Marvel's Original Sin Prose Novel, page 1
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Leave us a Review
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One: Meat Night
Chapter Two: Blue Moon
Chapter Three: Lairs
Chapter Four: The Trouble with Team-Ups
Chapter Five: New York Real Estate
Chapter Six: Eyes
Chapter Seven: In the Bowels of the Earth
Chapter Eight: My Best Superspy Life
Chapter Nine: Frank Hates Magic
Chapter Ten: The Fundamental Elements of a Smackdown
Chapter Eleven: Intermission
Chapter Twelve: The Secret Bomb
Chapter Thirteen: Flesh Spelunking
Chapter Fourteen: Stab Cop, Smash Cop
Chapter Fifteen: Brass Breadcrumbs
Chapter Sixteen: Killer
Chapter Seventeen: Too Little, Too Late…
Chapter Eighteen: Walkin’ on the Moon
Chapter Nineteen: A Mind Full of Cats
Chapter Twenty: An Angry Mustelid
Chapter Twenty-One: Master of Puppets
Chapter Twenty-Two: Will the Real Nick Fury Please Stand Up?
Chapter Twenty-Three: The Man on the Wall, Part One
Chapter Twenty-Four: Transatlantic Moonshot
Chapter Twenty-Five: …An Lmd of Infinite Jest…
Chapter Twenty-Six: Captain America is Tired of Your @*$@!.
Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Job Offer
Chapter Twenty-Eight: An Out
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Assembled
Chapter Thirty: The Ecstasy of Gold
Chapter Thirty-One: Nick Fury vs. The Avengers
Chapter Thirty-Two: Sides
Chapter Thirty-Three: Nick Fury vs. Captain America
Chapter Thirty-Four: Ascension
Chapter Thirty-Five: The Midas Touch
Chapter Thirty-Six: The Exterminatrix Interlude
Chapter Thirty-Seven: If thy Eye Offend Thee…
Chapter Thirty-Eight: Secrets
Chapter Thirty-Nine: Happily Ever After
Chapter Forty: The Man on the Wall, Part Two
Epilogue: The Unseen
Acknowledgments
About the Author
NOVELS OF THE MARVEL UNIVERSE BY TITAN BOOKS
Ant-Man: Natural Enemy by Jason Starr
Avengers: Everybody Wants to Rule the World by Dan Abnett
Avengers: Infinity by James A. Moore
Black Panther: Panther’s Rage by Sheree Renée Thomas
Black Panther: Tales of Wakanda by Jesse J. Holland
Black Panther: Who is the Black Panther? by Jesse J. Holland
Captain America: Dark Design by Stefan Petrucha
Captain Marvel: Liberation Run by Tess Sharpe
Civil War by Stuart Moore
Deadpool: Paws by Stefan Petrucha
Morbius: The Living Vampire – Blood Ties by Brendan Deneen
Spider-Man: Forever Young by Stefan Petrucha
Spider-Man: Kraven’s Last Hunt by Neil Kleid
Spider-Man: The Darkest Hours Omnibus by Jim Butcher, Keith R.A. DeCandido, and Christopher L. Bennett
Spider-Man: The Venom Factor Omnibus by Diane Duane
Thanos: Death Sentence by Stuart Moore
Venom: Lethal Protector by James R. Tuck
Wolverine: Weapon X Omnibus by Marc Cerasini, David Alan Mack and Hugh Matthews
X-Men: Days of Future Past by Alex Irvine
X-Men: The Dark Phoenix Saga by Stuart Moore
X-Men: The Mutant Empire Omnibus by Christopher Golden
X-Men & The Avengers: The Gamma Quest Omnibus by Greg Cox
ALSO FROM TITAN AND TITAN BOOKS
Marvel Contest of Champions: The Art of the Battlerealm by Paul Davies
Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy: No Guts, No Glory by M.K. England
Marvel’s Spider-Man: The Art of the Game by Paul Davies
Obsessed with Marvel by Peter Sanderson and Marc Sumerak
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse – The Art of the Movie by Ramin Zahed
Spider-Man: Hostile Takeover by David Liss
Spider-Man: Miles Morales – Wings of Fury by Brittney Morris
The Art of Iron Man (10th Anniversary Edition) by John Rhett Thomas
The Marvel Vault by Matthew K. Manning, Peter Sanderson, and Roy Thomas
Ant-Man and the Wasp: The Official Movie Special
Avengers: Endgame – The Official Movie Special
Avengers: Infinity War – The Official Movie Special
Black Panther: The Official Movie Companion
Black Panther: The Official Movie Special
Captain Marvel: The Official Movie Special
Marvel Studios: The First Ten Years
Marvel’s Black Widow: The Official Movie Special
Spider-Man: Far From Home – The Official Movie Special
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse – The Official Movie Special
Thor: Ragnarok – The Official Movie Special
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MARVEL’S ORIGINAL SIN PROSE NOVEL
Print edition ISBN: 9781803361956
E-book edition ISBN: 9781803361963
Published by Titan Books
A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd
144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP
www.titanbooks.com
First hardback edition: October 2022
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.
