Secret Wars 9 *Spoilers*

[JKtheMac]

I kind aliked the ending, but honestly, Hickman has got to be the most inconsistent writer of all times. So suddenly the Infinity Gauntlet proves a threat to God Doom, seriously?
I mean, that thing is merely universal, and you know what the Beyonders did to the Living Tribunal.

Even more jarring when the thing failed to even stop one incursion.

Hickman was always using the Gauntlet as a red herring. If he wasn't they would have stopped the Infinity Guantlet story. It is only in the story as misdirection, so people will say "oh this will just be a reset with the gauntlet" which we all knew would never work. It is incorporated as a distraction. It didn't prove much of a threat, it just took a while for Doom to defeat it, which feels right to me. When weilded well it should be a powerful weapon. The whole thing reminded me of one of those shapeshifting duels, which are always fun but ultimately you know who will win and in this case the bad guy finally gets to win.

[JKtheMac]

The problem here is that we don't know whether or not he used the time gem or the reality gem. An even bigger problem is that the author doesn't know either...

Why do you say the author doesn't know? Personally I don't think it matters which, but has Hickman said he doesn't know / mind which?

[jackolover]

An awful lot of Wakandans died pretty soon after this, and T'Challa had no real way of stopping it happening so going back to that time would be pointless. Bringing them to the future resurrects them. Sure they dont have a memory of a chunk of history, it was a horrid history, probably worse than the rest of the world for those months.

It would be interesting trying to fit in Infinity as having happened in ANAD, because you still have Thanos and the Cabal, as well as one of the Cabal altering Thanos' son. Maybe none of that happened in post-SW memory now?

[marcbret1987]

Just wanted to say that in the end all the stuff about time being broken after Age of Ultron has indeed had zero impact. A plot point swept under the carpet

[Dispenser Of Truth]

Just wanted to say that in the end all the stuff about time being broken after Age of Ultron has indeed had zero impact. A plot point swept under the carpet

It's being addressed in Ultimates right now.

[windfall]

Why do you say the author doesn't know? Personally I don't think it matters which, but has Hickman said he doesn't know / mind which?

From the CBR Q&A with Hickman and Brevoort:

Let's back up a bit and talk about what exactly the Black Panther did near the end of the story. Was that the Time Gem he used there near the end?

Hickman: Maybe...

Brevoort: [Laughs]

Hickman: Did we ever agree on that, Tom? Did we ever come down on whether it was the Time Gem or the Reality Gem?

Brevoort: Boy, we went back and forth on that right up until the end. I think it was the Time Gem, but it's been a while now, and it was so last minute. You and I were chatting at 7:30 that night as the book was getting done going, "What color is the gem? It's this color now, but it has to be that color! What color does it have to be? Because it's got to work this way or that way."

I remember, we went back and forth between it being the Time Gem or the Reality Gem.

Hickman: It was colored wrong. It was colored green. And you called me up, and -- I won't say you were freaking out, but you were not happy. [Laughs]

Brevoort: [Laughs] It was late on a Friday! I wanted to be done with this!

Hickman: I actually went in and tweaked the color and changed it. Then we had a debate about whether or not it should the Time or the Reality Gem, because both of them work in terms of where we were going with the story and what it actually means.

The point of it, though, was to get T'Challa back to where he was in "New Avengers" #1, so he could act as an advocate for doing things a better way. To carry the weight of it.

The gem definitely looks more orange than yellow on my screen, but it looks like the color is supposed to be intentionally vague.

[marcbret1987]

It's being addressed in Ultimates right now.

Oh is it? Haven't read that series yet, then I guess I have been owned. Good stuff Marvel

[JKtheMac]

Where all the pieces Doom had saved came apart, and just floated around where Reed and the Future Foundation were hanging? It's possible. Then it was just a clean sheet for Reed to work on. And I think there were resurrections done by Reed here, too, and I think Doom was doing this on a regular basis on his Battleworld after everyone was killed and he reset the Domain.

Yes, indeed you restated what I was trying to say. That in itself is good It means we are both seeing the same idea and nodding. We all know that is rare in forum discussion.

I think the biggest question is are Reed and Co. Standing in the "Prime Universe" on Battleworld and if so are they recreating from the matter left over or from the matter that existed at the end. I suspect Reed is recreating his own universe from the last incursion but that part is very vague. But it doesn't really matter because Reed is wielding the true power of creation. An external transcending creative force via Molecule Man. He can create matter. He can create universes.

