Hickman Calls "Secret Wars" A 'Horror Story,' 'Culmination' Of His Marvel Work

[xcoijoi]

Just remembered - if the Beyonder is involved in this, then will Doom have another shot at messing with him, because he has a record of his 'vibratory energy' or whatever the heck that was?

And does the knowledge that Doom obtained during his visit to Galactus' ship, help in any way against the Ivory Kings?

[DrTraveler]

I loved what he was doing with the Ultimate Universe and was pretty disappointed when he left. You could tell the direction was going to be incredible, but no one could ever follow up on it. If I'm reading his response right, I'm sad that he left because it was considered a failure.

Yeah, that was a surprise. I thought he'd left it after being tapped for Avengers in the 616. I'm glad he didn't abandon the title but sad such a good run was a failure.

[Danny Wall]

Well I admit the "horror story" aspect just fits and helps me put the works into context. It's interesting too in that Marvel Comics stemmed more from the tradition of "horror" comics from the 50/60s during its Atlas days of monster-comics.

That being said, I'm officially declaring now that while I think the Hickman Avengers oeuvre are good stories (to some extent) I really don't think they can be good *Marvel Comics* stories, at least now that we are seeing the direction it's ultimately heading in. Maybe I'm wrong, and the Marvel universe will be saved, but it looks like that the whole Secret Wars things will basically mean that our heroes will lose. Even after two years of these stories, they will lose. And that's not a Marvel story. OK, there are always elements of tragedy in a "classic" Marvel story, to be sure, but to say that our heroes will not succeed in saving their known world, nor will be able to return to their known world in the aftermath, feels fundamentally wrong.

Since it's germane to this conversation, you'll see more of my thought process about this point in my review of New Avengers #29 for weeklycomicbookreview.com
http://weeklycomicbookreview.com/201...w-avengers-29/

[Habis]

Sure you can. It's been done before and it's being done here. The idea of taking a genre which is classically very black and white and introducing elements that challenge that black and white view....that is an element coon amongst many comic stories that are considered among the medium's greats.

Yes, but he can't brush stuff saying "it's just a funny book". He has to show what has Caps been doing to stop the Incursions. He has to explain if time travel works as a escape route or not, if the past is erasen or not, and what happens with the Earthless universes, the Microverse and the Negative Zone.

You want to make a story heavy with moral and phylosophical implications? Fine. But then "don't worry, it's just a comic-book" isn't a valid answer to anything anymore.

[Prof. Warren]

Yeah, that was a surprise. I thought he'd left it after being tapped for Avengers in the 616. I'm glad he didn't abandon the title but sad such a good run was a failure.

It was only a commercial failure, not an artistic one. And commercially, it got creamed by the simultaneous launch of DC's New 52. Next to that, the relaunched Ultimates just didn't stand a chance, sadly. I'm sure that once it was apparent that the Ultimates was a sales dud, Marvel moved Hickman onto The Avengers. Who knows what might've happened had The Ultimates been a big seller. It certainly deserved to be and I can only imagine where he would've taken that book but when his run on that folded, I think that was more or less signaled the death knell for the Ultimate universe. Actually, it literally did as if he had stayed on that book, he wouldn't have been on The Avengers to tell his Incursion storyline.

[Prof. Warren]

Well I admit the "horror story" aspect just fits and helps me put the works into context. It's interesting too in that Marvel Comics stemmed more from the tradition of "horror" comics from the 50/60s during its Atlas days of monster-comics.

That being said, I'm officially declaring now that while I think the Hickman Avengers oeuvre are good stories (to some extent) I really don't think they can be good *Marvel Comics* stories, at least now that we are seeing the direction it's ultimately heading in. Maybe I'm wrong, and the Marvel universe will be saved, but it looks like that the whole Secret Wars things will basically mean that our heroes will lose. Even after two years of these stories, they will lose. And that's not a Marvel story. OK, there are always elements of tragedy in a "classic" Marvel story, to be sure, but to say that our heroes will not succeed in saving their known world, nor will be able to return to their known world in the aftermath, feels fundamentally wrong.

Since it's germane to this conversation, you'll see more of my thought process about this point in my review of New Avengers #29 for weeklycomicbookreview.com
http://weeklycomicbookreview.com/201...w-avengers-29/

Haha, seriously? Have you ever read a Marvel comic? There's nothing more inherently Marvel than a story of a hero failing. If the Marvel heroes do lose at the end of SW, it'll be the most Marvel story ever. Marvel heroes have a long history of suffering failures or winning at great personal cost. SW sounds like it's completely in line with that.

