Hawk, a young lawyer in Tombstone, Texas, comes under the tutelage of an aged gunfighter, Ben Dancer. Hawk learns to be a superior gunslinger, as well as an accomplished horseback rider and master of the lasso. However, Dancer warns Hawk to keep his accomplishments secret, fearing that if they became public knowledge he would be challenged by no end of gunslingers looking to make a name for themselves. Hawk decides to assume the masked identity of the Two-Gun Kid whenever he has to use his guns. After Dancer heads back east for a peaceful retirement, the Two-Gun Kid goes on to battle a number of vicious criminals. [Two-Gun Kid #60]
The Rawhide Kid is astonished to discover an alien creature lurking in a mine shaft, which then escapes and goes on a rampage. Since the alien vaguely resembles an Indian totem pole, it is called the Living Totem. The Rawhide Kid manages to drive the Living Totem over a cliff into a deep crevasse and leaves it trapped there. [Rawhide Kid #22]
1870
Matt Hawk and his schoolteacher girlfriend, Nancy Carter, befriend a new arrival in Tombstone, former professional boxer Boom-Boom Brown. The burly pugilist dissuades the town’s rowdier residents from harrassing the mild-mannered lawyer. Meanwhile, the Two-Gun Kid builds a positive working relationship with the local sheriff, Brett Barton. The frontier town is ably served by its lone physician, Dr. Jasper Grimm. Most of the townsfolk come to appreciate having the dashing Two-Gun Kid looking out for them. [Two-Gun Kid #64]
Kid Colt is awestruck when he encounters an extraterrestrial being with powerful psychic abilities. Using telepathy, the alien explains that it was passing peacefully through the solar system when its ship collided with a small comet, forcing it to make a crash-landing on Earth. Their conversation is interrupted by a terrified posse, alerted to the alien’s presence by a family who came across it earlier. Knowing the otherworldly explorer poses no threat, Kid Colt tries to drive away the trigger-happy locals, only to receive a fatal shot to the chest. As a rescue ship descends from space, the alien uses its medical technology to heal Kid Colt. It then telepathically erases all memory of the encounter from the humans on the scene. As the rescue ship disappears into the sky, Kid Colt mounts his horse and flees from the discombobulated posse. [Kid Colt, Outlaw #107]
After being bitten by a rattlesnake, Kid Colt is saved by an old man, who then asks the famous gunslinger to take on a bulletproof bandit known as Iron Mask. Kid Colt initially refuses but changes his mind the next day when he hears that the old man has been robbed and beaten by Iron Mask. Learning that a railroad payroll is due to be delivered the next day, Kid Colt lies in wait at the train station. Sure enough, Iron Mask turns up, but he bludgeons Kid Colt into unconsciousness and makes off with the payroll. Undaunted, Kid Colt tracks the villain to a nearby blacksmith’s shop and challenges him to a shootout. The cocky Iron Mask accepts, but Kid Colt has deduced that only his head and chest are armored and shoots him in the arm instead. Revealed to be the village blacksmith, Iron Mask surrenders and is taken into custody. The payroll is recovered, but Kid Colt leaves town before the sheriff can arrest him, too. [Kid Colt, Outlaw #110]
Kid Colt’s luck runs out and he is captured by a sheriff and his deputies. From his jail cell, he witnesses a series of brazen robberies committed by the gentlemanly Bennington Brown, who has the uncanny ability to bend others to his will. When Brown nearly kills the sheriff, Kid Colt breaks out of jail and confronts the crook. However, he finds he is strangely unable to defend himself as Brown beats him into unconsciousness. Coming to, Kid Colt concludes that Brown must be some kind of hypnotist. Brown forces him into a gunfight, but Kid Colt draws and fires unerringly with his eyes closed, preventing Brown’s power from affecting him. The wounded Brown is taken into custody, and Kid Colt is allowed to leave town in peace. [Kid Colt, Outlaw #112]
1871
The Rawhide Kid falls in with the notorious outlaw Jesse James and his gang but turns on them when they show their true colors during the robbery of a train station. Following a brutal fight, the James Gang is driven off by a pistol-packing station agent, who is grateful to the Rawhide Kid for foiling the heist. [Rawhide Kid #33]
Iron Mask breaks out of prison and hunts down Kid Colt, wanting revenge for his previous defeat. Kid Colt is dismayed to discover that Iron Mask’s entire body is now covered in bulletproof armor, whereupon the villain shoots him and leaves him for dead. Kid Colt is discovered by the posse chasing Iron Mask and taken to a doctor, who cleans and dresses his wound. Over the next several days, Kid Colt slowly recovers his strength, though he is transferred to the town jail as soon as he is well enough. Iron Mask soon returns, overcomes the sheriff, and tries to rob the bank. The wounded sheriff releases Kid Colt from jail, enabling him to lead the vengeful Iron Mask on a merry chase out into the countryside. Iron Mask is defeated again when he tries to ford a river on horseback and the joints in his armor seize up. Kid Colt then ties him up and leaves him for the posse. [Kid Colt, Outlaw #114]
