Narcissism in the Multiverse

So I’m watching Across the Spider-Verse and I see a very interesting Miguel. He’s not only the Rick that decided a Citadel needed to be made to police disobedient Spiders but also basically a freshman version of MCU’s Kang.

I’ll explain this next part in a way that it looks like it was intended but they were just improvising. See, in the comics, Nathanial Richards was a regular time traveler, moving to and fro on the w axis. He is from the future with advanced technology but was smart enough himself to invent time travel. He goes back in time on several occasions and finds himself against the Fantastic Four or Avengers. There’s also a Nathan that, after existing in the past, was slapped into the next eon and decided to conquer everything around him. That’s Kang the Conqueror. The one who lived in the distant past is Rama-Tut. There is some others like Immortus (technically futuristic), Iron Lad and Scarlet Centurion in the ‘present’ and Victor Timely in the recent past. Each of these folks would show up at certain times, sometimes fight each other, and help or hurt the heroes as if they weren’t the same time-displaced person. After Secret Wars I, the writing team saw the obvious convenience that these different Nathans were variants and had a specific story were a time confused Nathan was split into three; Kang, Rama-Tut, and Immortus. From now on, the different Nathans from 616 could be given the designations of alpha, beta, delta, and so on since 616 itself has branched into parallel lines. Incursions wouldn’t really be had because they didn’t care about a specific universe dying. Also tbh, if a universe dies, branch theory predicts the universe could keep living. The only technical coincidence to his tourism is that every time he showed up in a new place, the Nathan that arrived was instantly different than the one that left. That sounds unclear. A new Nathan was born every time he time traveled, even in the place he came from or traveled to. Once he landed in a place, he could have five different decisions and thus create five new branches. Or he could immediately return from whence he came  which would be a different branch. How the hell is branch theory helpful for writing this setting? I should also start saying Kang as he is the most active variant since he wants to conquer everything. The Kangs and other variants would then start their own Council of Kangs.

This is the 616 multilayered timeline so far. At some point, 616 could spawn entirely different timelines–just throwing out numbers–like 3244 or 1927. The one we know would’ve been the 616th universe with a Kang and perhaps he was born from Nathan Prime. Kang could’ve been the single reason there’s even 600+ universes in the first place. Yeah, people’s common decisions could cause branches according to the theory but Kang is deliberately birthing variants. AND HE KNOWS IT. With his Level Selector (the chair he sits on) and his Citadel (Council of Kangs), he is also practically the only one who treats the multiverse as some sort of zoo. This is why I call him the original Cosmic Tourist.

A Cosmic Tourist is one who, beyond the rules of common sci-fi, decide to go where they like on the timeline. This includes the Doctor (Doctor Who), Rick Sanchez, Miguel O’Hara (Sony Spider-Verse), and Jack and Annie Smith (Magic Tree House). The common rules should mean that their time travel should break the time stream like in Back to the Future (which is why I don’t consider McFly a tourist, just a one time adventurer). But their Level Selectors allow them to not suffer consequences of potential broken rules and also most of them don’t fucking care. Folks like Rick and Kang only worry about themselves and that’s why if they do tourism, they make it all about their variants and their own society. Obviously the only other person you could trust to break the rules is yourself.

Kang in the MCU has shown to keep most of his personality, although we only meet two variants so far; the One Who Remains and Kang the Conqueror. The former has simplified his origins as if their comic origin was completely intentional. He describes his past in the same position Miguel is in Across the Spider-Verse. He met his variants and the disagreement between them caused a Time War. I don’t know how much I believe Who Remains but he would remain alive after the war and founded the TVA to keep order around his own tailor-made reality. Miguel right now is at the point where he has fealty from all the other Spiders but a more arrogant variant or Deadpool could cause such a time war. That would force the strongest Spider to eventually over come the rest and then spawn a perfect timeline where he always wins against the odds of the writing team. A Spider-Man who does fuck Liz Allen, Mary Jane Watson, Gwen Stacy, and Felicia Hardy whenever he wants and they are all loyal to him. A Spider-Man with perfect friendships with the likes of Norman and Harry Osborn, Eddie Brock, Octavius, and Connors. A Spider-Man with control over Tony Stark, Matt Murdock, Reed Richards, Nathanial Richards, and Wade fucking Wilson.

This being, the Time Emperor, could delegate something like to the TVA but,  considering they are omnipresent with their Level Selector and stronger than their variants, they could do the job themselves. This is what it seems to be the potential goal of Rick Prime who is absolutely good with killing other Ricks if necessary. The Time Emperor would practically be immortal and you could not hurt them if they weren’t already hurt by you in another timeline. The Past Miguel, Present Rick, and Future Kang could all reach this archetype if they were narcissist enough. They could reach the level beyond Alpha Joy. But even Alpha Joy or the One Who Remains, were impatient and got tired of always winning. They aren’t Narcissus himself.

For Beyond the Spider-Verse, I primarily predict that the writers will try to prove Miguel’s theory incorrect (because it is wrong) but I do wonder about the direction of future multiverse events. I would love to see more cosmopolitan or multiverse stories, they are still fresh and there is much to experiment with. But back to my wonder, I wonder if Marvel should specifically continue using the Spider-Verse scheme. I pointed out the repeat members and beta variants because if the original Noir or Miguel were there, they should remember their previous excursion. But in Across or hell even Into, no one acts like this doesn’t just happen to Spider person as it happened to nearly all Spider people at this point. You’d have to live in an isolated corner of the Multiverse (like Holland) in order for this event to be a one time thing. The thing is, there’s a multiverse for each medium; one for film, cartoon, comics, and video games. For some reason the MCU is designated as 616 but it really can’t be 616-A since that’s the main comic. So I want to see Beyond (or whatever follows that one) truly address the entire Web of Life and actually do world building that’s permanent with every medium. A huge undertaking especially since they will have to include the goddamn Fortnite variant. The One Who Remains might’ve centralized the MCU into the one true timeline but there’s still all the Kangs from other media to compete with, all of the Kangs from the other multiverses. An Omniversal Kang (one that rules all the multiverses), that’s where I think Marvel could go if they wanted.

Hell it might actually be where Fortnite goes in the future. At present, if I were to describe the game Fortnite, it seems to be a nexus point with all fictional universes. While variants don’t specifically live there (although there is some like Thanos, Ariana, the Rock), the characters of Fortnite can take on the likeness of characters otherwise unrelated to them. The image below is from 2 years ago but shows a multiversal map surrounding Fortnite which is outstanding by far. Tommy Westphall can’t imagine this. I don’t know what Epic Games writers are cooking for a potential finale for this game’s storyline but it could be an omniversal villain with access to every skin. Every character to ever exist. (And it will still get assblasted by a John Wick noscope).

Anyways, that’s the narcissistic viewpoint on how the multiverse should work. One guy controlling the whole thing on his own whims even against the Creator or other versions of himself. I can’t wait to see more but it is harder to do it off rip with just like human characters like Everything, Everywhere, All at Once because they don’t already have a continuity to work off of. Marvel, DC, NBC, and Megaman already do so if we see giant corporations doing a multiverse movie with all of their properties (like Who Framed Walter Rabbit) then it’s actually expected and resourceful of them. It’s only unoriginally/suck if they don’t try to experiment with the multiverse framework. Even with JoJo’s two timelines, there’s wacky shit to test to see if it works as a story. More Spider-Verses should be fine because each of them have at least tried to push the limits of the setting. Everyone just needs to keep doing that. Experimentation is what keeps art fun in the capitalist world so let’s just pray to God only talented writers are hired for such projects. Such as me! Thank you for reading.