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Multiverse (Marvel Comics)

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Multiverse (Marvel Comics)

Within Marvel Comics, most stories take place within the Marvel Universe, which in turn is part of a larger multiverse. Starting with the Captain Britain story in The Daredevils #7, 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.

Later on, many writers would use 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 (MCU), with the central and main universe having originally been known as Earth-199999 in external media and Earth-616 in internal media. The concept was first introduced in Doctor Strange (2016) before becoming the focal point of the franchise in "The Multiverse Saga" (2021–present). Additionally, the Multiverse has also been explored in the X-Men film series, Sony's Spider-Man Universe (SSU), and the Spider-Verse franchise, with an emphasis on the latter regarding multiple versions of Spider-Man across different universes, and connecting the former two with the MCU.

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.

The Marvel multiverse is protected from imbalance by the Living Tribunal, a vastly powerful humanoid cosmic entity, who is one for the entire multiverse. It may act to prevent one universe from amassing more power than any of the others or from upsetting the cosmic balance in some way. It is only overseen by the One-Above-All, an omnipotent entity said to have created the entire Marvel Multiverse.

According to the origin mythology, at the beginning there was only one universe, The First Firmament, but due to actions of Celestials existing there, it diverged. Then, the Multiverse went through several incarnations and eventually the Big Bang caused the existence of the Seventh Cosmos, where most well-known heroes originated. The seventh iteration of the Multiverse was destroyed as a consequence of the phenomena known as incursions and was eventually reborn as the eighth thanks to Reed Richards. According to him the ultimate fate of the Multiverse is to perish in all-encompassing heat death.

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 Marvel 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. This, in addition to A.R.M.O.R.'s observation that Lyra arrived from an alternate reality 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.

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

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