What If? A Retrospective.

For those of you who know me, I'm a really big fan of comics, especially Marvel's Spider-Man and other less renowned heroes from Stan Lee's soapbox.  For a bit of fun, I've been looking into Marvel's "What If?" line which has run on and off since 1977.  The series features glimpses into alternate universes in which popular tales are revisited and asks "what if one thing were changed?"

There have been some truly great stories to come out of the series, perhaps most notable comes from What If... Volume 2 #105 which asked what would have happened if Spider-Man's daughter had not been stillborn.  The comic proved to be so popular that it not only spawned an entire 100 issue series featuring the first ever woman to be given her own ongoing solo series, but an entire line of comics that existed in this tangent universe and continued to be produced for a good 15 years.

However, when you look at the book 35 years later, you notice that there have also been a lot of inane and ironically ridiculous stories to come from "What If?".  Marvel's mainstream universe continues to expand every week as new issues of comics are published.  And sometimes, perhaps inadvertently, writers have taken stories from "What If?" and made them canon.  And this leads me to look back at these "What If?" stories with a certain humorous flair.  So here are the Top 11 Silliest What If Stories in Retropect.  Why Top 11?  Because I won't make that joke.

(I warn you, there may be spoilers, but seriously, its the age of the internet.)

#11 What If Hulk Had Become a Barbarian?

This comic features our Great Green Goliath on another planet, decked out in viking horns and a battle axe asking what would Hulk be like if he were Conan the Barbarian.  Behind him is Hulk's then alien mate, Jarella looking positively green.

And here we have an issue from the 2006 Incredible Hulk storyline, Planet Hulk, where Hulk gets trapped on an alien planet and becomes... er... a barbarian complete with battle axe, helmet, and alien mate..  It's not that I don't like the idea.  In fact, Planet Hulk is one of the best Hulk stories ever and lead to some even more great stories including this gem:

That's Hulk's son, Skaar.  As you can see, he's a barbarian... on another planet... with a battle axe. God dammit, Hulk writers.  BE MORE ORIGINAL!!

#10 What If Phoenix Rose Again?

Seriously comic?  That's the best you could come up with?  How many times has Jean Grey been killed now?  She's like Gwen Stacy's antithesis.  It goes with the name really.  Phoenix, a mythical bird of fire that rises from its own ashes.  Obviously she's going to rise again.  Hell, Marvel just destroyed the Phoenix in the climax of Avengers vs. X-Men only to have current X-Men writer Brian Bendis almost immediately proceeded to revive Jean Grey two months later.  Even when they don't bring her back from the dead directly, there are clones, time travel incidents, alternate universe duplicates, clones.  Comics are weird.  The point is, nobody ever stays dead.  Except Gwen Stacy.

Screw you, Ultimate universe!!


#9: What If the Hulk Went Berserk?

Another Hulk comic.  I just wanted to ask, "when has the Hulk NOT gone berserk?"  That's sort of a central theme to his character.  He's a giant green raging hulk monster.  He gets pissed off and destroys stuff.  Was the writer missing something when he thought of this title?  Had he never picked up an Incredible Hulk comic?

The comic, based on the very first issue of Incredible Hulk, shows what would have happened if Bruce Banner had immediately transformed into the not-so-Jolly Green Giant after being caught in his Gamma Bomb explosion, rather than, as later continuity has it, his less vicious and somewhat more intelligent (than the Hulk, not Banner) grey form.  After several failed attempts by the military and the Fantastic Four to stop the monster, Thor comes in and snaps his neck.  Gee, that was easy.

#8 What If Spider-Man Joined the Fantastic Four?

I present the very first What If? comic ever made, which spawned all of this silliness.  If it weren't for some truly terrible tales to come, I might even be tempted to throw this at #1.  Not really.  Spidey joining the FF is actually, pardon the pun, a fantastic idea and he has more than proven it over the past 50 years.  This story stems all the way to Amazing Spider-Man #1 where Peter Parker, strapped for cash as per usual, attempts to join the FF and earn some dough.  Unfortunately, despite breaking into the Baxter Building, his pompous personality at the time proved to be too much for Richards and family to handle, as they already had a Johnny Storm.  It also didn't help that Spider-Man failed to show off his considerable scientific intellect or to comprehend that the FF was not-for-profit.  Oh well.  Still someone wanted to know what would have become of him and the team had they formed the Fantastic Five.

And years later, we found out!

