Marvel’s multiverse is vast in its variance, and time travel amongst Marvel’s heroes and villains has widened those possibilities multiple times throughout its history. Dystopian futures, distant pasts, and altered presents are all possible with a little tinkering.
Sometimes these dalliances into the timeline have very few consequences in the long run. The Avengers can go play in Camelot, Dr. Doom can woo Morgan le Fay, and once they return to their proper time, things haven’t really shifted. But sometimes, the consequences rewrite the world as fans and characters know it. That’s when things get interesting.
10 Doctor Doom Forces The Fantastic Four To Time Travel And Changes The World
In Fantastic Four #6 by Stan Lee, Doctor Doom and the Fantastic Four faced off for the first time and it marked the first time in the 616 that time travel happened. While the story itself didn’t have any long-term effect on the universe—though Ben Grimm being Blackbeard did come up a few times—this story set the standard and opened the door to time travel stories in the Marvel universe.
A fun story about Reed Richards, Ben Grimm, and Johnny Storm dealing with pirates is great on its own, but it also set the bar for how time travel worked and would work for decades to come in Marvel’s growing universe.
9 Billy Kaplan And Tommy Sheppard Are Born Again
When the Scarlet Witch and Vision’s sons were lost to their parents, their souls traveled back in time and were reborn. The resulting lives that Wiccan and Speed lived started before they’d been born the first time. Once their powers manifested, and they discovered each other, their roles in the Young Avengers were pretty much guaranteed.
Billy has been especially important, taking a leading role in the Young Avengers and in events like Avengers: Children’s Crusade and Empyre. Arguably, the Young Avengers might not exist without Billy and Tommy being sent to the past and reborn.
8 Marvel 1602 Shows Some Ripples In Time
Despite the reveal of time travel shenanigans only coming near the end of Neil Gaiman’s alternate take on the Marvel Universe, time travel is the reason this world exists. Featuring mutants as “witchbreed”, Nick Fury working for Queen Elizabeth I, and dinosaurs in the new world, the explanation for why the world changed is simple. Steve Rogers was sent 400 years into the past and triggered the age of heroes prematurely.
When Steve Rogers landed in America during the reign of Elizabeth I, his presence shifted everything in that timeline, changing the universe in dangerous ways that threatened to collapse that timeline.
7 Bishop Searches For The Cause Of His Dystopian Future
Since his introduction, the mutant Lucas Bishop has appeared in the current Marvel timeline in Uncanny X-Men #282 written by John Byrne, he has been trying to make sure the future he came from never came to be. His attempts to save the world and find the traitor that caused his nightmare reality have had varying success, and he’s been trapped in alternate realities due to the efforts.
While Bishop’s original trip to the past didn’t do much in the way of changing the future, much of his time traveling has shifted the timeline in different directions and sent the X-Men on far more complex paths due to his often-vague warnings. Whether he's blaming Gambit or Hope Summers for the downfall of society, he continues to search for the key to stopping the end of the world.
6 The Original X-Men See Their Futures And Stick Around
After Cyclops killed Charles Xavier and Hank McCoy was dying, Beast decided that the best influence on the original five X-Men would be their younger selves. Those younger versions decided to stay in the present and have been fighting other time-displaced threats.
How their presence in the present or their absence from their own timeline is currently unclear, but their presence has saved several lives, including the present version of Hank McCoy.
5 Cable Has Been Time Travelling His Whole Life
Nathan Summers has been time-displaced since his childhood, with Jean Grey and Scott Summers raising him in a distant future. Due to his wars with Apocalypse in the future, and his raising of Hope Summers while bouncing around time, Cable has been an aberration of the timeline his whole life.
The changes tied to Cable’s existence and actions tend to pile up. He has been playing with the timeline for a long time, and changes are inevitable. He is the reason Hope existed and called to the Phoenix Force, which lead to the Phoenix Five.
4 Nathaniel Richards Created A Future Utopia
The Richards family has a reputation for brilliance, to the point of dangerously ignoring what the consequences might be. Reed Richards’ father, Nathaniel traveled through time to the distant future and founded a utopian city. While this wasn't the prime, 616 timeline, it still caused a domino effect leading to the rise of one of Marvel's worst villains.
The man who would come to be Kang the Conqueror grew up in this environment. His boredom with a lack of challenge or warfare led to his eventual need to conquer not just everywhere, but every time.
3 The Age Of Ultron Knows That Time Is Complicated
The Age of Ultron event centered on fixing the world through time travel after Ultron takes over and decimates the Avengers. These attacks come from a future where Ultron built up an army and chose to attack humanity at this specific point in time.
There are several paradoxes and deaths while the heroes try to fix the world, and there are changes to the main timeline, even with the execution of the story being a little messy. It also has nothing to do with the MCU movie by the same name.
2 Days Of Future Past Set The Time Travel Standard
As a grown-up, Kitty Pryde goes back in time to stop an apocalyptic future from taking place. When she succeeds in her mission, the reader doesn’t see what she sees when she goes back, and the X-Men are left wondering if they’d actually avoided the mutant internment camps she’d told them of.
Several characters have shown up from the Days of Future Past timeline including Rachel Grey. The original dark timeline also appeared in Hulk: Broken Worlds. In the movie adaptation, it's Wolverine (not Kitty,) that travels back in time to save the future.
1 Age Of Apocalypse Changed The Whole Universe
While universe crossing events are a lot more commonplace now, the Age of Apocalypse was revolutionary when it was released in 1995. When Charles Xavier is killed by his time-traveling son, Legion, before he can form the X-Men, Magneto takes up the job. The difference in their leadership styles allows Apocalypse to attack sooner, letting him take over most of the planet.
The event turned the Marvel universe on its head, featuring not only X-Men on both sides of the fight, but human heroes like Captain Marvel and Daredevil wading into the fight as well.