Pre-Retcon Molecule Man AP Justification Change

[Antvasima]

I was using your own stated standards, that characters are just as powerful earlier in their timelines as later retcons establish them to be, as an argument. That does not mean that I believe in them.

As far as I remember, the Molecule Man was empowered by energy from beyond the multiverse, whereas the LT was simply one among the powerful entities within it. None of the multiple later retcons apply to him at this point.

I am able to reevaluate my interpretation of handbook entries over time.

The point remains that there is no proof whatsoever of the LT being more powerful than Oblivion back in 1985. He was stated outright to just be one powerful entity within the multiverse among several.

In addition, there barely exists any evidence afterwards either, and even that is contradicted by that Al Ewing's Ultimates run established that the LT is just a function within Multi-Eternity, whose destruction in turn would only have Oblivion remain. I.e. according to current continuity Oblivion > Multi-Eternity > The Living Tribunal, which, of course, contradicts a version of earlier continuity, but that is part of the point.

 

[Antvasima]

I would recommend that you reread my earlier posts before you reply, as I usually made several additions while you were writing a response.

 

[Ryukama]

My standards are this.

• If you have no proof that something is inconsistent, you don't get to call it inconsistent.

Forget everything else. Just this. Prove LT > Oblivion is inconsistent. That's it. Only thing that matters. Prove that LT > Oblivion is inconsistent with Secret Wars.

Secret Wars not outright stating that LT > Oblivion is not a contradiction. Find an actual showcase of LT's power or a statement that'd go against LT being stronger than Oblivion in Secret Wars.

Molecule Man was still a resident of the multiverse and was within it. He's someone within the multiverse who has powers greater/equal to those beyond it. Also since when is location a difference to someone's power? So Goku being one of the strongest people living on Earth means he can only bust Earth, or cannot be stronger than someone outside of Earth?

Why does LT being one of the strongest within the multiverse mean he can't have powers outside that, or that he can't be stronger than anyone outside the multiverse?

 

[Antvasima]

My standards are that I have explained several very contradictory retcons that the Living Tribunal has gone through over the years, both in terms of nature and power level, and have observed Marvel writers constantly contradict each other over and over and over and over, etcetera, likely a few hundred times in sum total.

I have also shown that the Tribunal was explicitly weaker when first introduced, and that his handbook description was far less impressive in 1980s than it was in the 2000s, and that he was stated outright to simply keep mystical balance within individual universes, and be one of several powerful entities within the multiverse, not at the top of the hierarchy. He was also never compared or even mentioned in conjunction with Oblivion at the time.

As such, I think that it is far more reasonable to demand evidence that the Tribunal was more powerful than Oblivion at the time, than it is to demand evidence that he was not, and am never going to agree with your approach regarding this issue.

 

[Antvasima]

I would also still appreciate if you reread all of my earlier posts.

I am going to have to work for 5 hours straight with my edit-monitoring backlog after this is done, so I would prefer not to be forced to spend any more time repeating myself.

 

[Ryukama]

You can't expect to be able to call something inconsistent or a retcon with no proof. So yes I most certainly demand proof of that. Show evidence of what contradicts it. At least you've been finally trying to bring evidence for contradictions now. Though things like LT being one of the strongest people residing in the multiverse doesn't inherently contradict that.

Either way I'm going to bed so I'm dropping this for now too. I'll leave it up to the others. And I'd like for Matt to also give his thoughts here.

 

[Antvasima]

Do you want proof of the Living Tribunal receiving contradictory statements about his power level and nature afterwards, for the various things I mentioned earlier? I have either been shown scans for that, or read the stories themselves over the years, but am afraid that I do not keep them around for reference.

 

[Antvasima]

In addition, I will likely have to work 12-13 hours in sum total managing the wiki today, so I do not have the time to spend several hours more attempting to find them all, especially if you are likely to disregard them anyway.

 

[Quantu]

Hold on what's the argument? Does this relate to the OP? I'm busy now and just clicked this notification. Can someone summarise?

 

[Antvasima]

I have seen far too many Marvel retcons, both for the Living Tribunal and plenty of other characters, to wish to backwards scale the retconned 1985 version of the Beyonder to the current 2018 version of the Living Tribunal, given that the latter's greater power levels and stature as the sometimes most powerful regular Marvel character, were established much later, and that several of these definitions also contradicted each other.

