Is Marvel’s Original Sin leading into something even bigger?

The publisher laid out some innuendo that the mega-event might be leading into an even larger event to come as the heroes of the Marvel U try to uncover who killed the Watcher?

“This is a murder mystery on a Marvel Universe scale, so the suspects and motivations span all of space and time, and even the nature of existence itself!” says Executive Editor Tom Brevoort. “And in fact, there are two possibilities: first, that the Watcher was killed because of some grudge or slight, or to gain possession of his secrets. Or, more menacingly, the Watcher was killed in order to prevent him from seeing what comes next—to prevent him from interceding as he has so many times before! Neither is a particularly comforting thought to the heroes of the Marvel Universe! Nor is the notion that the being who could murder a nigh-omnipotent, eternal figure such as the Watcher must rank among the most dangerous and powerful individuals in existence!”

When Marvel was first talking about Original Sin, I had kind of glossed over the implications of just what the crossover event might mean. The Watcher of Earth’s death alone is a pretty massive deal since he’s such a long running character in Marvel lore, so I didn’t really think too much beyond that. But when you read through the statement from Tom Brevoort above, well, it kind of makes Original Sin take on a whole new level of massive.

Although Brevoort’s statement might be a red herring, I’m starting to think that it’s the opposite and there’s something else, something Earth-threatening headed the Avengers way. What it could be is a mystery for now of course, but there are probably some things that could be ruled out.

Galactus was just seen in the Ultimate universe in a gigantic crossover all his own, so it’s doubtful that he could be the transgressor, even though his heralds could easily have pulled off the murder of Uatu to leave the Earth without an early warning of his arrival.

Thanos, although we already know we haven’t seen the last of him, was just in last year’s Infinity storyline, so it’s probably not him either. There are a ton of alien races and cosmic-level super-baddies that it could be too, but really none of them springs to mind. Whoever it is though, they’ve got the complete dirt sheet on the heroes (and villains) of the Marvel U resting in the palms of their hands and it looks like they’re not at all afraid to use them to their full effect from the previews Marvel has been sending our way. Also worth noting is that this could all be linked to the temporal fluxing that the entire Marvel Universe has been seeing as of late and is suffering from. That’s been threatened for a while and it could be a part of someone’s master plan.

How all this shakes out has yet to be seen, but the event begins when Original Sin #1 lands on the racks on May 7th from the team of Mike Deodato and Julian Totino Tedesco. In the meantime, have a look at these very interesting preview pages (the Punisher and Doctor Strange?) and start counting down the days…