Saturday, December 20, 2014

Inbetween Posts


Yes, I see those puzzled looks you've been throwing my way. You have that "Sayyyyy--whatever happened with...?" expression on your face caused by various items mentioned in prior posts but just left dangling there like laundry on a clothes line. I can't take it anymore. The pensive looks--the furrowed brows--the constant drumming of your fingers on the desk. You've managed to wear me down--though I must say, threatening to sic the Sony hackers on me really wasn't necessary.

So let's tie up a few of those loose ends here and now, shall we? (And call off the dogs!)

First up: Surtur hacking the Rainbow Bridge of Asgard to pieces with his sword, "Twilight." Was that colorful dimensional pathway ever rebuilt? And how?

Well, if you're Odin, and you're about to retire to your Odin-Sleep, you delegate--by making Heimdall, the bridge's guardian, interim ruler of Asgard, and handing him your scepter to do construction work you really didn't want to roll up your Odin-sleeves and do yourself:





If Heimdall has indeed been stuck on that bridge and guarding it for "eons without number," I wouldn't be surprised if he took advantage of Odin's slumber to fill that post with some eager vassal who's looking to score a few points with the nobility. I also suspect that, if Heimdall has his way, Odin may be snoozing for a lonnnng time. Eons, even.

Next--you probably remember when Magneto was captured by Reed Richards, using a device called an electronic converter (try to cut Reed some slack--he was in a hurry when it came time to name the thing) to trap the Master of Magnetism within a containment cone powered by the villain's own energies. How, you're wondering, did Magneto escape from that type of confinement?

Perhaps the military's mistake was in releasing Magneto from the cone, in order to transfer him to a plastic prison cell. Because anyone who knows anything can tell you that the way to break out of a prison cell your powers can't affect is by ...

Of course. Mastering the disciplines of Zen and Yoga.



I don't know--that transport Magneto's cone is riding on looks metal to me, so he could have just taken control of it and levitated out of custody before his guards tossed him in that cell. But as for his ultimate solution--I think if I had busted out of a cell by becoming a human projectile, I would have been smashed to pulp on impact.  A truckload of yoga wouldn't have helped me then.

The Magus left us all a little frustrated recently when he alluded to some being called the In-Betweener who was going to set Warlock on the path to becoming his darker self:




The In-Betweener is a pretty cool character design, courtesy of Jim Starlin. In the Warlock story, though, he boiled down to little more than a catalyst for what Warlock was to become:



Though when he was met in battle by Dr. Strange, they fought in earnest:




So how did Warlock escape his fate? As simple as it sounds, by accomplishing his mission--to commit a type of suicide before the In-Betweener can touch him. Seems a little like curing the disease by killing the patient, doesn't it.

Finally, remember when Dr. Doom laid out Odin? The villain goes on to conquer the world! What's got more power than Odin to save the day?

The Cosmic Cube, which Reed dislodges from Doom and uses to put everything and everyone back the way they were:



We can all be thankful that the Cube understands Latin, otherwise Reed would be looking pretty foolish about now.

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