This "The Book of Knowledge." In this feature, I spotlight instances where notable revelations that affect comic book continuity were first made in texts outside of comic book stories themselves. In other words, times when stuff like the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe either introduced or resolved changes to continuity.

Today, we look at something that I discussed in a Comic Book Legends Revealed a while back.

In that column, I noted that J. Jonah Jameson appears as a young reporter in Marvels #1 and then later, as his regular self, in the issues set later on in the series. However, after the issues had already been painted by Alex Ross, Kurt Busiek was told that the Spider-Man office would not allow Jameson to appear in the series, since it would have established him as being a young man during World War II, which would put him in his late 70s back in 1994.

So Busiek cleverly just never has anyone CALL him Jameson, even though he's clearly J. Jonah Jameson...

Here's "Jameson" in the start of #1...

and a great scene where he irritates the Human Torch...

and finally, here is "Jameson" at Phil's wedding...

Meanwhile, years earlier, in one of his classic "The" stories, Gary Friedrich and artists Dick Ayers and Vince Colletta did a story in Sgt. Fury #110 about a reporter and we see that the reporter works for a "Jameson" at the Daily Bugle...

Well, in 2005's Official Handbook to the Marvel Universe: Spider-Man, the writers wrote this Jameson into the Marvel Universe as a SEPARATE guy named Jameson, who was the editor of the Daily Bugle years before J. Jonah Jameson worked there...

It's really about as good of an explanation as you could hope for, honestly.

So, continuity-wise, that's who the Jameson from Marvels is.

Okay, folks, this is something that happens all the time, so if you have any suggestions for future "The Book of Knowledge" features, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!