These Article Guidelines explain what kind of content that should be added in each of the prearranged sections of an article. The Marvel Database provides the tools necessary for the creation of articles for the following:

• In-story elements (both entirely fictional and adapted from real life)
  • Characters
  • Teams
  • Organizations
  • Locations
  • Vehicles
  • Items
  • Races and Species
  • Realities

• Media
  • Comic book volumes
  • Comic book single issues
  • Comic book storylines and story arcs
  • Comic book events
  • Animated, live-action and podcast series
  • Single episodes of a series
  • Movies
  • Video games
  • Novels

• Creators of comics and other media
• Disambiguation Pages
• Glossary Entries

For the full list of templates, see Templates. For further information on which guidelines to take into account when adding information to an article, please see Manual of Style.

Article Creation

The requirements for the creation of an article can be found under the Article Notability Policy.

The first step when creating an article, is to make use of the appropriate template depending on the article's topic. A template automatically generates and organizes the different elements that should be present in an article. For example, pages for characters must make use of the character template, and so on.

When creating an article, please take into account that the purpose of the wiki is to provide its readers with as much information as possible. While it's not expected that every contributor takes this ambition to heart, at the very least be sure to add the minimal amount of information necessary to give readers a satisfactory understanding of the article's subject. In the case of articles for in-story elements, pay notice to the History section and don't spare important details. Only filling out a page's infobox when creating it is not enough. Articles that don't meet these requisites will be considered stubs, and will most likely be deleted once noticed.

Article Naming

Every article in the Marvel Database must must be created with a name that adheres to the Naming Conventions, where the full extent of these guidelines are detailed. The following are only basic elements to take into account for the naming of articles:

• Use title case, in which all words are capitalized, with the exception of certain subsets like articles, short prepositions and conjunctions.
• Since Marvel makes use of the concept of alternate realities, the Marvel Database covers many different versions of a given character or group that exist in other realities. Because of this, the articles for characters, teams and organizations should always include between parenthesis the numeric designation of the universe they belong to (e.g. the article for the Avengers is Avengers (Earth-616), "Earth-616" being the numeric designation for the Prime Marvel Universe).
• The only type of pages pertaining to an individual or group that don't feature a reality designation in their title are disambiguation pages since these articles serve as a hub which lists a character's different counterparts from different universes.
• Article titles for items, vehicles, races and locations don't require reality designations since all versions from different universes of either of these are grouped in the same article.
• Character articles should always be named after the character's real name if possible, avoiding diminutives (e.g. the article for the Iron Man of the Prime Marvel Universe is Anthony Stark (Earth-616), not "Tony Stark (Earth-616)")
• Comic volumes should be named based on the title displayed in the indicia of their respective issues.
• Avoid including "The" in the title of articles.

Article Layout

For a full explanation of every single available field present in the various templates used in the wiki, please see Help:Template Fields.

Infobox

The infobox represents a summary of information about the subject of an article, containing a set of attribute–value pairs. The infobox is where the most basic and specific information about a subject is displayed along with an image. In the case of a character, the infobox will show information that includes their real name, affiliations, weight and height, creators and first appearance. References in the infobox should be maintained, with character's real name, aliases and physical characteristics referenced through separate dedicated fields. Multiple items under the same attribute should preferably be listed using bullet points instead of semicolons and line breaks. When listing character aliases and codenames, do not include instances of single-instance jokes or insults.

Overview

The overview section is a general summary of an article's subject meant for lengthy articles. For the guidelines on the writing of this section, please see the Overview Guidelines.

History

The History is the most important section of articles for in-story elements. It's a summary in chronological order of the events in the history of an article's subject.

Editors should consider the relevance of an event to a subject's overall history when writing History sections. Events that significantly shape a character or their role in the world they inhabit deserve more emphasis, while those with little impact may warrant only brief mentions. For example, a character with decades of continuous publication cannot have every appearance described in detail, but an antagonist with sporadic showings might justify highlighting every single major encounter.

Overly detailed accounts are discouraged, particularly in articles about long-running characters. Instead, focus on the essential outcomes and relevance of events rather than narrating every beat of a story. For instance, when describing a confrontation, it is usually enough to note that two characters clashed and who prevailed, rather than recounting each stage of the fight. It is also necessary to write about events from a perspective limited to the scope in which it affected the subject whose history is being written. Information that doesn't directly pertain to the subject should only be added if they're contextual details that help the understanding of the text.

History sections should also be written with hindsight. If a turn of events that is revealed at a certain point of a character's history recontextualizes information from the past, don't relay this new information at the point of the chronology when it's revealed to the audience, but rather as part of the information from the past it affects. For example, if a character who dies is later revealed to have survived, don't relay that they died and then backtrack to explain they survived, simply provide the information that they survived right away, and establish that their death was apparent all along.

Personality

The Personality section is limited to Character articles. It should provide a summary of a character's mental characteristics, like their behavior, way of thinking and temperament.

