From: bgrubb@dante.nmsu.edu (GRUBB)
Subject: Some Marvel & DC Multiverse ramblings (Rewrite)
Organization: New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM
Distribution: na
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 02:28:47 GMT

There seems to be confusion about the nature of Marvel's Multiverse and the 
beings that inhabit it.  Part of the problem stems from Marvel's writers lack 
of understanding that they have TWO multiverses, one Dimensional(universes 
with different physcial and/or temporal laws) and one Temporal (each 
"dimension" having its own set of divergent timelines).  What complicates this 
is that other dimensions can have Earths and NOT be the product of altered 
history.  The best example of this in Marvel are the New Universe Earth {in 
the ominverse} and Beyonder's Earth {part of the Marvel Universe}.

A reasonable Rule of thumb to tell if the multiverse involved is Dimensional 
or Temporal is to ask "Are any physcial and/or temporal laws different from 
the Regular Marvel main timeline?" If the answer appears to be yes then a 
Dimensional multiverse is probably involved. This includes different temporal 
rates {Rate of time passing}.  Different temporal rates are NOT a result of a 
divergent in history but the result of different PHYSICAL/TEMPORAL LAWS, 
because if not then you have to explain WHY the change in history resulted in 
a different temporal rate.  The best examples of the physcial and/or temporal 
laws difference of other dimensions in Marvel are the Dark Dimension, Kang's 
Limbo and DarkChild's Limbo.{Yes, the last two ARE different and are an 
example of the problem with the writers.}  The Earths that most clearly fit 
into this catagory in Marvel are New Universe Earth and Beyonder's Earth.

Marvel is having as little luck controling its writers use of the Multiverse 
then Pre-Crisis DC did. Like Marvel, PreCrisis DC had both a dimesional and a 
temporal multiverse.  While Phantom Girl and Mxyzptlk were clearly from other 
dimensions, PreCrisis DC had problems with its many Earths because, like 
Marvel, some were other dimesions while other were different timelines and the 
writers were unsure as to which was which.
It can be shown that neither Marvel nor DC could never deside on the true 
nature of their multiverses.

1) Though reconing DC tried to make Planet Oa unique in its plethera of Earths 
{Earth-1} just as Claremont and others planned Phoenix to be unique in 
Marvel's infinate Earths {Earth 616}. Both sets of writers quickly lost 
control of these consepts due to other writers.  DC lost it with Planet Oa 
with DC Challange {I wrote this off as a VERY bad dream but DC like a 
dunderhead did not label it an imaginary tale so we are stuck with it.  Though 
I think it bought the farm in Crisis.} Marvel lost it with Phoenix with BOTH 
What If... and Guardians of the Galaxy {which is a DIVERGENT future from 
BETWEEN Dark and Rachel Phoenix}  The Crossover Earth is another Phoenix 
messup but we can shove it in the Marvel OMNIVERSE and ignore it {As far as I 
remember Crossover-Earth had no Watcher, so according to the New Universe 
issue of Quasar that would place it in the omniverse and so outside the relm 
of the Marvel Multiverse}.

2) Pre-Crisis DC had less control or understanding of its multiverse then 
Marvel does in that it could not really deside which of its Earths were 
alternate timelines or dimensions.  For example, DC set up Earth-Prime and 
Earth-1 as different dimensions with different physical laws when it allowed a 
writer from Earth-Prime to gain the power to control Earth-1's people's fates, 
but only as long as he was on Earth-1.  It also implied the Earths as 
alternate dimentions when it set up each Earth with its own set of UNRELATED 
timelines.  It favored the timeline idea in keeping the Earths at the same 
temporal rate. This implied that the Earths were just What Ifs... of regular 
DC continity.

