Why Time Travel Is Bad.

[million_suns]

Time travel is the sort of taboo that should, I think, be left alone in the MU. I mean, Doom HAS time travel tech, yes? So why does he not put it to use by shoving Rob Reynolds out of the way, and having the Sentry formula for himself? Or if that's of no real consequence to you, why not just shove Banner AND Jones out of the way of the Gamma bomb, and become the Hulk for his own ends?
Time travel is just too prosaic an idea to work in a universe where most hero origins are flimsy at best. Thoughts?

[StoneGold]

Because Doom's time machine doesn't work that way. Parallel dimensions and such.

[Alan2099]

Actually, Doom's time machine is one in three or four or so that actually does work that way.

[Clea]

Time travel is the sort of taboo that should, I think, be left alone in the MU. I mean, Doom HAS time travel tech, yes? So why does he not put it to use by shoving Rob Reynolds out of the way, and having the Sentry formula for himself? Or if that's of no real consequence to you, why not just shove Banner AND Jones out of the way of the Gamma bomb, and become the Hulk for his own ends?
Time travel is just too prosaic an idea to work in a universe where most hero origins are flimsy at best. Thoughts?


Time travel is a fun idea. Using time travel to change the past/future or to create time paradoxes is tricky and messy, but can also be fun if done well. I wouldn't rule it out entirely.

[Joe Acro]

Because Doom's time machine doesn't work that way. Parallel dimensions and such.Except if you read Blade. ...or the original FF story it appeared in (I think).

Which is the real problem with time travel. People want to write it taking various forms. One time it leads to an alternate reality. In another it reshapes reality. Still another it relates to something that happened historically. It's a lack of consistency spurned on by freedom of creativity.

[niall mc cann]

But hasn't he tried changing the past before?

The FF always stop him. That happened really early on in the title, I'm pretty sure.

Also, if i was going to try copy anyone's methods of getting powers, Banner's would be the absolute last guy I'd choose... not only are they largely uncontrollable, it involves hanging around in front of a nuclear explosion!:D

[Comet Man]

Time travel is just too prosaic an idea to work in a universe where most hero origins are flimsy at best. Thoughts?

I don't care if it's prosaic or not, it's fun. I'm just not gonna dwell on all the technicalities and give myself a headache. So much stuff in the MU is totally impossible in the real world, but that's because it isn't the real world.

[Cosmic Book Fan]

Add to the argument that they just threw out all of the time travel rules in a recent issue of FF, saying that the rules were based on Kang, and Kang is a liar.

[Shellhead]

Time travel worked fine back when Marvel editors did their jobs. There was a perfectly reasonable policy in place, to the effect that time travelers can't change the future by going into the past. Attempts to effect such changes merely created alternate timelines, leaving the original timeline for a given reality intact. It avoided all kinds of paradox issues and allowed for some exciting travel to alternate realities.

[Joe Acro]

Time travel worked fine back when Marvel editors did their jobs. There was a perfectly reasonable policy in place, to the effect that time travelers can't change the future by going into the past. Attempts to effect such changes merely created alternate timelines, leaving the original timeline for a given reality intact. It avoided all kinds of paradox issues and allowed for some exciting travel to alternate realities.
When was that policy in place?

Early time travel stories seem to suggest that you couldn't alter the past, but you could still participate in it with no bad consequences.

[Shellhead]

When was that policy in place?

Early time travel stories seem to suggest that you couldn't alter the past, but you could still participate in it with no bad consequences.

Late '60s and all through the '70s. I started losing interest in Marvel thanks to Jim Shooter, so it could be that the time travel policy disappeared under his watch by the mid-'80s. It was never set in stone as an official mandate, but there were a lot of key people at Marvel who supported the idea, because it survived despite the rapid turnover in Editor-in-Chiefs during the '70s.

[DDM]

When was that policy in place?

Early time travel stories seem to suggest that you couldn't alter the past, but you could still participate in it with no bad consequences.

It was enforced by Mark Gruenwald & other similar editors. For example, in Marvel Two-in-One #50, Ben Grimm goes back to the past in an attempt to alter his present. He is successful in the sens he changes the other Ben GRimm back into his normal human self, but is disappointed to learn that HIS past did not change at all. Instead, Ben created an alternate reality in which Ben Grimm turned human & did not rejoin the Fantastic Four.

