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REVIEW: Secret Wars, #1
"The End Times" kicks off Marvel's latest event in Jonathan Hickman and Esad Ribic's "Secret Wars" #1, as the latest Incursion brings the Marvel Universe and the Ultimate Universe crashing together.
[I]Full review [URL=http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=user_review&id=8552]here[/URL].[/I]
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What is the death you're referring to that only takes up 1/8th of the page? I've been scouring the issue and I can't figure out which one you're talking about.
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I think it's in reference to [spoil]Rocket and Groot. The only other deaths I saw were Sue, Johnny and Ben with the rest of the Richards clan and they deaths got much more screen time[/spoil]
Small complaint but anyone else notice that Gamora is no longer cosmic? Did she relinquish her Black Vortex powers in the pages of GotG after the event ended?
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[spoil]Could be Natasha and (presumably) Hank, Jessica and Amadeus too.[/spoil]
Just saying. Man this issue . . . Man.
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I agree with the score. It's fine, but could have been better. Felt clumsy at the beginning as it tried to rush out backstory to explain to people just joining what was going on, the pacing felt off a lot of the times (going too fast and trying to do too much or just going very slow in order to try be dramatic), the characterization was okay but nothing too memorable outside of the Punisher bit, the artwork was terrible with depicting characters' mouths, it is inaccessible to anyone who hasn't been reading Hickman's stuff, and the ending sort of peters out.
Still, it succeeds at creating tension and setting up a desperate situation, while there were some nice shots in the book. Hopefully the next issue really picks up now that the end of reality has happened.
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[QUOTE=TonySnark;1169462]What is the death you're referring to that only takes up 1/8th of the page? I've been scouring the issue and I can't figure out which one you're talking about.[/QUOTE]
Does it matter considering no one makes it out of the book alive?
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[QUOTE=TonySnark;1169462]What is the death you're referring to that only takes up 1/8th of the page? I've been scouring the issue and I can't figure out which one you're talking about.[/QUOTE]
Maybe [spoil]Black Bolt[/spoil], in addition to others already mentioned.
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This was one of the most inaccessible and borderline incomprehensible books I've read in a long time. It seems like Hickman (and editorial, by extension) are saying, "Oh, you haven't been reading both Avengers titles for the past 3 years? Then F*%& you. A new reader wants to jump into Marvel Comics through this well-publicized event? Good f*&^ing luck."
I understand that in an event dealing with this many characters in this kind of situation, you won't know everything that's going on with everyone. But I read all the core X-Books, so why is it that I have no F*%&ING idea what Nation X is or why Cyclops has Sentinels? Not to mention whatever the Phoenix Egg is. I mean, you'd think they'd be able to base the X-Men's current status based on their [B]actual books[/B], but maybe I'm just being naive.
I'm sorry if it seems like I'm ranting, which I kinda am, but this issue was such an extreme disappointment to me, especially knowing that I will need to go back and buy a number of Avengers books from the last few months to have any idea why things are the way they are with characters I like (Cyclops, specifically).
I have hope for the rest of the series since it seems that building Battleworld up will be easier to follow than watching both universes end. But this issue was a massive, MASSIVE disappointment.
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[QUOTE=Sam Robards, Comic Fan;1172220]This was one of the most inaccessible and borderline incomprehensible books I've read in a long time. It seems like Hickman (and editorial, by extension) are saying, "Oh, you haven't been reading both Avengers titles for the past 3 years? Then F*%& you. A new reader wants to jump into Marvel Comics through this well-publicized event? Good f*&^ing luck."
I understand that in an event dealing with this many characters in this kind of situation, you won't know everything that's going on with everyone. But I read all the core X-Books, so why is it that I have no F*%&ING idea what Nation X is or why Cyclops has Sentinels? Not to mention whatever the Phoenix Egg is. I mean, you'd think they'd be able to base the X-Men's current status based on their [B]actual books[/B], but maybe I'm just being naive.
I'm sorry if it seems like I'm ranting, which I kinda am, but this issue was such an extreme disappointment to me, especially knowing that I will need to go back and buy a number of Avengers books from the last few months to have any idea why things are the way they are with characters I like (Cyclops, specifically).
