Should Marvel have rebooted after Hickman's Secret Wars

[Prof. Warren]

I love Marvel's weird and wild and convoluted history. I didn't want to lose that. It's what really makes Marvel step out from DC, that in theory, the characters we've been reading about are mostly the same people.

Yes, definitely.

Sure, you have to just go with lot of things to make the continuity work - like the fact that Tony became Iron Man in Vietnam but now it was in Desert Storm or the Gulf War or whatever but there's never been any attempt to explain that - but the key thing that matters is that these are still the same characters that we started out with, even if you have to fudge some of the details along the way.

The lack of that at DC is the biggest impediment for me towards getting back into their books. There's a disconnect between the characters and their histories, like they've been unmoored from their pasts. And I have no confidence in getting invested in whatever's going on now because there's no guarantee that there won't be another reboot before too long.

I think Marvel is well aware that continuity is a major selling point for them and they'll never abandon it.

And Marvel sort of tried a reboot with the Ultimate line. Eventually, the Ultimate line had just as big of a mess of a history as the 616, just in a 1/6th of a time as it took tge original universe.

Yeah, after a few years the Ultimate line - which was all about providing an easy entry point to new readers, with stories unburdened by years of continuity - had its own complicated continuity to contend with. It doesn't take long.

[Michael Watkins]

Reboot. Sure. Marvel is badly in need of clean up. You can't maintain all of that fictional history without cleaning up on occasion especial with the retcons.Couple examples

1. Magneto's age- The Holocaust was increible smart way to develop his back story but it also dates Magneto in a bad way

it was incredibly smart. and it made them a lot of money. there's a reason why Magneto was in so many of those X-Men movies. people like the character. he's very easy to identify. killing him off is an option. but they'd be fools to alter his backstory.

2. Diversity changes- Most of Gold and Silver age characters are white and are always the core in refocusing the line which makes diversity always an issue. A reboot would be good to fresh up stuff here and there what if Xavier was black and Psylocke was Asian and Iceman was gay from the beginning. What if Black Panther was founding member of the Avengers,etc.

i'm with you in spirit. but I don't trust the speculative reboot-ers to do it right. for the past few years, they've implemented diversity in a sloppy fashion. might have been different if it had been implemented from the start. but it's not hard to notice the sudden prevalence of bisexual multiracial characters. because they make sure that they introduce themselves as such. and then they become a piece of marketing instead of a "person." there are cases where it'd done well ex. Miss America Chavez and Kamala Khan. but there are also a lot of characters who they have to showcase simply because they were part of the diversity push but didn't catch on. it is going to be extremely awkward when they finally give up on Iron Heart (but not as awkward as what happened with the Inhumans).

[myownlittleusername]

There's really not much to gain with a reboot.

Will still be hard to coordinate all ongoing stories (which there are far too many of) and new continuity will build up faster than creators and editors can keep up with.

[Snoop Dogg]

The only issue with a Marvel sliding timeline is some character ages like Magneto's, which aren't a problem just yet and can be solved easily when concepts like the Infinity Formula already exist.

[JKtheMac]

Reboot does not have to mean clean slate. Think about like a old historic house, You can smash all down and start completely new or you can careful take old things to put in things but keep classical elements of the house. The point in keeping older things around is they have worth and not all thing need updating. It is about keeping the older stuff that has worth while updating for the time.

The word Reboot is apparently scary so lets call it "Renovation". Marvel doesn't have to keep bad fiction in it and Marvel fix clean up /recton/throw out stories make for a better cleaner history. Here is the thing whether you guys want to admit it or not Marvel has been rebooting for years. For example Frank Castle fought in Vietnam and Middle East and just patching these issues just cause more issues. If all stories count then all of Punisher history counts and since they never like to age characters we have 60's,70's,80's.90's,2000s versions of the same story all counting in the beautiful mess that is Marvel. It will never be perfect but attempting to maintain a timeline adjusting,retiring and adapting timeline say every 50 years(or whenever they feel is necessary) is just much cleaner.