3) Post Crisis DC is relativly better in keeping the dimensional and temperal 
multiverses staight.  Post-Crisis DC still has dimensions with other Earths in 
them {Blue Jay and Supergirl are each from one of these other Earths.} but it 
is made clear that these are NOT possible timelines but other dimensions. {In 
contrast with these Earths, the ones shown in the Armegedon 2001 storyline 
were alternate timelines.  Supergirl's Earth does skirt the boundry between 
dimensional and temperal multiverses though, because it was pulled from the 
main DC universe and altered by the Time Trapper who had also altered the 
evolutionary laws on Krypton to make Superboy possible.} 

4) Like DC, Marvel cannot make up its mind on how time travel works, which 
scrambles the relationships of the Earths like crazy. It appears that DC had 
the 'you can erase yourself without paradox idea' around Earth-2 time.  Though 
in the early days DC carried this idea into Earth-1 with the "Earth without a 
Justice League" story it finally desided on the alternate future method that 
was the framework of the Armegedon 2001 story line.  Like DC, Marvel cannot 
deside on what happens when someone goes into the past and alters things.  
Bishop reprecents the 'go back in your own past and create new future' idea, 
while Rachel Summers and Guardians of the Galaxy represent the 'you can only 
enter into another Earth's past' idea.  Marvel only knows {or more likely 
DOESN'T know} what new idea Cable represents.  There needs to be a standard 
idea of how time travel works before things get more messed up. {Too late.}

5) Like DC, Marvel has understood that dimensions have an advantage over 
timelines in that, because of their different physical laws, they can have 
realities that make little sence from just a historical point of view.  DC 
comics Earth-3 was the best example of this with an American Columbus 
discovering Europe, Actor Abe Lincoln shooting President John Wilkes Booth, 
and most likely a President Lee H. Oswell being shot in Dallas by a lone 
gunman named John F. Kennedy.  Excalibur ran into an Earth much like this in 
its 1880s on pg 6-7 Issue #15.  Marvel did this with both the New Universe 
Earth and the Beyonder's Earth; these Earths have VERY different physical laws 
then mainline Marvel continuity.  In fact, New Universe Earth's laws are SO 
different that it is not even part of Marvel's Multiverse. {For obvious 
reasons, these Earths and others like them do not work well within just an 
alternate historal framework. Imagine the set of events needed to make these 
worlds work and you get the idea.} With the exception of New Universe Earth  
and Beyonder's Earth, Marvel has failed to CLEARLY state what its Earths in 
Excalibur are and if they are different from the alternate Earths featured in 
What If.., Quasar, Guardians of the Galaxy, etc. {This is a MESS.}

As a final note:  rumor is that the DC writers gave up on understanding the 
mess that previous writers had made of the DC multiverse and so we had 
Crisis...and now have a BIGGER continuity mess then before.

The best example of this lack of control and understanding by the writers of 
Marvel's Multiverse is the use of Phoenix.  When Claremont and others planned 
Phoenix to be unique in the multiverse they forgot to make clear whether the 
multiverse being talked about was temporal or dimensional.  Before anybody 
knew what happened other writers had shot the idea of a Phoenix being unique 
in the ENTIRE multiverse full of holes with first What If stories and later 
Guardians of the Galaxy.  To top it all off they tied What If.. into Marvel 
Continuity with the Quasar issue in which he goes Living Laser collecting from 
many What If--? universes and latter on with the TimeQuake saga.  These tie-
ins IMHO eliminate the "we can ignore What If because it has NO relation to 
Mainline Marvel continuity" arguement and instead shows the problems with the 
lack of good guildlines for consepts or characters.
As for writers saying 'we did not write it so it does not count' IMHO that is 
very bad position for a writer to take.  The challange is how to explain the 
character's presence or actions given the original consept.  Failing that the 
writer should look to INTELEGENTLY reconing the character's origin to fit the 
new consepts.  Phoenix's original consept could be redone the following way:  
Phoenix IS unique in the way Pre-Crisis DC's Oa was unique: existing in only 
one of the realities of the dimentional multiverse but still having the 
ability of existing across the temporal multiverse of that one dimension.

