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gfanikf posted:So what do people think about the idea that the Swans are Multi Universal Valeries that got floated back a month or so ago? Ridiculous.
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Apr 29, 2015 18:25
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gfanikf posted:So what do people think about the idea that the Swans are Multi Universal Valeries that got floated back a month or so ago?
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Apr 29, 2015 18:35
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Well, apparently the first Black Swan was a mutant with teleportation powers who escaped from a Sentinel concentration camp, so I don't know if she's a Valeria.
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Apr 29, 2015 18:50
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Are the Incursions a result of the Beyonders' experiment? This issue paints it like their experiment is having Molecule Man blow up in every dimension, but how do the incursions relate to that, and how does any of that relate to the Beyonders themselves blowing up universes and killing the Living Tribunal, Death, Chaos, etc.? And Doom's successes somehow changed the quality of the incursions, making them blue/red or something? Also, it's drawn so small, but the end of Avengers sure looked like Tony had killed Cap, in parallel with Death winning out over Life. Neo_Reloaded fucked around with this message at 19:20 on Apr 29, 2015 |
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Apr 29, 2015 19:10
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Neo_Reloaded posted:Are the Incursions a result of the Beyonders' experiment? This issue paints it like their experiment is having Molecule Man blow up in every dimension, but how do the incursions relate to that, and how does any of that relate to the Beyonders themselves blowing up universes and killing the Living Tribunal, Death, Chaos, etc.? And Doom's successes somehow changed the quality of the incursions, making them blue/red or something? I think the original plan was that Molecule Man was going to be the actual "bomb" that destroyed everything, but when Doom went around killing them all, they switched strategies. They then started killing the manifestations of existence and let the dominoes fall from there. Just my speculation though.
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Apr 29, 2015 19:17
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Neo_Reloaded posted:Are the Incursions a result of the Beyonders' experiment? This issue paints it like their experiment is having Molecule Man blow up in every dimension, but how do the incursions relate to that, and how does any of that relate to the Beyonders themselves blowing up universes and killing the Living Tribunal, Death, Chaos, etc.? And Doom's successes somehow changed the quality of the incursions, making them blue/red or something? The Beyonders created Molecule Man in order to destroy all the Universes simultaneously. The Incursions are a result of Molecule Man and Doom. When he killed himself at the point of his origin he threw a wrench in their plan by starting it early. Doom is then going to multiple realities in order to kill their Molecule Men. Those universes are gone leaving gaps. Make enough gaps and things get unstable and start crashing into each other. These are the Incursions.
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Apr 29, 2015 19:17
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So the very first Earth that gets destroyed and starts the universe destruction cascade is the one on which that Doom first kills a Molecule Man? I remember when they were explaining the premise way back in NA they said they didn't know why the first earth in the chain was destroyed. You know this Hickman stuff is kind of complicated 
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Apr 29, 2015 19:19
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Ok, taking a minute to think it over, the Beyonders' original plan was to use the Molecule Man as a bomb for the whole multiverse. Doom began killing Molecule Men to stop this, and his actions and those of the religion he built somehow began causing the incursions. How the incursions began exactly I'm still unclear on, but the end result is that they are a way for Doom to save some of the multiverse (those universes that survive incursions, either by destroying the other Earth or having their Earth destroyed), and this extreme is necessary as it's a self-propagating system unlike the endless task of hunting down every single Molecule Man. The Beyonders realized that someone was interfering, and them explicitly blowing poo poo up is their reaction to that, to ensure the death of everything. That leaves how Doom actually started the incursions as my remaining question. I don't think killing a Molecule Man destroys that universe - that would be as bad as all the universes blowing up, it would just change the order. But killing a Molecule Man somehow creates the conditions necessary for incursions, thus creating the "game" where some universes can live if they are willing to destroy other Earths? Neo_Reloaded fucked around with this message at 19:23 on Apr 29, 2015 |
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Apr 29, 2015 19:21
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zoux posted:So the very first Earth that gets destroyed and starts the universe destruction cascade is the one on which that Doom first kills a Molecule Man? Almost: Molecule Man kills another of himself first (we see this on-page).
