Customer Reviews

Secret Wars

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This is one of those stories you can read for the pure enjoyment of reading. Secret Wars was the original 12 part mega epic comicbook tale. All of the major players from Marvel were involved from Spider-Man to Dr. Doom, from Wolverine to Galactus. All taken to a strange new world which the characters call Battleworld. The point of the story is for the Beyonder (an all powerful being) to find out which side is better good or evil. So he pits Earth's greatest heroes against the best villains. What ensues is an all-out Marvel Superhero millitary campaign. With fun developments along the way: Spider-Man's Black Costume, the introduction of a new Spider-Woman, The X-Man Colossus falling in love with one of the inhabitants of battle world. All had far reaching impact on future Marvel books.

I thrilled when I finally collected all of the original issues of this series. A very fun read for any one looking to enjoy a great super heroe adventure. I don't know why the other reviewers chose to knock this book I guess they don't like heroic epics.

Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars has spurred a lot of debate in the last twenty years. Many fans dismiss it as nothing more than a year long commercial for the Mattel action figure line. Others dismiss it as a blatant attempt to rush out and upstaged DC Comics Crisis on Infinite Earths far more historical series that came out at roughly the same time. Neither of these claims can be denied and even Marvel has admitted the transparent commercialism of the series. Still, when it comes right down to it, while perhaps nothing critical to the Marvel Universe came out of the series (Other than Venom) one certainly can't deny that it was an enjoyable series to read. It was a 12 page battle royal pitting most of Marvels top heroes against their top villains on neutral territory, all for the amusement of the God-like being known as The Beyonder.

The Beyonder was an all-powerful being from beyond our universe. His origins would be explained in much more detail in Secret Wars II. But basically the Beyonder entered our universe through a pinprick in the fabric of reality and became curious as to our world, and particularly Earth. The Beyonder then created a world and plucked out a few dozen heroes and villains and basically told them to battle each other to the death to get whatever they desired. The selection of heroes was pretty solid and included Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, Spider Man, The Banner Hulk, Wolverine, She-Hulk, The Fantastic Four, Cyclops, Storm, and Professor X. The villains are much more of a mixed lot which includes heavies like Dr. Doom, Kang, Magneto, and Ultron, but some curious minor leaguers like Wrecking Crew, Titania, Klaw, and The Molecule Man.

Each issue is basically a big slugfest as the two sides vie for the upper hand with Doom leading the way for the bad guys. While all of this is going on Galactus shows up on no side and with every intention of devouring the energy of the world created by the Beyonder. Doom of course can never be trusted and soon backstabs the rest of the villains by actually stealing the power of the Beyonder and becoming omnipotent. Doom would destroy all the heroes but the Beyonder restores them to life and they finally defeat Dr. Doom. As the heroes win, The Beyonder grants them whatever they desire which is just to return home. Their wish is granted and the story comes to a close.

As mentioned, perhaps the only real significant event that came out of the whole storyline was Spiderman finding the strange alien material which he took as his new, black costume. This material would turn out to be an evil alien symbiote that would eventually become Venom when it merged with Eddie Brock. Of course this happened almost four years later when Todd McFarlane was on his memorable run on Spiderman and there's no evidence that Secret Wars writer Jim Shooter ever had this in mind when he created the suit.

The art by Mike Zeck is solid if unspectacular. Zeck has done better work, notably on The Punisher. The art in some of the issues looks a bit rushed lending credence to the argument that Marvel wanted the series out before DC's "Crisis". Taken on just the merits of the story it's an enjoyable read. I've read it numerous times over the years because it really was the first such mega-series event of its kind that included almost every major hero. These cross-over event stories have become common place today, but was still monumental back in 1984. Thus while the story itself had no great historical influence it still must be considered a landmark in comics history.

Review by Tim Janson

Nothing has ever made me appreciate Stan Lee more, than reading someone else try to do his shtick. Comic books are silly, I accept this, but when Stan Lee wrote them, everyone had a real reason for doing things. Yes, they felt the need to talk about it a lot, and the science never even tried to make sense, but there were real people in there. This is not the case with Secret Wars. I feel like the creators are just making it up as they go along.

The dialogue in this book is strikingly bad, which is partly because it was written in the 80's (my favorite line: "Like tubular to the max!" -SheHulk) but their are other comics from this era (Daredevil, Batman) that were above this. In general, there is too much gobbledygook and no real motivation for what comes out of their mouths. There is also some really yucky thought bubbles, mostly from Colossus (sic: "I miss Katya. I had so many plans for what we could do together when she is old enough") which make you understand why Frank Miller abolished them.

Once the action actually gets going-- and it takes a while-- the story becomes more interesting...somewhat. Doctor Doom is surprisingly well-written, so much so that he jumps off the page; he is even generally better drawn than the other characters. I also enjoyed the weird romance between Volcana and the milksop Molecule Man. In general, the villains fared better in this book than the heroes; the one exception is Spiderman, who kicks the whole of the X-Men's butts in a memorable scene, and later gets a suspicious new black suit that modern readers will quickly recognize.

I think this was the first "event" comic of its kind to be released, preceeding the Crisis on Infinite Earths (also a snoozer) by a few years. This is now the bread-and-butter of the comics publishers, so it is interesting reading how it started. Still, I had a lot more fun reading Identity Crisis, or even the dubious House of M.

