Warning: contains spoilers for Fantastic Four: Reckoning War Alpha #1!
While there has long been one ability that allowed heroes to fight back against the time-tampering of Kang the Conqueror, only in She-Hulk‘s latest adventure does this power finally get a name. For practically as long as he has existed within the Marvel universe, Kang the Conqueror has been recognized as one of the most powerful villains in all of time. The character has built a reputation as an imposing warlord thanks not only to his enhanced armor and genius intellect, but his affinity for time travel, which can allow him to defeat his enemies before they even know he’s a threat.
However, there is an ability that renders this particular ability ineffective, and it finally has a name. In Fantastic Four: Reckoning War Alpha #1 (by Dan Slott, Carlos Pacheco, Rafael Fonteriz, and Carlos Magno), She-Hulk is told by the Time Variance Authority that she has become Chronally Sensitive – able to see things which are discordant with the natural timeline. When something is changed or feels “off” in the timeline, likely because of Kang himself, a Chronally Sensitive person is going to immediately recognize it and thus has a chance of stopping whoever changed the timeline to begin with.
She-Hulk only just became Chronally Sensitive because she was previously brought to the Reckoning War by the TVA (who wanted her to see the outcome of her actions), and so having now been in the same moment twice presumably makes her enough of an anomaly to spot other similarly out of place details. However, while this may be new to She-Hulk, Marvel fans have seen it before, though they didn’t have a name for it. One such instance was in Moon Knight Annual #1 (by Cullen Bunn, Ibrahim Moustafa, and Matt Horak.) When visited by the god Khonshu, Moon Knight was made Chronally Sensitive to the ways Kang had changed the timestream, and thus defeated him promptly.
Similarly, Beast is almost instantly alerted to Kang the Conqueror’s changes to the world in Uncanny Inhumans #2 by Charles Soule and Steve McNiven. While those around him suddenly forget Gorgon ever existed, Beast notices him vanish from history in real time, right in front of him. Beast explains this by saying he has experimented with the timestream so many times that it’s left him “attuned to alterations – shifts between timelines.” Like She-Hulk, Beast’s experiences have made him Chronally Sensitive, and therefore able to notice and counteract Kang’s attacks.
While these stories happened years apart and to disparate characters, it’s apparent that tampering with time (or, in Moon Knight’s case, divine intervention) can leave a person Chronally Sensitive, able to discern when something discordant with the timestream (such as changes or time-traveling individuals) are present. Fantastic Four: Reckoning War Alpha #1 gives this ability a name, but what’s fascinating is that several Marvel characters have possessed it for a while, perhaps suggesting an as-yet-unformed team who could rise to meet the growing threat of Kang teased in recent issues of Marvel comics. Now that She-Hulk‘s latest adventure has invented an actual term for it, Marvel readers should not be surprised if even more Chronally Sensitive characters present themselves as foils to Kang the Conqueror in the future.
