Avengers Proves It: Marvel Humans Are Not Us

The Marvel Universe is very different from ours. We don’t have Spider-Men, mutants with super-powers, Asgardian gods, supersoldiers or insanely advanced technology that you can wear like a suit of armor. Our universe is a little “meh” in comparison. But…why? Why do they get all the cool stuff?

The recent Avengers #7 by Jason Aaron and Sara Pichelli may have inadvertently given us a clue. The issue tells the origin of the very first Ghost Rider, who called a mammoth his ride, rather than a motorcycle. The story is a follow up to last year’s Marvel Legacy, which introduced a lineup of cosmic heroes (Odin, Phoenix, Agamotto, and the first of the respective lines of Black Panther, Ghost Rider, Agamotto, Star Brand, and Iron Fist) set in 1,000,000 B.C.

A little while ago, we talked about the science of heroes picking that point in time as being kind of…odd…since modern humans have only existed for 200,000 to 300,000 years on the extreme outside. We also talked about how “B.C.” isn’t really used anymore, but that’s not what I’m talking about today…but still…it’s not.

Just briefly – modern, recognizable humans evolved into their own species in Africa somewhere between 300,000 to 200,000 years ago, during a period of significant climate change. From there, the genetic and fossil record is pretty clear – Homo sapiens moved out of Africa between 60,000 and 70,000 years ago, probably also due to changes in climate. According to research, it was during this period that the human population may have bottomed out to around 10,000 individuals.

The first migratory humans headed toward eastern Europe and western Asia, and by 50,000 years ago, had made their way to modern-day India, Southeast Asia and Australia. Another group headed for Central Asia and then to Europe around 50,000 years ago, and around 20,000 years ago, a group headed up into the Arctic. Due to the earth undergoing a glacial maximum at that time, sea levels were around 300 feet less than they are now. It was during this migration, ancient humans made their way across the land bridge connecting Asia and North America. By 15,000 years ago, humans had traveled all the way to the southernmost tip of South America.

But a million years ago? Nothing that looked like a modern human being was around, anywhere on the earth. A million years back, Homo erectus was most likely what you’d find if you went human hunting. While erectus had spread from African around to places such as Asia (the first example of erectus was found in Indonesia), no erectus fossils have actually been found in Africa, which is one of the reasons why the case isn’t closed yet in regards to whether or not Homo sapiens descended from erectus. And don’t get any big ideas about the “erectus” part of the name – they were between 4 and a half and six feet tall, and between that, probably more on the shorter, than taller side…with small heads.

There’s no way you would mistake Homo erectus for anything that looks like a modern human. But they were it if you were looking.

As for the mammoth existing 1,000,000 years ago – that’s correct. Mammoths showed up in the Pliocene Epoch (roughly 5 million years ago) and survived until about 4,000 years ago. But – as we mentioned previously, the earth itself would seem like an alien planet. One million years ago, ice covered the earth to roughly the 40th parallel of latitude (halfway through China and sticking into the Mediterranean Sea), and lush plant life was pretty sparse. In that regard, Avengers #7 checks out – ice everywhere, mammoths, and not much vegetation. But nothing that looked like a human, though. Anything that looked like a human was going to have to wait about 700,000 years or so, and start out in Africa.

There wouldn’t be anyone looking like a human being for snake-Mephisto to tempt and ultimately turn into Prehistoric Ghost Rider on our earth.

Hey – Science Guy…Who Cares?

So what is this then? Just a dis track to take shots at the science in a Marvel book?

Nope. Not at all.

Do I wish that a little more care would have been taken in dating the prehistoric Avengers? Yes, I do. There are numerous studies which cite the “curriculum of pop culture” and its ability to plant hard-to-remove misconceptions in its audience’s mind. I know Avengers isn’t a science textbook. But it is something that’s going to be read by thousands of people who, if they never check the veracity of the claim (or read this article), can be left with idea that people – “cavemen” have been around for a million years or so, and that’s just not true.