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Apr 29, 2015 19:21
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Yeah, Molecule Man killing himself is the early death alluded to at the beginning of the story that started everything. Doom kills more creating gaps between the universes and when he's finally killed enough the Incursions start. Doom spends close to 25 years killing Molecule Men before they start crashing together. "In five years you've killed a thousand of me. How many more years will it take before things start crashing together" or something to that effect. EDIT: I didn't mean the universes are destroyed when a Molecule Man is killed. They are gone in the sense that they are disconnected from the Molecule Man singularity. And with the gaps between the connections that's where they start smashing into each other. X-O fucked around with this message at 19:29 on Apr 29, 2015 |
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Apr 29, 2015 19:25
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The incursions were a side effect of Doom killing Molecule Men. We're shown the Beyonders had no control over them and they make the Map Makers to trace and figure poo poo out. I just assumed that killing MM destabilized the universes a bit since they were a constant across all of them. Kill enough of them and shot goes bad. Remember the swan and pretty much EVERYTHING she told was a lie. Doom/Swans didn't praise the incursions. They were mainly assassins to kill other Molecule Men and stop the bomb. Their whole "sacrifice planets in Rabum Alal's name" was their gently caress-you-dad phase after they peeked to RA.
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Apr 29, 2015 19:29
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Oooh so that virus that the Beyonders baked into the multiverse to infect AIs that crossed universes is why those AIM Adaptoids automatically became Mapmakers.
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Apr 29, 2015 19:31
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So, let me get this straight : 1. Beyonders, being the multiversal assholes they are, decide to run an awesome experiment of destroying life everywhere at the same time 25 years later. To that end, they convert Owen Reece into a bomb. That's when he becomes Molecule Man. From that point on (?) he has a unique, shared consciousness across all his multiversal incarnations. 2. To thwart that plan, 616 MM and Doom travel back to the moment Reece became Molecule Man. 616 Molecule Man kills that guy and enlists Doom on a mission to kill every Molecule Man everywhere because that should gently caress the Beyonders pretty hard. He will be operating out of the Library, an abandoned Beyonder station outside the observable universe. Thus begins the legend of the Great Destroyer, Rabum Alal, aka Victor Von Doom.  3. After five years, Doom has only killed a thousand Molecule Men. 4. Seven years in, the first incursion occurs. Now, this is the sketchiest part for me: in preventing the death of everything all at once, Doom has apparently precipitated the early death of every universe where he has killed Molecule Men. This shortening led to incursions as a byproduct of universes ending early. 5. Eight years in, the opportunity to scale up manifests itself as he recruits the first Black Swan. Others will quickly follow and help propagate his legend while killing more Reeces. 6. Ten years in, Beyonders create the mapmaker virus to infect adaptoids that would end in the void between universes. Their goal is to find where the swans converge and thus, where Rabum Alal is. 7. This is sketchy too. At some point, some Swans apparently witness/understand Doom's endgame and as a result start preaching something else, a more nihilistic gospel where everything must die. This is what our Black Swan believes but isn't Doom's intent. My understanding is that Doom is destroying a shitload of universes to save something. These swans believe destruction is its own reward. 8. At some point, the Beyonders say "gently caress it" and they start slaughtering universes and cosmic entities themselves. This is apparently to counteract whatever Doom has been doing. 9. 25 years in, Strange meets Doom. Doom enacts his plan by teleporting his time travel platform to where the Beyonders meet reality and throws stuff at them. Rereading the page, that cube is apparently the library (the platform is seen rising above it). It is tethered to what looks like a galaxy. Considering the end of the issue, I'm going to assume these are actually hundreds of thousands of universes. This tethering is probably what seems so horrific to Strange and some swans. I assume that plan horribly fails. Now, some stuff is still unclear: - is Doom's alternative to Beyonders that at least not everything will disappear at once and maybe some things might be saved through unseen means? - what is that point about Beyonders moving linearly through time? - why were a few universes not linked to the library or whatever Doom fired?
