Multiverse (Marvel Comics)

Within Marvel Comics, most tales take place within the fictional Marvel Universe, which in turn is part of a larger multiverse. Starting with issues of Captain Britain, the main continuity in which most Marvel storylines take place was designated Earth-616, and the multiverse was established as being protected by Merlyn. Each universe has a Captain Britain designated to protect its version of the British Isles. These protectors are collectively known as the Captain Britain Corps. This numerical notation was continued in the series Excalibur and other titles. Each universe of the Multiverse in Marvel also appears to be defended by a Sorcerer Supreme at nearly all times, appointed by the mystic trinity of Vishanti to defend the world against threats primarily magical in nature from within and beyond and bearing the Eye of Agamotto.

Multiverse
PublisherMarvel Comics
First appearanceWhat If? #1 (February 1977)
See alsoFeatures of the Marvel Universe

Later on, many writers would utilize and reshape the Multiverse in titles such as Exiles, X-Men, and Ultimate Fantastic Four. New universes would also spin out of storylines involving time-traveling characters such as Rachel Summers, Cable, and Bishop, as their actions rendered their home times alternate timelines.

The Multiverse also plays a role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, being introduced in Doctor Strange (2016) and being further built on in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022).

Concept

The Multiverse is the collection of alternate universes that share a universal hierarchy. A large variety of these universes were originated from another due to a major decision on the part of a character. Some can seem to be taking place in the past or future due to differences in how time passes in each universe. Often, new universes are born due to time traveling; another name for these new universes is an "alternate timeline". Earth-616 is the established main universe where the majority of Marvel books take place.

Nature of the Multiverse

According to Forge, mutants living on these alternate Earths have lost their powers due to M-Day, as stated in "Endangered Species"; however, this mass depowering has not been seen in any of Marvel's current alternate reality publications such as Exiles, the Ultimate titles, Amazing Spider-Girl, the Marvel Adventures titles or GeNext, though it is possible that the issue of time may be related to their exclusion. This was apparently retconned during the "X-Men: Messiah Complex" storyline, where Forge stated that all mutants in possible future timelines were depowered, not in parallel universes.[1] This, in addition to A.R.M.O.R.'s observation that Lyra arrived from an alternate reality[2] indicates that the topology of the Marvel Multiverse is based on new realities branching off from key nodes of a timeline instead of strictly parallel dimensions.

Other realities

Not every alternate reality is an entire independent universe, but instead maintain a parasitic relationship to a parent reality. Others can exist outside the multiversal structure altogether.

Pocket universes
  • Counter-Earth (Heroes Reborn): A pocket dimension where Franklin Richards stored many of Earth's superheroes after the events surrounding the appearance of Onslaught. Doctor Doom saved Counter-Earth from the unstable pocket dimension and placed it in an alternate orbit of Earth-616 on the other side of the Sun.
  • The Hill: A dangerous pocket dimension used by Mikhail Rasputin after flooding the Morlock tunnels. Rasputin brought all Morlocks to the Hill to raise them in a survival-of-the-fittest mentality. In this dimension, time runs several times faster. While in Earth-616 only one or two years passed, more than 10 years passed in the Hill. Marrow and the other Gene Nation members grew up in this dimension.
  • The Microverse: Originally, many microverses existed within the Marvel Multiverse. The most commonly visited microverse is the one containing the regions known as Sub-Atomica and the Micronauts' Homeworld.
  • The Mojoverse: A dimension where all beings are addicted to gladiator-like television programs. Ruled by Mojo and home to Spiral, Longshot and the X-Babies.
  • The Negative Zone: Mostly uninhabited, it is a universe parallel to Earth's with many similarities. One major difference is all matter in the Negative Zone is negatively charged. Negative Zone Prison Alpha is located here. Also the home of both Blastaar the Living Bomb-Burst and Annihilus.
  • Otherplace: Also known as "Limbo" or "demonic Limbo", A magical dimension of demons which was historically ruled by Belasco and primarily featured in the X-Men comic books.
  • The Void: A pocket dimension that exists inside Shaman's medicine bag.
  • The Soul Gem: A pocket dimension that exists inside the green Infinity Gem.

