The Watcher: Origins & Powers | Geek Culture Explained

what's going on guys this is rob and as promised we are going to do a video on the origin and powers of the watcher really uwatu the watcher but it also applies to all the watchers so what's the origin of this guide all right the origin of the watcher can be found in three different locations the first one is in tales of suspense vol 1 issue number 53 the second one is in fantastic four volume one issue number 13 which is technically when he first appeared and the second one is an original sin issue number zero which is a crossover event that marvel did some number of years ago now the way these three stories all kind of come together and give us the origin of the watcher is that at some point along the line in the early days of the universe the race that we know is the watchers came into existence now here's a murky thing about the early days of the universe in mobile comics even in their own anthology series a history of the marvel universe which was basically a comic book story that was told i'd like to believe in response to the video anthology series that i made what it basically does is not give us any real definitive answers it just says once upon a time the watchers existed and that's basically it in marvel comics when it comes to the early days of the universe not a lot of information is given there if you guys recall tanelier tavon the collector from the marvel cinematic universe or the grand master from thor 3 ragnarok those guys are only a couple of them but you have a group called the elders of the universe they're kind of a loose brotherhood and the only thing they really share is that they are the last surviving members of their respective races which had basically died out somewhere along the line and so you don't really get a lot of information there the watchers really aren't that different from that but we do get a little more info than we do in comparison to like the elders what we ended up learning is that in the early days of their society they had become super advanced technologically right they had achieved like interstellar travel and all kinds of stuff and so they saw themselves as almost kind of like this sort of shepherd for the progression of the universe and the first thing they believe they should do is share their technology with the universe and so they ended up coming across a race called the proselytians which i know it sounds like a weird name hey comic books and they ended up giving them the gift of atomic energy now for time this race had a golden age where they achieved all kinds of incredible feats right all kinds of technological achievements and then they did exactly what you would expect them to do which is probably what we as humanity would end up doing they destroyed themselves in a nuclear war and so because of this the watchers basically said no hands off now this was not an immediate overnight thing instead it happened over the course of time and it was spearheaded by the father of watching the watcher a man named icor now the idea behind this is that i-corps came to this realization that the only way for the watchers to really function in the universe given the catastrophic failure of the race insofar as how the proselytes had destroyed themselves based on the gift of atomic energy is to basically retreat to walk away from everything and so i core essentially drafted a kind of legislation or an agreement among all the watchers that they would no longer get involved in any of the affairs of anybody in the cosmos instead they would just watch and they would chronicle now the son of ichor uwatu of course asked the most logical question what happens if a threat emerges that could destroy the universe which includes us and the response and the agreement that was struck among the watchers is it doesn't matter we're not going to get involved we are not going to have any involvement in this whatsoever and that was the standard of the watchers for quite some time now as most of you guys know who watched the watcher basically betrayed that when he warned the fantastic four that galactus was coming and that kind of set him on the course of becoming more involved in the affairs of people on earth now as far as the powers of the watcher go they are immense but because of his policy of non-intervention you almost never get to see them but over the course of marvel comics they have given us several issues story arcs things like that that really help to solidify what the power of the watcher is and these these kind of instances or displays can be found in really four major comic books right so the first two comics come in the form of fantastic four volume one issues 48 and 400. the third one here is strange tales 134 and the last one is uncanny x-men issue number 203 now these are not the only times you see the watcher uses powers you see it other times as well but by and large all the other appearances that you see of him using his powers in marvel comics are either just reiterations of what you see in these four comics or some of the things that are mentioned in these four comics actually being shown in those other comic books but these are really the main four that really tell you what the watcher is capable of the important thing is among those four comics that i listed you end up learning things like in strange tales the watcher can time travel to any point in the past present or future even the tva would be foolish to challenge the watcher right that'd be a fool's errand because all the watcher would have to do is wipe them out of existence why because in fantastic four volume one issue number 400 it was established that the watcher has vast control over the cosmic energies that exist in the marvel universe so much so that he can actually challenge galactus now what does that mean galactus is a primal force of energy right he is literally just energy given form and just coalesces and literally travels