[JKtheMac]

Oh is it? Haven't read that series yet, then I guess I have been owned. Good stuff Marvel

Indeed Ultimates is quite an interesting comic. They are acknowledging that this new universe is very weird and new and many concepts will just not match. So they have made a new cosmological comic. Its kind of opposite to DC. Instead of saying "all sorted now" and then finally having to redo things, they are saying "wow that causes some messy problems, sounds like we could get some story mileage out of those".

Actually it's kind of the same as DC in the long run, just that the interesting story consequences are periodic in DC and here they are ongoing.

[JKtheMac]

From the CBR Q&A with Hickman and Brevoort:


The gem definitely looks more orange than yellow on my screen, but it looks like the color is supposed to be intentionally vague.

Thanks, for the link I was offline for a while and hadn't expected the inevitable interview to be up yet. I was under the impression the gem was left vague too. Indeed at the end of reading it I skipped back and tried to decide which color it was. It seemed to be yellow while reading it because it felt like time travel, but afterwards in context it felt like he was just wishing, which would make the stone Orange and would make more sense if you think of him exerting his will on the new reality.

P.S. It's quite funny to think of them freaking out about it looking green. It highlights the creative process going on. I think Tom and Jonathan have probably become quite close after this trial of obstacles. Makes me smile anyway.

[jackolover]

Very happy with this finale. Yes, it would've been nice if it had arrived in a speedier fashion but I'd rather it be late and good than rushed and on time. And this was, in my estimation, very good. Definitely one of - if not the most - satisfying ends to an event ever. I loved that the fate of the universe - of reality itself - came down to Reed vs. Doom. This is truly the end of a tale that Hickman has been telling for years and as such it puts a wonderful cap on his Marvel run. I expect he'll return at some point but not to start anything as ambitious as what he's done over the past few years. Projects along the line of what Ellis has been doing lately - short runs on underused characters, giving them a boost - seems more appropriate. But back to SW - I feel like it answers the most pertinent questions and, more importantly, leaves its characters and the Marvel Universe, in a hopeful place - looking towards a future that it is more full of possibilities than ever.

And I'd be VERY surprised if we didn't see more of Reed, Sue, and the Future Foundation before too long.

I'm suspicious of the place Franklin and Reed put ANAD in. Is Reed trusting his son to make these imaginary universes correctly? Or does Reed accept that if Franky does make a universe, it will neccesarily be unpredictable, and that is acceptable?

I see ANAD as fairly radical from what 616 used to be. Reeds interpretation of a "better result" compared to Dooms, smacks of elitism, because you could equally have a Stark better result, and a T'Challa better result which could be completely different from each other. Why has Marvel picked Reed to design this new ANAD? Yes, the Fantastic Four heralded in the Silver Age birth of all these characters, so is Reed suitable enough to have as the father of this new one?

I think Hickman did make the correct choice of Reed Richards as the father of ANAD, despite all his failings. I remember the vision shown by Reed in those early first 5 years of their story, and impressed by his idealism as having the most integrity. Reed had a pure optimism that was infectious, and if that's the Reed Hickman chose to deliver this message out into creation, it's not a bad choice.

[jackolover]

Hand-wavey bland ending to a disappointing event that lead to literally nothing with no real ramifications. Amazing missed potential, not on Hickman's part, but on Marvel's in general.

"Nothing will ever be the same! ...and then everything went back to the way it was...because reasons"

And yes, this suffers from what Hickman seems to repeatedly struggle with. HUGE build-up...whimper in the end. Omg the Builders! Galaxy wide conflict! So many dead! Oh wait...they lose because we need to move onto other stuff. ZOMG Beyonders! Effortless murder of conceptual beings! Omniversal threat! Oh wait Doom killed them...somehow.

Also WAY over the use of terms like "omnipotent" and "all-powerful" to describe Doom in this series. This Doom is a pathetic imagining of "all powerful" and this series really REALLY makes Doom look like a thuggish moron without a bit of savvy. I never figured the Magus would be a FAR better wielder of godhood than Doom but, well, in about 1 page Magus wielded "infinite" power far more impressively than Doom who comes off as an unimaginative slug.

No good stakes. No follow through on the stakes established. Sloppy sloppy motivations and way too much "whimper instead of bang" resolutions all over the place.

After re-reading Multiversity, this comes off as straight-up boring.