Twice!

After the Fantastic Four gets put out of commission by Doctor Doom, Sue Storm recruits Spider-Man, Wolverine, Grey Hulk, and Ghost Rider to be the most badass Fantastic Four team of all time.  Years later, Spidey got inducted onto the team proper after his buddy, the Human Torch was apparently killed in action.  There he goes, swinging by on the cover of Fantastic Four #600.

#7 What If the Avengers Had Fought Evil During the 1950s

Long before the Marvel Comics that we know today, the company had gone under several different names.  In the 1950s, it was known as Atlas Comics Syndicate and featured several characters that would likely be unknown to most people today.  Among these characters were the Uranian hero Marvel Boy, Gorilla Man, and Venus.  In an attempt to revive the long forgotten heroes of Marvel's past, an issue of What If? featured them and other 50s heroes teaming up to form an Avengers years before the team had actually formed (ten years chronologically, but the gap grows wider with Marvel's sliding timescale).

In fact, someone at Marvel must have really liked the idea because 30 years later, the concept was revived and a mainstream version was born.  If that weren't enough, in the latest volume of New Avengers, Brian Bendis decided to write that an Avengers team was active during the 1950s as a covert ops team led by Nick Fury that just happened to share its name with the later super-powered incarnation.

#6 What If Captain America Had Been Elected President?

Okay, I really didn't want to do this.  I was trying to avoid using this one because it's sort of cheating.  I mentioned that pretty much all of these ideas were eventually, in some way shape of form, indoctrinated in the mainstream Marvel universe.  However, this one wasn't.

I present to you once more the Ultimate universe.  God dammit, the Ultimate universe.  What once had been a great idea has quickly spiraled into the greatest concentration of death, depravity, and unnecessary bleakness since DC's Countdown.  In 2001, Brian Bendis (who seems to keep showing up on this list) conceptualized the Ultimate universe and Ultimate Spider-Man as a way of attracting new readers to comics by creating brand new origin stories that modernized well known heroes and didn't require any knowledge of Marvel's then 40 years of story-telling.  Unlike previous attempts by Marvel to accomplish this, Bendis set his first experiment, Ultimate Spider-Man outside continuity  And I will be the first to admit that it worked.  I had been a fan of Spider-Man since the 90s animated cartoon, but had never read the comics.  Bendis' Ultimate Spider-Man was the first ongoing comic I ever read, and his later ongoing book, Dark Avengers, was the book that brought me into the mainstream universe.

Then, in 2008, it all went horribly, horribly wrong.  With the Ultimate universe being nearly 10 years old at this point and its longest running comic, Ultimate Spider-Man, having well over 100 issues, Bendis and team felt it was time to shake things up a bit.  Afterall, had it not been the purpose of the Ultimate comics to be an indoctrinating series without much needed continuity?  It was time for a reboot.  What we got was Ultimatum.

Now, I don't want to go into a long-winded angry discussion on how wrong Ultimatum is.  If you want that, I suggest watching the following videos.

http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/linkara/at4w/30958-ultimatum-1-2
http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/linkara/at4w/31045-ultimatum-3-4
http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/linkara/at4w/31138-ultimatum-5

However, here are the cliff notes.  Pretty much everyone dies thanks to Magneto, heroes and villains alike, with exception of Spider-Man, Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, and a few others.  Those who survived came back for round two of Ultimate comics, but now the world just seemed so much darker in its wake with heroes dead in scores and New York City and much of the world virtually destroyed.  If that weren't enough, two years later, Peter Parker would be killed, making his survival in Ultimatum feel almost pointless.  A new Spider-Man would take his place, the controversial Miles Morales, but not long afterwards, Reed Richards destroys much of the planet.  America is left shattered and Captain America is elected President of the United States.

So there you have it folks, if Cap were elected President, it would mean the world has gone straight to hell.

#5 What If Beast and Thing Continued to Mutate?

Two fan favorites have always been the gentle blue Beast and the ever-lovin' blue-eyed Thing.  Many people nowadays probably don't realize this, unless you've seen X-Men: First Class, but the Beast used to look a lot more human.  His blue form was introduced about ten years into X-Men's history when he underwent a secondary mutation.  The Thing while always rocky, has sometimes gotten even more jagged, such as this Fantastic Four comic which was released almost five years after the above What If?

Obviously nothing truly terrible happens to the Thing should he undergo more mutation.  He just becomes temporarily stronger and cliffier.  I will spare you the details on what happens to him in the Ultimate universe, but let's just say it involves a heck of a lot of purple.

