Book Review: Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars by J. Shooter et al.

Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars written by Jim Shooter, penciled by Mike Zek and Bob Layton

In the first mega-cross-over event in comics history, all the major heroes in the Marvel cannon at the time (1984) are secretly whisked away to Battleworld far across the universe. That world was created by the Beyonder, a god-like being from another universe that happened to see through a crack between his universe and Marvel's. Seeing the heroes and villains of Earth contending with each other over their desires, the Beyonder (who does not experience desire since anything he wants immediately he has) pits the group of heroes (including the X-Men, the Avengers, the Fantastic Four (minus Sue), and Spider-Man) against a group of villains (including Doctor Doom, Doctor Octopus, Galactus, the Absorbing Man, Magneto, Kang, the Enchantress, and others). The Beyonder offers the people their greatest desire if they kill their enemies. The all-out war is no simple affair since the X-Men still feel put off by humans (even superhumans like the Avengers); Magneto is lumped in with the heroes since his desires seem similar (even if his behavior is radically different); the villains have a hard time uniting under one leader and are often at odds. A lot of dramatic possibilities are played out as the twelve-issue series runs its course.

Forty years later, the story has not aged well. The all-out war is an interesting idea and the dynamics play out okay. The dialogue is very clunky, with a lot of weird nicknames for characters--Wolverine is "Wolvie," Hulk is "Hulkie," Magneto is "Maggie"!!! Some of the jokes I am sure were pop-culture gold in the 1980s and are now trivia answers today. A couple of characters are killed only to come back in the very next issue, a grating trope if ever there was one. A maudlin love triangle is introduced between Colossus, the Human Torch, and a woman from Battleworld that does not really develop in any interesting ways (other than Colossus breaks up with Kitty Pride on his return from Battleworld). The series was a massive hit, spawning a sequel the next year. And it introduced Spider-Man's black costume (actually the symbiote) and had Ben Grimm leave the Fantastic Four with She-Hulk subbing in from the Avengers' roster. The whole is entertaining in a nostalgic way but I am not going to reread it.

Mildly recommended--this is a fun mashup for Marvel fans that you can jump into without reading a long backlist of issues.