Warning: contains spoilers for Heroes Return #1
Marvel’s Heroes Reborn event just concluded with the revelation that Mephisto has stolen a key concept from Rick and Morty. While the infamous demon lord is an Avengers-level threat in his own right, easily able to reshape reality so that Earth’s Mightiest Heroes never joined forces, it’s become clear that there’s one thing more terrifying than Mephisto; an entire council of Mephistos from every corner of the multiverse.
The latest event from Marvel has shown exactly how much of a threat Mephisto is on his own. Together with Phil Coulson, Mephisto rewrote reality to erase the Avengers and ensure that Marvel’s Justice League pastiche, the Squadron Supreme, was the world’s premier hero team instead. Though it’s always been obvious why Coulson would change things to have his hero team in power, Mephisto’s motivations are far more insidious. Readers quickly learn that there’s another big change to this version of Earth… the people of this world worship Mephisto as their god.
Now, in Heroes Return #1 from Jason Aaron and Ed McGuinness, the Squadron Supreme and the reassembled Avengers finally clash. It’s a brutal fight, with Hyperion nearly breaking his hands punching Thor, Black Panther severing the tendons of Blur, and Power Princess threatening to rip the Phoenix-powered Echo apart piece by piece. The real fight though is between Captain America and President Coulson. With the power of the Hellahedron, Coulson tries to fend off his former idol. Eventually, Captain America is able to break the Hellahedron and end the fake reality. While everything returns to normal, readers see Mephisto in Hell. He proclaims that even with his reality shattered, he has just shown how powerful he was on his own. To an entire horde of alternate universe Mephistos, he asks just what 616 of them could do if they united.
Though the idea of assembling a team consisting of alternate versions of one being is an old one, it’s easy to see how this has been influenced by Rick and Morty. That series prominently featured a government ruled by a council of alternate versions of Rick. Though Rick is the protagonist and is usually pestered into doing the right thing by his grandson Morty, it is not a stretch to say that he’s something of a supervillain in his own right. Both the council of Ricks and the council of Mephistos are a group of ultra-intelligent supervillains who are the same person from different universes. The primary Rick and Mephisto also share the fact they’re typically chaotic characters who have to grapple with the bureaucracy of their council. The main difference though is what makes the council of Mephistos so horrifying. Rick may have killed his council… but Mephisto found a way to work together with his.
Needless to say, 616 Mephistos working together is the most powerful threat the Marvel Universe has ever faced. The main Mephisto himself even points out just how much chaos, destruction, and misery he can spread alone. It’s unfathomable what they can accomplish together. The Marvel Universe’s only hope lays in one fact. Much like Rick, Mephisto is an inherently selfish being who has trouble working with others. Marvel’s only chance at survival is that Mephisto can’t help but betray his alternate universe selves just like in Rick and Morty.
