Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars [Paperback]

Lets not beat about the bush, this book is long. I loved every panel. The artwork is wonderful and the storyline is exciting from start to finish. There is a minor lull in the middle and you may be frustrated by the absence of some characters but the climax is stunning and entirely believable. Beware though, it will make you want to buy every story running up to "Secret Wars" to understand all the motivations of both the heroes and villains.
Simply wonderful.

I always read marvel comics as a child but sort of lost my way as i got older. My younger brother re-kindled my intrest recently with his ever increasing collection of vintage comics and graphic novels. I decided secret wars was a great way of re-introducing myself to the marvel universe, partly because of the amount of characters on veiw and partly because this particular story had stuck with me from my childhood. Needless to say i was not disappointed. The story moves along at a good pace with twists and turns. Even after all these years it holds up well. My only feeling of frustration is that with so many characters in one place none of them were given enough plot time or aloud to show their full characters. still, this does not take away from what is a great story and as i understand it the first marvel cross over. I would highly recommend secret wars to anyone as i feel theres something for everyone here. My only problem now is with so many intersting characters, who do i read about next? Happy reading.

There are two stories that account for the origins of Secret Wars

The first is the one that you'll find on-line at the likes of Wikipedia, the gospel according to Jim Shooter

" Kenner had licensed the DC Heroes. Mattel had He-Man, but wanted to hedge in case superheroes became the next big fad. They were interested in Marvel's characters, but only if we staged a publishing event that would get a lot of attention, and they could build a theme around. Fans, especially young fans often suggested to me 'one big story with all the heroes and all the villains in it', so I proposed that. It flew. Mattel thought that kids responded well to the word, "secret" so after a couple of working names bit the dust, we called the story 'Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars' "

There's another version that you won't hear so much these days but which was considered to be the likelier version when it was first floated out at the time Secret Wars initially debuted. According to that, Shooter had been involved in the discussions over various cross-company team ups, notably the aborted JLA/Avengers team-up that was to have been pencilled by George Perez from a script by Gerry Conway, and got wind that DC was planning a major event involving the entire DC Universe starting in early 1985, and for which DC needed Perez to be free. All Shooter could glean, allegedly, was that it would involve all the major DC heroes and would be a then novel 12 part maxi-series to run for a year. So Shooter decided that he would pre-empt the DC series, which became Crisis on Infinite Earths, by doing his own version of such a project.

I remember when the first issue came out and a friend of mine came into our student digs with it in his hot little hands, all excited at this series that Shooter had been huckstering for months beforehand. He settled down in his chair and started turning the pages. Ten minutes later he got up and with a sad, solemn look on his face very carefully tore the issue in two.

It's not difficult to see why. To get the pro's out of the way - Mike Zeck and Bob Layton's artwork is tremendous. Using a free-er pencilling style than the incredibly detailed Perez on Crisis he gives a real sense of dynamism to the characters that have been assembled for this series. You get a feeling of multiple villains and heroes in motion from the artwork. Bob Layton steps in for two issues to help out mid-way through and he manages the same standard, indeed improves on it a little with more tightly controlled facial expressions. Together they bring a sense of brio to the project - it is easy to follow the story from the art alone.

Indeed, I recommend you do, because Shooter's writing kills the pace stone dead. It's as if he's been bitten by a radioactive type-writer - every character's slightest twist of psychology or frame of mind is rendered with heavy worded thought bubbles, sometimes doubled up to really get over what they are thinking. The X Men are particularly egregious - Piotr Rasputin lies around in bed for issue upon issue agonising over potential girlfriends and Storm just won't stop nagging Professor X in her mind whilst rarely saying a word out loud. Dr Doom, by contrast, never shuts up, monologue upon monologue until, in a truly hilarious moment, he reveals that he actually tapes every word he ever says for the benefit of posterity. Presumably as some sort of future cure for insomnia.
The characters are handled variably.

