shhhhhh secret wars is the big marvel summer event of 2015

http://howtolovecomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/secret-wars-battleworld1.jpg?25da20

a lot of the tie-ins look great!

http://observationdeck.io9.com/inside-secret-wars-a-look-at-the-battleworld-books-1701934467

who am i kidding i'll probably read the whole thing even the inevitable shitty 'frontline' issues

haha yeah i'm sort of ashamed by how much of that i want to read

I am already financially committed to the first three months of this gargantuan endeavor, so here's to hoping it don't suck.

I think I'll buy the main series, as I feel like it's good karma for t0rr3nt1ng all of the Avengers run. Not really interested in the rest unless Al or Kieron Gillen are writing them.

Despite how much I hate big crossover events, there are just so many crazy silly ideas going on across some of these I reckon i'll try out quite a few

Official Boys II Men Twitter has been on it since '11

http://i.imgur.com/aaI32hY.jpg

In keeping with my inimitable tendency to overdo these kinds of things, I'm currently blowing through the entire Ultimate line front to back so that its impending demolition will have more narrative/emotional resonance. It's been a surprisingly quick trip thus far (the first five years during the past week's commute). I'll be following that up with the Marvel Now! Avengers stuff and then I think I should be relatively prepared for Secret Wars when I finally start reading it four months from now.

I've begun rereading the Hickman Avengers as well, but only three issues in. Looking at the start of it, I'm once again really impressed how tightly plotted it is. New Avengers 3 is referenced in Avengers 1 (which came out two months prior) for instance.

Generally I like comics that cross-pollinate and cross-reference... there's a puzzle-solving aspect that's fun and makes you feel pleasantly smart -- Seven Soldiers for example. Hickman's stuff can feel more like homework.

I think he did juggle a few too many things, although being able to let all the balls drop to the ground is somewhat satisfying.

Would anyone appreciate a page-by-page walkthrough of what's getting wrapped up and referenced in this Secret Wars comic? It doesn't have a lot of random material, but the character backgrounds strongly lean on Hickman's past work. Especially the Ultimate universe Reed Richards, it seems.

I've read rumors that Ultimate Reed was gonna figure in strongly, which is another reason I'm reading that stuff.

If this thread gets deeply spoilerific, I'll have to bow out until I'm caught up. But don't let that stop you.

Spoilers being from Secret Wars #1 onward, or past stuff?

Oh, feel free to talk about whatever. It's my own fault that I haven't yet read a Marvel comic published since 2012.

I think my main irritation with Marvel, some of which has been addressed in recent years, is the continual use of the "greater/celestial beings meddled with earth in the past and return to end their experiment or meddle further"
You have:
- The Celestials - linked to the Eternals
- The Builders (introduced by Hickman, it turns out they're in charge of the White Event junk that happened in the New Universe and now elsewhere)
- The Kree (Inhumans, apparently a galactic thing and not limited to Earth)

The whole Hickman Avengers/New Avengers arc has, to an extent, been used to bring all of these things into the same context, and show that the Beyonders (original version from http://marvel.wikia.com/Marvel_Two-In-One_Vol_1_63 as it seems the other Secret Wars "Beyonder" was an immature construct from their kind) are trying to stop the experiment that is existence.

The quality level has generally been really high at Marvel over the past decade+, but the main weakness I've seen is their focus on these huge stories at the expense of smaller, more character-driven stories (which does appear to be turning around some). On the one hand, you can only raise the stakes so high before there's nowhere left to go, and on the other, it's hard to care about the fate of the affected characters when far more time is spent watching them deal with cosmic threats as a paramilitary outfit than seeing how those events affect them personally.

To an extent the Avengers World title and some one-offs have been character stories. I think the World title is supposed to be vignettes into what the characters are up to.

I think the Future Foundation/Fantastic Four run had a lot of characterization, especially of the kids.

I really really want the final two issues of S.H.I.E.L.D. :(

Yeah, like I said, I'm still several years removed at this point and mostly reflecting on the direction the Avengers and X-titles had taken where they were just dealing with an escalating series of crises without taking a breath to say hey to one another.

