Marvel Cinematic Universe, Phase Three and BEYOOOOONND

[Greywind]

25 minutes ago, csyphrett said:

I just told you how time travel works in the MCU. You don't go to your past. You go to another timeline that resembles the past. That is why Cyclops has all these kids running around. There's two different versions of Cable. It clearly states in the movie that is how time travel works.

 

Most time travel stories work that if you change the past, you change the future. Back to the future, Terminator, TImecop.

 

Marvel time travel creates alternate branches from the event changed so Steve going back in the past to be with Peggy means he went to the past and changed somebody else's history, not his. Whether he went to a timeline where his past self died, or he unfroze his past self earlier, or left him in the ice to be unfrozen. Anything he did changed that timeline, not his.

 

This is all spelled out in the movie, and the comic books this method is based on.  

CES     

 

Spelled out that way in the comics, yes. The only discussion there was in the movies about it was Banner and the Ancient One, and her whole argument was about not splitting the time stream.

[Jhamin]

48 minutes ago, Greywind said:

 

Spelled out that way in the comics, yes. The only discussion there was in the movies about it was Banner and the Ancient One, and her whole argument was about not splitting the time stream.

 

I understood her argument being that it wasn't that they cant split the time stream, it's that if they do they are dooming all the people in the split timelines to really hellish exitances if the Infinity Stones aren't around to deal with problems.

 

The discussion goes:

1) removing the stones from The Ancient One's present would create alternate timelines where they didn't have the stones and would be overrun without them (There is good reason to think Dr Strange couldn't have fended off Dormammu without the Time Stone for example).
2) Banner argued that if they took the stones to the future, used them, then brought them back to the moment they were taken, then there wouldn't be a time that didn't have them and the alternate timelines would never exist.

3) The Ancient One seems to concede this, but points out that if they loose they won't bring the stones back so their good intentions are basically too risky for her to bet reality on.

She agree to let him have the stone when she finds out that Strange *chose* to let Thanos have the Time Stone.  She doesn't trust Banner enough to bet reality on the Avengers, but she trusts what she knows of Strange enough to bet reality on his judgement.

I fully acknowledge this is as full of holes as any time travel theory (there is a "How it Should Have ended" video that has a lot of fun with Cap realizing half the stones had containers in the past that they don't have anymore when he puts them back).  Still, it works within the context of this movie if you assume that we haven't been given enough info to figure out where Cap was when he was with Peggy and are content to wait for more info in the future.

As a side statement, if the Infinity Stones are needed to make time work right and keep terrible things at bay.... how is the Universe doing now that Thanos destroyed the "current" set and Cap put back the "past" set?  They *are* kinda screwed the next time someone like Dormammu invades.  I guess that is what the next phase of movies will deal with?

[slikmar]

58 minutes ago, Jhamin said:

As a side statement, if the Infinity Stones are needed to make time work right and keep terrible things at bay.... how is the Universe doing now that Thanos destroyed the "current" set and Cap put back the "past" set?  They *are* kinda screwed the next time someone like Dormammu invades.  I guess that is what the next phase of movies will deal with?

Hence my question. In Wandavision, did Vision have a non Wanda created Mindstone, or was it missing? I wish they had kept Strange showing up, if for no other reason to ask Wanda for help with the multiverse stuff, and we could see if the Eye still had his. Like I said, I know Thanos believed he could use their own power to destroy them, but I wonder if it didnt just send their energies out into the universe, where they will just reconstitute themselves where needed, including Vision's head and The Eye of Agomotto.

So, to me, the only time paradox, provided Steve really put them all back correctly, is Past Thanos perishing before he collected them. That is what I would have expected to split the trousers.

[Christopher R Taylor]

As I understand it, the Vision in the TV show was a construct created by her and not the real one, so no gem.

[slikmar]

23 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

As I understand it, the Vision in the TV show was a construct created by her and not the real one, so no gem.

Thanks. I had understood he was a construct, but I didn't know if he was fully created by her or just animated.

And I suspect that they are planning on dealing with the whole timeline thing in Phase 4, especially when you figure Spiderman - No Way Home, Antman and Wasp - Quantumania and Dr. Strange - into the Multiverse.

I also suspect that the eternals will be a result of the changed timeline (perhaps they will make them the embodiments of the Stones, reconstituted in living beings, would be an interesting take and explain where they were when Thanos was snapping the universe).

[archer]

1 minute ago, slikmar said:

 

I also suspect that the eternals will be a result of the changed timeline (perhaps they will make them the embodiments of the Stones, reconstituted in living beings, would be an interesting take and explain where they were when Thanos was snapping the universe).

 

That doesn't sound very Eternal: false advertising!

[Jhamin]

1 hour ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

As I understand it, the Vision in the TV show was a construct created by her and not the real one, so no gem.

 

There was no Gem.  As for the Vision... it was complicated, but in a comic booky kind of way so I was fairly down with it.

