New Avengers 33 *spoilers*

[JKtheMac]

The solicitation for Secret Wars #5 that mentions Owen Reece makes me fear we actually aren't finding out until July.

Well it's only a minor issue really. It may not even be explained fully.

If it is addressed then it would suggest that at some point during Secret Wars Hickman will be sorting out the whole connection between cosmic cubes and Molecule Man. Maybe even implying that the cosmic cube is part of the fuse mechanism. The juggling cubes have been pulled from the dead Molecule Men. Somthing seems to be falling out of Doom's box and I would hazard a guess that it wouldn't be a pile of corpses numbering in the billions for taste reasons. Billions of cosmic cubes would certainly make sense.

P.S. This issue may be all the implication necessary. The idea fits the events.

[JKtheMac]

Thinking about it. If we break this whole Beyonder + Molecule Man = Comic Cube thing down into a simple equation maybe cosmic cubes are the result of interation between Molecule Man and "The Beyond". Such that the event in old continuity (which was frankly quite bizarre) is just an example of a more fundamental phenomenon.

[Biclopcicle]

Thinking about it. If we break this whole Beyonder + Molecule Man = Comic Cube thing down into a simple equation maybe cosmic cubes are the result of interation between Molecule Man and "The Beyond". Such that the event in old continuity (which was frankly quite bizarre) is just an example of a more fundamental phenomenon.

If we can take anything from that issue #4 (or #5!) Cover, it looks like Doom, Reece, and Child Beyonder are depicted. Its not totally clear if that's Reece though. At any rate, if that's the case it would suggest they're going to get into the connection between Reece and Beyonder, which up to this point was two halves of a cosmic cube. Would be interesting to see if Hickman does indeed tackle this and if so, how

[Biclopcicle]

To be fair, we don't really know for sure if the individual universes die if their Molecule Men die early. It would be nice if Hickman clarified this point, but I suspect he's moved on from this part of the story. It is at least conceivable that a Molecule Man's universe only dies if that Molecule Man goes off because of the 'fuse' lit within him, not if he's snuffed out in some other manner. It's conceivable, as some have suggested, that Doom and the Swans are harvesting the energy of the 'bombs' for later use against the Beyonders.

However, that does leave us without an explicit explanation as to why killing enough of them sets off the Incursions. Having been introduced so recently to all the universes, it's not like their presence would be integral to those universes or the multiverse, such that their absence should in itself (i.e., without their universes going with them) have any impact on the timeline of the multiverse as a whole. If the universes do go with them (albeit not immediately, rendering them more metaphorical than literal 'bombs'), that would tie in better to Reed's oft-repeated spiel about the early death of a universe (not a person) triggering the Incursions, making it inaccurate only in that somewhat more than a thousand realities needed to snuff it before the 'vacuum' of their absence started crushing other universes together.

But the whole thing about the Beyonders seeing the first dead Molecule Man (and presumably the remainder of them as well) right away, but not figuring out that 'something was very wrong' until 10 years in to the culling of Molecule Men, so three years in with Incursions happening.... that's the case whether those universes died pretty quickly with their Molecule Men (just not soon enough to disallow examination of the crime scene), or not. Both interpretations paint the Beyonders as being just about as oblivious to things. Sure, whole universes going missing might be a bit more conspicuous (although they get culled by the Omniversal Guardian and others pretty frequently too, according to other stories), but on the other hand, the Molecule Men are the Beyonders' special bombs now, so their death alone would be seen as damaging to the experiment.

True. That exchange with Doom and MM, "but that's not what happened. I killed him and nothing happened" "sure it did." What exactly happened is neither depicted or explicitly verbalized. Hickman could have clarified this. If the weapon he created is in fact tied to the death of MM, then we may get some light shed on the issue.

[Biclopcicle]

Yeah, it does seem like the Beyonders wanted to blow up the Multiverse with MM's in one big KAPOW. But that Doom and the Swans just wanted to destroy the Multiverse in a controlled collapse, with Incursions. When the Beyonders discovered Dooms location and went there, it triggered Doom to attack the Beyonders, causing a sudden collapse of all the remaining Universes except a couple of dozen, for some reason. Maybe for Hickmans dramatic effect. I don't know why the collapse stopped just before the end. Certainly, I can't imagine the Beyonders wanting to create another Battleworld if their plan was to instantaneously destroy the whole Multiverse at once.

