The MCU's first animated show is premiering this week, and What If...? presents a literal multiverse of possibilities. Unfortunately, I don't have too many What If comics in my backlog right now, so I got the next best thing to celebrate the occasion. BACKGROUND:
The original Secret Wars from back in the '80s is a comic I'm rather familiar with, as it's one of the big crossover events I first learned about when I really got into comics lore. Needless to say, I was pretty excited back in 2015 when Marvel announced a new Secret Wars series, but was shocked at the scope of the story. The new Secret Wars meant to completely reshape the Marvel multiverse as readers knew it, and I really wanted to see that unfold at the time. Unfortunately, I never got the chance to read the comic in full back when it came out, but I did manage to piece together what happened by reading comics that were released after it. I'm really looking forward to this one. THE WRITING: Marvel's multiverse is collapsing, as the all-powerful Beyonders are destroying individual universes one after the other. Now, only two remain: the prime Marvel Universe (Earth-616) and the Ultimate Universe (Earth-1610). These remaining two universes are on a collision course; our familiar heroes on Earth-616 are scrambling to save what they can, while Maker (the evil version of Reed Richards from Earth-1610) takes the more aggressive approach and attacks the other universe in an attempt to survive. All seems pointless as both worlds are lost... but it's replaced by something completely new. The reality that exists now is a mishmash of what remained of several destroyed dimensions, called Battleworld. Some fragments are familiar, like regions that contain key areas of both Earth-616 and Earth-1610. Others go all in on the weird alternate reality aspect, like a region filled with an army of Thors. Regardless, all of Battleworld is overseen by none other than Doctor Doom, who has become an omnipotent god with full domain over this new reality. Battleworld is full of strange places and twisted versions of familiar Marvel characters and concepts, like the Worldbreakers (an army of Hulks), the Deadlands (a wasteland that contains classic threats like Ultron and the Annihilation Wave), and a Susan Storm that's apparently married Doctor Doom. Unfortunately, there's not a lot of time to explore all this, as an assortment of heroes and villains from the old realities have found themselves on Battleworld, and with Doctor Doom keen on maintaining order on his domain, conflict brews almost immediately. This comic is a wild ride from start to finish, since it starts immediately with multiversal cataclysm, and it's followed quickly by a completely new reality where nothing you know about Marvel quite applies. There's a lot going on, and it also requires a bit of prerequisite knowledge of previous comics (stuff like the Cabal's existence and such is barely explained within the comic). There were points in the book where I had to momentarily stop to process what was happening; sometimes, these moments came about because I thought "holy shit, this is so wild", while other instances were moments where I was actually briefly confused due to some elements of the story being glossed over. As I mentioned, this version of Battleworld has so many interesting aspects to it, but this main comic barely scratches the surface of all it has to offer. If you want to get a sense of how weird this reality can get, you unfortunately have to explore the many tie-in comics to this event, and even I've only read a few of them. That said, this main comic does show off a few cool things, like the fact that the Marvel Zombies exist in this reality, and a badass version of The Thing. A lot of the key things about what actually happened are also explained somewhat sufficiently, like how Battleworld came to be, and how the initial collapse of the multiverse started (though again, you'll have to fill some of the gaps by reading some older comic series). The main conflict of Doom vs. the heroes is a tale as old as time, but there is quite a bit of nuance to it. Doctor Doom didn't simply ascend to godhood to satisfy his megalomania; there was a certain necessity to his actions, but of course, his selfishness and insecurities are still very much present. His opposition has more straightforward goals: restore the universe to the way it was. The most interesting foils in particular to Doom in this story (in my view, anyway) were Mister Fantastic (of course), Thanos (who challenges Doom's idea of godhood), and Doctor Strange (who plays a key role in the birth of Battleworld). Outside of Battleworld itself, there's a good number of jaw-dropping moments in the story, but in the interest of saving surprises for would-be readers, I won't give them away here. THE ART: Secret Wars has fantastic art across the board. Firstly, the cover art for each main issue was done by Alex Ross, one of the most iconic comic artists I know. His unmistakable realistic style is in full force in each cover, and I never get tired of looking at his art. The interior art also has a somewhat realistic style, but the coloring and shading style is quite distinct. It feels like it was roughly colored and shaded in with pencil, and I found myself really enjoying the very texture of the art (especially with some of the more memorable splash pages). Some panels don't quite abide by this style, though, but those instances don't really feel out of place unless you look closely. VERDICT: Secret Wars has a premise that promises a tale of epic proportions: universes being destroyed, an amalgam of shattered dimensions coming to be, and all manner of alternate versions of things popping up. Though there's sometimes too much going on at once (and a few things aren't 100% explored), I really enjoyed this story; this take on Battleworld has so many interesting facets to it (even if only a fraction of it is only explored in the comic), there were a lot of awesome moments, and I'm always down for a story where Doctor Doom is the main antagonist. I really don't think this is a friendly jumping-in point for people who are not as well-versed in comics, because a lot of the setup for this event is done in previous comic series. That said, if you kinda know what's going on, or you simply don't mind not knowing 100% of the details, I think this is a perfect taste of what a multiverse-spanning story looks like in Marvel Comics. Check out Secret Wars on Comixology: Secret Wars - Comics by comiXology - end -
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June 2024
Derryck
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