Back in 2003, legendary comic writer and artist Jim
Starlin, now best known for his creation of the Mad Titan Thanos,
worked on a six-issue mini-series called Marvel Universe: The End. In short,
the story details the Main Marvel Universe’s Thanos encountering the
Pharaoh Akhenaten who was imbued with the power of Heart of the Universe
by the Celestial Order and had targeted the Earth. Unable to
defeat him head on, Thanos used the aid of the Defenders and Genis-Vell
to stealthily acquire the Heart of the Universe for himself, time-travelling
back to erase the Celestial Order and thereby stop the Pharoah’s attack
before it began. In doing so, Thanos rendered the reality wherein Akhenaten
was abducted by the Celestial Order and all the events that followed it into
the divergent Reality-4321 (Marvel Universe: The End #1-#4, Official
Handbook of the Marvel Universe A to Z Vol. 12 – Thanos Profile).
Now at one with this ultimate power source, Thanos discovered that the universe itself held an imbalance between the barrier between life and death which would eventually lead to its own destruction. When the Great Powers of the Universe including the Living Tribunal attacked Thanos, they summoned an army of heroes to battle the Titan. Amid this mighty assemblage of heroes, if you look ever so carefully, you can spot May ‘Mayday’ Parker’s alter ego Spider-Girl (Marvel Universe: The End #5). Considering every other hero seen in attendance appears to be from the Main Marvel Universe (or Universe-616) this does raise a few questions. But we’ll talk about that shortly.
Thanos easily bests all who oppose him and destroys
the entire universe, absorbing even abstract and conceptual beings like Eternity,
Infinity and the Living Tribunal into his very being in the process.
With nothing but a void remaining where the universe had been, Thanos was
convinced by a (previously out-of-reality) Adam Warlock and the
manifestation of Death to sacrifice himself to recreate the universe as
it was minus the Celestial Order’s influence, with the dangerous
imbalance between life and death repaired. A side effect of this apparent sacrifice
was the removal of any memory of Thanos’ actions (Marvel Universe:
The End #6).
There is some debate about whether or not this story took
place partly or wholly or at all within the Main Marvel Universe aka Universe-616,
but the fact that we see an unparalleled power source (the Heart) used to
rewrite time and diverge reality, and the fact that the events of this story
are recalled by both Thanos and Adam Warlock of Universe-616
after the fact would seem to confirm this (Thanos (vol. 1) #1). Your
mileage may vary, but my intention with this is to preference what’s on the
published page as canon. Some
would
disagree.
But what does this all have to do with Spider-Girl? Well,
the big question is why would she be present in the Main Marvel Universe
(or even an alternate version of it at that point in time)? Well, I think the
best explanation lies with the Living Tribunal, who is a vastly
powerful multiversally-transcendental conceptual being and the one responsible
for summoning the army of superbeing that briefly fought Thanos. Considering
these factors, I think we could infer that the Tribunal simply pulled Mayday
from her own reality -either the MC2’s Earth-982 or one very
similar- into the Main Marvel Universe to participate in this assault.
Additionally, as the entirety of the universe’s reality was erased by Thanos
and subsequently restored with no one remembering (save Thanos himself and Adam Warlock
as noted above) it’s impossible for anyone to know for sure.
This post was originally intended to be an extremely quick
one mentioning that Jim Starlin once drew Spider-Girl but I felt the background
and confusion attached to this entire mini-series warranted a bit more of an
in-depth look. Hopefully I haven’t lost you all to the void! Anyway, Thanos
and Spider-Girl in the very same comic, in a big battle, even!
Until I find a way to avoid deep dives into obscure stuff no
one really cares all that much about, I remain
frogoat