Comixfan Forums - COMICS FOR DUMMIES #22: BEYOND THE SECRET WAR(S)

<img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/logos/cfdlogo.jpg" hspace=10 align=left border=0 alt="Comics For Dummies logo">By Raul Grau, RJacknite@aol.com

Beyond the Secret War(s)

If a War is fought, and the comic book series based upon that War sells a few hundred thousand copies per issue, then can it still be called a Secret? That was just one of the many questions faced by Secret Wars, the action-packed fight fest that created a brand name (technically, it borrowed the name from some action figures, but we will get to that shortly). Twenty years later, the current Secret War began, with the talent more impressive, but the sales figures less so (compare $3.99 to 75 cents, and you will soon figure out why). Now we find ourselves a year and a half into the war that would not end (the fictional current one, not the real current one), so it is time to look back at the previous pluralized Wars, and determine which of their past mistakes will be repeated this time.

Depending on who you ask, Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars (or, as I will refer to it for the rest of this installment, simply Secret Wars... my fingers tire easily) was either a marketing stunt built upon the foundation of an action figure line (toys for boys are action figures, never dolls) or a preemptive strike against the Distinguished Competition... how dare DC try to invent the maxiseries format first? You see, Mattel had envisioned a new Marvel toy line (coincidentally called Secret Wars), set to compete with the new Super Powers brand... how dare DC try to dominate the action figure market? Jim Shooter (the world's tallest Editor-in-Chief), in a burst of synergy (before that particular buzzword was even invented), decided to manufacture a crossover in order to better market toys (toys with neat shields with moving images embedded inside, granted, but they were still toys). DC had already announced their 12-issue opus, Crisis on Infinite Earths, but it was still months away, so Marvel had to find a way to hit shelves first... and they succeeded... by skimping on the story.

Imagine for a moment that you are God. You've got the whole universe in your hands, to paraphrase the song. Except, instead of being one of those 'creative' gods, you are content to sit back (non-corporeally speaking), relax, and remain the only entity in your particular realm of existence. Then, one day, you happen to notice another universe, filled with strange beings (let's call them 'people', for the sake of this discussion), who regularly go around 'doing' things and 'wanting' things... you would, of course, be confused. So you observe them for a few years, watching them 'do' things, and then it occurs to you how strange these incomplete beings are, filled with their 'wants' and 'desires'. You now desire to study this 'desire' thingee, and come up with the perfect means to do so... transport over fifty Earth superheroes and supervillains (and one Galactus) to a mish-mosh planet constructed of cities stolen from various worlds, and force the aforementioned heroes and villains (and Galactus) to fight to the death for an ill-defined prize... personally, I would have just asked one of them to explain desire to me and that would have been the end of it, but there is no credible way to stretch that to twelve issues.

With plot in hand, Jim Shooter selected the best writer he knew... himself... and set about orchestrating the comic book equivalent of an Itchy & Scratchy cartoon. The heroes fought the villains, the heroes fought the heroes, the villains fought the villains, and people died over and over again (Captain America alone was killed three times). It might seem that the perpetual battle was pointless, but the emotional toil on the characters was obvious, as every one of them began ending all of their sentences with exclamation points... for example, when Spider-Man said 'I'm starved! I'm going to find me a snack!' in the twelfth issue, he said it with as much force and conviction as anyone truly desperate for a snack could exclaim. The unnecessary punctuation and exaggerated pummeling continued until Doctor Doom (the maverick of the supervillain set) snuck into the realm of the Beyonder (that godly plot device who started this whole mess), and usurped his nigh infinite power. Fortunately for the heroic community at large, Doom's own neurosis proved his downfall (a bit hard to remain omnipotent when you keep accidentally resurrecting your foes), and the heroes (well, Mr. Fantastic, the only one among them with a chance of figuring out a way home) figured out a way home.

Along the way, there were many (a few) major changes that had a profound (brief) impact on the Marvel Universe forever (a few months). The Hulk was critically injured by Klaw (the nose-less master of noise), and became reliant on a leg brace and crutch... for almost two issues of his ongoing series. Colossus (separated from his longtime love interest Kitty Pryde by a few billion light years) fell in love with the healer Zsaji... who died, and was soon forgotten by everyone, including Colossus. The Thing shocked his teammates by remaining behind on Battleworld, where he found control over his transformations, both guaranteeing She-Hulk the coveted fourth spot in the perpetually Fantastic Four and justifying the existence of his solo title... for about fourteen issues, then he returned to Earth.

