Comic Book / Original Sin

Everyone has one.

Original Sin was a major 2014 storyline that went through many Marvel Comics lines. Uatu the Watcher, a major staple of the Cosmic Marvel Universe, was struck down by a mysterious assailant and killed. His death draws out the Marvel heroes to find out who killed him and why. However, it seems that something of Uatu's is missing - his eyes. What did the Watcher see and what secrets does he hold towards our major heroes?

The storyline starts in May 2014 and connects through many comics, including Spider-Man, The Avengers, Deadpool and more, promising big changes for many heroes and picking up on plot threads that started as early as the beginning of the Marvel NOW! initiative.

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Tropes:

• A Death in the Limelight: The story focuses on Uatu more than most times. Specifically, it focuses on his assassination.
• Actually a Doombot: Apparently, Nick Fury's been using DOZENS of Life Model Decoys for an unknown amount of time.
  • And it's not just him. He's been using LMDs of Dum-Dum Dugan for decades.
• Artistic License – Religion: In Original Sin 3.4, Tony Stark calls Pride a "top-seven original sin". The seven would refer to the Seven Deadly Sins, and the religious Original Sin is a completely different concept that does not have a "ranking system" associated with it. This can be justified as Stark probably not having remembered a lot about religion.
• As the Good Book Says...: Teaser images for the event feature Bible references that are loosely-related to the tie-ins' plots. Of course, the event itself is named for a religious concept.
• Big Bad: Doctor Midas, a villain from the Marvel Boy mini-series.
• Big "WHAT?!": Kitty does this when She-Hulk reads off the name "Raven Darkholme" as Charles Xavier's wife, realizing who that name was.
• Bittersweet Ending: Uatu's body is obliterated as Dr. Midas' body is obliterated by the overload of power. However, the trust in the heroes have been shaken, Bucky has taken over Fury's old job, Thor has been rendered unworthy and Fury has been punished by taking over Uatu's old job, becoming The Unseen.
• Body Horror: The Orb ends up having one of the Watcher's eyes fused to his body.
• Bondage Is Bad: Exterminatrix.
• Chekhov's Gun: Way back at the start of the current New Avengers storyline, Dr. Strange erases Captain America's mind of that team's existence because they were going to cross lines he didn't want them to. That's comes back to bite them in the ass.
• Common Knowledge: In-Universe. Everyone knows that Uatu watches the Marvel Universe and is as "old as time". As Sam Alexander learns, nobody ever stopped to ask why he does this.
• Conservation of Ninjutsu: During his battle against the Avengers, Iron Man manages to hold his own. His remote-controlled armors, on the other hand? Unceremoniously thrashed.
  • In Issue 6, Both the Avengers and Fury's team easily take down the LMDs of Fury.
  • In Issue 7, Fury turns around and lays out the Avengers.
• Continuity Nod: When Daredevil arrives in Wakanda, he mentions that he can't seem to reach his old buddy Black Panther. Readers of New Avengers know this is because Panther and The Illuminati are busy working on a solution to the Incursion problem.
• Continuity Snarl: Black Knight is shown living in New York City, on the verge of going either Ax-Crazy or entering a state of Heroic BSoD. This is in stark contrast to his appearance in Avengers World from only a week earlier, where he was shown as the leader of a team of European superheroes and was in complete control of his mental faculties.
  • Additionally, the last time Exterminatrix was seen, she had violently rejected her father, Dr. Midas. Here, she's once again loyally serving Midas without much explanation.
    • Turns out this isn't the case since she leaves her father to die and thus taking over the Midas empire for herself.
  • An Author's Saving Throw was introduced in a subsequent issue of Avengers World, where it was suggested by an editor's caption that Black Knight's growing madness was the very reason Captain America had refused to re-offer him membership in the Avengers.
• Crazy-Prepared: It appears that Nick Fury fits this more than anyone ever knew: so much that he didn't even appear in person at all during the modern age.
• Dark Secret: Apparently, many of Marvel's heroes have one. Among them:
  • The Avengers vs. New Avengers: Captain America regains his memories of the Illuminati Mind Wiping him.
  • Mighty Avengers: Who were the Avengers of the 1970s and what does Luke Cage have to do with them? The '70s Mighty Avengers were accidentally formed by Luke Cage's dad and his reporter friend finding Kaluu, Blue Marvel and Blade in a morgue dealing with lycanthropes belonging to a doomsday cult. The old gang is reforming for some unfinished business...
  • Daredevil: Why did Matt Murdock's mother leave her family? Suffering from postpartum depression, she tried to kill Matt and, after a stroke of luck with slipping on a plate of spaghetti, regained her senses long enough to run, leading her to where she is now. She guesses that Jack couldn't bear to tell Matt that she left him to save his life because he loved him too much.
