Strange Tales: Clea, Wong & America #1 - "Asynchronous"

[laughing_tree]

America Chavez has had her entire world, history, and power set change on her in her most recent series. She's coming to grips with new limitations, new connections to her community, a new sense of self, and new responsibilities in the form of her lost sister. -- Al Ewing

Comments

[b_i_beast]

I know DC had this style of comic before, with an in universe narrator telling the story, but has Marvel done this before?

Side note, I know Strange is probably not supposed to be seen or heard by anyone, but I like to think he is and they just let him narrate.

[beyondthefringe]

You're right in that DC has had plenty of in-universe narrators, mostly for their horror series. Sandman managed to import a great many of those--Cain, Abel, Eve, Destiny, the Three Witches, the Mad Mod Witch, Judge Gallows...

Marvel, by comparison, had almost none of note. Though Digger, narrator of Tower of Shadows, later became part of the Shroud's Night Shift. But of course there's the biggest, most prominent example of all: the Watcher, who has served to narrate both mainstream universe stories and alternate universe tales to the point where his window into other worlds has been a plot point more than once.

[shakalooloo]

Well, most What Ifs are narrated by the Watcher.

[b_i_beast]

Ah, I forgot about Uatu the Watcher

[donnblake]

Gillen's Eternals book seems to be being narrated by the Celestial Machine that maintains the Eternals. He's also played around before with narration boxes that suddenly turned out to be diegetic when the big bad of the series noticed and ate them.

Then of course, there was the conceit back in the early days of the Fantastic four that the comics were in-universe documents, in which case Stan Lee's narration boxes might count as this. (The FF met Stan and Jack on a couple of occasions, and I think Doom kidnapped them once).

[beyondthefringe]

According to Slott's She-Hulk run, officially licensed comic books are legal documents as well.

[numeronone]

Remember when Xavier did this just before HoXPoX? Specifically, coming back from the dead only sort-of, and telling everyone "You can call me X"?

Come to think of it, until stateotherwise, we can only assume he's still wearing Fantomex's body...

[akodo_rokku]

He's died twice since then, presumably they put him back in his original model.

[cainofdreaming]

So, is this Vincent Stevens' ghost?

[cygnia]

Being a ghost means you still can't shirk your duties in taking Bats for walkies, Stephen!

[scorntx]

You underestimate just how skilled Stephen is at shirking stuff.

[blues32]

Hrm. That's going to be a problem, shattering her sister like that.

[cainofdreaming]

Maybe she can get all the queen's women to help?

[blues32]

What about the queen's horses?

[cainofdreaming]

Have you seen horses put stuff together? I mean, sure, there's a few gainfully employed at the Volkswagen assembly line but that doesn't translate into a widedpread skill coverage.

[mastermahan]

They missed a trick not naming the sister Canada Chavez.

[arilou_skiff]

Nah, Australia Chavez.

[beyondthefringe]

Her full name is North America Chavez and her sisters are South American and Central America?
(nah)

[scorntx]

Brazil Chavez is the clone Old White Man made of America and her sister while he was experimenting on them.
As one does.

[bruinsfan]

From these scans, Ewing seems to be treating it as if America's past and origin have actually been changed within the context of the setting, rather than just being retconned by her recent miniseries. If so, I think I like that better than her just having been unaware of her real past until recently.

[scorntx]

Not without precedent.
Way back in his run on Ultimates, Ewing had Galactus state that just as the future changes, so can the past, specifically addressing Blue Marvel at the end of his lecture.

[bruinsfan]

And nicely making canon the sliding timescale conceit that allows characters who debuted in the Silver Age to not be geriatric retirees in currently-published comic books. Though it does make me wonder how future time travelers EVER lock onto a moment involving a superhero when their pasts are constantly retracting behind them.