Marvel: Raising — Chapter 150 - Timeline War — Everyone's Dark History
Not the loser — no, Kang the Conqueror.
Birth name: Nathaniel Richards. Earth-6311, 31st century AD. Ruler of the future Milky Way, and a descendant of Mr. Fantastic.
Think DC's Reverse-Flash, but Marvel.
By Kang's era, Earth's technology had advanced so far it left even the Shi'ar at their peak in the dust. Iron Man armor? Something you'd find in a toy store window.
And Iron Man, the Hulk, the Avengers Initiative...
History.
Exhibits in the Hero Museum.
Reverse-Flash once visited the Flash Museum, became obsessed with Barry Allen, spent centuries chasing his idol through time, and eventually went full "AAAAAHHH, how can you not be the Flash? Damn it, he's gone", then personally murdered his idol's mother.
A superfan of the purest, most unhinged variety. A genuine sasaeng.
Kang visited the Hero Museum, and caught the superhero bug.
He was like a rabid idol chaser who happened to have a future civilization's tech advantage, a family archive of historical recordings, and a Citadel of Time.
He pulled off what Savitar, in the Flash TV series, could only dream of —
transcending time. Omnipresent.
Like something divine.
In every single timeline across the Marvel universe, there is a Kang.
And Kang the Conqueror is the Kang who conquered all the other Kangs.
The ambitious wolf in the pack.
He has no superhuman strength, no speed, no special body, just mortal flesh. Yet he wields the power to annihilate universes, warp timelines, and stand above gods.
He took information asymmetry and deathless accumulation and pushed both to their absolute limit.
He is the true Marvel poster boy for the heaven-defying ability called "Longevity."
Across the long ages.
Kang the Conqueror had conquered nearly every known universe, nearly every known version of himself.
But he had never seen an Earth that had The Homie.
So unique.
It delighted him. He wanted to conquer it.
So Kang the Conqueror's heart stirred, and he moved.
His conquest blossomed from 3 directions at once: past, present, and future.
The entire timeline, his theater of war.
Almost the instant the thought of "conquest" entered his mind, his armies were already moving.
...
Mutants. Mutates. Aliens. Gods. Devils. Angels. Skeleton demons on motorcycles. Ego the Living Planet.
Spider-Man, as portrayed by Peter Parker, who can apparently sing, dance, and rap.
Live-shopping Thor.
Ninja girl groups. "Holy shit, a lewd silhouette." Redhead versus ten thousand Sea Kings.
The humans of this Earth had seen too much. They were 6 as hell, couldn't be 6'd any further.
Well and truly worldly-wise.
But even so.
Nobody expected that certain figures, already dead and buried, swallowed by history, practically footnotes in a textbook,
would come back wearing new faces.
Take Steve Rogers.
The moment this old white guy with the great ass showed up, he was screaming "Hail Hydra," his vibranium shield and his uniform both plastered in Hydra insignia.
He appeared in Florida.
The local residents were terrified. Even the Hydra operatives inside the corporation were baffled. What era did this guy think it was? Still playing Hail Hydra?
Pathetic.
Their Hydra had changed industries ages ago, okay?!
Conquering the world, all that fighting and killing, exhausting. Thankless. Make movies, work in entertainment, and you could succeed just as easily. More profitably, even.
Ashley's PR moved immediately. She declared that Steve Rogers was the Hydra Captain, an embodiment of evil, here to enslave all of humanity, and so on.
But that was like calling the Monkey King just a stable groom. The American public wasn't having it.
So Ashley played her trump card.
Using the corporation's full media and propaganda apparatus, she told deep-red Republican strongholds that the Hydra Captain was voting Democrat. She told deep-blue Democratic strongholds that the Hydra Captain was voting Republican.
That did it. The entire United States erupted.
Vilification complete. The evil Hydra Captain hadn't even managed to posture or rally his people before furious voters chased him across an entire city and beat him until he was foaming at the mouth and barely conscious. His ambulance flipped on the way to the ER, and a few civic-minded citizens finished the job.