I have hope for the rest of the series since it seems that building Battleworld up will be easier to follow than watching both universes end. But this issue was a massive, MASSIVE disappointment.[/QUOTE]
The Cyclops thing isn't Hickman's fault--it's Bendis and crew because the issues of Uncanny X-Men, et al were supposed to come out BEFORE this originally and Marvel chose not to hold up the entire thing.
It's like when we saw Steve Rogers come back in the comics before the conclusion to Reborn, etc.
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[QUOTE=Sam Robards, Comic Fan;1172220]This was one of the most inaccessible and borderline incomprehensible books I've read in a long time. It seems like Hickman (and editorial, by extension) are saying, "Oh, you haven't been reading both Avengers titles for the past 3 years? Then F*%& you. A new reader wants to jump into Marvel Comics through this well-publicized event? Good f*&^ing luck."
I understand that in an event dealing with this many characters in this kind of situation, you won't know everything that's going on with everyone. But I read all the core X-Books, so why is it that I have no F*%&ING idea what Nation X is or why Cyclops has Sentinels? Not to mention whatever the Phoenix Egg is. I mean, you'd think they'd be able to base the X-Men's current status based on their [B]actual books[/B], but maybe I'm just being naive.
I'm sorry if it seems like I'm ranting, which I kinda am, but this issue was such an extreme disappointment to me, especially knowing that I will need to go back and buy a number of Avengers books from the last few months to have any idea why things are the way they are with characters I like (Cyclops, specifically).
I have hope for the rest of the series since it seems that building Battleworld up will be easier to follow than watching both universes end. But this issue was a massive, MASSIVE disappointment.[/QUOTE]
I thought it was awesome! But then I've been reading Avengers and NA throughout. I I will though save you some money - the stuff with cyclops isn't explained earlier (other than that he had a phoenix egg) and was planning something. We'll just have to hold out for the rest of SW, or maybe it's in uncanny 600 (maybe).
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[QUOTE=Chief Jon;1169759][spoil]Could be Natasha and (presumably) Hank, Jessica and Amadeus too.[/spoil]
Just saying. Man this issue . . . Man.[/QUOTE]
Jessica's chair is empty. I think she survived.:confused:
[url]http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-1p6ifHETx4A/VUrxqQVvGnI/AAAAAAAACYM/Xl31e6bVdn8/s1600/Secret%2BWars%2B(2015-)%2B001-023.jpg[/url]
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This is a shamefully low score. This is one of the best event first issues any publisher has ever put out. Finally we have an event that rewards long term readership. If readers don't get the context because they didn't read Avengers, that's not Hickman's fault. I'm extremely relieved I didn't have to suffer through any expository catchup meant to hold new readers' hands through concepts that are frankly not that hard to understand. I haven't read an Ultimate comic since Millar left the Ultimates, but I was able to understand everything on that end with a quick visit to Wikipedia. This comic was a huge payoff, and masterfully executed.
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I didn't read Avengers/New Avengers and didn't have trouble understanding what was going on. Did the people who are confused read the #0 issue from FCBD?
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[QUOTE=swerve;1172339]I thought it was awesome! But then I've been reading Avengers and NA throughout. I I will though save you some money - the stuff with cyclops isn't explained earlier (other than that he had a phoenix egg) and was planning something. We'll just have to hold out for the rest of SW, or maybe it's in uncanny 600 (maybe).[/QUOTE]
Thanks! I really appreciate the rundown.
As for stuff being explained in Bendis's books, it's certainly possible that they'll lead to this: it just seems like the solicits for his last couple issues don't seem to imply the major status quo shift that seems to have happened in SW. Maybe it does, but that seems like a lot of stuff has to happen in a small amount of time, especially for Bendis. :-)
But we'll see!
I got the broad strokes of the story in terms of the incursions and all that, I was just confused by different character affiliations, statuses, etc.
Seeing as the main book is the only one being written by Hickman, I have high hopes that the rest of the series will be good. I'm also glad we only have to wait a week until #2.
