Why? To make them seem more relevant? Are there really readers out there who say, "Well, I wasn't going to read the Fantastic Four, because they're all old. But now that we know that Reed and Ben and Victor Von Doom were in college together in 1998, well, sign me up!"
(That, by the way, is an actual thing that Marvel has done. Sigh...)
DC, it seems to me, has always been smarter than that, gently eliding over specific dates while trying to keep their heroes "modern." They don't give us scenes where, say, the Waynes are coming home from The Phantom Menace, or what have you.
But Marvel insists on giving us specifics. With Iron Man, did we really need a specific date? Because as we've learned the hard way, there's always a war somewhere for Tony Stark to get blown up in. So why does Bendis need to go and establish that tony Stark was born in 1982? Why did we have to provide proof that Captain America was revived...during the Clinton Administration?!? (and by now, based on the FF reveal, it would have to be during the Bush II era...or even Obama?!?) Why can't we just maintain the gentle fiction in our mind that Cap did live through the 60s, and Watergate? Why force us to acknowledge that Cap entirely slept through the Cold War and disco?
Especially since, if you're truly dedicated to specific rolling timelines, well, you're going to have to change them again in a few years?!?
But they would never frak with Spider-Man, right? Peter Parker's an everyman, for every time, right?
In this week's Amazing Spider-Man #796, J. Jonah Jameson is in Spider-Man's earpiece, trying to help him drown out the Goblin King's sonic scream. And, well...
Look, we can pretend that Jonah was just being extra-dorky to motive Spidey. Or, we could surmise that he's old and somewhat out of touch, and is somewhat unclear on the definition of "millennial," so he's misusing it here.
But no, we know that's not true, right? Marvel wants us to know that Peter Parker is a millennial.
We can't have nice things...