The History of Marvel's Illuminati

greetings true believers and welcome to another incredible episode of history of the marvel universe this show is sponsored in part by patreon supporters if you would like to contribute and vote in monthly polls you can head over to patreon.com mary marvellate and sign up for as little as one dollar a month link is in the description below in a previous video we talked in depth about the cree skrull war an intergalactic conflict which raged for millions of years because of its value as a strategic location between empires the earth was very nearly drawn into the war it was thanks to the efforts of the avengers captain marvel the cree supreme intelligence and the human rick jones that a full-scale invasion of earth was prevented and an uneasy peace was established between the cree and the skrulls following this the avenger iron man called together a meeting of earth's leading superhumans in the technologically advanced african nation of wakanda this meeting was hosted by the wakandan king t'challa otherwise known as the black panther others in attendance included dr steven strange the master of the mystic arts professor charles xavier mutants rate activist and founder of the x-men reed richards otherwise known as mr fantastic of the world famous fantastic four black bolt the king of the hidden superpowered race known as the inhumans and prince namor the sub-mariner the ruler of the undersea kingdom of atlantis in the wake of the kree skrull war iron man tony stark suggested they marshal their forces forming a united front which would send a message to the rest of the universe that the earth was under their protection however the others agreed that not only would it be nearly impossible to rally all of the heroes under one banner but doing so would also turn the general population against them however mr fantastic put forth the idea that meeting and sharing information would be beneficial the avengers the inhumans and his own fantastic four each had information regarding the kree skrull war but not the full picture the others agreed but neymar in particular insisted that no information they shared was to be discussed outside of that particular group the meetings would need to be conducted in absolute secrecy with not even their friends family or teammates being aware of them with professor x present one of the world's most powerful telepaths it will be made known if anyone betrayed that trust however xavier would only do that if everyone in attendance unanimously agreed to those terms but one person dissented not believing these meetings were a good idea t'challa the black panther was concerned that the others were appointing themselves the earth's protectors to decide what was best for everyone without oversight or outside advice furthermore he worried about what would happen if during one of these meetings they found themselves at odds with one another however the others agreed to continue having regular secret meetings and thus the illuminati was formed before adjourning that first meeting professor x also discussed the existence of krakowa a living island in the south pacific it was xavier's subsequent investigations into krakowa that led to the reformation of the x-men with a new team the illuminati later traveled to the skrull throne world to warn their emperor doric vii not to attempt another invasion of earth they attempted to punctuate their point by destroying the emperor's flagship with black bolts devastatingly powerful voice however their escape plan was foiled when the skrull fleet was able to detect their small craft and opened fire the members of the illuminati were then captured tortured and studied by the skrulls their technology was examined as well as their genetics and cell samples were taken from the heroes despite being stripped of his iron man armor tony stark was able to resist interrogation and escape from his cell thanks to his combat training from captain america stealing a skrull weapon stark began freeing his allies working together the illuminati then commandeered a skrull starship and took off this time they were able to escape from the skrull galaxy by having dr strange and professor x work together to conjure an illusion of the world eater galactus distracting the alien fleet they agreed that the alien vessel should be destroyed in case it could be tracked but iron man and mr fantastic decided to keep it for study sometime after this many of earth's heroes and villains including the avengers the x-men and the fantastic four were abducted by an extremely powerful entity from another dimension known as the beyonder the beyonders are actually an enigmatic alien race who created pocket universes full of sentient energy in the distant past we'll talk about that a little bit more later at various points in history scientists have been able to generate a force field capable of containing energy from these pocket universes resulting in the creation of a cosmic cube one of these pocket universes contained a young beyonder referred to as a child unit who became aware of life outside of itself through a small hole connecting his pocket dimension to the marvel universe once again we'll talk more about that a bit later wishing to know more this young beyonder decided to test the nature of desire and placed the kidnapped heroes and villains on a patchwork planet known as battle world where they fought each other in the first secret war during