The Crosstime Caper in Excalibur shows the confusion that Marvel writers have; 
they were unclear as to whether it was about alternate dimensions or timelines 
but seemed to lean more to alternate dimensions for the reasons below: 
1)  the physical laws changed (especially on the Earth of Excalibur #16-17.
    Most of the team's powers didn't work on this Earth (This was the
    Nightcrawler warlord of ? saga)  The Earths of Excalibur #14(silly), 
    and Excalibur #18-19(The Auto Race) are dead Earths that the
    Impossible Man and Jamie respectively reshaped for their own reasons.
    As such they could be either in other timelines or dimensions.
2)  The different Earths have different temporal rates as in the case of 
    the Earth of Excalibur's Kylun(148). (a different aspect of time then just
    historical changes as explained in the beginning of this article.)
3)  In Excalibur #14 Galactus states "Of all the worlds in all the infinite
    DIMENSIONS this representation of Sol's third planet has grown too 
    silly to to be allowed to exist..."{Why dimensions instead of timelines?}
4)  NONE of the Captain Britians are duplicated; they are all different.
    (By duplicated I mean more than one Captain Britian, Hauptmann
    Englande, Brit-Man, etc) If different timelines were involved, then 
    some if not all would be duplicated and the number of members would 
    increase geometrically over time. This implies that Otherworld 
    concentrates its efforts on ONE timeline of each dimension.{Or that 
    the other Earths are being stuffed out as fast as they come into 
    existance, which makes little sence and begs the questions 'How?, Why?,
    and Who?'.}
5)  The fact there is Otherworld AND the Time Variant Authority; 
    each apperently dealing with a different multiverse; Otherworld-the 
    dimensional one, the TVA-the Temporal multiverse of ONE dimension (Earth 
    616). Otherwise it is bad writing because if they serve the same function 
    why do both exist and why don't their individual problems (Necrom's plan 
    and TimeQuake) effect the other organization?     
6)  We know of at least EIGHT Earth 616 timelines that Phoenix exists/existed 
    in and Excalibur NEVER met ANY of them or their variants. {In an infinity 
    of alternate timelines not one other Earth had a Phoenix?  Come on Marvel 
    we and you know better.  I have discused how to solve this problem above.}
    A) Dark Phoenix goes nuts and destroys the universe (What If...Vol 1 #?)
    B) Nightcrawler get the Phoenix force and is killed.
    C) Alantas Attacks succeeds and Rachel gets killed.
    D) Inferno is lost and Phoenix purges the demons before the Tribunial
       fries the Earth.  It then returns to the Universe.
    E) Korvac banishes Phoenix, Silver Surfer, and Dr. Strange from his 
       timeline and later on destroys that timeline.  Later on all three 
       return but only Dr. Strange remains in the timeline; Phoenix and 
       Silver Surfer go history or dimension (I don't remember which 
       exactly) hopping for a new home. (What If... Vol 1 #45)
    F) Phoenix really becomes Jean Grey but is found out after the US 
       becomes anti-mutant and goes into seclusion while most of the 
       X-Men get killed and at the end it saves the X-Men and returns 
       to the universe (What If... Vol 2, #32-33)
    G) A vampire Jean Grey claims the Phoenix force and later 'lives'
       in the Dark Dimension. (What if Vol 2, #37 and #39).
    H) Guardians of the Galaxy Phoenix; timeline diverged between Dark 
       Phoenix and Rachel Phoenix {This is NOT a What If earth}.
Side note:  as stated before Crossover Earth{DC-Marvel team ups} can be 
assumed to be in the ominverse and NOT part any of the 'normal' Marvel 
multiverses. (It contained a Phoenix is why I even bother talking about it.) 
7)  This is more a writer's goof then anything else, but the method of
    seperating the Earth's in Cross-time Caper described in Exclaibur #50 is 
    the EXACT SAME ONE Pre-Crisis DC used in keeping its nonrelated Earths, 
    which each had a set of distinct timelines, apart: Variations of 
    vibrational frequency.{Sloppy Marvel.  At least fully understand the 
    idea before you use it.}

With the way Marvel is going we will soon have a Marvel Crisis on Infinate 
Earths because, like DC, the writers have no clue as to what is going on and 
continuity is shot to nothing.  Besides Marvel has gotten so bad that some of 
the readers have little clue as what is going on either.

Comments welcome

Organization: Masters student, English, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA