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New Avengers: Illuminati once revealed a major change to the origins of Marvel’s most powerful reality-warper — only to retcon it a decade later.
The Beyonder has gone through numerous origins over the years, with multiple minor tweaks to his origins that have largely reinvented the reality-shaper and his the source of his abilities. Perhaps the most unexpected was the (brief-lived) revelation that he was actually an Inhuman, blessed with his powers by the Terrigan Mists — only for this to be promptly retconned away a decade later. How did Marvel’s most brilliant minds briefly think the Beyonder was secretly an Inhuman?
The Beyonder is one of the most powerful kinds of beings in the Marvel Universe. First appearing in Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #1 by Jim Shooter and Mike Zeck, the reality-warper found himself increasingly intrigued by concepts of morality and humanity, and decided to test good and evil by pitting a host of powerful heroes and villains against one another, with the promise of any prize imaginable for the victorious side of the conflict. The reality-warper would be at the center of numerous storylines, but it wouldn’t be until New Avengers: Illuminati that he would gain perhaps his most unlikely origin. The series focused on the exploits of the Illuminati across Earth-616’s canon, revealing the ways the world was changed by the team of Iron Man, Mister Fantastic, Doctor Strange, Black Bolt, Namor, and Xavier.
New Avengers: Illuminati #3 by Brian Michael Bendis and Jim Cheung revealed that Xavier had initially tried to psychically put the assembled forces to sleep at the beginning of Secret Wars, so Reed Richards could devise a way to return the captured heroes and villains to Earth without any need for battle. But while in the Beyonder’s mind, he witnessed evidence that the Beyonder was in fact an Inhuman. Revealing this to Black Bolt after the events of Secret Wars were concluded, the group returned to the cosmos to confront the Beyonder. There, it was revealed that the unique nature of the Beyonder’s origins — a being with mutant DNA exposed and transformed by the Inhuman Terrigan Mists — had granted him such radically powerful reality-warping abilities.
Although the Beyonder recognizes Black Bolt as his monarch, he argues he just wanted to find a way to help reality. But his powers terrify the Illuminati, who order him to leave the universe. He seemingly does so — only to appear on Earth, setting up the events of Secret Wars II when he more directly interacted with humanity. With this origin, the Beyonder becomes the culmination of both mutant and Inhuman potential, and it locks him in as one of the single most powerful beings in the history of the Marvel Universe. However, this would retcon would also later be retconned: during the build-up to Secret Wars, the newly reformed Illuminati sent Hank Pym into the wild multiverse to learn more about the nature of the Incursions.
In New Avengers #30 by Jonathan Hickman and Dalibor Talajicac, Hank Pym returned from his journey and explained how the Beyonder who’d they’d previously encountered was actually only an infant to the ageless race of reality-warpers. Otherwise known as the Ivory Kings, the Beyonders were revealed to be in part responsible for the Incursions and even eradicated many of the Celestial figures within the Marvel Universe — even killing Thor and Hyperion when they led an attack against them.
Ultimately though, their power was stolen by Doctor Doom, and used to craft a new Battle-World from the remains of the multiverse. Hickman even explained in an interview at the time that the encounter the Illuminati had with the Beyonder was merely a construct created by the Beyonder, with the reality-warping powers of the Beyonder explaining how this could all happen in-universe. It also positions the Beyonder once more at the top of the cosmic food chain, as opposed to being just another figure in the labyrinth-like history of the Inhumans.
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