Wednesday, June 27, 2007

The Feel-Good Comic of the Summer!

As the final issue (#12) of Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars opens, our heroes are in a bit of a tough spot...

Secret Wars #12 panel
All panels are from Secret Wars #12 (April 1985), written by Jim Shooter, art by Mike Zeck, John Beatty, and Christie Scheele


Can't quite read those small caption boxes? Never fear, Secret Wars fans, I shall...not unlike the Marvel superheroes...blow them up:
Secret Wars #12 panel

Secret Wars #12 panel


Whoa, Jim Shooter sure loved these characters a lot to kill them off so completely, didn't he? Well, surely it can't have been a total massacre, can it...?:
Secret Wars #12 panel


Secret Wars #12 panel


Oh, the superhumanity! But what about the Thing...you can't kill him off! Surely the Hulk musta survived! Spider-Man? They wouldn't kill off Spider-Man, would they? And even if Shooter did, he surely leave the Sensational New Character Find of 1985, Spider-Woman alive to tell the tale, wouldn't he...?
Secret Wars #12 panel

Secret Wars #12 panel


Well, at least they died with dignity and respect, right? I'm sure Shooter has some lyrical words of peaceful repose to salute our fallen heroes...
Secret Wars #12 panel


Sheesh, Jimbo. Got macabre? And you thought Marvel Zombies was grim!

PS: They got better.
PPS: "Twenty-one lie dead here"? Count again.



10 comments:

Anonymous said...

[snicker]

You left out the part where they died in the pages of a crass toy-tie-in crossover, at the hands of one of the most annoying Marvel 'gods' ever. I suppose you can't really blame Shooter for refusing to even try shoehorning dignity into that situation.

(Oh, and incidentally...so the entire pantheon including the other three Fantasticks died, and Invisible Woman is still on the go? Somewhere, Abe Lincoln's mom is smiling.

Anonymous said...

Shouldn't that be 19 heroes plus Magneto?

Maybe Wolverine counts double. Maybe Marvel wanted to boost sales for #12, so they had Wolverine guest star, forgetting that he was already in the book. No Prize!

Luke said...

Didn't it not matter anyway, as everyone knew they were still alive because the regular titles jumped ahead one year while "Secret Wars" was going on? For example, didn't Spidey debut with his alien costume in "Amazing Spider-Man" before he even got it in "SW?"

A great example of how wholesome and certainly non-graphic comics of yesteryear were!

S Bates said...

so the entire pantheon including the other three Fantasticks died, and Invisible Woman is still on the go?

Sue Richards wasn't transmported to Battleworld, only the men of the Fantastic Four. Obviously, the Beyonder (and Mattel) didn't consider her worthy enough.

And the twenty-first hero they missed off the list was She-Hulk.

I really liked Secret Wars. The art was reasonably good and the story was fun, if pretty simple. Thoroughly enjoyable stuff.

David C said...

Yeah, I actually just got the Secret Wars TPB as a gift for my nephew (almost 9), and I think it's a pretty darn good comic book for introducing a wide range of iconic Marvel characters in a storyline that makes up for lack of depth with elemental simplicity and just plain coolness: "All (or most of) the bestest Marvel characters get transported to another planet and punch each other!" You really can't go too far wrong with that.

Secret Wars II just plain sucked, but that's another story.

SallyP said...

Hmmmm...sounds like Shooter has some issues here. Garth Ennis did the same thing, but somehow, it was a whole lot funnier.

Anonymous said...

Oh, I don't mean to suggest Secret Wars wasn't a good read...only that it's probably not the best place to be looking for the Grand Epic Superhero Death Scene of the Ages.

Still an'all, we probably could've done without the sizzling-blood thingy...

FoldedSoup said...

That splash page would work perfectly on *any* Civil War cover.

Jus' Sayin.

discord8 said...

Only commenting to note that my verification word is "oftpioor," which is certainly true...

Anonymous said...

Actually, by the time Spidey got the black costume in the Secret Wars series, he was on his way to giving it up in his regular series. Well, actually he alternated between a normal cloth version of the black costume and his red-and-blues for a while.