I pointed out in another thread a while back that, after Onslaught, Marvel didn't have another major earth-shattering crossover for almost a decade (Avengers Disassembled or House of M, take your pick), at which point the major earth-shattering crossover became an annual and then a biannual and then a tri- or quad- or quintannual thing and lost a lot of its impact. I'm excited for Secret Wars but I'd be a lot more excited if the universe hadn't been on the brink of destruction 38 times over the past five years.

The last issues of SHIELD are apparently being released sometime just after Secret Wars, IIRC.

two things - first, this isn't really a "universe on the brink of destruction" story. it's a "the universe is destroyed and put back together" story. second, one of the regions in Battleworld is gonna be a House of M universe so that should be fun

Well, the currently existing universes are all going to be kaput, so there's some truth in there

the thing I think is kind of brilliant about Secret Wars is that it's a culmination of all of the other times the multiverse has been on the brink of destruction; effectively, all of those crises escalated and snowballed into this big wtf mess. The intricacy of the plotting, from Hickman's own work to fallout like Beast bringing the original X-Men forward in time in All-New and then not being able to send them back because the multiverse is broken, is outstanding.

One thing irks me though; Havok is still inverted but Bendis isn't really writing him that way.

Hopefully they at least touch on the fact that time travel was supposed to be colossally broken post Age of Ultron.

Actually, that could be why Doom's gambit against the Beyonders didn't work, in that he was trying to use their linear nature against them

*puts on nerd goggles*

Can't wait to time travel into the present day with y'all and put on my own nerd goggles.

I'm reading the first issue at work on my phone. It's pretty fun.

DJP - I thought Havok wasn't still inverted, only suffering the scars of it and the alt-future Janet stuff with the baby, etc. Totally possible I missed something though.

I take it this a different meaning of 'Invert' to Proust's usage

Havok is suffering from a condition that requires him to be hung by his feet at all times.

Havok was behind the same shield that Sabretooth and Iron Man were behind when the spell was cast to undo the inversions, leaving all three of them in their inverted state; unless something happened in a book I don't read, all three of them are still inverted (Sabretooth is being explicitly written that way in Uncanny Avengers; ditto Iron Man in The Superior Iron Man).

Ward: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AXIS_%28comics%29

Hmm. Yeah, he's totally not being written that way. But I'm sure if anyone pointed that out to Marvel they'd be like "LOL Havok. Whatever."

I thought Bendis might be hinting at it with Alex appearing to egg Scott's messiah complex on but I don't really see what he gets out of it other than maybe a dead brother

hey DJP, is that Superior Iron Man book at all good? I haven't read any issues

Maybe Bendis is using it to justify his X-Men/Mutants > Avengers attitude? I think it's just basically forgotten, because unlike Tony or Sabretooth he was pretty poorly defined beforehand.

I'd disagree; Alex used to be a massive control freak as a side-effect of not wanting his powers to erupt at the wrong time and obliterate innocent people but I don't know that anyone has picked up on that particular characterization since Claremont stopped writing him.

I'd agree with that. But that still leaves twenty+ years of meh Havok.

Despite having read at least 90% of all comics featuring Havok as a character (basically everything but Uncanny Avengers and Mutant X), he doesn't stand out in my mind as having many traits that make me say "That's so Havok!".

since Claremont stopped writing him, he's kind of morphed into "Scott, only not quite as much of a dick"

Not as much of a dick, not as inspiring a leader, not much of a character. It's sad.

Pretty much. His character, in my mind, is almost entirely defined in terms of his relationship to other characters (Scott, Polaris, Vulcan, the Living Monolith).

As such, though, I always thought he was due a turn in the spotlight by a writer who was looking to flesh out a crew of historically underdeveloped characters (like Iceman).

DJP, thank you, my brain froze over before I quite got to the end of that entry, but I take it this is something to do w/ a) the reversal of mutanthood and b) copyright/ownership/movie busine$$

Issue #1 kicked ass.

hey DJP, is that Superior Iron Man book at all good? I haven't read any issues

He was doing both, iirc, mostly getting his dyson sphere tech going on the side

jeez, the Axis+tie-ins torrent is 50+ books

Axis looked awful!

