So, What Was The Point Of The 616 MU's Demise?

[JKtheMac]

That's an amazing memory trick they have played on Mile's mother. Not only living but has never died. History has been rewritten to accommodate Miles, there are not two of him for example. His Father knows still, certain friends have probably shifted.

[DrNewGod]

IMO, both the creators and the moneymen were tired of being constrained by living in the house that Stan, Jack, Steve, and Don built. So they pretended they were doing something new while wrapping it in stuff that looked familiar enough to to sell to an established fanbase.

[jackolover]

Thank you for your service!

It's admirable that jacko is trying to find a greater context for all of these branding stunts, but that's all they are: stunts, to drive up sales of a bunch of comics that don't contribute to some kind of greater whole to collectors who buy every single "tie-in" issue.

From the sound of people on here, ANAD is just branding, so we should consider it the 616 right now, or it will become the 616 when editorial considers it so? There was no destruction of the 616, and the quicker we reconcile this fact the better? Secret Wars was a window dressing change while the curtain was pulled over? That makes Secret Wars Pretty silly window dressing.

[resipsaloquitur]

From the sound of people on here, ANAD is just branding, so we should consider it the 616 right now, or it will become the 616 when editorial considers it so? There was no destruction of the 616, and the quicker we reconcile this fact the better? Secret Wars was a window dressing change while the curtain was pulled over? That makes Secret Wars Pretty silly window dressing.

Remember how, in Uncanny Avengers, a Celestial BLEW UP THE ENTIRE EARTH, and then they used time-travel shenanigans to alter history so it never happened? Secret Wars was just like that, only much bigger. This kind of thing happens all the time in comics. Characters and worlds die, are replaced, and brought back slightly different.

This is all fiction designed to get you to spend money. So yes, Secret Wars was just "window dressing." It was designed entirely to get your heart racing and make you want to spend money on it. That's it. There was no grander purpose to the story.

Read, enjoy, but don't think too hard about this stuff.

[Prof. Warren]

From the sound of people on here, ANAD is just branding, so we should consider it the 616 right now, or it will become the 616 when editorial considers it so? There was no destruction of the 616, and the quicker we reconcile this fact the better? Secret Wars was a window dressing change while the curtain was pulled over? That makes Secret Wars Pretty silly window dressing.

Secret Wars was a story Marvel wanted to tell. The "purpose" of it was to tell that story. All the ANAD branding afterwards was just a marketing tool, a way for Marvel to get eyes on their publishing line and to signal that some books were debuting or relaunching - just as Marvel NOW, All-New Marvel NOW and other branding efforts were meant to do. There's no need to ascribe any greater meaning than that to these seasonal marketing campaigns and there's nothing that needs to be "reconciled."

616 was never meant to be "the 616" in the first place. That was just a designation that happened to catch on. The Marvel universe now is exactly what it's always has been - the Marvel universe.

[MyriVerse]

616 was never meant to be "the 616" in the first place. That was just a designation that happened to catch on. The Marvel universe now is exactly what it's always has been - the Marvel universe.

It never really mattered what term you used to refer to it. But numbers sure make it easy when you're dealing with a vast multiverse of hundreds or thousands, like Marvel was. I never get why anyone disliked "616" over "Marvel Universe." Everyone that ever did just like to needlessly complain about something irrelevant.

[Prof. Warren]

It never really mattered what term you used to refer to it. But numbers sure make it easy when you're dealing with a vast multiverse of hundreds or thousands, like Marvel was. I never get why anyone disliked "616" over "Marvel Universe." Everyone that ever did just like to needlessly complain about something irrelevant.

I always liked 616 myself but it was never meant to be any official designation. Post-SW, I still say 616 when referring to the main Marvel U. There's no harm in it and whether it's referred to as such in the comics anymore is unimportant.

[Beaubier]

It was pretty much a wasted opportunity. They should have brought in more alt characters. Instead it's more status quo plus Miles and Old Man Logan.

[Chainsaw Vigilante]

Hype leading to sales.

[protege]

With the start of Avengers Disassembled, and New Avengers, it portended a downward spiral of where this was all going to lead too. That was the end of Heroic Age. It just needed the full stop of Secret Wars to make it permanent. There were other factors in the FF and Wolverine, too, as well as the emergence of the fact the Illuminati had been interfering in history all along. But certainly, the end was approaching, when Maria Hill tried to nuke the New Avengers, and the POTUS tried to get her to do it a second time.

Not to be too negative, there were some positives to come out of this period, CWI onwards.

Here are some -

Stark, Richards, and Pyms inventiveness in CWI's 100 ideas
OMD was a success
General Ross as Red Hulk was sensational
The redemption of Maria Hill to a hero lover
Two YA's reunited with Wanda their mother
Hulk rejoining Avengers
Great new characters, Kamala, Jane Thor, Falcon Cap, Cho Hulk, Angela, Spider Gwen, Silk, Starbrand.

I guess I missed the memo where Maria hill became a hero lover; she still seems like a schmuck to me.

[nose norton]

Hickman took the suggestion to write the little book about Nick Fury, in Secret Warriors, then, he headed over to the Fantastic Four in Dark Reign, and somehow it ended with the the Avengers in Secret Wars. So what was the point? The Big picture?

We know Hickman planted seeds for Nick Fury's Secret Warriors in the Italian SHIELD of antiquity, finishing with Laviathon destroyed, and Fury going the new SHIELD route with Howard Starks son, Tony, and Strucker taking Hydra another route to overthrow the World for revenge over WWII.

