Rate it: Secret Wars by Jonathan Hickman

[Rosebunse]

The build up to it was so much fun! As it grew and grew, we as a fandom united in this one event that promised to change everything and, really, it rather did.

We all knew things would be OK, but the genuine sadness and fear that sprang up after that first issue was a rare thing for this jaded fandom.

[jackolover]

The build up to it was so much fun! As it grew and grew, we as a fandom united in this one event that promised to change everything and, really, it rather did.

We all knew things would be OK, but the genuine sadness and fear that sprang up after that first issue was a rare thing for this jaded fandom.

I suppose the uniqueness of having characters in strange settings was attractive. They jumbled up characters into other kingdoms that didn’t seem to be phased that they were brutalised and tortured, but certainly villains had a very happy time during Battleworld. Doom just reset everything if it got out of hand, and so the villain was ascendant again. It was one of those fantasy outcomes Doom and Namor had been talking about in the Dark Reign, that Doom had the land and Namor had the seas. What that would look like nobody could imagine, but we got a full understanding what Doom meant once he became God Doom - the Thor Corp. Hulk land. Thing as a wall, and Torch as a sun. “Lucy in the sky with diamonds”. Pure fantasy.

[jackolover]

I’d just like to bring this up here. Near the end of Secret Wars #9, T’Challa is lying on the ground as the world is about to turn white again. He holds one Infinity Stone in his hand and uses it, then the Stone disintegrates. My question is does everyone agree it’s the reality Stone, or is it the mind Stone? From the colour it looks yellow. And from T’Challas reaction after the snap, he says, “It worked”, it sounds like he wished Reality to change, so that would be the Red Stone?

[j9ac9k]

I would give it a 7/10. It seemed more to me a Fantastic Four story (a good one, for sure) that involved other heroes and many of them were these altered versions of themselves who were tangential to the main story. That's how I remember it.

[Batman Begins 2005]

One of the best comic book events ever. Great stuff.

[CentralPower]

A bit like HoX/PoX was last year across twitter and the X-Boards. Must have been intense.

The difference is that Hickman's lead-in to "Secret Wars" required less of a comic book mind-set than his X-run.

"Secret Wars" itself was not bad. But, I agree with the people who say that the lead-up and tie-ins were better.

[Rosebunse]

I’d just like to bring this up here. Near the end of Secret Wars #9, T’Challa is lying on the ground as the world is about to turn white again. He holds one Infinity Stone in his hand and uses it, then the Stone disintegrates. My question is does everyone agree it’s the reality Stone, or is it the mind Stone? From the colour it looks yellow. And from T’Challas reaction after the snap, he says, “It worked”, it sounds like he wished Reality to change, so that would be the Red Stone?

I thought it was the Reality stone? More so because we have had a lot happen with the Soul stone recently and it would be pretty gnarly if all that was happening inside-inside the Soul stone.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

The difference is that Hickman's lead-in to "Secret Wars" required less of a comic book mind-set than his X-run.

I don't know, alternate earths colliding against one another is still very much a "comic book mind-set".

What Hickman gets in X-Men is that they are supposed to be uncanny. The X-Men are very much about making the normal weird, and making the weird normal, and challenging readers by making them imagine or relate to stuff outside what they should relate to.

John Byrne complained about Claremont and X-Men by noting that Claremont didn't get a sense of having a character who the audience could/should relate to, so the X-Men under his term became more and more extreme until no one was normal. Even the ones like Cyclops (with his space Dad Corsair and his Summers' brothers, his clone wife, and time travelling child) and Jean Grey who were supposed to be among the normal mutants. It's one of those observations from Byrne that comes across unthinkingly as describing clearly the appeal and originality of Claremont's achievement. That he made the absolutely weird corner of the Marvel Universe something that was universal and transcendent without anyone really "normal" to center around.

Hickman groks that making everything weirder than before. So Moira MacTaggert, the token human, is now one of the weirdest and strangest mutants of them all, and that issue where he retcons her, HOX#2 was the best single issue Marvel put out last year and in quite a while.

[jackolover]

I thought it was the Reality stone? More so because we have had a lot happen with the Soul stone recently and it would be pretty gnarly if all that was happening inside-inside the Soul stone.

Thanks Rosebunse. I’m hoping so too.

[CentralPower]

The colors of the stones have been inconsistent over the last few years. The popular (and reasonable) assumption is that Black Panther used either the Reality or the Time stone at the end of "Secret Wars". (He materializes at the beginning of the events shown in "New Avangers" #1.)

I don't know, alternate earths colliding against one another is still very much a "comic book mind-set".

It was an extension of the old thought experiment about making a choice between a bad result (and not being directly involved) or a less bad result (that one has to affirmatively cause). The moral question was popularized by the infamous last episode of "MASH", but has long been kicked around in philosophy classes. Hickman just increased the scale.

What Hickman gets in X-Men is that they are supposed to be uncanny. The X-Men are very much about making the normal weird, and making the weird normal, and challenging readers by making them imagine or relate to stuff outside what they should relate to.

Comic characters are impossible to "relate to". Even hard luck characters (such as Spider-Man") tend to have advantages that most people (even those who are well situated) do not enjoy. And, "X-Men" does not work as an oppression narrative. (When the team includes members who are walking extinction events, it strains credulity to assume they are "oppressed".) The last few issues of several new-run X-titles are trying to justify how the X-books still work as an oppression narrative. But, it really should not the status quo (commercial and editorial necessity aside).

"Marauders" is a mixed bag, but it is making a noble attempt at showing the limits of the mutants' power/influence.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

It was an extension of the old thought experiment about making a choice between a bad result (and not being directly involved) or a less bad result (that one has to affirmatively cause). The moral question was popularized by the infamous last episode of "MASH", but has long been kicked around in philosophy classes. Hickman just increased the scale.

Yeah, the "trolley problem". The Fantastic Four/New Avengers/Avengers/Secret Wars 2015 era has an advantage in having a specific single problem that Hickman explores all the angles and all the characters in relation to and against, without clearly falling entirely on one side or the other. There's also the other message and idea - "Solve Everything" which is what he started with in Dark Reign Fantastic Four (the true beginning of Hickman's run on that period of Marvel).

In the case of the X-Men, Hickman is exploring many ideas on a much broader canvas for better and for worse. So you have stuff like nation-building, you have free will versus determinancy, you have ideas of religion and cult of personality, and the transhumanist notion of biological evolution versus technologically driven evolution. That's also why Hickman has put together a team for his run on X-Men, taking over the title "Head of X" overseeing multiple X-titles because Hickman knows that neither he, nor any writer, can tell every kind of story within the X-Men.

And underneath all that you have a psychological story dealing with strong personalities like Xavier, Magneto, Moira, Cyclops, Apocalypse (who honestly has never been this interesting).

[ETMike1988]

4 spoilers:

stars of 5 stars

end of spoilers

[TheMaker1610]

Secrets Wars gets a solid 4.5/5 from me
Ribic was the perfect choice for art, and it reminded me of his Ultimates work, which I am quite fond of
And Hickman did an amazing job from issue 1 to 9
I have some nitpicks there and there (like the time-skip at issue 4), but it didnt take my enjoyment away in any way, and the finale was spot-on, perfectly summarized in this phrase: "Everything Lives" (Sun God was right)

Also, the build-up to Secret Wars (the entirety Hickman's Avengers run) was great too
Specially the Time Runs Out, and the Great Society arcs
(boy.. the CBR Forums at the time were WILD, I really loved all the discussion that took place those times)