This Bizarre Marvel Theory is Too Weird Even For Rick and Morty

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Usually, when ‘Marvel Comics’ and ‘Rick and Morty’ find themselves being referenced in the same sentence, it’s because Rick and Morty has done a parody of Marvel in some form or fashion, or Marvel has introduced characters reminiscent of those in Rick and Morty. What’s decidedly out of the norm is the idea that Marvel Comics is somehow even weirder than Rick and Morty, even in a case where two nearly identical events occur in both established universes. But, if one bizarre theory is correct, that unusual circumstance would become a simple fact.

In Sentry Vol. 2 by Paul Jenkins and John Romita, Jr., Robert Reynolds and his heroic alter ego, the Sentry, are trying to figure out how their third alter ego, the Void, is murdering people all over the world despite being locked up in their basement. The Void is the evil counterpart of the Sentry, and when it’s revealed that he wasn’t imprisoned after all, Sentry does everything in his power to get to the bottom of what the Void is up to. This leads Sentry down the rabbit hole of his own past, which takes a shockingly dark turn.

Upon visiting the laboratory where the serum that turned Robert Reynolds into Sentry was created, something horrible happens to Sentry: he ‘wakes up’. Suddenly, Robert Reynolds is no longer the Sentry, and he’s no longer Robert Reynolds. He’s a man named John who’s locked in a psychiatric hospital room, wearing a straight jacket, sitting on his bed while drooling and staring blankly at the wall. The Sentry was merely a figment of this man’s imagination, a byproduct of his psychosis – and not just the Sentry, but the entire Marvel Universe.

The Marvel Universe Might Not Even Exist Within Its Own Continuity

Sentry Vol. 2 reveals that Robert Reynolds was the architect for the whole Marvel Universe, meaning every comic fans have read up until that point was nothing more than Bob’s psychotic delusions (and a few colored drawings in his sketch pad). What’s worse is that ‘John’ was a convicted murderer, having stalked and murdered a neighbor he had a crush on. So, it wasn’t like Marvel was giving fans a new take on a cosmic being who could create universes with his imagination. This was legitimately the delusions of a mad man.

Of course, in Sentry Vol. 2 #7, Bob snaps out of this ‘awakening’. It’s revealed that Doctor Strange and the professor responsible for the Sentry’s existence worked together to trap Bob’s mind in a fabricated reality, effectively sacrificing the Sentry against his will to permanently neutralize his other alter ego, the Void. This brings the Sentry back into the Marvel Universe, and erases any ideas that he had imagined the whole thing while locked inside a cell. But, what if Bob (or John) didn’t snap out of a delusion, but back into one?

Bob realizes the reality in which he’s imprisoned in a psychiatric facility is fake after noticing a tan line on his ring finger immediately after his psychiatrist says that he has never been married. But, if he imagined an entire reality, couldn’t he imagine a small tan line on his finger during a moment of stress? His doctor was telling him his entire reality was fake, and that he was a murderer who would spend the rest of his life in a cell. It would make sense for Bob to create a way back into his totally fabricated ‘Marvel Universe’.

Rick and Morty Did a ‘Imagined Reality’ Bit Similar to Marvel Comics’ Sentry

Rick and Morty season 4, episode 6 “Never Ricking Morty”

Marvel leading fans to believe that its universe takes place in Sentry’s mind is similar to the episode of Rick and Morty, “Never Ricking Morty”, otherwise known as the ‘Story Train’ episode. In that episode, Rick and Morty find themselves on a metaphysical train that’s a metaphor for the real-world process of writing an episode of Rick and Morty. While on the train, Rick and Morty encounter the ticket collector, who they call the Tickets Please Guy, and after a brief skirmish, the duo cut him in half and throw him off the train into what’s basically outer space.

While floating outside the train, in a space of non-canonical, raw imagination and thought, blood spurting from his severed waist, the Tickets Please Guy imagines that he unplugs from a video game inside a Blips and Chitz before rejoining his family in the restaurant area. The episode even cuts to other people who exist in this imagined world, including a cult that worships the Tickets Please Guy (who they call Floaty Bloodman), confirming that sentient life independent of the Tickets Please Guy’s conscious mind exists in his imagined reality.

Marvel Comics is Potentially Even Weirder than Rick and Morty

If Sentry is Imagining the Marvel Universe, He’ll Never ‘Snap Out of It’

Rick and Morty only lets the ‘Tickets Please Guy gag’ go on for a few minutes before snapping fans back into the series’ actual reality, leaving no question as to which universe is real and which is fake. Meanwhile, if Sentry actually is imagining the entire Marvel Universe, then that’s a ‘gag’ that has been going on for a much longer period of time. Rick and Morty kept fans in an imagined reality for only a few minutes, but Marvel has possibly been doing it for years, even decades retroactively, making Marvel Comics much weirder than Rick and Morty.

So, what is the Marvel Universe, literally? Well, if this theory is correct, the actual Marvel Universe is basically just the real world. It’s a world where a mentally ill convicted murderer named John killed his neighbor and was given a life sentence to be served in a psychiatric facility, where he imagined a fictional world that fans know as the Marvel Universe. In other words, when real-world fans buy the latest issues of The Amazing Spider-Man or The Incredible Hulk, they might as well be looking at a picture of a man drooling in his cell.

This theory is definitely dark, and completely takes away from the fantastical nature of the Marvel Universe. Of course, it’s totally possible that the events of Sentry Vol. 2 happened just as the comic depicted, and when Sentry awakened from Doctor Strange’s mind trap, he really did snap out of a trance. But, it’s also just as likely that the opposite is true, thereby making this bizarre theory a grim reality, which would also mean that Marvel Comics is way weirder than even Rick and Morty.

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