The whole Time Runs Out malarkey has been solely the preserve of recent Avengers and New Avengers stories, but Hickman began building to all of that stuff with the very first Marvel work he did. After short tenures on other books, he was promoted to writer of Fantastic Four, Marvel's First Family - and it's there he began all this alternate reality business. During Hickman's run, Reed Richards built a portal between other worlds - which is where he discovered The Council, a group of alternate reality Reeds who were resolving to fix everything, saving all of their universes from inter-reality destruction. It all went a bit tits up, but before he had chance to get lonely his time-travelling kids came to visit. All of which lead into Reed's part in New Avengers (i.e. having the technology destroying alternate Earths to save his from The Council). Hickman then wrote The Ultimates, the Avengers of Marvel's rebooted line of updated superheroes. Which involved more alternate-reality stuff. Now that team is in the regular continuity Avengers, too. This man is insane with his forward planning.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
