Marvel’s December solicitations revealed the next round of December What If books. This round’s unifying subject is mostly recent “event” style stories: House of M, Spider-Man: Back in Black, Newer Fantastic Four, Captain America: Fallen Son, and… Secret Wars?
Wait a second, that’s really old! In fact, that’s 23 years old! Sheesh!
Hey, isn’t that also an all-time classic Marvel story? It sure is!
The 12-part story in 1985 and 1986 was the first big time that Marvel
and DC went head-to-head with “event comics,” something we now see
every summer. The book was written by Jim Shooter and drawn by Mike
Zeck. Shooter, of course, was Marvel’s E-i-C and has long been
associated with all things cosmic, and this is a large reason why.
The story sits in a lot of longtime readers’ minds as a truly
quintessential Marvel story. Upon re-reading it, I found it to be a
quintessential 80s story. The exposition is spelled out to a T, just in
case you’re having the story read to you and not allowed to actually
look at the pictures, and they certainly make sure that any new readers
will know exactly whom the characters in the book are. As for those
characters, the choices seem a little weird looking back on it. Here’s
your line-ups, which they literally did Mickey Mouse Club style:
In the Red corner, we have the heroes: Wasp (Janet Van Dyne, not a
tennis playing protestant), She-Hulk, Captain Marvel (Monica, not the
good one), Captain America, Thor, Hawkeye, and Iron Man (a “black man;”
their words, not mine; Jim Rhodes if you’re curious) are representing
the Avengers; Professor X and his X-Men, Storm, Nightcrawler, Rogue,
Cyclops, Wolverine, and Colossus!, who gets and exclamation point (and
Lockheed the Dragon!); The Hulk, with Bruce Banner’s full mental
capacity, and Spider-Man are the free agents; The Fantastic Four minus
one round out the Heroes side with Mister Fantastic, The Human Torch,
and the Easter Bunny present (Sue was preggers at the time). Magneto
was also mysteriously put among the heroes squad.
In the Blue corner, we have the villains, who also conveniently lined
up so Dr. Doom could do his best Michael Buffer impersonation:
Enchantress, Ultron (well, for a minute or two), Absorbing Man,
Wrecker, Thunderball, Piledriver, Bulldozer, Kang, Galactus, Lizard,
Molecule Man, Dr. Octopus, and of course Doom himself. Yes, these
line-ups are incredibly lopsided. No, no one seemed to point that out.
Ultron is an almost immediate casualty, as he goes all “organics must
die” and Galactus drains him of more power than an H-Bomb. Finally the
orchestrator of all this reveals himself. The Beyonder, a seemingly
all-powerful being from the multiverse tells the assembled fighters
that all they have to do is defeat their foes and he’ll grant them
anything they desire. He punks Galactus and Dr. Doom, and the fight
between the heroes and villains begins.
The first battle sees She-Hulk take things “like tubular, you know – to
the MAX!” (her words, not mine), and the villains soundly defeated into
a retreat by the assembled might of the heroes. Though, really, the
X-Men (minus Cyclops) got their butts kicked and the Avengers (plus
Hulk) picked up the slack. Everyone, especially in these early issues,
is written as what now would seem caricatures of them. Wolverine’s
“tough” but also pompous and disrespectful, especially to Captain
America. Shooter also perhaps inadvertently made a great case for the
Hulk to be a mindless, savage beast- his Banner-fied Hulk is the most
annoying character this side of Jar Jar.
Regardless, both the Heroes and the Villains setup bases, but the
Heroes respite is short as Magneto is tearing up the power plant of the
mysterious planet. When the heroes investigate, Ben Grimm is reverted
to normal Human, and they see the looming threat of Galactus.
The heroes soon start to despair, while Magneto lays his best game on
The Wasp and a nasty storm keeps most of the heroes inside, despite
having both Thor and Storm present. The X-Men continue their streak of
getting destroyed as even Spider-Man beats them up in issue #3, after
hearing them establish that they defend a world that hates and fears
them, just in case you missed it the first 25 years (at that point),
and that they planned to join up with Mags. Xavier wipes what ‘ole
Parker heard from his mind before he could go tell anyone else, though.
