» Blog Archive The Secrets of Wars. -

“There was nothing, followed by everything…swirling, burning specks of creation that circled life-giving suns. God Doom…created the light.”
-Rendition of Thor.

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This quote directly hit me after reading up on Marvel’s current “Secret Wars.” What makes this iteration different from writer Jim Shooter and artists Mike Zeck and Bob Layton’s Secret War run from 1984 to 1985?

While the 80’s version demonstrates the Beyonder taking interest in the concept of good vs. evil and having the heroes and villains slug it out within the realm of “BattleWorld” just to prove why these characters “do what they do”, this rendition by writer Jonathan Hickman and artist Esad Ribic takes Secret Wars and its BattleWorld on a whole different level. Do to the the incursion by “The Beyonders”, the last remaining universes of (616- Marvel Universe) and (1610-Ultimate) collide, thus causing a cataclysmic event that wipes out all of existing universes within the multiverse. Now, with the manifestation of this new “BattleWorld” what are the ramifications of this anomaly, and how does it affect the parallel dimensions that existed prior? After all, with such alternate worlds like Roy Thomas and John Buscema’s Squadron Supreme (Earth-712) along with Mark Millar and Steve McNiven’s Old Man Logan (Earth- 807128), do they now become null and void? After all, what happens to the acknowledgment of classic stories such as Iron Man’s: Demon in a Bottle or The Fantastic Fours: This Man, This Monster?

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I think with the insertion of Doctor Doom becoming an omnipotent God by traveling back in time to leave a mark of Godhood via 2001 a space odyssey style, and with the surviving members of 616 and 1610 (I.E.- The Cabal, and Reed Richards crew), we will conjure up an amalgamation of a whole new world for new readers, while the survivors serve as a bridged conduit to old readers. Think in terms of old Spock meeting new Spock, by which an alternate universe is created, but the existence of surviving characters does not necessarily mean that past memories are swept under the rug. Thus, what makes this 8 part Secret War event crucial, is that it is not merely a battle royal for the sake of our charismatic characters to fight, but a way to take Marvel in a direction that does not seem redundant. Sure, we have used so many imaginary excuses from 1961 to 2015 in regards to keeping our characters from dying off of old age do to the Marvel Universe being so “elastic.” Regardless, with so many super-natural events resurrecting our characters, the multitude of continuities always manage to stay in canon giving us a rich continuity to keep our stories marked and reserved. For those stories that were deemed out of canon, it was Alan Moore’s initiation of Earth-616 that gave us the multivariate universes thereby having these “what if?” creations become in existence some where out in the cosmos. Now with this current BattleWorld setting, we will notice a variety of kingdoms such as Doomgard that holds an unlimited army of “Thor’s”such as Roger Norvell, Beta Ray Bill, and a “Storm-Thor,” The question remains, are these counterparts from 616, or made up doppelgangers from the old 616 existence? The same goes for Brian Braddock (Captain Britain) and his Higher Avalon Kingdom. What perspective of Captain Britain is this deriving from? Either way, the ramifications here ultimately feed into our cravings of canonized continuities, and how our obsessions of multiverses preserve the created existence of every Marvel character we ever encountered. In the end, does every character and their tale have a place to dwell in, and how does Victor Von Doom’s dynamic of Law and Foundation or as the Sheriff of Agamatto would say “science called discovery, and religion called Doom” fit into complexity of BattleWorld? I suppose what it boils down to, how do we feed an ever increasing medium of evolving comics? In the end, the bending and twisting of multivarite universes is an experiment that we have to grin and bear in order to face innovation. Weather we call something a remake, reboot, canonization, a “what if?” or an alternate reality, its not until the aftermath of the “new” Secret War, that we will get to perceive the fate of the Marvel Universe.

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By: Adam Vega

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