The Beast, too, has gotten even furrier recently.  In Grant Morrison's run on X-Men, he underwent yet another mutation, making him more feline in appearance with lion-esque face complete with blue mane, cat paws, and a fondness for balls of yarn.

Brian Bendis again mutated him in a recent issue of All-New X-Men, turning our blue buddy into what appears to be a hulking gorilla creature.

Here you can see Beast being held up by his younger, time-travelling self for a point of reference.  Please, Bendis, please stop making unnecessary changes to characters who have already undergone unnecessary changes.  And bring back Peter Parker.  It's hard enough that mainstream is dead.

#4 What if Spider-Man's Clone Had Lived?

What would have happened if Spider-Man's clone, created by the Jackal had lived?

Wait, do you mean this clone?

Or do you mean this clone?

Or this clone?

Or perhaps these clones?

...

SCREW YOU, ULTIMATE COMICS!!

So obviously that comic was created loooooooong before Marvel's Spider-Man team of books decided to revive the concept and then owner, Ron Perelman, forced the writers to continue the Clone Saga for as long as he could milk the benefits from it, leading the Marvel's near bankruptcy.  So that's what would have happened, had Spider-Man's clone had lived.  We would have nearly lost a prized treasure and perhaps those great Avengers movies would never have been made.  Thank you, Disney.  With your great power and responsibility, we will never have to face such a crisis ever again.

#3 What If General Ross Had Become the Hulk?

I'll admit that the top three were a bit off a toss up, but I've decided first up will be:

Once more, and for the last time, I promise you, I present a Hulk What If?  As you may be able to tell from the cover, this is actually a fairly recent comic, having been one of the first to be released since What If?'s revival in 2005.  The irony of this has a little to deal with what I mentioned earlier with Planet Hulk spawning some truly great Hulk storylines.

This is the Red Hulk, and unlike the Grey Hulk, he is not some alternate persona the Banner transforms into rather than the usual Green Hulk.  Much of Jeph Loeb's run on Hulk was the eternal mystery to who this smart, powerful adversary to our classic green brute was.  The Red Hulk's first appearance was in 2007 in Hulk #1, two years after the What If? featuring Ross as a the Hulk.  Two years after his first appearance, in 2009, the Red Hulk was finally revealed by Loeb to be none other than General Ross himself, a fitting end the monster that Ross had become chasing after the Hulk for so many years.

#2 What If the X-Men Never Existed?

Once again, I must confess that I'm cheating a bit.  But just a bit.  The comic is referring to a very specific team of X-Men that were formed after the original team (Cyclops, Beast, Marvel Girl, Angel, and Ice Man) were lost on a mission.  Professor Xavier quickly put together a new team to track them down including many fan favorites including Wolverine, Colossus, Storm, Nightcrawler, and Banshee.

However, on first glance, you just have to think, what if the X-Men never existed in the Marvel universe?  God, wouldn't that be great?  If would certainly simplify things.  First off, you've got the problem with there being waaaaaaay too many characters with waaaaaaaay too many books that are usually all second or third tier at best, but that's looking at it from a reader's standpoint.  Many of the problems in the Marvel universe tend to stem directly from the mutants, a group of beings that don't even make sense in the world they belong in, and that's saying something.

Stan Lee created the X-Men when he wanted to make another superhero team, but was at a loss as to come up with an idea for where there powers came from.  He had already overused radiation, science, machines, and magic, so for the X-Men, he decided to that they were just born with their abilities and that was that.  This allowed for the added benefit of being able to write about bigotry and intolerance so that Lee could add moral fiber to his book.  However, while this worked when the Marvel universe was small in scale, after 50 years, on an earth where microwaving your hot pocket too long may inadvertently lead to you gaining superpowers, hating a group for being born with powers just doesn't really make sense.