Another example is the classic Uncanny X-Men #141-142. Rachel Summers uses her psionic powers to transfer Kate Pryde's mind into the teenage Kitty's body in the past, specifically October 30, 1980. Unfortunately, Rachel shifts Kate into an alternate reality--the mainstream Marvel Universe Earth. The X-Men save Senator Robert Kelly, but in the mainstream Marvel Universe Earth Kelly is the reason for anti-mutant hatred. Of course, Rachel shifts herself into the alternate past in Uncanny X-Men #184 & The New Mutants #18...

There's scores more of examples. That's just 2.

[Laughing Mask]

after watching a lot of doctor who i know the dangers of time travel.

[Cthulhudrew]

There's scores more of examples. That's just 2.

There also exist examples where the "parallel timelines" rules don't apply.

Mockingbird going back in time and killing the second Ghost Rider, for instance, definitely changed the timeline and had consequences in the Marvel Universe's present day. (An event, I should add, that took place using a duplicate of Doctor Doom's time machine.)

(Along with that, the Avengers created Moon Knight's weaponry.)

Doc Strange #53 had the doctor going back into the past and becoming the catalyst for the Thing's transformation back into Ben Grimm that allowed the FF to escape the clutches of Pharoah Rama-Tut in the seminal time travel story of the Marvel Universe, in FF #19.

There's also Uncanny X-Men #191, where Doc Strange uses his magical powers to tap into Magik's Limbo-portal mutant ability and alters the past so that Kulan Gath is not released from his medallion and the nightmare that Gath's magic unleashed did not come to pass. That latter event might possibly fit in with the parallel timeline phenomenon, in that the event that alters the future is the introduction of Nimrod (from the Days of Future Past alternate future) into the Marvel timeline.

[Shellhead]

There also exist examples where the "parallel timelines" rules don't apply.

Mockingbird going back in time and killing the second Ghost Rider, for instance, definitely changed the timeline and had consequences in the Marvel Universe's present day. (An event, I should add, that took place using a duplicate of Doctor Doom's time machine.)

(Along with that, the Avengers created Moon Knight's weaponry.)

Doc Strange #53 had the doctor going back into the past and becoming the catalyst for the Thing's transformation back into Ben Grimm that allowed the FF to escape the clutches of Pharoah Rama-Tut in the seminal time travel story of the Marvel Universe, in FF #19.

There's also Uncanny X-Men #191, where Doc Strange uses his magical powers to tap into Magik's Limbo-portal mutant ability and alters the past so that Kulan Gath is not released from his medallion and the nightmare that Gath's magic unleashed did not come to pass. That latter event might possibly fit in with the parallel timeline phenomenon, in that the event that alters the future is the introduction of Nimrod (from the Days of Future Past alternate future) into the Marvel timeline.

Excellent examples from the time period when I started losing interest in Marvel comics, due to Jim Shooter's editorial style.

[Joe Acro]

And wouldn't it be during that same span of time that we got the Sise-Neg story? That's the making of history, that story is.

[Expletive Deleted]

And wouldn't it be during that same span of time that we got the Sise-Neg story?I think that was quite a bit earlier. '73, or thereabout.

[Joe Acro]

I think that was quite a bit earlier. '73, or thereabout.Well, it counters Shellhead's statement regarding the nature of time travel during that period, then.

Unless we're to believe Sise-Neg only affected an alternate reality, which wouldn't really make sense in the context of the story.

[jeffarei]

Runaways was ruined because of time travel.

[marshal99]

Time paradox can be a headache at times.

When the guardian of the galaxy Vance Astro tried to interfere in his younger self life , all it did was make the guardians of the galaxy a alternate timeline from the 616 marvel universe.

How about Age of Apocalypse ? It became a seperate alternate reality instead.

[DeadXMan]

Runaways was ruined because of time travel.

one issue left and then Google eyes Molly shall be here

(seriously I think Moll a HR go together like waid and impulse)

[worstblogever]

Well, because you gotta ride shotgun with this guy:

http://images.art.com/images/-/Christopher-Lloyd---Back-to-the-Future--C10038584.jpeg

[Shellhead]

Well, it counters Shellhead's statement regarding the nature of time travel during that period, then.

Unless we're to believe Sise-Neg only affected an alternate reality, which wouldn't really make sense in the context of the story.

