In Tarzan Alive, Farmer noted that Professor Starr's speculations concerning the relationship between John Clayton, hansom driver, and John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, opened a can of wyrms larger than the original author realized. So too, I believe, does Al Schroeder's proposal that the adventures of May-Day Parker (aka Spider-Girl) occurred in the 1990s, rather than the near future milieu presented in the stories about her. There are several corollaries to such a theory, which have serious implications for any constructed history of the truth behind the adventures of costumed crimefighters.
To review: May Parker is the daughter of Peter Parker (aka Spiderman) and Mary Jane Watson, a mutant who has inherited many of the preternatural abilities possessed by her father. She first appeared in What If? #105, published towards the end of 1997. If we assume that the events of that story, her first exploits as a costumed crimefighter, took place in early 1997, and that she was fourteen at the time, it seems that she was born in 1982 or 1983.
However, the marriage of Peter Parker to Mary Jane Watson was not revealed until 1987, and the stories from which the "alternate universe" presented in What If? diverged were also not told until 1997. Obviously, there is some time compression being performed here. The question is, how much.
Consider, if you will, that one of the most notable events in Peter's life -- his involvement in the so-called Secret Wars, resulting in his acquisition of a parasitic alien costume -- took place some time before his marriage to Mary Jane. For the sake of the argument, let us assume that Peter was born in 1947, and that Mary Jane is roughly the same age. The stories in which they marry present them as being in their mid- to late-twenties. In other words, it is likely that they were married in the mid 1970s. As an approximation, I suggest 1976. The events dubbed the Secret Wars had to take place sometime before this, possibly as much as two years.
If Al Schroeder's theory that the Secret Wars and the so-called Crisis on Infinite Earths occurred at roughly the same time is correct, then a major re-examination of the history of characters appearing in D.C. Comics is also necessary. Prior to the Crisis, the children and proteges of the Justice Society of America formed an association known as Infinity Inc. This group of young men and women (portrayed as being in their early 20s) played a key role in the Crisis and its aftermath. Shifting the events of their lives backwards in time requires shifting their births back in time as well, to the late 40s and early fifties.
What are the advantages of disadvantages of such a re-evaluation of the secret history of superheroes?
Advantage 1: It shortens the careers of a number of "Silver Age" characters dramatically, making their endurance more plausible. Barry Allen, the second Flash, probably gained his powers around 1954 (when in his late 20s). If he then disappeared some months prior to the Crisis (early 1974) and was apparently killed during it, his active career spanned roughly twenty years, rather than nearly thirty. A similar argument can be proposed for Spider-man, who (according to the Spider-Girl stories) retired after suffering serious injuries shortly after the birth of his daughter. His active career would have ended when he was in his late thirties, rather than continuing into his forties and fifties.
Advantage 2: Shifting the birth years of most of the members of Infinity Inc. back roughly ten years makes those births more plausible. While their parents were apparently exposed to chronal radiation or other forms of age retardation, unless such transformations dramatically affected the reproductive cycles of their mothers, they would still have been having children in their forties and fifties. (For example, Shiera Sanders was apparently born sometime around 1921; her son Hector Hall was allegedly born in 1963.) Furthermore, this would rationalize the apparent agelessness of Garfield Logan (aka Changeling), described as eight years old when he first appeared (in the early 1960s) and sixteen when he joined the New Teen Titans (stories published in the early 1980s; I propose that they were actually formed in 1972).
Disadvantage 1: A considerable compression of time is required. Essentially, this history would require the first twenty-three years of the so-called Marvel Age of Comics (Fantastic Four #1 (1961) to Marvel Superheroes Secret Wars #12 (1984)) to be compressed into roughly fourteen years. This begs the question of when exactly certain major events in that continuity -- such as the death of Gwen Stacy, the Dark Phoenix saga, Anthony Stark's descent into alcoholism, and the various conflicts between the Avengers and the mad Titan, Thanos -- actually occurred. Furthermore, the compression would not be uniform; at least one major episode in the life of Captain America (his battle with the Secret Empire) is specifically tied to political events of the early 1970s. (For reasons that I'm not yet prepared to discuss, the conclusion of that story can't have occurred much later than a few weeks prior to January 22, 1973.)
Disadvantage 2: A number of characters' careers become problematic. If, as I've speculated elsewhere, the member of the New Teen Titans who became known as Nightwing was Richard Grayson Jr., son of Dick Grayson and Betty Kane, then he was in his early 20s during the Crisis ... which indicates that he was born in the early 1950s, rather than the late 1950s as I originally speculated. Likewise, Albert Rothstein (aka Nuklon) is allegedly the son of one Dr. Terri Curtis, who was allegedly an infant in the 1940s -- and would have been too young to have a child in the early 1950s. A similar difficulty obtains in charting the career of Helena Wayne, the second Huntress.
Disadvantage 3: Accepting the SpiderGirl stories may mean accepting the entire MC2 continuity, which contains a number of highly questionable concepts. (Jubilee as a leader of the X-Men? The Juggernaut as a hero? Wolverine and Elektra having a daughter? I repeat -- Jubilee as leader of the X-Men?) That continuity also has a number of its own problematic temporal issues, such as its portrayal of Franklin Richards as a twenty-something teen idol, when in fact he would be in his early thirties by the time these stories take place.
Do these disadvantages overwhelm the advantages of the proposed, revised model? On that point, each observer must form their own opinion, and I suspect that more research -- focused on the specific characters affected by the revision -- may be required. Ultimately, all that I can do is present the theory ... thus, submit for the reader's approval.