Kid Colt intervenes when a criminal ventriloquist calling himself Doctor Danger hornswoggles a small town into believing he is partnered up with an invisible gunman. Beating up Doctor Danger in the town’s main street, Kid Colt exposes the charade, thus preventing the crook from coercing the locals into electing him sheriff. A few weeks later, Kid Colt is offered a pardon in exchange for capturing a rotund Australian bandit known as the Fat Man, whose skill with a boomerang is a match for any gunslinger. Kid Colt tracks the criminal down and fights with him, only to find himself losing. When a lone deputy arrives on the scene, the Fat Man hits him in the head with his boomerang, knocking him out. However, the distraction allows Kid Colt to shoot the boomerang out of the sky. Deprived of his weapon, the Fat Man surrenders. Kid Colt decides to forego the pardon so the injured deputy can collect the reward for the Fat Man’s capture. [Kid Colt, Outlaw #116–117]
The Rawhide Kid meets his match when he encounters a notorious costumed super-villain called the Scorpion, whose gun fires paralysis pellets. After the paralysis wears off, the Rawhide Kid works with a local sheriff to determine that the Scorpion is really an apothecary named Jim Evans. Trailing Evans to the abandoned mine he uses as his secret headquarters, the Rawhide Kid fights the Scorpion and finally manages to shoot him with his own paralysis gun. While the villain is helpless, the Rawhide Kid unmasks him and turns him over to the authorities. Evans is soon sentenced to prison for his many crimes. [Rawhide Kid #57]
The Rawhide Kid agrees to help an elderly sheriff capture another costumed super-villain called the Rattler, who’s been terrorizing the region with his exceptional agility, speed, and skill with a pair of six-shooters. The Rawhide Kid soon finds the Rattler robbing a bank and manages to drive him off despite being completely overmatched. Undaunted, the Rawhide Kid tracks his foe to a nearby traveling circus and defeats him under the big top. Revealing the Rattler to be the troupe’s ringmaster, the Rawhide Kid turns him over to the appreciative sheriff. [Rawhide Kid #37]
1872
The Rawhide Kid is shot and left for dead when he encounters his third costumed super-villain, Red Raven, whose winged outfit allows him to fly thanks to Navajo magic. The Rawhide Kid is rescued and nursed back to health by a young Navajo man who then provides him with a similar flying harness. Tracking down the now infamous Red Raven, the Rawhide Kid defeats him in a spectacular aerial battle. The Navajo man insists that both flying harnesses be burned, and the Rawhide Kid agrees. Stripped of his power, Red Raven is turned over to the local authorities. [Rawhide Kid #38]
Frontier schoolteacher Carter Slade uncovers a plot by cattle baron Jason Bartholemew to murder homesteaders. Slade is gunned down by the killers but is found by an orphan boy named Jamie Jacobs. Before Jacobs can get Slade to town for medical treatment, they are discovered by Sioux Indians. When the Sioux shaman, Flaming Star, meets Slade, he becomes convinced that Slade is the champion foretold by the gods. Flaming Star restores Slade to health and provides him with phosphorescent dust from a meteor that enables Slade to become the mysterious Phantom Rider. After bringing Jason Bartholemew to justice, Slade makes Jacobs his ward, entrusting him with all the secrets of his ghostly alter-ego. [The Ghost Rider #1]
A young man of Cheyenne heritage, called Johnny Wakely by his white adoptive parents, encounters the Native American god Owayodata and is charged with becoming the legendary champion called Red Wolf. Alongside a lupine companion named Lobo, Red Wolf fights against injustice and oppression. [Marvel Spotlight #1]
Outside Tombstone, the Rawhide Kid stumbles upon the Two-Gun Kid engaged in a shootout with what appears to be a rifle-wielding grizzly bear. The masked gunslinger is knocked out, and the bear, apparently bulletproof, lumbers off with a stolen Pony Express mailbag. Sheriff Barton and his posse arrive on the scene and arrest the Rawhide Kid, but he makes a break for it. The Two-Gun Kid chases the Rawhide Kid down and, after briefly trading punches, convinces him to surrender. A trial is quickly arranged, with Matt Hawk defending the notorious outlaw. The proceedings are disrupted when the grizzly bear breaks into the courtroom and carries off the defendant. In a nearby barn, the Rawhide Kid learns that he’s actually dealing with a man in a mechanical bear suit. Fighting like a wildcat, the Rawhide Kid chases the man off, then teams up with the Two-Gun Kid to flush him out of hiding. The culprit turns out to be a local gambler with a knack for engineering, and the Rawhide Kid intimidates him into making a public confession. Cleared of all charges, the Rawhide Kid is escorted out of Tombstone by the Two-Gun Kid. [Rawhide Kid #40]
The Two-Gun Kid has the fight of his life when a robber named Harry Kane steals a magic potion from an Indian medicine man and gains superhuman speed. Donning a flashy costume and calling himself Hurricane, he embarks on an unstoppable crime spree. Fortunately, Kane’s career as a super-villain is cut short when he steps in a gopher hole and breaks his ankle while being chased by the Two-Gun Kid. Matt Hawk defends Kane in court, and due to his injuries, the crook is let off with five years on probation. [Two-Gun Kid #70]
The Phantom Rider defends his town of Bison Bend, Wyoming from the costumed super-villain formerly known as the Scorpion. After breaking out of prison, Jim Evans has renamed himself the Sting-Ray, though his modus operandi remains the same. The Phantom Rider disarms the Sting-Ray, beats him up, and leaves him for the local sheriff. [The Ghost Rider #4]