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[QUOTE=LightningBug;1173368]This is a shamefully low score. This is one of the best event first issues any publisher has ever put out. Finally we have an event that rewards long term readership. If readers don't get the context because they didn't read Avengers, that's not Hickman's fault. I'm extremely relieved I didn't have to suffer through any expository catchup meant to hold new readers' hands through concepts that are frankly not that hard to understand. I haven't read an Ultimate comic since Millar left the Ultimates, but I was able to understand everything on that end with a quick visit to Wikipedia. This comic was a huge payoff, and masterfully executed.[/QUOTE]
While I would agree most events don't need to start with a big catch up, remember that this one does effect every single other comic and not just Avengers/New Avengers. I only follow Iron Man and some of the spider characters really, so it was kind of annoying having to go searching for why Iron Man didn't appear at all in #1.
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I lasted just a few months into his F4 run and not long into Secret Warriors. Heck, I'd even started the mini he did with the F4 prior to taking over the series but forgot to pick up any more issues. His plot heavy, heart free storytelling is not for everyone. I only read his Avengers/New Avengers stuff after Secret Wars was announced, having dropped it after Infinity bored me. It was homework to be done for an EVent like this that couldn't be missed no matter who was writing it...
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So yeah, pretty much any of the deaths was a theory on the small one; but I noticed all of them so I don't think it was as small as the reviewer put out there.
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I honestly don't think you needed to read the entirety of the run to understand this issue; a quick wiki on what Incursions are is all you really need. The finales of Avengers/New Avengers didn't directly lead into the events of #1, there was a bit of a jump so a lot of the information was new to even readers of both books. Like the Phoenix egg.
I thought it was pretty straighforward, the 616 and Ultimate U collided, they fought for a bit, both were destroyed with a small group in the multiversal life raft. All that stuff is done now and the rest of the series should be easy to follow as it will establish how battleworld comes to be and how it works.
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I will add though that if you dead read both runs, its really cool to have had this scale building up for so long, its what makes it feel more epic and not forced in the way Convergence was just lazily thrown out there.
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[QUOTE=Steve068;1173778]Is it a joke? I lasted just a few months into his F4 run and not long into Secret Warriors. Heck, I'd even started the mini he did with the F4 prior to taking over the series but forgot to pick up any more issues. His plot heavy, heart free storytelling is not for everyone. I only read his Avengers/New Avengers stuff after Secret Wars was announced, having dropped it after Infinity bored me. It was homework to be done for an EVent like this that couldn't be missed no matter who was writing it...[/QUOTE]
I don't know if you needed to read anything. If you hadn't read a Marvel comic before, you saw two universes panic as they crashed together. When the dust settled, you saw a life raft sitting on a landscape. It's pretty much like a god come to earth origin story. This happened in the origin of Garth, the British newspaper strip. He just appeared on a raft suddenly, and floated to a shoreline, and the story started.
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Also I'd say as an alternative to googling what the incursions were all about, the FCBD #0 was really meant for those that hadn't been reading all along. I don't think knowing what the characters were doing in Avengers/New is as imperitive as to just grasping the idea of the incursions themselves. There wasn't really time for any character arcs here, just all out chaos.
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[QUOTE=jackolover;1173816]I don't know if you needed to read anything. If you hadn't read a Marvel comic before, you saw two universes panic as they crashed together. When the dust settled, you saw a life raft sitting on a landscape. It's pretty much like a god come to earth origin story. This happened in the origin of Garth, the British newspaper strip. He just appeared on a raft suddenly, and floated to a shoreline, and the story started.[/QUOTE]
exactly. at its core its 2 worlds colliding and the aftermath.
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Was the first issue of Secret Wars supposed to be just this snuff movie? Not much was expounded as far as recounting something from before, because after a mild introductory comment from Doom, it just opened into a chaotic maelstrom. If you were going to make a movie of Secret Wars, it could do worse than the opening of Star Wars 1, the movie. A few punchy lines about the universe ending, and ending with what comes next hanging just out of reach.
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I just really read it, and damn...they really did it. They did it! I sort of didn't think they would.
Did anyone feel so bad for Ultimate Fury? The guy got played by forces way outside of his pay-grade, and he lost. Would 616 Classic Nick have faired better? Maybe, or maybe not.
