When Does "Truth: Red, White & Black" #4 (2003) Take Place?
"Truth: Red, White & Black" #4 "The Cut" is a superhero comic-book written by Robert Morales that released February 19th, 2003. So when is "Truth: Red, White & Black" #4 set?
It takes place on the fictional Marvel Universe timeline in the year:
We know this because immediately at the start of the issue, there is a time and place setting textbox that includes: "New York City. July, 1942." Any early sequence starts with a textbox that simply says, "At that very moment, in Germany's Black Forest--" telling us it's still July of 1942 AD.
1942 AD
We know this because immediately at the start of the issue, there is a time and place setting textbox that includes: "New York City. July, 1942." Any early sequence starts with a textbox that simply says, "At that very moment, in Germany's Black Forest--" telling us it's still July of 1942 AD.
A later sequence has a textbox in the lower right-hand corner of the first panel declaring it now: "Sintra, Portugal. September 1942", so we know it's now about 2 to 3 months later in September of 1942 AD. On this page, Isaiah Bradley reads a comic-book about Steve Rogers/Captain America [clearly "Captain America Comics #1" (1940)] that he specifically talks about and says, "I mean, this comic came out mor'n a year ago" telling us definitively we are well past both the real-world publication of the comic (definitely December of 1940 AD) and the Marvel Universe events it is telling to the world, in the fictional world (diegesis), which has to be sometime in 1941 AD.
If one accepts the concept of the sliding timescale of the Marvel Universe, the events of this story might only take place at this point from its own point-of-view and they might move forward in time relative to new stories. Galactus, a god-like character with this fictional universe says in "The Utimates" #5 v2 that 'The present moment--the "now"--hurtles from past to future along a stream of events. And events have weight. Sometimes, the weight is vast--sometimes, so light as to be undetectable. But some events--those with a peculiar, unique gravity-- are caught by the present. Dragged in its wake, like planets about a sun. Always just a handful of years behind...' As Douglas Wolk wrote in 2021, "The big Marvel story is a funhouse-mirror history".
This comic-book was retroactively collected into a hardcover and paperback re-titled "Captain America: Truth: Red, White & Black".
It is a chronologically midway comic in the Marvel Comics Universe multiverse timeline. It can be read after the previous issue, "Truth: Red, White & Black" #3 (2003).
