Warning: SPOILERS for Defenders: Beyond #4Marvel Comics finally explains why its continuity became so confusing after 2015's big Secret Wars reboot. During that event, the seventh iteration of the Marvel Multiverse was completely destroyed and a new one was created, the Eighth Cosmos. However, the Multiverse did not restart, but continued in a new but similar version, with only a few small alterations. The reason for this choice, surprisingly, may lie not in Marvel's decisions, but in the policy of its big rival, DC Comics.

Between 2014 and 2015, Marvel Comics decided that its narrative universe needed a fresh start, which came with the All-New, All-Different line. Before every beginning, however, there must be an end, and this came with Secret Wars, the culmination of the long Time Runs Out storyline, in which the all-powerful Beyonders destroy the Multiverse through the catastrophic Incursions. When the Eighth Cosmos was created by Reed and Franklin Richards and the Molecule Man, however, it looked a lot like the previous one, with just the events of the Incursions and the Secret Wars erased. It was not a proper reboot then, but a mixed formula with the characters' histories only slightly altered.

Related: Reed Richards Secretly Cloned Marvel's Entire Universe: Theory Explained

This decision created some continuity issues, for example, the fact that it's still not clear what characters remember about the Secret Wars. Finally, Marvel has given an explanation for this unusual choice. In Defenders: Beyond #4, by Al Ewing and Javier Rodrìguez, the titular team of protectors of the Multiverse meets Glorian, a powerful villain trapped in the land of Couldn't-Be-Shouldn't-Be. Right after the Seventh Cosmos was destroyed, Glorian had the chance to become the new personification of the Multiverse, and he explains to America Chavez that his Eighth Cosmos would not have been a mere continuation of the Seventh, but a complete reboot, a new beginning for everyone.

Marvel's Post-Secret Wars Continuity Explains The Difference With DC Comics

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Glorian's words paint the picture of what the new Marvel Multiverse could have been if the House of Ideas had opted for a complete reboot after Secret Wars, following the example of DC Comics, which is famous for periodically rebooting its universe. A few pages later, actually, there is another not-so-subtle reference to how excessive use of reboots makes a narrative universe lose its meaning. Putting everything together, this explains Marvel's odd decision to have the Eighth Cosmos look almost exactly like the Seventh. While this created some continuity issues, it's also part of the Marvel way of doing things: the characters don't want to live in a perfect world by constantly erasing their past, but they'd rather accept the weight of their mistakes and try to change.

Glorian's way would have been the DC way: a big reboot to look for the "perfect formula". Marvel's decision to make its All-New All-Different universe a direct continuation of the previous one, instead, messed up the post-Secret Wars continuity but at the same time stayed true to Marvel's commitment to making its characters as human as possible.

Next: Marvel Finally Explains The Origins Of Secret Wars' Beyonders