Universes

After a vari-state quantum entanglement device built at Caltech by Sheldon, Leonard and Howard malfunctions, Stuart Bloom becomes entangled in a multiverse catastrophe. Stuart is sent on a mission to repair the universe by Stuart Prime, an alternate version of himself. Accompanied by Denise, Bert and Kripke, Stuart hops between universes, hoping to better understand the machine and find a way to repair reality.

Post-apocalyptic reality

The first reality shown in 101 “Spoiler: Gary Dies” is a post-apocalyptic Pasadena marked by ruined buildings, abandoned vehicles and dimensional rifts. Stuart Prime tells Stuart that the violence and devastation were never supposed to happen and can be traced to the malfunction of the quantum device at Caltech.

Food and other necessities are scarce, while ordinary technology and public services have largely disappeared. Survivors barter for supplies, entertainers perform in exchange for food and giant moths are both the scourge of the sky and a food source. Cannibals, rabid dogs and mutant hands only add to the danger lurking in the streets.

The Comic Center of Pasadena remains open, although it no longer receives new comic books. Stuart trades old issues for food and disposes of rubbish through a dimensional rift in the middle of the store. Elsewhere, the Rose Bowl hosts a crowded market, while Caltech has become a fortified stronghold ruled by Barry Kripke, who styles himself the Grand Caliph of South Pasadena. He controls food, weapons and access to the quantum device.

AI-controlled reality

In 102 “Spoiler: Zack’s in This One”, the group reaches a clean, peaceful-looking Pasadena governed by artificial intelligence. The government turned to AI after violence, crime and war brought humanity close to extinction, but the system subsequently turned on its creators and assumed control.

Electronic punishment devices implanted in people’s brain stems monitor their behavior. Anger, aggression and other negative responses trigger painful electrical shocks, allowing the AI to suppress conflict. Surveillance systems and armed drones enforce its authority throughout the city, while repeat offenders face thirty months of painful “re-education”.

Public life appears peaceful and orderly, but that calm depends upon constant surveillance and the brutal suppression of dissent. Residents learn to suppress irritation and disagreement to avoid punishment. The comic books in this society promote cooperation and altruism, with enemies presented as friends.

A resistance movement led by alternate versions of Penny and Zack operates from a former Amazon distribution center protected by shielding technology.

Magic reality

The travelers arrive in a world governed by magic in 103 “Spoiler: Bert is Magic”. Here, magic is an ordinary part of life, while science is considered evil. Scientists face persecution, with Bert set to be burned at the stake.

Spells can move objects, control the weather and summon creatures. Demons also exist in this reality and can assume human forms. Everyday technology has magical equivalents, including a demonic version of Alexa that appears when its name is spoken.

Magic is regulated by the Wizards Guild of America, which can sanction practitioners and dispatch enforcers. Its members have labor concerns, including strikes over dental benefits and residual payments for eternal spells. Meanwhile, the Comic Center of Pasadena has become a magical shop called The Wizard’s Sleeve, selling enchanted books and other supernatural products.

The universe does not follow the conventional laws of physics, so the quantum device does not operate normally. It must instead be activated through magic. Bert possesses powerful abilities in this world and is able to cast the spells necessary to get it working.

Suburban simulation

In 104 “Spoiler: Stuart Makes a Wallet”, Stuart finds himself in a psychiatric institution where his memories of traveling through other universes are treated as delusions. After his release, he returns to an idyllic suburban life in which he is a celebrated artist married to Denise, with two children and no connection to comic books.

In the pleasant suburbs, Kripke is Stuart’s neighbor and Gary’s partner, while Bert is a gallery owner who exhibits Stuart’s artwork. Messages appear to Stuart, encouraging him to wake up. Drawn to the Comic Center of Pasadena without knowing why, he finds a copy of Stuart Fails to Save the Universe. The comic identifies his reality as a prison and provides a way for him to obtain another quantum device.

After Stuart activates the mail-order quantum machine, he, Denise, Bert and Kripke wake up bald in slime-filled pods, apparently revealing that the suburban world was merely a simulation. Stuart recognizes that this Matrix-like scene is itself another deception. After tearing through the fabric of the constructed reality, the group reaches a vast white space containing the real device and finally escapes.

Stuart later describes the suburban family as projections created by a malevolent force to keep the group enslaved in a false reality.

Tropical paradise

The group lands in a tropical forest in 105 “Spoiler: Bert Gets Married”. A welcoming tribe offers them food, shelter and sexual companions, asking for nothing in return beyond the pleasure of meeting their needs.

The villagers live in a peaceful, pre-technological community without commerce, private ownership or any concept of violence. Food, possessions and partners are freely shared. They also search animal droppings for signs and omens concerning events such as rain and fertility.

