While many time machines exist in both the Marvel Universe and the DC Universe, the devices from both companies fail to account for one key element of time travel…but Beast of the X-Men does not. One of the supreme scientists of the Marvel Universe, Doctor Hank McCoy has stood for mutant rights while also fighting for humanity as a whole against all manner of threats. But he also fights against misinformation regarding time travel mechanics, and in Secret Avengers #16, the member of Professor Charles Xavier’s first class of X-Men does exactly that.
The Secret Avengers, as opposed to the regular Avengers, often embark on missions that are clandestine in nature; they are sent in to neutralize a threat before it becomes a massive issue (and many times, the public at large is completely unaware of it). The team in 2010 consisted of Captain America, Black Widow, Moon Knight, Beast, War Machine, Ant-Man (not Hank Pym or Scott Lang, but the third Ant-Man Eric O’Grady), and others. In the 16th issue, Beast and the rest of the Secret Avengers must stop a Doctor Doom-designed machine, and Black Widow isn’t exactly concerned, but Beast outlines the true danger of time machines:
Beast points out an irrefutable fact concerning time travel: “People always forget that a time machine is also a space machine.” He mentions that planets, stars and other celestial bodies aren’t anchored in space; rather, they move at phenomenal speeds through the cosmos. “So, to go back in time on Earth,” Beast continues “you have to also be sent to the position your target was at that time in the past.” Otherwise, anyone sent back in time without compensating for the Earth’s movement would end up in space.
The entire solar system – and all planets within, not accounting for individual orbits (this calculation is based on the Sun’s movements) – moves at a rate of 220 kilometers per second. Thus, any time machine that isn’t a space machine would indeed deposit the traveler far away from land. This effectively makes any metahuman with time-travel abilities also a functional teleporter (Waverider and the Flash from DC, Vulcan and Magik from Marvel, etc). This also implies that the wielder of the Time Stone in the Marvel Universe can also move through space.
The “static” time travel method (in which a time machine carries a traveler to the same place where they departed) is quite prevalent in fiction, yet writers rarely if ever mention Beast’s observations concerning time travel. Anyone who can solve time travel without accidentally throwing the traveler into deep space has also mastered instant teleportation, intentionally or otherwise. With all the time travel experienced by the X-Men and the Marvel Universe’s heroes at large, perhaps Beast could actually build a device that serves both purposes.
