Avengers 42 *Spoilers*

[jackolover]

In fact, I figured it was something like this. They wanted to destroy earth, but that apparently wasn't and couldn't be enough. They had to think further ahead since they were cut off from the super flow and needed a new home. (At least until they could fix the super flow and go back, I would suppose.)

So, being cut off from their super flow, and thereby forced to dwell in the same space as us lesser races, they naturally wanted to put their new home in order by making sure the animals were domesticated and/or in their cages. Animals being humans, Shi'ar, Kree, etcetera.

In their arrogance they underestimated the kind of resistance they were up against. And that's the story of them.

I got the impression the Builders were panicky because their precious super flow was suddenly destroyed, so they got in the most available transport to Rush across the Universe or Galaxy, to destroy Earth, whic is what the Incursions were targetted at. I don't think Builders were interested in the Galactic Council. They seemed very dry characters, the Builders. " Oh, the sky is falling. Let's destroy what is not holding the Sky up."

[ZNOP]

I remember that one time a villain summoned the Phoenix to Earth, in an Iron Man OGN, and it destroyed Earth. No special mutant restoring imperative there. It took Stark and a Doom Time Platform to restore the timeline where The Phoenix didn't destroy Earth. It seems since that OGN Phoenix has returned with a more sympathetic approach to Earth. So from Starks POV the approach of the Phoenix in AVX had a completely different impact on Tony than it did on Scott.

Can you be more specific as to what title/issue and or story arc you are referring to?

[jackolover]

Except you aren't reading what I wrote. I didn't say they would go undetected. I said that if they had gone straight for Earth, even if they were detected, even if some of the races they were passing by made attempts to attack them, they still wouldn't have faced nearly the opposition they dealt with by virtue of actually attacking and conquering all those planets, and things would have still gone much, much faster than taking the time out to do all that.

Maybe the Builders recognized political areas of space and knowing they would be challenged, just took the innitiative and attacked each political Homeworld as they came to them? Why wait for an ambush? Just bully your way to each Empire and move on.

[vitruvian]

I got the impression the Builders were panicky because their precious super flow was suddenly destroyed, so they got in the most available transport to Rush across the Universe or Galaxy, to destroy Earth, whic is what the Incursions were targetted at. I don't think Builders were interested in the Galactic Council. They seemed very dry characters, the Builders. " Oh, the sky is falling. Let's destroy what is not holding the Sky up."

Except the whole point is that they didn't rush towards Earth as quickly as they could, they spent a whole lot of time battling and conquering these other planets and galactic empires. You have to figure that, even if they had been attacked by every single race whose territory they infringed on along the way (even though they were an immense armada probably several times the size of the fleets of most of these empires, so might be thought best left alone as long as they weren't actually attacking), fending off these attacks and continuing along their path once any opposition had been crippled would have still been far quicker than actually spreading out to engage all these different fleets and conquer or destroy all these different planets.

And we can pretty quickly dispose of the idea that all these empires and races, or at least their homeworlds and centers of government, were in a perfectly straight line on the way to Earth. The Skrulls have at least the center of their empire in the Andromeda Galaxy, which is at about 35 degrees North as seen from Earth, while the Kree worlds are mainly in the Greater Magellanic Cloud, which can only be seen from the Southern hemisphere. We don't even need to get into the Shi'ar being in a totally different galaxy; with Skrulls to the North and Kree to the South, there isn't any straight line from any spot in space that will take you through the center of both territories on your way to Earth.

And even if part of their motivation was to set themselves up for housekeeping in a single universe, there would have been time enough for that after Earth was disposed of and the universe was (thought) safe from destruction any day now... first things first, after all.

[jackolover]

Can you be more specific as to what title/issue and or story arc you are referring to?

The OGN was called Iron Age, reprinting Iron Age Alpha, 1-3, and Omega, published around 2011, Just before Fear Itself.