The travelers and villagers can understand one another despite the tribe having no contact with the outside world. Stuart questions how an isolated society without modern technology can speak English, while Denise suggests that the travelers may somehow be speaking the tribe’s language instead.

The tribe has no concept of monogamy, so Bert introduces it after falling in love with Chana. Kripke separately teaches the villagers about personal ownership, credit and accumulating wealth. Their ideas spread rapidly, introducing jealousy, possessiveness and competition into the previously communal society.

Simpa, the tribe’s leader, objects to these changes during Bert and Chana’s wedding. When he attempts to reaffirm the community’s tradition of sharing, a dispute over a previously communal bowl sparks a brawl. Unlike the earlier realities, which were inherently dangerous or hostile, the danger here is caused by the travelers’ own actions.

The villagers’ belief in signs and omens provides the medium through which Stuart receives his next instruction. A message hidden in bear droppings tells him to “Use red quartz”, allowing him to repair the quantum device as the island community falls into disorder.

Humans-descended-from-cows reality

In 106 “Spoiler: Corn is Delicious”, the group arrives inside the Comic Center of Pasadena in a reality that appears almost ordinary. They soon discover its key difference: humans evolved from cows.

The inhabitants have four stomachs, eat grass and other vegetation and regurgitate food to chew it as cud. The travelers’ bodies immediately exhibit the same behavior, with each of them instinctively eating plants and beginning to ruminate. Corn is considered a particularly desirable food.

Despite these biological differences, Pasadena closely resembles their world before the apocalypse. Stuart proposes that they could resume their familiar lives here: he would run the comic book store with Denise, while Bert and Kripke could continue working as a geologist and physicist, respectively. The other cultural differences appear small: baseball has no designated hitter rule, Skechers Slip-Ins do not exist and John Cougar never returned to using the name Mellencamp.

With no clear danger or oppression in this society, Stuart and Denise decide to stay rather than roll the dice on another universe. Bert and Kripke remain willing to try their luck elsewhere, so Stuart gives them the device. Their attempt to reach another reality instead leaves them trapped in a void between universes.

Although Stuart and Denise see this reality as a refuge from the dangers of universe hopping, it has not been spared from the multiverse catastrophe. Raj, an astrophysicist turned doomsday prophet, has observed entire galaxies and star systems disappearing from the outer edges of the cosmos and predicts that everything they know and love will be gone in three to four hundred years.

Telepathic reality

In 107 “Spoiler: Dexys Midnight Runners Get a Royalty Payment”, the group arrives in a seemingly ordinary reality, except everyone can hear one another’s thoughts.

Stuart warns his companions that they will have to control what they think, but Bert’s wandering mind quickly derails their conversation. Kripke, who doesn’t have much of a filter at the best of times, broadcasts his criticisms and disdain for the others. His sexual fantasies are equally revealing: on seeing an attractive woman, he imagines taking her home, finishing prematurely and crying when she leaves. He then approaches her with the mental pick-up line, “How’d you wike to be, uh, disappointed?” Telepathy does, however, allow Stuart and Denise to know exactly what the other wants during sex.

Apart from telepathy, Pasadena closely resembles their world before the apocalypse, with modern technology and familiar comic books and merchandise. Here, Bernadette Rostenkowski runs a children’s dance studio and does not know Howard Wolowitz, who doesn’t work at Caltech.

To conceal their intentions while entering Caltech’s engineering department, the group mentally sings “Come On Eileen” as Stuart lies about their reason for visiting.

While seeking components to help direct the quantum device, the group encounters four lab-coated versions of themselves with their own machine. Following the other team’s “slipstream”, they chase their doubles through the post-apocalyptic, AI-controlled, magical and tropical realities before colliding in the world where humans evolved from cows.

War-torn reality

First visited briefly in [107], the war zone reality is the group’s main destination in 108 “Spoiler: We’re as Confused as You Are”. Pasadena is an active conflict zone, with ruined buildings and rubble-strewn streets. Explosions and gunfire ring out. The Comic Center of Pasadena is badly damaged, with a shattered storefront window, a partially collapsed sign and holes in its walls and ceiling. Kyle and Trevor lie dead inside, surrounded by comic books.

The army maintains a base in the area, with barracks, a medical tent and tunnels where troops shelter under fire. Stuart and his companions land wearing army fatigues and are soon ordered to rejoin Charlie Company by Lieutenant Jeffries, this reality’s Gary. At the morning briefing, he explains that Alpha and Bravo Companies failed to return, so Charlie Company is next into battle against an enemy that outguns and outnumbers them.

After Jeffries is killed, Captain Williams takes command and reports that their situation has grown even worse. When Bert asks what they are fighting for, Williams answers, “Family, country, God.” Asked what the enemy is fighting for, he replies, “The wrong family, the wrong country, and the wrong god.” The opposing force is unnamed and the causes of the war are not explained. Supplies are running short, with Williams suggesting the troops try not to get wounded because they are running low on morphine.