Battleworld was Dooms description. Victors imagination only went as far as Battleworld. Victor was restricted to his view of his environment put into terms of power and authority. Victor had a thing about Reed he couldn't push away from. When he thought of the Universe, Battleworld is how he saw it. Victor was completely insular in inward in his thinking.

Reed saw the universe as ANAD. It's interesting because Reed's thinking was outward, because he used his son as an outlet, instead of being selfish like Doom.

[jackolover]

I assumed T'challa travelled to an altered past since this mirrored NA#1. It's the same dialog other except we see a rocket instead of Black Swan and Manifold.

I know in ANAD they've carried on as though everything is still the same but based this altered scene it seems like the incursion didn't happen, and if that's the case many events should have played out much differently, or for different reasons.

If the Wakandans that survived the Cabal assault and diaspora do remember the old world then that could explain why they are more willing to work with the rest of the world though.

I'm more inclined to think Infinity never happened if New Avengers #1 never happened. There was no Illuminati blowing up planets and all the Infinity gems are still hidden away somewhere by the Illuminati, which includes now old man Steve Rogers having one gem. Thanos could have brought his Cabal to Earth because he could still have been bumping off all his children and been stuck in Amber afterwards. But history would have gone a very different way without the Incursions being incited.

No the way I see it was T'Challa is still weighed down by his responsibility to the dead. Battleworld for him was analogous to a voyage through the underworld, he visited the dead and returned with those of them he came to save. He brought them back with him. If it was the Yellow Gem then the only explanation is he moved all of Wakanda forward to where he was. If it was the Orange Gem he wished them back to where he was.

There is a time slide to New Avengers #1, especially for Panther. History then picks up from there.

But we may have to remember that in respect to ANAD, it didn't start when Battleworld blew apart. According to ANAD, history moved right passed Time Runs Out and the Incursion event as though that never happened, and continued to extrapolate into the "8 months later" beginning of ANAD. If we remove all the books dealing with Incursions, TRO, and Secret Wars, that's what it looks like. Marvel NOW!, with Age of Ultron extrapolated into ANAD according to Reed Richards.

Take the route of least resistance. Why assume anything has changed. In Squadron Supreme the general public are being interviewed about the event in Atlantis and one of them mentions the incursions. That implies the whole world up until the last incursion was as we remember it. I presume as T'Challa is using the stone Molecule Man is simultaneously recreating our world based on Franklin giving him a blueprint. The two things get pulled into one because they are probably simultaneous.

I couldn't find any public mention Incursions in SS#1 interviews, so I'm thinking its knowledge left over from the alternate reality characters only, although I don't know why they are being left with that knowledge. It's like an Odin wisdom thing. Odin used to allow a certain amount of free thinking in the MU even if it meant conflict down the track. Letting some characters have the experience of the Doom fallout of Incursions, is letting stories be told with a lot more drama to it, as some sort of therapy for those who lost their worlds? Or, this knowledge of Incursions could be catalysts for interesting stories, and Reed is okay with that?

[Iron Maiden]

I don't know why but I'm curious what kind of essays the guy from The Fantastic Four: The Great American Novel site would come up for this.

He frequents a Fantastic Four board where I am the mod. Next time he logs in I can ask Chris about it.

[JKtheMac]

There is a time slide to New Avengers #1, especially for Panther. History then picks up from there.

But we may have to remember that in respect to ANAD, it didn't start when Battleworld blew apart. According to ANAD, history moved right passed Time Runs Out and the Incursion event as though that never happened, and continued to extrapolate into the "8 months later" beginning of ANAD. If we remove all the books dealing with Incursions, TRO, and Secret Wars, that's what it looks like. Marvel NOW!, with Age of Ultron extrapolated into ANAD according to Reed Richards.

See this is why creators shouldn't do interviews straight away. We have very different interpretations of what is meant in the text and in the text of the interview. In the text I believe we are supposed to think he has time jumped feel a bit confused and wonder if a reset to NA#1 just happened. Then we slowly realise this just doesn't work and conclude that T'Challa has not changed time but instead changed reality. The mix up with the color actually plays into this idea.

When Hickman says he gets back to the place he was in NA#1 I think he is talking about his character arc. He realizes that everything went wrong at that moment, that he made poor choices and that everything was on track until that moment. He therefore chooses that moment to start again in the new universe. There is no way you can make that square with time travel without totally messing up established continuity. So many things result from his decision in that moment. That was the seed that created the tragedy of NA.