Source material
What are incursions?
Understand incursions in Hickman's Marvel comics, the choices facing the Illuminati and why comic rules should not be treated as confirmed Doomsday plot details.
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Comics context. These articles discuss published comics. Connections to the films are editorial analysis unless a specific official announcement is cited. This is an independent fan publication.
An incursion is a comic-book crisis in which parallel realities come into catastrophic contact. It matters to the reading path toward Secret Wars because it makes survival a moral problem as well as a scientific one. This explanation concerns the comics; it does not establish the plot of either upcoming Avengers film.
What an incursion is
Introduced in Jonathan Hickman’s New Avengers (2013), an incursion happens when two parallel universes collide at a single shared point - typically Earth meeting Earth. The physics are brutal:
- When two universes touch, both will be destroyed.
- Destroying one of the colliding Earths can avert that collision’s destruction of both universes; this is not limited to destroying the opposing Earth.
- If you refuse, everyone in both universes dies.
It’s a trolley problem the size of creation: murder a world, or lose two.
Why it’s so devastating
The horror of the incursion is moral, not just physical. In the comics, Earth’s smartest heroes (the Illuminati - Reed Richards, Iron Man, Black Panther and others) are forced to weigh genocide against survival. It breaks them, and it breaks their friendships. Some build weapons to destroy other Earths; some can’t bring themselves to do it.
How it ends the multiverse
Incursions aren’t a one-off. They cascade - more and more universes colliding, more Earths dying, until the entire multiverse unravels. That slow-motion apocalypse is what leads directly into Secret Wars (explained here) and the countdown known as Time Runs Out.
What makes it useful for analysis
As a storytelling device, the incursion premise offers:
- A ticking threat that escalates naturally.
- A reason for variants and other universes to crash together - handy for uniting the Avengers, X-Men and FF.
- A path to the multiverse’s collapse and rebuild (will the multiverse collapse).
Do not confuse a comic rule with a film announcement
The moral dilemma is more important than treating the premise as a literal technical manual. Ask which alternatives the characters investigate, who decides that an option is impossible, and whether secrecy prevents others from challenging that conclusion. Those questions explain why the crisis damages relationships even before its physical consequences arrive.
For comic context, see Marvel’s Fantastic Four history, which discusses Reed and the incursion crisis, and the issue references in the incursion glossary. The latter is a community reference, not an official film announcement. Continue with the Secret Wars reading companion for the event that follows.
Editorial correction, October 19, 2026: this page previously described destruction of the opposing Earth as the only option and treated incursions as a confirmed film blueprint. The wording now distinguishes the comic premise from film speculation.