I wonder, if Miles does survive, what he's going to do? His inclusion on Secret Wars #3's cover suggests he will.
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I've been following New Avengers and keeping loose tabs on Hickman's other two Avengers books through Marvel Unlimited, and this was still an unforgiving issue. I can appreciate that Hickman has committed to the long form, delivering a climax for long-term readers instead of reframing the story for lapsed readers and fence-sitters, but we still have about three or four different master-plans and back-up plans playing out simultaneously as the heroes shout expositional dialogue over massive detonations. But, on the bright side, the action is so hectic and the destruction is so total that Hickman was probably wise to let the spectacle overwhelm the details. It's easy to believe in the pettiness of human schemes in the face of total destruction when those plans barely come into focus before they have already unravelled. And the fact that the character deaths are so instant and final, with no pause for a melodramatic send-off, is both unsettling and refreshing given how often event books tart up their shock deaths with pushy sentiment.
Meanwhile, I don't think it would make sense to give this climax a higher page-count when the whole point is a clean break. Next issue we're starting in with a new world with new rules. It might have made more sense for this to be a final issue of New Avengers or even a standalone one-shot, because presumably the new story begins in earnest next issue. This one just wrapped up the months-long build up toward the end of the multiverse. It's not the home run I was hoping for, but at least Secret Wars is ballsy enough, so far, to compensate for its opacity.
And it was great to see Esad Ribic return to his cyber-punk version of the Ultimate Universe, with the City, the Children, an eerily calm Evil Reed, and the coolest-looking helicarriers ever to grace a comics page. Hickman's run on Ultimates was probably my favorite thing he has done at Marvel, so it was cathartic to see the end-game after the initial run was truncated. Ribic can be a little rote with facial expressions, especially given his over-reliance on widened mouths and eyes bulging with intensity, but no one else in Marvel's current stable can match him for Dutch angles of aerial maneuvering.
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I love this issue's art...except for the faces.
Did Ribic just Photoshop the same face on all of the characters?
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[QUOTE=Cryptid;1174284]I've been following New Avengers and keeping loose tabs on Hickman's other two Avengers books through Marvel Unlimited, and this was still an unforgiving issue. I can appreciate that Hickman has committed to the long form, delivering a climax for long-term readers instead of reframing the story for lapsed readers and fence-sitters, but we still have about three or four different master-plans and back-up plans playing out simultaneously as the heroes shout expositional dialogue over massive detonations. But, on the bright side, the action is so hectic and the destruction is so total that Hickman was probably wise to let the spectacle overwhelm the details. It's easy to believe in the pettiness of human schemes in the face of total destruction when those plans barely come into focus before they have already unravelled. And the fact that the character deaths are so instant and final, with no pause for a melodramatic send-off, is both unsettling and refreshing given how often event books tart up their shock deaths with pushy sentiment.
Meanwhile, I don't think it would make sense to give this climax a higher page-count when the whole point is a clean break. Next issue we're starting in with a new world with new rules. It might have made more sense for this to be a final issue of New Avengers or even a standalone one-shot, because presumably the new story begins in earnest next issue. This one just wrapped up the months-long build up toward the end of the multiverse. It's not the home run I was hoping for, but at least Secret Wars is ballsy enough, so far, to compensate for its opacity.
And it was great to see Esad Ribic return to his cyber-punk version of the Ultimate Universe, with the City, the Children, an eerily calm Evil Reed, and the coolest-looking helicarriers ever to grace a comics page. Hickman's run on Ultimates was probably my favorite thing he has done at Marvel, so it was cathartic to see the end-game after the initial run was truncated. Ribic can be a little rote with facial expressions, especially given his over-reliance on widened mouths and eyes bulging with intensity, but no one else in Marvel's current stable can match him for Dutch angles of aerial maneuvering.[/QUOTE]
Are we to believe, because of the sudden Secret Wars #1 deaths without requisite acknowledgement, that the whole Hickman run of Avengers purposely desensitised the book. Because I got a very distanced feeling to the characters from Hickman, and if SW told us why, then I suppose Hickman had to tell it this way. The Avengers were expendable, so don't spend time on them. If you compare Avengers #1 to Avengers #44, Tony and Steve walk down a hall arm over a shoulder, then , beating each other senseless, as something comes crashing into them, while fighting, and that's the end of their appearance in-story.