 

Spoilers for Wandavision:

 

 

 

 

 

 

There were two Visions in Wandavision.

 

The "Normal" red and green one was created by Wanda, but there was mention made that both Wanda's Powers and the original Visions personality/Soul had come from the mind stone, so her version was pretty accurate, self-willed, and had a "spark" of life that was beyond her control.  The implication was that she had conjured him, but her Infinity Stone Derived power made him "real" in a way outside her control.  However, he could only exist inside the radius of her powers.  If he went too far away (a distance measured in miles) he started to come apart as her powers stopped holding him together.

We also meet the "White Vision", who is explicitly created from the body of the old Vision which was taken apart and put back together by a government project but didn't work until the scientists working on it tried siphoning some of Wanda's Hex energy into him.  The notion was that this Vision was the original body, animated by residue from the Mind Stone still woven into her powers, and had the Visions memories, but was otherwise an empty vessel just running on programming.

The Wanda Construct Vision had a construct of the Mind Stone, but it wasn't real and only worked inside her altered reality.
The White Vision had a blue gem with a circuit like pattern inside it on his head where the Mind Stone had been, which he could use to fire energy beams, but was not at any point implied to be an Infinity Stone.  Interestingly, he could use his Desolid powers, so those are apparently built into the body and are not a function of the stone.

Extra Spoilers:

When the two Visions met, they initially fought (because superheros always have to fight when they meet), then talked it out and decided they were *both* the real Vision but were made from different things.  (This was the best part of their arcs IMHO)  The construct Vision imparted his "spark" of life into the White Vision, who then retreated from the events of WanaVision to deal with having a soul.  The implication was that he was now a "complete" Vision with a non-conjured body. 

The Conjured Vision went away when Wanda (Now officially the Scarlet Witch) unwove her conjured reality and we didn't see the White Vision again, but he is explicitly still out there with a non-conjured Vibranium body, all his old memories, and a soul.  So I'm expecting we will see him again. 
No Mindstone though.

[Greywind]

The Russo Brothers started with The Winter Soldier, did Civil War, and then went on to close the Avengers movies. In interviews they stated that Cap went back. It was intended that Cap went back from the time they started with Cap.

 

"I'll take it back because I've always taken it, and I always will."

[Jhamin]

5 hours ago, slikmar said:

So, to me, the only time paradox, provided Steve really put them all back correctly, is Past Thanos perishing before he collected them. That is what I would have expected to split the trousers.

 

This is where we don't have enough information.

 

 

Given that Thanos has been killed twice in one timeline, as I see it we have a two different options as to how this can work and still keep the "you can't change the past" rule in place:
(It also occurs to me that the Black Order & very likely a bunch of the chitauri all die twice as well)

 

1) Past Thanos is from a different timeline which existed briefly but no longer does.  That timeline was created the moment the stones were taken, existed to the end of the universe, then "unwound" once the stones were put back. If we accept the Ancient One & Banner's discussion this timeline shouldn't exist, but it clearly does (its where Nebula gets captured & interrogated after Rhodey takes back the Power Stone).  If putting the stones back prevents this reality from existing, we can suppose that it will "unwind" once the stone is put back.  If this is true, Thanos using the Pymm/Stark time travel device allows him to escape his sinking ship of a timeline only to get killed in another one.  If the Thanos in the "main" timeline hadn't been dead, they could have met & because they were from different realities they would not have affected each other
If we think Banner & the Ancient one got it wrong and the alternate timelines do exist even after the stones are replaced, then this timeline where Thanos vanished before he could gather the stones & snap half the universe way still exists somewhere in the multiverse.

2) We see that you have to have a strong idea what you want when you use the Infinity Gauntlet.  The Avengers talk about exactly what Hulk will "wish" for before he uses it, and Stark reminds him not to undo the old snap and just bring back everything.
We don't actually know what Stark "wished for" when he used the Gauntlet to erase Past Thanos.  It's possible he just evaporated all the "bad guys" around him.  It' also possible that a tired and battered Stark, who understood he was about to die, wished for an effect instead of an action.  Something like "Thanos and all his minions should not exist anymore & my loved ones won't have to deal with any cosmic fallout from all this Thanos crap"  In which case the Infinity Gauntlet not only evaporated Past Thanos & minions, it also papered over all the time paradoxes that had been created so the universe could keep going (thus fulfilling the "let not deal with any more fallout from Thanos" part of Stark's Snap.

I admit these are both purely fannon/conjecture on my part and the 2nd answer puts words in Stark's mind, but I think both fit what we see on screen. (Stark was very worried about the Infinity Gauntlet undoing his daughter who was born after the first snap, so I can easily imagine making sure she didn't get erased by unforeseen circumstances was on his mind when he made the third snap)

Also; If you can use the Infinity Gauntlet for anything, but the big wishes do damage to the wielder, could you use your first activation of the Gauntlet wish to be immune to Infinity Gauntlet damage and instantly heal any you do somehow receive?  That way you could then do all kinds of crazy things after that without crippling or killing yourself.
Just a thought.

