Even With A Program I Can't Keep These Madroxes Straight

So I'm trying to figure out how this Multiple Man mini-series is going to end, assuming it has a proper ending.

It feels like one of those time travel stories that is going to loop around to the beginning at the end. Which means the Madrox they found inside a vault in the first issue. He asked Hank to find a cure for him, then stole Bishop's time travel device and off he went. We haven't seen him since.

Simplest explanation: He was Emperor Jamie, who decapitated the Jamie trying to overthrow him, then went back in time as was absorbed by that same do-gooder Jamie when they fought in Hank's lab, right after the Jamie from the vault vanished. Which seems like an odd, unceremonious sendoff if he really was the start of all the trouble.

Almost as simple explanation: Do-gooder Jamie is Vault Jamie, having realized his plan was a really bad idea once one of his duplicates went crazy and killed a bunch of people while taking over the world. Might explain his being able to absorb Emperor Madrox, if he was the one who spawned said Emperor. But Do-Gooder Jamie is/was kind of a moron, he didn't give the impression of being smart enough to hole up in a hidden lab and work on science. Of course, I don't think Vault Madrox got very far with his work, or he might have been able to offer Hank more assistance.

But now there's General Madrox, leading an army of Jamies into the past to attack the X-Men, proclaiming how much he hates everyone but himself. I'm wondering if he could be the original. Maybe it was easier to create a duplicate to be the leader, but not remember he was an offshoot. How much control Jamie typically has over the personalities of the duplicates he creates is variable depending on the situation. They typically know whatever he knew when he formed them, and vice versa. But we're talking about a duplicate who has taken some sort of serum or drug that enables him to be the original Jamie. Possible side effects may include being able to withhold knowledge from the duplicates you create, and being a genocidal maniac.

More complicated explanation: It's the duplicate Do-Gooder Jamie sent to find Iron Man, who wound on Marvel Swimsuit Issue Earth. He's the only one that didn't pop up in the X-Mansion to bring Do-Gooder Jamie to the dystopian future, where they all died. Meaning he's still out there somewhere, trying to find Iron Man. Who has at the minimum helped Dr. Doom repair time machines before, so he can probably build one if needed. Of course, the question then is why that Jamie would end up in the vault, kicking off this whole mess.

Which brings up the idea that Vault Madrox died sometime after farting off into the timestream, and none of these duplicates either remember that, or care. They exist, and can do so independent of the Jamie Prime that created them, so who cares what happened to him? The whole point of the thing Vault Jamie was working on was to get dupes to the point their fates weren't tied to Jamie Prime's. In which case, this would be considered a success.

So yeah, I have no idea what the answer is going to be. I should probably start making a chart now to help keep it straight when the explanation presents itself.