You know, even that lecture Reed gave the Illuminati in NA #2, was formal. You would think Tony would crack saying "WHAT!?", Namor being melodramatic and pacing the room, saying "this cannot be allowed". But no. Hickman has everybody sat in their seats accepting calmly, everything Reed tells them. This sort of portrayal of unemotional Illuminati runs against previous examples of the opposite happening. And Incursions were way worse than sending Hulk into Space or the Civil War.
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[QUOTE=jackolover;1174904]Are we to believe, because of the sudden Secret Wars #1 deaths without requisite acknowledgement, that the whole Hickman run of Avengers purposely desensitised the book. Because I got a very distanced feeling to the characters from Hickman, and if SW told us why, then I suppose Hickman had to tell it this way. The Avengers were expendable, so don't spend time on them. If you compare Avengers #1 to Avengers #44, Tony and Steve walk down a hall arm over a shoulder, then , beating each other senseless, as something comes crashing into them, while fighting, and that's the end of their appearance in-story.
You know, even that lecture Reed gave the Illuminati in NA #2, was formal. You would think Tony would crack saying "WHAT!?", Namor being melodramatic and pacing the room, saying "this cannot be allowed". But no. Hickman has everybody sat in their seats accepting calmly, everything Reed tells them. This sort of portrayal of unemotional Illuminati runs against previous examples of the opposite happening. And Incursions were way worse than sending Hulk into Space or the Civil War.[/QUOTE]
You've hit on what is, in my opinion, Hickman's biggest flaw as a writer -- he simply doesn't care about the characters. They're little more than opportunities for him to introduce his themes through dialogue. Although he does offer some nice character moments here -- the Punisher gate-crashing the supervillains' party; Reed's pride in Susan -- they're probably the only instances in the 80 or so issues of Avengers that he's written. I never felt like I was reading about Captain America or Iron Man or T'Challa or Namor; I felt like I was reading Hickman's pet interests dressed as Captain America, Iron Man, T'Challa, etc. (Though, to be fair, this is also something that could be said about Chris Claremont.) This might also explain why he introduced so many characters to, ultimately, so little impact. I remember when it seemed intriguing that he brought New Universe characters into the Avengers books, or that Eden seemed to be a fresh addition to the Avengers, or that Captain Universe might become more than an unwieldy character. Instead, it's now pretty obvious that the characters were added to serve plot points, nothing more.
He is also bad at writing action sequences, and in a book that is 90% action sequences, this flaw is particularly problematic in [I]Secret Wars[/I]. At times I had no idea what was happening or why -- [spoil]who killed Groot and Rocket Raccoon? where exactly is the Triskelion for Hulk, She-Hulk, Colossus and others to knock it over? if it's on the Ultimate Earth, how did they get over there?[/spoil]. I rarely get the impression that Hickman particularly likes comic books.
That said, I'd give the book 3.5 stars. It did capture the sense of doomed stakes, and the art was for the most part gorgeous, though Rosebunse's point about Ribic's faces is true; it's really noticeable on the castlist page.
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I read all of avengers and New avengers but not his ultimate stuff so I understood 95 percent of everything but I do feel sorry for those that had not because Marvel and Hickman both said you didn't need to and that was a flat out lie. The beginning scene with Doom would make no sense without NA and neither would the incursions, Ultimate Reed, the cabal or why 1610 was attacking 616. Also no one would know Tony and Steve were dead because Stark turned out evil. They lied about accessibility. Never will trust marvel again
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[QUOTE=Sam Robards, Comic Fan;1172220]This was one of the most inaccessible and borderline incomprehensible books I've read in a long time. It seems like Hickman (and editorial, by extension) are saying, "Oh, you haven't been reading both Avengers titles for the past 3 years? Then F*%& you. A new reader wants to jump into Marvel Comics through this well-publicized event? Good f*&^ing luck."
