Marvel Chronology Project

Startling Stories: the Thing - Night Falls on Yancy Street #1-4 (2003) was deemed non-canon. This is probably due to the Frightful Four dying but that's hardly a reason these days to deem a story non-canon.

The other Startling Stories: the Thing is canon.

Let's look at these "deaths" :
The Sandman is blown in his sandform when exploding an oil truck.
Absorbing Man is shattered while in glass form.
Trapster is hit on the back by Absorbing Man's wrecking ball.
Wizard is used as a bludgon by Absorbing Man and heavily bleeding.

For Sandman and Absorbing Man, I don't need to point they survived similar events. Plus, in Fall of the Hulks: Alpha, the Intelligencia explained they kept reviving Sandman and Absorbing Man among others.

The narration by the Thing implies the other two die "I never liked Petruski. He was a lowlife and a coward. Still, it was a bad way to go."
"It took five or six shots before the Wizard stopped screaming. Then all that came out of him was blood. Creel went kill-happy after that, hammering away at me with the dead man's armor."

Jonathan Hickman established that the Wizard is growing clones of himself. Recently Dan Slott has the Wizard explain and prove in court that the Wizard who committed crimes was a clone. The point being that the Wizard that dies here could be a clone.

For Trapster we see glue coming from his canisters when he's hit so the glue could function like an airbag as well as seal open wounds. Then the Wizard's anti-gravity discs pull him away. If he's sent to a hospital by the discs, he can be treated and saved.

That was it for the deaths. Is there a possible chronological placement.

All the featured characters existed before 1966. Looking at the backgrounds, I saw representations of the blue furry Beast and the X-Man Colossus, which bring us past 1975.

The presence of the High Evolutionary among their past foes in issue 1 and his armor in issue three must mean we're past FF 173 (Aug 1976), when the FF first meet him.

Agatha Harkness is mentioned as Franklin's babysitter.

I'm inclined to put their appearance after their return from Counter-Earth during the ever-expanding FF 176 break.

At the end of the issue the Thing hopes for the stars to wink out and the art shows their number diminishing. The Star-Thief did just that in Warlock (June-August 1976). Since it can fit timewise, I serendipitously place them together. The writer Evan Dorkin (born in 1965) might have consciously or subconciously worked in elements from FF 173-177 (Galactus, High Evolutionary, Frightful Four) and Warlock 13-14 (stars disappearing) when composing his story.

The crisis between Ben and Alicia fits well with Ben having just become monstrous again at the start of FF 176. This leaves time for Trapster to recover from his ordeal.

The story is said to take place over two days. Pages 1-6 of issue 1 and pages 30-32 of issue 4 occur in the present and the rest is a flashback narrated by Ben.
TG:NFOYS 1-FB Thing FF Red Ghost Super-Apes Alicia Hazel Sandman
TG:NFOYS 2-FB FF Dragon Man Sandman
TG:NFOYS 3-FB Frightful Four Absorbing Man
TG:NFOYS 4-FB Frightful Four Absorbing Man
TG:NFOYS 1 Thing
TG:NFOYS 2-VO Thing
TG:NFOYS 3-VO Thing
TG:NFOYS 4 Thing Alicia

Suggested additions:
ABSORBING MAN
T 236
TG:NFOYS 2-FB
TG:NFOYS 3-FB
TG:NFOYS 4-FB
IH2 208

