Is Nextwave considered semi-canon?

[LordAllMIghty]

I was reading an old issue of Nextwave and I saw this...

Screenshot_20220911-130029_Chrome.jpg

Made me wonder if Ellis was gonna make Monica a mutant. I know her time in Nextwave is iffy but I'm not 100% against this idea.

[gurkle]

It was in sort of a limbo between canon and not canon, I think. Ellis was not writing it as if everything had to be canon. Especially in the flashbacks, which are jokes.

In other words, Ellis wasn't trying to make a change to Monica's backstory here, he was just getting a laugh, like the flashbacks in "Family Guy" aren't meant to be taken literally.

[Alan2099]

The current explanation is that it's "canon" but some of the things you saw were just memory implants or the results of mental manipulation and some of the character were actually counterparts from an alternate reality that snuck into this one and were pretending they were the originals.

[DigiCom]

At first it wasn't canon, but various writers were amused by it, so elements snuck into other stories.

Then, Al Ewing (in Captain America and the Mighty Avengers #6) had this happen:





The last I checked, this was still canon.

[LordAllMIghty]

In a weird way I would love to see this be true.

[Grapeweasel]

It's completely canon.

It's everything else you should question.

[JudicatorPrime]

Ewing states it's, indeed, canon. But do remember that we're talking about Beyonders, who have nigh-limitless abilities to create both highly immersive illusions and warp reality. They can create pocket dimensions where everything happened in Nextwave really did happen to those affected. Just as they created a reality where Dr. Doom believed that he had killed all of the Beyonders when he really didn't.

[JudicatorPrime]

Made me wonder if Ellis was gonna make Monica a mutant. I know her time in Nextwave is iffy but I'm not 100% against this idea.

If I correctly understand Ewing's latest revelation in Defenders Beyond and deducing a bit from what was shown in his Ultimates run, Monica is likely half Omega Servitor (Beyonder). I gather that is why Beyond Corp has taken such a sadistic interest in her. Maybe she's always been a demi-Beyonder bound in a mortal form until the "accident" that unlocked her electromagnetic powers? Who knows?

Personally, I prefer that Marvel explore those Celestial/Beyonder possibilities than simply make Monica a mutant. The mutant family already has enough powerful, cool, awesome women characters. Let the cosmic side have one or two to themselves.