After being jailed by federal marshal Sam Hawk, Kid Colt meets the Rawhide Kid when he is also apprehended after trying to warn the marshal that Iron Mask is on the loose. Believing Hawk to be no match for Iron Mask and his gang, Kid Colt and the Rawhide Kid break out of jail and follow him to the town the villains are pillaging. Though wary of trusting each other, Kid Colt, the Rawhide Kid, and Marshal Hawk team up against the criminal gang, getting into a shootout on the main thoroughfare. The Rawhide Kid then leads Iron Mask into a narrow side street where an abandoned well has been covered with wooden boards. The planks give way under the weight of the villain’s armor, and he becomes trapped. Afraid of drowning, Iron Mask agrees to surrender his guns. Hawk’s posse soon arrives and takes the gang into custody, but the grateful marshal allows Kid Colt and the Rawhide Kid to get away. Having taken each other’s measure, the two outlaws part on friendly terms. [Kid Colt, Outlaw #121]
The Phantom Rider battles Hurricane after the magic potion the criminal drank causes his injuries to heal with supernatural rapidity. Though he is nearly killed, the Phantom Rider prevails when he tricks Hurricane into charging headlong off a cliff. [Western Gunfighters #3]
Outside Tombstone, Kid Colt is rescued from a posse and taken to see a crooked businessman named Silas Kane, who is intent on taking over the town in the upcoming election. Kane tries to recruit Kid Colt into his gang of outlaws to stir up trouble and discredit the current mayor. Kid Colt refuses, but the gang overpowers him, empties his guns, and forces him to participate in a bank robbery. As the gang is leaving town with the loot, the Two-Gun Kid appears and chases them out into the desert. The criminals scatter, but the Two-Gun Kid apprehends Kid Colt and takes him back to meet with Sheriff Barton. Neither lawman believes Kid Colt’s claims of innocence, so he breaks out of jail and gets into a shootout with the gang. The Two-Gun Kid joins the fray and in the process becomes convinced that Kid Colt was indeed framed. Kid Colt takes a bullet meant for the Two-Gun Kid, but the gang is nevertheless defeated. In gratitude, the Two-Gun Kid bandages Kid Colt’s wound and lets him go. Back in Tombstone, the captured gang members inform on their boss, leading to Silas Kane’s arrest. [Kid Colt, Outlaw #125]
The Inhuman Agon is elected to head the Inhumans’ Genetics Council and thus becomes ruler of the Inhumans. During his reign, Agon discovers that fellow council member Phaeder is performing illegal experiments on clones. Phaeder is barred from the Council. After faking his own death, Phaeder exiles himself from Attilan. [Marvel Two-in-One #72]
Having grown elderly, Bekkit takes his family home to the Antarctic settlement of the Ancients. When he arrives, he is shocked to find his people have taken on reptilian features. Bekkit is dragged before Pyscatos, who has donned the Serpent Crown and become a Set-worshiping tyrant. When Bekkit refuses to bow down and worship Set, Psycatos kills him. Then, realizing what a monster he has become, Pyscatos sends Jhandark and her children back out to sea in their submarine before overloading the ancient dynamo that provides their settlement with power. The resulting explosion causes an avalanche that wipes out the Ancients and buries the Serpent Crown under tons of ice and snow. [Daredevil Annual #5]
Hearing of a fabulous treasure unearthed from an ancient Indian burial ground, a gunfighter known as Pariah travels to the town of Whispering Wells, New Mexico. When he arrives, Pariah finds everyone in town dead. In the saloon, he discovers the skeleton of the prospector, still clutching a large, glowing gemstone. Pariah takes the gemstone, but it proves to be a mystic crystal that houses demonic spirits. The spirits keep Pariah alive long after his body has become a desiccated husk, but he provides insufficient lifeforce to allow them to leave the remote ghost town. [Hulk #268]
1873
Foiling a stagecoach robbery leads Kid Colt into a shootout with the infamous gunslinger John Wesley Hardin. Kid Colt shoots Hardin’s guns out of his hands, humiliating him in front of an entire town. Wanting revenge, Hardin later tracks Kid Colt down wearing a new holster-vest that enables him to be faster on the draw. Since he has sprained both arms in a fall from his horse, Kid Colt modifies his own gunbelt so that the holsters swivel and he can fire his guns without taking them out. Thus, Hardin again loses the duel and is forced to admit that Kid Colt is the superior gunfighter. [Kid Colt, Outlaw #126]
Through sheer happenstance, the Rawhide Kid finds his two brothers. He learns that Frank Clay escaped from captivity after a few months and has grown up to be a professional gambler, while Joe Clay has been driven by guilt to become a risk-taking sheriff in a small frontier town. His reunions with Frank and Joe are brief, but they part on friendly terms. [Rawhide Kid #45]
While in Bison Bend, Kid Colt runs afoul of the unscrupulous gambler Dack Derringer and gets shot in the chest. As Derringer flees into the countryside, Carter Slade has Kid Colt taken to his home, where he and Jamie Jacobs tend to his gunshot wound. Slade then changes into the Phantom Rider and sets off to hunt Derringer down. Three days later, the Phantom Rider catches up to Derringer in another town and tries to apprehend him, only to catch a bullet himself. Derringer escapes on the Phantom Rider’s horse but is chased into a box canyon by a posse. The Phantom Rider follows and is surprised to find Kid Colt on the scene as well. The two men are determined to bring Derringer to justice despite their injuries. Derringer clambers to some high ground and holds off the posse with a rifle, so Kid Colt and the Phantom Rider agree to work together, despite not knowing quite what to make of each other. Using his illusions, the Phantom Rider keeps Derringer occupied until Kid Colt can sneak up behind him. The outlaw then shoots the gambler in the back, killing him. The Phantom Rider is inclined to take Kid Colt into custody, but Kid Colt talks him out of it. They part ways under a cloud of mutual suspicion. [Giant-Size Kid Colt #3]