this conflict professor x apparently attempted to reach into the beyonder's mind because of what he saw xavier mistakenly believed that the beyonder was both a mutant and an inhuman after the secret war ended and the heroes returned to earth xavier sensed that the beyonder was near and so he called a meeting of the illuminati outside the inhuman city of ataland which at the time was located on the blue area of the moon iron man was not in attendance this time as tony stark was still recovering from his struggles with alcoholism and jim rhodes had taken over xavier presented his idea to the others but black bolt didn't know of any such inhuman in any case xavier sensed to the beyonder within the solar system and the illuminati used the skrull ship to follow this feeling into the asteroid belt where they found a perfect replica of manhattan floating in space the beyonder had also given himself a human form and created facsimiles of earth's heroes using them to act out future events the beyonder himself seemed to regard blackbolt as his king allowing them to believe that he was an inhuman since black bolt's in human power normally prevents him from speaking because of the destructive nature of his voice namor spoke on his behalf commanding the beyonder to stop what he was doing and leave their universe at first this seemed to work as the beyonder disappeared and his facsimile manhattan crumbled to dust however the beyonder was merely playing with the illuminati and he continued on his way to earth where the things he'd been acting out did indeed come to pass during the second secret war as the years rolled on the illuminati continued to meet as major earth-changing events continued to occur several of these events involved the six infinity gems powerful stones which individually held mastery over fundamental aspects of the universe but when assembled into the infinity gauntlet bestowed the wearer with unlimited control over the entire universe often at the center of these conflicts was the death worshipping titan thanos another notable event was the destruction of avengers mansion and the disassembling of the avengers six months after that iron man and a new team of avengers came together to prevent a massive breakout at the supervillain prison the raft one of these new avengers was a hero named spiderwoman a fact that will become more important later in the video the new avengers were also aided by an extremely powerful but enigmatic superhero called the sentry who was imprisoned at the raft but nobody could seem to remember and so the next day the illuminati convened again to discuss these matters including how iron man had reassembled the avengers without consulting them they subsequently debated what to do with the sentry but his whole story is a can of worms we can open another time ultimately the illuminati allowed tony and the avengers to take responsibility for the sentry as he became a member of their new roster it was also around this time that the supervillain titania was given one of the infinity gems by traco slatterus an elder of the universe sometimes known as the champion with her strength infinitely increased by the power gem titania battled her and slatterus's mutual enemy jennifer walters the she-hulk however with some clever trickery wolters was able to steal the gem and defeat titania she hulk then brought the gem to her friend and ally mr fantastic wanting to keep the infinity gems out of villainous hands reed richards then secretly collected the soul gem the space gem and the infinity gauntlet itself however even with only half the gems the power soon became too much for mr fantastic alone and he grew uncomfortable with what he was doing and so he called a meeting of his secret society again proposing that they finish the job together neymar objected but ultimately the others reluctantly agreed to reed's plan it seems that the infinity gems are connected to one another even while apart and so using the gems they had they were able to locate and obtain the reality and mind gems and upon doing so the final gem the time gem was summoned to the others and completed the gauntlet the others demanded that mr fantastic remove the infinity gauntlet but the hero seemingly hesitated however at that moment uwatu the watcher appeared before them although his ancient race had sworn to observe but never interfere with the development of other species uwatu had bent or even broken his code multiple times because of his belief in humanity's potential and his belief in reed richards and yet here was his trusted ally holding the greatest power in the universe richards attempted to use the gauntlet to erase the gems themselves from existence but found himself unable to do so he then offered the infinity gauntlet to the watcher but uwatu refused declaring that no one should possess that much power not even himself and so the illuminati decided to separate the gems and keep them apart from one another each member would hide one stone never to use it a complete secret with not even the other members of the illuminati knowing its location professor x took one gem and hid it within a danger room scenario that was designed to kill anybody who attempted to claim it iron man hid another gem in a secret underground level of area 51. neymar took his gem to the deepest depths of the ocean protected by massive sea creatures where no light reached and no human could survive dr strange hid one in the mystical