Not to say that Secret Wars was without lasting ramifications... it had a few, and that is certainly more than most crossovers. We were first introduced to the second Spider-Woman (at present, we are up to four), Titania (who has the honor of being the archnemesis of She-Hulk), and Volcana, Marvel's first only-slightly overweight female character, who enjoyed ridicule at the hands of her fellow villains (the Enchantress once referred to her as the 'bloated one'), before settling down with a scrawny, scarred recovering supercriminal... strange how out of the three fresh females, Volcana has racked up the least appearances since... Marvel and Mix-A-Lot might not mix.

Then there was that mysterious black Spidey costume you might have heard something about. You know, the black costume Peter Parker stumbled upon when he mistakenly used the wrong machine to repair his standard red/blue attire (there is never a label maker around when you need one), which later began to slowly corrode his psyche, forcing him to web-sling in his sleep (sleep-sling?). The same black costume that turned out to be an alien symbiote with the emotionally maturity of Glen Close in Fatal Attractions, which, after being spurned by Parker, dedicated itself to his annihilation. The aforementioned black costume that bonded to a depressed former reporter, transforming him into Venom, a character so popular that his artist, Todd McFarlane, was elevated to superstar status, allowing him to found his own multimedia empire. Therefore, among his other missteps here, Jim Shooter is at least partially responsible for the movie Spawn... how does he sleep at night?

Unfortunately, even with all of the outfit upgrades just lying about, none of the heroes or villains ever found little shields (with moving images embedded inside), because then we would have understood why their action figure equivalents were carrying those. Still, you could accurately replicate all of the events of Secret Wars using those toys... you did not even need to read the series itself to know what would happen... just stage meaningless battles between random characters, and you have captured the formula.

Whereas Crisis would later turn out to be a true epic, making use of the entirety of the DC Universe while simultaneously redefining its existence forever, Secret War was one long fight scene... basically Contest of Champions, but nine issues longer. On the plus side, while Crisis periodically wandered off into plotlines soon left permanently dangled, Secret Wars was meticulously plotted... though I guess that it would need to be, since the few major events that took place were spoiled for the readers months in advance.

The problem was unfortunately one of time management. Secret Wars consisted of twelve monthly issues, so the entire tale took (let's see, twelve issues... one per month... twelve months in a year... carry the one...) a full year to tell. However, if was determined that twelve issues (one of them double-sized) were not enough Wars for your average comic book reader, so several regular Marvel titles crossed over with the violent goings-on. Unfortunately, these tie-in chapters mainly consisted of the starring hero being transported to Battleworld at the end of one issue, and then returning to Earth in the next. Even more unfortunately, these crossover issues were released throughout the run of Secret Wars, so you would see characters return unscathed from the supposedly massive battle, destroying the tiny shred of belief that War might have casualties. Finally, most unfortunately of all, any changes that took place during the maxiseries, from the Thing-less Fantastic Four to the monochromatic Spidey-suit, were revealed months before they actually took place. In a way, that might make you interested in reading on to learn how these shifts had come about... however, in a much larger way, they rendered a moot story all the more moot.

A year later, Marvel tried a different tact with Secret Wars II, making each crossover issue integral to the main story... so nothing of the miniseries was spoiled by reading the tie-in titles, but, at the same time, nothing of the miniseries was decipherable without reading the tie-in titles... all thirty-three of them. The cast of characters expanded beyond a mere few dozen, as everyone from Rom to The Micronauts was drafted into these Wars... and even some other characters whom you might have heard of. However, the whole of Secret Wars II can be summed up in just one sentence... in this crossover, Spider-Man teaches the Beyonder how to go potty.

You see, the Beyonder eventually realized that observing a few Earthlings as they pummel each other teaches you very little about the human condition... other than that we occasionally like to pummel each other. This time he manifested himself in physical form to experience life on Earth directly, and got into all of the wacky misadventures that corporeal bodies come with. Since his previous experience was all with beings of the superpowered variety, Beyonder followed a few superheroes around, pestering them with questions about everything from the meaning of life (33 crossover books + 9 issue miniseries = 42... Deep Thought would be proud) to the meaning of bladder pressure (hence the restroom chapter). He was trained in the ways of the world by increasingly bizarre companions, including a homeless woman, a local crime boss, a hooker (with her requisite heart of gold), and Boom Boom (who in their right mind listens to Boom Boom?). He took over the planet, tried to seduce Dazzler, eliminated Death (both the state and the being), adopted a Michael Jackson jerry curl, punctuated his thoughts with exclamation points, and engaged in pointless battles... so, basically, he experienced all that Marvel had to offer.