The Two-Gun Kid, the Rawhide Kid, Kid Colt, the Phantom Rider, and an outlaw called the Ringo Kid team up with three heroes of the future—Thor, Hawkeye, and Moondragon—to battle Kang the Conqueror, who has taken over Tombstone. In defeating Kang, the Two-Gun Kid and Hawkeye become fast friends, and so the masked gunslinger travels with the three superheroes to the 20th century. [Avengers #141–144]
1874
After attending his brother Joe’s wedding, the Rawhide Kid is shocked when Joe is seemingly gunned down in the street by Kid Colt, who has just committed a robbery. The Rawhide Kid chases Kid Colt down and fights with him, only to discover that the crime was committed by a master of disguise known as the Masquerader, whom the Rawhide Kid has battled before. Teaming up, the two outlaws hunt down the impostor and give him a beating. Trying to get away, the Masquerader stumbles off a cliff and plummets to his doom. The Rawhide Kid then retrieves the loot and clears Kid Colt’s name. Joe Clay recovers from his gunshot wound, but his new wife tells the Rawhide Kid outlaws are not welcome in their home. [Rawhide Kid #50]
The Two-Gun Kid returns from the 20th century and resumes his life as before. [Avengers #175]
After being chased across the border by a posse, the Rawhide Kid defeats Canada’s first costumed super-villain, Joe Clanton a.k.a. the Acrobat, and turns him over to the North-West Mounted Police. [Rawhide Kid #53]
1875
Loki, Asgardian god of mischief, arranges for the theft of the golden apples of Idunn, fruit which the Asgardians eat to retain their youth and immortality. Without the apples, the gods begin to grow old and die. However, the troll whom Loki employed to steal the apples has a change of heart and smuggles the apples to Earth, waiting for the thunder god Thor to find him. Thor recovers the apples and returns with them to Asgard. [Thor #370]
The Rawhide Kid saves a gambling gunslinger named Doc Holliday from an Apache war party and escorts him to the nearest town, where they get into a shootout with a gang of crooks. The devil-may-care Holliday catches the eye of a local woman, causing her shopkeeper boyfriend to become consumed with jealousy. He goes to confront Holliday and finds him attempting to steal a strongbox full of money. The Rawhide Kid intervenes, knocking out the shopkeeper before Holliday can gun him down. Holliday then attempts to outdraw the Rawhide Kid, only to lose the duel due to a coughing fit brought on by his tuberculosis. His criminal intent exposed, Holliday is chased out of town, and the Rawhide Kid agrees to depart as well. [Rawhide Kid #46] [Date based on historical accounts]
The Two-Gun Kid teaches a teenage orphan recently arrived from New York City how to shoot guns so he can protect himself from bullies. He comes to regret it, though, when his student starts to fancy himself a gunslinger and stirs up trouble in Tombstone. After a shootout in the streets, the Two-Gun Kid runs the boy, who calls himself “Billy the Kid,” out of town. [Two-Gun Kid #80] [Date based on historical accounts]
Lionell and Lillian von Loont, a couple from England, are riding through the Transylvanian Alps when their carriage hits a bump and runs off the mountain road. Lionell is killed, and Lillian is badly wounded. She roams the Balkan woods for days before stumbling across the village ruled by Esteban Diablo. Taken in and healed by Diablo’s potions, Lillian and her savior soon fall in love. Diablo then begins training her in the art of alchemy. [Alpha Flight #21]
1876
The Rawhide Kid is recruited by Sioux Indians to serve as an intermediary with General George Armstrong Custer and takes their offer for peace negotiations to the fort where the U.S. Army’s 7th Cavalry Regiment is garrisoned. Though dubious, Custer agrees to a summit with the Sioux chief. Unfortunately, a group of warmongering renegade Sioux sabotages the talks before they can begin, leading to an inconclusive battle. Afterwards, Custer sends the Rawhide Kid packing, believing him to be an innocent dupe. A week later, Custer is killed at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. [Rawhide Kid #60]
On a stagecoach through the Dakota Territory, the Rawhide Kid meets the notorious sharpshooter known as Calamity Jane. When she is kidnapped by Indians, the Rawhide Kid teams up with her famous paramour, Wild Bill Hickok, to rescue her. [Rawhide Kid #61]
The Phantom Rider joins forces with his younger brother, federal marshal Lincoln Slade, when a criminal calling himself Reverend Reaper kidnaps the leading citizens of Bison Bend. The two men track Reverend Reaper to his gang’s hideout in an abandoned mine shaft and get into a brutal fight with the villains. Seeing things aren’t going well for him, Reverend Reaper causes a cave-in and escapes. Before his brother is hit by tons of falling rubble, the Phantom Rider shoves Lincoln out of the way, only to be crushed himself. Lincoln pulls off the Phantom Rider’s mask and is shocked to see Carter’s face. Carter admits that he always knew his violent lifestyle would get him killed eventually and then breathes his last. Lincoln digs Carter’s body out of the rubble, disposes of his costume, and takes him back to town. At Carter’s funeral the next day, Lincoln is astonished when the Phantom Rider turns up. Wondering if his brother has become an actual ghost, Lincoln chases down the mysterious figure and finds it is Jamie Jacobs, now a teenager and intent on taking up the mantle of his fallen hero. Jamie takes Lincoln to the Phantom Rider’s secret hideout and reveals all of Carter’s secrets. Jamie then asks Lincoln to take over as the Phantom Rider, but he refuses. However, on his way out of town, Lincoln comes across a stagecoach robbery that Jamie is trying to stop as the Phantom Rider. During the shootout, Jamie is killed, and with his dying breath he begs Lincoln to make the Phantom Rider the hero Carter always wanted him to be. Despite his misgivings, Lincoln Slade then becomes the new Phantom Rider. [Western Gunfighters #6–7]