As I mentioned, there are so many problems in the Marvel universe that tend to stem directly from the X-Men.  Here is a short list:
-Professor Xavier's insane son travels back in time to kill Magneto, but instead kills his dad, creating a pime taradox, destroying the universe and replacing it with one ruled by Apocalypse.
-Professor Xavier and Magneto's minds create a powerful psyonic entity, Onslaught, who looks like Magneto on Hulk steroids.  Onslaught proceeds to kill the Avengers and the Fantastic Four (notice not the X-Men).
-Scarlet Witch, daughter of Magneto destroys the Avengers.
-Scarlet Witch destroys the universe and replaces it with one suggested by her brother where mutants rule and their father is king.
-Cyclops' deranged brother conquers an entire galaxy, goes to war with another galaxy, and causes a bomb to explode, not only tearing an enormous hole in space-time, but also releasing Cthulhu and the Elder Gods.  That's right, Chulhu.
-Cyclops becomes the Dark Phoenix and tries to rule the world.
-Deadpool

#1 What If The Amazing Spider-Man Had Not Married Mary Jane?

Do I really need to explain this?  I have three words.  One More Day.  *shakes head in disgust*

Deals with the devil, J. Jonah Jameson becomes mayor, there's a grey Goblin woman who has a baby, Peter has an annoying fling with a cop, Spider-Man dies and get's replaced with Doctor Octopus, oh, and Peter Parker and Mary Jane aren't married!

Granted, there were some kickass moments, but One More Day was terrible and should never see the light of day.  You can watch Linkara's video of you like, but I warn you.

http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/linkara/at4w/36077-at4w-200th-episode

Saturnalia Update

Salutations friends.  I hope that you have all had a joyous and festive Saturnalia and gave many thanks to the gods of winter.  It is a joyous time for feasting and drunken debauchery, so grab a slave wench and have a grand old time the Roman way.

It has been quite some time since I've been on here (two moon years by standard human temporal evaluation) and I believe you all deserve some sort of an explanation.  You see, there was a storm. It was kind of a big deal.  You may have heard of it.  It was called Sandy and due to my current living situation being situated right in the northward path of that cyclopean cyclone, I was without home or water or power or heat or internet for quite some time.  Each has been restored to me as of the eighth night of Chanukkah, making this year quite the amazing haul as far as gifts are concerned.  In addition, I began a new job and have been trying to adjust and acclimate myself to a new schedule and lifestyle.  Before I knew it, the Mayan apocalypse was upon us and I thought, to hell with it; I'll just wait this out and should we survive, perhaps I'll return to my blog for the new year.

So there it is folks, my long and tiring war against the elements of nature and the repetitive memes of human mass hysteria.  I hope to be fully operational again and destroying planets with my giant laser beam as soon as the the new Star Wars trilogy arrives, but before that, my new year's resolution (the one I'll actually keep) is to return regularly to my blog with more updates from my deranged yet often entertaining piece of brain work.  Or as I call it, Davy.

For the future, I'll work at more Philosophical Fridays, some more In a World Gone Writes, and should my friend and I ever get the time, I have some ideas for vlogs I'd like to make for the site.  For those of you sitting at home who just said, "huzzah, what?" a vlog is a conjugation of "video log" much as a blog is a shortening of "weblog".  You may now all respond with, "ahhhhh."

That is all.  Transmission terminated.

Day 34 - The Terrible Truth About Tiggers

My humblest apple-hoagies, erstwhile travelers of the Internet and other such houses of ill repute. This hath been an unforgiving week of grueling exertion pour moi as I have undergone several changes in my life.

I have been so exhausted and overbusy that it has been impossible to find the time to write up a new Philosophical Friday. Please, I implore of you, seek not your most wrathful rewengi on me, for I am but the messenger to your own thoughts and dreams.

I suppose I could go into some spiel on the nature of time and the teenage existential angst of reality, but tempo non habeo cogere ergo non sum.

I seek to upload what I can and hope to put up a new rant… er, philosophical revelation by Monday. In the meantime, please enjoy the following video of cats doing adorable things, the highest form of Internet entertainment.

In a World Gone Write #2

Researchers at the South Texas University of Previously Inconclusive Discoveries have dredged up another winner:

Three out of four scientists now agree that McDonald's McGriddles breakfast sandwich is the unhealthiest foreign body someone can introduce to their bodies.  The fourth scientist was unable to be reached for comment as he was currently in the ICU dying of a heart attack from eating too many delicious McGriddles.

The title "unhealthiest foreign body" has previously been applied to both heroin and Paris Hilton.

Not to be outdone, even by themselves, McDonald's released in a press conference today their newest sandwich, the McGlutton: a quarter pound beef patty, sausage, and southern fried chicken, served with lettuce, tomato, pickles, and three slices of melted cheese, sitting between two of their large griddle cakes.

