“Has anyone time traveled in a fictional story, EVER, and then returned to say, “That was, all in all, a good idea”?
No.
Time travel, we’re lead to believe, never works out. Shit’s disappearing, we decide to make evil robots that are not only killing us but designed to look like demon skeletons for good measure. The best outcome is that you come home horribly scarred because, sure, you did manage to avoid having sex with your own mom, but will you ever look at her the same after encountering her as a lustful teenager who is constantly trying to get your pants off? That’s just not something you bounce back from.
Hm. I’d never thought of it before, but ‘Back To The Future’ would have had a very different tone if Marty McFly were Martina McFly and her dad was trying to get all over her in the past. Just saying.
And by the way, Back to the Future IV, Marty goes back in time, is a decent father to Biff Tannen, changing the bully’s life around and turning him into a decent human being who becomes an insurance adjuster and a regular MVP in rec league softball.
Am I the only person who, when offered the chance to time travel, will grab the nearest piece of furniture and use it to smash whatever weird time car or time door or whatever, whatever ridiculous way it’s structured, am I the only one who would smash the goddamn thing to bits without ever stepping through? Seriously. At this point, I would think that EVERY comic book super hero would, upon seeing a time machine or even anything that looks kind of like it might be a time machine, smash it to absolute dust.
Take my advice. As someone who has read a lot of comics and is not overly attracted to either of his parents. If you see a time machine, run at it, scream NOOOOOOOOO, and smash the shit out of it. Yes, some science nerd will be pissed. But what’s he gonna do? Tell the police you wrecked his TIME MACHINE!? I think not.”