realm known as the astral plane mr fantastic sealed the power gem in a micro universe inside of a pocket dimension behind a door with no combination that only he could open and finally black bolt sealed the reality gem within a containment shell generated by the inhuman erzia and hid it beneath the inhuman city of attlan in the himalayas that will come up again later but when the illuminati next convened it was to discuss a cree soldier from another universe named no var otherwise known as marvel boy who had declared war on the earth novar was arrested by shield but claimed that the earth would soon be the new capital of the cree empire he was then imprisoned in the maximum security penitentiary known as the cube iron man suggested that professor x use his powers to forcefully change novar's mind however xavier explained that even if he didn't object to the proposition morally it would be a temporary solution at best and would backfire causing more trouble at worst and so instead the illuminati telepathically confronted marvel boy in his cell at the cube black bolt and professor x told him about the long history between the cree and the earth and how his people were responsible for the creation of the inhumans while mr fantastic told him about the kree hero captain marvel who defended the earth from a multitude of threats however novar declared that marvel was a traitor to their species regardless the illuminati left marvel boy with the notion that he too could be a hero if he only chose to be another gathering occurred after the incredible hulk went on a rampage in las vegas and was only stopped thanks to the efforts of the fantastic four the illuminati assembled at the remains of the avengers destroyed hydro base this time professor x wasn't in attendance since he was missing following the events of house of m at this meeting iron man put forth the idea of sending the hulk into outer space to a distant uninhabited planet where he could find peace the others reluctantly agreed except for namor who violently dissented and attacked iron man however dr strange put an end to the fighting and restrained the submariner namor then left declaring that the black panther was right about them and that if they followed through on their plan the hulk would return and kill them all bruce banner the hulk was subsequently recruited by a nick fury life model decoy posing as the real thing he was asked to destroy an artificial intelligence called the god's eye which was in orbit above the earth when his mission was accomplished the hulk boarded a shield rocket capsule that was brought to him however instead of bringing him home the capsule took off into deep space inside a video played on a screen showing mr fantastic iron man dr strange and black bolt explaining what was happening and apologizing for what they felt they had to do however the spacecraft went off course and never reached the idyllic uninhabited world the illuminati had picked out instead crashing on the barbaric planet sakura leading to the events of planet hulk not long after that iron man called the illuminati together again including namor although xavier was still missing this time it was to discuss an early draft of the superhuman registration act a bill that would require every superpowered person in the country to reveal their identity to the united states government under federal law stark believed that this was inevitable and suggested they come out in favor of it but only richards agreed fracturing their alliance following the tragedy in stamford connecticut the shra was pushed through causing a debate among the superhero community that erupted into a civil war meanwhile on sakhar the hulk defeated the red king and became the new ruler of the planet he married a woman named chiara and found peace both for himself and for sakhar however not everyone was happy with peace and an insectoid member of his war bound named meek plotted to reignite his rage he thought he'd found a way to do so after he found the illuminati's message on the ship that brought the hulk to sakhar meek showed the message to the hulk once again but this only caused him to smash the monitor and return to his wife however meek would get what he wanted when he allowed imperials who were loyal to the red king to plant an old warp core on the earthen craft the defective core acted like a bomb and exploded setting off a chain reaction that killed many on sakar including the hulk's queen chiara who was pregnant with their unborn child thinking the illuminati were responsible hulk gathered a handful of survivors including meek and returned to earth kicking off the events of world war hulk first he landed on the blue area of the moon and battled the inhuman king blackbull after defeating him the hulk delivered a message to the entire world revealing his banishment at the hands of his supposed allies he also gave new york one day to evacuate declaring that if mr fantastic iron man and dr strange didn't meet him there in 24 hours then he would smash the entire world by this time xavier had resurfaced and so while he was not present during the meeting that determined his fate the hulk confronted him and battled the x-men however a young student named mercury attempted to convince the hulk to leave them peacefully hulk agreed since xavier already blamed himself for his part in the illuminati and suffered as a result however more battles ensued and dr strange even channeled the power