Is villainy defined solely on one's actions? Or does intent play a role? Namor > Red Skull?

[dkrook]

I wonder if the same folks that support Namor would feel the same about Bishop

[Imraith Nimphais]

Excellent question.

I think intent matters, but only so far. Many of the best villains in fiction have very noble intentions, or at least noble aspirations. Lex Luthor and Doctor Doom both want to rule the world (in part) because they believe they're the best suited for the job and they have some solid evidence to prove they're right. Lex wants to see humanity reach its utmost potential, and that aspect of his motivation is quite noble. Its his methods and everything else about his motivations that make him a villain.

Namor....if he's a villain then so am I. He's been put into an impossible situation where the countless lives of two entire universes hang on his choices. He's not killing worlds because he wants to. He's killing worlds to save universes, and put in the same situation, where no other options have worked or presented themselves, I'd likely do the same thing (or at least intent to; who knows if I could bring myself to pull the trigger?)

I could not have said it better.

[Ascended]

Okay has it been explained why they don't work with the other earths too find a solution?

To add to what was said on this particular topic, the Incursions dont last very long either, a few hours and that's it. As was seen with the JLA analogues the Great Society, talking is all well and good until everyone comes back around to the idea that for two universes to live, one earth has to die. That puts a pretty heavy "us vs. them" mentality on things. And with mere hours to work with....its a lot of stress and very little time to work out a solution to a problem that is cosmically complex. I'd like to think we'll see that in the end and diplomacy and cooler heads will prevail, but there's not a lot of time to make that sort of progress happen.

As for evacuating the earth....I've wondered the same thing, but look at how hard it is trying to evacuate a single town. Consider the millions of people who would refuse to believe the Illuminati, those who wouldnt care and would refuse to leave anyway, and then think about all those who would panic, those who would take advantage of that panic, the super villains who would run rampant given the chance, the logistics of moving not just the people but the property, trying to establish new national borders and the ownership of new land.....I think the idea hasn't been brought up because the Illuminati know it wouldn't work. If they wanted to go that route, their best chance would be to teleport every single being on earth, at once, to that phased planet the future Avengers shot through time and then hope people can work out the details before the human race kills itself in one giant, mass riot. And I dont think even this group could pull that kind of mass transition off.

[Ascended]

I wonder if the same folks that support Namor would feel the same about Bishop

Well, I didnt really follow that whole "Bishop tries to kill Hope" story until it came to a head, but I think I know the general plotline. Of course, not knowing the details means my opinion isnt rock solid. My opinion here is fairly ill-informed.

But.

In this, its a bit different. With the Illuminati, there's a clear and obvious threat. The Incursions are absolutely happening, and if they run their natural course it will absolutely destroy two realities. With Bishop, he was trying to prevent a possible future. If I understand the basics of time travel in the MU correctly, both Bishop's and Cable's futures (among countless others) are each equally possible, but neither is certain, much like a certain cat in a box. So I find Bishop's methods a little less forgivable. There's nothing saying that his particular future will come to pass in this particular timeline, and Cable and Spider-Man 2099 and a billion other time travelers all prove that Bishop's future isnt the only option.

[Juggernaut Punch]

Okay has it been explained why they don't work with the other earths too find a solution?

How would they possibly do that? They have a window of a few hours to do something before both universes die. So they'd have to go around looking for people on the other Earth that's are in a position to do something, and then gamble that that person wouldn't just kill them or destroy their Earth. Besides, who could they possibly get to find a solution?

As Reed remarks in like, the second issue, if there was a permanent solution for the incursions, then it would have already been found, given the infinite multiverses. That was reinforced in the latest Avengers issue, wherein incursions are still taking place towards the end of time, and no one, not Kang/Immortus/Iron Lad, not Future Franklin, not Mega-Ultron or the Super Avengers, no one, has found a solution or even know what's causing them. And that's the case across the entire multiverse.

[Juggernaut Punch]

I wonder if the same folks that support Namor would feel the same about Bishop

The situations aren't really the same.

Bishop nuked innocents to kill someone because he thought it would save his future and because he thought their realities would be undone if he could alter the past. But that's impossible, because the past can't be altered that way. Those realities were as real as his own, and even if he did kill Hope, his future would still be a **** hole, and all the people he killed would still be dead. It wouldn't undo anything, it'd just lead to a different future on Earth-616.

Namor is destroying Earths to save universes. He's getting concrete results, saving countless lives (albeit by taking lives), whereas Bishop was simply taking lives with no hope of undoing the damage or saving people as he believed.

[dragonmp93]

I wonder if the same folks that support Namor would feel the same about Bishop

Well, how long i know, by trying to kill Hope, he end up creating the exact same destroyed future that he was trying to avert by killing her.

[Mark]

If there is no permanent solution then the multiverse is doomed and the Illuminati and now the Cabal are just prolonging the end. A pointless, useless endeavor unless you accept the idea that in all the multiverse only the Illuminati are smart enough to figure out what is going on and stop it, or have a chance at stopping it. I can't think of any supervillain with that level of arrogance.
If you're intention is to kill me and save a life I can see that, if you're intention is to kill me just to purchase with my death a few more hours for the ones you love I might be able to see that, if you're someone like Namor or even Dr. Doom. But really, 8 hours more? 480 minutes. 28, 800 seconds. That's all my death is going to buy you? That's all my life and everything I love is worth? So for you to have that time I and everything I love has to die right away, no options, no mercy, you'll kill me painfully if object.