McDonald's honorary, imaginary, company spokesman, Mickey Dee, is believed to have said at the conference, "We were hoping to create a sandwich that would kill you before it even reached your stomach.  With over 1500 Calories and large bites, impossible to chew, this monstrosity should stop your heart on its way down your esophagus.

The company, hoping to cash in on the upcoming American election, also unveiled the McRomney chicken sandwich and Obama Mac cheeseburger.  The sandwiches are expected to be released in Europe during the next quarter.  Unfortunately, due to a lack of foresight or geographical concern, both sandwiches are expected to cost the company millions of dollars in revenue which could have been better used solving the current economic crisis.

In a World Gone Write #1

I thought I'd start a new social commentary spoof series.  Welcome to "In a World Gone Write".

Hoping to outlast the recession, certain companies have taken it upon themselves to branch out into other industries.

New from Apple, creators of such high tech products as the iPod^TM and iPhone^TM, comes their latest product, the iCup^TM, intended for use by physicians’ offices and other medical practitioners.  This streamlined containment apparatus comes fully equipped with more than just your standard sterile walls.  Installed with out latest 8-megapixel iSight^TM camera (the same found on the iPhone 5) and Active-When-Wet Facetime app, Apple is proud to let the world know that when you go to the doctor, “I-C-U-P”.

Coming soon to app store, Apple’s mandatory iOS update with built in Penis Size Blackmail app.  Remember, buy our products or else.

Don't Hurt Me... No More

I'm uploading an old rant from Facebook to act as a corollary to the first Philosophy Friday.  This is because a certain girlfriend of a friend of mine (not gonna say who, but you know what you did) thinks that there is someone out there for everyone (there isn't, I did the math) and that you just have to look.  Meet my dating site profile:

Let's face some facts. The dating world sucks. Around 100 years ago, the free, democratic peoples of the world collectively decided to ignore 1 million years of human mating practices and began selecting life partners based on the concept of "love". What a load of horseshit.

And unfortunately for us, we have inherited this flawed system. You see, our parents and grandparents had it easy. Firstly, our grandparents had a bunch of supercool wars to live through which made all of our grandads soldiers and all of our grandmas swoon over their manliness. Our parents, well they had the summer of love, rock & roll, psychadelich drugs, and all sorts of super sexiness. We have Justin Bieber and an internet which is rapidly destroying our social skills through social networking. Also, there are clubs and bars which are most definitely no place to meet the future parent of your children. And if you think it is, well you're a rapidly devolving moron.

Another fact we must face is that you're a liar. It's okay. I'm a liar too. And so is the guy you want to meet. Human nature is to be despicable and to deceive yourself and others. You see, after sighing and swooning over the guy you wish you could meet, when he's staring you in the face, you look past him because, well, he's not really the guy you want to meet. He's no Twilight vampire/werewolf/fruitcake. And when you meet your Cullen, he turns Cú Chulainn and goes blood raving mad on you. And I'm sorry you had to find out this way. Because I know that you're "really trying" to find the right guy.

God Isn't In the Details

Fhtagn, my friends.  Welcome to another edition of Cthulhu Fridays where I take a long, hard look at the madness of the universe and it stares back.  In the last two weeks, I have taken you on a journey into disturbed mind and showed you just how feeble your existence is.  You’re welcome.  I explained my version on the nature of reality and what everything is and exactly why we do it.  It all boils down to life is shit and we’re here to fuck to distract ourselves from how shitty our lives.

But I may have jumped the shark a bit.  After basically giving an overall view of everything, what is left?  Nothing.  Nothing is left for me to talk about.  Can I write an entire essay about nothing?  (Some of you might say I already have.)  What is nothing?  What is the nature of nothingness?  Take it away, Oxford.

Nothing
Pronunciation: /'nʌθɪŋ/ 

pronoun
not anything; no single thing:
adjective
having no prospect of progress; of no value:
adverb
not at all

Nothing is not anything.  Who’d’ve thunk it?  It’s not something.  It’s not everything.  It is nothing.  Nothing is a non-corporeal idea used to fill in the blank space that exists as polar opposite to everything you believe is there.  Anything tangible, if it is, was, or will be, is the antipodal idea running against the void of nothing.  Nothing is an idea.  Ideas are essentially big balls of nothing floating around in your head, screaming to become corporeal objects in real space.  This entire essay was just a stupid idea in my head which I am now translating into reality via a keyboard and a word processor.

