Avengers #6: Zen and the Art of Cosmology

[superboyprime]

Comments

[violetclm.livejournal.com]

"There was nothing. Followed by Galactus. Followed by everything else."

[cainofdreaming]

Followed by Galactus. Followed by the Proemial Gods. Followed by the Elders. Followed by the Watchers. Etc. And then everyone else.

There's sure lot of those nearly Big Bang alien races/beings in Marvel.

[captainbellman]

The Celestials are getting pretty tee'd off keeping track.

[icon_uk]

The Celestials? Those Johnny-come-latelies? Pah! If they're going to be that laggardly manifesting themselves, they have no one to blame but themselves.

[captainbellman]

"Very little of this, however, is at all comprehensible to anyone below the level of Advanced God and, since it is now well established that all known gods came into existence a good there millionths of a second after the universe began rather than, as they usually claimed, the previous week, they already have a great deal of explaining to do as it is. They are, therefore, not available for comment at this time..."

- Doug Adams' "Mostly Harmless"

[louisadkins]

Wait, shouldn't it be "Followed by Galactus. Followed by *burp* " ?

[icon_uk]

The "Big 4" Abstract Entities (Eternity, Infinity, Death and Oblivion) came into existence first (Galactus is sort of a cheat since he already existed before the Big Bang)

[maseiken]

Shouldn't Franklin Richards have existed for a brief period before Galactus also? To like... make him? Or am I misremembering that issue?

[mrstatham]

I like how, just in case we didn't entirely grasp the importance of the 616 Marvel Earth before now, Hickman has to specifically spell it out to us like we're children.

[icon_uk]

In fairness, probably not many people outside of Man-Thing fans or readers of the old Quasar series, would know that Earth 616 is the cosmic axis of the multiverse.

[mrstatham]

Well, I did mean it more in meta-terms, really, given every single Marvel event with the exception of the more low-key cosmic stuff has taken place on Earth, which practically screams it's importance in the scheme of things in our face.

[icon_uk]

Bit of a different there IMHO. That's being aware THAT things have happened here, this is explaining WHY things have happened here.

[silverhammerman]

I don't know about the rest of you, but personally I always kind of liked the idea that Earth-616 wasn't particularly special. It was just another world, in another universe, that didn't have any special importance over any other Earth. I feel like that fits well with the Marvel U's propensity towards street level antics and more grounded/"human" heroes. One Earth somehow being mega-super-duper important feels to me like more of a DC kind of thing.

[icon_uk]

The Multiversal Axis bit has been canon since the 1970's at least, and things like Captain Britain and Excalibur have based entire plots around the fact that Earth 616 IS pivotal, and "Maximum Security" was based around the fact that other alien races were catching wise to this.

[silverhammerman]

I did not know the idea dated back that far, but I stand by my point that I like the idea of Earth-616 not being anything special. I think the idea is fine showing up in a book like Captain Britain or Excalibur, since those aren't really at the forefront and I don't mind them doing their own thing, but to have it as the central idea in the Avengers, Marvel's single most important book right now, is just not what I want.
I guess it just conflicts with my personal headcanon and I don't like when that happens.

[stolisomancer]

Seriously, "humans are special" has been a major Marvel plot beat since the Dark Phoenix Saga. You're kind of late to the party.

[bruinsfan]

Is it really Earth 616 that's so pivotal, or merely Earth in every universe? I've never been clear on whether or not there's supposed to be something different about Marvel's baseline universe as opposed to all the parallels. (Whereas with DC back in the day, Earth-1 was revealed to be the original universe that all others were copied from (minus Oa and its inhabitants).

[icon_uk]

There's not much of a difference in most stories, since they're only set on one. :)

Earth 616 was important to the likes of Merlynn and Roma, and it was from there that Captain Britain and Meggan destroyed the nexus which gave Merlynn most of his power. At that point also, there was only one Phoenix in the multiverse, and it was on 616, though that may have been retconned.

[halloweenjack]

not many people outside of Man-Thing fans or readers of the old Quasar series

...or have access to the numerous online resources (including Wikipedia) that give background on this stuff.

[arbre_rieur]

Yeah, but they'd have no reason to be looking that stuff up in the first place. Every issue is someone's first yadda yadda...

[donnblake]

So, uh, where're Eternity and Infinity in all this?

Or is this entity the manifestation of the multiverse rather than the universe?

[icon_uk]

Captain Universe has been seen as the defender of Eternity in the past, according to the MU Wiki at least.

The Uni-Power which empowers Captain Universe actually originated in the Micronauts MicroVerse though I have a feeling a lot of that will be ignored.

[spacebetween]

What doesn't get ignored these days? It seems like most writers either skim over the details of a character or item or just out right ignore things.

[cainofdreaming]

It's probably been changed for the purposes of this story, but the Uni-Force used to be a facet of the Enigma Force. Which is something like the Eternity for Microverse.

[goattoucher]

I liked this. Good use of Shang here.

[icon_uk]

Oh cute Kurt icon! :)

[goattoucher]

The one and only Scottie Young, ladies and gents!

[shadowpsykie]

.... I Kinda love this.... I'm sopposed to hate the Avengers sans movies

[glprime]

Ah, man, I was hoping it was Monica.

Well, Tamara seems like a good host for the Uni-Power. This could get interesting.

[featheredserpent]

Shang-Chi seems to be getting his Bruce Lee on with that outfit.