DONOVAN, HAZEL
TG:NFOYS 1-FB
TG:NFOYS 2-FB
TG:NFOYS 3-FB
TG:NFOYS 4-FB

DRAGON MAN
FF 136
TG:NFOYS 1-FB
CA 247

HARKNESS, AGATHA
A 137-FB
TG:NFOYS 1-FB-BTS
FF 181

HUMAN TORCH II/JONATHAN LOWELL SPENCER STORM
FF 176 (1 - 7:6)
TG:NFOYS 1-FB
TG:NFOYS 2-FB
M/TIO 21

IGOR
IM 83
TG:NFOYS 1-FB
FF 197

INVISIBLE GIRL/SUE STORM RICHARDS
FF 176 (1 - 7:6)
TG:NFOYS 1-FB
TG:NFOYS 2-FB
SVTU 5

MR. FANTASTIC/REED RICHARDS
FF 176 (1 - 7:6)
TG:NFOYS 1-FB
TG:NFOYS 2-FB
SVTU 5

MASTERS, ALICIA REISS
FF 171-BTS
TG:NFOYS 1-FB
TG:NFOYS 2-FB-BTS
TG:NFOYS 3-FB-BTS
TG:NFOYS 4
M/TIO 25
M/TIO 28
M/TIO 29
M/TIO 30
M/TIO 31
M/TIO 32
M/TIO 33
M/TIO 34-BTS
FF 177-BTS

MIKHLO
IM 83
TG:NFOYS 1-FB
FF 197

PEOTOR
IM 83
TG:NFOYS 1-FB
FF 197

RED GHOST/IVAN KRAGOFF
IM 83
TG:NFOYS 1-FB
FF 197

SANDMAN II/WILLIAM BAKER/"SYLVESTER MANN"/"FLINT MARKO"
ASM 154
TG:NFOYS 1-FB-OP
TG:NFOYS 2-FB
TG:NFOYS 3-FB
TG:NFOYS 4-FB
FF 176

THING II/MAJ. BENJAMIN J. GRIMM
FF 176 (1 - 7:6)
TG:NFOYS 1-FB
TG:NFOYS 2-FB
TG:NFOYS 3-FB
TG:NFOYS 4-FB
ASM 502-FB
TG:NFOYS 1
TG:NFOYS 2-VO
TG:NFOYS 3-VO
TG:NFOYS 4
M/TIO 21

TRAPSTER/PETER PETRUSKI
CA 191
TG:NFOYS 2-FB
TG:NFOYS 3-FB
TG:NFOYS 4-FB
FF 176

WIZARD/BENTLEY WITTMAN
FF 149-BTS
TG:NFOYS 2-FB
TG:NFOYS 3-FB
TG:NFOYS 4-FB
FF 176

It's set on Earth-36 per Marvel Encyclopedia: Fantastic Four.

Nevertheless the directors and members can decide for themselves. This story was not written as a What If? with a diverging point and can fit into continuity. I use primary material--comics--rather than secondary material--handbooks--to analyse stories. Even if that story could originally have appeared as non-canon in 2003, there have been developments since--Fall of the Hulks: Alpha, FF 570 and FF6 38--that might revise its classification.

If there was a Marvel Handbook Project somewhere, I would also post there to suggest a revision but this site isn't it and is unrelated to the Handbook staff.

But aside from Fall of the Hulks: Alpha, FF 570 and FF6 38 making it easier for the story to occur, there has been a Marvel story from late 2003 confirming the canonicity of TG:NFOYS. TG:NFOYS 4-FB (Sep 2003) was published shortly before the time JMS wrote the script for ASM 502 (Feb 2004).

In it there is a flashback, from when Captain Mar-Vell was alive, where the Thing explains to a tailor why he's nude, "I was just inna fight with these guys, then there was this blast and..." This looks to me like JMS vetting that Thing adventure and writing its aftermath. And as noted, the ending also matches the Star-Thief storyline in Warlock 13-14.

Originally before establishing the break to accomodate other FF appearances, the FF fought the Frightful Four (in the latter part of FF 176) right after returning from Counter-Earth. This placement restores a Frightful Four appearance after the FF's return.

Hazel Donovan is a name that comes from Power Man 26, May 1975, another noir story with a treasonous woman.

TG:NFOYS is steeped in mid-70s Marvel history.

You don't exclude from canon a multiple Eisner and Harvey award-winning writer chosen to write a Marvels Snapshots on early Fantastic Four.