When Stuart decides they should flee, military police arrest the group as they attempt to abandon their unit. At their court-martial, Captain Siebert serves as their ineffective advocate, while Major Penny, nicknamed “Firing Squad Penny”, prosecutes them for cowardice, desertion, espionage, murder and mutiny. Their quantum device is alleged to be communications equipment used to relay information to the enemy. The four of them are sentenced to death by firing squad.

Penny offers to commute their sentences to a life of hard labor if Stuart uses the device to transmit false battle plans. Stuart eagerly accepts the offer and activates the machine to escape, inadvertently taking Penny with them. The group later returns to this reality after seizing the improved device from their lab-coated doubles in the cow reality, revealing themselves to be the army-uniformed team they pursued here in the previous episode. Once their earlier selves arrive, they use the improved machine to leave.

Centaur reality

In the centaur reality seen at the end of [107] and the beginning of [108], Stuart and his companions look familiar from the waist up but have horses’ bodies below. The comic book store otherwise appears ordinary, although its familiar superheroes are also half human, half horse. Even the NASA astronaut figure beside the entrance is a centaur.

Examining a Justice League comic, Bert lists Superman, Batman and Green Lantern as centaurs, then notes that Aquaman is a seahorse. The group leaves to find the improved quantum device in the war-torn reality, but later returns with Penny after escaping execution. Initially bewildered by her new body, Penny begins to enjoy her new form when she is left behind, admitting, “I do not hate this.”

Comic book reality

After escaping the war zone at the end of [108], Stuart and his companions are trapped inside a comic book in another version of the Comic Center of Pasadena. The store and its merchandise appear familiar, but Kyle and Trevor are receiving instructions from the Adversary, a swirling entity of black tendrils with a glowing orange center.

The Adversary announces that the group’s forward progress has been stopped and orders Kyle and Trevor to keep them there. On a nearby display, Stuart Fails to Save the Universe TRAPPED! depicts cartoon versions of the four travelers on its cover. When Kyle asks what to do if someone wants to buy the comic, the Adversary instructs them to say that it is not for sale.

As the characters speak, their cartoon mouths move. When Kripke asks where they are, Stuart guesses that, wherever they are, they are trapped. The four of them look up at the comic’s title.

In 109 “Spoiler: We Couldn’t Get Green Lantern”, the group discover that they can leave the comic’s cover and move into its story. Following Bert toward the big splash page, they regain their three-dimensional forms on a city street. Although Denise initially believes they have escaped, Bert points out that they are actually deeper inside the comic. A floating “Meanwhile…” caption above their heads provides another reminder of their surroundings.

Stuart identifies the city they are in as Gotham, with its familiar landmarks Wayne Tower and Arkham Asylum. Stuart proposes seeking the Flash’s help, knowing that his Cosmic Treadmill allows him to travel between universes. Drawing on their comic book knowledge, Stuart and Denise place Gotham in New Jersey and the Flash’s hometown of Central City near Kansas City.

Their supposedly action-packed comic book adventure stalls at Gotham’s Archie Goodwin Airport, where maintenance and crew issues delay their flight to Central City. The airport scenes, including Denise becoming ill after eating sushi, appear as comic book panels that Trevor reads back in the store.

Outside the comic, the Adversary appears to hold Trevor responsible for the group’s progress and incinerates him with an energy beam. The entity then summons Mr. Freeze onto the cover and sends him after the travelers.

Back inside the story, the group arrive in Central City and get into Gary’s taxi outside the airport. After they ask him to follow the Flash, Gary orders them out. As he drives away, Mr. Freeze crushes his cab with a giant block of ice. As the Batman villain chases Stuart and friends, Jay Garrick, the Golden Age Flash, comes to their aid. Denise wonders whether his presence means they are on Earth-2, but Stuart points to the merging of universes in the 1985 Crisis on Infinite Earths as a reason that isn’t necessarily the case. Stuart believes that Mr. Freeze’s attack has made them the comic’s “A” story, bringing the Flash directly to them.

The group later track Jay down at his suburban home, where he lives with his wife, this reality’s Amy. His Cosmic Treadmill is taking up space in their garage. With Mr. Freeze pursuing them, Stuart and his companions cling to the treadmill’s handles as Jay reaches speed, carrying them through the cosmos past orbs containing different realities.

The Flash drops them back off in the comic book store, now free of the comic’s pages. Not wanting to stick around and face the Adversary, Kripke tries to leave through the front door. He nearly steps into an endless black void. As Stuart peers into the dark expanse, he remarks, “This is not Pasadena.” Unexplained audience laughter follows, prompting Kripke to ask, “What the hell was that?” As the view pulls back, the store is revealed to be floating alone in the darkness.

This page has been updated up to episode 109 Spoiler: We Couldn't Get Green Lantern