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Post by urrutiap on Feb 28, 2018 21:03:15 GMT -5
Back in the day I was too young to even know about the original Secet Wars comic series but i did see the action figures in stores though.
I was reading Uncanny X Men issues 181 and 182 earlier tonight and now Im curious about the original Secret Wars.
So what exactly went on during the original Secret Wars anyway?
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Post by rberman on Feb 28, 2018 21:48:44 GMT -5
1) In brief, it was a twelve issue slugfest in which an extradimensional idiot-god, the Beyonder, transported lots of heroes and villains to Battleworld so they could duke it out. They separated into four teams: Heroes, X-Men (including Magneto, which was a novel thought at the time), Villains, and Galactus. There was some sparring back and forth. Eventually, Dr. Doom stole power from Galactus' ship, then leveraged that tech to steal the Beyonder's power, essentially making himself God. He immediately incinerated all the heroes. But he couldn't defeat his own fear that Captain America can come back from anything, so he kept subconsciously bringing Cap back to life, and eventually Cap was able to slug Doom and return things more or less to normal. Everybody got teleported home with some minor differences such as: Thing stayed on Battleworld for a while and had adventures with the native humanoids. She-Hulk replaced him in the Fantastic Four. Spider-Man got a new black suit that turned out to be the evil sentient alien we know as Venom. Colossus fell in love with a local girl, causing him to dump Kitty Pryde (this was mandated by Jim Shooter, who said Colossus was too old for her). Little things like that. 2) What was it really about? Marvel had signed a deal with a toy company to make figurines. The toy company did market research and found that the two favorite words of grade school boys, the target toy audience, were "Secret" and "Wars." So Marvel agreed to make a series called "Secret Wars" to showcase the characters who would appear in the line of Secret Wars toys. 3) It's been suggested that the subtext of the series plot is that the Beyonder represents its author, Marvel's Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter. In theory, he has infinite powers over the Marvel Universe. But in practice, a bit of a dunderhead, constantly beset by the beings nominally under his control, unable to prevent them from running amuck and trying to take his job. Shooter had previously written a similar story for Avengers #200, featuring Marcus, the son of Immortus, who had reality-bending powers but was sadly misunderstood by the heroes. Then in "Secret Wars II" a couple of years later, the Beyonder came to earth with a Jheri Curl and a white puffy jacket and tried to figure out what it means to be human, by messing with the lives of all the heroes further. It all got very meta, and pretty intrusive with the plots of the various books. (For instance, the Beyonder murdered all of the New Mutants to study death or something, and after he resurrected them, they were traumatized and dysfunctional, and Magneto gave up trying to teach them.)  |
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Post by codystarbuck on Feb 28, 2018 22:29:17 GMT -5
At the heart of it, it was pro wrestling with comic book characters. Bring them together and let them fight. Some aspects went beyond that, most didn't. It had good sales, though those numbers were skewed, a bit, by the inclusion of the comic with the toy packaging (the first issue, anyway). In terms of story, it lacked the depth of Crisis on Infinite Earths, which had a real peril to it, which moved the story along better. Shooter was a decent hand at cosmic stuff (Korvac Saga, for one); but, this wasn't as deeply developed going into it as Crisis was. It was a toy tie-in. Now, with Secret Wars II, he had more definite ideas, though readers seem to prefer the looser 1st series. Personally, neither did much for me; but, then again, most of Marvel's output in that period wasn't grabbing my attention (I kind of missed out on Simonson's Thor, on the initial outing, due to not being much of a fan of the character; but, once I saw some of it in collected form, became a fan).
In that era, I felt DC did the epic crossover better, which was ironic, since Marvel was the one who did the big sagas. Of course, the people who did those best at Marvel, were now working for DC, with editorial encouragement and some financial participation. Amazing how that aids success.
For me, that was the era when I was discovering the indie world and was gravitating to things like Jon Sable and Nexus, though Crisis got my attention and many of the works that followed, at DC (for varying periods).
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Post by badwolf on Feb 28, 2018 22:29:50 GMT -5
Shooter had previously written a similar story for Avengers #200, featuring Marcus, the son of Immortus, who had reality-bending powers but was sadly misunderstood by the heroes. I thought the Korvac saga was the clear parallel. |
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Post by rberman on Feb 28, 2018 22:44:19 GMT -5
Shooter had previously written a similar story for Avengers #200, featuring Marcus, the son of Immortus, who had reality-bending powers but was sadly misunderstood by the heroes. I thought the Korvac saga was the clear parallel. Yes, Korvac and Marcus and Immortus are kinda tied up together. I previously mentioned here in another thread about the Immortus story started by John Byrne and finished by Roy Thomas in which Immortus’s bosses showed up and told him what a terrible job he was doing in keeping comics continuity straight, and he got demoted. It seemed like a pretty clear jab at Shooter. |
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Feb 28, 2018 22:46:37 GMT -5
It was about selling toys via a nonsensical story.
