Somewhere and at some point in the cosmic history of infinite worlds, a humble engineer known only by the name Agrahi [Sanskrit: आग्रही] discovered the blueprints1 of what would eventuate into the Omniportal: a mad marvel of ingenuity capable of opening gateways throughout the omniverse2.
While the portal was not without its limitations, Agrahi found himself suddenly with the implicit powers of being a multiversal traveler, able to transcend dimensional boundaries of both space and time and beyond -- across entire universes and their continuities.
Compelled by forces he could neither explain nor deny, and at the risk of losing his mind to such power, Agrahi devoted himself toward the founding of the Omniversal Intelligence Truth-Force [O.M.I.T.], a clandestine organization with branches in as many universes as the portal could reach.
Much later on the omniversal scale of time, in some other disparate corner of the cosmos, an extradimensional Stranger begins to traverse the multiverses, abducting new specimens to his base planet Labworld for his ongoing studies and research. The intent (and extent) of the conducted experiments is unknown, but at his hands, many of the captured subjects would come to meet their demise, much to his frustration and disappointment.
Little does the Stranger know, the essences of these individuals are of a nature that is far from easily destroyed, and are instead merely displaced -- to an alternate Earth that orbits the Stranger's planet, itself long-ago stolen from the New Universe.
This world is that Earth. A reality where life has always been relatively "normal."3