Attributes

The Attributes section is limited to Character articles. It's separated into four subheadings:

• Powers: A character's capabilities that are supernatural in comparison to an average human. For example, while in-story, the abilities that a mutant develops are innate and part of their biology, they are considered powers.
• Abilities: A character's inherent talents and learned skills which are not entirely out of the ordinary. For instance, a character might be a super-genius in ways only feasible in fiction, but if they're genetically a normal human, their super-intelligence should be listed as an ability.
• Weaknesses: A specific and noteworthy set of vulnerabilities a character possesses which can affect their performance, and they are usually directly linked to the character's powers.
• Additional Attributes: Character's additional attributes that couldn't fit into others subsections. For example, if character is blind, deaf or have some mental condition or disorder, then it should be described in this subsection.

Several rules should be followed when adding information into this section and its subsections:

• It is preferable to not add categories for powers directly to page, but add these powers into the section with Template:Power and references in the nested list format. Template provides a link to the category (that have a general description of the power) and adds the page into this category.
• For alternate reality variants of the character, it should never be assumed that it has the same powers as the main version. Only powers that this specific variant had demonstrated should be listed with references. The same logic should be used for characters that are the amalgamation of several other preexisting characters, for example Category: DC/Marvel Amalgams or Category:Warp World/Characters. Only powers that this specific character demonstrated should be listed with references, instead of every power the amalgamated characters have.
• For characters who have powers only when they wield certain item (for example, Time Stone), or wear suit/armor (for example, Iron Man Armor), the powers granted by these items should be listed on their pages and only those pages should be added into categories for powers. On the page of the character specific powers of the item that this character used should be listed with references, but categories should not be added. For example, anyone who wear Iron Man Armor's would be able to fly, so only the armor itself should be placed into Category:Flight instead of adding into it everyone who ever wore the Armor. The exception is then the page for the item does not yet exist, or the item is permanently merged with character. In such cases categories for powers could be added to the character page.
• The same logic should be used for characters who get powers thanks to being possessed by another character. For example, by Phoenix Force or Symbiotes. As the powers belongs to the possessor, they should be listed and categorized on its page. On the page of the possessed character the specific powers of possessor that this character had demonstrated should be listed with references, but categories should not be added.
• The same rules should be used for other subsections.

Paraphernalia

The Paraphernalia section is present in Character, Team and Organization articles, it's split in the following subheadings:

• Equipment: A collection of particular items at a character's disposal, which may serve the purpose to help them perform tasks, like gadgets.
• Weapons: The tools at a character's disposal meant to be used offensively.
• Transportation: The ways of traveling around for a character, usually reserved for special means of transportation like custom vehicles.

Articles for character suits should list individually named or otherwise prominent suits under sub-headers to allow direct linking from other pages. Images or galleries alone are not sufficient and must be accompanied by descriptive text (including history from alternate realities where appropriate). Less prominent suits can be grouped together under fewer sub-headers.

Residents

The Residents subsection in Reality articles will display the category tree list of the characters from that reality if there is there are two or more of them, and the “Residents” field was left blank. The list may be replaced with a visual Gallery if there are 10 or more appropriate entries to highlight. The Gallery may be further subdivided into groups, with characters within each sorted alphabetically. Use the flex-wrap version of the Navigation Gallery template to prevent leaving large areas of the page blank.

Characters qualified for the spotlight in the Residents Gallery must belong to the following groups, in the descending order, and with the upper limit of 50:

• Titular characters of the media set in that reality, including all members of the titular teams.
• Major and/or recurring antagonists of the stories in that reality.
• Supporting characters who had story spotlight or multiple appearances.

Characters who had only appeared in a single scene are automatically excluded from the visual galleries.

Appearances

The Appearances section consists of a list in which the elements featured in a published material have to be written down in chronological order (including both appearances and mentions). The Appearances list is divided in the following:

• Featured Characters: The protagonist(s) of the story. They are the main focus, and usually the character(s) from whose point of view the story unravels.
• Supporting Characters: Secondary characters whose actions have an effect on either the story's main plot or sub-plots. They help push the story forward.
• Antagonists: Characters who enter in conflict with the protagonist, and oppose their goals.
• Other Characters: Characters that play a minor role in the story. They appear, but don't affect the narrative in a significant way. This section is also used to list characters, teams and organizations who are only mentioned or referenced.
• Races and Species: Any species or race that makes an appearance should be added in this section. They should not be listed anywhere else unless they are an antagonist or supporting character where no member of said race is identified by name.
• Realities: To single out the main reality (or realities) where a story takes place.
• Locations: A list of the different places in which the story takes place, or which are mentioned in it.
• Items: Any of the objects with an established importance which appear or are mentioned in the story.
• Vehicles: Any vehicle of importance which appears or is mentioned in the story.

How to add appearances:

• Appearances have to be catalogued in a bulleted list. Use sub bullets to list below the subsets of a main element (e.g. members of a team and places within locations)
• The basic format to add the appearance category of an element to a page is the following:
  • * {{a|[[ARTICLE NAME|LINK TEXT]]}}
• Make use of specific tags to denote something about the way a given subject appears in the published material.
  • Use these tags by replacing the "a" in {{a|
  • To make use of more than one tag, place the additional tags after the link.
  • e.g. {{1st|[[Steven Rogers (Earth-616)|Steve Rogers]]}} {{Flashback}} {{Origin}}
  • For a list of the available appearance tags, see Appearance Tags.

