The following contains major spoilers for Avengers #60, available now from Marvel Comics.
Marvel’s Judgment Day has introduced some truly terrifying new faces and concepts over the past months. From the newly resurrected Celestial Progenitor who stands poised to obliterate the entire world to the near unstoppable Eternal Uranos it appears as though there is nothing good that has come of this world-shaking event. Even worse, it has finally come to light just why Earth has struggled to make a case for itself throughout the course of its final day, and it has everything to do with being Marvel’s very first T.I.L.F. (Technologically Inclined Life Foragers).
While the threat of oblivion has the entire world on edge, Avengers #60 (by Mark Russell, Greg Land, Jay Leisten, David Curiel, and VC’s Cory Petit) finds Hawkeye (aka Clint Barton) going about his day in an unusually ordinary manner. Rather than quaking at the idea of the pending rapture, the bow-wielding hero would rather ruminate over the nuances of Judgment Day as a concept, as well as the validity of the Progenitor who has set it into motion. Clint doesn’t have any qualms about raising his concerns to the Progenitor’s face, either, although the Progenitor doesn’t have any problem pointing out just why Judgment Day was so long overdue in response.
Humanity Could Be The Marvel Universe’s Greatest Threat
The Progenitor explains to Hawkeye that humanity as a species is what the Celestials would call a T.I.L.F., or Technologically Inclined Life Foragers. At its core, this means that Earth’s dominant species are apt to spread themselves and their influence as far as possible, eventually dragging otherwise unaware bystanders into humanity’s often violent problems. While the Progenitor describing this as a “huge red flag” for the Celestials may seem harsh, it is an unnervingly apt assessment of everything wrong with the world at large. This isn’t to say that there aren’t other species out in the cosmos of the Marvel Universe who share the same general issues as humanity.
The Kree and Skrulls are two of the most prime examples of other T.I.L.F.s, even if they don’t share quite the same proclivity for unhinged exploration as the denizens of Earth. In spite of the fact that the two previously rival empires have been united under a common king in recent years, the wars that were waged between the Kree and Skrulls consumed countless lives which belonged to neither side. That Earth hasn’t taken part in such a massive conflict might make it seem like the comparison is far-fetched, yet for having been at the absolute center of so many more reality-shaping events, our species is undoubtedly the most dangerous of any.
The Humans of the Marvel Universe Are Terrifying to Other Lifeforms
There is no question that the Earth of the Marvel Universe has been at the center of quite a few events of multiversal importance. Between the star-bound heroes who once called Earth home and the Avengers who claim themselves to be its mightiest heroes, the number of times a member of the human race has acted in a way that affected the entire universe is staggering. By this metric, it is easy to understand why this would be absolutely horrifying on a cosmic scale.
For as many times as humanity has played a role in saving their world or something greater than themselves, there have been just as many occasions when they placed the world at risk. In the past decade alone, villains such as Mephisto and the Red Skull Universe have remade the entire universe in their image. As far as the Progenitor is concerned, events like these are simply too dangerous to risk repeating, and therefore necessitates the destruction of humanity as a whole.
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