The West Coast Avengers appear when a defective time machine sends them nearly a century into the past. The Two-Gun Kid is thus reunited with his friend from the future, Hawkeye. The Avengers agree to help the Two-Gun Kid, the Rawhide Kid, and the new Phantom Rider deal with a consortium of their old foes: Iron Mask, the Rattler, Hurricane, Red Raven, Doctor Danger, and the Fat Man. When the tide turns against his gang, Iron Mask summons forth the Living Totem. The creature proves to be a formidable opponent until Iron Man buries it beneath a landslide. During the fight, the Phantom Rider becomes obsessed with the Avenger called Mockingbird, and when the time-travelers are about to depart, he seizes her from their time machine and knocks her out. The Avengers are unable to stop their dematerialization. Fleeing from his comrades, the Phantom Rider then uses an Indian potion to make Mockingbird fall in love with him. The Two-Gun Kid and the Rawhide Kid hunt the Phantom Rider down and attack him, but they are defeated by Mockingbird. Once the potion wears off, however, Mockingbird realizes she has been raped and attacks the Phantom Rider. Their battle ends when she lets him fall from a cliff to his death. Shortly afterwards, the West Coast Avengers materialize, pick up Mockingbird, and return to their proper time. [West Coast Avengers #18–23]
Fed up with Diablo’s tyrannical rule, a number of peasants imprison him within a massive crypt. The elixir of immortality which has kept Diablo alive for centuries allows him to survive entombment, but he will remained trapped for nearly ninety years. Lillian von Loont, witnessing the imprisonment of her lover, kills Diablo’s servant who had betrayed him. Lillian then makes her way back to England, using her dead husband’s fortunes to set up her own alchemical lab. [Alpha Flight #21]
1879
When the Rawhide Kid comes upon Kid Colt being captured by a posse, he decides to intervene. The two outlaws escape their pursuers by jumping a deep chasm on their horses, after which Kid Colt explains how he was framed for a robbery and murder in a nearby town. Under cover of darkness, they sneak back into town and convince the murdered man’s daughter to hide Kid Colt while the Rawhide Kid tries to clear his name. The Rawhide Kid soon finds some evidence in an alley, only to be attacked by the posse, leading to a shootout in the street. Kid Colt comes out of hiding to help his friend, giving the Rawhide Kid a chance to expose a member of the posse as the true killer. Panicking, the killer starts firing wildly as he flees the scene. He shoots Kid Colt in the leg, but the Rawhide Kid corners him in an alley and disarms him. However, the man proves to have a derringer hidden in his hat, forcing the Rawhide Kid to shoot him in the heart. Convinced of the frame-up, the posse lets the two outlaws leave town peacefully. The Rawhide Kid and Kid Colt then ride down into Mexico together, where they free a small village from the predations of a gang of pistoleros by shooting dead every last one of the criminals. [Rawhide Kid #89–90]
1880
The Rawhide Kid saves his brother, Frank Clay, from a gang of gunmen who believe the gambler cheated them out of their money. When they realize they are facing the infamous Rawhide Kid, the men retreat in fear. The gambler and the outlaw decide to visit their brother, Joe Clay, who has retired from law-enforcement to become a farmer. When they arrive, they find Joe being recruited by his neighbors to take on a criminal gang that has just murdered the local sheriff. Joe is glad to have some skilled gunfighters on his side, so the three brothers ride into town and kill all the crooks. After a delicious home-cooked meal, Joe invites his brothers to stay at his farm for a while, but knowing his wife disapproves of their lifestyles, the two men make their excuses and depart. [Rawhide Kid #100]
Kid Colt is captured by a small-town sheriff, but to save his prisoner from a lynch mob, the lawman decides to put him on a train to the county seat. Just as the train approaches the station, though, it is attacked by Billy the Kid and his gang. Knowing Kid Colt’s reputation, Billy sets him free and allows him to escape on his horse. However, feeling beholden to the outlaw, Kid Colt turns back when he realizes Billy’s gang has gotten into a shootout with the armed guards who were aboard the train. The lawmen are soon outfought and disarmed, but when Billy tries to murder the sheriff, Kid Colt switches sides. He beats Billy into submission and forces him to retreat. The sheriff is grateful to Kid Colt for saving his life and “forgets” to take him back into custody. [Gunsmoke Western #71]
1881