Secret Wars though - pretty great start I thought. I mean, it was probably unreadable for beginners, and the geographical of the action were impossible to follow (what happened to Nick Fury, or, indeed, anyone?) and apart from an appropriately cynical bit with the Punisher, there were basically nil character beats. But it was very intense, *very* pretty to look at (totally love this artist), and the cliffhanger totally nailed the fine line between grim and LOL. So good work, generally!

I hate the way Beast and the Hulk are drawn by this artist (Ribic?) - I liked them better earlier in Hickman's run.

thought it was fun, but yes geographically/universe definition is awful - its really difficult at a few points to tell who is meant to be the ultimate version of a characters vs normal 616, for example as far as i could tell
there was basically no explicit way of knowing that it's the Ultimate version of Iron Man that rocket is shooting at before it happens

also think those cast lists at the beginning are awfully spoilerific as to who might turn up...

also...

SPOILER BELOW

is black widow meant to be dead now?

E for Extinction was a fun take on Morrison's x-men

I read one issue of E for Extinction and wasn't really interested *shrug*

It took me a couple to get into it

Enjoyed Weirdworld too.

Weirdworld might have been my favourite,

weirdworld isn't the garth ennis island of the amazons masturbation fantasy is it?

oh nevermind, that's "where monsters dwell" and it's shit.

Weirdworld was the only one worth a toss.

Marvel's UK franchise Panini Comics repackage American serial comics in bumper 100 page comics. So the other day I picked up Avengers Universe #26, which contains Hickman's Secret Wars 1-3. On a quick skim it fairly incomprehensible to this casual reader - are there previous comics that might help me a bit (nb I don't really have the time to read a HUGE run of other Hickman comics etc)?

Time Runs Out, specifically the Avengers/New Avengers issues, probably

although I don't think Secret Wars 1 - 3 is particularly incomprehensible on its own -- it might just be that there are a lot of completely new situations that become clear as the series continues

or you could scroll up and find our summaries :)

There's years of Hickman preamble but his Avengers and New Avengers basically serve as the main prelude. But that's still like over 60 issues cumulatively.

actually, that may have been on a diff thread xp

ty, maybe I will just be more attentive reading the cheap comic I already bought

It's standalone but the first issue is kind of a fight scene clusterfuck, the second is just setup and the third is where stuff starts happening. If you're not a regular marvel reader it might also be confusing sorting the analogues from the actual earth-616 characters. So, er, you are correct - but I'd still say it's worth persevering.

Keeping up with the Marvel U is a full-time commitment with lots of unpaid overtime.

I'm not caught up to Secret Wars yet but based on what little I do know, it may be worth brushing up on the backstory of The Maker. And as far as I know, that's not actually a BM joke.

I lost track of Secret Wars about halfway, I think I rushed through the Avengers/New Avengers dual storylines too quickly (without reading all the other Marvel books) to really understand what was going on and then Secret Wars was a giant shitshow of delays and confusion.

are the compiled uk versions just thick floppies or are they square on the spine? would love big old floppy comps, easier to read than trades

Thick floppies with slightly stiffer card covers

I recently reread the Hickman stuff leading to Secret Wars, so I'll try to summarize the things you need to know to understand SW...
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(WARNING! Spoilers for Hickman's FF and Avengers runs!)
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Fantastic Four/FF
* Franklin Richards' reality-altering powers were been mentally locked away to prevent misuse, but an adult version of Franklin travels back from the future and helps his kid version to learn how to use his powers again. Kid Franklin creates a pocket universe where he and his best friend Artie have adventures. Adult Franklin says that kid Franklin's powers will soon be needed, though he doesn't explain what this refers to.
* Valeria Richards (an alternate universe version of the kid Reed and Sue lost during Byrne's run, who's now living in the 616 universe with the Richardses as her parents) manipulates things so that he will go to live in Latveria for some time, with Doom acting as her guardian. She and Doom bond. Val is already almost as intelligent as Reed, and it's expected she'll grow up to be smarter than him.

