Riddle Me This! Is this Still the 616?
Who’d win in a fight between Superman and Spawn? How the f*ck old is Cable? And what in the holy hell is a Megatron? When the tough questions arise, Panels on Pages will gather the facts, but it’s up to the PoP!ulation to draw its own conclusions. So come on… Riddle Me This.
Last month we discussed time travel and the idea of divergent realities. In Marvel Comics, the reality we read about every month is known as “the 616″ or “Earth-616.” But is it still?
The designation of “616″ came about in the early ’80s and was the brain child of either Alan Moore or Dave Thorpe, depending upon who you ask. Either way, it was in Chris Claremont’s Excalibur that it truly became popularized and came to represent an official branding of the core Marvel universe. That was three decades ago, however; in the time since that designation, how many continuity sidesteps have taken place?
- 1986: Jean Grey is found to be alive, never having become the Phoenix in the first place
- 1995: Legion tavels back in time to kill Magneto, accidentally creating the Age of Apocalypse
- 1996-1998: Teenage Tony Stark is brought to the present to be Iron Man and sacrifices himself in the battle with Onslaught, only to have him return as adult Tony
- 2001-2002: Kang the Conqueror conquers Earth
- 2004: Jean Grey uses the power of the Phoenix to travel back to the present and nudge Scott and Emma into keeping the school running, after closing it down led to the future timeline seen in Here Comes Tomorrow
- 2005-2006: In the wake of the House of M, reality is reset but M-Day has left almost all of the mutant population powerless or dead
- 2007-2008: Peter Parker makes a deal with Mephisto, saving his Aunt’s life but in the process rewriting his own history
- 2010-2012: Children’s Crusade sees Scott Lang brought back to life
- 2010-2011: During the Chaos War, reality is in part rewritten with some previously dead characters once again among the living
- 2012: The original X-Men journey to the present
Granted, some of these items may be of no consequence in the long run, but let’s consider the most glaring example. Peter Parker’s deal with the devil not only saved his Aunt May’s life, it altered every aspect of his history; from his marriage to his unmasking to his organic webshooters. If the Peter Parker at the beginning of One More Day was existing within the 616, then as of the story’s end, we simply HAVE to be reading about an alternate Earth, as we are no longer reading about the linear progression of the previous Earth’s continuity. Which means that every story we’ve read since then, in every title across the Marvel Universe, has taken place in this “alternate” reality as well.
With that said, every single retcon and act of temporal voodoo can very easily be considered a similar divergence from the previous timeline. OMD is just the easiest point to argue. Hell, what about sliding timeline retcons such as which war Punisher fought in or how Tony Stark sustained his injuries?
So what does this all mean? It means that every time the record skips, we have reason to believe we’ve moved a click further away from our starting point. The above is a far from conclusive list of retcons and time travel events – such as pulling Captain Marvel from the past or revealing Bucky to be alive – so even if we can’t count each and every item I’ve listed, it’s still fairly safe to say there have been at least ten major events to take us on divergent paths over the years.
By that logic, this Earth where Sentry is dead, Magneto’s a hero, and Otto Octavius is Spider-Man is – at best – Earth-626.
Will this be the path to Marvel’s own “Crisis” one day? Will a Justice-Society-of-America-like group of older “classic” Avengers step through a dimensional rift at some point to reveal the truth? Riddle me this, PoP!ulation… IS THIS still the 616?
Filed Under: Columns • Riddle Me This
I’m throwing this in as a comment so as not to muck-up my core argument above:
It is my belief that every instance of time travel that has altered the course of the timeline counts as a divergent event. For instance: Legion’s attempt to kill Magneto resulted in Nate Grey arriving in the core MU which was a key component in the rise of Onslaught. Therefore, had Legion never time travelled, Onslaught might never have existed.
The argument can, however, be made that Legion’s time travelling was always meant to be a part of the continuity of the core Marvel Universe. After all, a pair of deft retcons led to Dark Beast and Sugarman – two refugees from the AoA – being directly responsible for the creation of the Morlocks and the Genoshan Mutates respectively; two groups who’d existed all along.
This is why, in the article, I stuck with OMD as my main argument. Peter Parker’s reality changed. Period. That can’t be argued. Therefore, if the book was set in the 616 prior to OMD, it simply can NOT still be in the 616 after the fact. Which means that every story that takes place after the events of OMD in every comic book throughout the MU is, by necessity, taking place in the new altered reality. Which also means that in the TRUE 616, any of those stories could have unfolded in entirely different ways, or not at all.
And of COURSE the characters don’t know any better. Tell me I live in reality 616 and I’ll have no way of knowing I don’t until you tell me otherwise, since from my perspective my reality remains unaltered.
But OMD also shifted us forward. It's not that Peter didn't unmask. He did. But he also magic whammied the memory away. And he… Did… Have stingers? I really don't know about that part. It's all very confusing.
Regardless, there's an argument to be made here, for sure.
You're right about the unmasking. But the organic shooters didn't happen, nor did the marriage, meaning that it's a different reality.
616 or not, I will continue to refer to it that way at every opportunity simply because Joe Quesada hates that designation.
There’s a pretty good theory here as to the difference:
http://zak-site.com/Great-American-Novel/ff_franklin.html