In ULTIMATES SQUARED #3 on January 18, Lord Chaos and Master Order get down to the business of saving the whole known and unknown universe. And if they have to destroy everything to do it? Well, so be it.

Before this cosmic pair renders you, me, everyone we know, everything we’ve ever seen, and everything we haven’t into so much space dust, we thought you might like to get to know the duo about to hit reset all of creation, and turned to series writer Al Ewing for the introduction.

Partners, Not Enemies
“In the past, they’ve been a fairly stable pair; one of the things I liked about Marvel’s interpretation of these forces was that they were a team, rather than enemies,” Ewing reveals. “Without Order, the universe couldn’t have formed, because it’d just be a roiling sea of endlessly mutating physics; without Chaos, it also couldn’t have formed, as the random spark of change wouldn’t have brought it into being in the first place. Having these fundamentals fight—and especially asking the reader to pick one or the other as ‘the goodie,’ depending on the mores of the time—feels silly.”

Still Tremendously Dangerous
Partners or not, the importance of the two remaining concert with each other cannot be understated, nor the consequences overstated.

Ewing explains: “If the balance between them fluctuates, things [can] go bad very fast, in the same way that the balance of human forces in our own world could tip into chaos—or a merciless, punitive order—very quickly.”

An Arbiter
Aware of their place in the universe and the potential of petty disputes to destroy wide swaths of existence, Master Order and Lord Chaos collaborated to create The In-Betweener. The black and white cosmic entity exists only to maintain the balance between the two and to step in if either side began exerting too much force.

They Love a Gathering…
Despite living in the Magick Realm—a place where fact and fiction meld and from which all sorcerers draw their power—the duo never hesitates to take a night off and visit the larger Marvel U. Over the years, they have taken in a chess match between Dormammu and Odin, attended Eon’s funeral, and watched the Trial of Adam Stranger.

…And Don’t Mind a Dust Up Either
Unlike a lot of cosmic beings, Chaos and Order do not mind putting their thumbs on the scale to influence events. These times have included plotting against The Beyonder, opposing Thanos, punishing The In-Betweener when he went too far, and resurrecting the Elders of the Universe after Galactus killed them.

But How Did We Get Here?
“What motivates anyone to risk destroying the [universe]?” muses Ewing. “Sometimes, it’s because things have changed around them, in ways they feel have threatened or marginalized them, and they’re trying to take control—or maybe, deep down, just lashing out at an enemy they feel has humiliated them somehow. As above, so below. Maybe Order and Chaos want to ‘take their reality back,’ to coin a phrase.”

ULTIMATES SQUARED #3 by Al Ewing and Travel Foreman decides the fate of everything on January 18!