External realities
  • Avalon: Also known as Otherworld, this realm is an access point to the entire Marvel Multiverse utilized by the Captain Britain Corps. Also home to the Celtic gods and King Arthur.
  • The Darkforce Dimension: This dimension also includes, but is not limited to, Spotworld as used by the supervillain the Spot and the Brimstone Dimension as used by the X-Man Nightcrawler.
  • Limbo: Also known as "true Limbo" or "temporal Limbo"; outside of time, historically ruled by Immortus and the location to which Rom the Spaceknight banished the Dire Wraiths.
  • The Panoptichron: Home base of the reality-hopping Exiles, structurally dissimilar, but functionally similar, to Avalon.

Definitions

The classification system for alternate realities was devised, in part, by Mark Gruenwald.[3]

Continuity

A Universe/continuity is a single reality, such as Earth-616, the mainstream Marvel Universe/Continuity. In Marvel Comics, the concept of a continuity is not the same as "dimension". For example, demons like Mephisto and gods like Odin hail from separate dimensions, but they all nevertheless belong to Universe-616. A continuity should also not be confused with an imprint; for example, while the titles of some imprints, such as Ultimate Marvel, take place in a different continuity, some or all publications in other imprints, such as Epic Comics, MAX, and Marvel UK, take place within the Earth-616 continuity. Note that whether any given specific use of the term "Marvel Universe" refers to the Marvel Multiverse (in general) or to the Earth-616 continuity (in particular) can only be determined by the context of its use.[4]

Multiverse

A multiverse is the collection of alternate universes, with a similar nature and a universal hierarchy. The Marvel Multiverse contains the universe that holds Earth-616, most of the What If? universes, as well as the vast number of the alternate Marvel Universe Earths.

The original term and concept were coined by Michael Moorcock for his "Eternal Champion" sequence. The lead characters from Moorcock's work are obviously the inspiration for the Captain Britain Corps.

Megaverse

A Megaverse is a collection of alternate multiverses, which do not necessarily need to have similar natures and universal hierarchies. The term was posited in the 21st century edition of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe.

Omniverse

According to the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Alternate Universes, and building on Mark Gruenwald's original definition of the term,[5] the Omniverse consists of all of fiction and reality combined, including all the works that are outside of Marvel's copyright restrictions. As such, there can logically only be one Omniverse, as anything and everything that currently exists, existed in the past, can potentially exist at any time or may exist in the future is a part of it.

Known alternate universes

As stated above, nearly every imprint, timeline and appearances in other media have its own separate universe. Most of these have been cataloged by Marvel Comics in many publications, being most notable the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Alternate Universes. The numerical designations for these are rarely revealed outside of reference works such as the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Alternate Universes 2005. A.R.M.O.R. and Project Pegasus however seem to possess vast knowledge of other Marvel realities, utilizing the same designations; whether this is simply narrative convenience on behalf of Marvel's authors or an unusual decision by these agencies to utilize an effectively alien catalog method is as yet unstated.

The numeric designations of these alternate universes have been confirmed by Marvel Comics throughout the years and compiled in 2005's Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Alternate Universes, and in Marvel publications since the release of the Handbook. The prevalent method of labeling an unnamed universe is to derive numbers in some way from the publication date of the relevant issue featuring its first appearance. This is, in turn, based on the mistaken belief that "Earth-616" derived its number from the publication date of The Fantastic Four #1 (Nov. 1961), although the origin of this term in particular has been under debate. One active theory is that it came from publications by Marvel UK from Saturnyne mentioning that Captain Britain was from Earth-616.

Many official numbers are random or use other numbers as a base, the best example of this is Ultimate Marvel. 1610 is the swapped numbers of 616 with a 0 to differentiate it from the already existing 161. In addition, many universes have also been designated with numbers by fans with various methods for the numbering, such as the birth date of an important Marvel staff member (artist Nelson Ribeiro for the Transformers U.S. Universe, Earth-91274) or the spelling of a name with a touch-tone phone (Animated Silver Surfer Earth, 936652, spells out Zenn-La).