Avengers/Secret Avengers
* The Illuminati (Black Panther, Reed, Namor, Iron Man, Beast, Captain America, and Dr. Strange) discover "Incursions", events where two parallel universes clash, and both are destroyed. They are happening at a growing rate, and ultimately the entire multiverse will be annihilated, if the Incursions aren't stopped. The collision point between two universes are always their respective Earths.
* The Incursions start to threaten the 616 Earth too. The Illuminati manages to stop one of the Incursions, without destroying either Earth involved, by using the Infinity Gauntlet. But this destroys the Infinity Gems, so the same trick can't be done again. The Illuminati gradually start to realize the only certain way to stop an Incursion is to destroy either of the Earths involved, which will stop the collision, and both universes will be saved (except for the one destroyed Earth, of course).
* Captain America doesn't agree with the idea that in order to save the 616 universe the Illuminati would need to destroy parallel Earths and kill of their inhabitants. The rest of the Illuminati feel that Cap's resistance to this idea will hinder their plans to save the universe, so Strange erase Cap's memory, making it so that he doesn't remember anything about the Incursions at all.
* When the first Incursion on the 616 Earth happened, a woman named Black Swan jumped from the parallel Earth that was about to collide with its 616 counterpart and destroyed the parallel Earth, thus saving both universes. The Illuminati capture him and she tells them that she is a member of a larger group of Black Swans, who worship a deity named Rabum Alal. Their task, given to them by Rabum Alal, is to try to stop the Incursions by any means necessary.
* When the next Incursion threatens the 616 Earth, the Illuminati can't find it in their hearts to destroy a whole parallel Earth... Except for Namor, who has founded a new Illuminati-like group called the Cabal (which included people like Thanos and Black Swan). The Cabal destroys the parallel Earth, saves the 616 universe, and continues destroying other Earths any time an Incursion is about to happen.
* It is revealed that the Incursions are caused by the Beyonders, who are not from the Marvel multiverse but from beyond it, and want to destroy it as an experiment. The Beyonder seen in the original Secret Wars was merely a child version of these Beyonders, so they are extremely powerful. They go on to defeat Eternity and even the Living Tribunal, so it seems no one can save the multiverse.
* But then it's revealed that Rabum Alal is actually Dr. Doom! He has discovered that the Beyonders are using the Molecule Man as living weapon with which to destroy universes. They created the Molecule Man, made sure he is in every universe, and every one of these MMs are connected to each other via a psyhic link. However, this also means that MM knows what the Beyonders are doing, and he's not happy with it. He helps Doom to come up with a plan to defeat the Beyonders.
* Doom travels back in time and creates the multiversal cult of Rabum Alal. The Black Swans' task is to kill the Molecule Man of each universe before the Beyonders use him. This transfers the dead MM's power to the other MMs that are still left, or something like that (this bit is kinda unclear in the story).
* Meanwhile, Cap's memory has returned, and he's not happy to learn what the Illuminati have done. The Avengers are split into two groups: those lead by Reed, who think that the 616 universe need to be saved by any means necessary, and those lead by Cap, who feel sacrificing other Earths is immoral, and some other way of saving the multiverse must be found.
* The number of universes dwindles to just a handful, then just to two: the 616 universe and Ultimate universe. At this point Doom and the 616 Molecule Man launch an attack against the Beyonders. It all seems hopeless, but turns out they have a secret weapon, and the attack ends in a huge white blast. What the secret weapon is is not revealed in the issue where the attack happens, but it'll be revealed in a flashback in Secret Wars. The Beyonders are dead.
* At the same time, the Incursion between the final two Earths (616 and Ultimate) begins. The Ultimate Reed (who's essentially a villain) has also figured out what the Incursions are, and has been destroying other Earths to protect his own universe. Ultimate Reed tells Ultimate Nick Fury what is about to happen, and they figure out the people the Ultimate Earth need to attack the 616 Earth and destroy it, before the 616 folks do the same to them. The Cabal moves to the UItimate Earth, planning on destroying it.
* The Ultimate superheroes and SHIELD attack the 616 Earth and a war breaks out between the two. Meantime, Cap has found Iron Man, and he's pissed off about the whole Illuminati thing. As they are fighting each other, the Ultimate Earth's forces bomb NY, and the two are killed in the esplosions. Among other major superheroes, Thor was already killed earlier while trying to fight the Beyonders. That's why you don't see the 616 versions of Cap, Iron Man, or Thor in Secret Wars.
* Reed has asked Valerie to figure out how to stop the Incursions. She tells him they can't stop them, so they should start to think how to survive them. The Ultimate Reed has also come to the same conclusion as Val.

