New Avengers #23 (spoilers)

[Anarchist]

How would you guys change the Cabal line up?

Add Doom and Magneto.

[Darthkostis]

Add Doom and Magneto.

I'd add Apocalypse, Magneto, Doom, Old Loki, Zemo and maybe Kang and Dormammu. It'd be a huge roster but it'd be bad-ass to see.

[Vic Vega]

Lol, that's all Maximus needs to hear.

On the other hand, Maximus will have an excuse to build new and innovative weapons of planetary destruction for the rest of his life.

I'm not sure he'd want to fix the Incursion problem even if he could.

[MichaelAngel0]

Nope, no guarantees. When you try to save both lives you have to accept the possibility that you'll fail. If you are unwilling to take the easy, quick shot and kill the elephant than you have to accept that you might fail to save both. But species loyalty aside what makes the boy's life more valuable than the elephants?

Any number of reasons, but for this situation let's say it's his young sibling, or someone akin to that.

[DrTraveler]

That's still pretty bad.

WHAT ABOUT THE ALWAYS RELIABLE BUTLER WONG?!?!

The problem for the Illuminati has always been that the actual Incursion takes priority, time and resources that you need in order to attack the root cause. You're always putting out fires and never addressing the source of the problem. The logical thing to do is to either evacuate and destroy our Earth to get out of the game, or write it and this universe off in the hopes of finding a way to save them all. Trying to save your own Earth (at the cost of other Earths) repeatedly is it's own trap. Given where we've seen Strange at as a character, I could totally see him going at the source and leaving this Earth behind.

[MichaelAngel0]

Add Doom and Magneto.

Add Adult Apocalypse after he returns during AXIS. Plus, Old Loki, Magneto, Doom and Dormammu.

That's a packed house....and there seams to be only, at most, seven chairs....

[MouserGrey]

Except this clearly wasn't their last moments. That's what they THOUGHT... but it turned out they clearly have more moments left. That may or may not be true the next time around, but the point being the Illuminati just accepted it this time and were wrong.

Maybe they'll be wrong the next time as well, and the time after that. Namor chose NOT to just lie down and die, and because of that he didn't. That's of course no gurantee that he'll suceed every time. The only true gurantee is that they will fail if they don't try like the Illuminati decided to do.

Precisely. And how long do you go on destroying other earths until your own just dies? How many days, since the incursions seem to be coming a couple time a day now, can you keep destroying planets until too tired or to disillusioned. A week? Two? What would be the point if you have no time to search for another solution? I don't know that the incursions will keep coming quite that fast, but Hickman has hinted at it.

[XPac]

I think if Thanos finds out what can cause an incursion he'll start thinking of doing them on his own.

He might, but that's actually still a net gain. Because then the heroes have something to actually fight. It no longer becomes a matter of dealing with the moral dilema of murdering billions... it becomes a straight foreward matter of kicking a super villains behind. I'm sure any of the heroes will take that in a heart beat.

[Mark]

Any number of reasons, but for this situation let's say it's his young sibling, or someone akin to that.

Parameters still apply then. Do you go for the sure quick kill and live with the elephants death or do you trust your skill and find another way? Until you are in that situation there's really no way to say.

[MouserGrey]

Just like Swan is doing, riding the wheel to the end. the Illuminati are not going to find a solution and neither is anyone they ask for help. Hickman is exploring the morals of these characters in a no win situation. They all know there is no solution, including Namor. In fact, Namor realized this before the others. The others just realized it last issue. Namor is just riding the wheel along with the Swan. Sooner or later he will sacrifice 616 just like all the other realities heroes viewed through the mirror. Destroy to many worlds and sooner or later you don't really care about your own. Destroy to many lives and soon you don't care about your own. That is going to be shown in the story I predict.

[MichaelAngel0]

Parameters still apply then. Do you go for the sure quick kill and live with the elephants death or do you trust your skill and find another way? Until you are in that situation there's really no way to say.

I guess we can agree on that, though it's hard to say one wouldn't choose their younger sibling over a rampaging elephant.

[chaosfist]

But isn't this inaction from the others again? And yes, going on the planet to kill everyone before destroying the world is something else and Namor bears guilt for that.



Sacrificing everything for the sake of survival does not automatically equate to a heel. We'll just disagree on that point.

Well there was an anti-matter bomb in the background on that last page so everything was going to die anyhow. I think what the op was saying was the slaughter they were engaged in was unnecessary. They said in one issue that the vast majority of incursions end with both worlds being destroyed without anyone knowing what happened. Now if the other earth had heroes/mapmakers/black preists that knew about the incursions and were at the incursion point then that may be who the Cabal is killing. However if they are just slaughtering people for the hell of it that would be different and its something I wouldnt rule out considering Thanos and company are now involved.

[DrTraveler]

Precisely. And how long do you go on destroying other earths until your own just dies? How many days, since the incursions seem to be coming a couple time a day now, can you keep destroying planets until too tired or to disillusioned. A week? Two? What would be the point if you have no time to search for another solution? I don't know that the incursions will keep coming quite that fast, but Hickman has hinted at it.

Yep. And there's something I think folks are missing. When your life bread is your mental ingenuity, then your state of mind can very much impact your ability to function. After what happened with the Great Society I can't imagine that Reed, Bruce, Hank, Tony, et. al. were in any frame of mind to find a solution in 8 hours. Sure they could take down the next planet, and the next, etc, but if the Incursions were going to start happening that fast they'd never find a permanent solution and they'd never get back to a mindset that would let them find a way out.

I still think the Illuminati will find a way out of this mess (though knowing Hickman it won't involve putting boot to face). But they wouldn't have found it in the next 8 hour incursion. With the Cabal in play, they can move past what happened, change mental state, and get down to the brass tacks of the underlying problem.

If we're making guesses about it all ends, I'm guessing that in the end, in the very very end, the Avengers fail and the Rogue Planet ends up bailing them out of the game. The Incursions go on, but with the 616 removed from the part of the multiverse infected. This story isn't feeling like it's going to end in triumph. This ultimately is feeling like a classical tragedy.

[Anarchist]

I'd add Apocalypse, Magneto, Doom, Old Loki, Zemo and maybe Kang and Dormammu. It'd be a huge roster but it'd be bad-ass to see.

APocalypse and Dormammu?
Those 2 guys are pure evil, no way they'll ever cooperate^^
Hell, Apocalypse would probably applaud the destruction, because of his *Survival of the fittest* and all.
Dormammu would probably also cheer, he can chill and watch from the dark dimension when Earth finally goes boom.

Kang, Loki and Zemo though?
I could see that.

[XPac]

Just like Swan is doing, riding the wheel to the end. the Illuminati are not going to find a solution and neither is anyone they ask for help. Hickman is exploring the morals of these characters in a no win situation. They all know there is no solution, including Namor. In fact, Namor realized this before the others. The others just realized it last issue. Namor is just riding the wheel along with the Swan. Sooner or later he will sacrifice 616 just like all the other realities heroes viewed through the mirror. Destroy to many worlds and sooner or later you don't really care about your own. Destroy to many lives and soon you don't care about your own. That is going to be shown in the story I predict.

No one knows there isn't a solution... that's merely something some characters may choose to be believe and some may not. It's not like Hickman himself teleported himself into the book to tell the characters that they are gonna fail.

They don't know for sure they will suceed or fail here anymore than they do in the dozens of other times the world or universe or multiverse were in peril. There's no way they can know.