Fantastic Four #2 SPOILERS

[JackDaw]

So, you're arguing that for a creator to let a universe develop on its own is irresponsible, and if the creator retains control over a universe they are responsible for its evils. Applied generally, you've just argued for God to be necessarily either irresponsible or evil.

No. I’m not against free will.

But I do believe creator has profound responsibility for initial design and creation of universe. If he can’t do it in a way that results in more joy than misery then he is wrong to create in first place.

Moving on from that initial creation, then I believe he has some responsibility to help and assist his creations when he can do that reasonably.

I see a clear analogy between a good creator and a good parent. A couple who know their kid may have a serious genetic illness have a clear responsibility to (at least) consider not having kids. And once you have kids..you have a responsibility to guide and help them, not “control” them.

[Crimz]

But the way that initial creation is made has to have a massive impact on how the universe concerned will turn out.

Unless Franklin has good reason to believe that majority of intelligent beings will have satisfying and fulfilling lives as opposed to lives full of misery and pain then he is doing a deeply immoral act.

And to me, it seems clear that Franklin is being written as a god, indeed more powerful than most. The only question is whether he’s a thoughtful and benevolent god, or one who won’t accept his responsibilities.

I’m not blaming Dan Slott or Jonathan Hickman for anything. I loved the Hickman run, and happy to wait to see how Dan Slott’s run turns out.

But I don’t really think Hickman’s run really did compel Slott to run with anything like this story line. He could just as easily have taken line that Franklin powers were severely depleted by some event..that restoring universes wasn’t an option..and run with a completely different story line.

No. I’m not against free will.

But I do believe creator has profound responsibility for initial design and creation of universe. If he can’t do it in a way that results in more joy than misery then he is wrong to create in first place.

Moving on from that initial creation, then I believe he has some responsibility to help and assist his creations when he can do that reasonably.

I see a clear analogy between a good creator and a good parent. A couple who know their kid may have a serious genetic illness have a clear responsibility to (at least) consider not having kids. And once you have kids..you have a responsibility to guide and help them, not “control” them.

He creates the universe to whole, that;'s his only obligation. That they work. The quality of life on those planets are up the denizens there, that is not his job. A dictator on a planet within one of his universes is not for him to overthrow, it's for the people on that planet to do.

The parent analogy isn't a good one as the universe isn't a child and the analogy is limited to human children. Many animals leave their young within days and by human standards that's horrible, but there lies the flaw. You can't apply human morals to animals and I say that the same can be said for creating universes. I say you create it and make sure everything is working and that's it. Job done. Any more interference would then be a problem.

I'm getting Philosophy class flashbacks lol. All of this is hypothetical anyway, we can't apply morality to something like this that we know nothing of and never will. I'm just going to go with how the book presents it as and there seems to be no moral dubiousness about it story-wise.

Slott had to write about this as this is where Hickman left the team. There would be lots of complaints if he just ignored it. It was even shown during Marvel Legacy one-shot. He just played the hand that was dealt to him. I doubt there is going to be a concrete answer to the morals of all this and that's fine.

[U.N. Owen]

What it also presents is where did Entropy come from when nothing existed after Secret Wars 2015 except Battleworld? Does she spontaneously come into being once a Multiverse is created, like Infinity gems must also have spontaneously sprung into existence? We have also seen Celestials in ANAD as well. Did Reed make sure they had to in ANAD? Then there’s Galactus. Was he a product of the Richards too? In fact any and all cosmic beings that we’ve seen so far, have to be have their existence plained in the ANAD.

You forget that Death and Oblivion survived the destruction of the multiverse and we have never seen what lies in the Beyonder Dimension other than the Beyonders themselves.

As for the moral implications of Franklin and Owen creating universes, I understand the moral implications. Why don't they just wipe out suffering and grief? Well, Own and Franklin's power to create is limited by their imaginations. Neither of them are omniscient. At best, they just took their knowledge of the old universes, built a template, and then modified the template from there.

[JackDaw]

He creates the universe to whole, that;'s his only obligation. That they work. The quality of life on those planets are up the denizens there, that is not his job. A dictator on a planet within one of his universes is not for him to overthrow, it's for the people on that planet to do.