  • Deadpool: The secret origin of Wade Wilson! And who is Wade's daughter? Wade was forced to murder his own parents after being Mind Raped by Butler, which also explains his Multiple-Choice Past. He also fathered a daughter named Ellie, who was living with Butler's brother.
  • Fantastic Four: Johnny Storm broke a device that could have cured Ben Grimm of his Thing form. Why couldn't it be rebuilt? Johnny had randomly wandered into the machine, throwing everything off. It could only be used once because the radiation in Ben was changing.
  • Guardians of the Galaxy: Why were Star-Lord and Thanos able to leave the Cancerverse after The Thanos Imperative and the previous Nova, Richard Rider, wasn't? Nova sacrificed his life by combining the Nova Force with the Cosmic Cube, creating a rift which sucked Star-Lord, Thanos, and Drax back into their home universe.
  • All-New Invaders: What do Spitfire, Human Torch (1939) and Namor have to do with the Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that ended World War II? And what did this have to do with Golden Girl, the team's Japanese-American member? The bombings could have been prevented had Golden Girl and the Kid Commandos not convinced the Invaders not to attack the Japanese islands directly. With the Invaders' refusal, the government turned to the atomic bomb as a replacement— which the team wasn't aware of.
  • Iron Man vs. Hulk: Did Tony Stark have a hand in creating the Hulk? A drunken Tony Stark sabotaged Bruce's Gamma Bomb after an argument between the two, but ultimately allowed it to have a smaller yield than it would have otherwise, making the damage less than it otherwise would be. Due to said argument, Bruce deleted an email explaining what Tony had done without reading it and blocked further emails, resulting in him not knowing what had occurred, including Tony's speculation that if the bomb didn't kill a living being, it could cause significant mutations instead. In the end, Tony keeps the part about the e-mails from Bruce, realizing that if Bruce knew that he could have avoided becoming the Hulk by reading the e-mails, the guilt and self-recrimination would shatter him.
  • Nova: What happened to the current Nova's father? (Also see the Guardians of the Galaxy's secret, which concerns the previous Nova.) He was thought to be a Nova-killing mass murderer, but was really revealed to be an undercover operative for the Nova Corps.
  • Spider-Man: A second person was bitten by the spider who gave Peter his powers. Who is she? Her name is Silk and Morlun is drawn to her because of her greater connection to the Spider-Totem.
  • Secret Avengers: Nick Fury, Jr. allowed someone to slip free. They have the power to change the world and HYDRA wants it.
  • Thor: What does Angela have to do with Thor? And what is the Tenth Realm? Angela is Thor's older sister and her real name is Aldrif. The Tenth realm is populated with angelic beings who once waged war against Asgard and raised Angela as one of their own.
  • X-Men: What is Xavier's Last Will and Testament? Xavier, at one point, made out his will to give his possessions to his wife... Mystique?! The true sin, however, is that he liberally "lobotomized" a young mutant to protect others due to the fact that he was so powerful. Charles also refused to give him to S.H.I.E.L.D. or Captain America, as they wouldn't help him at all.
• Dead All Along: Dum-Dum Dugan has been dead since the 1960s. Fury couldn't let him go, and has been using LMDs all along.
• Depleted Phlebotinum Shells: The Gamma-irradiated bullets. They can kill practically anything in enough quantities, from extra-dimensional monsters to a living planet.
• Driven to Suicide: A Mindless One ends up gaining sentience and, horrified by what he did and what he saw, kills himself with the Ultimate Nullifier, much to Ben Grimm and Spider-Man's dismay.
  • The Dum-Dum Dugan LMD does this after giving Old Man Fury a "The Reason You Suck" Speech.
  • That's how the Watcher dies. Midas and company took only one eye and Uatu was still alive. He needed someone to go after Midas with his other eye, but doing so would break his vow so when he confronted Nick Fury, he powered up and approached in a threatening manner. This forced Nick to shoot Uatu, so Uatu essentially committed Suicide by Cop.
• Due to the Dead: Uatu's wife Ulana does not mourn Uatu's death. She claims that Watchers treat the bodies of the deceased as just more objects to be observed. That and she prefers to focus on the future instead: hers and Uatu's newborn.
• Everyone Has Standards: A flashback of Fury's career shows that he chose not to kill Spider-Man early in the hero's career despite the potential for the wall-crawler to be a threat according to his usual standards, demonstrating that Fury wasn't an indiscriminate killer.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: The Orb, Exterminatrix, and Doctor Midas are all thoroughly Z-list villains who even hardcore comic fans would have a hard time recognizing. They managed to raid the Watcher's home, steal his eye, and then release a literal bomb of secrets throughout the world.
  The Orb. Z-list super villain with an eyeball for a head. The man who just changed the world.
