Why is Earth 616 named the main reality in the Marvel U?

I was just wondering though...

Its just were all most of the stories took place in before the alternative universes came (AOA Ultimate Days of Future Past) and has always been the main universe focused by marvel. The number is just a random number doesn't have any meaning to it.

As opposed to being #1? Because.

Alan Moore named them, last I checked.

Fun fact, the real biblical mark of the beast is 616. Not 666.

I think that was the joke when he named it.

@innervenom123: Actually the real biblical mark of the beast isn't a number at all, its an ancient Hebrew alphabetical symbol that happens to look similar to a number.

That's what I heard!

Because Earth 1, Earth 2, etc would sound too close to what DC was doing.

All this.

All this.

Somethin' like that... They thought using Earth 1 or Earth 2 (in particular) would sound lame/generic.

Oh. Nevermind.

The idea that Alan Moore named Marvel's main universe after the mark of the beast is still funny.

Wikipedia actually paints a fairly concise picture of the story behind the number. Numerous sources reveal a similar story, various insiders echo similar sounding stories.

"Alan Moore is usually credited with creating the term. However, Alan Davis has stated that the designation of Earth 616 was actually first made by Dave Thorpe, the previous writer of the UK-published Captain Britain stories.

In addition, a difference of opinion exists regarding the selection of the number 616. In 2005, Alan Moore's son-in-law John Reppion (who is married to Alan Moore's daughter Leah Moore), stated on an Internet message board that the number 616 was arbitrarily chosen by Moore and had no significant meaning, saying it "was just a random number of no significance chosen because people always seemed to be talking about 'earth 2' or 'earth 4' but never any higher numbers." However, Alan Davis has said that it comes from 616, a variation on the Number of the Beast, picked because Dave Thorpe "wasn't a fan of the modern superhero genre" and expressed this in his stories, "such as recording his opinion of the Marvel Universe with the designation 616."

okay so just a random number was a little anticlimatic but thanks

I was wondering the same thing. Lol