FOR MARVEL PUBLISHING
Jeff Youngquist, VP Production and Special Projects
Sarah Singer, Associate Editor, Special Projects
Jeremy West, Manager, Licensed Publishing
Sven Larsen, VP, Licensed Publishing
David Gabriel, SVP of Sales & Marketing, Publishing
C.B. Cebulski, Editor in Chief
Special thanks to Tom Brevoort
© 2022 MARVEL
Gavin Smith asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
Cover Art by Mark Brooks.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
This is for Lou, Alex, Vicki, Mark, Sara, Sarah, Trev, Chris and, of course,
Yvonne for giving me something to look forward to during lockdown.
PROLOGUE
IN THE Blue Area of the main satellite of the third planet orbiting the star known as Sol is a vast and majestic citadel. The citadel’s technology is far in advance of even that of the greatest geniuses amongst the nearly hairless mammals that dominate said third planet. The technology is, in fact, more sophisticated than that of most species native to this particular galaxy—and even most species native to this particular universe. Technology sophisticated enough to make the sole inhabitant of the citadel, a visitor to this system himself, a god if he had so chosen. Instead of capitalizing on his technological power, however, he just watches events unfold. Seeing them from every possible perspective, every eventuality, every outcome, what is and all the might-have-beens, all the what-ifs. Nothing escapes his sight.
Except today.
* * *
THE TWO intruders to the Blue Area of the Moon wore space suits of no little sophistication to survive the vacuum of space. A camera drone, released by one of the intruders, sped across the blue-tinged lunar wasteland toward the alien citadel. Unchallenged, the drone made it inside the structure, moving between huge machines whose purpose the intruders could only guess at, through vast halls that echoed somehow, despite the silence, and finally into a circular chamber. There, the citadel’s only inhabitant floated above the floor in meditative repose. The humanoid wore a simple, yet elegant robe. He was a giant in comparison to the intruders, whose space-suited forms resembled the rough shape and size of the third planet’s hairless mammals. His pupils were white light: burning like a main sequence star through the void of his sclera and, for the moment, completely unseeing. He did not even notice the camera drone orbiting his vast bald cranium.
On the lunar surface, the first intruder viewed the feed from the drone on a tablet and watched the burning eyes flickering.
“Are we sure on our intel here? He really won’t know?” the second intruder asked. He was not an individual given to nerves, but it was no easy thing to look at something that radiated such obvious power.
“Positive,
Should.
“Before he’s what?” the second intruder demanded as they approached the outer wall of the citadel.
“See for yourself.” The first intruder showed his companion the tablet screen: the alien in meditative repose.
“Wait… what is he doing?”
The first intruder turned and pushed against the wall of the citadel. The technology in the space suit, while not nearly as advanced as the tech in the citadel, had been stolen or looted from many different species, from many different places and all of it was far in advance of the tech from the third planet. The suits’ phase generators allowed both intruders to push through the wall of the citadel and into the interior. Had the alien been awake, his omnipercipience would have meant that he could have alerted the citadel’s defenses to the intruders and their trespass would have been much more difficult.
“Watchers slip into a fugue state every three years for exactly forty-two minutes,” the first intruder said. “We think they’re uploading memories to their collective. The end result is the same: forty-two completely unobserved minutes.”
They were moving through architecture scaled not just for a different-sized being, but for one who perceived things differently to the intruders. Supports, internal buttresses, and items that could have been furniture, art or machinery protruded from unexpected angles. The colors in the architecture stretched into strange new spectrums, giving the intruders the feeling of walking through the most excessive of psychedelic album covers from the 1960s.
“This is amazing,” the second intruder said, wonder in his voice, “I never imagined I’d see any of this firsthand.”
They moved into the meditative chamber as quietly as they could in their bulky space suits, as though stealth would make a difference at this moment. The alien, the Watcher, silent, unseeing, huge, his sheer physicality a definite and palpable presence, like gravity.
“So bizarre. He’s a giant but it’s hard to focus on him. Like my mind keeps trying to make me look away… make me forget I saw him,” the second intruder muttered.
“That’s their secret. Well, one of their secrets.”
The second intruder stopped and stared at the Watcher through the polarized visor of his space suit.
“Terrifying when you can focus. So vast, powerful, ugly.” The awe in his voice was gone now, replaced by something else. After all, fear and hatred frequently go hand in hand.
