When Does "The Marvels Project" #1 (2009) Take Place?
"The Marvels Project" #1 "Part One" is a historical fiction superhero comic-book written by Ed Brubaker that released August 12th, 2009. So when is "The Marvels Project" #1 set?
It takes place on the fictional Marvel Universe timeline in the year:
We know this because the first narration textbox in the main action of the issue reads, "Before America was at war, FDR often took presidential vacations"... The real-world United States of America President Franklin Delano Roosevelt served from 1933 AD to 1945 AD and America entered World War II on December 8, 1941 AD, the day after the the famous and tragic attack by Japan on the US Pearl Harbor naval base in Hawaii in the real world. So it must be between 1933 AD and 1941 AD.
1939 AD
We know this because the first narration textbox in the main action of the issue reads, "Before America was at war, FDR often took presidential vacations"... The real-world United States of America President Franklin Delano Roosevelt served from 1933 AD to 1945 AD and America entered World War II on December 8, 1941 AD, the day after the the famous and tragic attack by Japan on the US Pearl Harbor naval base in Hawaii in the real world. So it must be between 1933 AD and 1941 AD.
More specifically, partway through the comic a New York City theater marquee is advertising a movie. The title is partially cut off as "LY ANGELS HAVE WINGS". This must be the film "Only Angels Have Wings" (1939), which debuted on May 15th, 1939 AD. Another nearby marquee displays the words "ABOUT TOWN". That must be the movie "Man About Town" (1939), which debuted on July 7th, 1939 AD. So it's sometime during or soon after July of 1939 AD at this point.
Furthermore, the main action begins with time and place setting free-floating text reading "PART ONE THE ATLANTIC. OCEAN–1939."
Additionally, the issue opens with another set of free-floating text reading "PROLOGUE New York--1938." Though this doesn't seem to be confirmable via context, presumably it's 1938 AD during the prologue.
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".
It is a chronologically midway comic in the Marvel Comics Universe multiverse timeline and can be read at its timeline point before the next issue, "The Marvels Project" #2 (2009) or before "Marvel Comics" #1 (1939).