of the extra-dimensional being zom temporarily becoming hulk-like himself but hulk ultimately defeated strange and the other members of the illuminati and forced them to fight in gladiatorial combat like he had on sakhar not even the century for all his power was able to defeat the hulk however that battle did cause the hulk to revert back to his human form of bruce banner wanting the hulk back meek attempted to stab a banner in the back instead hitting his oldest ally rick jones this worked too well as an enraged hulk savagely beat meek until he admitted that the explosion on sakura was his fault and not the illuminati's angrier than he'd ever been the hulk's power surged out of control until his footsteps threatened to sink the entire eastern seaboard not wanting to destroy the earth banner allowed tony stark to hit him with an orbital weapon returning him to human form again and ending world war hulk and the world moved on the superhuman registration act was la captain america was thought to be dead and the avengers were split into two groups iron man had appointed carol danvers to lead his government-sanctioned team the mighty avengers while the outlawed new avengers were led by luke cage dr strange had allied himself with them and the spider woman was among their ranks as well it was this team that made a startling discovery during a battle against the ninja cult known as the hand maya lopez otherwise known as ekko killed the leader of the hand electro nachios but upon death the supposed electra revert it to her true form revealing herself to be a skrull imposter and yet nobody was able to detect the difference when she was alive not even dr strange's magic or wolverine's enhanced senses in truth the skrulls led by a religious fanatic named queen varanke had used the information they'd collected by studying the illuminati to engineer a method of transforming their agents into copies of humans so perfect that they were undetectable by any force on earth and so spider woman took the body of the skrull electra and brought it to tony stir greatly concerned about the implications of the skrulls being completely undetectable iron man did what he thought he'd never do again and called together the illuminati almost surprisingly the others came blackbolt dr strange iron man professor x mr fantastic and the submariner came together once again or so it seemed in reality black bolt had also been replaced by a skrull agent and attacked the illuminati attempting to retrieve the skrull corpse so that nothing could be learned from it the black bolt skrull was killed by namor but it soon became clear that the aliens had successfully created more super skrulls each one copying the powers of one or more earth heroes while iron man was able to defeat two of these new super skrulls they soon realized that nobody could be trusted and the illuminati disbanded these events all led up to the skrulls secret invasion during which it was revealed that the spider woman who'd joined the new avengers during the breakout of the raft and had been with them all this time was actually the skrull queen varanke in disguise however their so-called secret invasion was exposed leading to a rather public battle between the assembled superhumans of earth hero and villain alike and an army of super skrulls however the one who fired the shot that killed a queen varanke and ended to the battle was the leader of the thunderbolts the alleged green goblin and spider-man's urch nemesis norman osborne public opinion shifted tony stark was out and osborne was in becoming the iron patriot norman osborne was appointed to be the new leader of the government-sanctioned avengers however he put together his own dark version of the team with several villains posing as heroes including moonstone as ms marvel dawkin as wolverine bullseye as hawkeye and venom as spider-man this version of the team also included ares the century and novar who had taken the name captain marvel not only that but behind the scenes osborne put together his own version of the illuminati known as the cabal his group included the hood loki dr doom emma frost and namor the secret invasion was over but norman osborne's dark rain had begun however this didn't last forever and osborne's reign came to an end with his siege of asgard steve rogers the original captain america returned the superhuman registration act was repealed the avengers reunited and the world entered a new heroic age however meanwhile the real black bolt was thought to have been killed at the end of the war of kings and so rule of the inhumans passed to his wife queen medusa while urzia the inhuman who'd created the shell that blackbolt used to house the reality gem was arrested for murder and imprisoned on riker's island there he met and befriended parker robbins aka the hood a former member of norman osborne's cabal robbins learned of the gem's location from urzia and after bribing his way out of prison he traveled to the former location of atalan in the himalayas there he managed to uncover his prize one of the six infinity gems with the ability to warp reality he was able to enter the inaccessible pocket universe created by reed richards and claim the power gem as well robbins then tested his new found power by challenging and defeating the red hulk the red hulk in turn went to the avengers for help including iron man stark took off and called a meeting of the illuminati much to the surprise of the others