Shooter certainly has little time for the Holocaust surviving, mutant-defending version of Magneto. His version is caught somewhere between the maniac Stan Lee originally created and Claremont's scarred anti-hero and as a result when he tries to foreshadow events in the main title - with Xavier and Magneto teaming up to form a third force between the villains on one side and the heroes on the other - one wonders about the good Professor's grasp of reality rather than nodding with acceptance at the inevitability. But then Charles Xavier is equally strangely portrayed - it's as if Shooter has decided to demonstrate in this series quite why mutants are regarded with suspicion by superheroes whose powers are equally as strange and dangerous. It works, to be fair, but it is out of step with most versions of the team post 1975 and can be quite a surprise.

The Avengers are all over the place. Cap is, as always, genuinely heroic, wise and an incredible leader of men - which is just right. However, the casual reader might wonder what the heck is going on with Iron Man - the dialogue makes clear that it's not Tony in the armour but we never get any clear indication who is except that he's black and considers himself a bit of a lady's man. Of course, its Jim Rhodes at this time in the Marvel Universe but we never see his face and as a result it comes over as a bit insensitive - as if Kenner didn't want a visual of Rhodey in the armour so Shooter had to fill in the gaps with the dialogue. Thor pops in and out of the story as particular situations require and, worst of all, The Wasp is rendered as a ditz, as likely to worry about her hairstyle as that she's face-to-face with the Lizard and The Hulk has, for some strange reason, Dr Banner's brain in his head. That latter is actually quite interesting - it gives a nasty arrogance to the big green brute that works very well.

Three of the four Fantastics are present, Sue being with-child at the time, but whilst Reed is rendered well - the only being present whom Galactus will deign to acknowledge being a nice touch - Ben switches between being and not-being the thing in a dizzy progression whilst Johnny is a babe-obsessed stud muffin. Mind you, at least he gets something to do unlike his long-standing best enemy, because short of getting a new suit Spidey does little more than stand leap around like a jerk.

But if the heroes are schizophrenic compared to their norms, many of the villains are clichéd. Doom gets a motivation but all the other big name baddies - Doc Ock, the Enchantress, Kang - do little more than what they usually do for no readily apparent reason and it's the second tier villains - Shooter's own creations Titania and Volcana in particular - that get more time in the sun. The Molecule Man gets played up big-time, the Wrecking Crew go through various traumas and The Lizard wigs out for a couple of issues due to some interesting character interplay that ultimately leads nowhere.

And therein lies the real problem with this series. It takes place in a bubble - aside from Spidey's aforementioned new costume nothing that happens in this series has any long term effects. When a major character dies half-way through the reader is aware that, unlike in Crisis, it won't last into the mainstream Marvel Universe. Another quits his team to stay behind on the war-world, yet again the reader is aware that this is a minor shake-up in a team renowned even then for adding various individuals for a time and then re-setting to the original. It's a series that can be read, and enjoyed, in isolation and if I were wanting to introduce someone to the rich panoply of the Marvel Universe this would be a book I would recommend.

Yet it lacks the ambition of any of the Distinguished Competition's crossover projects. Even the lamer ones over there attempt some sort of shake-up and change to the DC Universe as a whole, however misguided that might be. Here the ultimate aim seems to be to change as little as possible. That would be fair enough but there were other things Shooter could have done. Here was an excellent opportunity to demonstrate what made for a hero, or a villain, in the Marvel Universe for example, or to give the definitive portrayals of the main characters instead of the schizoid versions we find here. Because he doesn't do that it becomes an exercise in " who's fighting who this issue ?", as shallow as watching a ten year old playing with his action figures. It probably helped shift a lot of toys but alas memorable scenes, let alone lines of dialogue, are few and far between.

So for the old hand this is a missed opportunity that suggests Marvel, at the time, lacked the ambition to do more than sell comics or toy concessions. For someone new to comics, it's a perfectly adequate and entertaining series. And if you're a parent looking for something to entertain your child for a long period of time, it's perfect.