The Sise-neg story was great, and I will readily concede that it didn't just create an alternate timeline. Given that it was written by Steve Englehart around the same time that he was avoiding time travel paradoxes over in the pages of the Avengers, I had the impression that the Sise-neg story didn't result in the usual time travel paradoxes because somehow this was the way it had always happened. Sise-neg was destined to travel back in time and generate the big bang, because it didn't appear that there was any other way that the Marvel Universe had started.

[Cthulhudrew]

How about Age of Apocalypse ? It became a seperate alternate reality instead.

Maybe it's been retconned that way (and from what I read of X-Men: Endangered Species, it seems like it), but at least initially it was supposed to be an actual timeline change, and not an alternate reality. It was even advertised as such, being put down to the immense power of Legion's mutant abilities that he could, in fact, violate the natural "laws" of time travel thusly.

[rwsmith]

Time paradox can be a headache at times.

You got that right. I generally try to boycott time-travel stories altogether for that reason.

[Joe Acro]

The Sise-neg story was great, and I will readily concede that it didn't just create an alternate timeline. Given that it was written by Steve Englehart around the same time that he was avoiding time travel paradoxes over in the pages of the Avengers, I had the impression that the Sise-neg story didn't result in the usual time travel paradoxes because somehow this was the way it had always happened. Sise-neg was destined to travel back in time and generate the big bang, because it didn't appear that there was any other way that the Marvel Universe had started.Precisely. (My preferred form of time travel, actually.)

In my estimation, that's more in line with earlier representations of time travel, such as Thing being Blackbeard and the FF stopping Rama-Tut from "changing history".

[We R. Venom]

Why Time travel is good.

http://antoniogenna.files.wordpress.com/2006/11/ritornoalfuturo.jpg

[DDM]

Time paradox can be a headache at times.

When the guardian of the galaxy Vance Astro tried to interfere in his younger self life , all it did was make the guardians of the galaxy a alternate timeline from the 616 marvel universe.



The Guardians of the Galaxy was already an alternate timeline long before Vance Astro helped his younger self tap into his telekinesis. The mainstream Marvel Universe Vance Astro joined the New Warriors & eventually the Avengers.

[marshal99]

The Guardians of the Galaxy was already an alternate timeline long before Vance Astro helped his younger self tap into his telekinesis. The mainstream Marvel Universe Vance Astro joined the New Warriors & eventually the Avengers.

Yes but the timeline only diverted when the future Vance pressured his younger self way back in the avengers issue.

[Titanium]

Time travel is the sort of taboo that should, I think, be left alone in the MU. I mean, Doom HAS time travel tech, yes? So why does he not put it to use by shoving Rob Reynolds out of the way, and having the Sentry formula for himself? Or if that's of no real consequence to you, why not just shove Banner AND Jones out of the way of the Gamma bomb, and become the Hulk for his own ends?
Time travel is just too prosaic an idea to work in a universe where most hero origins are flimsy at best. Thoughts?

Doom doesn't go back in time to change the past not because he can't but because he doesn't need to. He's Doom, if he can't get it done right the first time, he doesn't try for a second. It's an ego thing.

Also if he wants the Sentry or Hulk powers, he'll just steal them.

[Shellhead]

Yes but the timeline only diverted when the future Vance pressured his younger self way back in the avengers issue.

Oddly enough, that encounter actually took place in Marvel Two-in-One #69:

http://image.milehighcomics.com/istore/images/large/52075323508.69.gif

[marshal99]

Oddly enough, that encounter actually took place in Marvel Two-in-One #69:

http://image.milehighcomics.com/istore/images/large/52075323508.69.gif

Hmmm...i could be thinking of the wrong issue then as i seemed to recall future vance wanted to visit his younger self back in the old michael korvac saga and charlie saved the young vance's life anonymously. It's been a long while since i read those issues though.

[Shellhead]

Hmmm...i could be thinking of the wrong issue then as i seemed to recall future vance wanted to visit his younger self back in the old michael korvac saga and charlie saved the young vance's life anonymously. It's been a long while since i read those issues though.

Charlie 27 did anonymously save young Vance's life in some issue of the Avengers, during the spooky buildup of that Michael/Korvac storyline. But it wasn't until that issue of Marvel Two-in-One that the two Vances finally met. In fact, in the early pages of that issue, the Guardians of the Galaxy approach Ben seeking his help, because Vance is missing, and they are afraid that Vance will create some huge paradox if he meets his younger self.