The Secret Origin of the Marvel Universe

[laughing_tree]

Comments

[thanekos]

A very nice description of an ongoing shared universe.

[beyondthefringe]

It's a shame that this series basically never happened once it was over, and has been all but forgotten anyway.

Except by Al Ewing. You know he remembers.

[laughing_tree]

He definitely remembers.

From a recent issue of Ultimates2:

[cainofdreaming]

I could do with some of the parts from this series being forgotten, like making Prince of Orphans a mass murderer.

[starwolf_oakley]

When stuff like this is discussed, I wonder how the heroes themselves would react to it.

"So, ancient aliens trying to save reality is the reason a random criminal runs past me in Manhattan and then kills my uncle in Queens."
"Yes, 'loved ones murdered by criminals' is part and parcel surprisingly often. But better than the whole universe getting murdered by criminals, right?"

[silverhammerman]

I remember reading this and viscerally disliking the idea at the time, and I still don't really care for the idea. It's a strange thing to get hung up on, but I was always fond of the idea that the 616 universe wasn't particularly unusual aside from perhaps being somewhat lucky.

It being somehow cosmically significant is something that's come up in a few stories and literally every time I'm just stunningly bored by the whole concept.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

I thought the entire reason it was dubbed "616" was because it wasn't supposed to have any greater cosmic significance than any other universe?

[obsidianwolf]

It was given a generic number in Captain Britain to say it was no more special than any other universe. The specific number was chosen cause the writer was not having a pleasant time with marvel and used an archaic version of the number of the beast as a take that.

[cainofdreaming]

Maybe not. As far as I know the translation for the manuscript where that's from was only completed after the Captain Britain issue had been published. Though I dunno if that was just the complete translation date, and the 616 bit was already known. The article I read didn't really go into specifics.

[obsidianwolf]

IIRC that's only where the oldest known manuscript that uses 616 was translated. There are a few other sources such as the copy in greek written in the fifth century that also had it.

The interesting thing is that Moore and Davis both gave different explanations for why Thorpe chose it with Moore saying it was just a random choice and Alan Davis saying it cause it was a variation on the number of the beast. I don't think Dave Thorpe has ever commented on it.

[long_silence]

Doesn't the fact that Doctor Strange was able to undo this whole series by travelling back in time make this an alternate timeline and not the 616 reality? And there have been so many What-If realities before and since this series, timelines where a single action was changed but everything else in their history remained the same?

The Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, the Avengers they all exist throughout plenty of Earths in the multiverse

So couldn't we make the supposition that the Concordance Engines exist on all of those countless multiple Earths and the Omegas use all of those realities as depositories for their weird stuff? Or they placed them on an Earth long before the inciting incidents that caused many of these timelines to branch off. So this doesn't make 616 cosmically significant, just another branch

[tcampbell1000]

Agreed. It's the whole "chosen one" thing writ large.

[laughing_tree]

I don't give a fig whether 616 is important or not. I like this idea because it's a celebration of what we've always known: That the Marvel universe is a rich collection of miracles and wonders.

[thanekos]

It's a bit tedious that it had to be " space gods made it so for their own reasons ", though.

It works for the story, but you'd honestly think " the variance and wonder of the world is what happens when so many unique things exist with and in spite of each other " would be enough.

An explanation like this, where everything stems from the direction of one single intention, seems annoyingly reductive.

[laughing_tree]

I get what you're saying, but the only way to in-universe acknowledge the impossible nature of the MU is to make it artificially imposed. Which is to say, if it's simply what naturally happened, then it by definition isn't the impossible.

Another way to put it: When the wondrous is actually commonplace, how do you keep it wondrous? By establishing that it isn't *meant* to be commonplace and is only so because Reasons.

[jlbarnett]

imposing it makes it feel less wondrous to me. It's all pre-determined, there's no choice, no chance

[laughing_tree]

Well, it still happened by chance and choice somewhere. All the Engine does is collect it all in the same place.

[liliaeth]

same

[burkeonthesly]

I get kind of the same feeling. Part of the appeal of the Marvel Universe is the idea of it happening organically--people thrown into the deep end of the weird shit rising to the occasion, finding each other, fumbling their way forward through life.

If the plot of the Marvel Universe were a vast mural, beautiful in some places, less so in others, I don't think it would surprise anyone to see quite a few holes showing here and there. The idea of "everything interesting in the world? We did it. We made it happen," feels like a fat smear of spackle right over the face of that mural, trying to fill in as many holes as possible and not really worrying about what becomes of the design.

[jlbarnett]

the one thing I dislike is how long does this stuff have to happen before it's not considered some freaky impossible thing

Mod Note!

[icon_uk]

Just to point out that the image above the cut is well outside the prescribed maximum for scans_daily of 400x300 maximum. Please reduce it acccordingly.

Re: Mod Note!

[laughing_tree]

Sorry, fixed.

Re: Mod Note!

[icon_uk]

It's really not, I'm afraid,

It should be 400x300 maximum, this is still 562 wide.

Re: Mod Note!

[laughing_tree]

The total area is under 120000, so it's smaller than a 400 x 300 image. The community's always been okay with me doing that in the past.

[jkcarrier]

So the one page that's a montage of secret origins -- I recognize Steve Rogers getting juiced with Super-Soldier Serum, Matt Murdock getting hit with radioactive goop, a guy with a mustache who I assume is Steven Strange, Peter Parker getting bit, and Tony Stark building his first armor. What are the other ones?

[icon_uk]

Kid on the right in the winter jacket might be Danny Rand.

Guy with the little girl in his arms might be Scott Lang and Cassie

The one using the lock pick MIGHT be Reed or Ben breaking into their spaceship.

Screaming face on the right is REALLY generic, could be Black Bolt with his first scream, or young Jean Grey mindlinked to her friend when she died.

General Thunderbolt Ross? shaking hands with young military guy... not a clue (If young guy didn't have the military style cap, it might have been Bruce Banner meeting Ross, which would seem a decent choice).