Warning: Contains spoilers for Fantastic Four: Reckoning War #1
In Fantastic Four: Reckoning War #1, the newest threat for the Marvel Universe was unveiled, and it hints at destruction on such a scale that will make the infamous “Thanos‘ snap” seem harmless. What the Reckoning plans to do involves the supreme being called Eternity, and it will unravel the fabric of reality itself.
The Reckoning War is Marvel Comics’ first big event of 2022, and with a storyline 15 years in the making, fans could expect big things to happen. They were not disappointed. For months, Marvel teased a new cosmic-scale war that would be a return to the “first war” in the universe. Fantastic Four: Reckoning War #1 – by Dan Slott, Carlos Pacheco, Carlos Magno, Rafael Fonteriz, and Guru-eFX – finally revealed who Reckoning War’s villain is: a species known as the Reckoning, who was the first one to receive the gifts of knowledge and technology from the Watchers (then known as the Luminous) in the early days of the universe. However, they used those gifts to become ruthless conquerors and enslave most of the other sentient species, until a catastrophic weapon of mass destruction was unleashed, poisoning nine-tenths of the universe. The Luminous then sealed away the remaining section of space, leaving the Reckoning to die in the toxic wasteland, but they survived, and are now back with a dreadful plan to exact their revenge on all of creation.
Marvel’s villains often have a grand plan to destroy or conquer the universe. The most infamous of them is Thanos, who, in the Infinity Gauntlet storyline, collected the Infinity Gems and used the omnipotence granted by them to erase half the universe’s life with one snap. That was as impressive in 1991 as it is today, thanks to the popularity of the movie Avengers: Infinity War, where Thanos repeats the same feat. However, that move was a reflection of Thanos’ twisted psyche and, in the comics, of his morbid love for Mistress Death. It was meant as a tribute for her and, by leaving half of his enemies alive, Thanos planted the seeds for his defeat. What the Reckoning are trying to do, instead, will prove much harder to stop for the heroes, and its ultimate consequences will be much worse than Thanos’ snap. They will poison Eternity, by spreading war throughout the universe.
In Marvel cosmology, there exist a number of entities who are physical representations of abstract concepts. These creatures hold supreme authority over a universe, and they are overruled only by the Living Tribunal, who sits one step below the One Above All (the supreme God of the Marvel Multiverse). Eternity is the physical manifestation of a universe, embodying reality itself. As Eternity is connected to all life, and exists everywhere simultaneously, harming him can have dire consequences, and this is exactly what the Reckoning plan to do. In Fantastic Four: Reckoning War #1, the Silver Surfer is summoned to Eternity’s side, to find out that he is dying, poisoned by conflicts that have spread through every part of the universe, like a “weaponized virus“. This is the Reckoning’s doing: they have provided every warlike race in the cosmos with advanced weaponry and technology (derived by Watchers’ superior science), causing wars to erupt across every galaxy.
The plan is simple, yet on such a grand scale that it will be very hard to stop. The protectors of the universe will have to stop not one war, but countless ones, and the Reckoning’s weapons are so powerful that whoever has them becomes a major threat (as seen with the Cotati during Empyre). Once the conflicts spread by the Reckoning will reach a critical point, Eternity will die, and the Marvel Universe will disappear with him, making Thanos‘ snap look like mere child play.
