Warning: contains spoilers for Fantastic Four: Reckoning War Alpha #1!
The Watcher has just revealed his species’ true name in the Fantastic Four’s new blockbuster event 17 years in the making, and the Marvel Universe will never be the same. Uatu the Watcher is a legendary character in the Marvel Universe; his power is immense but he is known for not using any of it, having made a vow to never interfere in the affairs of lesser beings. But the events of Fantastic Four: Reckoning War Alpha #1 causes Uatu to break that vow – along with all the other Watchers – with far-reaching consequences.
First rising to fame in The Galactus Trilogy, Uatu is a friend of the Fantastic Four and the Earth at large, though he rarely prevents disasters from occurring on the planet. It’s his duty to watch over the planet from a secret location on the moon, and even death cannot stop him – he recently died but came back to life, and together with Nick Fury as his assistant the Unseen, the Watcher continues to observe the universe. Unfortunately in the opening moments of the Reckoning War, Uatu’s moon base is destroyed by a Badoon vessel.
Uatu realizes that Watcher technology from “The First War” has spread all over the universe. When Reed Richards arrives to the Watcher’s abandoned base, he witnesses with his own eyes the Watcher’s own history – and his species did much more than watch. The Watchers had the ability to transform their bodies into light and travel instantaneously throughout the universe – “…and wherever we went, they called us the Luminous. We were not the Watchers then. How could we be, when there was so much to see and do?”
Using their immense power, the Luminous elevated certain worlds, one of which was the planet Prosilicus. The species used the Luminous’ gifts for war, and the Luminous were forced to take drastic action and wall out the universe from the Prosilicus’ devastation. As the Luminous, Uatu and the rest of his species clearly interfered far too much, and their vow after the fact is a direct response to their collective failure.
The Watcher’s reveal of their original species name speaks volumes about their power. The ability to transform into non-corporeal forms and back again would certainly cause many species to see the Luminous as gods. The Watcher’s true species name means the Fantastic Four and the rest of Earth’s superheroes have only seen a faint glimpse of Uatu’s true power – and nature.