however with black bolt presumed dead his queen medusa answered the summons that was meant for him learning of the illuminati and she wasn't the only one the group traveled to the himalayas to investigate the theft of the reality gem but steve rogers had tracked tony after he left them so suddenly and met them there with a team of avengers including novar who had taken the name protector the illuminati was exposed iron man explained the situation and although tensions were running high the avengers resolved to prevent parker robbins from gathering the remaining infinity gems the ensuing fight was tough gems were collected lost and changed hands but in the end the infinity gauntlet was completed on iron man's hand the first thing he did with it was send robins back to his empty prison cell and the second was to wish the infinity gems themselves out of existence or so it seemed however this was merely a trick to make the world believe the gems were gone as iron man feared what might happen if they were actually destroyed following this stark called together neymar richards xavier and strange to fill them in they would hide the gems once again but this time captain america would not be left in the dark this time tony had contacted steve rogers as well who agreed to join with them provided that the gems be better hidden this time for a while this was the end of the illuminati as they agreed to stop meeting however another crisis occurred when the return of the phoenix force caused a rift between the avengers and the x-men iron man's attempts to stop the phoenix force caused its power to be split up and distributed among five mutants one of which was namor when the phoenix 5 began remaking the world in their image captain america called together the illuminati in the hopes of talking to his old comrade and arms however namor did not arrive until the others had left and although he came alone and left peacefully capp's attempts to talk namor down were unsuccessful the avengers vs x-men conflict continued until both sides were united against the full power of the dark phoenix while the phoenix force was eventually repelled and peace returned professor xavier lost his life during the conflict however the illuminati would later reconvene due to one of the greatest threats to face the multiverse the incursions these events are ones which could be spoken of in more detail in a future video but for this week we'll be giving a fairly truncated summary in short the incursions were a cascading wave of destruction that was occurring across the multiverse the reason for this stems back to those extra dimensional beings we mentioned earlier the beyonders sometimes known as the ivory kings as beings from beyond a known space the enigmatic beyonders had initiated a grand experiment to simultaneously destroy all life in the multiverse the key to this plan was owen reese the molecule man who gained his matter manipulating powers when the beyonders orchestrated an accident flooding him with energy from one of their pocket universes it was actually this event that opened the pin hole to the pocket universe containing the child unit beyonder who then observed humanity and started the first secret war and the event which created the molecule man didn't just happen in the 616 universe the marvel universe were most familiar with but rather every universe had its own molecule man created at the exact same time and when the molecule man died the universe would die with him however the beyonder's plot was uncovered by dr doom who attempted to stop it by setting off their bombs early joining forces with the molecule man of his own universe doom traveled the multiverse killing molecule men however this caused the early deaths of these universes which in turn caused an imbalance in the multiverse and while i could go into more detail about how exactly this all works the end result is that entire universes would crash into one another the point where they made contact the incursion point was always the earth whenever one earth appeared above another eight hours later they would crash into one another and create an explosion that destroyed both universes and each time this happened the chain reaction would continue forcing two more universes together and causing another incursion this phenomena reached the 616 marvel universe when another earth appeared in the skies above wakanda a woman from yet another earth named yabat umantaru better known as the black swan descended from the world in the sky and landed in wakanda and so the black panther witnessed the black swan activate a device that destroyed the earth she'd just come from ending that particular incursion and saving both universes and so with great reluctance the black panther called together the illuminati including captain america iron man black bolt who had returned to earth alive dr strange mr fantastic and neymar whom the panther held particular enmity with due to events that occurred during avengers vs x-men the black swan was captured and from her the illuminati learned much about the incursions and how she'd been stopping them by sacrificing other earths captain america refused to consider the option of destroying other worlds but he suggested they do what they swore they never would the illuminati agreed that they would reassemble the infinity gauntlet they soon found that following his death professor xavier had left stewardship of the mind gem to his trusted ally