Ivar, Timewalker #7

[Brapbrap]

houses are still canon lol

and i wonder how Neela ended up joining The Null?

[Michael_Ayer]

Just read it. Genius.

FVL does a great job of pulling it all together and poking fun at it. Loved it.

[BugsySig]

Loved it. Great interaction between the brothers. The Nanite guy was odd, but fine for a disposable, single issue enemy.

I love how FVL tied Nergal, the Sect and Neela through the Null and the three brothers. I'm wondering, though, could future Neela have been overwritten by the Eternal Enemy virus?

And what is Ivar's end game here? I think he plans on sacrificing himself in some way to save Neela. But as a time traveller, his death hardly means it's the last we might ever see of him.

[greg]

And what is Ivar's end game here? I think he plans on sacrificing himself in some way to save Neela. But as a time traveller, his death hardly means it's the last we might ever see of him.

It makes me wonder if Ivar already knew that Neela wasn't about to invent time travel... she was about to invent the time loop.
She was about to accidentally create the means for the Null to achieve their goal... and he stopped it.

So, Ivar prevented her from inventing the time loop in the present... while future Neela brought her to Oblivi-1 to create the time loop there.
If you undo all of existence, does it matter when you do it?

[JCP]

I'dlike to comment about this issue but my LCS forgot to pull this for me. Now I have to track a copy down somewhere else. Ugh.

[jmatt]

And what is Ivar's end game here? I think he plans on sacrificing himself in some way to save Neela. But as a time traveller, his death hardly means it's the last we might ever see of him.

[jmatt]

And what is Ivar's end game here? I think he plans on sacrificing himself in some way to save Neela. But as a time traveller, his death hardly means it's the last we might ever see of him.

Ivar seems to have lots of secrets and cares little for temporal continuity. It's possible he's let this play out to see if it could be stopped, all the while having the ability to go back and change history. Perhaps upon reaching the conclusion that this is all going to end badly, he goes back and simply prevents Neela's parents from ever meeting in the first place.

[erwinrafael]

I just picked up my copy yesterday.

Wow.

I have a not so good feeling about why Ivar chose his brothers in the mission. Maybe it is a suicide mission for him, so this is his chance to bid farewell.

Then again, maybe he brought the brothers because of their hsitory with the the Nergal / The Null.

[kjjohanson]

I like that FVL addressed what I thought to be a fundamental problem with doing future stories with Gilad: he's pretty much a mere mortal when not on earth. (A very skilled mortal with tons of experience, but a mortal nonetheless.)

[String]

This title continues to be mind-blowing. How FVL is able to tie all of this back to the Null, masterful.

Knowing what we know now from BoD, I wonder if Ivar's comments at the end, which his brothers were questioning him about, is some reference to the War of the Brothers. Being a time-traveller, Ivar would have to know that he'd participate in such a conflict, right? Or with advance knowledge of it, would he avoid that time zone for fear of learning too much of what occurs?

[jmatt]

This title continues to be mind-blowing. How FVL is able to tie all of this back to the Null, masterful.

To be honest, I'm not crazy about that aspect. What purpose is served by lumping half of the villains all together? I wasn't crazy about the concept of the Null in the first place.

[bygranddesign]

This was another great issue of timewalker ... but i agree with JMatt that I'm not crazy about this Null development.

We will see how it plays out

But I was hoping for something more substantial out of Evil Neela's origin ... then the Null which is a villain group that feels a bit shallow in their efforts to end existence for no real reason other than just because...

I am wondering though if the last enemy shows up now ..is Evil Neela the Last Enemy? She should though have the little banned symbol on the pupils if she were ...

[dornwolf]

This was another great issue of timewalker ... but i agree with JMatt that I'm not crazy about this Null development.

We will see how it plays out

But I was hoping for something more substantial out of Evil Neela's origin ... then the Null which is a villain group that feels a bit shallow in their efforts to end existence for no real reason other than just because...

I am wondering though if the last enemy shows up now ..is Evil Neela the Last Enemy? She should though have the little banned symbol on the pupils if she were ...

Well to be fair half her face is covered.

[jmatt]

But I was hoping for something more substantial out of Evil Neela's origin ... then the Null which is a villain group that feels a bit shallow in their efforts to end existence for no real reason other than just because...

Exactly. So now we've lost not only the Sect and Nergal to the Null, but Evil Neela and... the Prometheans? Feh.

[kjjohanson]

Any thoughts as to whether the mention os Armstrong's nanite body, in A&A #12, has been fulfilled by the events in this issue?

[bygranddesign]

Any thoughts as to whether the mention os Armstrong's nanite body, in A&A #12, has been fulfilled by the events in this issue?

