Jump 331: Marvel

Jump #331: Marvel
>Five of Swords (Defeat), reversed: Friendship maintained through the abandonment of a dishonorable gain.
>Age: 27
>Era: Free Choice
>Location: Atlantis
Apparently I sank like a stone and ended up here. Isn't that fun?
>Identity: Drop-In
No, literally, dropped in and sank like a stone.
>Drawbacks: Broke The Switch (+150), Changed (+200)
This'll make sense in a minute, trust me.
>Energy (Free, Drop-In)
>Strength (1250)
>Toughness (1150)
>Shapeshifting (900)
>Healing Factor (650)
>Cosmic Fact (350)
>Vibranium Body (50)
>Unstable Molecule Uniform (0)
Hey, at least I have a snazzy uniform.

What do you get when you combine self-shapeshifting, vibranium, a healing factor, toughness, strength, and energy blasts? A man made out of pure vibranium, that can stand in the big leagues without overpowering everyone else. I'm not significantly heavier than a normal person in such a form - vibranium's weight is much less than steel, let alone adamantium - and its primary property is to absorb and redirect energy. Other heroes who have used vibranium gear in the past have been able to use it to fire concussive attacks, and thus the energy beam is raw kinetic energy rather than anything special. Toughness? Well, I AM made of metal, and it has a tendency to absorb kinetic energy. Strength? Well, that kinetic energy can be redirected effectively. Healing factor? Well... let's just call it creative license, because it would be stupid if something wounded me and I was unable to ever heal from my body being carved up.

So the uniform is accounted for, and has my typical symbol on it, of course. Cosmic Fact too - apparently it's established in the canon that I travel between universes and am not quite hinged in any one particular place or time, and thus have memories of popping in and out for a few events in the past, usually playing Mr. Fix-It, as would be typical for me, before disappearing again.

I also seem to have a tendency toward pulling powers out of nowhere, blaming it on absorbed energy of various sorts being creatively used in order to cover for out-of-context abilities, and in addition to that, lots of run-on sentences, because this is Marvel Comics and it's just a miracle every third word isn't bolded when I speak. Also this is probably why everyone in Atlantis didn't freak the fuck out when I literally fell from the sky and sank like a stone to the bottom of the ocean.

And so I trudge into Atlantis and get to meet Namor, shake his hand since I'm clearly not part of the rest of the world as it normally is and he at least knows OF me if not knowing me personally, and get a quick rundown on the events of the world, as it would seem that I'm here for a reason and surely that reason has something to do with the current state of the world. A few educated guesses and I figured out where and when I was - late 2004, in the run-up to House of M. Specifically, the very beginning of Avengers Disassembled. I thanked him, and started running so I could deal with the bullshit that is the Marvel Universe, my precog running full blast.

The Scarlet Witch started losing her mind and warping reality wantonly. A corpse came to life and approached the Avengers mansion. And then a man made of metal fell out of the sky (because this is apparently how I always make an entrance? I can get behind it), and a cartoonish KLONK appeared overhead as I returned the corpse to its eternal slumber, abusing magic to ensure it wouldn't explode. Because I was not in a mood to fuck around, I raised wards around the mansion, which got Doctor Strange's attention - he arrived in time to see a Quinjet coming straight for the mansion, and he forced it down without any damage.

Vision was put into a state of suspended time, and the Ultron bots were ... well, they're awfully advanced technology, and I didn't have the patience to use technopathy to take control of them. Creative application of The Hex (because everyone loves Dresden Files) is enough to get them to seize up, their circuitry fused into a lump of silicon.

With a pleasant KLUDD, She-Hulk announced her presence by punching me in the back of the head. Were I not made of vibranium, this would probably have knocked me for a loop, so I turned around, politely greeted her by returning the favor, then cast a calming charm on her.

"You done?"
>She-Hulk: "Uh... wha... what happened?"
"You were about to go berserk. Not happening. Speaking of not happening! Doctor Strange, there's a reality warper playing games - why else would I have be here - would you be so kind as to grab your student and bring her here so we can iron out this stupidity?"
>Dr. Strange: "You've been hanging out with Deadpool again, but at least you are being proactive."
"Now is not the time to try my patience, doctor, my patience with the fourth wall is thinner than usual and I will happily tear it down if we don't move this along."

So let's make the long story short - I sat Wanda down, cast SEVERAL calming charms on her after blaming it on absorbing magic attacks from Doctor Doom in the recent past, and made her a deal: she wants to freak out about her kids? Fine. I'll be happy to give her the children again - as they existed, and add real souls rather than the pale imitations they had from Mephisto - and Doctor Strange gave Agatha Harkness a most severe tongue lashing about her behavior being unacceptable and causing Wanda to become unstable.

Contract signed. Homunculi created, upgraded to living beings, given slivers of my soul that will grow into full beings... Vision taken out of his time-freeze outside the Avengers mansion, and brought into the confusion, his will returned to himself again.