After a confrontation in a saloon, Kid Colt discovers that the gunfighter who just saved his life is none other than Jesse James. They flee together into the hills outside of town and take refuge in a cave, only to find the sheriff has recruited some Army soldiers to apprehend them. Kid Colt stops James from picking off the soldiers with his rifle, then offers to surrender in exchange for James’s freedom. The soldiers are unwilling to make any deals, but the standoff is brought to an abrupt end by a tornado that drives the soldiers away. Judging Kid Colt to be an honorable man, James leaves him in the cave and rides off into the storm. After the tornado passes, Kid Colt escapes as well before the soldiers can regroup. [Kid Colt, Outlaw #82]
The Two-Gun Kid and Boom-Boom Brown barely survive a battle with Jesse James, his brother Frank James, and their gang. During the fight, Brown discovers that the Two-Gun Kid is really Matt Hawk. Soon after, the Two-Gun Kid prevents Geronimo and his followers from attacking Tombstone. [Two-Gun Kid #71–72]
Jesse James draws the Two-Gun Kid into a rematch after he crosses paths with Matt Hawk during a train robbery a few months later. However, the Two-Gun Kid thoroughly humiliates James in front of Nancy Carter’s schoolhouse, foiling the bandit’s scheme to build a reputation as “the Robin Hood of the West.” [Two-Gun Kid #78]
Dracula is slain by a retired American marshal who uses a shotgun to pump the vampire full of silver buckshot. [Dracula Lives! #13]
1882
The Rawhide Kid saves a fellow outlaw from being strung up by a lynch mob and discovers the man is Bob Ford, infamous for killing Jesse James by shooting him in the back. Taking refuge in a well-stocked cave previously used by the James Gang, Ford tries to explain to the Rawhide Kid why he killed his boss in such a cowardly way. They are interrupted by other members of the James Gang who are out to kill Ford, but the Rawhide Kid holds them off while he and Ford retreat further into the cave. However, when they try to take their pursuers by surprise, Ford hits his savior in the back of the head with a rock and suggests he and his former partners split the reward for the capture of the Rawhide Kid. The others aren’t interested in cutting a deal with the backstabbing Ford, though, which gives the dazed Rawhide Kid the chance to drive them off with intimidating gunplay. The Rawhide Kid then rebukes Ford and rides off, leaving the friendless crook cringing in the cave. [Rawhide Kid #101]
1883
Kid Colt comes across the Rawhide Kid at a frontier saloon, and after helping him finish a barfight, they ride off together into the countryside. They soon join up with a man from back east, Sam Murdock, and his grandson Billy, who claim to be nervous about riding through the wilderness on their own. The next morning, the two outlaws get into a fistfight when it appears that the Rawhide Kid stole some valuables out of Kid Colt’s saddlebags. Not wanting the conflict to escalate into a gunfight, they agree to part company. An hour later, Kid Colt’s saddle strap breaks, and he is thrown from his horse and knocked out. When he comes to, Kid Colt discovers that Murdock is actually a bounty hunter. Murdock admits to causing the fight in order to split the outlaws up so he could take them on one at a time. Leaving Kid Colt handcuffed, Murdock rides off and captures the unsuspecting Rawhide Kid as well. Before Murdock can collect his bounty, though, they are attacked by the men from the barfight, who want to collect the reward for themselves. That night, Murdock sneaks into the men’s camp and frees Kid Colt and the Rawhide Kid from their handcuffs. Retrieving their firearms, Kid Colt and the Rawhide Kid gun down all the men, saving Billy’s life in the process. Realizing he’s not cut out for life in the Wild West, Murdock lets his prisoners go and takes Billy back east. [Giant-Size Kid Colt #1]
Doctor Strange, Nick Fury, and Dum Dum Dugan travel through time to prevent an Apache sorcerer known as Redblade from creating an army of superhuman warriors and changing the course of history. [Marvel Fanfare #49]
Denis Nayland Smith is born in England. [Master of Kung Fu #18]
1884
Kid Colt and the Rawhide Kid cross paths again when they both try to foil the same stagecoach robbery. A sheriff and his posse quickly arrive to capture the robbers, and they stop Kid Colt and the Rawhide Kid from leaving the scene. Unfortunately, one of the passengers on the stagecoach claims that the two infamous outlaws planned the robbery and implicates himself as well. Kid Colt recognizes the man as Burt Riker, a gambler and confidence trickster whom he met several years ago. Taken into custody, Riker soon reveals to the two outlaws that he implicated them so they can help him bust his brother out of prison. When they arrive at the penitentiary, though, they learn that Riker’s brother was recently killed while attempting to escape. After a month in solitary confinement, the three men stage a daring breakout. Riker acts as a decoy, enabling Kid Colt and the Rawhide Kid to flee into the desert. After stealing a couple of horses from their pursuers, they cross the border into Mexico. Then, at a remote cantina, they are shocked to find Riker, who says he merely bribed a guard to let him go. Disgusted with Riker’s cavalier treatment of them, Kid Colt and the Rawhide Kid leave the cantina and go their separate ways. [Kid Colt, Outlaw #201]
The Great Beasts remain trapped behind the dimensional barrier, but one of them, Ranaq the Devourer, can manifest on Earth by taking possession of a human host. Ranaq possesses a citizen of Calgary, Canada named Zebediah Chase but is defeated by time-traveling members of Alpha Flight, with help from Chase’s teenage friend Lucas Stang. [Alpha Flight #19]
Silvio Manfredi is born in Sicily.