That whole revelation has always been a head scratcher to me

I always imagined that the Boon was partly super advanced nanite technology

The cataclysm rebuild Armstrong's body with the souls of everyone that got wiped away during the event

(in the same way that the nanites in Bloodshot's bloodstream captures the souls -- just much more advanced)

Therefore Armstrong already has a body rebuilt by nanites .. (as does Mary-Maria)

That was my assumption for a long time ... because if i remember correctly, what Ivar says to Aram is that 'is this before or after your nanite body'. And the question is never answered...

but i guess I really don't know what to think at this point --

[BugsySig]

Any thoughts as to whether the mention os Armstrong's nanite body, in A&A #12, has been fulfilled by the events in this issue?

That whole revelation has always been a head scratcher to me

I always imagined that the Boon was partly super advanced nanite technology

The cataclysm rebuild Armstrong's body with the souls of everyone that got wiped away during the event

(in the same way that the nanites in Bloodshot's bloodstream captures the souls -- just much more advanced)

Therefore Armstrong already has a body rebuilt by nanites .. (as does Mary-Maria)

That was my assumption for a long time ... because if i remember correctly, what Ivar says to Aram is that 'is this before or after your nanite body'. And the question is never answered...

but i guess I really don't know what to think at this point --

I agree. And only time will tell...

[Spylocke]

Hooray for The Null. I hope this means a return of their version of the immortal enemy.

[String]

Being a member of the Null opens up more story potential for Evil Neela and gives her character some more depth.

We know why Neela wants to invent time travel, to change history, we've had an entire issue devoted to that. But now we know (partly) why Evil Neela wants to change history too and Neela herself said it best at this end of this issue, (paraphrasing) "How did I become like this?!"

Good question, how was Neela's goals changed/twisted toward the Null's goals? She's a fanatic now, but what caused her to become so? And if Neela is aware of this now, is there anything she can do now to alter her future so as to not become Evil Neela?

As for the Null, yes, this is an insane development. Here's the last civilized outpost at the end of the universe, crewed by a cult who is still trying to achieve their goal of ending everything by ending it before it even began. It may not make sense to us but hey, that's why they are called a cult.

[BugsySig]

Being a member of the Null opens up more story potential for Evil Neela and gives her character some more depth.

We know why Neela wants to invent time travel, to change history, we've had an entire issue devoted to that. But now we know (partly) why Evil Neela wants to change history too and Neela herself said it best at this end of this issue, (paraphrasing) "How did I become like this?!"

Good question, how was Neela's goals changed/twisted toward the Null's goals? She's a fanatic now, but what caused her to become so? And if Neela is aware of this now, is there anything she can do now to alter her future so as to not become Evil Neela?

As for the Null, yes, this is an insane development. Here's the last civilized outpost at the end of the universe, crewed by a cult who is still trying to achieve their goal of ending everything by ending it before it even began. It may not make sense to us but hey, that's why they are called a cult.

i believe there are more revelations about the origin of the Null which FVL has yet to let us in on. The fact that they date back to the Nergal Death Cult, and therefore to before recorded history, means there has to be much more to their origin than we know. Perhaps some other entity which is opposed to the Earth . We don't know if the Null are even confined to Earth. Could there be elements of the Null on other planets who are also trying to bring about the destruction of everything?

[Spylocke]

i believe there are more revelations about the origin of the Null which FVL has yet to let us in on. The fact that they date back to the Nergal Death Cult, and therefore to before recorded history, means there has to be much more to their origin than we know. Perhaps some other entity which is opposed to the Earth . We don't know if the Null are even confined to Earth. Could there be elements of the Null on other planets who are also trying to bring about the destruction of everything?

Do you think The Null might somehow be behind The Torment, Bugsy?

[BugsySig]

i believe there are more revelations about the origin of the Null which FVL has yet to let us in on. The fact that they date back to the Nergal Death Cult, and therefore to before recorded history, means there has to be much more to their origin than we know. Perhaps some other entity which is opposed to the Earth . We don't know if the Null are even confined to Earth. Could there be elements of the Null on other planets who are also trying to bring about the destruction of everything?

Do you think The Null might somehow be behind The Torment, Bugsy?

Hmmm...or the other way around, perhaps?

[NinJZA]

Anyone else love the "Yay we did it!" to "Seize her!" page? Pages like that make me wish Fred Van Lente wrote for more TV or movies.

Also got the vibe that cyber-Neela was the Immortal Enemy too, I thought that would've been a really cool tie-in and it would be awesome to see her as a big bad if Venditti goes to the distant future in his Eternal Warrior series.

Also, I kinda thought that the little weird circular protrusion on the airlock door was somehow a visual reference to the scene in Empire Strikes Back where Luke is hanging off the antenna underneath the city, and tries to climb back up into the shaft.

[jmatt]

Also got the vibe that cyber-Neela was the Immortal Enemy too, ...

Uh-oh. We've only seen one eye... If the IE is body jumping like he did in VH1, that could be why evil Neela doesn't remember what Neela has and hasn't done, exactly.

[leonmallett]

Thoroughly enjoyed this issue. More great work by FVL, pulling existing ideas from other books together and making sense of them as part of a larger mythos. Great stuff.