TIMEQUAKE

 

The "TimeQuake" storyline from What If? (Vol. 2) #35-39, March-July 1992.

This was a phenomenally important storyline for the Marvel Universe, as it served as a sequel to Avengers West Coast (Vol. 1) #61-62, and ultimately helped lead into Avengers Forever (Vol. 1) #1-12. It was also the first time Pharoah Rama Tut/Scarlet Centurion/Immortus/Kang the Conqueror's real name was revealed: Nathaniel Richards II.

AWC #42-62 was all about Immortus prepping the Scarlet Witch, our reality's nexus being, to serve as a host for accumulated temporal energy from multiple alternate realities which he destroyed and then gathered said energy for his masters, the Time-Keepers. He failed when Wanda rejected the temporal energy, and so the Keepers forced him to act as the repository for that energy, leaving him powerful, but immobilized and stored in Limbo.

TimeQuake dealt with the Time-Keepers apparently seeking additional temporal energy by arranging the death of four key nexus beings of different alternate parallel realities, leading to the destruction of those realities and, ultimately, all of existence. TimeQuake parts 1-4 followed Uatu the Watcher helplessly observing these four realities as the Time-Keepers attempted to manipulate events to ensure the deaths of these nexus beings, while a third party called the Whisperer intervened to prevent the Keepers' plot, and acquire agents of his own. By the end, 3 out of 4 of the nexus beings were saved which caused the Time-Keepers to fade from existence. The Whisperer was revealed to be Immortus himself, still flush with power and nowhere near as helpless as the Keepers believed as they foolishly stored him in Limbo, which he controls entirely. Immortus then became a wave of temporal energy and threatened to rewrite reality.

TimeQuake pt. 5 had the Watcher team up with the Time Variance Authority to stop Immortus by revisiting his origins and giving him (as Nathaniel Richards II, before he discovered time travel), a type of injection which made him incompatible with the temporal energy, thus preventing him from ever becoming a temporal wave. The plan worked, but the Time-Keepers then re-appeared and were revealed by the true Time-Keepers to be the Time-Twisters, who reverted back to nurturing pods as the Time-Keepers regained dominance and took them back to the Citadel at The End of Time.

It was a remarkably complex story, especially the last chapter, tying together a number of time-based groups and entities (all of whom first appeared in “The Mighty Thor” series) like the Time-Keepers, the Time-Twisters, the Time Variance Authority, and He Who Remains.

TIME-TWISTERS/TIME-KEEPERS

 

TIME-TWISTERS/TIME-KEEPERS

Members: Ast, Van, and Zanth

First Appearance: The Mighty Thor (Vol. 1) #243, January 1976 (Time-Twisters); The Mighty Thor (Vol. 1) #282, April 1979 (Time-Keepers)

Powers: The Time-Keepers (above) or the Time-Twisters (below) are the last living creatures to be born before the end of time (the common endpoint for all surviving timelines in the multiverse) prior to the heat death of the universe.

The infinitely bureaucratic Time Variance Authority accumulated vast amounts of temporal energy through their work, storing it as a "pension plan" for their retiring employees to draw upon. At the end of time, the last surviving director of the TVA known as He Who Remains used the pent up temporal energy to create three hyper-evolving lifeforms to survive into the next universe and pass on the knowledge of the current one. He miscalculated, however, and created the vicious Time-Twisters who rampaged through the timestream. Thor and Jane Foster travelled to the end of time prior to the Time-Twisters creation and convinced He Who Remains to abort their creation. He agreed, and after Thor departed He went on to create the more benevolent Time-Keepers.

The act represents the last divergence in the timestream of the universe: In one alternate reality, the Time-Twisters were aborted and the Time-Keepers came to prominence (Earth-794282), while in the other (Earth-761243), the Time-Twisters emerged as planned. The Twisters and Keepers are therefore locked in a struggle for control of time itself, both trios attempting to manipulate the timestream to ensure one "final future" or the other gains prominence at the end of time, and determine which trio will pass on to the next universe. By manipulating the flow of events in all the alternate realities and possibilities leading up to the end of time, they influence which of the two final outcomes of the universe is more likely.

Both the Keepers and the Twisters are embodiments of massive amounts of temporal energy, giving them god-like powers over time. They can travel through eras at will, transporting to any point in time, space, and variant dimensions. They can "freeze" time relative to themselves, in order to passively observe a particular moment in time, and allow other beings to exist in that frozen moment with them. By shifting partially out of synch with a specific time zone, they become virtually undetectable by all manner of senses or contact. The Keepers and Twisters can manipulate the flow of time on a given person or object, causing them to unnaturally age into dust or revert to an earlier stage in their lives. They have also demonstrated a variety of other skills such as cross-dimensional telepathic observation and communication, projection of energy as destructive blasts or protective fields, levitation, etc.

TIME VARIANCE AUTHORITY (TVA)

 

TIME VARIANCE AUTHORITY (TVA)

First Appearance: The Mighty Thor (Vol. 1) #372, October 1986

Description: The Time Variance Authority (TVA) is an infinitely bureaucratic agency whose function is to monitor all realities throughout the multiverse and limit temporal incursions. They are of unrevealed origin, presumably self-appointed, and operate in a dimension called the “Null Time Zone” where time cannot be interfered with.

The TVA’s highest authority is its director, currently Mr. Alternity. Beneath him are various administrators, each of them clones produced from the same genetic material, and thus all identical. This managerial class cloning increases efficiency and enables them to promote from within expeditiously without friction. These administrators are Mr. Mobius M. Mobius, Mr. Orobourous, Mr. Paradox, and Mr. Tesseract. The most numerous TVA employees are the Chronomonitors, faceless men who sit before computers that monitor every event of the timeline to which they’ve been assigned. There’s a TVA Chronomonitor for every timeline in existence, with one created every time a reality comes into being. For all intents & purposes, Chronomonitors are infinite in number and their workplace, the Hall of Chronometry, is as large as the omniverse.

When time-travel or reality warps occur within their assigned timeline, a Chronomonitor will alert administrators through tachyon impulses and the administrator determines how to proceed. The TVA has the power to discontinue timelines, virtually erasing them from history. The enforcers of the TVA are the Minutemen, an army of soldiers produced via cloning and cybernetics, and wearing suits of power armor. The Minutemen are led by Justices, temporal patrol officers with the power to time-travel and solve the TVA’s problems; the most well-known of their number is Justice Peace. The TVA also employs various freelance operatives.

For the eternity of its existence, the TVA has accumulated (and continues growing) vast amounts of temporal energy. Retired TVA employees can draw upon that energy for quality of life purposes, living a near-immortal life in any time and at any location of their choosing. At the end of time (the final common endpoint of all surviving realities in the multiverse) just prior to the heat death of the universe, the final director of the TVA (known as “He Who Remains”) is fated to use all of the TVA’s accumulated energy to create a triad of hyper-evolving beings known as the Time-Keepers.