I belive Marvel are sometimes committed to doing this on a case per case basis. The problem is that we get shifts in thinking and new EICs which can suddenly cause everything to be put back in place. Indeed over the decades we have seen the Marvel Universe drift to very different places and then get snapped back into place. I would like to believe there is some form of coherence right now. There certainly felt like there was a coherent plan leading up to Secret Wars, and even just afterwards for a few months.

It feels like there could have been a plan for Legacy, and the central plank of that, Avengers, seemed to be being positioned as a new direction. Now I am less sure. That central plank seems solid enough but the X-Books are heading in heir own new direction yet again, and Spider-Man seems to be doing this too. So the coherence is dissolving in front of our eyes.

Take The Immortal Hulk. Is this part of a wider plan or just a fascinating new direction for an established character. Right now it feels like the latter.

[Anthony Shaw]

IIRC....

Magneto was rejuvenated to a man in his prime by Erik the Red back in the day. Xavier was given a younger, cloned body.

It would make sense that mutants may enjoy a life span that is similar to Atlanteans & Inhumans.

[gurkle]

Rewriting continuity doesn't really work. Readers will never believe that previous stories didn't happen the way they happened. All you can really do is treat these things in broad strokes, adjusting timelines and other details as necessary but not changing the fundamental fact that the story "counts" toward the character's history.

So yes, the Fantastic Four's past has to be a little different now than it was a few decades ago, because it's not possible for them to have been going into space to fight the Cold War. But that's the sort of thing readers accept with characters who don't age. But if they tried to rewrite the events of those stories beyond the details that have been lost to time or changing technology, then readers would simply refuse to believe it: why should we trust the new stories over the classics that made the characters what they are?

At best a reboot would just be seen by most readers the way they see Mephisto wiping out Peter and Mary Jane's marriage: the characters have been brainwashed into thinking their past is different. If it's a straight-up fight between past continuity and current reboots then the past wins, because there's more of it.

[Iron Maiden]

I don't think Marvel needs a reboot. A lot of readers who weren't around for the Silver age runs don't bother to go back and read it anyway. What you don't know doesn't hurt you. For example: Carol giving birth to her own son Marcus. No need to ever bring that up again. Just forget it

[TheMaker1610]

I don't think Marvel needs a reboot. A lot of readers who weren't around for the Silver age runs don't bother to go back and read it anyway. What you don't know doesn't hurt you. For example: Carol giving birth to her own son Marcus. No need to ever bring that up again. Just forget it

That Carol issue remind me of a particular Spider-man history, that most CBR Users (myself included) made a vow to never mention it again

[Michael Watkins]

IIRC....

Magneto was rejuvenated to a man in his prime by Erik the Red back in the day. Xavier was given a younger, cloned body.

It would make sense that mutants may enjoy a life span that is similar to Atlanteans & Inhumans.

Xavier's on his second or 3rd young body, by this point. when are they going to put Magneto's mind/soul into Joseph's form?

[Triniking1234]

That Carol issue remind me of a particular Spider-man history, that most CBR Users (myself included) made a vow to never mention it again

Sins Past?

[Iron Maiden]

Sins Past?

That was my second guess. I was thinking of an older issue with some domestic violence. But both are worth erasing from history.

[Rosebunse]

I don't think Marvel needs a reboot. A lot of readers who weren't around for the Silver age runs don't bother to go back and read it anyway. What you don't know doesn't hurt you. For example: Carol giving birth to her own son Marcus. No need to ever bring that up again. Just forget it

I don't think we should forget Carol's rape and impregnation because then it could happen again.

[Personamanx]

It certainly would have been a good opportunity to do so, but it doesn't really matter. The hypothetical new universe would only get as convoluted as the previous, and start hurting the comics.

[VGCinema]

Looking back on it I'm glad they didn't reboot, but at that time, yeah I was really hoping for it. I had never read comics before Secret Wars, but I wanted to jump in as soon as I heard the concept and the possibility of a reboot. At the time Marvel's huge history was daunting, and as with most newcomers to comics, just jumping into any random storyline did not sound appealing. Now looking back at it I feel like Marvel made the right decision, but I definitely wouldn't have been as scared to continue on after Secret Wars if it had rebooted.