PROBABILITY ENGINE
Classification: Extradimensional (Earth-20051) extraterrestrial (various) technology
Creator: Reed Richards (Earth-20051)
User/Possessors: Reed Richards, briefly Johnny Storm (both Earth-20051)
First Appearance: Marvel Adventures: Fantastic Four#25 (August, 2007)
Powers/Abilities/Functions: The Probability Engine was devised to mathematically predict and visually display the schemes and actions of supervillains before they occurred. However, it proved to (also) be a transdimensional teleportation device that would fire a pink beam, which would transport the person in front of it to other seemingly random "alterniverses" by altering that person's dimensional attunement.
History:
(Marvel Adventures: Fantastic Four#25 (fb) - BTS) - During one dedicated week, Reed Richards created the Probability Engine from various pieces of alien technology that the Fantastic Four had collected over the years.
(Marvel Adventures: Fantastic Four#25) - Reed Richards unveiled his latest creation to his teammates. He explained its ability to predict likely future events, including one with a 94.75% chance where Dr. Doom would attack within the coming week. Sue Storm and Ben Grimm helped the tired inventor away from the lab while Johnny Storm stayed behind, hoping that the Probability Engine could predict the outcomes of future baseball games. He laid out some baseball cards on the machine's console and tried to run it, despite not knowing at all how to use it. After punching some buttons, the machine hummed and blasted Johnny Storm with a pink beam, knocking his dimensional attunement out of alignment, briefly dropping him in Neverwhen, an intersection between infinite realities. This misalignment then transported him to another dimension, "Earth-200781". Seeking to escape that reality, he triggered the device once more, zapping Johnny Storm again, this time shunting him to "Earth-200782". Running from this strange world, he blasted the machine, which teleported him to another reality, "Earth-200783". Seeking to also escape this foreign reality, Johnny Storm hammered the console, zapping him into another bizarre world, "Earth-200784". His vibrational attunement was altered there and he was cast back to his home dimension of Earth-20051, recognizing it because of the baseball cards spread out over the console of the Probability Engine.
Comments: Created by Fred Van Lente (writer) and Cory Hamscher (art).
This simple enough device raises quite a few questions. If the device existed in other realities, it indicates that the same device was created by other inventors: Doc Iron (Victor von Doom) on "Earth-200781" (given that Reed Richards there was evil) and Ms. Fantastic (Susan Storm) of "Earth-200782" (given that Reed Richards had long since passed away), while "Earth-200783" is far more troublesome as Reed Richards was never associated with the Fantastic Four (if he existed there at all). Alternatively, it may be that the device that Reed Richards of Earth-20051 created was an intersecting point between various realities, existing partially in other dimensions and thus providing an access point (presumably also to Earth-616); hence the Probability Engines in the other realities are also mentioned in this profile.
It might be that the initial images Reed Richards saw on the viewscreen were not actually of events to come, but rather events occurring in neighboring realities.
Profile by Grendel Prime.
CLARIFICATIONS:
The Probability Engine has no known connections to:
images:
(without ads)
Marvel Adventures: Fantastic Four#25, p16, pan5 (blasted by the Human
Torch)
Appearances:
Marvel Adventures: Fantastic Four#25 (August, 2007) - Fred Van Lente
(writer), Cory Hamscher (art), Nathan Cosby (editor)
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
Last Updated: 08/15/08
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