I really find it hard to think that the selfish motivation to spend just a little more time with the ones you love -when could all wait and go together since there is no hope according to the greatest mind there has ever been- quite rises to the level you need to be a good guy. It meets the standards of villainy though.

How would they possibly do that? They have a window of a few hours to do something before both universes die. So they'd have to go around looking for people on the other Earth that's are in a position to do something, and then gamble that that person wouldn't just kill them or destroy their Earth. Besides, who could they possibly get to find a solution?

As Reed remarks in like, the second issue, if there was a permanent solution for the incursions, then it would have already been found, given the infinite multiverses. That was reinforced in the latest Avengers issue, wherein incursions are still taking place towards the end of time, and no one, not Kang/Immortus/Iron Lad, not Future Franklin, not Mega-Ultron or the Super Avengers, no one, has found a solution or even know what's causing them. And that's the case across the entire multiverse.

[Midnight_v]

The Illuminati and now the Cabal are just prolonging the end. A pointless, useless endeavor unless you accept the idea that in all the multiverse only the Illuminati are smart enough to figure out what is going on and stop it, or have a chance at stopping it.

Well to be fair... there's more than 1 Illuminati at work on the same problem, there's also swans doing whatever they do, and since its a MULTIVERSAL problem, by your logic it seems that the thing to do is exactly "buy time till "We" or a smarter version of "We" or a version of "SOMEONE" figures out how to stop it.

[wunderpanda]

Intent matters, Skull kills those he hates, not sure if Namor hates the alternate Earths.

Why are the Illuminati and Cabal the only groups that know about this anyway? Forge has a dimensional viewer, there are omniversal Captain Britains, there are the time brokers that sent the Exiles everywhere, there is the M'kraan crystal and Nexus guardians, but nobody else knows? All the time travellers like Cable, Bishop, Iron Lad and Kang never noticed something like an incursion? Besides, wouldn't the deletion of an alternate Earth simply create a new timeline, a *what if Earth XXXX wasn't destroyed by Reed & Stark bombs* reality?

[Mark]

But if Juggernaut Punch is right there is no hope if Reed says that there isn't.

A lot of it of course is that I don't think Hickman wants hope. Not in this story. I think he wants the kind of burning down the house story where he can show just how pathetic the heroes are, how clueless and in the end how selfish they are by blowing up or letting the rest of the multiverse be blown up by the Cabal just so long as what they love is safe, in direct contradiction to how they've always been portrayed. I think he wants them torn up the roots and left to rot in the hot sun to demonstrate some point about arrogance being humbled.

Well to be fair... there's more than 1 Illuminati at work on the same problem, there's also swans doing whatever they do, and since its a MULTIVERSAL problem, by your logic it seems that the thing to do is exactly "buy time till "We" or a smarter version of "We" or a version of "SOMEONE" figures out how to stop it.

[MyriVerse]

To add to what was said on this particular topic, the Incursions dont last very long either, a few hours and that's it. As was seen with the JLA analogues the Great Society, talking is all well and good until everyone comes back around to the idea that for two universes to live, one earth has to die. That puts a pretty heavy "us vs. them" mentality on things. And with mere hours to work with....its a lot of stress and very little time to work out a solution to a problem that is cosmically complex. I'd like to think we'll see that in the end and diplomacy and cooler heads will prevail, but there's not a lot of time to make that sort of progress happen.

There's no reason to wait for an Incursion. They can talk to multiple other Earths, continuously, before one of these even starts.

As for the topic: Intent matters, but a bad thing is still a bad thing, even if done for good reasons. And morality is never, ever an end-sum game. Just because more people survive from an act doesn't make that act morally cool. Namor still committed genocide, and that tarnishes his soul, and that in turn makes his universe worse. His universe would have been better off dying.

[Mr. Hostility]

Intent matters, Skull kills those he hates, not sure if Namor hates the alternate Earths.

Why are the Illuminati and Cabal the only groups that know about this anyway? Forge has a dimensional viewer, there are omniversal Captain Britains, there are the time brokers that sent the Exiles everywhere, there is the M'kraan crystal and Nexus guardians, but nobody else knows? All the time travellers like Cable, Bishop, Iron Lad and Kang never noticed something like an incursion? Besides, wouldn't the deletion of an alternate Earth simply create a new timeline, a *what if Earth XXXX wasn't destroyed by Reed & Stark bombs* reality?

The incursions have been shown to be an unprecedented event in the multiverse, past and present. Something broke with the system of existence and now almost all the rules of space, time and the universe are kinda out the window. Other great minds of other Earths know about it. But so far they've come up with as much as Earth 616's crew. Which is about zip.

[Imraith Nimphais]

I wonder if the same folks that support Namor would feel the same about Bishop

I support Namor.

I do not support Bishop.

Because quite frankly, the reasons given (by the writer(s)) for Bishop's genocidal pursuit of Hope (a character I despise, btw) make absolutely no sense wot-so-ever and amounted to blatant and deliberate character assassination.

[Mr. Hostility]

I wonder if the same folks that support Namor would feel the same about Bishop

I do simply for the fact that we're talking about two different time frames. Bishop's whole argument was that Hope might trigger a mutant holocaust in the future many years from now. Namor is literally watching another Earth speeding towards his own. Bishop had a greater amount of time to avert his disaster and therefore had more options available to him. Plus, given Cable's account that Hope would have a beneficial affect on his own timeline everyone was sure there was another way. Just raise her right and everything would be cool. Either way, there was time to avert the disaster.

With the incursions there is no time, and no one has an answer. Either do this right now or everything dies in the next few hours. The only thing you can do is buy time to figure it out.