In the end, he decided that immortality was cramping his mortality lesson, so he transformed himself into a human infant... you know that whole moral quandary about killing Hitler as a baby? Well, apparently, some heroes have no problem with the consequences. Beyonder was later reborn (first as a Cosmic Cube-in-waiting, then as a cosmic entity in distress, and, most recently, as a cosmic crackpot in Thanos), but the count of Secret Wars never reached III. However, II did create a new breed of crossover, where every chapter is essential and every title is involved, no matter how tenuous the connection (I admit it... I own the Terror, Inc issue that tangentially tied-in to Infinity Crusade, but I'm not proud of it).

If only there were a way to recapture the marketing buzz of Secret Wars, but without the Beyonder and his jerry curl. A miniseries, but with fewer issues. A crossover, but with the absolute minimum of crossover parts. Exclamation points, but less of them (perhaps giving the writing chores to someone with a knack for natural speech). Pointless battles, but with enough brain candy to make one almost believe that the fighting is necessary. Come to think of it, the pluralization needs to go too... there was only one War being fought at a time, after all.

Last year, Brian Michael Bendis presented us with the Twenty-First Century model of what a Secret War should be... one fought without spandex-filled Battleworlds, but with political ideologies that force leaders to engage in international incidents without considering the possible ramifications... just like in real life. This time, Nick Fury plays the role of omnipotent being (the man is frighteningly well connected, after all), gathering a secret cadre of heroes (basically, the ones Bendis likes best), and sending them to violate a few treaty laws. It seems that the nation of Latveria (stomping ground of Doctor Doom, everyone's favorite power usurper) has been funding technology-based villains (surprising enough, even Paste Pot Pete) for some mysterious (but certainly sinister) purpose. Fury leads his forces into foreign territory, where they... ummm... do something, and then something bad happened, it seems... the details are still a bit fuzzy on that point.

A year later (in comic time, not ours), the heroes of Fury's Secret War are being attacked individually, but they also do not seem to recall taking a day trip to Latveria. The assault on the semi-powerful Power Man (Luke Cage to his friends) leads his very-pregnant, very-bitter girlfriend, Jessica Jones, to do some frantic investigating over in the pages of The Pulse, another title penned by Bendis. That is the extent of the crossover this time around, which is a refreshing change of pace, but has its own drawbacks. Gabriele Dell'Otto provides darkly rich paintings on each page of the main series, and seeing those same moments replicated by Pulse artist Brent Anderson was... ummm... I'm not saying that Anderson is not a talented artist as well, but... well, compare an issue of Watchmen to an installment of Comics For Dummies: both are enjoyable (at least I hope so), but one is clearly superior to the other (and I am not nearly enough of an egomaniac to side with myself).

Still, even with only one crossover title, Secret War has created the same problem faced by the War with an s... well, one of the problems (Bendis is leaving the exclamation points at a minimum). We have all been told that this War takes place before the events of New Avengers (yet another of the Bendis line of titles), which just so happens to feature nearly the same cast as the folks currently engaging in Warfare (these really are the heroes that he likes best), so there goes the suspense. Unless Luke Cage is replaced by an identical clone after dying from his massive injuries (which has actually been known to happen), then any aftereffects have already been factored into the status quo. Yet another War has been effectively rendered moot... though this one does have Dell'Otto art, so we can afford some patience.

Speaking of patience, Secret War has redefined comic books in a very profound way... before this series came along, a quarterly release schedule meant that an issue was released once every three months, not once in a while. Quite impressive delays have plagued the run, and, in place of a finale, we have recently been treated to From the Files of Nick Fury, which is the comic book equivalent of a clip show. The War itself is now scheduled to end in September (I assume of this year), and while an endless war would be more realistic, I am still eager to see the story reach its end... if for no other reason than to pave the way for Secret War II, in which Nick Fury returns with a jerry curl, and needs Spider-Man to teach him how to go potty.

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Raul Grau believes that all punctuation marks have their place, but that not every sentence need end with an exclamation point! He feels that the added emphasis would prove detrimental to keeping a Secret War secret!

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The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and are not reflective of Comixfan or its other staff in general.