Ryukama wants to scale the 1985 version of the Living Tribunal to Oblivion, despite that they were never compared with each other, and that the Tribunal was simply stated to be one of the most powerful entities within the multiverse at the time, not the top dog. He also demands explicit evidence for that the LT was not more powerful than Oblivion, despite that, again, they were never compared with each other back then as far as I am aware.

 

[Quantu]

Well I don't really know what to say, but you need evidence that shows they were comparable. Also the burden of proof should be on Ryu to prove it, not vice versa.

 

[Antvasima]

Yes, that is my take as well.

 

[Antvasima]

It would be appreciated if you read through all of our posts though.

 

[Quantu]

I will read through it later if I get the chance.

 

[Antvasima]

Well, we need your help with this now, so it would be appreciated if you do so soon. You can start with my first post above.

 

[Quantu]

"The Living Tribunal has been established as a judge of universes and maintainer of balance between good and evil at a later point, to the sum totality of all abstract entities within the multiverse at a later point, to a judge of all multiverses at a later point, to the embodiment of the Marvel multiverse at a later point, to a mere function of and inferior to Multi-Eternity at a later point. He has gone through lots of retcons."

This sums everything up to me. Constant revisions of the character means that feats that occur at a newer version don't scale back all the way to all his other past incarnations/portayals.

 

[Antvasima]

Yes, exactly. Thank you.

 

[Quantu]

Now I am going to go. I delayed myself a bit to read through the post, but it's ok xd.

 

[Antvasima]

Although he was already a maintainer of balance for mystical energies and good and evil for universes during the time of the Secret Wars.

 

[Quantu]

What he was or was not doesn't matter. He went through several revisions and changes, thus all feats from his newer portrayals don't scale back to his older ones.

 

[Antvasima]

Yes. Agreed.

 

[Matthew_Schroeder]

I agree 100% with Ryukama. It is ridiculous to treat comics as a vacuum, and even in the 70s the Tribunal was a Multiversal Singularity and the Judge of all Existence.

Thinking he is Star level based on a Guidebook is intellectual dishonesty of the highest degree, and I cannot believe you still cling to it despite it being debunked two years ago. At the most downplayed, he was 2-A.

Also don't ignore that the Marvel Multiverse has contained infinitely-dimensional structures since the 60s. And that Strange was obviously fighting a manifestation.

The more thread go by, the more evidence I have of your absolute, irrational bias against anything related to Marvel Comics. You claim you have no bias but you randomly go on rants against it bordering on political satire, stands against every single proposed upgrade for it initially, randomly start bringing up things that haven't been used in this wiki since early 2016, and exaggerate the "inconsistencies" to high heavens, and when asked to prove these inconsistencies you have nothing of evidence to base your arguments on.

At this point you should just not handle Marvel Revisions anymore.

 

[Antvasima]

I am not claiming that the Living Tribunal is star level. I am just saying that he was evidently not established to be as powerful when he was first introduced in the 1960s as he was in the 1980s, and not established to be as powerful during the 1980s as during the 2010s.

Basically, all that I am saying is that it is fine to count all of continuity for most Marvel character statistics, including the Tribunal, but if we backwards-scale to a retconned character such as the Beyonder, we risk to include all changes to continuity that come afterwards. Do you really wish to rate the original Beyonder as High 1-A based on the "mightiest being" statement in 1985, based on some character that might be introduced in the next few years?

Also, if I was being nearly as biased as you claim, I wouldn't have agreed with almost all of your revisions, let you handle almost all Marvel scaling nowadays, or have scaled the Beyonder from Oblivion. This discussion is about a technicality of continuity, not about the actual character statistics.

As for Marvel Comics, I love the 1980s stories, greatly enjoy several of the 1990s stories as well, and am very fond of several characters. I just strongly dislike the current political agendas from the current writers. They even retconned the original Captain America into always having been a Nazi sleeper agent.

 

[Antvasima]

Also, you should probably remember most of the contradictory statements about the nature of the Tribunal from over the years yourself. It isn't like I am lying. I genuinely do recall all of them.

