Mass substitution

Mass substitution is a process from the Marvel portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.

Mass substitution is an integral process in making a time jump in the Marvel UK comics. In order to maintain the mass balance of the universe a time traveler must displace an equal mass from the time zone they are entering. Those displaced are taken out of normal space and deposited in Limbo. They remain there until the time traveler who displaced them leaves their time zone. Interestingly, the same process is invoked whether traveling back through time via a time-jump mechanism or a trans-time dimensional portal, but not through a time portal.

Bypassing the mass substitution process can have catastrophic consequences for the space-time continuum.