Iron Man & Time Travel

[Roger A Ott II]

Over on this here thread:

http://www.advancediron.org/forums/index.php/topic,252.15/topicseen.html

the discussion turned to what if Tony Stark used a time machine to travel back in time to save Captain America and make it so the people on Hulk's new planet didn't die.  I pointed out that why would he stop there, and not just go back and change other things he deems bad.  I'm firmly in the camp that Time Travel stories should be used sparingly and by writers who understand the possible implications.

That said, I thought it would be a fun exercise to take such a scenario and break it down to see just what the long-reaching repercussions would be.  One of the scenarios I noted in the other thread was Tony going back and preventing Obadiah Stane from taking over Stark International.  We'll start our divergent timeline with Tony Stark not falling prey to alcoholism for the second time.

Things that would or could change:

• No Rhodey in armor
• Iron Man doesn't leave the Avengers, which changes a ton of things over in that series
• Tony Stark in the first Secret Wars
• No move to California, which negates a ton of stuff noted later
• No death of Morley Erwin (in fact, he might never really become a cast regular)
• Possibly no (gulp) Silver Centurion armor
• No death of Obadiah Stane
• No Stark Enterprises
• No betrayal by Clytemnestra Erwin
• No Marcy Pearson to later try to screw Tony Stark and Rhodey over
• No Kathy Dare, hence no spinal injury, henco no bio-chip for Kearson DeWitt to control later, eventually resulting in Tony's death, revival, and Rhodey leaving
• and so on, and so on...

And that's just off the top of my head.  A lot of stories, such as Spymaster stealing Tony's tech secrets in issue #210 could still happen, and therefore still result in the Armor Wars.  He could still meet Kathy Dare on a trip to California and she could still shoot him, resulting in the bio-chip and Armor Wars II.  Interesting to think about...

[Iron Mark]

Stop Yinsen from dying. 

[Iron Bastard]

I like the stories where even though you divert something from happening at THAT time, it just finds a way to happen later.  Like Stane, he'd still fnd a way to exploit Stark's weaknesses eventually.

[Iron Kaiser]

That's correct.  Anything that happens in time is set in stone when it becomes the past.  Any alteration from a guy from the future would create a time paradox, where if Stark prevented Stane from taking over SI, then there would be no reason for Stark to go back in time in the future, because it was prevented, so Stark would not go back, and then it would happen.  See, they're paradoxes for a reason.

[Roger A Ott II]

Yes, to make my head hurt.

[Iron Kaiser]

That, is exactly why it wouldn't work if Tony time travelled all of the time.  He would make everyone's head explode from all of the paradoxes.  Heck, If Stark's not careful, he could destroy the space-time continuum!

[Tetragrammaton]

For me, time travel stories are among the most interesting and most difficult to get right. Often, I find that even the writers start to get confused about exactly what theory of time travel they are attempting to use.

In the Marvel Universe you have a couple of important factors that limit the effectiveness of using time travel to achieve desired results.

1) It has long been established that whenever traveling into the past, that instead of ending up in your own timeline, the traveller ends up in an alternate reality.
2) There's always others who are better at time travel than you are, ie Kang, Immortus, Time Keepers, that restrict travel to certain periods.
3) The Time Variance Authority monitors and regulates all temporal activity.

[Ironghost]

2) There's always others who are better at time travel than you are, ie Kang, Immortus, Time Keepers, that restrict travel to certain periods.

...and when they mess up, you're really screwed.

[Iron Kaiser]

I remember how Iron Man 2020 got arrested by the Time Variance Authority.  That sucks for him.

[The IronJedi]

I remember how Iron Man 2020 got arrested by the Time Variance Authority.  That sucks for him.

I missed that. When and where? Details Kaiser, details.

[IronHube]

Anything that happens in time is set in stone when it becomes the past.  Any alteration from a guy from the future would create a time paradox

Not necessarily. Since we do not even know what would happen if someone were sent back in time, we can only theorize.

1) It has long been established that whenever traveling into the past, that instead of ending up in your own timeline, the traveller ends up in an alternate reality.

I don't know if this is fully accurate. There HAS to be some Marvel time travel stories that used purely "linear" time, whereby a time traveler to the past affected his OWN actual timeline. I can't think of one off the top of my head, but they're used all the time in literature, so they had to have been used in Marvel sometime. And besides, I believe the accurate statement would be that a time traveler going to the past would create a new timeline (hypothetically), not actually travel to a new timeline. This sort of time travel hypothesizing may be the current best theory; however, Ultimate Iron Man writer Orson Scott Card used the purely "linear" timeline approach in his novel Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus. Time travelers who wanted to modify the results of Columbus' expedition to the New World way back when actually changed their current own timeline -- it simply ceased to exist in favor of the new "matrix," so to speak. (A truly excellent novel, by the way; I highly recommend it.)

--Hube

[Tetragrammaton]

While I can't account for all of Marvel's time travel stories, the divergent reality theory has been used in the following;

Guardians of the Galaxy  (Vance Astro travels to the past where his younger self manifests his telekinetic abilities long before the future-Astro does. This leads to a new reality where Astro becomes a super hero and New Warrior and does not enter the space program)
Marvel Two-In-One vol I, 50 (Thing goes back in time to cure himself of being the Thing to discover that despite being successful in the past, he remains unaltered upon returning to his future.)
X-Men Days of Future Past (Katherine Pryde travels back to prevent the assassination of Robert Kelly. Despite being successful in the past, her original time line remains unaltered).

[IronHube]

Tetra: You're absolutely correct. There's no doubt that the "divergent reality" is now a Marvel mainstay, as well as the vogue in science fiction in general.

If I recall, IRON MAN vol. 1 #5 had Stark go forward in time and battle a computerized creation of his that took over the world in the 24th century. He destroyed it, but of course. BUT -- he should have already created the machine ("Cerebrus") by NOW according to the back story, so the seeds of this self-aware machine should be there. They are not, however ... UNLESS you want to take Kurt Busiek's word for it that the Stark-created web browser from early vol. 3 issues was actually the beginnings of Cerebrus!   

--Hube

[The IronJedi]

I remember that interview too, Hube. I was interested in seeing how Kurt pursued that plot-thread as well as Midas' manipulations and the obvious confrontation there. Would be nice if writers would pick up on dangling plot-threads more often.

[Roger A Ott II]

Marvel Two-In-One vol I, 50 (Thing goes back in time to cure himself of being the Thing to discover that despite being successful in the past, he remains unaltered upon returning to his future.)

That's one of my favorite comic book stories ever.