The parent analogy isn't a good one as the universe isn't a child and the analogy is limited to human children. Many animals leave their young within days and by human standards that's horrible, but there lies the flaw. You can't apply human morals to animals and I say that the same can be said for creating universes. I say you create it and make sure everything is working and that's it. Job done. Any more interference would then be a problem.

I'm getting Philosophy class flashbacks lol. All of this is hypothetical anyway, we can't apply morality to something like this that we know nothing of and never will. I'm just going to go with how the book presents it as and there seems to be no moral dubiousness about it story-wise.

Slott had to write about this as this is where Hickman left the team. There would be lots of complaints if he just ignored it. It was even shown during Marvel Legacy one-shot. He just played the hand that was dealt to him. I doubt there is going to be a concrete answer to the morals of all this and that's fine.

Why was it his “obligation”? Nothing forced him to create..he could have refrained from doing so. Right there at the beginning he had a choice. That carried moral obligations.

And he should have discharged them by asking himself “If I do this, will it turn out well or badly?” He should have been diligent in his task..perhaps, for example, he should have used something like the Bridge to run simulations on how things were likely to turn out before bringing billions of people into existence.

If a full powered Franklin is not going to be used to explore questions like this...I struggle to see point of having character at all. But..you know my bias..I really, really wish he would be powered down.

[Username taken]

You forget that Death and Oblivion survived the destruction of the multiverse and we have never seen what lies in the Beyonder Dimension other than the Beyonders themselves.

As for the moral implications of Franklin and Owen creating universes, I understand the moral implications. Why don't they just wipe out suffering and grief? Well, Own and Franklin's power to create is limited by their imaginations. Neither of them are omniscient. At best, they just took their knowledge of the old universes, built a template, and then modified the template from there.

All the more reason IMO for them not to go beyond restoring the multiverse.

Why bring possibly trillions of life into an imperfect universe without a guiding hand?

It's too much of a responsibility for human beings.

[JackDaw]

All the more reason IMO for them not to go beyond restoring the multiverse.

Why bring possibly trillions of life into an imperfect universe without a guiding hand?

It's too much of a responsibility for human beings.

It’s all maybe a bit subjective..but I agree with you whole heartedly.

Let me put a question to those who argue that Franklin’s only moral responsibilty was whether or not to create a universe in first place, that after that he should..or even must..”walk away” and let things take their course.

Suppose things go really badly in one of those universes, and one of the people living there says to Franklin “You created this whole mess. You could have created a different universe, or refrained completely from creation. You have the power to help us now, please tell me why you have no responsibility to help now”...then how can it be a moral act for Franklin to do nothing to help??

And why would Franklin refuse to help? I thought the whole point of being a super hero was to help other people!

[Shalla Bal]

My favorite panel from this issue

Nice. Reed reminds me of Peter O'Toole (from Under Milkwood)

[JackDaw]

Nice. Reed reminds me of Peter O'Toole

I assume that’s an alcoholic beverage in the red mug, then.

[Strong Girl Daken]

I think it's kind of morally irresponsible to create all these worlds without any effort toward the welfare or security of their people. And the creation of some of these universes read as a kid's immature joke allowed by his parents. None of this makes me dislike this comic, in fact I really like it, but it makes me think twice about these characters' morality.

[vitruvian]

No. I’m not against free will.

But I do believe creator has profound responsibility for initial design and creation of universe. If he can’t do it in a way that results in more joy than misery then he is wrong to create in first place.

Moving on from that initial creation, then I believe he has some responsibility to help and assist his creations when he can do that reasonably.

I see a clear analogy between a good creator and a good parent. A couple who know their kid may have a serious genetic illness have a clear responsibility to (at least) consider not having kids. And once you have kids..you have a responsibility to guide and help them, not “control” them.

Can you make a case that the creator of the actual universe has done a better job in this regard than Franklin appears to have done? I'm not sure we see any evidence that Franklin has done any worse, at any rate.... we didn't see any instances of genocide in his universes prior to Entropy/Griever showing up, and it's not clear that she's a consequence of his initial design.