I understand that in an event dealing with this many characters in this kind of situation, you won't know everything that's going on with everyone. But I read all the core X-Books, so why is it that I have no F*%&ING idea what Nation X is or why Cyclops has Sentinels? Not to mention whatever the Phoenix Egg is. I mean, you'd think they'd be able to base the X-Men's current status based on their [B]actual books[/B], but maybe I'm just being naive.
I'm sorry if it seems like I'm ranting, which I kinda am, but this issue was such an extreme disappointment to me, especially knowing that I will need to go back and buy a number of Avengers books from the last few months to have any idea why things are the way they are with characters I like (Cyclops, specifically).
I have hope for the rest of the series since it seems that building Battleworld up will be easier to follow than watching both universes end. But this issue was a massive, MASSIVE disappointment.[/QUOTE]
Agreed.
If you weren't reading the Avengers up to this point then you're going to have a rude awakening when all those other characters you were reading about turn up erased and maybe getting a battleworld imposter.
[QUOTE=LightningBug;1173368]This is a shamefully low score. This is one of the best event first issues any publisher has ever put out. Finally we have an event that rewards long term readership. If readers don't get the context because they didn't read Avengers, that's not Hickman's fault. I'm extremely relieved I didn't have to suffer through any expository catchup meant to hold new readers' hands through concepts that are frankly not that hard to understand. I haven't read an Ultimate comic since Millar left the Ultimates, but I was able to understand everything on that end with a quick visit to Wikipedia. This comic was a huge payoff, and masterfully executed.[/QUOTE]
I disagree. This makes RR blush with such a huge death toll that happened in an instant.
At least RR kept his Uncanny Avengers mostly self-contained and he reversed things. Here is no such thing.
It's basically Marvel erasing everyone, saving the few they like and then making altered versions (For those that even get that) of the erased to suit what they want without having to deal with canon or history.
The lead-up is also completely horrid if you weren't already an Avenger reader and understandably Spider-Men, Cosmic, Inhuman and X-Men fans have every right to be displeased that the characters they like and read about are now gone forever due to an unrelated book.
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[QUOTE=jackolover;1174904]Are we to believe, because of the sudden Secret Wars #1 deaths without requisite acknowledgement, that the whole Hickman run of Avengers purposely desensitised the book. Because I got a very distanced feeling to the characters from Hickman, and if SW told us why, then I suppose Hickman had to tell it this way.[/QUOTE]
I don't think it's as cut-and-dried as all that. During his time at Marvel, Hickman has gravitated toward characters who pursue their missions at the expense of their human side, people like Reed Richards and Tony Stark and Dr. Doom and Evil Reed Richards, but not to the exclusion of more identifiable characters. His Spider-Man is warm, but more low-key than usual; we can see him struggling to put on a brave face for the civilians in Secret War, and his presence dilutes the gloom after Johnny Storm's disappearance in Hickman's run on FF. The done-in-one stories during his Avengers run give us relatively expressive backstories for characters like Smasher, Hyperion, and Starbrand. The emphasis is on grand schemes and big ideas, especially in New Avengers, but it's not quite fair to say that the human element is shoved into the distance. It might look that way because Hickman expresses character through plot more often than he deals with characters in Bendis/Whedon style throwaway scenes. It's a given that Secret Wars #1 is not a character-oriented issue despite a few nice character beats; almost everyone is displaying selflessness in the face of almost certain death, which doesn't exactly make for a diverse emotional tapestry, but it fits the story he's telling in this first issue.
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[QUOTE=Sardorim;1175096] I disagree. This makes RR blush with such a huge death toll that happened in an instant.
At least RR kept his Uncanny Avengers mostly self-contained and he reversed things. Here is no such thing.
It's basically Marvel erasing everyone, saving the few they like and then making altered versions (For those that even get that) of the erased to suit what they want without having to deal with canon or history.
The lead-up is also completely horrid if you weren't already an Avenger reader and understandably Spider-Men, Cosmic, Inhuman and X-Men fans have every right to be displeased that the characters they like and read about are now gone forever due to an unrelated book.[/QUOTE]
This response is making a lot of assumptions about what happens next. We know that the Marvel Universe will continue in a different form, and we know that many familiar characters died in this issue, but we have no idea what will be restored and what will be revised. The press releases are telling us that nothing will be the same, but they always say that. This event may be closer to Uncanny Avengers than you are anticipating.