A few things to keep in mind:

• The Featured/Supporting/Other Characters and Antagonists roles are assigned on a issue-by-issue basis (or story-by-story if an issue features multiple stories).
• A character that appears in a story as a guest star should be listed under Supporting Characters.
• An antagonist is a character that opposes the protagonist, even if they're a superhero or supervillain. Similarly, it's possible for a supervillain to be a supporting character, or even the protagonist of a story.
• The template "Joins" should only be used when a character actually becomes a member of the team in that story, and thus not necessarily the first time the character's seen as a member of the team.
• Characters who only make cameos should always be listed in Other Characters.
• Characters that appear exclusively in recapitulatory flashbacks should be listed in Other Characters.
• Characters who are only mentioned in a story should only be listed in Other Characters.
• Minor appearances consists of when the subject appears in the story but isn't actually present (they might appear in an illusion, a photograph, in a recording (audio or video, does not include a live-feed), in a statue modeled after their likeness, comatose or as a corpse, for example).
• If a story features a team but some of its members don't appear and are instead only mentioned, these characters should be listed in Other Characters instead of being nested under the team they belong to.
• Mentions are not necessary to be listed if the character makes some kind of appearance, be it major or minor.
• Be sure to make appropriate use of the appearances tags, especially when categorizing minor appearances. The default "a" appearance tag categorizes a given appearance as major, so appropriate use of minor appearances tags is important to properly categorize an appearance as minor.
• Appearances within previously unseen alternate realities, including imaginations, dreams, visions, and in-universe storytelling, should be listed using the TRN system after requesting admods to assign one if necessary. Characters from unknown realities who only appear briefly, without any unique information about their home reality, should be listed with links to the Character Index.
• If two or more Variants of the same character feature within the storyline, the appearances should differentiate between them, either by listing their reality designation or by using other disclaimers such as (Past), (Divergent) or (Different Reality) where appropriate.
• If the story features a significant amount of time-travel or alternate realities, listing reality designations for all appearing characters is encouraged, but not required. Otherwise, reality designations should be hidden from Apperances section: [[Jessica Jones (Earth-616)|Jessica Jones]].
• Appearances of real-life individuals should generally link to Wikipedia, unless they interact with Marvel characters in a signifcant capacity or play a notable role in the storyline beyond the real life events (see Notability Policy).
• Appearances and mentions of contemporary real-life individuals (excluding Marvel Staff) are considered Topical References. This does not apply to realities without the Sliding Timescale or historical characters: Isaac Newton is never topical.
• References to characters from contempotary popular culture are likewise considered topical and should link to external wikis when appropriate. Characters from classical works published before the Modern Age (as in, before 1960) are not considered topical and can link to Wikipedia or Ideaverse pages when they exist.
• Mentions and apperances of real-life companies and brands are not Topical References. They should not be included in the Apperances section unless they play a central role in the current storyline, in which case they are placed under Items.
• Apperances should not list common expressions, insults and comparitive metaphors in English language. For example, "Oh my God!", "See you in Hell!", "Strong as an ox," etc. should not result in any appearance tags. Contrast with more Marvel-specific mentions that should be listed as apperances: "By the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak," "I was bitten by a radioactive spider," "Strong as a Hulk."

Summary/Synopsis/Plot/Story

This section should provide a rundown of all major events that happen in the material covered by the article. Summaries need to be comprehensive and accurate, but not excessively laconic, nor overly long. A summary should provide the reader a similar understanding of the story's key points as a person who has read/watched/played it on their own. In the case of stories which are a continuation of another, summaries should be written in a way that it's accessible to understand the continuing narrative without having to read the synopses for previous issues. Summaries have to be written in present tense, using an in-universe perspective, and avoiding the use of first person.

And alternative to balancing between writing a short and a long synopsis is to do both. Split the summary into two subheadings, "Brief Summary" and "Detailed Summary," and write below each of these sections the corresponding type of summary. The brief summary can be a simple overview of the story; a paragraph or two laying out the basic facts of the narrative.

Cast

This section provides a list of all major actors of a movie, a series' episode or a video game. In the case of articles for content yet to be released, it's necessary to provide a reference for the addition of an actor.

Notes and Trivia

These sections are used to add technical information about the subject of an article. Unlike the rest of an article, these sections don't require to use an in-universe perspective; they are available to add any information about fictional subjects in which is necessary to treat them as such, behind-the-scenes and making-of material, technical aspects of a publication, etc.

In short, "Notes" is for notable information, while "Trivia" is for trivial information.

See Also

In this section related topics not alreadt linked in the article should be listed. Links to related topics not already linked in article

Links and References

This section consists of a bulleted list of general references sorted by date of publication, explanatory and citation footnotes, links to other Marvel wikis that specialize in or focus on subjects we do not, links to other unofficial sources, e.g. fan sites, etc.

See Also

• Help:Template Fields
• Category:Page Templates