Thread:Nausiated/@comment-4651179-20161013181101/@comment-61022-20161013205613

Time Travel is an interesting beast in the Marvel Universe. There are tons and tons of points of explanation, conjecture and sometimes the rules are broken. Another complicating factor is regarding possible futures and the sliding timescale. I believe time travel is covered in the glossary in Official Handbook A-Z #2 (or around there).

The basic principal is basically this:

You can't change the past, you just create an alternate reality. So whenever someone from the Modern Age travels back to a previous point in history -- if they alter history -- they just create an alternate reality (which sometimes overlays Earth-616, but that's never permanent) In turn, there are countless possible futures out there. Travelling from a future to the Modern Age usually diverts Earth-616 away from that destined future should the traveller meddle with the course of history (as countless X-Men tales have shown us)

To make things more confusing, sometimes someone travelling to the past or future doesn't end up in the proper point of their reality. A great example of this is when the Thing went back in time to try and administer a cure to himself shortly after he became the Thing. It was later revealed in that Ben didn't end up in his past, but that of an parallel world.

It's more frequent with people who claim to come from the future. As it was pointed out when Rachel Summers first appeared on Earth-616, she actually came from a parallel world where the Days of Future Past reality of Earth-811 happened.

Another example is, where Tempus tricks Willie Lumpkin into going into the past where he accidentally causes George Washington to get captured by the British and also tips the mob off about the Great Depression. Both of these incidents caused Earth-616 to be replaced with a reality where mankind is still a bunch of primitives. However, the Fantastic Four went back and corrected Willie's interferences. Although Mister Fantastic saved George Washington and the Thing fought the mob, it didn't create a divergent reality where they were never there because in the end, it never affected the actual course of history.

So it's a matter of minor interferences over larger ones.

Another example is the young X-Men being active in the present. The original X-Men team have actually been pulled forward in time twice before that. In and. However in those cases after the battles were over they were returned to the very moment they were taken with no memories of the future. Versus the All-New X-Men who were pulled forward in time, have stayed a very long time and have gone through some massive changes.

Another example is the Fantastic Four's first encounter with Rama-Tut. That same moment was also visited by Doctor Strange and the West Coast Avengers. (The issue numbers escape me at the moment) but ultimately, because the future Doc Strange and WCA didn't alter the course of the Fantastic Four's time in ancient Egypt, it didn't create a divergent reality.

My own interpretation of this is that it's not so much realities being changed or altered, I think every reality is static. The only constant is the modern age of Earth-616. It continues along and alternate realities kind of work around them. Whatever is most disruptive to the past of Earth-616 creates a divergent reality, and the modern day of Earth-616 can be easily diverted away form any number of possible futures. I'd like to think the future is in a constant state of re-writing itself as new characters and concepts come up in the present, the future has to ultimately change.

Clear as mud?