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Grabbed a copy today.
;_; missed #0 though.
Anyway. Lovely art, pretty dramatic build.
The only downside I had with it is that many of the powerful heroes were (supposedly) wiped out so easily. Like Hickman just nerfed everyone at the last minute for drama.
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[QUOTE=Darth Kal-el;1175049]I read all of avengers and New avengers but not his ultimate stuff so I understood 95 percent of everything but I do feel sorry for those that had not because Marvel and Hickman both said you didn't need to and that was a flat out lie. The beginning scene with Doom would make no sense without NA and neither would the incursions, Ultimate Reed, the cabal or why 1610 was attacking 616. Also no one would know Tony and Steve were dead because Stark turned out evil. They lied about accessibility. Never will trust marvel again[/QUOTE]
You hit on a point I hadn't realised. Tony and Steve don't appear in this issue. They aren't on the cover and they don't get mentioned in the cast photos. Okay, SW isn't strictly an Avengers book, but it could be considered as such because all that happened in those books set this up. We could be bemused that this story didnt at least give the status of two of the big 3, and to exclude Odinson from this as well, there is the big 3 all missing. It may not be pertinent to what Secret Wars is trying to get to (because maybe SW was just a madeningly quick gallop towards oblivion), that these 3 Avengers aren't in the book, but it may have been worth mentioning it in a preview page. "Cap and Tony are busy fighting on the ground, and Odinson got killed fighting Beyonders, (but Hyperion escaped)".
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[QUOTE=Cryptid;1175193]I don't think it's as cut-and-dried as all that. During his time at Marvel, Hickman has gravitated toward characters who pursue their missions at the expense of their human side, people like Reed Richards and Tony Stark and Dr. Doom and Evil Reed Richards, but not to the exclusion of more identifiable characters. His Spider-Man is warm, but more low-key than usual; we can see him struggling to put on a brave face for the civilians in Secret War, and his presence dilutes the gloom after Johnny Storm's disappearance in Hickman's run on FF. The done-in-one stories during his Avengers run give us relatively expressive backstories for characters like Smasher, Hyperion, and Starbrand. The emphasis is on grand schemes and big ideas, especially in New Avengers, but it's not quite fair to say that the human element is shoved into the distance. It might look that way because Hickman expresses character through plot more often than he deals with characters in Bendis/Whedon style throwaway scenes. It's a given that Secret Wars #1 is not a character-oriented issue despite a few nice character beats; almost everyone is displaying selflessness in the face of almost certain death, which doesn't exactly make for a diverse emotional tapestry, but it fits the story he's telling in this first issue.[/QUOTE]
Plot expediency at the cost of character. I couldn't immerse myself in the Avengers characters, because the story was the more powerful element. I suppose it just stood out to me because I was educated on Bendis Avengers, so yes, it's a problem of expectation on my part. But it appeared like the Avengers clocked on for the mission and just phoned it in. I'm just wondering was the "Avengers" book powerful enough to push aside character moments but leave it to Avengers Assembled to fill in the blanks?
Builders came first, with Abyss and ExNihilo, so planet Bombs were a pretty serious, large scale, disaster, so everybody was on the clock.
Then came Infinity, also so vast the Avengers were deligated to the background for a while.
Lastly, All New Marvel Now, where Original Sin led into Time Runs Out. The concepts were hard to absorb, so things concentrated on writing explanations, and then, the construction of the future, and left little room to humanise the story.
Secret Wars arrives and the haste with which it all goes down leaves little room for the characters to show any reaction and then they are gone. You draw a timeline from Avengers #1 to Avengers#44, and it was pointing directly towards a brick wall from the get go, called final Incursion, where the team is thrown against it. It's like you didn't need to know which Avengers were in it, just that the situation was so bad, that was more important.
Last Days will fill in some of those holes, but I can see how the Hickman script had to push ever forward maybe because of lack of time and space. It could be as simple as that.