The corporation hadn't even exhaled yet.
A new problem surfaced.
The mutant criminal syndicate that had gone silent long ago, the Hellfire Club, had staged its own comeback.
The Black King himself, Sebastian Shaw, appeared in public.
This time it was Erik, Charles, Logan, along with Colossus, Juggernaut, Magik, Polaris, and the rest of the X-Men.
They mobilized immediately and pinned the Black King down.
After taking down this notorious mass murderer and handing him over to the corporation for a brief interrogation,
Erik executed the Black King with a coin through the skull.
Charles watched the whole thing.
He did not stop it.
After enduring Azu's rage-fueled torment and having his worldview shatter so completely he'd coughed up blood, Charles had reached an epiphany: repay grievance with virtue, but with what, then, does one repay virtue?
But it wasn't over.
Everyone has a dark history waiting for them.
This Earth's Charles had already been infected by The Boys' energy and was somewhat more grounded than before. Still, the Marvel universe has no shortage of kindred spirits.
Kang the Conqueror pulled a few strings and summoned the young Charles from Days of Future Past. And this tender Charles, the one who "doesn't like hitting people," after a quick burst of telepathy, reading memories, absorbing the situation,
slapped old Charles across the face right then and there.
"How could you be like this?" "Not an ounce of empathy." "Does being a mass murderer mean he deserved to die?" "Why didn't you stop Erik?"
Old Charles just stood there, head ringing.
He wanted to say: Bro, don't go casually reading people's minds, that's incredibly rude. But he opened his mouth and nothing came out. He just froze.
The saintly posturing, the sins of his youth, they'd eventually become a bullet, and it had just found him.
Then came senile Charles from Old Man Logan, and Illuminati Charles from Wanda's multiversal misadventure, each taking their turn on stage.
The first arrived motionless as a man paralyzed, then moved like a man mid-seizure, dementia in full bloom, his psychic power radiating out and hitting everything indiscriminately.
The second arrived loudly declaring there were too many dangerous elements, that things needed to be controlled, that the Hulk should be exiled from Earth.
"Forgive me, I can't stop laughing."
"Why did I never realize you were this unhinged?"
Erik was absolutely loving every second of it.
He live-streamed, recorded, and filmed short clips the whole time, while his anti-Professor X helmet kept him untouchable, Polaris had one too.
Then he calmly knocked out one Charles after another. A dedicated counter-ability really is something else.
Row after row of smooth, egg-bald heads lined up neatly. And at the very front, looking absolutely furious: hard-boiled-egg Charles.
Erik could stare at this image all day and never get tired of it. He was laughing so hard he was practically ICU-bound.
"There's a problem."
Charles said, his expression serious.
"You don't say? The whole world already knows. Short videos everywhere asking why time is having a seizure."
Erik couldn't resist.
Right.
What Kang the Conqueror brought wasn't just superheroes and super-villains from different timelines.
He brought ordinary people too.
Suddenly seeing another version of yourself — anyone would lose it.
For a time, the whole world carried the tension of a storm about to break. At this rate, the extra population alone would be enough to collapse Earth. No super-villain needed to lift a finger.
And right at that moment.
The Marvel Law: Doom in Desperation, activated once again.
Timeline's a mess? Too many world fragments? Inexplicable population surge?
Doesn't matter, Battleworld welcomes you. Come on, everyone, step right in and take a seat.
Doom had founded Battleworld and rescued his mother's soul. Now he carried himself like a suffering protagonist who'd finally made it. He was flexing hard.
"I genuinely will shit!"
Watching Doom flex successfully, Teacher Tony felt it in his chest.
He threw himself into wish-fueled R&D immediately.
The plan: build a super AI. Something like Skynet. But the moment he touched the lab bench, Tony felt something wrong.
There was already a super AI in here.
He studied the craftsmanship.
It was actually... something he himself had created?
Huh?!
➤ Next: Ultron Wounded by Shitposting