So what is the biggest idea in the history of mankind, so hugely, enormously grand that it permeates the popular consciousness across all social classes on earth?  God: it is the biggest, most conceivable long con in the history of the universe.  Every culture on the planet has a god, or gods, or the idea of god, or even the recalcitrant denial that such a being should, would, or could exist.  For the sake of argument and time, I am going to stick with the god I know, the Judeo-Christian behemoth that fought all other gods in some cosmic game show (probably Wheel of Fortune) long ago and won the right to let his followers act like they’re more benevolent than everyone else through slaughter and other acts of violence.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Judeo-Christian deity, here is a quick history.  Some three to four thousand years ago in the land of Canaan (now Israel) on the banks of the Great Sea (now Mediterranean Sea), the various Canaanite tribes were a nomadic and polytheistic group of people.  One tribe, located near modern Jerusalem, were staunch followers of the Canaanite war god, Yaweh.  Being a “war” deity, Yaweh demanded a lot of war and violence and stuff, and the proto-Jerusalemites were happy to oblige.  They conquered the other tribes, vanquished their gods, and gave Yaweh all of their powers until at last, he was the only god, king of kings, lord of the universe, and all that.  It was only later that cosmic irony decided to plant the “City of Peace” right on their home turf.  In order to distance themselves from their vanquished brethren and absolve them of blood, the last of the Canaanites rewrote their history, claiming to have hailed from the far off land of Babylon under the leadership of a man named Abram, likely a tourist who just sort of got caught up in things.  You know, sort of “wrong place, wrong time” and all that jazz.  Thus, Abram and his progeny got blamed for the murder of an entire race and the subsequent destruction of his religion and many more to follow.

After many thousands of years, the God of the Jews has been absconded, metamorphosed, and mutilated, but he’s never quite gotten over that whole “god of war” phase from his pernicious teenage years and those who worship him continued to wage war and shed blood in “his name”.

I have two separate theories on the nature of god.  The first involves quantum physics and a massive amount of tachyons.  The second is a bit more subtle.  As we all know, in a macrocosm, time moves in a liner fashion with causes always preceding effects.  This brings into question two things.  A) What caused the beginning of the universe and B) if god created the universe, what created god?  Can something simply exist in eternity?  I’ve already explained how Yaweh was gradually changed into God, so was there something preceding him?

Gods were concepts that man created long ago to explain natural phenomena that he was not yet scientifically equipped to explain.  Why does the sun rise each day?  Why does it rain?  Why do I get an erection in the morning?  For these answers and more, please consult Ra, Thor, and Aphrodite respectively.  A single God born from a pantheon of gods having amalgamated them into his being should not be able to exist before his conception.  That’s where ideas and nothingness come into play.  Human ideas are extremely powerful things.  They can turn nothing into something, as I previously demonstrated by typing a few words onto a keyboard.  The brain is an electrical apparatus that constructs thoughts by using carefully controlled electron bursts.  Thus, your thoughts actually exist in some fashion on a quantum level.  In quantum physics (and here it gets really technical, so if your nose starts bleeding, please excuse yourself), subatomic particles (such as the electrons in your brain) act outside the normal realm of what we perceive in the macrocosmic world.  Effects can precede or run adjacent to the causes the sparked them.  All cultures have a concept of god and with the popular practice of monotheism in the world, the majority believe or acknowledge the idea that there is a single god or vehemently dispute that same fact, ironically throwing fuel onto the fire simply by acknowledging that such an idea exists.  The collective conscious of humanity essentially constructs God at the dawn of time simply so that the universe will come into existence.  Man creates God in the past so that the universe can begin and man can himself be created.  I’ve never liked that explanation for things because it is far too complicated and postsupposes that we are to blame for creating a faulty product.

German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche famously wrote, “Got ist tot.”  Translated into English, this phrase reads, “God is dead.”  Religion was created by man to have a twofold purpose on people’s lives: A) to govern society with a strict moral code and B) to dispel the insecurities people have about death.  Gods, who were already maintaining natural law, got caught up in the whole thing and began overseeing religion as well.  So long as each of us act through our own moral code, follow the rule of law, and laugh in the face of death, as man’s understanding of the world around him becomes clearer, gods will be needed to answer for less and less mysteries.  Man will kill his gods through the power of science and wisdom, relegating them to the stuff of legend and lesser dreams.

However, as the old gods leave us and return to the firmament, what new horrors will fill the void they leave behind?  Ia!  Ia!  Shub Niggurath!