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Today, see the disturbing way that Kang was later revealed to have escaped from a seemingly unescapable position after losing a fight against the Hulk.
This is “Provide Some Answers,” which is a feature where long unresolved plot points are eventually resolved.
The Multiverse approach to comic books is obviously an appealing one. We’ve now seen MULTIPLE hit Spider-Man movies based around the idea of Spider-Man teaming up with versions of himself from other realities and clearly, the idea is a winner. DC eventually even embraced the Multiverse concept after trying to get rid of it in Crisis on Infinite Earths and future Marvel Cinematic Universe films as well as DC Extended Universe films all seem to be reveling in the concept. So yes, the Multiverse is great. However, at the same point, if you take the approach to the Multiverse that Marvel has long accepted, it also really robs you of some significant concepts, namely the idea of changing the future. Going back into the past to alter your present has been a major part of popular fiction for probably over a hundred years and even in films like Terminator or Back to the Future, they play major roles. Heck, even IN the Marvel Cinematic Universe, time travel has precisely done what we’ve typically learned that time travel CAN’T do, which is to fix the events of the present by changing the events of the past.
You see, the Multiverse approach to all of this is that when you change the past, you simply just create a divergent timeline and your timeline is not actually changed at all. So if you go back in time to save your wife from being killed, she’s still dead in your timeline, you just created an alternate timeline where she survived. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, of course, but I think it is fair to say that people often think that the other route is an appealing approach, as well, and the Multiverse approach cancels that out.
Of course, positions Marvel took years later don’t affect the stories BEFORE said decision was made and so we still have Incredible Hulk #135 (by Roy Thomas, Herb Trimpe and Sal Buscema) to deal with, where time travel worked a lot differently.
HOW KANG PLANNED TO USE HULK TO DESTROY THE AVENGERS
First off, how freakin’ awesome is this Herb Trimpe cover for the issue in question?
Wow, right? Too amazing.
Anyhow, the issue opens with Kang making a major discovery that he thinks will destroy the Avengers. He knows where Bruce Banner’s grandfather was during World War I and during one battle, the flying hero known as the Phantom Eagle (a character who, at the time, had only made a single appearance in a one-shot story in Marvel Super-Heroes #16 by Thomas’ close friend, the late, great Gary Friedrich, working with Trimpe) save Banner’s grandfather’s life and thus, if the Phantom Eagle was killed before saving Banner’s grandfather, the Hulk would never exist and the Avengers would have ever formed to stop the Hulk…
Such a plan, of course, requires for an altered past to have an effect on the future/present, which the Multiverse theory would say it would not. But anyhow, back then, it DID, but before Kang can do the killing himself, his timeship is hit by a time storm, so Kang has to send someone else in his place, someone strong enough to withstand the rigors of time travel. Someone like…the Hulk.
Kang pitches the Hulk on possibly being free of Banner and the Hulk was cool with that.
So the Hulk then trashes the plan of the Phantom Eagle, although he doesn’t kill him.
That should be enough, but then the Hulk decided to destroy the German’s cannons, as well, and so Banner’s ancestor LIVED!
Kang then tried to send the Hulk back to the present but in the process, Kang was sent flying into the timestream, seemingly to slowly starve to death…
Not a happy ending for ol’ Kang!
WHAT HAPPENED TO KANG>
However, a little while later (after a Marvel Team-Up detour that really doesn’t make much sense), Kang shows up none the worse for the wear in Avengers #128 (by Steve Englehart, Sal Buscema and Joe Staton)…
And he was right back to fighting the Avengers in the next issue, ever addressing how, exactly, he got out of he timestream, since he dies frequently.
It took a number of years before Peter Sanderson, Rich Yanizeski and Ray Kryssing in Fantastic Four Annual #25 revealed why Kang wasn’t tapped in the past. It is because Kang can send him mind into other Kang bodies in different timelines…
So the Kang who lost to the Hulk IS still in the timestream, but just his lifeloss body, as the REAL Kang proceeds in his journeys while his body just sits there forever. Can you even imagine how many Kang corpses there are just littered through the timestream? It would be unbelievably hard to imagine how disturbing that must be for anyone who ever looks inside of the timestream.
If anyone else has a suggestion for a comic book plot that got resolved after a few years (I tend to use two years as the minimum, as otherwise, you’re probably just in the middle of the actual initial reveal of the storyline, ya know? But I’ll allow exceptions where a new writer takes over a storyline and has to resolve the previous writer’s unresolved plots), drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!
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