[vitruvian]

All the more reason IMO for them not to go beyond restoring the multiverse.

Why bring possibly trillions of life into an imperfect universe without a guiding hand?

It's too much of a responsibility for human beings.

To the extent that this is a true moral dilemma, doesn't it apply to restoring the old universes as well? After all, in the old or restored 616, everything sure isn't peaches and cream what with all the varied supervillains and the near world-ending events, many of them with severe casualties even when averted, that seem to crop up every other week. If they weren't capable of restoring it with some improvements like, say, removing, oh, Thanos and Roxxon and Malekith and a few other of the more prominent evils out there, was it really right to restore it at all? And conversely, if it was correct to restore the old universe, warts and all, then how would it be wrong to generate completely new universes even if they were similarly flawed?

[vitruvian]

It’s all maybe a bit subjective..but I agree with you whole heartedly.

Let me put a question to those who argue that Franklin’s only moral responsibilty was whether or not to create a universe in first place, that after that he should..or even must..”walk away” and let things take their course.

Suppose things go really badly in one of those universes, and one of the people living there says to Franklin “You created this whole mess. You could have created a different universe, or refrained completely from creation. You have the power to help us now, please tell me why you have no responsibility to help now”...then how can it be a moral act for Franklin to do nothing to help??

And why would Franklin refuse to help? I thought the whole point of being a super hero was to help other people!

It seems apparent from his and Valeria's actions in this issue that if their aid was requested, they would not in fact refuse to help. They not only try to preserve the universes from the outside of influence of Entropy/Griever, but right at the beginning they are in fact helping the denizens of a newly created (from their perspective, internally complex life has already evolved) universe with a local problem before moving on.

[vitruvian]

I think it's kind of morally responsible to create all these worlds without any effort toward the welfare or security of their people. And the creation of some of these universes read as a kid's immature joke allowed by his parents. None of this makes me dislike this comic, in fact I really like it, but it makes me think twice about these characters' morality.

'Without any effort toward the welfare or security" doesn't accurately describe their approach, as shown in the actual issue.

[Strong Girl Daken]

'Without any effort toward the welfare or security" doesn't accurately describe their approach, as shown in the actual issue.

What efforts does this comic show the FF making other than vague anthropology/scientific research?

[JackDaw]

Can you make a case that the creator of the actual universe has done a better job in this regard than Franklin appears to have done? I'm not sure we see any evidence that Franklin has done any worse, at any rate.... we didn't see any instances of genocide in his universes prior to Entropy/Griever showing up, and it's not clear that she's a consequence of his initial design.

You could make that argument, and you could be right. Obviously at this point we don’t know whether Franklin did a good job or not.

What I’ve mainly been arguing against is two notions. First that Franklin, Reed, etc didn’t have a profound moral responsibility right at the outset. I think it is self evident they did...what they were doing determines the fate of billions of others..they had a complete responsibility to do the best job possible.

The second notion is that having made that first decision, that they don’t have further moral decisions to make...that it’s somehow self evident that they must step aside and do nothing more.

I don’t see that as likely to be a valid moral choice...with the power they have they will be faced with a series of possibilities, with it sometimes being right to do nothing, but sometimes right to do something.

It’s likely to end up like the original Startrek, where Captain Kirk often found it right to ignore the Prime Directive of never interfering.

Put it this way..Marvel universe morality has one strong immovable pillar: “with power, comes responsibility”..and it’s clearly demonstrated over many adventures that the responsibility was the requirement to step forward and help others, rather than take no action.

That approach..step forward and do something has been the abiding creed of most of the key characters, not just Peter. In pages of early FF we saw a Watcher decide right course of action was to step forward and help, in spite of a code that said do nothing.

I think it would be surpassing strange if the “with power comes responsibility” became changed to “with infinite power, comes no responsibilty”.

And as I’ve often said..for my personal taste I’d like to see Franklin powered down. I don’t particularly want to read another FF run about moral dilemmas at a cosmic level..Hickman did that really well, but happy for next run to have a different tone.