[Danny Wall]

Haha, seriously? Have you ever read a Marvel comic? There's nothing more inherently Marvel than a story of a hero failing. If the Marvel heroes do lose at the end of SW, it'll be the most Marvel story ever. Marvel heroes have a long history of suffering failures or winning at great personal cost. SW sounds like it's completely in line with that.

Yes, I have had read many, many Marvel comics. And I know that Marvel heroes fail, it's just that the failure is usually the beginning of the story, not the end. As I mentioned in my review, there's nothing more iconic to Marvel than Spider-Man's origin being born of failure. But by being an origin, it's literally the beginning of the story, not the end. The incursion events, 8 Months later, Secret Wars? I read the interview that's the OP of this thread and Hickman is literally telling you the ending -- it's one of failure. How Secret Wars' a memorial. The post-Wars Marvel is "not a reboot", or maybe it is, or whatever. The bottom line is, the heroes will fail to save the world they know, and a different iteration of it will be what's next. So, yeah, I guess I was serious.

[Mark]

Yes, I have had read many, many Marvel comics. And I know that Marvel heroes fail, it's just that the failure is usually the beginning of the story, not the end. As I mentioned in my review, there's nothing more iconic to Marvel than Spider-Man's origin being born of failure. But by being an origin, it's literally the beginning of the story, not the end. The incursion events, 8 Months later, Secret Wars? I read the interview that's the OP of this thread and Hickman is literally telling you the ending -- it's one of failure. How Secret Wars' a memorial. The post-Wars Marvel is "not a reboot", or maybe it is, or whatever. The bottom line is, the heroes will fail to save the world they know, and a different iteration of it will be what's next. So, yeah, I guess I was serious.

I think the main thing for marvel will be the the failure will give them a chance to re-do the entire title line with out resorting to a reboot of the type that they despise as only a second rate (to them) company like DC would do. Plus I believe most of the marvel writers love to tear characters apart than write stories where they are heroic (Thor being a good example), But the mu wasn't built on failures, the heroes fail along the way and sometimes the consequences of those failures can last and resonate (at least they did before marvel writers started cherry picking history), but they never gave up as the Illuminati did and they never considered themselves the only group that could handle problems. The behavior of the Illuminati is the behavior I'd expect from the Cabal or Dr. Doom or the Supreme Intelligence or any of the other races out that formerly the heroes of Earth fought against. Once the Avengers were the Great Society, now they're joining with the ones who murdered the Great Society.

[hawkeyefan]

Yes, but he can't brush stuff saying "it's just a funny book". He has to show what has Caps been doing to stop the Incursions. He has to explain if time travel works as a escape route or not, if the past is erasen or not, and what happens with the Earthless universes, the Microverse and the Negative Zone.

You want to make a story heavy with moral and phylosophical implications? Fine. But then "don't worry, it's just a comic-book" isn't a valid answer to anything anymore.

I don't think he's said that in defense of his story. I also think that as we continue, he addresses most criticisms that readers have raised. I'm sure we'll find out why the earthless universes are also being destroyed...although all along this has been billed as the end of everything.....we'll see. As for the microverse, isn't that a part of the universe? I would think that it would be destroyed along with everything else.

The Negative Zone is separate from the universe...separate from them all...but I would imagine that if all universes fell, then so would the Negative Zone. But that is a guess on my part. I don't necessarily agree with you that it has to be addressed, though. Certainly they've pointed out how they have tried everything and nothing has worked. They've said this for some time now, and we've been shown many of their attempts now, too. I don't know if Hickman needs to address every single possibility that every reader can come up with, do you? Although I will say that the Negative Zone is a pretty big example from the story's setting that perhaps would have been a good choice to use. But the fact that he didn't doesn't really bother me.

As for time, I think that has been addressed. In Cap's jaunt through time, Future Franklin was still concerned about the Incursions, despite having already lived through the whole affair. And he pointed out that time is not linear. The Incursions threaten it all.

[shgs]

I'm not sure you can call your series a horror, when at no point has it been scary, or even particularly unnerving, nor has it seemed like it was trying to be. Horror relies on making your characters vulnerable and making your audience feel that vulnerability themselves. Hickman's Avengers aren't vulnerable, their universe is - and that's just too high-concept and abstract for me to empathise with. It doesn't help that we know that most if not all of the main characters are going to survive through to Secret Wars, further undermining the sense of threat/vulnerability.

What we have instead is more akin to the disaster genre (someone suggested this already), where the 'antagonist' is a force (typically of nature) beyond the characters control, but again the threat is too abstract to instill a real sense of danger in the reader, which is why they spend most of their time fighting each other - not a bad thing in of itself.

I've enjoyed Hickman's run for the most part, but the longer it drags on the more it starts to grate on me. For all his foreshadowing, I don't think its quite as clever as he or some of his fans seem to think it is, and the sci-fi concepts don't really hold up to close scrutiny. Worst of all it feels like the characterisation is really starting to stagnate, which is why everyone is debating who is in the right so fiercely instead of talking about the actual story. None of the characters are progressing any more, they're just doubling down on their existing convictions. Instead of showing us what it is like for the characters to deal with the terrible choices they have had to make, Hickman simply has them bickering over who made the right choice. I don't care what Steve Rogers thinks about Namor destroying a planet, I want to know what Namor feels about destroying a planet and how that will affect his actions... no wait, he's dead. Guess we'll never know. Meanwhile the plot inches forwards at a glacial pace.

[Habis]

I don't think he's said that in defense of his story.

Nope, but he's leaving holes in the plot that would be acceptable for a regular comic, but not for this kind of "no escape" plotline.

I also think that as we continue, he addresses most criticisms that readers have raised. I'm sure we'll find out why the earthless universes are also being destroyed...although all along this has been billed as the end of everything.....we'll see. As for the microverse, isn't that a part of the universe? I would think that it would be destroyed along with everything else.

The Negative Zone is separate from the universe...separate from them all...but I would imagine that if all universes fell, then so would the Negative Zone. But that is a guess on my part. I don't necessarily agree with you that it has to be addressed, though. Certainly they've pointed out how they have tried everything and nothing has worked. They've said this for some time now, and we've been shown many of their attempts now, too. I don't know if Hickman needs to address every single possibility that every reader can come up with, do you? Although I will say that the Negative Zone is a pretty big example from the story's setting that perhaps would have been a good choice to use. But the fact that he didn't doesn't really bother me.

Addressing what happens to those other universes is important because they are obvious escape routes that the readers will think about and the characters should too.

As for time, I think that has been addressed. In Cap's jaunt through time, Future Franklin was still concerned about the Incursions, despite having already lived through the whole affair. And he pointed out that time is not linear. The Incursions threaten it all.

We have seen that, with the new rules, if you travel in time, the timeline gets rewritten from your point of arrival onwards. Incursions could very well work like that, if they have an origin beyond time itself. They happen at a point in time, and the future that follows that point is erased. We don't know about the past.

And I think the past is important because at least Reed Richards should try to save his family traveling in time. I can see him choosing to die with the rest of the universe if he were alone, but Susan and Reed are parents, they would try to save their kids no matter what.

[xcoijoi]

Well I admit the "horror story" aspect just fits and helps me put the works into context. It's interesting too in that Marvel Comics stemmed more from the tradition of "horror" comics from the 50/60s during its Atlas days of monster-comics.

That being said, I'm officially declaring now that while I think the Hickman Avengers oeuvre are good stories (to some extent) I really don't think they can be good *Marvel Comics* stories, at least now that we are seeing the direction it's ultimately heading in. Maybe I'm wrong, and the Marvel universe will be saved, but it looks like that the whole Secret Wars things will basically mean that our heroes will lose. Even after two years of these stories, they will lose. And that's not a Marvel story. OK, there are always elements of tragedy in a "classic" Marvel story, to be sure, but to say that our heroes will not succeed in saving their known world, nor will be able to return to their known world in the aftermath, feels fundamentally wrong.

Since it's germane to this conversation, you'll see more of my thought process about this point in my review of New Avengers #29 for weeklycomicbookreview.com
http://weeklycomicbookreview.com/201...w-avengers-29/

A welcome plug, and bookmarked, thanks.

[Prof. Warren]

Yes, I have had read many, many Marvel comics. And I know that Marvel heroes fail, it's just that the failure is usually the beginning of the story, not the end. As I mentioned in my review, there's nothing more iconic to Marvel than Spider-Man's origin being born of failure. But by being an origin, it's literally the beginning of the story, not the end. The incursion events, 8 Months later, Secret Wars? I read the interview that's the OP of this thread and Hickman is literally telling you the ending -- it's one of failure. How Secret Wars' a memorial. The post-Wars Marvel is "not a reboot", or maybe it is, or whatever. The bottom line is, the heroes will fail to save the world they know, and a different iteration of it will be what's next. So, yeah, I guess I was serious.

Aside from the fact that, in the endless continuity of comics, nothing ever truly "ends," Marvel's history is full of stories, from the Death of Gwen Stacy to the Dark Phoenix Saga to The Kang Dynasty to Civil War, that involve failure and loss - and if there's a victory, it's tempered by that loss. I'm sure SW will be much in that tradition - an eventual win but one that takes a great toll.

[hawkeyefan]

I don't need the story to be simple, I would like the characters to be heroic as most of them have been for as long as I've been reading them and I haven't seen that.

Perhaps you don't need it to be, but you clearly want it to be. You're asking that the story allow the characters to maintain their heroic morality. But the central premise of the story is about how that morality holds up in a no win situation.

Asking that to change is asking for a simpler story, one that does not actually challenge the characters' ideals nor the readers'.

I'm not sure you can call your series a horror, when at no point has it been scary, or even particularly unnerving, nor has it seemed like it was trying to be. Horror relies on making your characters vulnerable and making your audience feel that vulnerability themselves. Hickman's Avengers aren't vulnerable, their universe is - and that's just too high-concept and abstract for me to empathise with. It doesn't help that we know that most if not all of the main characters are going to survive through to Secret Wars, further undermining the sense of threat/vulnerability.

What we have instead is more akin to the disaster genre (someone suggested this already), where the 'antagonist' is a force (typically of nature) beyond the characters control, but again the threat is too abstract to instill a real sense of danger in the reader, which is why they spend most of their time fighting each other - not a bad thing in of itself.

I've enjoyed Hickman's run for the most part, but the longer it drags on the more it starts to grate on me. For all his foreshadowing, I don't think its quite as clever as he or some of his fans seem to think it is, and the sci-fi concepts don't really hold up to close scrutiny. Worst of all it feels like the characterisation is really starting to stagnate, which is why everyone is debating who is in the right so fiercely instead of talking about the actual story. None of the characters are progressing any more, they're just doubling down on their existing convictions. Instead of showing us what it is like for the characters to deal with the terrible choices they have had to make, Hickman simply has them bickering over who made the right choice. I don't care what Steve Rogers thinks about Namor destroying a planet, I want to know what Namor feels about destroying a planet and how that will affect his actions... no wait, he's dead. Guess we'll never know. Meanwhile the plot inches forwards at a glacial pace.

The inevitability of death is about as basic a horror concept as you can find. I think the concepts of worlds and entire universes being extinguished is indeed horrific. It's just so vast that it is hard to truly imagine it.

As for Namor, I think we absolutely did see his feelings about what he had done, in a few different scenes. It's in there. Perhaps not as much as you would like, but I feel I had a pretty good grasp of how Namor felt about everything.

And I doubt that he's gone, so I am sure there will be some more of that to come.

Nope, but he's leaving holes in the plot that would be acceptable for a regular comic, but not for this kind of "no escape" plotline.

Addressing what happens to those other universes is important because they are obvious escape routes that the readers will think about and the characters should too.

We have seen that, with the new rules, if you travel in time, the timeline gets rewritten from your point of arrival onwards. Incursions could very well work like that, if they have an origin beyond time itself. They happen at a point in time, and the future that follows that point is erased. We don't know about the past.

And I think the past is important because at least Reed Richards should try to save his family traveling in time. I can see him choosing to die with the rest of the universe if he were alone, but Susan and Reed are parents, they would try to save their kids no matter what.

I agree with you about the Earthless universes. I think we will learn more about them.

As for time, I think he's addressed it enough to say it's not an option. Certainly if Reed is not pursuing it, then it isn't an option? Does Hickman need to explicitly say it is not an option? Or can he allow what has been said about it so far and what has been shown in the story display that it is not an option?

Aside from the fact that, in the endless continuity of comics, nothing ever truly "ends," Marvel's history is full of stories, from the Death of Gwen Stacy to the Dark Phoenix Saga to The Kang Dynasty to Civil War, that involve failure and loss - and if there's a victory, it's tempered by that loss. I'm sure SW will be much in that tradition - an eventual win but one that takes a great toll.

I agree to. As much as this story is about a no-win situation, eventually there will be some measure of victory. Not sure why people are equating failure in the middle of the story as failure at the end. We haven't seen the end yet.

[Baron of Faltine]

Aside from the fact that, in the endless continuity of comics, nothing ever truly "ends," Marvel's history is full of stories, from the Death of Gwen Stacy to the Dark Phoenix Saga to The Kang Dynasty to Civil War, that involve failure and loss - and if there's a victory, it's tempered by that loss. I'm sure SW will be much in that tradition - an eventual win but one that takes a great toll.

Indeed raising form one's failure and keep on going is the base of the MU, after all is not just Spiderman but almost all MU heroes.
I thinkthe differencet between this "Secret Wars" and a reboot, is that with a reboot the heroes got reset mentally andpersonality wise. They start from point zero. But form what seem to leak, SW will see the heroes having to face the worst case scenarion, the one where the fail at saving everyone(also the build up to SW did a great task in pointing how often the heroes saved the world/universe less by their own skill, power and wit, and more by a stroke of luck/deus ex machina. And Hickman, nasty GM, took away all the Deus exmachin they usualy relied upon! Infinity gems, cosmic cubes, Frnakling Richards...poof useles or gone. The very definition of magnificient bastard imho