[jackolover]

Except the whole point is that they didn't rush towards Earth as quickly as they could, they spent a whole lot of time battling and conquering these other planets and galactic empires. You have to figure that, even if they had been attacked by every single race whose territory they infringed on along the way (even though they were an immense armada probably several times the size of the fleets of most of these empires, so might be thought best left alone as long as they weren't actually attacking), fending off these attacks and continuing along their path once any opposition had been crippled would have still been far quicker than actually spreading out to engage all these different fleets and conquer or destroy all these different planets.

And we can pretty quickly dispose of the idea that all these empires and races, or at least their homeworlds and centers of government, were in a perfectly straight line on the way to Earth. The Skrulls have at least the center of their empire in the Andromeda Galaxy, which is at about 35 degrees North as seen from Earth, while the Kree worlds are mainly in the Greater Magellanic Cloud, which can only be seen from the Southern hemisphere. We don't even need to get into the Shi'ar being in a totally different galaxy; with Skrulls to the North and Kree to the South, there isn't any straight line from any spot in space that will take you through the center of both territories on your way to Earth.

And even if part of their motivation was to set themselves up for housekeeping in a single universe, there would have been time enough for that after Earth was disposed of and the universe was (thought) safe from destruction any day now... first things first, after all.

Not being familiar with intergalactic politics, I can only surmise the Builders had their own antiquated sense of gallantry by directly confronting potential political adversaries, before they made a nuisance of themselves. It could mean this galaxy or that Galaxy, because they have been out of the loop for a million years. Who knows what their sense of Justice entailed as against the modern Empires they just suddenly encountered in Infinity? Maybe it was etiquette to destroy and subjugate instead of just speed on by?

[Roundman]

Except the whole point is that they didn't rush towards Earth as quickly as they could, they spent a whole lot of time battling and conquering these other planets and galactic empires. You have to figure that, even if they had been attacked by every single race whose territory they infringed on along the way (even though they were an immense armada probably several times the size of the fleets of most of these empires, so might be thought best left alone as long as they weren't actually attacking), fending off these attacks and continuing along their path once any opposition had been crippled would have still been far quicker than actually spreading out to engage all these different fleets and conquer or destroy all these different planets.

And we can pretty quickly dispose of the idea that all these empires and races, or at least their homeworlds and centers of government, were in a perfectly straight line on the way to Earth. The Skrulls have at least the center of their empire in the Andromeda Galaxy, which is at about 35 degrees North as seen from Earth, while the Kree worlds are mainly in the Greater Magellanic Cloud, which can only be seen from the Southern hemisphere. We don't even need to get into the Shi'ar being in a totally different galaxy; with Skrulls to the North and Kree to the South, there isn't any straight line from any spot in space that will take you through the center of both territories on your way to Earth.

And even if part of their motivation was to set themselves up for housekeeping in a single universe, there would have been time enough for that after Earth was disposed of and the universe was (thought) safe from destruction any day now... first things first, after all.

Great post.

[ZNOP]

The OGN was called Iron Age, reprinting Iron Age Alpha, 1-3, and Omega, published around 2011, Just before Fear Itself.

Thanks... I'll get it tomorrow

[SickAlice]

The OGN was called Iron Age, reprinting Iron Age Alpha, 1-3, and Omega, published around 2011, Just before Fear Itself.

I really enjoyed Iron Age. Especially the old school X-men hat tips.

[ZNOP]

Just finished reading "The Iron Age", and I can say that it was a surprisingly good read.

[ShaokhaN]

The Builders wanted to destroy every Earth so that the multiverse might stabilize and the universes would live out a long lifespan.

This seems unlikely given the number of universes there were, but it's indeed still a possible explanation.

Clearly? How can you say that without a map? They travelled to a bunch of fictional places on their way to Earth...why would you say that it was not a straight line? The story says it is a straight line.

Like vitruvian explained in detail, we already know that those Galactic empires don't form a line leading to Earth. We've known this at least since the Kree-Skull war, precisely because Earth was an important contention point between the two empires.

[vitruvian]

Maybe the Builders recognized political areas of space and knowing they would be challenged, just took the innitiative and attacked each political Homeworld as they came to them? Why wait for an ambush? Just bully your way to each Empire and move on.

