Friday, July 24, 2009

Oh Goody, More Comic Book Science

Guardians of the Galaxy #16, the 31st Century. Almost all of the universe has been, consumed by The Fault, which is created by The Error caused in the 21st Century. The Error is apparently Black Bolt and his stupid T-Bomb, which was going to expose everyone to Terrigen Mists, opening one of those rifts in space-time that allow really unpleasant things a way in*. Although really, this sounds less like the tear allowing something in, and more like it opened a hole which things fell through**.

I'm guessing the Fault starts small (compared to its size in the 31st Century), but is too large to fix, and so it just continues to grow, with the universe falling in, one system after another***. Now it's taken almost everything, save the lone system the Badoon saved with their ingenious use of enslaved Sentinels as a cage to contain a power source (created from the sun) which generates a massive force field which protects that remaining section of space from the Fault.

Pardon me while I look back over that last sentence. *Looks back over that last sentence. No, not the one about begging your pardon while I look over a sentence, the one before that.* That is the most awesome thing I've been able to describe since "Mecca for all time and space at the edge of the universe set inside the decapitated head of a space god, with a telepathic cosmonaut dog as head of security".

OK, back to the actual point of the post. It was previously established that the Marvel Universe, the one being destroyed by the Fault, is constantly expanding, and that at least one of the places its expanding into is the Negative Zone****. Do you think the Fault has consumed the Negative Zone as well? I don't know how fast the universe was expanding into***** the Negative Zone, but I doubt it was going as fast as the Fault appears to be moving, if there's a solitary system left after a thousand years. Did the Fault, having devoured almost all of the Marvel Universe, continue expanding, which would bring it into contact with the Negative Zone, and simply keep growing, keep having more stuff fall into it?

For that matter, where is all the stuff going into the Fault ending up at? Somewhere outside the universe, or some other reality perhaps? Maybe another universe is experiencing similar difficulties with rifts, and bits of the Marvel Universe are what is coming in. That's where the Major Victory in the 21st Century came from, I think, another reality he was somehow tossed out of. Unless he's the one from the 31st Century that was blown up at the end of the issue****** . Assuming he and his team were blown up, which isn't for certain, since it's a safe bet Star-Lord and his bunch were killed. So maybe the Major Victory in the 21st Century is the one from the 31st, who was thrown out into the Fault by the explosion, then literally frozen in Time?

Ow, headache. Even if the Fault is so destructive that no matter can make it through whole, matter and energy can't be destroyed, only change form, so whatever made up the Marvel Universe would still have to exist in some form, somewhere. Though this is perhaps not the book to be trying to apply my limited understanding of thermodynamics.

* Given that the bomb is powered by Black Bolt's voice, should we assume it's his voice that's going to do the damage? I mean, I know he's powerful enough to level a city with a whispered word, but to have a voice capable of exploding a bomb with sufficient force to scatter its contents across a galaxy (we'll ignore the obvious questions of just how long that dispersal should actually take), or tear holes in the universe? Geez.

** Though 'consumed' almost suggests an active mind at work. Wasn't there a creature like that in the Thanos series? It tricked Galactus into giving it entry to the Marvel Universe, and Thanos had to find some way to stop it, when even Galactus couldn't slow it down? Maybe that thing is back.

*** Or multiple systems simultaneously, assuming the Fault expands in all directions at once, and so would reach different systems at the same time.

**** As you may recall, that was Annihilus' pretext for invading the Marvel U. in Annihilation. Course, he was really out to take the Power Cosmic for himself, and kill all other life, but he couldn't very well admit that to his soldiers.

***** I don't entirely understand how that works. Was the Marvel U. pushing into the Negative Zone, bumping up against the fabric of N-Zone spacetime, and shoving it out of the way? If so, where was the N-Zone being shoved to? Or is the N-Zone being absorbed somehow? Like it's a piece of food, and the Marvel U. is an ameoba, extending a pseudopod of space-time to envelop and digest the N-Zone?

****** Though Starhawk didn't seem to recognize him as his/her friend and teammate, so I think Starhawk knew it was a different Major Victory from his/hers.

3 comments:

Seangreyson said...

I've got it. The Fault is dumping pieces of Universe 616 through rifts into other universes in the Omniverse.

This then explains why Blink can't seem to get a handle on the current reality jump. Over in the Ultimate Universe it's caused a massive hallucination that engulfs the Earth causing people to believe there's a giant Loeb-written snuff film playing out.

Once the guardians sort out the Fault and stop it from happening then the Exiles will be able to get things on track, the Omniverse will be saved, and the Ultimate Universe can get back to it's old status quo.

And Loeb then falls through a rift and goes over to DC maybe...of course if he did he'd just get assigned to a book I like over there but still we can dream.

SallyP said...

This sort of thing has a tendancy to make my head explode.

CalvinPitt said...

seangreyson: If these rifts can cause the sorts of hallucinations you described in the Ultimate Universe, they're a greater threat than Adam Warlock realizes.

It would be really cool if the difference in the reality jumps in Exiles was related to the rifts. That kind of stuff helps provide that sense of shared universe.

As to Loeb falling back into the DCU, well, like you said, we can dream.

sallyp: Take heart, you aren't alone in that.