 

[Antvasima]

However, I have already worked for 10.5 hours with the wiki today. You are demanding too much of me when you want me to spend several hours on top of that finding all of the different explanation scans about the Tribunal that I have ever seen.

 

[Matthew_Schroeder]

"I am not claiming that the Living Tribunal is star level. I am just saying that he was evidently not established to be as powerful when he was first introduced in the 1960s as he was in the 1980s, and not established to be as powerful during the 1980s as during the 2010s."

Except that he was introduced as a Multiversal+ Abstract Embodiment and the Judge of all Existence and Ruler of all Dimensions, so you're wrong there. The Tribunal's role has always been consistent.

"Basically, all that I am saying is that it is fine to count all of continuity for most Marvel character statistics, including the Tribunal, but if we backwards-scale to a retconned character such as the Beyonder, we risk to include all changes to continuity that come afterwards."

You're not even making any sense right now. The Tribunal doesn't scale from Pre-Retcon Beyonder when they first meet, but he doesn't have to. He's already High 1-B based on the fact that the Marvel Multiverse was scientifically proven by Reed Richards to be High 1-B, and possibly 1-A scaling from Oblivion, who was introduced a year prior.

"Do you really wish to rate the original Beyonder as High 1-A based on the "mightiest being" statement in 1985, based on some character that might be introduced in the next few years?"

Holy strawman Batman. I never even said that, you know that this is an absurd, gross misrepresentation. Even if we did scale Beyonder from Oblivion, he would only be 1-A. What Ryukama suggests is scaling TLT from Oblivion based on the fact that The Living Tribunal is always stated to be the most powerful cosmic.

"Also, if I was being nearly as biased as you claim, I wouldn't have agreed with almost all of your revisions, let you handle almost all Marvel scaling nowadays, or have scaled the Beyonder from Oblivion. This discussion is about a technicality of continuity, not about the actual character statistics."

Legit Marvel Revisions only tend to go through after 300+ posts of constant, back-and-forth, recursive arguing, and usually because you get to tired to continue discussing. I'm glad you eventually concede, but you never seem to approach these discussions with an open mind.

"As for Marvel Comics, I love the 1980s stories, greatly enjoy several of the 1990s stories as well, and am very fond of several characters. I just strongly dislike the current political agendas from the current writers. They even retconned Captain America into always having been a Nazi sleeper agent."

• 1) I like how one of my points is that you randomly go on rants against Marvel that border on political satire, and then you do just that to prove my point
• 2) That second point is objectively wrong. Captain America was brainwashed by a Cosmic Cube.

 

[Magi_Hussie]

If it's not too late to mention, Pre-Retcon Beyonder's Beyond Realm (beyond all Space and Ti...you get the point) is his Non-Corporeal form:

"Energy from the Cosmic Cube coalesced in a realm beyonder all time and space, and slowly became sentient. The Beyonder was the totality of the Beyond Realm and the Beyond Realm was the non-corporeal form of the Beyonder."

And PR Beyonder's physical bodies (the ones you see the Beyonder in) are nothing more than just his Manifestations/Avatars to the real thing and dimensionally bounded unlike his true self, which is boundless.

Pre-Retcon Beyonder should be similar to the Oblivion profile and his key should be something like "Manifestations | Beyonder Realm / True Beyonder."

 

[Antvasima]

I do not like your tone, especially given that I am already exhausted from overwork, but here are a few of the scans that I consider contradictory regarding his nature:

 

[Matthew_Schroeder]

Neither of those scans are contradictory in the slightest, I'm sorry. You just want every single scan related to the Tribunal to have the exact same wording.

 

[Antvasima]

"Except that he was introduced as a Multiversal+ Abstract Embodiment and the Judge of all Existence and Ruler of all Dimensions, so you're wrong there. The Tribunal's role has always been consistent."

I did not know that he was introduced as such. Can you elaborate please?

"You're not even making any sense right now. The Tribunal doesn't scale from Pre-Retcon Beyonder when they first meet, but he doesn't have to. He's already High 1-B based on the fact that the Marvel Multiverse was scientifically proven by Reed Richards to be High 1-B, and possibly 1-A scaling from Oblivion, who was introduced a year prior."