1885
When the Rawhide Kid is framed for the deadly robbery of an Army payroll transport, Matt Hawk defends him before a military tribunal. Based on planted evidence, though, the Rawhide Kid is sentenced to death by firing squad. Fortunately, he is rescued by the Two-Gun Kid, and the pair then tracks down and captures the gang responsible for the robbery, clearing the Rawhide Kid of that particular crime. [Two-Gun Kid #85]
Seminary student Caleb Hammer begins to turn his back on religion when his wife Thea is mistakenly killed by a drunken gunman. Hammer travels to Chicago to visit his brother Issak. [Marvel Premiere #54]
Winston J. Kranpuff is born. [Solo Avengers #11]
1886
When the Rattler is released on parole, another man commits a series of robberies dressed as the Rattler so the original will be blamed. However, the charade is exposed by the Two-Gun Kid, and all the loot is recovered. [Two-Gun Kid #88]
The Rawhide Kid stumbles upon a stagecoach robbery and attempts to intervene, only to be shot and left for dead by the robbers. Luckily, Kid Colt comes along and rescues him. However, the Two-Gun Kid finds the two outlaws at the scene of the crime and assumes they must be responsible for the deaths of the stagecoach personnel. They protest their innocence, but he confiscates their guns and escorts them back to Tombstone to stand trial, feeling that justice must take its course. After they arrive, an angry mob tries to storm the jail, intent on lynching the two notorious outlaws. The Two-Gun Kid sneaks the prisoners out the back and leads them to safety out in the desert, only to be attacked by the gang that robbed the stagecoach. Pinned down by gunfire, the Two-Gun Kid returns his prisoners’ pistols, and the three of them shoot their way out of the ambush. Chasing down the leader of the gang, the Two-Gun Kid becomes convinced that the Rawhide Kid and Kid Colt are innocent, so he lets them go. The surviving members of the gang are taken into custody. [Two-Gun Kid #89]
Lillian von Loont, experimenting in her alchemical lab, discovers the secret of transforming lead into gold. Realizing this is the secret to immortality, Lillian journeys back to Transylvania to take revenge on those who had imprisoned Diablo. Over the next few years, Lillian travels the world to track down those who had imprisoned her lover. Eventually, she sets up residence on Tamarind Island off the coast of Canada, where she will become known as Gilded Lily. [Alpha Flight #21]
When the Chicago police attack striking factory workers, a riot erupts and Issak Hammer is killed. Failing to save his brother, Caleb Hammer is devastated by the loss. [Marvel Premiere #54]
1888
Caleb Hammer joins the Pinkerton Detective Agency, but a disastrous early case leads him to eschew the use of guns. [Marvel Premiere #54]
1889
In Phoenix on the day it becomes the capital city of the Arizona Territory, Kid Colt stumbles on a plot by Iron Mask, Doctor Danger, the Fat Man, and Bennington Brown to rob the people attending the festivities. Before Kid Colt can interfere with their plans, the Fat Man hits him in the head with his boomerang and knocks him out. When he comes to, Kid Colt finds himself locked in a jail cell, guarded by a sleepy deputy. He manages to free himself and heads out to see what his old foes are up to. He finds them robbing the territorial governor and his entourage and quickly takes down Doctor Danger, the Fat Man, and Bennington Brown. Iron Mask shoots the governor on his way out the door, so Kid Colt chases him into a nearby cave. Using a powerful magnet he lifted from Doctor Danger, Kid Colt disarms Iron Mask and bashes his armored head into a rock. He then ties up the woozy villain and turns him over to the authorities. Kid Colt is frustrated to learn that the governor has been rushed off for medical treatment, as he was hoping to ask for a pardon. He decides he’d better leave town before he is arrested again. [Kid Colt, Outlaw #127]
Dracula is finally resurrected, but the many minute particles of silver lodged in his body greatly weaken him, causing him to age rapidly if he goes too long without ingesting a large quantity of blood. [Tomb of Dracula Magazine #3]
Adolf Hitler is born in Austria-Hungary to Alois and Klara Hitler.
1890
The international crime syndicate known as the Maggia first comes to the attention of the American public, having expanded their sphere of influence from Europe.
Caleb Hammer is consumed with guilt when his attempt to frighten two fugitives out of their hiding place leads to the murder of an epileptic boy. [Marvel Premiere #54]
The ruthless financier and rapacious explorer Ambrose Carpathian brings a treasure chest from the Amazon jungle back to his mansion in New York City following an expedition of which he is the sole survivor. The chest contains a swarm of carnivorous insects that Carpathian wishes to exploit using magic rituals conducted by his secret society, the Arcane Order of the Night. The swarm consumes a dozen people in the neighborhood, reducing them to desiccated skeletons in seconds, before Carpathian realizes the insects are too difficult to control. He traps the swarm inside the treasure chest and buries it in a shallow vault under his mansion’s basement floor. [Spectacular Spider-Man #170]
Montgomery Falsworth is born in England to Lord and Lady Falsworth.
1892
Wishing to relocate to London, England, Dracula hires a British attorney, Peter Hawkins, who dispatches his junior partner, Jonathan Harker, to Transylvania. Once all the papers have been signed, Dracula leaves Harker trapped in his castle and sails to England, where he takes possession of Carfax Abbey. Dracula begins feeding off a young socialite, Lucy Westenra, who is a friend of Harker’s fiancée, Mina Murray. Westenra’s strange symptoms prompt her friend Dr. John Seward to call in his former mentor, Professor Abraham Van Helsing, who recognizes the work of a vampire. Once Westenra becomes a vampire herself, Van Helsing recruits her fiancé, Arthur Holmwood, his American friend Quincey Morris, and Dr. Seward to destroy her. Meanwhile, Harker escapes from Castle Dracula, and Murray travels to Transylvania to help him recover from his ordeal. Before returning to England, the couple marries. However, Dracula targets Mina as his next victim and forces her to ingest the vampiric ichor in his veins, placing her under his mental domination. Van Helsing and his friends vow to hunt down Dracula and destroy him, prompting Dracula to abandon his plans and retreat to Transylvania. The vampire hunters pursue him, and Morris is killed battling Dracula’s gypsy servants. Wearied by the particles of silver still embedded in his body, Dracula tricks his enemies into thinking they have destroyed him. Later, Dracula finds that Van Helsing invaded his castle and destroyed his last three undead brides, including Annabelle St. John, and swears vengeance. [Dracula Lives! #5–11, Legion of Monsters #1, Tomb of Dracula Magazine #3]
Ben Parker is born in Brooklyn, New York.
Karl Kaufman is born in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
1893
Phineas T. Horton is born.
John Falsworth is born in England to Lord and Lady Falsworth.
1894
May Reilly is born in Brooklyn, New York.
Quincy Harker is born in London, England to Jonathan and Mina Harker.
1895
Arnim Zola is born on Weisshorn Mountain in Switzerland.
Gregor Russoff is born in Transylvania to Baron Russoff, a descendant of Baron Gregori Russoff.
Leonard McKenzie is born.
1896
The Irish writer Bram Stoker comes into possession of Dracula’s diary, stolen from the vampire’s castle some three hundred years ago. Obtaining Abraham Van Helsing’s journal entries and other material related to Dracula’s experience in Britain, Stoker writes a novel about Dracula.
