Secret Wars 1984 Appreciation

[GrandKaiser]

Since we have this new Secret Wars coming soon, I figured it'd be cool to have a thread dedicated to the original Secret Wars.

Some facts for people who haven't read it:

It was the biggest Marvel crossover ever and the first Marvel crossover to feature almost all of their characters

It was written to compete against DC and sell action figures

It helped Punisher get his own solo series

It was the first comic book I ever read

It features the origin of the symbiote

It was the first time an event had major effects on the rest of the Marvel Universe

Doctor Doom had never been more badass:




So for those who have read it, what do you guys think of it looking back now? What were your favorite scenes/moments/characters?

My favorite character in the whole series was Doctor Doom. Issue 10 (above) where he fights the Beyonder is beautifully drawn and was perfectly executed in the following issues. But as a whole I still find the series to be phenomenal and far better than some of the recent Marvel events.

If you haven't read it, either because you never had the chance or because you avoid "old stuff" I suggest you read it. I'm confident that any fan of Marvel loves/will love this book.

[fin5]

That's on my to buy list.Getting the Secret Wars tpb

[Montressor]

I will never forget the awe of reading Doom's battle with the Beyonder--then having to wait a month after that awesome cliffhanger. Then the terrifying cliffhanger leading into issue #12...good times, good times.

In retrospect Secret Wars 2 did not even compare with this, but was still special in its own way. I enjoyed the myriad of crossovers and the incredible displays of power between the Beyonder and Owen Reece.

[Ite]

Love this! Got all the issues besides the first black suit Spider-man because it is too expensive and have the TPB.



The cover for the trade is a beauty.

[Ite]

How did it help the Punisher get his own book?

[GrandKaiser]

How did it help the Punisher get his own book?

http://www.dvdverdict.com/interviews/stevengrant.php

[I]t started in 1976, when I was at a comics convention in New York City over Christmas break. I was in the middle of college then. I was staying with a guy named Duffy Vohland, who was then working in Marvel’s production department. (He has since died, sadly.) I wasn’t prepared to, and hadn’t even considered it, but Duffy exhorted me to pitch to Marvel and got me an interview with then-editor-in-chief Marv Wolfman, who I’ve since become pretty good friends with and who doesn’t remember it at all. I sat at Duffy’s typewriter for a day and knocked out three ideas; one involved the Black Knight and one was the Punisher, since those were characters I liked that not much was being done with then. Except the Punisher was being used at the time, before I knew it, as the lead character in a black and white magazine. Archie Goodwin was writing it. Marv pretty much just said, well, they’re using them, and that was that. I didn’t really expect Marvel to hire me as a writer then, so I wasn’t terribly disappointed, since I still had to finish college and this was when people in comics were concentrated around New York rather than spread all over like they are now. A couple years later I did start writing for Marvel after another friend, Roger Stern, became an editor there and asked me for something. A year after that, ’79 I think, Marvel started talking about doing mini-series, something I’d been pushing for a long time. I started pushing a Punisher mini-series then, but nobody was interested. The Punisher wasn’t considered a character anyone would care about. So every time a new editor would come in, I’d run the pitch — it was essentially the same pitch as I’d hit Marv with back when — and they’d just sort of look at me and eventually mumble no, and that’d be the end of it. Along the way, I did a Marvel Team-Up with Mike Zeck but didn’t really have any personal contact with him due to it, we met in the offices once or twice. In the meantime, Mike became artist on Marvel’s first big crossover series, Secret Wars, which, though he hated drawing it, made him a valuable commodity in the offices. At the time, editors were thinking in terms of “stables,” talent that worked for them alone.

A new editor, Carl Potts, was looking for projects and I wanted to do the Punisher, so I got the bright idea of asking Mike, who had just finished Secret Wars, if he wanted to draw it, since I thought his style would be perfect for the character. I called him, he remembered me, and when I brought up the Punisher he just started laughing; he and his friend and inker John Beatty had been sitting in his living room trying to figure out a project to do next and not seconds before I called one of them had said, “Hey, how about The Punisher?” We tossed the package at Carl, who snapped it up (though I’ve always suspected his main objective was to get Mike into his stable, but I don’t really care), and that was pretty much it. Carl was very strong supporter of the book, over much objection from Marvel management, which ended up telling him okay, he could do a Punisher mini if he wanted, but he bore responsibility for it. And that was that. Nine or so years in the making. What we ended up with was considerably different plotwise from what I began with, but the underlying concept never changed.

TL;DR: Mike Zeck became so popular at Marvel for his work on Secret Wars that he was able to convince Marvel to put out a Punisher book if he did the art.

[Darthfury78]

http://www.dvdverdict.com/interviews/stevengrant.php
TL;DR: Mike Zeck became so popular at Marvel for his work on Secret Wars that he was able to convince Marvel to put out a Punisher book if he did the art.

It's too bad that Mike Zeck never bothered to do the Punisher regular series back in 1987 when he was offered the title. He once told me via email over a decade ago was that the decision not to do the Punisher on-going series was because he was burned out; thus he retired from drawing comic books. He retired just as his dues where about to make him as big of a star as Todd McFarlane and Jim Lee respectively. If he was able to do around 50 issues of the Punisher at the time, he would have been a very rich man by now.

[XPac]

Secret Wars made me a life long Doom fan.

[Darthfury78]

I liked the first Secret Wars because it didn't have any crossover events like Secret War 2. In addition, the original Secret Wars wasn't trying to copy DC's 1985 Crisis on Infinite Earths that led to the reboot of the DC Universe prior to it. I do not understand why DC needed to make things simple to new readers as there was nothing wrong with the Pre-Crisis DC-verse.

[Derek Metaltron]

I think Secret Wars is one of the definitive stories to me, and proof that an event can be immensely popular, though of course Secret Wars and then Crisis on Infinite Earths for DC was the first of that sort of scale.

Favourite moments include She Hulk joining the FF and fighting Titannia for the first time, Hulk holding up a mountain, Spidey getting his black costume, Doom becoming a God, practically, Colossus' tragic love for Zsaji (even if it did break up him and Kitty, one of my all time favourite pairings in comics) and just generally everyone having something to do, even with the large number of heroes!

Graphic Audio did an adaption of the novel version of Secret Wars if fans wanna check it out - http://www.graphicaudiointernational...cret-wars.html

[yet another]

It was pretty good, especially considering it was made to sell a new toy line.

Still passes the test of time for me, and it will be interesting to see how close the new Secret Wars story will come to it. The new remake will probably be a more sophisticated story, but I'm betting not nearly as fun.

[McFarlane's Green Hulk]

I remember getting the first issue, reading it and thinking "s'alright."
I was more into the toyline.
Black suit Spidey -- still got this figure today.
Wish they'd have made more -- specifically the Hulk.

[Mike]

It was alright.
I quit reading after issue #3 when it was coming out.
Finished reading the series years later after finding the rest of the issues in a dollar bin.
Still think it's just alright.

[Haquim]

I loved Secret Wars. Any true Doctor Doom's fan can do no less.

"But he is... DOOM!"

[Surf]

It was the biggest Marvel crossover ever and the first Marvel crossover to feature almost all of their characters

While bigger it wasn't the first, that would belong to the 3 issue lmtd. Contest of Champions' in the 70's.

This was the first time 80's kids like myself got to actually have Marvel superhero action figures. I had Iron Man. Didn't get how the shields with the toys came into it but I do remember the little cardboard inserts were the first thing to get lost.