In 2014, during the publication of the "Spider-Verse" storyline, writer Dan Slott posted on Twitter that the numbers that appear in wiki entries and handbooks do not count, only those that are published within "actual" stories do. This was in response to the questions that the different numbers for some Earths appearing in Spider-Verse brought up, such as the Spider-Friends being from Earth-1983 and not the believed designation of Earth-8107.[6] This has created some debate among readers, as some believe that the "Spiders" with numbers that do not match the "original" ones are alternate versions, or if the former numbers should be completely dismissed, despite being official.

In the 2015 Secret Wars series, a confrontation with the Beyonders over the fate of the various alternate versions of the Molecule Man results in the destruction of the Multiverse, triggering various 'incursions' as Earths crash together and destroy each other, the Beyonders' assault culminating in Doctor Doom stealing the power of the remaining Beyonders and bringing the last of the parallel universes together into a single 'Battleworld'. Doom rules this reality for eight years until key heroes and villains from the pre-existing Multiverse are discovered and released by Doctor Strange, who had been acting as Doom's 'sheriff' until the discovery of the survivors gave him an alternative. In the heroes' final assault on Doom's fortress, the Molecule Man, who had been the source of Doom's power, transfers Doom's power to Mister Fantastic when Doom acknowledges that Reed would have done a better job as 'God' than he did. Having restored Earth-616 as it was before the Beyonders' incursions began, Mister Fantastic departs to recreate the multiverse with the company of his restored family.

List of main alternate Earths and universes
This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by adding missing items with reliable sources.

Below is a short, non-comprehensive list of the main universes in the Marvel Multiverse:

