It’s The Little Things….

Last week we saw the lightning form of the White Event hurtling towards the Earth at the culmination of Avengers #6. I rather wish that I could just stop time right there and take a year or two to imagine just what the effects of this could be on the Marvel Earth.

Are we to see a second (erm, fifteenth) genetic minority in the form of paranormals? Maybe see the tension that grows between the two of them, in a DP7 versus the X-Men? Yeah, because other than the Eternals, the other races have hardly maintained any grip on the market’s imagination. Look at the Neo, perfectly set up by Chris Claremont and then faded into obscurity. Remember the Blood of Ghost Rider/Siege Of Darkness? Nah, me neither.

Having said that, the Paranormals have a little more in the way of history and stature, that is for the comics fans old enough to remember them. You realise they first appeared over twenty-five years ago?

Maybe we could see a bearer of the Starbrand. After all, Hyperion, Thor, the Sentry, Smasher, Wonder Man and the Gladiator family (father and son, Kid Gladiator; I wonder when we will see the Mary/Kara analogue?), there’s just not enough Kryptonian-class super-beings in the Marvel Universe.

Maybe the Event is jumping from the original New Universe Earth in orbit around Stranger’s World, ‘sealed off’ from the rest of the universe by decree of the Living Tribunal. I always did wonder what happened to that world.

With the collision of universes we are seeing in New Avengers, maybe we will see the return of the Super-Flow, that network of alternate universes joined by their fellow Star Brands, Nightmasks and other such icons of the New Universe. Created by Warren Ellis in NewUniversal, this was a concept pregnant with so many possibilities, and potential a force to rival even the Time Variance Authority or Other World.

Now, I realise that Jonathan Hickman will more than likely send all this in a totally different direction to any of these, and I will thoroughly enjoy it. But the loss of all the potentials listed above will still create a little twang in my heart.

Which rather leads my thoughts to Mark Gruenwald, may he rest in peace. I still hope that someone will one day take up his torch, and make their mission tying up all those loose ends and breathing life into those characters who have been swallowed by Marvel’s own comic book limbo.

Keep your eye on Mr Hickman’s Avengers, I think by the end of this, he will have given Brian Michael Bendis a run for his money.