The world broke in Avengers #12.1, when Hank, Tony, and Beast experienced the tide flow over them, as space-time was broken in the Age of Ultron resolution. And from then on it triggered the Illuminati and Doom to be joined in a horror fest called Battleworld, a particular structure Doom had been part of in 1985 put together by the Beyonder. How poetic.

But what has come of it? The 616 was heading for destruction from the mid 2000's, and it just needed an added push from Marvel to produce the inevitable outcome? I thought the "Heroic Age", post-Seige, was supposed to be a rejuvenation, of the triumphant return of heroes, but instead it was a cynical banner, of a decaying, outmoded, reality? Was it replaced with a more resilient, and hopefully more suitable potential for growth, in ANAD?

That is the question. Because certainly, it looked like the descent into CIVIL WAR I, and all that followed, was designed to head towards Secret Wars, to wipe away that old world and produce the ANAD. "Heroic Age" in name only, was a period in Marvel, I felt, as being hollow and empty compared to the grandeur that came before in the Silver Age HA. It took a sudden shock in reality like AoU, to send the 616 hurling end over end into oblivion.

What was the point of the 616 MU, and it's demise?

Sadly, I think the point of it all, was just to sell books. I see no long-lasting modification done to the MU, worth mentioning. A few key characters have made their new home here (Miles Morales, Samuel L Jackson), but I find that to be even detrimental. I liked the Ultimate Universe, RIP.

[jackolover]

No. This is not what happened. It's not at all what happened. Hickman told them an idea for a story. Marvel liked the idea. So he told his story. That story was predicated on a simple idea: "Everything dies." Those two words were at the very core of his Avengers run. And in the end, almost everything did die. But this was all to get to the optimistic ending: Everything lives.

And it did. Everything was brought back, the same as it was before. This was not about "wiping the slate," or about "superceding" 616 characters. The characters in ANAD? They're the same characters from before Secret Wars. The same ones. The same Steve Rogers. The same Tony Stark. The same Kamala Khan. The same X-Men, the same Inhumans, the same Peter Parker, the same everyone. No one was replaced.

ANAD. WAS. BRANDING. It's branding. It's branding. It's branding. It's branding. It's branding. It's branding. It's branding. It's branding. It's branding. It's branding. It's branding. It's branding. It's branding. It's branding. It's branding. It's branding. It's branding. It's branding. It's branding. It's branding. It's branding. It's branding.

How often does this need to be said before you understand? ANAD is branding. That's all it is. That's all it was ever intended to be. Just branding. Nothing more, nothing less, just branding, with no greater meaning behind it beyond being branding.

Looking through the ANAD magazine that came out, and reading the Battleworld entry and the reconciliation stated there, I have to concede that the 616 is indeed restored exactly as it was, as you continually state. I don't think there is any doubt now that Marvel just fibbed that the 616 was destroyed. It states, "Together, the 3 began rebuilding the Multiverse starting with restoring the Prime Universe, which merged Reality-616 with elements from several others". Any talk about an 8th iteration of reality then becomes mute, I would say, because the 616 is still the 7th iteration of reality?

[jackolover]

Secret Wars was a story Marvel wanted to tell. The "purpose" of it was to tell that story. All the ANAD branding afterwards was just a marketing tool, a way for Marvel to get eyes on their publishing line and to signal that some books were debuting or relaunching - just as Marvel NOW, All-New Marvel NOW and other branding efforts were meant to do. There's no need to ascribe any greater meaning than that to these seasonal marketing campaigns and there's nothing that needs to be "reconciled."

616 was never meant to be "the 616" in the first place. That was just a designation that happened to catch on. The Marvel universe now is exactly what it's always has been - the Marvel universe.

And if not the 616, then it is the Prime Reality as Marvel states.

As to the purpose of Secret Wars, and me thinking now it was pretty silly window dressing, they could have just had the Beyonders come down to Earth and Doom and Strange beat them with multiple Molecule Men, and not destroy the multiverse at all in Time runs out. They needn't have had Battleworld be the remnants, and all the stories of domains might never be told. None of the Rafts needed to attack Doom and no Good intentioned Doom turn up in Invincible Iron Man in ANAD.

Marvel could have Just transitioned to the new branding, ANAD, post Beyonder battle.

[Prof. Warren]

Looking through the ANAD magazine that came out, and reading the Battleworld entry and the reconciliation stated there, I have to concede that the 616 is indeed restored exactly as it was, as you continually state. I don't think there is any doubt now that Marvel just fibbed that the 616 was destroyed. It states, "Together, the 3 began rebuilding the Multiverse starting with restoring the Prime Universe, which merged Reality-616 with elements from several others". Any talk about an 8th iteration of reality then becomes mute, I would say, because the 616 is still the 7th iteration of reality?

It's not "exactly as it was". Many elements that were previously not staples of the main MU have been ported over from the Ultimate universe and so on. Marvel didn't "fib" as the 616 as it was has been altered and is not, strictly speaking, "the same". But at the same time, you're drastically over-inflating the meaning of the ANAD brand. You're working way too hard to "explain" something that is just not that complex.

[Prof. Warren]

And if not the 616, then it is the Prime Reality as Marvel states.

As to the purpose of Secret Wars, and me thinking now it was pretty silly window dressing, they could have just had the Beyonders come down to Earth and Doom and Strange beat them with multiple Molecule Men, and not destroy the multiverse at all in Time runs out.

Every story is "window dressing." Why should they not have destroyed the multiverse? It was part of the story that Hickman wanted to tell. It was a story about the death of hope and of everything ending and how heroes respond to that. If there wasn't the threat of total annihilation, Hickman's story could not have been told in the way he wanted to tell it.