• Go Mad from the Revelation: When The Orb unleashes the secrets in the Watcher's eye, a few citizens caught in the wave are struck with this. One girl is grief-stricken over the fact that another girl had feelings for her while a man is completely off-guard as he finds out who killed his mother.
• Immune to Fate: Somehow, Nick Fury isn't affected by the Orb's attack. That's because he's a Life Model Decoy
  • Deadpool is, too, but only by virtue of having time traveled beforehand.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: In the Mighty Avengers entry, when Falcon tells Luke Cage about the Watcher's death, Cage decides that if someone can kill the Watcher, then no one is safe, shifting him into Papa Wolf mode.
  • In Issue 6, when the Avengers invade the real Nick Fury's base, he suits up in powered armor and wields both of the Watcher's eyes, ready to fight them back.
• Let's You and Him Fight: The Avengers/New Avengers storyline and Hulk vs. Iron Man storyline are this as Cap wants the Illuminati punished and Banner wants revenge on Stark.
• Light 'em Up: Radiance, the Japanese superheroine introduced during the event.
• My Friends... and Zoidberg: Everyone who shows up at Nick Fury's secret base were all there because of Fury's intricate plan. Except for Rocket Raccoon who was there by chance because Gamora and Moon Knight needed a ride after Bucky stranded them in deep space.
• Mythology Gag: Iron Man being involved in the creation of the Hulk was previously used in the Heroes Reborn storyline, though in a much more benevolent way here.
  • Iron Man's introductory caption in #1 reads "Big man in a suit of armor."
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In the Invaders tie-in, it's revealed that the Invaders had a chance to defeat Japan without dropping the Atom Bombs, but chose not to go through with it. The eventual explanation given is that Golden Girl and the Kid Commandos purposefully sabotaged the plan, as it would've endangered the lives of a bunch of native islanders living near the Japanese coast. The plan's failure is what led to Harry Truman's decision to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki, resulting in far more civilian deaths than would have occurred had Golden Girl not interfered. Radiance, Golden Girl's granddaughter, goes berserk when she learns this.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: How Doctor Midas escaped the Dark Dimension and attained a Mindless One army.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Three in issue one alone - finding the Watcher's body, Spidey and Ben Grimm realizing a Mindless One has telepathy and the Ultimate Nullifier, and the Winter Soldier telling Gamora that they're on their own.
  • In the X-Men tie in, the X-Men panic when they fear that Xavier's will is going to give the Jean Grey School to Cyclops. It gets even worse when it stands revealed that he gave everything to Mystique!
  • Iron Man spends most of his tie-in in such a state; which is a natural reaction to realizing the Hulk is mad at you personally.
  • In Issue 7, Old Nick Fury realizes that everyone is so focused on him, they don't notice a gathering of Watchers overhead.
• Plot Tumor: Halfway through the miniseries, the plot stops being about who killed the Watcher, and starts being about what has been going on with Old Nick Fury.
• Put on a Bus to Hell: Nick Fury basically gets his entire history and personality destroyed. Guilty of the horrible crime of... killing Eldritch Abominations! Off-camera! For decades! With... radioactive bullets that can kill demons and living planets and anything! (Why aren't we all using gamma-irradiated bullets?) Then he murders the Watcher for some reason and gets Put on a Bus to the Moon, literally bound in chains. Dum-Dum Dugan arguably gets it even worse, since apparently he never even existed after World War II.
  • The X-Men tie-in via Uncanny X-Men is this, having spent at least a year on dealing with the will and its aftermath.
• Ragtag Band of Misfits: When one of the groups of heroes investigating the death is comprised of Emma Frost and The Punisher? Yep.
• Red Skies Crossover: The X-Men and Guardians of the Galaxy tie-ins have nothing to do with the event other than the basic premise of secrets being revealed. None of the Guardians were on Earth when everyone's secrets were psychically revealed, so the arc involves Gamora forcibly interrogating Star-Lord for answers. Similarly, the X-Men learned Xavier's secrets because they were finally ready to read his will after his death in Avengers vs. X-Men.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Dum-Dum Dugan gives Nick Fury one in a side-story, when he learns Fury has been using Dugan LMDs because he couldn't let his friend go. Dugan dismisses this interpretation of Fury's actions and instead proclaims that he's basically just there to make Fury feel bad about things, as Fury can tell himself he isn't a villain if he still feels guilty about the original Dugan's death.
• Running Gag: Apparently, nobody ever liked Bucky Barnes.
• Sacrificial Lamb: Uatu, of course.
• Shown Their Work: Many readers did take notice and were happy with how writer Mark Waid handled the revelation of Matt Murdock's mother abandoning him due to the poorly-diagnosed postpartum depression, mostly due to the fact that that was unfortunately how it was handled back in the 70s - with just a shrug and "You'll get over it."
