Gathered to a world for the purpose of war, the elites of the day find themselves caught up with something from the beyond.
What They Say:
THE WAR BEGINS Earth’s heroes have been whisked away to a mysterious construct in space, but they are not alone. Earth’s villains have also appeared. Who is to blame for this meeting of good and evil?
The Review:
Through a sale via comiXology, I ended up picking up the twelve issue run of Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars for a buck an issue. While I had re-read the series about a decade or so ago in trade form, the chance to read it again now in this form years later was too much to resist. At the time, this was the event of all events because of what it was doing and even some twenty-five years later, I can still remember the way I felt as the lead-up to it happened in various series and then finally getting the first issue in my hand and devouring it. Reading in trade is a very different experience, so I wanted to revisit the series in single issue form for review to take a look at it again and to see if I can recapture some of that magic. And going by what I found in the first issue, it’s not that hard to do so when you get down to it, especially if you’re like me and consider this period of Marvel history to be the golden age of the company.
In various ongoing series, we saw numerous characters on the heroes side drawn into gateways built in Central Park, which has now landed them in the situation they’re in, which is inside a giant construct floating in some distant alien galaxy. And not alone either, as another construct floating nearby has some of the big villains of the day, most of which seem to be cast off and ignored in the present day continuity. From the heroes side, it’s a small but solid roster as you have the Avenges, lead by a cocky Wasp, the X-Men with Xavier actually involved, Hulk, Spider-man and suspiciously enough, Magneto as well. The villains have some good characters to their roster as well, with Dr. Doom being the most difficult but also others like Kang, Galactus and Ultron. Put in the smaller powers like the Wrecking Crew and you have a good mix. The curious one here, one that has much untapped power and potential, is Molecule Man as he simply wants to go home and live a normal life.
The book does the setup in classic fashion, with plenty of near-dorky statements of names, obvious explanations of powers and a sort of simplicity about it that is pretty charming. At the same time, I have to admire it because so many characters are covered here and you know who they are from the start that it shows how frustrating some newer books are that often don’t even mention someones name in the opening issue of a series. But I digress. The setup here is straightforward in that the two sides have been brought to this distant place, shown the scale of power involved when an entire galaxy is wiped away, and a battle world made of patchwork locations from other worlds is formed for them to fight upon. The two sides have little difficult establishing their differences within each group, figuring out a leader and grating against each other, even if it is all superficial and explained plainly for the reader. It was almost a necessity at the time since people may not have known what a particular team was like and you had new readers coming in for the event.
While there are no surprises here, there are a lot of fun defining moments that stand until this day. Galactus’ attempt to breach the Beyond makes perfect sense as he senses the amount of power involved here and the potential that the mysterious Beyonder may be able to break his hunger. Characters are well defined by their basic traits, especially in how Captain America is selected to lead, though it speaks less of Wasp as she goes on about how people will rally to him better than her which obviously doesn’t play well to gender roles. But taking into account the fact that they see themselves being involved in a secret war, putting the military man in charge definitely makes sense. And the racial issues come in as well as there’s some division on the heroes side when it comes to the mutants, and the way the X-Men are protective of Magneto even with his recent history of being labeled a murderer. It’s good stuff that sets things well for anyone to be able to jump in and enjoy easily.
Release Notes:
This comiXology edition of Secret Wars comes with the main cover as released with the print edition and no other extras.
In Summary:
And therein lies the key thing with it in that the book is hugely accessible. You know who everyone is, you get a smattering of powers, you understand the scale of it all and you see there are divisions on both sides that complicate things. Shooter’s script is good for what it’s trying to establish and Mike Zeck’s artwork is clean and engaging to watch here, even if it does fall flat and a little less dimensional than fans are accustomed these days. Once you get past the first couple of pages, it’s easy to slide into that time frame again and just enjoy the story, seeing the pieces come together and watching the tensions and rivalries rise while dealing with a very, very large scale problem. It’s a book that definitely sets up a lot of stuff and easily leaves you wanting more of the big battle to come and it does it all easily and plainly. Sometimes it does work to lay out your cards on the table so openly.
Grade: B+
Readers Rating: [ratings]
