Marvel comics questions

[Markness]

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy Marvel but lately I've been confused about some of the stories I've read. How can Old Man Logan be in both X-Men Gold and Astonishing X-Men at the same time? How can Rogue be in Astonishing X-Men and the Avengers at the same time? Where do the Thanos Infinity graphic novels take place timeline wise despite the events of Secret Wars?

In the 90's X-Men comics I am reading, Wolverine is helping solve a crime in one issue and fighting Sauron in another despite how both issues came out the same month. How can Jubilee also be with the X-Men in one issue but also be with Generation X in another during the same month but in different situations? I don't want to sound like an idiot but I am confused by a lot of things going on in the comic storylines I am reading.

[Avaitor]

Welcome to the X-Men, where chronology is made up and timeframes don't matter!

I've got nothing, continuity has always been a mess for comics.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Plus, there hasn't been a decent editor-in-chief for years who's been able to get everything organized. Axel Alonso in particular was sloppy, letting Tony lie in a coma and somehow still be active at the same time because he couldn't get the right issues in at the right time. Actually makes me Quesada.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Despite having read a lot more comic books over the past year and a half, I'm still way too much of a novice to answer your question specifically, but if it's anything like the DC Rebirth stuff, you're just kind of expected to go with the flow as they play it fast and loose with the timeline of events between different titles.

For example, Batman makes appearances in his own series, as well as Detective Comics and Justice League. However, despite all of these being published simultaneously, it's explained here and there that it doesn't all take place at the same time. For example, the War of Jokes and Riddles arc takes place years in the past whereas the stuff with Batman and his team working alongside Zatanna in the concurrently published material takes place in the present. The same kind of logic could probably be applied to Nightwing who appears both in his own series and as the leader of the Titans (I haven't read the latter, though, so I can't be entirely sure).

Also keep in mind that there are tons of comics that are elseworld stories and take place as part of completely separate continuities. Something like Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth clearly isn't part of the regular Batman canon, for example.

Or you could just go by what Avaitor said. Continuity in mainstream superhero comics is bonkers. The movies and shows don't have nearly as many concurrently ongoing titles in the same shared Universe to manage which is why they haven't run into the same kinds of problems. That said, the MCU is just starting to have a hint of continuity shenanigans with how big they've gotten. The whole "8-years later" thing caught everyone off-guard in Spider-Man: Homecoming since the writers essentially retconned the Avengers to take place roughly a year after the original Iron Man instead of four years later like people originally thought when these movies were being treated like they progressed in real time (Vision's comments in Civil War further prove this mix-up).

[gunswordfist]

Wolverine being in multiple books gas been a mene for some time. Looks like longer than I thought though!

[Dr. Insomniac]

To offer some confusing trivia, there were times when Barry Allen was a Marvel character, and Mantis from GOTG was a DC character.