[Matt the Bruins]

7 hours ago, csyphrett said:

Most time travel stories work that if you change the past, you change the future. Back to the future, Terminator, TImecop.

 

Marvel time travel creates alternate branches from the event changed so Steve going back in the past to be with Peggy means he went to the past and changed somebody else's history, not his. Whether he went to a timeline where his past self died, or he unfroze his past self earlier, or left him in the ice to be unfrozen. Anything he did changed that timeline, not his.

 

This is how things usually worked with Marvel Comics time travel (there were exceptions, maybe linked to the different methods of time travel used) up until 2015. But when the company had its Crisis on Infinite Earths-style reboot that year, the setup changed. The various alternate Earths/universes are parallels now rather than branching divergent timelines, and time travelers can go back in the past or come back from the future and make real changes that rewrite their histories.

[csyphrett]

1 hour ago, Matt the Bruins said:

 

This is how things usually worked with Marvel Comics time travel (there were exceptions, maybe linked to the different methods of time travel used) up until 2015. But when the company had its Crisis on Infinite Earths-style reboot that year, the setup changed. The various alternate Earths/universes are parallels now rather than branching divergent timelines, and time travelers can go back in the past or come back from the future and make real changes that rewrite their histories.

That might be how they are describing it now, Matt, but the Hulk explains to Rhodie why they can't just kill Thanos as a baby in the womb because that wouldn't help them in the present at all. Think about Nebula. The old one killed the young one. Why didn't she just vanish? She would have if they were using the river and not the many worlds.

CES       

[Greywind]

Because nature abhors a paradox and Nebula disappearing would have created many of them.

[Pattern Ghost]

1 hour ago, Greywind said:

Because nature abhors a paradox

 

This is why you never see Doc Ock and Doc Samson together.

[Greywind]

What about a pair of ducks?

[Lord Liaden]

That's not necessarily a bad thing, Jill.

[Spence]

15 hours ago, Matt the Bruins said:

 

This is how things usually worked with Marvel Comics time travel (there were exceptions, maybe linked to the different methods of time travel used) up until 2015. But when the company had its Crisis on Infinite Earths-style reboot that year, the setup changed. The various alternate Earths/universes are parallels now rather than branching divergent timelines, and time travelers can go back in the past or come back from the future and make real changes that rewrite their histories.

Well there you have.  We are not talking about actual superHero comics.  Those ended in the mid 90s.

 

Anything after was only disjointed and feeble attempts to resurrect a long dead industry. 

 

[Ranxerox]

2 hours ago, Spence said:

Well there you have.  We are not talking about actual superHero comics.  Those ended in the mid 90s.

 

Anything after was only disjointed and feeble attempts to resurrect a long dead industry. 

 

 

I have multiple long boxes of comic books about heroes with super powers from that period that beg to differ.  

[Spence]

47 minutes ago, Ranxerox said:

 

I have multiple long boxes of comic books about heroes with super powers from that period that beg to differ.  

 

Whoooosh! 

<Ranxerox misses emoji and responds as if comment was serious>

[Matt the Bruins]

On 5/14/2021 at 1:14 AM, csyphrett said:

That might be how they are describing it now, Matt, but the Hulk explains to Rhodie why they can't just kill Thanos as a baby in the womb because that wouldn't help them in the present at all. Think about Nebula. The old one killed the young one. Why didn't she just vanish? She would have if they were using the river and not the many worlds.

CES       

Right, I'm talking about time travel in the comics, not the movies. The movies appear to be following the pre-2015 default comics setup, which is mostly internally consistent if you listen to the Russos and not the film's writers.

[slikmar]

Hadn't seen this one mentioned, but I am all for it:

https://wegotthiscovered.com/movies/midnight-sons-movie-reportedly-early-development/

[archer]

5 hours ago, slikmar said:

Hadn't seen this one mentioned, but I am all for it:

https://wegotthiscovered.com/movies/midnight-sons-movie-reportedly-early-development/

 

I've been willing to cut Mephisto a lot more slack since he erased Spider-Man's public ID.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I have always liked Blade and Ghost Rider, and I liked the original Moon Knight run, but the others meh.  And Moon Knight has had more reboots, versions, and changes than Hawkman so who even knows what they want to do with him?  Done as a silver batman he's great.  All that other stuff?  None of it worked.

[Bazza]

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Yeah I just watched that.  It looks... really forgettable and has nothing at all that makes me want to see it.  I mean... the Eternals is a knock off of Fourth World which is a knock off of classic mythology its self.  And not even a very good one.  They're not even Guardians of the Galaxy tier characters.  Even really die hard comic book fans barely know any of them.

 

And where were these dudes when Thanos blew up half the universe?

[Starlord]

I liked it, it looks good...i hope it is.  Although, as one of the few people who post in this thread who actually like the MCU...they probably already had my money as soon as they made the movie.