Editing Marvel -

timfastic:

This is probably one of the nerdiest posts I’ve ever done, as it combines editing a fictional website for fun and comic books. 

Recently, I noticed that Marvel has been instigating a very intensive social media campaign for some of their newer events in their comics. One of these events is about the bifurcation of the main X-men team, and subsequently, the opening up of a new school for gifted youngsters (in homage to Jean Grey - who they’ve been foreshadowing the return of visa vi The Phoenix). 

This “school” (The Jean Grey School for Higher Learning) has been advertised in comics, but has a huge Twitter marketing campaign featuring the fictional profiles of students and faculty who attend the school. This is pretty cool, in my opinion, and would be a fun job for people who are passionate about comics and social media. The print ads and the Twitter profiles are all displaying links back to this “school’s” website. I went there and noticed tons of editing issues at just a glance. I tweeted at Marvel’s official account that they should fix the site, and they didn’t seem to notice. So, I decided to detail things out for them. Stay tuned for a boring post. 

The header of the page, so far no real issue. (Other than the possibility that the professor teaching “Mutant Lit” isn’t who is listed on the curriculum, but I’m pretty sure it is). Moving on…

I tried to have some sort of order to this, but sort of figured it wasn’t terribly important. 

1. “Other” is missing an “r”. 

2. According to official Marvel continuity - Wolverine was not born until 1890, and therefore wouldn’t have been able to have an “eyewitness” account of the history of 1880-1890, as he was not born. Also, he probably wouldn’t have a good memory of maybe the first 6-7 years? So, really, 1897, give or take. But, would he really have a critical “eyewitness” opinion/understanding of the history he witnessed his entire life? Odds are probably not. I don’t really have a critical sense of history until I was 12-15ish. I mean, I was technically born during the Reagan administration, but I really don’t recall it. I couldn’t be critical of it as an “eyewitness” in any capacity. Most of the things I remember from the George H. W. Bush administration is from books, news, school, etc. So again, not “eyewitness”. 

3. This is an improper use of a colon. The colon separates clauses, and this title is suggesting that the name is all one clause. As it stands, it is saying the name of the class and “I Know, But You Still Have To Learn It”. So, “I Know” (while a cute joke), doesn’t really make any sense in the title of the course. 

3a. “To” should not be capitalized.

4. I would assume that “new” or “incoming” students would not have been taught by Emma Frost and therefore would not need to unlearn her stuff? So, why would “Ethics 101”, the first level introduction course, be focusing on something that is suggested to have been previously taught to the students? Doesn’t really make sense…

5. I’m pretty sure Dr. Henry McCoy would insist on having an Oxford Comma before the “and”. 

(I messed up the order based on my screen shots, but I’m not going to fix them to make better sense. It isn’t like I’m getting paid for this…)

6. There is a formatting issue with the way the faculty names are listed. “Bobby Drake” is set in one space more than the others. 

I must say, however, that at least only Henry McCoy is listed as a Dr., as he is the only one with a (multiple?) PhD(s). The rest are listed as “Professor” which is a title given to the people by a university, so that is accurate. Also, I checked a couple of university websites to see how they have the titles of courses and faculty names listed - professor names in italics after the course name seems to be appropriate. 

7. “As A” should not be capitalized. 

8. “With” should not be capitalized.

9. “with” should have a comma before it, as the “!” is still a part of the course’s name, not a separation between course and faculty name. 

10. This should all be one “sentence” for a title, not two. “Know Your Alien Races and How to Kill Them”. Or, possibly, hyphenated. 

10a. This should be a different number, but I caught it after I made everything. It is more of a banal point, if anything. When has anyone ever taken a course on “Literature”? How do you encompass all forms of literature into ONE SINGLE CLASS. All the other class listings are VERY SPECIFIC, and yet, the one class that is seemingly very diverse in content is the most banal and generalized in name. 

11. “Into” should not be capitalized. 

11a. (not listed) “Headfirst” is not a word. “Head First”. 

12. This is not a huge deal, but we have the names of faculty listed in full for the course listing and shortened to last names here. Seems inconsistent to me. 

12a. The names were in italics on the class listings and not here. These are not titles so much as group names, so that might be acceptable. 

13. Needs a line between group names.

14. Needs a line between group names. 

15. Needs a line between activities. 

16. Does not need a line between activities.

17. Why is “Field Trips” capitalized? 

18. This is a general comment about the listings as a whole. Why are the things listed on the bottom called “Field Trips” and not the other things? Is going to the “ruins of Genosha” not a field trip? Presumably the trips all have some sort of critical purpose to them.

19. Needs an comma after “Microverse”. 

19a. Also, I’d probably capitalize “The” in order to make things a little less confusing for such a long and complicated list. 

No websites should have this many mistakes on it, especially a single page. Especially if it is tied to a major marketing campaign. Especially if it is by a publishing company. 

I am fully willing to accept the irony of any potential editing problems in this post. Again, I’m not being paid.