I don't recall precisely when/where I first heard the Marvel Universe referred to as 616. Certainly sometime in the '80s. Probably from something Chris Claremont wrote, but it's possible I picked it up from The Official Marvel Handbooks. I don't recall using it much, but it was a handy shorthand when I needed to differentiate the 'main' Marvel Universe and a story from What If or another timeline or something. But it never really got brought up unless you needed to make a distinction.
And that's how it stayed up until 2008 or so. Because that's when the Marvel movies started coming out and becoming popular and, when you were in Marvel fan circles, you could be talking about two very distinct versions of, for example, Captain America. The characters' origins were similar, but different. Their power levels were similar, but different. The construction of their shield was similar, but different. If someone asks you trivia about the character, you need to make sure they specify which version they're asking about because that could change your answer. So whereas the What If stories relatively obscure, even within fan circles, the movies very much were not. Since the "616" appelation, though not widely used, was already in place, it made sense to bring that to the fore when contrasting that against the MCU.
For whatever reason(s), Marvel -- the comics publisher, not the movie studio -- tried to dissuade the name's use. Perhaps because it was originally just meant as a joke. Perhaps because it harkened back to a type of continuity that they had been trying to deliverately move away from since around 2000. Perhaps there was some form of professional jealousy against the movie studios, and how they were 'requiring' the 616 designation just to make a distinction, even though the 616 universe came decades before the MCU. It doesn't really matter; the problem was that fans were routinely and actively talking about two different Marvel Universes now and they needed some way to offer a readily understood distinction.
But beginning, as far as I can tell, in 2023, Marvel Comics began embracing the 616 name and even leaning into to the idea by designating "616 Day."
And I think that's what bugs me about 616 Day. Marvel is hardly the first company to create a pseudo-holiday to bring attention to their company by taking advantage of some weird quirk of the calendar. Star Wars has May 4 ("May the Fourth Be With You") and Nintendo has March 10 ("Mar10"); there's nothing significant that happened on those days as far as the companies are concerned. Their "significance" for the intellectual properties is merely a quirk of language, and doesn't really work outside certain regions. And in those cases, it's a quirk of language that fans picked up on first, and it took several years for the company in question to capitalize on what was already a grass-roots celebration of sorts. I don't believe that's the case with 616 Day. As outlined in that Bleeding Cool piece, the 616 designation was created specifically for Marvel stories by one of the writers and -- as far as I know -- fans had never really suggested June 16 be a day to celebrate Marvel Comics. It didn't come about organically; it was put together specifically as a marketing tactic,
Don't get me wrong; it is a clever bit. Kudos to the marketing person who came up with it. But because it wasn't really a thing that came from the ground up... because it feels it's being handed down from Marvel itself, it feels more cynical and artificial.
At least to me. I was also really skeptical the Avengers movie would work when it was first announced since the sum total of MCU movies that had been released at the time of the announcement was: Iron Man and Hulk. Neither Captain America nor Thor had made it to theaters (I think both were still filming at the time of the Avengers announcement) and fans were expected to line up and celebrate a big movie with all these heroes -- only two of which had made it to the screen, and one of those had the main actor being replaced. It smacked of "you'll enjoy what we tell you to enjoy."
There wasn't organic buzz being generated; it was being pushed down from the studio. Now, to be fair, Avengers was a good film and probably would have generated a fair amount of buzz naturally anyway, but it felt very artificially inflated to me initially. And I feel that with 616 Day as well. The promo materials being sent from Marvel to comic shops, and the Marvel Rivals promos I've seen ads for point very much to that.
Now maybe I'm being overly cynical here. Maybe Marvel fans will embrace 616 Day as much as Star Wars fans have embraced May 4. But me? I'm certainly not going to any comic shops, and I probably won't even have time to read any Marvel comics today. Right now, I'm curious to see if 616 Day will have legs from year to year, but honestly, I'll probably forget about it this time next year unless Marvel does some MAJOR promotions for the first half of June.
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