Name First appearance Notes
Earth-616 Motion Picture Funnies Weekly #1 (1939)
  • The main setting of the Marvel Universe. Reality of the original Marvel Super Heroes and its mainstream continuity. Differences between universes are usually described in comparison with Earth-616.
  • First numbered in The Daredevils.
  • As of the Secret Wars storyline, it gained the designation of Prime Earth and became known as the eighth incarnation of the Marvel Universe.
Earth-1610 Ultimate Spider-Man #1 (2000)
Earth-199999 Iron Man (May 2, 2008)
Earth-10005 X-Men (July 12, 2000)
Earth-TRN414 X-Men: Days of Future Past (May 20, 2014)
Earth-92131 Night of the Sentinels (Part 1) (Oct. 31, 1992)
Earth-65 Edge of Spider-Verse #2 (Nov. 2014)
Earth-67 The Power of Dr. Octopus (Sept. 9, 1967)
Earth-9907 Avengers Next #10 (July 1999)
Earth-12041 Great Power and Great Responsibility (April 1, 2012)
Earth-8311 Marvel Tails #1 (1983)
  • The Larval Universe is the home reality of Peter Porker, the Spectacular Spider-Ham and various intelligent, talking, anthropomorphic funny animal parodies of the Marvel characters.
  • First numbered in Marvel Encyclopedia: Fantastic Four. However, in Spider-Verse, Spider-Ham is revealed to be from Earth-25.
Earth-928 Spider-Man 2099 #1 (1992)
  • An alternate future of Earth-616 set in 2099, with futuristic incarnations of Marvel heroes, villains and teams.
  • First numbered in Marvel Encyclopedia: Fantastic Four. However, in the Spider-Verse event (Amazing Spider-Man (vol. 3) #14) it was revealed that Marvel 2099 takes place in the future of Earth-616.
Earth-982 What If? (vol. 2) #105 (1998)
  • The setting of MC2. Home reality of Spider-Girl, J2, A-Next, Wild Thing, the Fantastic Five and other descendants of the Marvel heroes and villains.
  • Set in an alternate version of Earth-616 in the late 1990s.
  • First numbered in Marvel Encyclopedia: Fantastic Four.
Earth-2149 Ultimate Fantastic Four #21 (2005)
  • Reality of the original Marvel Zombies series, where an outbreak of a zombie virus that came from another alternate Earth turned all of its superheroes and supervillains into cannibalistic, flesh-eating zombies.
  • First numbered in Alternate Universes 2005.
Earth-712 Avengers #85–86 (Feb.–March 1971)
  • Home universe of the Squadron Supreme, a superhero team that is a pastiche of the Justice League and other DC Comics characters.
  • As with other worlds in the Marvel Multiverse, there are multiple versions of it. In some instances, the Squadron exists even within other 616-based worlds.
Earth-58163 House of M (June—Nov. 2005)
  • An alternate version of Earth-616 in which it is replaced by Earth-616 as the main reality.
  • Later numbered at an unknown time.
Earth-1287 Strikeforce: Morituri #01 (1986)
  • Reality where a scientist named Dr. Kimmo Tuolema in 2072 discovers a process which can provide humans with superhuman powers in order to fight back a ravaging alien invasion that started in 2069.
  • First numbered in Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Alternate Universes 2005.
Earth-88194 Dr. Zero #1 (1988)
  • The setting of Shadowline. Created by Archie Goodwin under the Epic Comics imprint as a mature-themed line for Marvel Comics.
  • Home reality of Doctor Zero, Power Line and St. George, and the origin of Terror Inc..
  • First numbered in Alternate Universes 2005.
Earth-45828 Razorline: The First Cut #1 (Sept. 1993)
Earth-148611 Star Brand #1 (Oct. 1986)
Earth-807128 Wolverine (vol. 3) #66 (Aug. 2008)
  • The setting of Old Man Logan where the supervillains united and killed all of the superheroes, then divided up the world into their respective territories.
  • The film Logan is greatly inspired by Old Man Logan, but set on its own timeline (Earth-17315)
Earth-90214 Spider-Man Noir #1 (Feb. 2009)
  • The setting of Marvel Noir, a universe in the 1920s–1930s that has few superhumans who developed superpowers. This universe combines elements of film noir and pulp fiction.
Earth-31117 Captain America (vol. 4) #17-20 (Nov. 2003 - Jan. 2004)
  • An alternate version in which Nazi Germany won World War II, caused by an unknown disturbance in the timestream. Captain America is found and revived by the Nazis, leads an American resistance movement against them, and falls into a time machine which brings him to the mainstream timeline, where he is found by the Avengers.
Earth-1218 Marvel Team-Up #137 (Jan. 1984)
  • The setting of our reality, in which superheroes and supervillains do not exist.
Earth-98140 Alien Legion #1 (April 1984)
Earth-9997 Earth X #0 (Jan. 1999)
Earth-7642 Superman vs. the Amazing Spider-Man #1 (Jan. 1976)
Earth-93060 Hardcase #1 (June 1993)
Earth-8116 Epic Illustrated #1 (March 1980)
Earth-13122 Lego Marvel Super Heroes (22 October 2013)
Earth-1048 Spider-Man (2018 video game) (Sept. 7 2018)
Earth-2301 Marvel Mangaverse: New Dawn (March 2002)
  • Also known as the Mangaverse
  • Interpretation of Marvel characters through a manga format and aesthetic.
Earth-8096 Wolverine & the X-Men episode 1 (January 23, 2009)
Earth-30847 X-Men vs. Street Fighter (1996)
  • main setting of the Marvel vs. Capcom video game series

See also

Bibliography
  • Marvel Encyclopedia Volume 6: Fantastic Four (November 2004)
  • Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Alternate Universes 2005
  • Marvel Legacy: The 1960s Handbook (2006)
  • Marvel Legacy: The 1970s Handbook (2006)
  • Marvel Legacy: The 1980s Handbook (2006)
  • Marvel Legacy: The 1990s Handbook (2007)

References
  1. David, Peter. X-Factor (vol. 2) #25
  2. All New Savage She-Hulk #1
  3. "Alternate Earths". Marvunapp.com. Retrieved 2015-06-21.
  4. Archived October 16, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
  5. Mark Gruenwald, the father of modern superhero comics
  6. "Dan Slott on Twitter: "@AyrMen Sorry. Was swamped w/work. Unless mentioned in actual stories, designations in Wiki entries & handbooks don't count. That answer it?"". Twitter.com. Retrieved 2020-12-09.
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