• Someone to Remember Him By: Uatu and his wife Ulana had a baby on the way when Uatu was murdered. Adam Brashear accepts the honor of being the baby's godfather since his powers are needed to help the baby grow.
• Space Whale Aesop: The Hulk vs Iron Man saga (Original Sin 3.1-3.4) ultimately ends with one: read your emails, or you'll turn into a giant rage monster.
  Tony: It'd kill him to know that he could have stopped it if he'd just read an e-mail. It'd kill him to know that he could have stopped it if he was less like me. Pride. It's a top-seven original sin.
  • Well, a more realistic interpretation of it could be "don't ignore what your colleagues have to say, even if you don't like them, because they might have something important to tell you that you should take into consideration at least."
• Start of Darkness: One of the storylines dives into the mysterious past of Deadpool.
• Suicide by Cop: How the Watcher is killed. Midas attacked him and took an eye, with Fury finding him sometime later. However, the Watcher goads Fury into killing him, leading him to take the other eye, as his oath would have prevented Uatu taking action against his original attackers himself.
• Take a Third Option: Uatu knew someone had to stop Doc Midas and would need his remaining eye to do it. But he couldn't do it himself or ask someone else to help him without breaking his oath. Uatu was stuck between letting a villain wreck havoc with his eye and breaking his oath. So he goaded Nick Fury into killing him so that Nick could take his eye and stop Midas.
• Take Up My Sword: The reason why Scott Lang, Emma Frost, the Punisher, Doctor Strange, Black Panther, Moon Knight, Bucky, and Gamora were chosen: the real Nick Fury is dying and he wants someone else to take up his mission to protect the world from alien invaders by any means necessary.
• These Hands Have Killed: Combined with My God, What Have I Done? concerning the Mindless One Spidey and Ben Grimm encounter.
• Too Dumb to Live: A random civilian ends up with a majorly dark secret of Doctor Doom and decides he's going to try to use it against him. As he goes to meet Doom with his blackmail material, he receives calls informing him that his friends have been killed and his bank destroyed, leaving him to an uncertain fate before he even comes face-to-face with Doom.
• Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: Doctor Midas is a deranged mixture of fearless adventurer, avaricious hoarder, and megalomaniacal sociopath. He has tortured, dissected, and murdered several kinds of aliens, willingly jumped into a Cosmic Ray engine whose deadliness makes the energy storm that made the Fantastic Four what they are look like a summertime shower, and planned to hijack a Kree spaceship so he could plunder the universe of its riches. How he reacts when he and the Orb succeed in attaining one of the Watcher's eyes, the container of untold secrets and power? With shame, discomfort, and an expressed desire to get rid of the thing. This is later subverted when he realizes that they should have taken everything from the Watcher's base, not just a few things and his eyes.
• Unusual Chapter Numbers: Not the main series but the tie-in minies. Those are named like Original Sin X.Y, where Y is the normal issue number in the mini nothing to see there, but X is generally not the issue they come after in the event, but the one they come after in the series they tie into. So Original Sin 5.1 doesn't come after Original Sin 5, it comes after Loki: Agent of Asgard 5.
• The Watcher: The Watcher is the central focus. One of the questions asked by the solicits is, without him there, who will watch the Marvel Universe? Ultimately, Nick Fury, who killed Uatu to begin with, is forced to take up the role as "the Unseen" as punishment for his actions.
• Wave-Motion Gun: Apparently, if you expose a bullet to gamma radiation, it becomes a weapon capable of killing absolutely anything. Surely this will be remembered in all stories to come.
• Wham Line: Whatever Old Nick Fury told Thor was so powerful, it instantly made Mjölnir declare not just him, but his whole freaking species, unworthy. It was later revealed to be Fury (and Uatu) declared that Gorr was right about gods.
• Wham Shot: Unless you pay attention to the clothes, the Orb, a Z-list villain, holding the Watcher's eye.
  • Issue #3: Winter Soldier, Moon Knight and Gamora find another victim: a living planet.
  • Issue #4: A much older Nick Fury appears flanked by several Nick Fury LMDs.
• What the Hell, Hero?: When Cap finds out about what the Illuminati had done to him and what they were doing, Cap reads them the riot act.
  • When the heroes find out that Nick Fury was the one killing all the various creatures with the gamma bullets. You know it's bad when Doctor Strange calls you out
• Whole Costume Reference: In issue 4, The real Nick Fury Sr's look is very similar to that of Big Boss◊ from Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.
• Wolverine Publicity: Rocket Raccoon shows up to help Gamora and the others for pretty much no other reason than the fact that he had a movie in theaters around that time.
• You Kill It, You Bought It: Uatu's killer Nick Fury is ultimately forced to take his place as The Unseen.

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