But are we in agreement the Incursions couldn't have started until MOLECULE MEN were created simultaneously in Fantastic Four #20, (so practically the whole Silver Age onwards)?

There's no indication the the mapmakers or the Beyonders found Doom. Which is odd because you'd think if the Beyonders can't observe him, shouldn't they go to a place they know is unobservable, namely the library of worlds? Agree with above posters that the Beyonders don't seem like they've got their head in the game

[JKtheMac]

If we can take anything from that issue #4 (or #5!) Cover, it looks like Doom, Reece, and Child Beyonder are depicted. Its not totally clear if that's Reece though. At any rate, if that's the case it would suggest they're going to get into the connection between Reece and Beyonder, which up to this point was two halves of a cosmic cube. Would be interesting to see if Hickman does indeed tackle this and if so, how

Yes but the more I think about it, the events of FF 319 dont really fit the equation of "2 halves of a cosmic cube" for a start the universe they happend to be in was an entire universe that was also The Beyonder. Later when they started to retcon Molecule Man they made the equation:

Molecule Man + Beyonder > Cosmic Cube > Kosmos + Molecule Man > Molecule Man + Beyonder + Catatonic Kosmos

It dosent seem like these things are quite equivalent.

It seems like Hickam is resisting the temptation to retcon this stuff in a big sweeping way. Instead he is subtly changing the equations. Now we have:

Molecule Man + The Beyonders' Fuse + Beyonder (in his universe) > Cosmic Cube

That changes things up a bit. It puts the old continuity in a different light without sweeping it all away.

[vitruvian]

But are we in agreement the Incursions couldn't have started until MOLECULE MEN were created simultaneously in Fantastic Four #20, (so practically the whole Silver Age onwards)?

More than that, we know now that the Incursions didn't start until over a thousand Molecule Men had been assassinated. Whether the mechanism by which their deaths kicked off the Incursions was by their universes going with them and therefore creating a void into which further universes started to crash (so similar to Reed's explanation at the beginning of many issues of this title), or if those universes persisted and their deaths caused the Incursions more directly by some unknown mechanism, we can't be absolutely certain, but neither the Big (Ending) Bang desired by the Beyonders nor the current situation with the Incursions could have come to pass prior to FF #20 with the creation of Molecule Man (Men).

[vitruvian]

Here is where I disagree. When the first mm lays down to be sacrificed he says " he is the light". Being called the light in literature almost always symbolizes something great. Now remember the mm was sane when he said that. He said that to illustrate how important he is. He then goes on to say how he is unique in the multiverse. He is one man split into infinite parts. He also creates the idea for a manifold in each universe. He even says that he has the power to destroy the multiverse ( i think he was referring to his simultaneous detonation there.) This is all said to show how unique and important he is. We are talking about the killing of thousands of beings with near infinite power all LINKED throughout the multiverse. I have to think that killing thousands of beings like this will have an effect on the multiverse. That affect is incursions. Not the early death of a universe. That is the effect of the incursions. Hickman even goes on to say in avengers 32 "space time is an organism made up of universes. It exists like we do and evolves just like we do. In response to our environment." The incursions are a response by space time to killing mm. One last thing about the mm causing the early death of a universe. Why would the beyonders build something capable of doing that? Wouldn't that be contrary to their mission?

All of these universes and the multiverse as a whole existed for billions of years before there were any Molecule Men, though, and they weren't crashing into each other in Incursions during that period. The Beyonders introduced them to the universes quite recently, on the order of 13 years ago, at the time of FF #20, remember. Therefore, their absence alone doesn't seem like something that would affect the multiverse as a whole, unless as 'bombs' with a 25 year fuse, they take their universes with them whenever they happen to go off.

That point also answers your last question... if they want a set of bombs capable of taking out the multiverse when they all go off at once, then they need to make bombs capable of taking out their individual universes when they go off. If each MM can't take out its universe, then the aggregate of all MMs can't take out the multiverse.... and nowhere in the dialogue does Owen say that the MM bombs can only go off when they all go off at once. On the contrary, he says the Beyonders want to see what happens if/when they all go off at once, and he and Doom set out to monkey wrench that experiment. So, if an MM isn't capable of causing the early death of a single universe, then they can't serve their intended function.

But my main point is that since the Molecule Men were introduced to the multiverse and their individual universes very, very recently, in an infinitesimal fraction of the total time those universes have existed since the Big Bang, they can't logically be personifications of abstract forces that need to exist in order for those universes to exist and function properly. The only way I can see the addition and then the removal of this added topping to the existing sundae of the multiverse shortening its time before melting is in the context of their intended function as 'bombs'.

[vitruvian]

Hickman always gives us enough information to get to a conclusion. I agree with you. The removal of someone like the Molecule man would cause the multiverse to react. Incursions. And everything I am saying is in the text. I think why people believe that killing the mm would cause a universe to a die and that death to cause incursions is because they can't wrap their head around WHY killing him would cause incursions. But when you lay out how powerful he is and how unique and connected he is to the multiverse it makes sense why killing so many would cause the multiverse "organism" to react. He even bent the laws of temporal displacement by having his sanity restored at his origin point. Even Doom didn't understand how that was possible! He called himself a dichotomy of great science and celestial magic. I mean Hickman really goes out of his way to show how unique and powerful the mm is.

No, it's because Owen flat out says in the text when he dies, his universe (not multiverse) dies with him, and does not say that they can only 'go off' at once or at the end of their 25 year fuse. Therefore, the theory that when he dies early, he still goes off and eliminates that universe, fits better with the facts at hand than the idea that a factor that has only been a part of the multiverse for 13 out of more than 13 billion years, so less 1/1,000,000,000 of the life span of the universe, is now essential to its overall health and wellbeing.

And it wasn't really a matter of having his sanity restored, it's just that at the point of his origin, he was not yet insane. The Molecule Man of FF #20 may have been pretty unpleasant and power-hungry, and deluded about whether he could affect organic molecules, but he wasn't generally nutty at that point.

[vitruvian]

Thinking about it. If we break this whole Beyonder + Molecule Man = Comic Cube thing down into a simple equation maybe cosmic cubes are the result of interation between Molecule Man and "The Beyond". Such that the event in old continuity (which was frankly quite bizarre) is just an example of a more fundamental phenomenon.

Except that AIM created/charged the original Cosmic Cube without the Molecule Man being anywhere around. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, he was still exiled to a different dimension by the Watcher.

[Biclopcicle]

I never read F4 319 or any of the Kosmos stuff...and I hope I don't have to after all this. But my understanding was a) AIM made a cosmic cube by drawing off extra dimensional energy, which happened to be from the Beyonder realm; b) Reece's origin as molecule man was initially connected to the Beyonder realm in the sense that his accident was indeed an accident and interfered with cosmic cube formation. For now, Hickman has absolutely retconned MM's origin as a planned experiment and not an accident. Therefore he now needs to address the Child Beyonder origin as well.

As an aside, I always thought the original Beyonder was more powerful than a cosmic cube...him being just a part of a cosmic cube never made a lot of sense

[Biclopcicle]

Also, if there is a MM for every universe and his existence is tied to Child Beyonder, shouldn't there be a Child Beyonder for every reality? This seems doubtful

[JKtheMac]

Except that AIM created/charged the original Cosmic Cube without the Molecule Man being anywhere around. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, he was still exiled to a different dimension by the Watcher.

I am in no way suggesting that all Cosmic Cubes are made up of a Molecule Man!

[JKtheMac]

Also, if there is a MM for every universe and his existence is tied to Child Beyonder, shouldn't there be a Child Beyonder for every reality? This seems doubtful

I try not to think about that too hard. The Beyonder himself found the Multiverse a challenging topic.

[JKtheMac]

I never read F4 319 or any of the Kosmos stuff...and I hope I don't have to after all this. But my understanding was a) AIM made a cosmic cube by drawing off extra dimensional energy, which happened to be from the Beyonder realm; b) Reece's origin as molecule man was initially connected to the Beyonder realm in the sense that his accident was indeed an accident and interfered with cosmic cube formation. For now, Hickman has absolutely retconned MM's origin as a planned experiment and not an accident. Therefore he now needs to address the Child Beyonder origin as well.

As an aside, I always thought the original Beyonder was more powerful than a cosmic cube...him being just a part of a cosmic cube never made a lot of sense

In the Fantastic Four issue (known as Secret Wars 3) the idea is that Molecule Man's experiment tore a hole in reality and released energy from the realm of The Beyonders. Instead of that power being contained in a Cosmic Cube like the previous times this energy had come into the universe, some of it was contained in Molecule Man. The rest manifested as The Beyonder.

So the cube that resulted could be seen as just the origional energy being recombined.

I have a sneaking suspicion we won't see the origional Beyonder at all despite any front covers we have seen. But I obviously don't know this, and wouldn't be surprised if he did crop up.