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It's amazing so many people had trouble with this book when maybe 5 minutes could have solved that. Now I get the argument that one shouldn't HAVE TO do some research, sure, but literally it takes five minutes to expand upon the blurb in the beginning that lays it out there for you along with the cast of characters and where they're from (incursions are happening, two earths left, both about to collide).
I have a 5 year old who is going to be 6 in July. She and I read Original Sin together and read Thor, Spider-Girl, Justice League and the Star Wars books among others. She never read anything by Hickman. I explained to her what was going on before we sat to read SW #1 because she wanted the issue when she saw my copy. Now, yeah, at 5 she's not going to get every little nuance, but if I could explain it to a 5 year old in 5 minutes and have her enjoy it and actually gasp when characters got shot or when the worlds collided at the end, then anyone here saying it was impossible and so hard needs to step back and reevaluate that maybe comics like these aren't for them. I hear Highlights Magazine still gets published.
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[QUOTE=Sardorim;1175096]Agreed.
If you weren't reading the Avengers up to this point then you're going to have a rude awakening when all those other characters you were reading about turn up erased and maybe getting a battleworld imposter.
I disagree. This makes RR blush with such a huge death toll that happened in an instant.
At least RR kept his Uncanny Avengers mostly self-contained and he reversed things. Here is no such thing.
It's basically Marvel erasing everyone, saving the few they like and then making altered versions (For those that even get that) of the erased to suit what they want without having to deal with canon or history.
The lead-up is also completely horrid if you weren't already an Avenger reader and understandably Spider-Men, Cosmic, Inhuman and X-Men fans have every right to be displeased that the characters they like and read about are now gone forever due to an unrelated book.[/QUOTE]
Jesus. Did no one read All-New Avengers?
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I have to say this issue felt rather average to me. I haven't read Hickman's Avengers/New Avengers but I didn't feel lost reading Secret Wars #1, quite the opposite. While I'm glad that this didn't turn into an endless celebration of two-page spreads, the story felt a bit lacking in terms of scope with the entire multiverse coming to an end. Most of the deaths lacked impact in my opinion because of how casual several of them were treated. I'm not buying into the deaths of Sue, Ben etc., their return either on Battleworld or later is a no-brainer. I'm also wondering how Miles made it from being caught in an incursion at the end of Miles Morales: Ultimate Spider-Man #12 to being in the vicinity of the launch of The Maker's life raft, has this been explained in any previous issue? Can't say I'm a fan of the multiple pages consisting of caption boxes only, seems like wasted space because the captions could have been arranged on a single page as well. Ribic's art is a real treat for the most part, however I'm not a fan of his interpretation of Thing.
I've grown tired of hero vs. hero events and considering this is the overall premise for Secret Wars, I doubt that I'll buy the other issues on release date. I intend to pick up Ultimate End but the rest has little to no interest for me at the moment.
616 Reed's life raft has become quite the sausage fest with Captain Marvel and Thor currently being the only female heroes on board. Good luck repopulating Earth like that. :p
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I have read Avengers and New Avengers up to Infinity.
I look at comic covers when I am in the comic store.
The only thing I didn't get was Doom standing on a platform looking at a crack in space.
Apparently I am unique in that I knew I would not understand everything and assume it will be explained upon later in the series.
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[QUOTE=TonySnark;1173803]I honestly don't think you needed to read the entirety of the run to understand this issue; a quick wiki on what Incursions are is all you really need. The finales of Avengers/New Avengers didn't directly lead into the events of #1, there was a bit of a jump so a lot of the information was new to even readers of both books. Like the Phoenix egg.
I thought it was pretty straighforward, the 616 and Ultimate U collided, they fought for a bit, both were destroyed with a small group in the multiversal life raft. All that stuff is done now and the rest of the series should be easy to follow as it will establish how battleworld comes to be and how it works.[/QUOTE]
That's right, we live in an age where information is a click away. I haven't been reading Avengers or New Avengers, X-Men, Guardians of the Galaxy ... but I still enjoyed this series. My lack of knowledge about particular comics doesn't reduce the quality of an issue. It reduces my enjoyment of it, perhaps, but again, I can just Google what I've missed out on. Besides, how confusing is it, really? Earths are crashing, superheroes are fighting.