Thanks Tuomas, you're the Watcher of ILC

Oh, one more thing:
* The Illuminati find out that each Universe has its own Infinity Gems, or something resembling them, but they will only work in their own parent universe. In another universe, they are useless.

If you want to read just some of the stuff leading to Secret Wars but not all of it, I'd recommend just reading Secret Avengers + Time Runs Out. Almost everything you need to know about the whole Incursion thing happens in SA, the main Avengers book is mostly dealing with other plots. And the whole SA + TRO run is essentially one big arc, which is really quite a thrilling read, especially when the heroes start to get more and more desperate, and hey have to figure out what they're willing to sacrifice to save their universe.

Also, as a member of the nitpickers' guild, I'd like to point out that the Beyonders' plan shouldn't actually work... It has the same flaw as the Anti-Monitor's plan in Crisis on Infinite Earths: you can't destroy an infinite amount of universes, one by one, in a finite amount of time. It would take an infinity to do that. For the plan to work, all the parallel universes should be destroyed all at once, but that's not what happens in either CoIE or Hickman's story.

That is an excellent piece of nitpickery Tuomas.

Great summary too! The sequence I never quite understood was the time travel story in Avengers - where Cap keeps moving further into the future. What was that about?

616 Thor does turn up in "Thors" although he doesn't really factor into the story, and never really explains how he got there - "because Thor" is basically the answer.

In general I thought Secret Wars was a great unit of story in itself, but unsatisfying as an ending to the incursion story in the Avengers run.

Great summary too! The sequence I never quite understood was the time travel story in Avengers - where Cap keeps moving further into the future. What was that about?

When the Illuminati used the Infinity Gauntlet to stop one of the Incursions, all the other Infity Gems broke, except for the Time Gem, which moves forward in time. And because it was Cap who was using the Gauntlet, it'll keep appearing close to Cap and moving him further and further into the future.

But one thing I didn't get, and which feels almost like a subplot Hickman abandoned or ignored, is that the various antagonists in the story try to stop Cap from going back to his own time, because at this point he has found out what the Illuminati has done, and he wants to stop them. So it's strongly implied that Cap's decision to go back and fight the Illuminati is what leads to (what's left of) the multiverse getting destroyed, which is why the antagonists try to stop him from doing that. But then Time Runs Out and Secret Wars we find out that Cap's role in this was meaningless, nothing he does or doesn't do matters, and the multiverse will be destroyed anyway. So the whole time travel story was kinda pointless.

616 Thor does turn up in "Thors" although he doesn't really factor into the story, and never really explains how he got there - "because Thor" is basically the answer.

Ah, I haven't yet read Thors, so I didn't know this! In Time Runs Out, the story cuts away from his and Hyperion's fight against the Beyonders before we see how it ends... Since the Beyonders survive it, it's strongly implied they killed the two, but I guess it's possible Thor somehow got away.

Great rundown, Tuomas, but I think you meant New Avengers rather than Secret Avengers as a companion piece to Time Runs Out?

But then Time Runs Out and Secret Wars we find out that Cap's role in this was meaningless, nothing he does or doesn't do matters, and the multiverse will be destroyed anyway. So the whole time travel story was kinda pointless.

Yeah this kind of reminds me of Locke in Lost - where, in retrospect, the whole character arc is essentially pointless. I think that's part of why the ending to the pre-Secret Wars stuff in unsatisfying.

It's not that Hickman leaves tons of plot loose ends -- but that they just hacked off instead of tied up.

Great rundown, Tuomas, but I think you meant New Avengers rather than Secret Avengers as a companion piece to Time Runs Out?

Yeah, sorry about that! In my posts above I was talking about New Avengers, not Secret Avengers (which isn't even written by Hickman). It's just that because New Avengers involves a group of superheroes working in secrecy, I always conflate the two names in my head.