While Magneto macks on Wasp, Doom powers up a couple ladies himself,
essentially creating Titania and Volcana. With the X-Men gone, it’s up
to the other heroes to get beat up, and beat up they get. Doom and his
new allies take them down easily, destroying their base in their wake.
In a ridiculous display of over-powered characters, Molecule Man drops
an entire mountain range on the heroes, who survived the collapse of
their buildings. Thor looks like he’s vaporized by the re-tooled
Ultron, and Doom orders the robot to do the same to Kang. You know what
hasn’t happened in awhile? The X-Men haven’t gotten their asses kicked.
Well, leave it to 2-inch tall Wasp to take care of that problem. Maybe
the Avengers should’ve just called her during that whole Disassembled
thing and let her take care of things on her own! In a ridiculous
display of over-powered characters, Hulk caught the mountain range
thrown at the heroes, saving them all.
The heroes are healed by some natives, and Johnny Storm goes on a
psychotropic trip to recap the series thus far with one of them. From
here the series progresses through a rotating set of battles. It may
seem redundant after awhile, but that’s really what the whole premise
of the book was in the first place. The X-Men do eventually strike
back, and not quite get there asses kicked. Wolverine nearly kills
Molecule Man and cuts of Absorbing Man’s arm. Really, if they weren’t
so desperate to go up against another 12-issue universal crossover,
they could’ve just let Wolverine and Galactus kill everyone and done a
one-shot.
The heroes and villains each continued their own in-fighting and their
own master plans to get off this crazy Battleworld. Meanwhile, Colossus
spends his time off-world cheating on Kitty Pryde with Johnny Storm's
cast-offs. Make your own inappropirate "Colossus's skin is hard as
steel" joke now; I'll wait. A new Spider-Woman (who would later go by
Arachne to stem confusion) is introduced, as apparently South Park (or
some other Denver suburb) was one of the pieces of many worlds used to
construct this new planet. A volcano erupts, the Wasp dies (she got
better), She-Hulk and Titania start their rivalry, and “Amid the chaos,
there comes… A COSTUME!” That’s right, the biggest part of this event
(the longest-lasting at least) is Spidey’s new costume. Thor and Hulk
found a machine that makes new clothes based on your thoughts
(obviously, a high-priority for a battleworld), but Spidey uses the
wrong machine. Instead, he gets covered by what we’ll later find out is
the Symbiote who bonds with Eddie Brock, creating Venom. In an
interesting twist, after bugging-out that Julie Carpenter was
infringing on his identity, his new black costume is clearly based on
hers.
Galactus hungers, and tries to eat the planet, cause that’s how he
rolls. Doom steals some of Beyonder’s power using lenses made of Klaw.
Doom fights and seemingly destroys/merges with the Beyonder, owning all
the magnificent power. Fight fight fight, battle battle, battle, and
finally the Beyonder takes his power back from Doom, the heroes all
live happily ever after, and Captain America rebuilds his Shield
through sheer force of will (wait, what?). Colossus’s hussy died, Ben
Grimm decided to stay in space, and She-Hulk joined the Fantastic Four
in his place. And thus, the saga ends.
This book is really notable for that last bit, where She-Hulk joins the
F4, and for the birth of the Symbiote costume. Reading it again made me
realize just how much this was structured like a modern shonen manga.
They just kept fighting, sometimes for issues at a time, and kept
fighting stronger and stronger foes. No one really won or lost in the
end, and aside from the aforementioned changes (temporary though they
were), nothing very lasting happened here. The greater battle, really,
and one that we now see yearly, is that of the crossovers between
Marvel and DC. Is this one of Marvel’s greatest stories? I’d have to
say no, honestly. However, it is one of the most memorable, for sure.
And just think, we never would’ve had Spider-Man 3 if it wasn’t for this book. Oh, wait…
Let's hear it - what are your memories of Secret Wars?
