New Brevoort Formspring

There used to be a rule in Marvel time travel that you can't change the past, you just create alternate timelines. That rule is constantly ignored in modern Marvel, and it being acknowledged is the exception, not the rule. Characters constantly act like changing the past or knowing too much about the future will destroy the universe even though before they knew it wasn't the case. Why do you think writers don't use this rule anymore?

Anonymous

Because it was a dumb rule.
Mark Gruenwald in particular was a big proponent of this concept, because he liked things to be orderly, and he spent a lot of years hammering nails into the idea that this was how time-travel worked in the MU—invalidating several earlier stories in order to do so in some cases.
I on the other hand have now spend an equal or greater number of years prying all of those nails back out again. Because if any time-travel story just results in an alternate timeline, then no time-travel story has any stakes or any drama. It’s neat and clean, yes, but also bloodless. Time-travel should be dangerous, it should be risky, and there should be consequences, potential or otherwise. At least that’s my feeling.
So, my assumption is that there are several different methods of time-travel that exist within the MU. Some of them create alternate timelines, and some of them do not.
1. akirakan liked this
2. kdksaa liked this
3. thearbiter liked this
4. tsujitoons liked this
5. enllo liked this
6. madthoughts said: I love the time travel stuff you are all doing. Its been exciting.
7. madthoughts liked this
8. dirtyriver liked this
9. thedefaultlocation liked this
10. carlosjdrew liked this
11. rasmusskovlykke liked this
12. grahamljohnson liked this
13. iyorbe35 liked this
14. subsistingonarsenic liked this
15. lady-coyote liked this
16. lordofthedaves said: Also the splitting timelines thing is something only really know by a few characters.
17. altheaknorka reblogged this from brevoortformspring
18. altheaknorka liked this
19. echo127studios reblogged this from brevoortformspring
20. echo127studios liked this
21. leviathan0999 said: Is there a chart somewhere to keep track of forms of time travel work which way?
22. nmrosario liked this
23. iandsharman reblogged this from brevoortformspring
24. iandsharman liked this
25. nielsvaneekelen liked this
26. erinhatesthings liked this
27. brevoortformspring posted this