The first intruder stopped for a moment as well, also looking up at the unseeing Watcher.
“There’s a theory they aren’t a race of beings at all. That they’re infinite aspects of one powerful entity,” the first intruder said. “A being who experiences time and space in a way we can’t even begin to comprehend.”
“You believe that?” the second intruder asked. They were moving again, through halls of polished metal, their forms reflecting and distorting as though in a funhouse.
The intruders came to a high chamber with a curving wall, a cracked black mirror in which lay multiple realities, a fragmented always-changing map of a Multiverse of possibilities.
“We’re standing before a wall of memories and windows into alternate universes,” the first intruder said. “Where the Watchers are concerned, I’ll believe anything.” The camera drone returned to the first intruder, sinking into the machinery protruding from the back of their space suit. “We have twenty-five minutes before our extraction, so let’s get to work. You tackle his most recent scans; I’ll find his archives.”
The first intruder’s suit’s propulsion system carried him out of the chamber, leaving the second intruder alone before a darkened Multiverse.
Schemata provided by one of the suit’s more intuitive diagnostic systems cascaded down the inside of the suit’s visor, the projected information displaying how the second intruder could access the recent scans. Looking around, he found what he was pretty sure was a control panel and activated it.
“Right, let’s see what you’ve been recording lately, you omnipresent sonuva…”
Images played across the black mirror. Some showed beings with special powers far in excess of the majority of those who inhabited the third planet. Other images were of distant places and strange other realms. His suit recorded it all.
“Have you found anything yet?” the first intruder asked over the commlink.
“I’m not certain. He’s been studying far space and other dimensions,” the second intruder replied. “But there’s no indication if these are events already happening or things in the future. Do we know how far ahead he can look?”
“No. Like I said, he may not even see it as the future.”
“Right. Because he perceives every divergent possibility. What must his mind be like to contain all that?” The second intruder had to resist the urge to look behind him toward the meditation chamber. The Watcher may have been to all intents and purposes… inert, but somehow the alien’s presence was tangible.
“There’s a reason the leader says he’s the most powerful creature in existence,” the first intruder said. The second intruder knew it wasn’t the kind of statement that the leader made lightly.
The second intruder couldn’t help himself. He moved back through the shining metallic hall and looked back at the meditation chamber. Peeking through an archway at the Watcher. It felt transgressive, voyeur-on-voyeur.
“Imagine getting just one glimpse into that memory stream he’s linked to. What you’d see… our knowledge of his insights…” the second intruder mused, not even really talking to the first intruder. There was a hunger in his voice.
“Don’t even consider getting near him, Andrew.” The first intruder’s voice had an edge to it. It shook the second intruder, Andrew, out of his reverie. “Even if we could tap into his upload, you’d just lose your mind.”
“Right, of course you’re right,” Andrew said, forcing himself to move again. It wouldn’t just be a case of losing his mind: it would fracture into countless tiny fragments. Most minds in the universe just weren’t built to perceive all the possibilities of reality simultaneously. Any mind not specifically evolved, either technologically or otherwise, would be driven irrevocably insane. Then again, did they even know enough about the Watcher to know that he wasn’t insane? “How’s it going in the archives? Any luck?” he asked as he made his way back to the black mirror.
“Nothing so far,” the first intruder told him, “but we’ve still got a little time. I’m not giving up, that’s for sure.”
Andrew made it back to the black mirror and started working the controls again.
“Good, I’ll scan more recent entries while you keep digging,” he said. “See if I can find a link between them.”
The images he was watching came to a seemingly inevitable point, a single coalescence of possibilities.
“That can’t be,” Andrew said. “That hasn’t happened.”
He was watching the Earth fall—an apocalypse playing out in front of him, bodies piled high in the street, craters where once stood cities, continents burning, the fall of gods and heroes, and above it all, against a sky of fire, the shape of a familiar enemy: the artificial intelligence, Ultron.
“It’s sick, he’s watching a disaster in our future. Something he could change, something he could stop!” Andrew cried as the first intruder floated back into the black mirror chamber.
“Now you know why the Unseen exists, my friend,” the first intruder said grimly. He left it unsaid that this was the very reason that they had come to the citadel. “Come on. He’s going to wake up any moment now.”
Andrew stared a moment longer at the scenes unfolding in front of him before turning and following the first intruder. They ran through the hall as fast as their servo-assisted suits would allow. They sped past the levitating form of the insensate Watcher.
“We’ve spent enough time in this monster’s keep for one lifetime,” the first intruder said.
* * *
“HOW DO they—or it, if there’s really only one of them—how do they not see that it’s evil to stand by and do nothing?” Andrew asked as they bounced across the lunar surface. The gravity was now back to 0.166 g outside the bawn of the Watcher’s citadel.
