Comic #696: The Magnum Opus: Part 1 (Patreon)

I knew I wanted to do a storyline like I usually do each time I reach a hundredth milestone. I had a hard time with this one. I knew I wanted it to have something to do with classic and retail, and I knew I wanted to involve a Narya engineering device, as is tradition, but I couldn't come up with something that felt different from what I've done before.

Believe it or not, the idea to have him make an infinity gauntlet comprised of his old inventions came pretty late into an involved writing process.

Originally, he was trying to design something to transport himself and the rest of the gang into classic, preserving their retail stats and abilities. He was inevitably going to fail somehow, and the reverse would happen: their classic personas would end up transported into retail, and they would be exceptionally weak and disadvantaged.

I was struggling with a couple things.

1. With his track record, why would any of his friends go along with one of his inventions.

2. It feels too similar to his stat-unsquisher (#639), or his patch remover (#496).

To solve problem 1, I decided he would have to force them there, and perhaps the comic would start out with him explaining how it works to the reader, before zapping his friends there. I tried to come up with some jargon involving hybridizing the character copy mechanism with the server transfer circuit, and that's when the idea of an infinity gauntlet came to me.

To solve problem 2, I thought if he somehow used parts of those old devices, that might make it less of a repeat of an old trope, and instead create continuity between the old comics and the new. It then dawned on me that each part could be from one of his inventions, and that would give even more weight to the idea that this was a celebration of another hundred comics. It also has a nice parallel with the marvel universe, where the infinity stones were introduced in previous films prior to endgame.

I tried to have each of his devices mirror a stone from the infinity gauntlet, the Temporal Adjustment Protocol being the time stone, the Space Transport Apparatus being the space stone, the Spirit Modulation Circuit being the soul stone, the Mental Detection Device being the mind stone, the Reality Alteration Mechanism being the reality stone, and the Power Amplification Device being the power stone. I kept the colors consistent with the movies as well.

The comics I referenced came from a longer list. There were some others that I noted, but ended up not including:

The De-transmogrifier (#364)

Simbot 2000 (#636)

Swapblaster (#470)

Space Rocket (#439)

Death Clock (#417)

Clone Gun (#296)

Worgifier (#271)

Zap-o-vision (#248)