Why? Because while you're doing that, an Incursion could happen, and they're dead.

What's so difficult about the concept of first things first?

[vitruvian]

Not being familiar with intergalactic politics, I can only surmise the Builders had their own antiquated sense of gallantry by directly confronting potential political adversaries, before they made a nuisance of themselves. It could mean this galaxy or that Galaxy, because they have been out of the loop for a million years. Who knows what their sense of Justice entailed as against the modern Empires they just suddenly encountered in Infinity? Maybe it was etiquette to destroy and subjugate instead of just speed on by?

Etiquette over survival? After all, every Incursion stood a reasonable chance of ending the universe, with the Builders no longer having a means to escape the universe...

I suppose it can all work if we find out that the Builders had some very good reason for assuming they had a lot of time before the Incursions would truly threaten the existence of the universe, but absent an excellent knowledge of what was going on on Earth with the Illuminati and the nature of the next dozen Incursions that were going to hit Earth-616, I don't really see how they could be confident of that. Almost everything I think of in this regard seems like something they could easily have used as a failsafe even when it started to look like they might be defeated... things like having a backdoor remote control built into all Starbrands, so that if things got iffy they'd just have Starbrand destroy the planet. The best I can think of is that they did have some such failsafe, but were unable to activate it before the awakened Captain Universe took them out... but even that makes little sense considering how they were able to command the Alephs to go on a full-out rampage. But if the Alephs were the failsafe, why didn't we see that at least a few dozen of them were sent directly towards Earth?

[hawkeyefan]

Like vitruvian explained in detail, we already know that those Galactic empires don't form a line leading to Earth. We've known this at least since the Kree-Skull war, precisely because Earth was an important contention point between the two empires.

Sure, but that was before the destruction of the home world by Galactus and the subsequent fall of the Skrull Empire. At this point, the Skrukls were scattered and were living on random planets with different groups headed by different warlords. The Builders destroyed one or more of these worlds, which is why the Skrulls became involved.

It was only because of the events from Infinity that they re-established a homeworld. I don't think that any of their refuge planets or their eventual homeworld are given coordinates or anything more specific to locate them. Other than that they are along the way to Earth.

Why? Because while you're doing that, an Incursion could happen, and they're dead.

What's so difficult about the concept of first things first?

First thing's first would be to arrive at your destination with enough strength to do what you want.

Etiquette over survival? After all, every Incursion stood a reasonable chance of ending the universe, with the Builders no longer having a means to escape the universe...

I suppose it can all work if we find out that the Builders had some very good reason for assuming they had a lot of time before the Incursions would truly threaten the existence of the universe, but absent an excellent knowledge of what was going on on Earth with the Illuminati and the nature of the next dozen Incursions that were going to hit Earth-616, I don't really see how they could be confident of that. Almost everything I think of in this regard seems like something they could easily have used as a failsafe even when it started to look like they might be defeated... things like having a backdoor remote control built into all Starbrands, so that if things got iffy they'd just have Starbrand destroy the planet. The best I can think of is that they did have some such failsafe, but were unable to activate it before the awakened Captain Universe took them out... but even that makes little sense considering how they were able to command the Alephs to go on a full-out rampage. But if the Alephs were the failsafe, why didn't we see that at least a few dozen of them were sent directly towards Earth?

They did have such a system. Ex Nihilo changed the Earth and a signal was immediately sent to the Builders. However, Ex Nihilo's origin sites were tampered with and the "brain" was destroyed.

It is not stated explicitly in the story, but it is implied. They lose control of the Origin Sites and the related meta-humans created by them because of the destruction of the brain.

[Del torro]

Back in the day, Earth was of strategic importance because there was a star gate nearby. One if the things I liked about Infinity was that it seemed like the first story that acknowledged that Earth routinely whoops on everyone else in the galaxy and started having other empires act like that was the case.

I think in xmen forever where Jean talked to death and eternity, and they said humans were destined to evolve into eternity or something. Meh, no one remembers that stuff