Yeah this kind of reminds me of Locke in Lost - where, in retrospect, the whole character arc is essentially pointless. I think that's part of why the ending to the pre-Secret Wars stuff in unsatisfying.

This was one of the reasons why I recommended just reading Hickman's New Avengers and not Avengers as a prelude to Secret Wars. Avengers does have some good subplots, but some of them are kinda long-winded and don't really lead to anything (the whole Builders thing and Infinity were essentially a looong interlude that didn't really matter that much, and ended in a rather unsatisfying finale)... Whereas New Avengers is tightly plotted and works nicely as a whole (of course it helps that it has only one long plot and a limited set of characters).

Another problem with Infinity (and Secret Wars too) is that Hickman doesn't really get Thanos at all. It seems he's just read the 70s Starlin comics and Infinity Gauntlet, and from them concluded that Thanos is a megalomaniac villain who wants to conquer the universe or something... He completely ignores all the character development Thanos has gone through starting from the last issue of IG, i.e. the last 20+ years of his publication history.

Lockes story is the best thing about Lost!

Also, I like the Avengers run, perhaps more than New Avengers. But it should probably be taken as it's own thing, that doesn't fit perfectly together with the incursion story. As a bunch of loosely related vignettes, with an enormous and ever-changing cast, it's quite good. Overall it's mostly a story of how the plotting of Iron Man and the idealism of Captain America, comes to blows yet again.

It also helps that the weirdest tangent, everything about AIM, is followed up in Al Ewings pretty great New Avengers.

I'd agree that Hickman doesn't really care about Thanos.

On the other hand, I reread most of the Fantastic Four/Future Foundation runs recently and I still got the chills when adult Franklin says, "To me.... MY GALACTUS!"

oh yeah, tiny correction to Tuomas's excellent summary:

Kid Franklin's roommate is Leech, not Artie. He was supposed to be keeping a damper on Franklin's powers, but the Richards family didn't realize Leech has a lot more control now and was letting Franklin cut loose for their little adventures.

Ah, you're right. I'm always mixing up Artie and Leech too.

IIRC years ago I read some Elseworlds type of story where it was revealed Galactus *is* Franklin... Or did I dream this up?

That sounds familiar, but Marvel's been playing so fast and loose with the glimpses into alternate realities in recent years that I can't even keep track anymore.

Ah, okay, yes. Earth X is what you're thinking of.

Oh yeah, that's the one!

Oh, and one further addition to the summary:
* Dr. Strange finds about Doom and Molecule Man's plan, and he's there with them when they attack the Beyonders. This explains why acts the way he does in Secret Wars.

wtf, something ate my post or maybe it ended up on the wrong thread

Earth X was kind of thrown in the trash as far as things go, but a number of the ideas in the series have popped up in different ways. It had an amnesiac Galactus who didn't remember he was Franklin Richards.

Hickman's timeline has Franklin living until the end of the Marvel universe, after which he will become the last surviving person and therefore become the Galactus for the next one.

I didn't know Valeria had such a fucked up character background!

I like the current take on her where they just write her as if she and Franklin are just a normal pair of siblings, with the caveat that one has the potential for godlike powers and the other is a three year old with an intellect nearly on par with her dad's who thinks of Doom as her uncle.

Wait, isn't Franklin's deal with Galactus that he'll be there with him at the end and they'll carry on to the next universe together?

Hickman's run is a great example of both a genuine universe-scale cosmic story and a great big box of tools for the next writer to root around in if they want.

Anyone read his Secret Warriors run - worth the effort?

It's what actually turned me on to his Marvel work, and it's pretty good! I'm not sure how much Bendis had to do with the initial plotting, but it has that wheels-within-wheels Hickman thing going, although all contained within one series. It also has enough callbacks for Nick Fury fans to make it worthwhile

Secret Warriors was decent but got completely fucked by forced crossovers and the like. I think his SHIELD series was great.

I've dug pretty much everything of Hickman's that I've read. Except maybe not so much his Ultimate stuff but that's more because it's Ultimate stuff than because of his contribution.

His Image series East of West is one of the only ongoing comics I still give a crap about.