around the universe destroying worlds to satiate his energy but the watcher much like galactus even the celestials and really like a lot of the cosmic entities can use his control over cosmic energy to do seemingly anything he wants to he can create life he can destroy life he can give people powers he can take powers away he can do all kinds of stuff if you can imagine it it can be done and it's an immense amount of power to have now fantastic four volume one issue number 48 kind of going out of order of the comics here but it doesn't really matter what this established is that the watcher has telepathy on a cosmic scale now here's the funny thing about telepathy and marvel comics telepathy exists on a graduated scale in marvel comics at the end of the day telepathy is all basically the same the only differentiation between one telepath and another is how extensive their reach is given their telepathic powers so if you take for example somebody who's like a base level telepath there's nothing special about them they can read surface thoughts right they can read whatever you happen to be thinking at the time which is man i really need to go to the grocery store or did i leave the coffee pot on somebody like professor x the leader of the x-men is way more powerful than that he can read subconscious thoughts he can control your thoughts he can actually make you believe that something you think is your own genuine thought so inception i guess he can do all kinds of cool stuff now look at somebody like the watcher his ability to have telepathy on a universal scale cosmic telepathy basically means he can read and control the minds of everybody across the cosmos at the same time there's there's no real limit to what he can do as far as how the mind works by all standards of measurement he's a walking talking mind stone right of the infinity stones he's a walking talking mind stone now there are some caveats here a person who is a sufficiently powerful telepath or even a cosmic entity themselves can resist the influence of the watcher take for example jean grey jean grey under any normal circumstance is not powerful enough to resist the watcher but when she became the phoenix the phoenix left kind of a portion of its power with her albeit she wasn't as powerful as she had previously been but that increased her telepathic abilities they were already quite formidable but all that did was boost them even higher so somebody like the watcher could try to scan the mind of jean grey and she could block him right now other cosmic entities can do the same thing galactus eternity infinity eon master order lord chaos ego the living planet these guys out there can literally just block the telepathic power of the watcher and keep the watcher from being able to read their minds but lastly and this is really one of the more interesting things here in uncanny x-men vol 1 issue number 203 it essentially established that the only way a watcher can die is if they choose to die that watchers are by all standards of measurement immortal the only way a watcher will die from causes that are external in the sense of the watcher doesn't want to die but it dies anyway is if like the universe dies now that was the standard for years for years and years and years and years and years that was the standard of marvel comics there was no conceivable way to kill the watcher because his durability was just so extreme i mean sure a cosmic entity could but for the average people who exist out there in marvel comics living on earth it just couldn't be done it would take somebody like the marquee of death or the molecule man owen reese or like jean grey with the power of the phoenix force or some immense being out there with so much power that they're basically a universal threat franklin richards of the fantastic four right the son of mr fantastic who can alter reality he could destroy the watcher but this all changed during the events of original sin and the reason why is because original sin introduced this idea that the old white guy nick fury who you may or may not know anything about there was actually a movie with david hasselhoff when he played that version of nick fury your first inclination might be to write it off as being ridiculous that movie is actually amazing i love that movie but nonetheless it was revealed that that version of nick fury had actually been operating as quote unquote the man on the wall that essentially he was protecting the earth from all kinds of various threats don't really know why marvel did that but the important thing is nick fury killed the watcher and this basically solidified the watcher could be killed with conventional weaponry if it was powerful enough this totally changed everything in terms of the watcher's immortality and more recently the watcher came back but the important thing is that as far as his powers go he's exactly what you think of when you think of a cosmic entity this guy can create life destroy life he can time travel back and forth through time he can read and control the minds of anybody across the universe or everybody across the universe at the same time with the exception of those that can rival his own telepathic capabilities the guy's an absolute host but you never see him do any of that because of its policy of non-intervention which really begs the question if the watcher got pissed off enough what would happen to anybody who made him mad he'd probably just turn him into sludge i have no idea but with that being said guys hopefully you found this video interesting let me know down in the comment section if you want to see more origins of powers videos of not just comic book characters but just other characters in general let me know what you guys think and i will catch you all later peace

Channel: Geek Culture Explained

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Id: 08bNKxnoZKE

Length: 9min 40sec (580 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 12 2021