Given the kind of articles I write,
I would say that it’s a safe bet that most of the people who regularly read
them are up to date on their comic book news and know that Marvel is starting
their first full scale reboot through a revival of their Secret Wars series, a series released in the early 80s and was the
first major crossover event in comic book history, and with the first issue of
the revival having been released this week it seemed like as good as a time as
any to talk about this classic series.
Like many other people, I often find the development and creation of
certain forms of art to be just as interesting, (sometimes more interesting),
then the work itself and the original Secret
Wars is no exception to this. You
see during the 80s, there was something of a resurgence in the popularity of
action figures, thanks to popular series like He-Man or the Transformers
and it was only a matter of time before someone made the connection that comic
book characters would probably make a pretty good toy line. When someone finally made that connection,
however, they demanded that Marvel produce a line of comics in order to promote
said toy line and what the publishers came up with was the Secret Wars series and both Marvel and the entire medium were
changed forever as a result.
The setup, by today’s standards is
about as stock as you can get. Various
heroes and villains from the Marvel universe including Spider-Man, the X-Men, Magneto
Iron Man, Hulk, The Avengers, The Fantastic Four, Doctor Doom, Doctor Octopus,
the Lizard, Ultron, Kang Galactus, and Molecule Man are called to central park
by a mysterious force that they cannot understand and are transported to a
distant planet known today as Battleworld by a mysterious being known as The
Beyonder where he demands that both sides slay one another in order to obtain
their heart’s desire. Under the command
of Captain America, the heroes fought against the villains in order to survive
and find a way back home as Doctor Doom leads the villains in order to pursue a
greater prize that will put the entire universe at his mercy.
If there is one thing that I can say
about this comic, it’s that it’s anything but a by the numbers heroes vs.
villains story as it’s full of twists and turns and character development that
one would not expect from a comic of this time.
Throughout the story, both Doom and Galactus throw curveballs at both
the heroes and villains and it requires both sides to think beyond fighting one
another in order to obtain the Beyonder’s reward. A particular highlight is Doom and his
attempts to use both the heroes and villains as pawns in order to obtain both Galactus’
and the Beyonder’s power.
The thing that really caught me off
guard is how well the characters are developed in this series. If there is one problem that I have with
modern event comics, it’s that they tend to be so focused on the big battles
that are going on that character development is often thrown right out the
window but Secret Wars doesn’t do
this and shows us the effect being ripped away to a far off planet has on them as
well in chaining them in ways that would have long term effects in the Marvel
Universe. Rouge, for example, has to
decide if she had made the right decision to become a hero and if she wishes to
stay with the X-Men for good, (Rouge was originally a villain who recently made
the switch to hero when this comic was being published). Cyclops had recently returned to the X-Men
and Professor X had regained the ability to walk and all three frequently clash
over the leadership of the X-Men as a result and show that by the time the
story ends that this is an issue that will remain as Colossus faces a major
temptation from his relationship with Kitty on Earth.
The Fantastic Four also have to
decide if they even want to win the Beyonder’s game due to what Galactus would
gain if he should win and grapple with the weight of this decision. Spider-Man gets the setup to a great future
villain with his new costume as Hulk slowly reverts to his more savage self
after a stint where Banner could control himself in the Hulk form. The comic also seems fit to address Rhodey’s
own personal insecurities about being Iron Man, (Stark was taking a break from
the superhero game for a while), as Magneto slowly seems to understand that
working with heroes and doing things their way may not be such a bad way to do
things.
The dynamics between the characters
is also fantastic as no one really seems to work all that well together. A major theme of the X-Men has been that
they’re a hated and persecuted group and once upon a time this was something
that even affected members of the Fantastic Four and The Avengers. As a result, the teams frequently clash with
one another, with several showing their own hatred of mutants and distain of
the mutant race. The only main downside
is that the villains get the short end of the stick, not getting nearly as much
development as the heroes. The only
characters who get any real development, outside of Doom and Galactus are The
Molecule Man and new villain Volcana as the former slow gets back into the gig
of fighting and using his powers had has a pretty decent payoff. He also has a romantic subplot with Volcana
and for the time this comic was release it does come off as a bit cute.
Unfortunately, if there is one thing
that has resonated in my mind more than anything else about this come, it’s
that it hasn’t aged particularly well.
The thing about comics before the mid-80s rolled around is that they had
the problem of telling more than showing.
There would often be tons of narration in the panels or overly long
exposition by the character to explain what is going on as opposed to letting
the artwork show what was going on. The
panels themselves don’t really seem to properly convey the passage of time or
the movement of characters and again relies heavily on narration and dialog
exposition in order for the reader to discover just what is going on. On that note, for as much as I loved the
character development in this comic, none of them really talk like real people,
again talking in exposition that seems to drag on, as well as talking in
circles about the same things. For
example, at one point Colossus falls in love with a non-hero/villain who was
brought to Battle World and it felt like they were recycling the same dialog
and inner thoughts he was having about this woman and his own problems with his
affection towards her over and over again until the comic finally ended the
subplot. As a result, the pacing is
terrible and you will spend what feels like an eternity on a single issue.
The artwork is also pretty mediocre
as well. I haven’t read too many comics
from this period so I can’t say if this was just the style of the era but by today’s
standards it’s fairly subpar. The
backgrounds, for example, are not particularly interesting to look at, giving
what looks like bare minimum details, if any are put in at all. There are many instances, for example where
what is clearly meant to be a wall or a sky is just a blue or brown backdrop
and clearly had no time or effort put into it whatsoever. The same can often be said about the
characters, as the art work on them feels unfinished or showing just enough to
know who they are but not much more detail than that. They also fail to properly convey the scope
of certain things. At one point they say
a fortress that the heroes take residence in is as big as a city, yet fails to
convince us that what we’re looking at is truly epic in scope and it’s hard to
believe that such laziness was ever an acceptable standard for such a major
publishing industry.
In the end, the original Secret Wars
is a comic that I did not regret reading, but have difficulty
recommending. It does do a lot
right. The plot itself is very good for
what it is and the character development is fantastic, even rivaling that of
modern comics. But one also has to acknowledge
that the book is a slog of a read, with poor pacing and mediocre artwork that
baffles my modern comic book reading sensibilities. I would say check it out if you’re a hardcore
Marvel fan or if you’re curious about the first major crossover event in comic
history but otherwise there are much better books out there to read. At the time of writing this article, the
first issue of the revived Secret Wars has been released and I can only hope
that it turns out to be a much more briskly paced book then this one with the
same level in its plot and character development.
Verdict
Browse
So until next time, please follow
the site, follow me on twitter and come back next time when I’ll probably
looking at more modern books. Until
then, this is Griff the Ghost, signing off.
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