Ok so it's not deep and the writing while great, is not watchmen level, but the whole thing is just fun, it's a series of battle with some great character moments and even long lastign effects like venom's alien costume showing up for the first time.

i really loved the moments like when Hulk lifts a mountain, doom uses his normal tricks to take over, the rifts we see and firnedships formed.

don't go looking for the most deep, just one of the most fun crossovers ever, and since it was it's own mini, you don't need to read all the rest of the monthly issues unlike some crossovers, this was very self contained to the mini, the fallout was then put in the monthly books, but you don't have to see those.

A strange and seemingly omnipotent being has drawn together some of the greatest heroes and villains of the Marvel universe - the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, the X-Men, Spider-Man, and the Incredible Hulk on one hand, and Galactus, Dr. Octopus, Dr. Doom, Magneto, the Wrecking Crew, Ultron, the Absorber, and Molecule Man on the other. And now the being has made them a simple offer, "Slay your enemies and all you desire shall be yours!" But, this is more than a simple battle of Good vs. Evil. There are strange alliances to be made, and the allegiance of some of the participants is hardly clear. So, who will win in this battle royale, and what will he or she claim as their deepest desires?

OK, yeah, as Tom DeFalco makes clear in the introduction to this graphic novel, this story arc was not created as a great story that needed to be told. Instead, what it was was an invention to sell a lot of action figures.

But, that said, is this a good story or not? Overall, I found it to be an interesting story with lots of action and great fight scenes. I enjoyed seeing many of the old superheroes looking just like they did when I was reading comic books as a kid. Admittedly, at times the story does seem to drag out and lose focus - I suspect that they needed a certain length of story to please the toy manufacturer.

But, I really did enjoy the story and am quite glad that I read it. I loved the old Marvel and highly recommend this fun blast-from-the-past!

The issue of Crossovers always was some kind of a big deal to fans. On one hand it combines, mostly, the greatest characters in the comics-world, sometimes even cross-companies. On the other hand the oh-so-high cost.

This is the first Crossover. It is the one who started it all, at least in the large-scale sense of it. It's not perfect, it got some holes in it both story/plot-wise and both continuity problems, but do not mistaken - it is a great story. The question is - why?

It got the best of the best characters in the Marvel Universe, and not skipping even the mighty Galactus himself. It got a great theme that maybe can't work in the modern days in a modern comic-book but back in its day - it was an amazing concept. It had many plot-twists, for the good. Great dialogues - it's been a long time now since I actually felt the character's personality via the dialogues, and it fits their back-then character marvelously. It's even funny!

But still, it just don't sit well in this fast-pace modern world, because it's too slow, taking it's time to explore the characters thoughts too much for the modern reader, and it's not the best story there is in the modern very harsh comics world.

I still think that it's one of the best there is,
Maybe because I'm simply old-fashioned.

Check my blog -
The issue of Crossovers always was some kind of a big deal to fans. On one hand it combines, mostly, the greatest characters in the comics-world, sometimes even cross-companies. On the other hand the oh-so-high cost.

This is the first Crossover. It is the one who started it all, at least in the large-scale sense of it. It's not perfect, it got some holes in it both story/plot-wise and both continuity problems, but do not mistaken - it is a great story. The question is - why?

It got the best of the best characters in the Marvel Universe, and not skipping even the mighty Galactus himself. It got a great theme that maybe can't work in the modern days in a modern comic-book but back in its day - it was an amazing concept. It had many plot-twists, for the good. Great dialogues - it's been a long time now since I actually felt the character's personality via the dialogues, and it fits their back-then character marvelously. It's even funny!

But still, it just don't sit well in this fast-pace modern world, because it's too slow, taking it's time to explore the characters thoughts too much for the modern reader, and it's not the best story there is in the modern very harsh comics world.

I still think that it's one of the best there is,
Maybe because I'm simply old-fashioned.



Check my blog -
http://mindlessechoes.blogspot.com/

Too many battles with lame villains, no decent character development; bizarre plot developments are never explained, especially with Galactus. The X-Men are very poorly treated, with Wolverine being overly aggressive and Colossus falling in love with an alien woman for no reason. Cyclops, Rogue and Storm don't do a whole lot; neither does Spider-man, although he does get the famous alien costume (in three panels--not worth getting the book for). The Thing's turning into Ben Grimm is never explained (or maybe it is in the next "awesome" crossover). All in all, you should only get this if you're a big fan of Captain America, Mr. Fantastic, Dr. Doom or The Molecule Man.

it took a lot for me to read past the second issue, secret wars is that bad. in comics there is old-school kind of cheesy 60s style marvel writing, like kirby and lee stuff, which even though it's not graphic more-adult-oriented comic fiction like some of the good stuff of today it's still really great reading. secret wars is an example of trying to write like that and failing miserably. it's cheesy, it's bad, the ideas and the whole premise of the story is stupid, it's just all around poor. there are much better comics works out there for you to read. also there is something very wrong as others have stated with the printing of this book, some pages look like a elementary school class copied them on a library printer.

This is one of those stories you can read for the pure enjoyment of reading. Secret Wars was the original 12 part mega epic comicbook tale.

Awesome story with a LOT of roots for your favorite characters! Certainly pricey, but well worth checking out. I think this was one of the first comic books I ever read and if you're looking for a classic entry point into the world of Marvel, I'd certainly recommend this.