[IW/Supers] Splinter Worlds

[David Johnston2]

Once upon a time, I was reading one of those specious complaints about Marvel mutant hatred which prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that hatred of Jews could never be a significant issue, when someone actually said something interesting about how it was like the X-Men lived in their own universe, which got to me to thinking. In a lot of ways, the Marvel universe is in fact like a whole bunch of universes which have been tacked together but not necessarily fully integrated. The Avengers never show up when Galactus comes to town, Iron Man almost never sees a mutant in his own book, and while the X-Men run into a surprising amount of magic, it does sometimes seem like the general population's opinion of mutants is disconnected between X-Men continuity and the non-X titles even when mutants show up or become regulars.

So I got to thinking what if I broke apart the different sub-universes into distinct worlds?

[ericthered]

how would you travel between worlds?

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by ericthered

how would you travel between worlds?

Well, the usual ways of course. Parachronic technology, magic spells, rainbow bridges, getting lost in a Florida swamp...

[David Johnston2]

Ferrous

Technology Level:
Mana Level: Usually None.
Native Power Sources: Technological (Mechanical, Electrical, Nanotech)

Ferrous is a somewhat futuristic world, advanced in physics, metallurgy, cybernetics and robotics...although not particularly in the biological sciences including medicine (outside of cyber-enhancement), agronomy, genetics, and biochemistry. There are some cyberpunk elements to the setting particularly in the degree to which large corporations have gained autonomy in their operations.

Superheros (and supervillains) are typically the product of corporate research and development. Every large to medium-sized corporation with any high technology devision has at least one superhero/mascot, an agent in power armour or circuitry-fabric costume, a cyborg or a robot/android. (Robots are referred to as androids when they have a pseudo-flesh exterior to create a human-like exterior.). In most of the world, the corporations have the political pull required to give their superheros carte blanche as recognized law enforcement authorities.

Supercriminals are another matter. While some really are private individuals who have stolen technology from the corporations or rogue cyborgs and robots, most of them are plausibly deniable agents of corporations and governments carrying out covert warfare on behalf of their masters.

[dataweaver]

The other way to view it would be to say that the Marvel Universe used to be several separate universes until a Reality Quake struck and forced them all together into a single timeline. The resulting timeline is a bit unstable, though nowhere near as unstable as the DC Universe.

(Personally, I love the way the revamped IST is desctibed as "tectonically unstable" in a Quantum Map sense: forget the metagene; the real reason why superpowers work in the Infinite Worlds setting is because of unstable reality. That's also the reason why magic, psionics, and rubber science work; and it's no coincidence that superhero worlds tend to have all of these things.)

[Xenarthral]

My outer comics nerd feels the urge to point out that The Avengers did
show up when Galactus came to town in the story where Frankie Ray became
Galactus's herald.

Then again, the actual point is unchallenged.

[B9anders]

I haven't really paid attention, but I believe the recent "soft reboot" of marvel in the wake of "avengers vs x-men" is intended to integrate these disparate parts of the marvel universe more than before.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

(Personally, I love the way the revamped IST is desctibed as "tectonically unstable" in a Quantum Map sense: forget the metagene; the real reason why superpowers work in the Infinite Worlds setting is because of unstable reality. That's also the reason why magic, psionics, and rubber science work; and it's no coincidence that superhero worlds tend to have all of these things.)

Never thought of that but I rather like it.
Wish that line had been more active, Third Edition had several books.

Originally Posted by Xenarthral

My outer comics nerd feels the urge to point out that The Avengers did
show up when Galactus came to town in the story where Frankie Ray became
Galactus's herald.

Then again, the actual point is unchallenged.

I do not recall which book it was in but I recall one time Galactus came to town (Hungry and weaker then normal) and it showed just about every Marvel Hero attacking him including the FF, Avengers, Spiderman, Daredevil and finally Dr. Strange who is the one who took him out (with a cheap trick).

[David Johnston2]

Darwin

Technology Level: 8
Mana Level: Usually Low
Native Power Sources: Mutant, Technological

The egregiously misnamed "Darwin" is a world which has experienced a "bizarre baby boom" with a large number of children born with features like tails, scales, four functional arms, and strange coloured skin. Further, when going through adolescence some of these children and an alarming number of superficially normal children spontaneously develop paranormal abilities like shooting energy blasts, turning insubstantial, or transforming into metallic giants while a larger number manifest rather less impressive abilities like shooting beams of light about as powerful as a flashlight, levitating slower than they can walk, and the ability to intuitively guess the meaning of foreign languages.

Darwin's society has not taken this very well, in part thanks to foolish mutants who have declared themselves to be mankind's evolutionary superiors and successors. Government have responded by trying to recruit, enslave or hunt down and kill mutants, and even when they try to respect mutant rights, mobs and organized hate groups will sometimes try to kill mutants.

While generally modern in their technology, Darwin is advanced in certain areas as a result of programs base on study or exploitation of mutant abilities, but most of these advancements are directed specifically toward neutralizing mutant powers and mutants. Thus they have robots, cyborgs, and power armour like Ferrous, but unlike Ferrous there has been no trickle down to civilian applications and and their technological weapons are generally rather cruder than the sophisticated Ferrous examples, and their AIs are quite a bit less intelligent. At the same time, they are becoming rather more advanced in the field of genetics.

[jeff_wilson]

Originally Posted by Refplace

and finally Dr. Strange who is the one who took him out (with a cheap trick).

The cheap deaths of trillions aside, the waves of divergence and reunion of Marvel's books is a direct artifact of editorial organization; when the books were written and edited by the same guy, they were much more integrated than when there were a dozen editors buying stories from whatever freelancers were willing to sell. Then when crossovers became money-makers, it was imposed from the top.