Yes, of course. I agree with you about that. My disagreement is solely about scaling the Pre-Retcon Beyonder to any changes within Marvel that came after he was retconned into a cosmic cube.

"Holy strawman Batman. I never even said that, you know that this is an absurd, gross misrepresentation. Even if we did scale Beyonder from Oblivion, he would only be 1-A. What Ryukama suggests is scaling TLT from Oblivion based on the fact that The Living Tribunal is always stated to be the most powerful cosmic."

I have no problem with scaling the Tribunal to "At least High 1-B, likely 1-A". My sole disagreement within this thread is about backwards scaling the original Beyonder from the Tribunal and any other developments after he was retconned. Scaling him from Oblivion is fine.

"Legit Marvel Revisions only tend to go through after 300+ posts of constant, back-and-forth, recursive arguing, and usually because you get to tired to continue discussing. I'm glad you eventually concede, but you never seem to approach these discussions with an open mind."

I am generally being as open-minded as I can, and have completely revised most of my old conceptions, but I still have to be convinced in the first place, and it isn't like you tend to avoid arguing extensively in far more threads than I do.

"1) I like how one of my points is that you randomly go on rants against Marvel that border on political satire, and then you do just that to prove my point.

2) That second point is objectively wrong. Captain America was brainwashed by a Cosmic Cube."

How so? I like the characters, the setting, and the classic stories. I just do not like slanted one-sided political propaganda in my entertainment.

As for Captain America, Nick Spencer established that he was originally a Nazi, and then a cosmic cube changed reality so he wasn't. Then another cube changed him back. Currently the original Cap is still a Nazi. All of it just to make a political point. It is depressing.

 

[Antvasima]

Neither of those scans are contradictory in the slightest, I'm sorry. You just want every single scan related to the Tribunal to have the exact same wording.

Look, those scans, combined with the Ultimates storyarc, the latest handbook entry, and the scans I posted earlier certainly seem to imply a different nature or power level for the Tribunal depending on the era.

When first introduced, Doctor Strange could fight him and he channeled mystical entities such as the Seraphim.

In the 1980s he was a judge of universes, one of the most powerful entities within the multiverse, and never compared with Oblivion.

In the 1990s he was the judge of all multiverses.

In the 2010s he was the embodiment of the multiverse.

Most recently he was a function of Multi-Eternity, and inferior to Oblivion.

Marvel's definition of him definitely seems to have changed over the years.

 

[Matthew_Schroeder]

@Ant

Wrong, in the Doctor Strange storyline he was the judge of all existence. The 1980s and 1990s descriptions are identical to that, just one expanding the scale slightly. And he's never been a function of Multi-Eternity.

 

[Antvasima]

Can you show some scans from the original Doctor Strange story please? If you are correct, it seems extremely strange (no pun intended) that he could break out of one of the Tribunal's confinement spells.

There is also a massive difference between fixing the balance within universes, being the embodiment of the abstract entities, judging all multiverses, and being the embodiment of a single multiverse.

I think that the current Tribunal was stated to be a function of Multi-Eternity when he was restored to life again after the First Firmament was defeated.

 

[Antvasima]

In any case, I would appreciate if you refrain from any further personal accusations/attacks. It is not the way that we are supposed to behave within this wiki, I am far too exhausted to deal with any drama, and it seems based on severely misunderstanding my viewpoints anyway.

 

[Matthew_Schroeder]

@Ant

Both scans that show that even in the 70s, the Tribunal had multiversal cosmic importance.

 

[Antvasima]

Yes, that seems legitimate, although when first introduced in the late 1960s Strange was still able to break his spell, and "dimension" here seems to refer to all of the parallel universes.

 

[Matthew_Schroeder]

Yes, I agree. I'm just saying that he wasn't just a random mystical entity.

 

[Antvasima]

Okay. So have I managed to properly explain my viewpoints, so there are no more misunderstandings? Or do I need to elaborate about something?

 

[Magi_Hussie]

After you 2 are done with your debate, don't forget to check on my short explanation I mentioned earlier.

 

[Antvasima]

@Matthew

Just to clarify something: If I forget some of your by me accepted points and repeat myself over the years, this is a natural side effect of having dealt with thousands of content revision threads at this point. The memory gets muddled regarding the contents of most of them.