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Feb 28, 2018 23:30:08 GMT -5
At the heart of it, it was pro wrestling with comic bok characters. Bring them together and let them fight. Some aspects went beyond that, most didn't. It had good sales, though those numbers were skewed, a bit, by the inclusion of the comic with the toy packaging (the first issue, anyway). In terms of story, it lacked the depth of Crisis on Infinite Earths, which had a real peril to it, which moved the story along better. Ok, I can see your point... but Secret Wars was a much, much better story. Crisis was IMPORTANT to CONTINUITY and really did give a sense of monumentous scope, while Perez' art in Crisis really doesn't have an equal in comics. I see why Crisis is fondly remembered. But the story was the most basic "Good Guys vs. Bad Guy who's motivation is BWAHAHAHA Evil" plot possible and the narrative beats were a mishmash of nonsense where things... just.... happened. Secret Wars didn't have a thru-plot the way Crisis did* but it had characters you could care about (sans prior reading) with discernable motivations that mattered to the narrative, a sense of fun/humor, and great visual beats - "Beneath 150 Billion Tons Stands the Hulk - And He's Not Happy!" I'd totally recommend Secret Wars if you can find a trade/digital for cheap. |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 1, 2018 1:28:45 GMT -5
rberman ... Nice write up ... "1) In brief, it was a twelve issue slugfest in which an extradimensional idiot-god, the Beyonder," ... I agree with this 100%
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Post by foxley on Mar 1, 2018 2:16:28 GMT -5
It was about 12 issues long.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 1, 2018 2:27:39 GMT -5
It was a warmed over plot using a cosmic MacGuffin to get costumes fighting each other-usually they use the Grandmaster, but since they had already done that under Shooter's reign just a few years prior to Secret Wars with COntest of Champions, they had to create some other cosmic MacGuffin to get the heroes and villains to make unlikely alliances and beat up on each other. Contest of Champions cover dated June 1982...  Secret Wars cover dated May 1984...  take away the logos and they are essentially the same thing, a group shot of Marvel Heroes gathered to do battle... but Marvel doing repetitive events every couple of years is only a thing with modern Marvel... -M |
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Post by MWGallaher on Mar 1, 2018 7:05:31 GMT -5
Side note: DC had announced Tony Isabella's upcoming miniseries The Secret War of Hawkman months earlier, when Marvel's maxi-series was being developed under a different name, "Cosmic Champions." Marvel used the name before DC could publish it, so Katar Hol returned in The Shadow War of Hawkman, instead. I know at least some people thought Marvel had nicked the title from Tony's book, with Mattel's supposed insistence on "Secret" a convenient explanation.
I think "Shadow War" was an even cooler title for the Hawkman revival, so no complaints from me.
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Post by Icctrombone on Mar 1, 2018 7:16:58 GMT -5
It was a guilty pleasure for fans that wanted to see their favorite heroes all in one book. I think it was the first Crossover in the Marvel U that had them all there. This 12 issue mini is one of their top sellers of all time.
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Post by Nowhere Man on Mar 1, 2018 7:44:59 GMT -5
Secret Wars had some good character moments (primarily Doctor Doom and the Hulk) but it was indeed little more than an excuse to promote a toy line and to one-up DC's plans that eventually became Crisis. It ushered in my least favorite aspect of comics: the line-wide event. Also, outside the solid character moments previously mentioned, it was written in a style that often bordered on infantile. Most Marvel comics of the era would be considered "all-ages" by modern standards, but this series took overwriting and over-explanation to a new level. I get it on one hand--it was geared not only to comic fans, but to an even younger audience that they hoped to sell toys to. However this was not some of Shooter's best Marvel writing. It paled in comparison to his solid Avengers run, for instance.
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Post by brutalis on Mar 1, 2018 7:50:50 GMT -5
It was about making money. Whether by selling a comic or a toy. Bottom line was dollars. And we bought the cosmic Kool-Aid big time! But it was tasty fun Kool-Aid at the time.
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Post by rberman on Mar 1, 2018 8:10:35 GMT -5
At the heart of it, it was pro wrestling with comic bok characters. Bring them together and let them fight. Some aspects went beyond that, most didn't. It had good sales, though those numbers were skewed, a bit, by the inclusion of the comic with the toy packaging (the first issue, anyway). In terms of story, it lacked the depth of Crisis on Infinite Earths, which had a real peril to it, which moved the story along better. Ok, I can see your point... but Secret Wars was a much, much better story. Crisis was IMPORTANT to CONTINUITY and really did give a sense of monumentous scope, while Perez' art in Crisis really doesn't have an equal in comics. I see why Crisis is fondly remembered. But the story was the most basic "Good Guys vs. Bad Guy who's motivation is BWAHAHAHA Evil" plot possible and the narrative beats were a mishmash of nonsense where things... just.... happened. Secret Wars didn't have a thru-plot the way Crisis did* but it had characters you could care about (sans prior reading) with discernable motivations that mattered to the narrative, a sense of fun/humor, and great visual beats - "Beneath 150 Billion Tons Stands the Hulk - And He's Not Happy!" Somebody around here ought to do an issue-by-issue on Crisis. I might get around to it myself, but there are a few other topics I plan to cover first. |
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