hank mccoy the beast who then joined their ranks and so when the next incursion happened captain america used the infinity gauntlet to push it back forcing the encroaching earth back into its own space ending the incursion without destroying either world however while this seemed like a victory the cost was still great the infinity gauntlet was never meant to work outside of its native universe and so with the conditions created by the incursion pushing back against another reality something pushed back the time gem disappeared and the other five gems shattered into nothingness the infinity gauntlet was gone and the illuminati was forced to admit that their options were incredibly limited they were faced with the grim possibility of what they might have to do but captain america refused to even discuss it and so the illuminati had dr strange erase all knowledge of the incursions or their recent meetings from captain america's mind with an early warning system for the incursions in place the illuminati began constructing anti-matter bombs capable of destroying entire planets praying they wouldn't have to use them when the next incursion happened the intruding earth was in the midst of being attacked by that universe's galactus the heroes wished they could save that world but they were attacked by the herald of that galactus terrax the truly enlightened in the end galactus fed two universes were saved but one populated earth was completely destroyed furthermore that universe's terrax survived and was imprisoned by the illuminati the next incursion happened in the skies above doctor doom's nation of latveria this encroaching earth had already been scoured of life by the map makers and their sedera maurice robots these beings can be talked about in more detail another time but the short version is that they were created by the beyonders after they saw that their experiment was being disrupted and so while the black panther regretted their actions the illuminati were willing to destroy a lifeless world to save their own it was also this event which prompted dr doom to investigate the incursions but because time travel was involved when he did so the effects of his involvement had already happened incursions continued to occur and were dealt with either by the illuminati or others meanwhile thanos the mad titan launched an invasion of earth the details of which can be read in the event simply titled infinity at the end of that thanos and two of his generals corvus glaive and proxima midnight were also imprisoned by the illuminati sometime following this bruce banner learned of the multiversal collapse and deduced that the illuminati had reunited however this time they brought him into the fold and banner agreed to join them after tony explained the incursions the next earth that threatened to collide with earth-616 was home to a league of justice-seeking heroes called the great society when the incursion began the illuminati traveled to that earth hoping to find a solution to spare both worlds however the debate became heated and the pressure of the decision they had to make weighed heavily on them namor ran out of patience and attacked sparking a battle between the two groups this fight was at a stalemate until dr strange unleashed a demonic power that overpowered their opponents and killed most of the great society the illuminati planted the bomb and went back to their own earth all that was left to do to save their world their universe and most of another was to sacrifice one planet killing billions to save untold trillions the math was easy but the task of pulling the trigger was less so and they found they couldn't do it well most of them couldn't prince neymar the submariner picked up the detonator and activated the anti-matter bomb destroying an entire earth to save his own kingdom he was then thrown out of the group but was determined to protect his home and so he founded his own he allied with black bolt's brother maximus the mad and freed the illuminati's prisoners the black swan corvus glaive proxima midnight terrax the truly enlightened and even thanos the mad titan together they formed a new cabal for the purpose of killing other earths but in the end nothing they did was enough earth's crashed universes blinked out of existence it was the end of everything and in the end everything died or at least it would have if not for one man who saved what he could the last scraps of the multiverse preserved but that's another story the story of how victor von doom ascended to the god emperor of battle world and how the fate of the entire multiverse and all of reality was decided in the last secret wars that's all i've got for you this week but thanks so much for watching this video if you enjoyed it please leave a like share the video and subscribe for more marvelous content be sure to leave a comment letting me know what marvel hero or villain you want to hear about next and as always the issues referenced in this video are listed in the description below if you would like to read to them for yourself as well as links to other places you can find me including my patreon page where for only a dollar a month you can get your name in these special thanks here so until next time true believers excelsior you

Channel: MerryMarvelite

Views: 281,662

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Id: QgvFmZMSc4g

Length: 40min 34sec (2434 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 01 2022