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Apr 29, 2015 19:42
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I think the point of them being restricted to linear time is that they can't go back in time and say, kill Doom when he was a baby or otherwise thwart his plans. Also, we still don't know where the Black Priests came from right?
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Apr 29, 2015 19:46
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^Beaten^PelvicNerve posted:- what is that point about Beyonders moving linearly through time? It is basically their only flaw. Doom can go back in time to mess with them, but they can only experience time in a straight line. So if someone can go back and get enough of an upper hand on them, they can't do anything about it.
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Apr 29, 2015 19:48
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Man captain america is really acting like a complete rear end in a top hat.
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Apr 29, 2015 19:53
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Senor Candle posted:^Beaten^ PelvicNerve posted:in preventing the death of everything all at once, Doom has apparently precipitated the early death of every universe where he has killed Molecule Men.
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Apr 29, 2015 19:58
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PelvicNerve posted:Super great summary My personal interpretation of the questions at the end is that Doom wants to ensure that 616 is the only universe left standing. So he throws as many dead universes as he can (maybe ones where he's killed a Molecule Man, but haven't started their Incursion) at the Beyonders, using the library as a conduit? Strange only manages to get to the library by hopping universes for a long time, so it's possible that Doom was disconnecting them from the library as he was shackling them to his stack-weapon-thing. However it seems like something goes wrong at the end; possibly because he's not using every universe (616 and 1610? are obviously not a part of it), or it wasn't ever going to work from the start.
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Apr 29, 2015 20:32
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It's pretty bad luck that the last standing universe is the Ultimate one and not the one where, say salt-vulnerable slugmen rose to be the dominant species.
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Apr 29, 2015 20:39
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zoux posted:It's pretty bad luck that the last standing universe is the Ultimate one and not the one where, say salt-vulnerable slugmen rose to be the dominant species. but aren't the majority of the ultimates hero's already dead? Really only have to worry about ultimate reed and the cabal.
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Apr 29, 2015 20:43
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Monaghan posted:but aren't the majority of the ultimates hero's already dead? Really only have to worry about ultimate reed and the cabal. "only"
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Apr 29, 2015 20:51
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zoux posted:It's pretty bad luck that the last standing universe is the Ultimate one and not the one where, say salt-vulnerable slugmen rose to be the dominant species. Well, it did have evil Reed Richards who has no qualms about blowing up worlds. That kind of helped.
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Apr 29, 2015 20:53
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Is Galactus still kicking around 1610?
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Apr 29, 2015 20:55
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Monaghan posted:but aren't the majority of the ultimates hero's already dead? Really only have to worry about ultimate reed and the cabal. Nah, there's still a ton of heroes. The only Ultimates that are missing are Cap who is presumed dead but never shown or followed up on and Thor who was dumped in the Negative Zone but could easily be back by now. There was never a book that followed up on those things in the Ultimate line so both could easily be introduced back into the story. And probably will be. It's the X-Men that were pretty much torn apart in the Ultimate Universe.
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Apr 29, 2015 20:56
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redbackground posted:"only" Well they have evil reed, and there's like ten super genius's alive and kicking in 616. Deadpool posted:Nah, there's still a ton of heroes. The only Ultimates that are missing are Cap who is presumed dead but never shown or followed up on and Thor who was dumped in the Negative Zone but could easily be back by now. okay thanks, I haven't really kept up with the ultimate line and didn't know what everyone's deal was.
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Apr 29, 2015 21:03
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Monaghan posted:Well they have evil reed, and there's like ten super genius's alive and kicking in 616. 
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Apr 29, 2015 21:05
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I'm not sure what part of Doom's plan required all the Black Swans to dress in bangin' club gear. I can only assume that wherever Doom goes, Doom is in the VIP room.
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Apr 29, 2015 21:14
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Wanderer posted:I'm not sure what part of Doom's plan required all the Black Swans to dress in bangin' club gear. "DOOM! does not need to pay your pathetic cover, peasant!"
