The thing I love about the Marvel Universe is this: It's got a multiverse that sticks. Unlike the "competition down the street" that destroys and recreates their mutliverse every 20 years or so (creating an ungodly mess of continuity might I add). The point of fascination I always have is with alternate realities. I love them to death. I suppose that the main reason is not only just because they explore how things MIGHT have gone in another reality, but they also tend to be stories that have a bit of finality.
On Earth-616, someone like Spider-Man or Captain America could not be killed off -- at least without some contrived resurrection story (As an aside, come on Captain America Reborn? Is it just me or did Marvel and DC pull the same damn plot device when they killed off both Batman and Captain America during the end of their big summer blockbuster story lines? But I digress...) So these alternate realities are interesting to me, because there is that feeling of finality, of mortality, and an eventual end.
I first brush with these alternate worlds was an old issue of What If?. Particularly What If? Vol 2 #47. It was the second part of a two part story. The first part was "What If Cable Destroyed the X-Men" in issue #46, this was one was "What If Magneto Took Over the USA?".
It was 1993, and the X-Men Animated Series (arguably, one of the best ones they have ever done. Some of the best episodes were written by Bob Skir -- who in my opinion has done the only *Good* Transformers spin off in the last 10 years. A story about religious extremism pre-9/11? Brilliant), and I was out grocery shopping with my folks. Of course, the first place I go is the comic book rack. Now, I can tell you 11 year old me knew nearly dick-all about the Marvel Universe. My knowledge stopped at X-Men (and that was whatever was on the cartoon) and that Spider-Man was always fighting Venom (It was the early 90's, it seemed like Venom was the only villain Spider-Man had). I was able to recognize characters pretty much by my collection of Marvel Universe trading cards, but I couldn't give you a huge bibliographic report on these characters. Power Man? Moon Knight? Slapstick?
So What If? Was a bit of a mystery to me, however it had Magneto right on the cover along with pretty much every other recognizable X-Men character that mattered. So I bought it. I recall really understanding it. Keep in mind, I was 11, and my reading skills were not that hot... So as far as I knew, the Sentinels thought everyone were mutants or something. But I thought it was the most awesome thing ever.
All these X-Men characters were getting killed off... Beloved characters, like Archangel, Cable, Iceman etc. etc...
Flash-forward about two or three years later when they unleashed the Age of Apocalypse. This one caught me off guard. Now remember, this is the early days of the internet as well, so if you wanted comic book news, you had to have a subscription to Wizard Magazine.. Heck Marvel didn't even have it's own internet site back then... The news that they killed Professor X blew my mind.
I picked up Astonishing X-Men #1 without reading the Legion Quest story and I was left wondering what the hell was going on with the story.
Eventually I figured it out, and I got attached to this Age of the Apocalypse reality. When I got my hands on a copy of X-Men: Omega back in the day and started reading it, I felt a sense of profound loss. It was over. Apocalypse was killed and Bishop restored reality (Hey the idea of bringing back the Age of Apocalypse didn't happen for like 10 years later!). I didn't want these grittier, bad ass versions of the X-Men to go away.
Looking back as an adult, I think that's what hit it out of the park for me and these alternate reality characters. It's that all good stories must ultimately come to an end. Some alternate reality stories are pretty disposable. A lot of the early What If? stories of the late 70's early 80's, to me feel like such a lark. They were so sterile about it, it was an interesting venture to go on, but the end results were almost forgettable. Then there are the great ones where something epic happens that shakes up the status quo.
I'd have to say that if there was a Marvel book that captured that recently it was X-Men: The End. Which, sadly is the only "The End" story I've read, so I don't know how the others compare, but Chris Claremont did some impressive works. People pan his most recent writings, and I'd be the first to agree -- but give the guy a break, he had a stroke not to long ago -- If there is anything that redeems his lack-luster writing (Come on New Exiles? What the hell was that?) it's X-Men: The End.
Anyway... Round-about way to get onto my subject here... Alternate realities and how they twist my nuts. It's this: Time travelers.. Damn time travelers.
Not an issue when they time travel and CREATE a divergence. It's when they time traveled to a point before the divergence happened. Talk about confusing. I was updating the article about Bishop from Earth-295 (Age of Apocalypse *sniffle*) and that was one of the big contentions about how to categorize him. Was he Earth-1191 Bishop? An alternate? Should we make a NEW universe designation for him or assign him to Earth-295.
For one, I am glad we haven't tried to cram all these alternate reality versions of time travelers into their base profiles. But instead assign them to the alternate realities they exist in at the point of divergence from Earth-616 (or whatever world we're talking about) It makes for less headaches.
Anyway... Did we solve that Duckworld being an parallel world/alternate dimension thing yet? *looks* nope.