Does it really matter?

I’m a science teacher, so I was going to say yes anyway, but let’s see if I can get you to see my point. Humans have been around for an eyeblink of the history of this planet. Of the 200,000 years or so we’ve been around, we didn’t really settle down into communities (thanks agriculture!) until about 10,000 years ago, which made life a little better, and allowed us to build knowledge, cities, and grand structures – using technology. What we’ve done, we’ve done in an amazingly short period of time. But let’s be honest about what we’ve done in a small portion of that short time – say, in the time since the industrial revolution. Again – science teacher here – climate change is real, humans caused it, and that’s the end of the discussion.

Go with me here…if you run human history back to a million years (or more), it’s a touch easier to buy the argument that humans couldn’t have altered the climate…because look how long (a million years!) we were around and the climate was changing under us…we weren’t causing that were we? Well, no we weren’t, but (a) we haven’t been around that long, and (b) we haven’t been able to change the climate since we developed the technology that had the potential to change the climate, and from that point in time, we’ve been changing the climate.

Can we say it doesn’t matter – because who’s going to believe this anyway? Who’s going to read a comic and let one of their takeaways be that that humans have been around for a million years?

You’re reading this article, aren’t you?

Finally – if you think that ideas from pop culture can’t affect how people see the world, then this isn’t an issue, right?

As a science teacher, let me tell you…the idea that the earth is flat is an issue, and it’s a big issue. It got its re-invigoration from popular culture. And the belief that the earth is flat is just the start of misconceptions growing like weeds unless we work to nip them in the bud.

(Whew)

How Can We Get Out of This?

Again – a comic book is not a textbook. I get that.

But – and I’m not going against what I just said…let’s take Avengers #7 at its word: modern human beings in the Marvel Universe existed and had spread to regions other than Africa one million years ago.

Wait – now we’re talking about something that’s pretty interesting. If we say that in the Marvel Universe, there were modern humans living on earth 1,000,000 years ago…that means that the humans in the Marvel Universe have an about 750,000 year jump on us, from an evolutionary standpoint.

You could kind of make an argument (and it’s not perfect, by any means) that the Marvel Universe is the way it is – with mutants and weird powers and odd species and subspecies – because humans have been around so long. For some reason in the Marvel Universe, modern humans evolved faster than we did in our universe, which gives loads of “playtime” for the Kree, Celestials and others to tinker with them, branch off new lines and do all kinds of weirdness that is the hallmark of the pre-history of the Marvel Universe.

As the humans were showing signs of coming together and starting agriculture – boop them – take their numbers down and keep them from setting up civilizations that would have a chance at fighting off the interlopers. But they’re building this genetic potential, you know?

Finally…something happened 10,000 or so years ago (maybe the ancient Avengers were involved in throwing off the yoke of the interlopers…) that allowed humans in the Marvel Universe to finally come together and start agriculture. From there on, our development paralleled the Marvel Universe.

But – the legacy of that extra 750,000 years…genetically? Are we, on our earth genetically the same as the humans on earth in the Marvel Universe? Maybe, maybe not. 750,000 years can see things like new species evolve, but the interlopers controlled for that as best they could. Or Homo sapiens Marvelensis could have just progressed as a species, with a predisposition to mutate, built up over thousands of years. Take the controlling hand away, and boom – you’ve got an earth loaded with mutants, monsters, powers and all kinds of things.

(Back in the day, what I just did there – explain what could be seen as a mistake with a reasonable, Marvel story-based explanation – would’ve qualified me for something called a “No-Prize” which was an envelope that proclaims a No-Prize is enclosed, but literally, would have nothing in it. Comics are weird.)

All in all, there’s one thing for sure, judging from Avengers #7  – in spite of what Stan Lee may have said about the Marvel Universe being the universe outside your window, the humans in the Marvel Universe are not us, and we are not them. They got started earlier.