This May, while Marvel Studios’ Avengers: Age of Ultron is tearing you apart from the inside, Marvel Comics will also be shaking things up. Yesterday the comic publisher announced Secret Wars, a New 52-esque event (but not a reboot!) that will destroy the Marvel Universe and then build it back up again.
Marvel writer Jonathan Hickman has been building to Secret Wars for the past three years, through his Avengers and New Avengers runs: Those series have been built around “incursions,” which have slowly been wiping out alternate universes. Now, the final incursion will destroy both the Marvel Universe and the Ultimate Universe, replacing them with Battleworld, a stitched-together amalgamation of various series.
The fallout of Battleworld will be a new Marvel Universe that pulls from the comic publisher’s 75-year-history. Marvel Editor-in-Chief Axel Alonso explained why they’re not calling it a reboot:
This is putting an endcap to decades of stories and starting a new era. When you see the scope of the event, [you will] see what we’re willing to do. This is a place where we’re going to be bringing new pieces onto the board and taking old pieces off. You guys will be yelling and screaming, loving and hating in equal measure.
He also hinted that Battleworld is where anything can happen, including the return of old characters:
If we wanted to resurrect Gwen Stacy, this would be the place to do it.
But what about Spider-Gwen? Some of Marvel’s plans are still unclear, like how they’ll handle the original version of Gwen, lost so tragically, versus the alternate-universe girl who got bit by a spider instead of Peter Parker.
And as for this other shuffling of the metaphorical chessboard, Marvel had better not change what it’s been doing with Captain Marvel, Ms. Marvel, Hawkeye, Thor, Captain America, and Loki—especially the recent heroes and villains swap in Loki: Agent of Asgard. Those storylines and character changes have only just begun—we’ve got to see Marvel’s endgame.
Here’s the Secret Wars teaser Marvel released about two months ago; they’ve also just launched just launched the Secret Wars site, where you can explore the Battleworld map.
Comic Book Resources claims that more announcements are coming up over the next two weeks, so stay sharp. Marvel will release Secret Wars #0 on Free Comic Book Day (May 2), with the official kickoff coming a few days later on May 6, when Hickman and Esad Ribic’s Secret Wars #1 is released.
Sounds like a good jumping off point to me.
One of the things I liked about Marvel, compared to DC, is that they DIDN’T feel the need to ‘start fresh’ now and then and unwrite the stories people loved (though of course, it’s unavoidable they do it in small doses, over the years some things become problematic, but when they do it to the whole universe just because they can… that’s a cheap move, IMHO).
I would quite like them to make a small change with Capt. Marvel and Ms. Marvel. Kamala wakes up one morning to find everyone calling her “Captain” and she now lives in a Helicarrier, still herself but everyone else acting like she is Carol, and Carol…well you can probably guess. I bet they could get at least a year’s worth of story out of that before fixing it. I bet all sorts of awkward and adorable as well as serious stuff about identity could be given full reign.
Sounds horrible, though I am always happy to see Ms. Marvel…ahh…Captain Marvel.
Contrary to the short attention-span references to the New 52, the more apt comparison is to Crisis on Infinite Earths, given how multiple realities are being streamlined together, with the bulk of their histories being maintained (folks often ignore that the retconned histories like Man of Steel, Year One, Hawkworld, or Emerald Dawn came a year or sometimes multiple years after COIE ended). Even the issue #1 cover by Alex Ross here is a direct allusion to the anniversary poster for COIE – it’s funny how Marvel is celebrating both the thirtieth anniverary of the original Secret Wars and of COIE with this storyline.
(I’m still working my way through HIckman’s Avengers/New Avengers, since I follow the books through a Marvel Comics Unlimited app subscription nowadays rather than purchase books, so I’m always six months behind, but I’ve impressed enough by that work and the work on his Fantastic Four that I’m at least interested in seeing how this goes.)
I am not filled with happy excitement by this news. In fact, I am feeling a bit of dread. Over these past few years, I have been liking the BIG. COMIC. EVENTS. less and less. And this one could easily go over the top, and muck up a lot of what I like about my favorite comics. And having been buying some of these books since the original Gwen Stacey was still dating Peter Parker, I have invested more of my life to the stories than most current Marvel writers have…
When “Civil War” started, I wasn’t collecting any comics at all. I jumped on partway through “Civil War” because holy crap Peter Parker unmasked, what the Hell. That’s crazy, and I want to read it.
So I did. I read “Civil War”, and from there I jumped onto half a dozen series that were tying into it – the various Spider titles, Fantastic Four; I forget which others. I ended up with probably seven or eight regular Marvel reads for a while.
So it worked. The crossover did what crossovers are meant to do – lure people into buying Moar Titles.
But that only worked because I wasn’t already collecting any comics.
Now?
Now, I’m already collecting as many series as I’ve budgeted for, and there are as many more series that I’d really like to be buying, but can’t justify the budget for.
If Marvel decidest to completely rejigger all its titles, that’s an excuse to jettison them – not because I think they’ll be bad, but because I have no idea if they’ll be good or bad. Whereas there are other series that I know I love, but I’m not currently buying – and would love to have some free slots in my budget to buy.
So, yeah. This may end up being a great jumping-off point for a few series.