Avengers #32 (SPOILERS!)

[brainwasher]

It's still contradictory to all the What If? and Exiles universes where totally different choices were made and different events and histories unfolded, so it's BS.

From what I know (what I've read in interview with editors like Brevoort in the latest year) the "every choice makes a different parallel timeline" concept is not in auge anymore, because it doesn't allow for dramatic stories. I have to say I agree, it makes for a neat and ordered multiverse but it's not ideal for narrative.

[TresDias]

EXcept why should multiverse time be any more linear or 'real' than in-universe time?

Because it's long been established, in books involving Thanos and Adam Warlock for example, that one can be outside a universe's normal flow of space and time but still exist, even independently of their home universe. In "Marvel: The End," Thanos temporarily absorbed the entirety of the 616 universe while three of its "children" (Adam Warlock, Gamora and Atleza) were unaffected due to being outside the universe at the time and not subject to the 616's Eternity and Infinity (each universe has its own).

Each universe is best viewed as a glass marble, each with its own inner flow of time, in a sea of such marbles. The effects of an Incursion would be like a heavy object slowly crushing those marbles -- until the moment they finally shatter, time within that marble (past, present and future) still exists.

[Maverick]

Was a nice read, but not as climatic as I thought this issue was going to be. The art was much clearer as well, so that's a plus.

This story is just sort of weird to me, as far as how it's set up.

The whole incursion/end of the universe stuff just seems so trivial because we see all these futures where everything ended up OKAY. Obviously little things can change, but as long as they don't majorly screw anything up the larger problem of earth and the universe ending is somewhat moot.

Agreed.

[Wren]

If that's correct, then Incursions are nothing to fear. Let them happen, both universes are destroyed at that specific point in time, but all the later points in time (the entire future) remain intact, so no harm's really been done. The universe just blinked is all.

I didn't make myself clear. the incursion will destroy the timeline at that particular time, but obviously the future cannot exist without the past, while the past can exist without the future. The future would be destroyed.

Unless we really say causality is not a real thing. Which I guess is what Hickman is saying so maybe that really is it, the future and the past are disconnected and the timeline is more like time soup.

Maybe the incursions ARE nothing to fear. Maybe everyone dies but the future versions of them exist without realizing that they died. In theory, if the multiverse contains every possible universe, if a universe is destroyed it will just reappear exactly as it was, and to an outside perspective, no one ever died. I don't know if you can "experience" the death of your own universe.

It's still contradictory to all the What If? and Exiles universes where totally different choices were made and different events and histories unfolded, so it's BS.

Well, pretty much everything in this issue contradicts one or more other time-travel issues... so yeah agreed...

[jackolover]

Them being outside any capability of interference also contradicts the Illuminati, the Builders, the Black Swans, and the Great Society each averting some number of Incursions, as seen in the stories surrounding this issue. In other words, it just ain't so.

Even in terms of your fallback position, that you can do something about an Incursion once it starts to happen, but not do anything about which universes get hit by them in the first place.... we've been told repeatedly that the whole process *did* have a specific cause, the birth of the Great Destroyer (though whether that means the actual birth or just that being causal to something the GD GD purposely did later on is unclear). Ergo, there's a simple enough way to deal with things using a means the Illuminati already possess, at least if they're willing to risk the consequences of more time travel shenanigans to counter the destruction of the multiverse as a whole.... find the first Incursion, which is stated to have occurred in the GD's universe, then trace back to the GD's conception and birth, and intervene before the whole mess begins. With a side order of 'would you kill baby Hitler?' moral philosophy for the lulz.

Do you know what kind of craft could make a multiversal journey like that? I know the FF can move in time in their universe, but who has moved through the Multiverse like this?

[jackolover]

Until when, though? If there is no such thing as time as we perceive it, then if the future exists (if the block universe extends that far futureward in the time dimension), it's nonsensical to talk about the future first existing, 'then' ceasing to exist. That's imposing a linear view of time on things again, when we've already established there is no such thing; there is no 'then', 'now', or 'later', not really. If an Incursion goes to completion, that would mean that a particular universe not only doesn't extend any further into the future, but never did or could. Even if you get into the whole many worlds, alternate futures thing, where all the futures our heroes have visited to, or where Kang and Zarrko and so on came back from, were alternates, those must necessarily be alternates in whose history the Incursion did not complete.

Well, I have a struggle with this post, so I think I will pass on this. I can sort of understand time in my limited capacity, but sometimes things are just too big for me.

[Dusk]

Do you know what kind of craft could make a multiversal journey like that? I know the FF can move in time in their universe, but who has moved through the Multiverse like this?