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Apr 29, 2015 21:31
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I liked how there was a Deadpool Black Swan in one of the group shots.
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Apr 29, 2015 21:33
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zoux posted:It's pretty bad luck that the last standing universe is the Ultimate one and not the one where, say salt-vulnerable slugmen rose to be the dominant species. This made me laugh way harder than it should've.
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Apr 29, 2015 22:10
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Man, I started reading comics with #1 on both these books and to see the end was awesome. 10/10. I'm really looking forward to secret wars. Steve Rogers is kind of an rear end in a top hat, though.
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Apr 29, 2015 22:11
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Consummate Professional posted:Steve Rogers is kind of an rear end in a top hat, though. Pretty sure Cyclops used the Phoenix Egg to ensure that Steve became the rear end in a top hat focal point of the new universe.
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Apr 29, 2015 22:30
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Okay, so, I think the only remaining things I'm still not clear about are A) how Doom's plan was actually supposed to end up saving anything. B) Who the Swans are supposed to be, other than "random girl who might or might not be a mutant." C) What exactly Doom threw at the Beyonders at the end there. Someone said they supposed to be...universes?
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Apr 29, 2015 22:31
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The nerd in me is still annoyed every time a character mentions how there are (or used to be) an infinite number of variations and universes. Were it the case, you couldn't get down to a finite number of universes. And yeah, comics, suspension of disbelief, but still. Also, at this point, I wonder how many years Doom has lived. Between these 25 years and the time he spent in his own world in FF, he must be over 100. I hope he's the one who gets to vaporize Ultimate Reed. BrianWilly posted:Okay, so, I think the only remaining things I'm still not clear about are Plus, Doom being Doom, he was looking for a way to win, even if in the end he probably only gave the 616 universe a way to not lose. quote:B) Who the Swans are supposed to be, other than "random girl who might or might not be a mutant." I guess the first Swan could also be a Manifold. quote:C) What exactly Doom threw at the Beyonders at the end there. Someone said they supposed to be...universes?
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Apr 29, 2015 22:57
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After reading that giant summary above, I almost feel like I understand what this whole giant story has been about. I'll probably go back and re-read the entire thing once it's all up on Unlimited. I really wish someone would do annotations or a Cliff's Notes type guide, but with 80+ issues including Infinity, that would be a hell of a lot of work.
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Apr 29, 2015 23:18
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Nice timeline, I got most of that from my read-through but damned if I didn't have to go back a couple of times on the end of NA trying to figure out what that cube was until it clicked with the library and the mass-universe death watch. There's still one important wild card in the air though. Doom spots Thorr's hammer, giving the scene some gravitas in whether Doom is worthy/unworthy of the destroyer/savior title, which also means that the tree of life that formed last issue is still in play somewhere.
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Apr 29, 2015 23:23
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hope and vaseline posted:Nice timeline, I got most of that from my read-through but damned if I didn't have to go back a couple of times on the end of NA trying to figure out what that cube was until it clicked with the library and the mass-universe death watch. The thing I've learned about this run is that loving everything is in play somewhere.
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Apr 29, 2015 23:28
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PelvicNerve posted:Anyone willing to follow Doom and join his mission. All the Valeria talk obfuscated the issue but I don't believe Swans are supposed to be anyone particular beyond these simple parameters.
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Apr 29, 2015 23:40
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BrianWilly posted:Aren't they all supposed to be different universes' versions of the same person? Unless everyone willing to follow Doom just so happened to be buxom women who really like wearing white. They are once Doom's finished with them.
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Apr 29, 2015 23:42
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Gaz-L posted:They are once Doom's finished with them. I imagine he has molecule man conjure up a sexy outfit for them and gives them some black/white power transformation and the ability to speak in really vague terms. Fo' reals though, they're probably just aberrations and survivors of their world's end-game, and the current swans just happen to recruit them once they find someone of the same mind-set willing to commit to the cause. Like, uh, any cult.
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Apr 29, 2015 23:46
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