Nathaniel Richards is born.
1897
The Rawhide Kid rides into Laramie, Wyoming in search of breakfast but is refused service at a saloon after a young man identifies him. Several other patrons harass the middle-aged gunfighter, leading to a fistfight. The sheriff enters and stops the donnybrook by firing a shotgun at the ceiling. To keep the peace, he escorts the Rawhide Kid to the city jail, where they reminisce about old times. Although his cell is not locked, the Rawhide Kid is busted out later that night by the young man, Jeff Packard, who feels guilty for getting him in trouble. They are forced to flee from a bunch of trigger-happy locals. While on the road together, the Rawhide Kid learns that Packard is on the run from a murder charge in Chicago and is being pursued by Pinkerton detectives. The two fugitives take refuge at Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West show, where the Rawhide Kid runs into an old acquaintance, Annie Oakley. He also confronts the show’s producer, Ned Buntline, whose dime novels about the exaggerated exploits of famous outlaws provide the Rawhide Kid’s sole source of income. Buntline pays him the royalties he’s owed, but then he and Packard must again escape from the Pinkerton detectives. After helping a black bounty hunter defend a town founded by freed slaves from a gang of white supremacists, the Rawhide Kid and Packard have a showdown with the Pinkerton detectives. Packard is killed in the shootout, but despite suffering from a head wound, the Rawhide Kid guns down all the detectives while hallucinating that they are notable figures from his past. When his mind clears, the exhausted gunslinger realizes he has finally come to terms with his violent life. After burying Packard, the Rawhide Kid rides off into the sunset. [Rawhide Kid Limited Series #1–4]
Learning that Dracula has been resurrected, Abraham Van Helsing returns to Castle Dracula, finds the vampire lying in his coffin, and drives a wooden stake through his heart. Later, Dracula’s coffin is moved into a remote cave. The entrance to the cave is then sealed by a massive stone in hopes that Dracula will remain trapped within forever. [Tomb of Dracula #1–2, Tomb of Dracula Magazine #3]
Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula is published.
The Daily Bugle, a New York City newspaper, is founded by William Walter Goodman.
George Stacy is born.
Buster Henderson and Elaine Willoughby are born in Christiansboro, Virginia.
1898
Frankenstein’s Monster is revived from suspended animation by Captain Robert Walton’s great-grandson, but before the expedition can leave the Arctic, their ship strikes an iceberg and sinks. The Monster saves Walton and two members of his crew from drowning, but they all soon freeze to death on the icy wastes. The Monster builds a raft that carries him to Norway, where he rescues a beautiful woman who has been tied to the mast of a burning boat. The woman, called Lenore, convinces the Monster that her townspeople have been possessed by demons. However, the Monster soon discovers that Lenore is, in fact, a werewolf and is forced to kill her. [Frankenstein #1–5]
In search of his creator’s descendants, the Monster makes his way south to Castle Frankenstein in Switzerland, only to find it has been abandoned for twenty years. The castle has been taken over by a Colonel Blackstone, who is using a demonic giant spider he found there to turn captured men into zombies to serve him. Blackstone takes the Monster prisoner, but he breaks free, flooding the castle in the process. Blackstone and his zombies are drowned, as well as the spider-demon. From there, the Monster wanders east into Transylvania, where he is taken in by a gypsy caravan. He travels with them for several weeks, until one of the gypsies tricks him into removing the boulder that stands in front of the cave in which Dracula is buried. The gypsy revives Dracula, but the Frankenstein Monster kills her and is then able to drive a wooden stake through Dracula’s heart. During the battle, the Monster’s vocal cords are paralyzed. [Frankenstein #6–9]
The Monster is then found by Vincent Frankenstein and his hunchback servant, Ivan. They smuggle the Monster into London, England, but when he realizes they mean to betray him, the Monster attacks them. After a brutal battle, Ivan is about to behead the Monster with a sword when Frankenstein shoots him in the back to stop him. The Monster goes after Frankenstein with the sword, only to be shot twice in the chest. When he recovers, the Monster drags himself out of the laboratory and wanders north through Great Britain until he falls off a cliff into the North Sea. The frigid waters throw him back into a state of suspended animation. [Frankenstein #10–12]
Basil Frankenstein is born in London, England, to Vincent and Lenore Frankenstein. Lenore dies in childbirth and, holding Vincent responsible, her lady’s maid Betty shoots Vincent in the heart, killing him. Betty then takes the baby out of the country and raises him as her own son. [Frankenstein #11]
Having immigrated to the United States with his family, Silvio Manfredi joins the New York branch of the Maggia.
Winston J. Kranpuff manifests the mutant ability to project his mind into another person’s body. He uses this power to “possess” people purely for personal gain and eventually becomes one of the world’s richest men. [Solo Avengers #11]
1899
Johann Schmidt is born in Germany to Hermann and Martha Schmidt. His mother dies in childbirth and his father tries to drown him, but the attending physician intervenes. When his father commits suicide soon after, Schmidt is sent to a crowded orphanage. [Captain America #298]
Dracula is revived yet again. He tracks down Abraham Van Helsing and kills him. Dracula’s body will soon reject the minute traces of silver that weaken him, restoring him to full strength. [Tomb of Dracula #20]
1900
Isaac Christians is born in Christiansboro, Virginia, to Ezekial and Mary Christians.
Wolfgang von Strucker is born in Bavaria, Germany, the son of a Prussian nobleman.
Fah Lo Suee is born to the international criminal mastermind Fu Manchu and his Russian-born wife.
Next Issue: The Twentieth Century!
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