A few methods come to mind. If you were reading comics in the 90s, Access could move between the DC and the Marvel universe (616). The Exiles could move through the Marvel Multiverse via the Panoptichron. Morlun seems to have the power to move through various multiverse to kill Spidey, unless I'm mistaken and it's actually different Morlun in each of the different realities (should be revealed in the Spiderverse event).

Edit: There were also instances where a rupture in space and time caused cracks/holes where one could travel to another reality/universe. Recent examples are Galactus in the Ultimate Universe (Age of Ultron) and Thanos in the Cancerverse (War of Kings). Also, both the Nexus of All Realities and the Negative Zone allows travel to the different realities, and this is a proven fact.

[rukkis]

Maybe the incursions ARE nothing to fear.

I just reread NA 13 - 20 after reading Avengers 32. My newest theory on how this will all shake out goes along with something like this. The incursions are a smoke show. They are a tool that the GD is using to get humanity to wipe itself out of the multiverse. He uses his followers (Swans) to convince humans that the incursions are a threat, so they will destroy as many other Earths as possible until they break and become "useless" or evolve into Black Priests, etc. At which point they move on to the next Earth and restart the process.

As far as we have been told the only evidence that the collision would destroy the universes came from the Black Swan who certainly has some ulterior motives. I just can't wrap my head around how making people aware of the incursion system benefits her or serves the GD. This would also justify the "Cap was right" comment and the portrayal of the Great Society as being in the right as well. The Illuminati are playing into the GD's hand by even thinking about destroying worlds.

[jackolover]

I just reread NA 13 - 20 after reading Avengers 32. My newest theory on how this will all shake out goes along with something like this. The incursions are a smoke show. They are a tool that the GD is using to get humanity to wipe itself out of the multiverse. He uses his followers (Swans) to convince humans that the incursions are a threat, so they will destroy as many other Earths as possible until they break and become "useless" or evolve into Black Priests, etc. At which point they move on to the next Earth and restart the process.

As far as we have been told the only evidence that the collision would destroy the universes came from the Black Swan who certainly has some ulterior motives. I just can't wrap my head around how making people aware of the incursion system benefits her or serves the GD. This would also justify the "Cap was right" comment and the portrayal of the Great Society as being in the right as well. The Illuminati are playing into the GD's hand by even thinking about destroying worlds.

I can maybe understand Black Swans telepathy powers convincing the small group of the Illuminati to see a smoke screen and attack Incursion Earths. But the Great Society never made contact with a Black Swan to get mind affected, and they are thwarting Incursions. And then, how does Black Swan perpetrate such a massive illusion like the first Incursion in Wakanda in issue #1? BS must be some big illusionist, or, she is way stronger a telepath than we are led to believe.

And, Hyperion had evidence that two Earths collided, because he is the only survivor of one such collision, and there were no Black Swans in evidence. If this has been a huge hoax the whole time, what would be the point of getting the Illuminati to see alternate Earths and destroy them, in association with Black Priests and Map Makers, and whoever else is out there we haven't discovered yet? Because apparently the Illuminati have only examined a small proportion of the Incursions, so they are just scratching the surface.

[Wren]

I just reread NA 13 - 20 after reading Avengers 32. My newest theory on how this will all shake out goes along with something like this. The incursions are a smoke show. They are a tool that the GD is using to get humanity to wipe itself out of the multiverse. He uses his followers (Swans) to convince humans that the incursions are a threat, so they will destroy as many other Earths as possible until they break and become "useless" or evolve into Black Priests, etc. At which point they move on to the next Earth and restart the process.

As far as we have been told the only evidence that the collision would destroy the universes came from the Black Swan who certainly has some ulterior motives. I just can't wrap my head around how making people aware of the incursion system benefits her or serves the GD. This would also justify the "Cap was right" comment and the portrayal of the Great Society as being in the right as well. The Illuminati are playing into the GD's hand by even thinking about destroying worlds.

Did the GS have a black swan? or how did they know what the incursions even were, etc?

It's an interesting point. I kind of assumed that Reed at least ran the math and independently verified that the incursions are a problem and that destroying a planet is the solution. But, who knows. Maybe she's been in their heads this entire time.

I agree the black swan has ulterior motives. I always assumed she was just indoctrinated into a nihilism cult, but it could be as you say. It actually explains why it's so "earth-centric" and why it's presented as a multiversal problem even though it only affects a small subset of universes that actually have an "earth". In theory there's a ton of universes that just don't get incursions, and the multiverse will be just fine with only those around.


I always thought the Great Destroyer is a mindless physical process, and Black Swan talks like that because she is insane. But maybe she is literally talking about something with agency.

[jackolover]

Did the GS have a black swan? or how did they know what the incursions even were, etc?

It's an interesting point. I kind of assumed that Reed at least ran the math and independently verified that the incursions are a problem and that destroying a planet is the solution. But, who knows. Maybe she's been in their heads this entire time.

