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Here's a puzzle to ponder: Why hasn't DOCTOR DOOM ever used the time machine he created to go back into the past and fix the error in his calculations for his matter-transmutation and dimensional-warp machine? Then it wouldn't have exploded and he could have contacted his mother in the afterlife as was his intention. (Or perhaps he did and I missed it?)
Actually, there are probably loads of good reasons for him not having done so, but how about exercising your imaginations and seeing what ingenious explanation you can come up with. Go on - have some fun and show everyone how smart you are.
Time travel -- it's tricky, writers generally utilize two paradigms, with the occasional hybrid cropping up.
ReplyDeleteThe first puts the traveller outside the domain of normal cause and effect so they return -home- unaltered, however much they changed the past. The potential paradox that arises here, is that if they altered time in such a way that they were still born but didn't travel back in time, they'd meed themselves when they got back.
The second approach is the one that encompasses the grandfather paradox, they do something minor in the past, you know, the classic example is, reflexively swatting a biting mosquito, Suddenly they or some member of their party disappears in a puff of logic. This approach has the most appeal for writers tempted the stray into Twilight Zone territory but rarely works without massive plot holes, that need bounding over by a reader caught up in the pace of the narrative.
In the case of Doctor Doom I'd like to suggest that he has gone back or rather he is cognisant of the fact that he will go back at a future date and -- irony of ironies, guess what causes the accident.
Ooh! That's a good one, DSE.
ReplyDeleteTime travel stories and the paradoxes they present usually end up giving me a headache. Did Marvel have any general rules or laws governing time travel? DC did, sort of. One was that history can't be changed, period. Superman/Superboy tried to change past events (the Lincoln assassination, the sinking of Atlantis) a few times, but always failed. There was also the premise that you could not time travel within your own lifetime, since it is impossible to physically be in two different places at once. I don't remember offhand how that was dealt with in Avengers Annual #2, although it seems that some of the Avengers must have met their earlier selves. The idea that Doom did go back, but his trip back ended up causing the accident, is appealing. There was a Twilight Zone episode where the time traveler tries to prevent the Chicago fire, but accidentally starts a panic that causes a lantern to get dropped, and the rest is history. -TC
ReplyDeleteIf I recall correctly, Marvel's view on time travel is that when someone goes back to the past they create an alternate reality that brances off from the original uninterrupted one. At least, that's the way it used to be, TC.
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