Oh, a great deal of other things happened in between, but Wanda was rendered comatose throughout, and in the end, signing. The price of having the two children? Her chaos magic, sealed.

Once all is said and done, I take Doctor Strange to the warehouse, walking past the artifacts that you'd expect a dimensional traveller to have, until I pull out a comic book. The last issue of the crossover event, titled Avengers Finale. He flips through it, eyebrows lifting higher and higher. And then I point him at the last page - letters to the editor. With one from me, in character, calling the editor a hack. Strange looks up at me and I smile, voicing a couple of the lines from the letter.

"It's easier to destroy, rather than to create, isn't it? It takes more effort, more creativity, to create an event that has a happy ending rather than a pile of corpses. The original ending was supposed to have killed people, all for a cheap spike in comic sales, and yet there are other ways to achieve the same. The problem is that some people just go for the quickest way to get sales. Going 'this issue, someone will DIE!' is just foolishness, especially when you return to the status quo six months later. If someone wanted to do something original, they'd either have every bog-standard human hate every enhanced being on the planet, or use the tiniest sliver of common sense and make them not magically hate mutants but love the Fantastic Four."

Strange looked at me blankly.

"Oh, speaking of which, I've got a scroll of genocide somewhere, I need to go find it and eradicate the Legacy virus."

So! Moving right along. House of M? Fun little side-story, but not a thing that happened in mainline Marvel. No More Mutants? Again, side-story, not mainline Marvel.

Civil War? Step 1, one of the New Warriors decide to make a deal with a local TV station for a reality show and SHIELD immediately files an injunction because I was more than happy to let Nick Fury know what was coming otherwise. Step 2, the human bomb is too dangerous to live and disappears in the night. (If you look up in the night sky, you can see his frozen corpse in orbit- aaand it just burned into a cinder on re-entry. And then exploded into dust. Aww, what a shame.) After all, Namor's a pretty cool dude, eh has a daughter who's a princess and doesn't afraid of anything. Let's not kill people off just for the sake of getting comic book sales again, Bendis.

Step 3, some jackass in Washington is introducing the registration legislation anyways. It's nice to know that Iron Man was on the side of the angels, and since Stamford never happened, the votes are on the side of not passing the act. I suppose cursing the reps who support it with incontinence and senility every time they are in public would not be an inappropriate solution, yeah?

And somewhere during all of the chaos... got to track down all those infinity stones that the Illuminati have locked down. (Namor even gave his up willingly.) Duplicate them with Cheat Mode and take the originals for safekeeping. The universe has a tendency to hiccup while there are two of them in existence within the universe, but thankfully, the warehouse counts as being outside. (They get integrated into the Gauntlet, as is the case with virtually every other magical power source.)

Oh, and then we've got One More Day. Because Joe Quesada is a hack. Aunt May gets shot, the same improbable course of events happens where nobody can treat her, she starts recovering from her gunshot wound and gets pneumonia and falls into a coma. And you get the same bullshit with Mephisto. This is at the end of my stay because of things shifting, rather than during the averted Civil War arc, but... yeah.

I leave the jump with this.

Somewhere in a pocket universe:
>"I want your love. I want--"
Pop. "Hey, Mephisto, exploding demon says what?"
>"Wha- how did you even-!?"
"Your head a splode."
>"AAAAAAAAAH-" BOOM.
"I fucking love that spell. Hey Pete, MJ, sorry for the mess. I believe the asshat there was saying, I want your love, I want your marriage, yada yada, except you were going to say yes when you literally had God telling you both not to do it. Am I right? Seems a little odd for you, don't you think? With great power comes great not making deals with the fucking devil, you idiot."
>"Er..."
"Tell you what. I'll save May, she's cool, but you need to learn to let go, my man. Tell you what, why don't I just have you sign THIS contract - neither of you gets to make any deals with infernal powers from here and you aren't allowed to be influenced by dark powers either unless you clear it with me, and I choose the name of your firstborn. I'd call that a bargain. In return, I cure May, she gets to live long enough to see the child she's namesake of, and everyone lives happily after. Capiche?"
>"We're not in the real world. How are you even here?"
"Uh, Doctor Doom hit me with some infernal energy and I used it to cheat or something- that doesn't matter! I'd taken the liberty of curing May's pneumonia before I came in, and I even gave her kidneys a tune-up. She's got a few years left before she'll die peacefully in her sleep, incidentally, I took the liberty of peeking a few issues ahead - I mean uhhhhh Doctor Strange used some kind of precognitive magic on me and I absorbed - aw, screw it. Wanna hear some good news? MJ, you're six weeks pregnant, and you get to name her May."
>"I'm- I'm WHAT?"
"Congratulations! Sign here. Now then, why don't you two step through this little green portal here, May's about to wake up and you need to give her the good news."

Because fuck that shit, One More Day was shit.

They earned their god damn happy ending.