From: mcollins@nyx.cs.du.edu (Killans - First And Last And Always)
Subject: Re: Some Marvel & DC Multiverse ramblings
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Date: Fri, 20 Nov 92 04:20:03 GMT

In article <1992Nov19.014611.945@nmsu.edu> bgrubb@dante.nmsu.edu (GRUBB) writes:
>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}.

>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 charactures.  Phoenix could STILL be 
>
I think this is the crux of the whole problem - do we consider 'What If'
stories to be part of the 'regular' Marvel Universe, or are they equivalent
to Silver Age DC 'Imaginary Tales'? I haven't read 'TimeQuake', so I can't
comment too deeply on it, but it struck me as a very stupid idea when I first
heard about it, and it *does* seem to bring in quite a lot of confusion. My
instinct would be to regard 'TimeQuake' *itself* as a 'What If' story (sort
of - 'What If the 'What If' stories really existed as alternate timelines in
the Marvel Universe?' . That way we can still ignore them.

>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?'.}

Could also be explained by assuming that the Dimensional Multiverse as a
whole splits into alternate timelines (rather than individual Dimensions
splitting into timelines). Thus, each separate *timeline* (ie temporal
variant of the Dimensional Multiverse) has it's own Captain Britain Corps,
each with a different history. But I agree with you, if each Captain 
Britain in the Corps came from an alternate timeline, there should be many
identical (or near-identical) ones.

>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?     

I'm not sure I'm familiar with the TVA (unless it has something to do with
lots of Kangs from different timelines wiping out variant timelines in an
Avengers story of the late '80s). I would tweak this by saying that it deals
with the temporal variants of the *entire* Dimensional Multiverse to fit
with what I said above. Thus there are an infinite number of Captain Britain
Corps (one for each temporal variant) but only one TVA in the entire Marvel
Multiverse. Of course, if it has been shown that different *dimensional*
universes (I hope you're keeping up at the back there :-) ) have their
own TVAs, then my argument is buggered (either that or I'm spending too
much time thinking about this sort of rubbish :-) ).

[List of 8 temporal timelines in which Phoenix appeared in 'What If' stories
deleted]

The whole Phoenix problem is eliminated if you use my kludge for ignoring
TimeQuake.

>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 
>    apart: Variations of vibrational frequency.{Sloppy Marvel.  At least 
>    understand the idea before you use it.}
>
It struck me as a bit of a swipe, but then Alan Davis has been making veiled
references to the Crisis in other issues (eg he titled one issue 'Crisis in
Infinite Personalities' I seem to remember). I look on it more as a
homage or a tribute than a barefaced steal, but that's only cos I happen
to like Davis' work. If Lobdell had done it, it would be a shameful copy :-)

>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.
>
I'm not sure I agree - all that is needed is a strong definition and 
explanation of what the situation is, and a commitment from *all* Marvel's
writers and editors to stick to it and not cause further continuity 
problems. I would also disagree on your comment that the DC Crisis was 
necessary...

I have some general comments which I will put in another message.

Mike

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