I agree the black swan has ulterior motives. I always assumed she was just indoctrinated into a nihilism cult, but it could be as you say. It actually explains why it's so "earth-centric" and why it's presented as a multiversal problem even though it only affects a small subset of universes that actually have an "earth". In theory there's a ton of universes that just don't get incursions, and the multiverse will be just fine with only those around.


I always thought the Great Destroyer is a mindless physical process, and Black Swan talks like that because she is insane. But maybe she is literally talking about something with agency.

Are you maybe suggesting Back Swan can affect the Bridge imaging that the Illuminati observe? And maybe all the encounters the Illuminati have had are only in their minds?

[Dusk]

Did the GS have a black swan? or how did they know what the incursions even were, etc?

It's an interesting point. I kind of assumed that Reed at least ran the math and independently verified that the incursions are a problem and that destroying a planet is the solution. But, who knows. Maybe she's been in their heads this entire time.

I agree the black swan has ulterior motives. I always assumed she was just indoctrinated into a nihilism cult, but it could be as you say. It actually explains why it's so "earth-centric" and why it's presented as a multiversal problem even though it only affects a small subset of universes that actually have an "earth". In theory there's a ton of universes that just don't get incursions, and the multiverse will be just fine with only those around.


I always thought the Great Destroyer is a mindless physical process, and Black Swan talks like that because she is insane. But maybe she is literally talking about something with agency.

I think everyone might be assuming things too much with too little evidence to back up their ideas. Not that it's wrong, but just that it doesn't make enough sense to be plausible. For example, the facts that are available to us already show us why this is a multiverse problem affecting even the universes where Earth do not exist.

Let's assume that Reed is correct in claiming that all the universes started and end in the same states, the birth and heat death of everything, and cannot be changed through normal or natural means. We can then, at the very least, represent the length of time from the moment of the birth of the universe to the moment of its death by the variable, X. Imagine that all universes with the planet Earth are affected by incursions and the event carries itself out with no oppositions, which would then cause the multiverse's timeline to contract and also reduce the "lifespan" of all universes by the variable, Y. In this case, all the universes without the planet Earth would then have their "lifespan" reduced to a variable, Z, which is equaled to X minus Y. So as you can see, it doesn't matter if your universe has an Earth, your universe is affected. How much its "lifespan" is reduced would depend on how much the multiverse's timeline contracts, i.e how many universes with Earth there are in the multiverse. Bear in mind, ideally there should be only one universe with the planet Earth left at the end of all incursions.

Also, some of you might not have seen this before, but do check out the following threads from a few months ago for a theory of how time works in the Marvel Universe and various other things concerning the Infinity run.
http://www.reddit.com/r/comicbooks/c...and_cosmology/
http://www.reddit.com/r/comicbooks/c...gy_conclusion/

It seems pretty plausible to me, even though I have a different idea with a few aspects of it. Also, here's a short explanation for those of you who are questioning the concept of fate, free will and changes via time-travel, as described by Franklin, gathered from facts.

Firstly, important events will still happen and cannot be altered no matter what. I believe I remember an issue from years ago when Mr Fantastic told Johnny that even if someone had time-traveled back to save the President (I forgot which one, JFK maybe?), they might succeed in stopping the assassination, but that person would still die via other causes like slipping in the bathroom, because of the concept of "Fate", as mentioned by Franklin. I suppose some examples would be Tony and co. failing to stop the incursion, and Cap and co. traveling forward to specific points in time, which Franklin said was exactly when they were supposed to.

On the other hand, small changes that do not affect the big events can be made to the timeline, which is the concept of free will and changes via time-travel. Some times they will create a completely different reality (e.g Age of Apocalypse, Age of Ultron), while other times they just changes the reality slightly (e.g killing a nobody in Spider-man 2099 #1, preventing the Age of Ultron from happening by warning Hank Pym back in the past). Some examples right now would be Franklin trying to change Steve's mind about confronting Tony, old Hawkeye trying to get Tony back to stop the next incursion in time by telling Tony about it earlier, and the guy placing a bomb inside Steve and telling him that it will change the future.

Here's my personal opinions on a few aspects in this issue. When Franklin said that space and time is an organism made up by universes, I kinda assumed he was talking about Eternity and Infinity. So when Tony mentioned time was broken, I assumed that he meant that something had happened to Eternity. After all, shortly there after, Captain Universe, the guardian of Eternity, appeared and joined the Avengers. Also, with the discovery that the Living Tribunal is dead, I believe that someone from the very first universe that was destroyed prematurely killed him, seeing as how his function in the multiverse was to prevent any single universe from amassing too much power and upsetting the cosmic balance. And the incursion also led to the destruction of the Superflow too, which as I understand from Nightmask, was supposed to defend the universe from such threats. Next, for people who assumed that the incursion must have been prevented because the future seems to be okay, it was not mentioned that the incursion has stopped 5000 years in the future. For all we know, it might still be going on and being engaged by the Avengers at a regular basis in secret. And the same goes for people who asked why incursions isn't happening to all the other what-if universes out there, the answer is, they are. On the Earth 12131, incursion is also happening. The first to discover the space-time disruption is Coulson of that universe, who then notified Nick Fury and briefed Tony Stark.

[brainwasher]

The incursions are a smoke show. As far as we have been told the only evidence that the collision would destroy the universes came from the Black Swan who certainly has some ulterior motives.

We watched many universes dying for Incursions, in NA where BP catalogue them, and in Avengers when Hyperion was the only survivor of an incursition.

[XPac]

We watched many universes dying for Incursions, in NA where BP catalogue them, and in Avengers when Hyperion was the only survivor of an incursition.

Since Frankly sort of implied that they would fail to stop the incursions, yet they're all still there I think it's safe to assume the main marvel universe comes back. And in theory that could be true for the other universe as well (Hyperions included). There may yet be one big "everybody lives" happy ending here when Hickman is done.

[vitruvian]

From what I know (what I've read in interview with editors like Brevoort in the latest year) the "every choice makes a different parallel timeline" concept is not in auge anymore, because it doesn't allow for dramatic stories. I have to say I agree, it makes for a neat and ordered multiverse but it's not ideal for narrative.

Uatu was still able to see all those different universes, and it was referenced again that he made a habit of viewing What If? universes right before Original Sin, so it's still the case.

Because it's long been established, in books involving Thanos and Adam Warlock for example, that one can be outside a universe's normal flow of space and time but still exist, even independently of their home universe. In "Marvel: The End," Thanos temporarily absorbed the entirety of the 616 universe while three of its "children" (Adam Warlock, Gamora and Atleza) were unaffected due to being outside the universe at the time and not subject to the 616's Eternity and Infinity (each universe has its own).

Each universe is best viewed as a glass marble, each with its own inner flow of time, in a sea of such marbles. The effects of an Incursion would be like a heavy object slowly crushing those marbles -- until the moment they finally shatter, time within that marble (past, present and future) still exists.

That much is fine, but if time inside the marbles is not really linear or 'real', why should the flow of time outside those marbles and within the multiverse be any more linear or real, as opposed to again being just a limited observer's perception of an eternal and unchanging sequence of events?

And conversely, we see in Hickman's own story that it's possible to observe the past and future of other universes and of the multiverse as a whole, using the Bridge, so to the extent that it's possible to either change things or split off timelines using time travel, one can do it across the multiverse as well as within a specific universe.

But more to the point, since they were able to observe the past of universes that have already had their Incursions, and the past was 'still' there to observe, the theory that an Incursion destroys the entire history of a universe has been disproven in Hickman's story. Hyperion continuing to exist also demonstrates that the past of his universe was not eliminated, because that would have included his birth, although I suppose the continued existence of alternate future folks such as Rachel and Bishop makes that a weaker argument if one believes their timelines no longer exist.

I didn't make myself clear. the incursion will destroy the timeline at that particular time, but obviously the future cannot exist without the past, while the past can exist without the future. The future would be destroyed.

Then Franklin's present being there to visit proves the Incursions are stopped... in the history that Franklin remembers, anyway - because if his history included an Incursion completing, he wouldn't be there.

Do you know what kind of craft could make a multiversal journey like that? I know the FF can move in time in their universe, but who has moved through the Multiverse like this?

We've seen multiversal travel in Exiles, Quasar, Excalibur, a recent volume of X-treme X-Men, Hickman's FF using the original Bridge, and by AIM extensively in Avengers. We've seen time travel in too many Marvel stories to give even a partial list. The version of the Bridge that the Illuminati are currently using is letting them view not only other universes, but other times in those universes, and being based on the earlier Bridge it presumably allows travel to the times and places observed.

The means are within their grasp.

I just reread NA 13 - 20 after reading Avengers 32. My newest theory on how this will all shake out goes along with something like this. The incursions are a smoke show. They are a tool that the GD is using to get humanity to wipe itself out of the multiverse. He uses his followers (Swans) to convince humans that the incursions are a threat, so they will destroy as many other Earths as possible until they break and become "useless" or evolve into Black Priests, etc. At which point they move on to the next Earth and restart the process.

As far as we have been told the only evidence that the collision would destroy the universes came from the Black Swan who certainly has some ulterior motives. I just can't wrap my head around how making people aware of the incursion system benefits her or serves the GD. This would also justify the "Cap was right" comment and the portrayal of the Great Society as being in the right as well. The Illuminati are playing into the GD's hand by even thinking about destroying worlds.

Wrong, Hyperion.