Marvel Comics in the 21st century is all about the event comic. The House of Ideas created the modern event book in the early ’80s with titles like Marvel Super Heroes Contest of Champions and Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars, and since then have been putting out them out every year. Some of the coolest event stories of all time have come from the publisher, classics that have shook the Marvel Universe. While Marvel’s event cycle has become one of the biggest problems with the publisher – we’ve went from one a year to multiple, with 2026 having at least three scheduled: Armageddon, Queen in Black, and DNX, with barely any hype for at least two of them (I’ll let you decide which ones; I know my choices) – there have been times when it worked perfectly.
Videos by ComicBook.com
2015’s Secret Wars, by Jonathan Hickman and Esad Ribic, is one of those. The book was built up over a three year period and it gave readers the kind of big cosmic epic that makes event comics so exciting. It’s one of the greatest Marvel events of all time and it’s about to become more important than ever, thanks to its role in inspiring the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars. This is make or break time for the MCU; Marvel Studios needs these two movies to be massive successes to get their momentum back. Luckily, they’ve picked one of the best events ever to adapt, one full of moments that could make these movies the smash hits they need to be.
Secret Wars Smashed a Staid Marvel Event Scene With Good Old Fashioned Character-Based Spectacle
It all started with the fantastic Jonathan Hickman Avengers run (although you could go back further to his Fantastic Four run as well). Hickman wrote Avengers (Vol. 5) and New Avengers (Vol. 3), introducing the concept of the Incursions, alternate Earths appearing in the skies above others and the two colliding, destroying their entire universes. As the Avengers battled the Builders, an ancient race responsible for creating the building blocks of everything, the Illuminati tried to stop the Incursions secretly, while a new Cabal rose with their own plans. Doom himself begins his own investigation into the whole situation as well, and it all went south when the Avengers discovered the truth being hidden from them.
The Avengers and Illuminati fought, and while they went after each other, Doom, Doctor Strange, and Molecule Man stole the powers of the Beyonders, the beings behind the Incursions, and recreated the universe with Doom as the God Emperor. Secret Wars began with the final two Earths – 616 and 1610 – battling it out to stop the Final Incursion, both Earths failing and Doom creating Battleworld from the ashes of the multiverse. The event is all about survivors of Earths-616 and 1610 learning the truth of what Doom did, all while the God Emperor doubts the decisions he’s made leading up to this point.
Marvel’s events as the 21st century wore on had started to become lackluster leading into 2015. Marvel was once top-notch at building events, but they got lazy because of their success (which is also why they’re losing the sales battle in comics today and the MCU fell apart – it feels like they expect fans to consume everything regardless of quality). Their events suffered from 2010 to 2015 because of this, but Secret Wars was able to nail its build. This got fans hyped for it and the creative team were able to deliver.
Secret Wars worked so well because it brought back the kind of massive spectacle that events like Infinity Gauntlet had used to wow fans. In fact, there are loads of similarities between the two, but the most important is the character focus. Infinity Gauntlet was a Thanos comic and this one iwa a Doom comic. It does a fantastic job of showing us something we’d never seen before – the king of Latveria doubting his own decisions. It was both a massive, multiverse-shaking battle and a story about a man looking at decisions he was forced to make and realizing that he wasn’t the right person to be making them. On top of that, while the build-up makes the whole thing better, you can still enjoy the story if you’ve never read any of it. It’s an almost flawless story, something that you don’t get too often from events.
Secret Wars Was Everything You Could Want From an Event Comic and Could Save the MCU From Itself
Secret Wars is an example of everything going right in an event book, which honestly isn’t all that common. The build-up slapped and the book itself had that combination of spectacle and character that fans love from superhero stories. While you can argue that it didn’t have huge repercussions and Marvel didn’t use the multiversal reset they had set up in a smart way (they teased massive change to the multiverse and then changed nothing, except beginning the abysmal Inhumans push), it’s become a modern classic that every Marvel fan should check out.
The MCU isn’t in the best place right now and it could use a shot in the arm. Choosing Secret Wars to base their Avengers movies off is a good idea, but there’s also been almost zero build-up for these films. Even with the announcements of the return of RDJ and the Russos, there’s seems to be little hype behind them. However, if Marvel Studios can capture the same blend of character and spectacle that the comic did, there’s a good chance that they could return to the heights of yesteryear.
What do you think about Secret Wars (2015)? Leave a comment in the comment section below and join the conversation on the ComicBook Forums!
