Shortly after the Infinity Gauntlet affair, Quasar was asked by the Watcher to find and capture the Living Laser who he had months earlier pursued to the Watcher’s viewing portal. Living Laser fled into it, traveling to the alternate earth that the Watcher happened to be watching at the time. So, traveling through various alternate Earths, Quasar eventually found the version of the Living Laser from Earth-616, but in doing so had traveled to an alternate universe in which Maelstrom had not been defeated by Quasar. Quasar was a bit surprised to see Maelstrom and Thanos struggling with each other for dominance of the universe. Maelstrom upon seeing Quasar panics and fires several blasts of energy at him. Quasar attempted to quantum-jump out of the way but the bolt of energy exploded just within the aperture to the Quantum-Zone, causing a trans-dimensional chain reaction, sending Quasar to another dimension.