3.5

Reads as really dated and the dialogue is... not great. But the concept and story are fun and I get how this was a major event for its time. ( )

Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars, written by Jim Shooter with pencils by Mike Zeck & Bob Layton, ink by John Beatty, Jack Abel, & Mike Esposito, colors by Christie Scheele & Nel Yomtov, and letters by Joe Rosen collects the 1984 miniseries Secret Wars featuring the biggest names in the Marvel Universe at the time. The story began as a tie-in to promote Mattel’s Marvel Heroes toyline with the title required by Mattel due to market research showing it as more appealing for a toyline, though the comics laid the groundwork for the annual crossover events that Marvel now uses to unite its most popular heroes and shake up continuity.

Within the story, a being called the Beyonder brings groups of heroes and villains to a distant galaxy where he combines parts of planets from around the universe, including a small suburb of Denver, to create the Battleworld. The heroes include the Avengers (Captain America, Captain Marvel [Monica Rambeau], Thor, the Hulk, Iron Man, the Wasp, Hawkeye, and She-Hulk), Fantastic Four (Mr. Fantastic, the Human Torch, and the Thing), the X-Men (Professor X, Storm, Cyclops, Nightcrawler, Colossus, Wolverine, Rogue, and Lockheed the Dragon), Spider-Man, and Spider-Woman. The Beyonder also included Magneto as a hero and he occasionally aligns with them. The villains include Doctor Doom, Kang the Conqueror, Ultron, the Molecule Man, Absorbing Man, Doctor Octopus, the Enchantress, Klaw, the Lizard, Titania,Volcania, the Wrecking Crew, and Galactus, though Galactus immediately breaks from the others to follow his own course. Both the heroes and the villains break into factions due to different alliances and outlooks, which adds drama to the story as each group must figure out how to respond to the Beyonder’s command that they slay their enemies to win all that they desire.

The 12-issue series laid the groundwork for big crossovers creating significant changes that later played out in individual titles. For example, the second Spider-Woman (Julia Carpenter), joins the Marvel Universe. Spider-Man also gets his black costume, which the story suggests is inspired by Julia Carpenter’s costume, though he does not yet know it’s an alien symbiote (the end of the story starts to build suspicions when he sees the other heroes getting replacement costumes from a different machine and they don’t do all the things his new costume can). Colossus falls in love with an alien healer, which ends his relationship with Kitty Pryde when he gets back home. The Thing can change back into Ben Grimm and chooses to remain behind, with She-Hulk taking his place as a member of the Fantastic Four.

Due to its significance in Marvel Comics history, Secret Wars inspired several follow-up series. The sequel, Secret Wars II, was a nine-issue limited series from July 1985 – March 1986 in which the Beyonder visits Earth in search of enlightenment and comes into conflict with various characters from throughout the Marvel Universe. Like the original, Jim Shooter wrote Secret Wars II. While the title itself was only nine issues compared to the original twelve, the full story included crossovers in Captain America, Iron Man, New Mutants, Uncanny X-Men, The Amazing Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Web of Spider-Man, Avengers, Daredevil, The Incredible Hulk, Alpha Flight, Dazzler, Rom, Doctor Strange, The Thing, Cloak and Dagger, The Micronauts: The New Voyages, Power Pack, Power Man and Iron Fist, New Defenders, Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man, and Quasar. All told, readers had to pick up 34 comic book issues across 22 titles in addition to the nine-issue Secret Wars II series to get the full story. The original Secret Wars concluded in Fantastic Four no. 319 in a story titled “Secret Wars 3.”

Like the use of Crises in DC, Marvel returned to the theme of Secret Wars a couple times afterward. In 2006, Dwayne McDuffie and Scott Kolins portrayed the Beyonder kidnapping heroes and villains to Battleworld again in the six-issue miniseries, Beyond! In 2004-2005, Brian Michael Bendis and Gabriele Dell’Otto’s Secret War storyline followed the model of Secret Wars II with a five-issue miniseries and several crossover stories throughout the other Marvel titles. Though it uses the name, it is unrelated to the original Secret Wars or its sequel, instead focusing on Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. recruiting a team of heroes to overthrow the Latverian government, which is acquiring advanced weapons technology and recruiting supervillains. The story itself is a commentary on military intelligence in a post-9/11 world. Finally, Jonathan Hickman and Esad Ribić’s 2015 nine-issue Secret Wars storyline worked to streamline Marvel’s continuity by pitting the various different elements of the multiverse against each other and creating a new Battle World amalgamated world from each element, including the Ultimate Universe, the 1602 world, the 2099 world, the Age of Apocalypse, and more. Like Secret Wars II, the full story played out in the core miniseries and in Avengers, Black Widow, Captain America and the Mighty Avengers, Loki, Magneto, Marvel Zombies, Miles Morales: Ultimate Spider-Man, Ms. Marvel, The Punisher, Silk, Silver Surfer, Spider-Woman, Ultimate End, and more, including several miniseries created specifically to explore the events of the crossover in worlds like that of Old Man Logan, 1602, Planet Hulk, and others. It evoked the spirit of the original while also serving as a great way to explore all the different Marvel universes. The tradition began with Jim Shooter’s original, however, which has cast a long shadow influencing stories for 36 years and easily outliving the Secret Wars toyline. ( )

I blogged about it when I read it back then. See my note:

http://gypsylibrarian.blogspot.com/2006/06/booknote-marvel-secret-wars.html ( )

Boy, was this a slog. I could appreciate the kitsch for only so long. I was reminded of the quote from John Waters: "Good bad taste is celebrating something without thinking you're better than it... Bad bad taste is condescending, making fun of others." Unfortunately, Jim Shooter's reckless, overwritten mess of a script inspires the latter.

I could see recommending Secret Wars for its historical value, and for the fact that Dr. Doom has got to be one of the ripest villains for popular revision. He is far and away the most interesting character in this (and other) stories. The camp can be rich, as in this morsel - the Wasp in book 6:

"Oh, no! I broke a nail! I don't even have an emery board and I'm thirty-seven trillion miles from my manicurist and it's her day off anyway!"

Moments like these are just too rare to make the book entertaining. No, mostly it's just boring, which is the worst thing a comic can be. ( )

Boy, was this a slog. I could appreciate the kitsch for only so long. I was reminded of the quote from John Waters: "Good bad taste is celebrating something without thinking you're better than it... Bad bad taste is condescending, making fun of others." Unfortunately, Jim Shooter's reckless, overwritten mess of a script inspires the latter.

I could see recommending Secret Wars for its historical value, and for the fact that Dr. Doom has got to be one of the ripest villains for popular revision. He is far and away the most interesting character in this (and other) stories. The camp can be rich, as in this morsel - the Wasp in book 6:

"Oh, no! I broke a nail! I don't even have an emery board and I'm thirty-seven trillion miles from my manicurist and it's her day off anyway!"

Moments like these are just too rare to make the book entertaining. No, mostly it's just boring, which is the worst thing a comic can be. ( )