Greetings from Battleworld: Secret Wars Week 5

Welcome back to Battleworld, everyone. This week, Dan Grote looks at the new issue of the core Secret Wars title, and the much anticipated return of a married Spider-Man...

Secret Wars #3

Story: Jonathan Hickman

Art: Esad Ribic and Ive Svorcina

Imagine you survived the end of the world. Now imagine you were supposed to survive the end with all your loved ones, but you watched them ripped away from you at the last second. NOW imagine you wake up in a new world where your sworn enemy isn’t just its ruler or its savior but its GOD. Not only that, but, as Dr. Strange puts it, “He is very, very good at playing God.” NOW imagine how Reed will react next issue or whenever he finds out his wife and daughter are Doom’s most trusted advisers, his son spends all day playing in the palm of a planet-eating giant and his brother-in-law is [spoiler].

And we were worried Marvel didn’t care about the FF anymore.

Secret Wars #3 dedicates itself primarily to answering questions, which is good because I’ve had a lot of them since this event started. As of this issue, we now know:

• What happened to Reed Richards’ Raft ™ from the 616 universe and its passengers, which if you’ll recall from issue #1 included Black Panther, Spider-Man, Star-Lord, Captain Marvel, Thor, and a Phoenixed-up Cyclops.     
• A very few select characters remember what happened before Battleworld, and we know why the rest don’t recall.
•  How much time has passed since the final incursion.
• Where Johnny Storm is, and oo-da-lolli it’s a mini gut punch that makes perfect sense.
• Why Dr. Strange is the right hand of God Emperor Doom ™, and what happened to the Molecule Man, last seen confronting the Beyonders alongside Doom and Strange in New Avengers #33.
• How many Spider-Men survived the final incursion (although if you saw some of Marvel’s post-Secret Wars teaser images, I suppose you’ve already had that spoiled).

It’s a lot to take in, and besides most readers who haven’t seen everything Jonathan Hickman’s written for Marvel since Secret Warriors, nobody’s having a harder time with this than 616 Reed Richards, whom Esad Ribic draws in a perpetual state of exhausted, bearded shellshock. But I can only imagine the moment of clarity issue #3 provides will be brief, as Battleworld has much more to reveal, and we’re not even halfway there.

Side note: As someone who’s met him at cons, I very much appreciated the full-page house ad toward the end of the issue memorializing Herb Trimpe, who was the first Marvel artist to draw Wolverine for publication, among his many other credits for the company. Trimpe died in April at 75.

Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows #1

Story: Dan Slott

Art:  Adam Kubert, John Dell and Justin Ponsor

Some Secret Wars comics are meant to tell the complex story of Battleword (Secret Wars). Some are meant to be jumping-on points for new readers (A-Force, MODOK: Assassin). And some, unabashedly, are love letters to Comics Fans of a Certain Age. This book (and the digital-first X-Men ’92) is most certainly the latter.

Renew Your Vows takes place in what, at least to start, feels like a simpler time. Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson are married and have a young daughter, Annie. He works at the Daily Bugle and brings hot-scoop photos to an always-yelling J. Jonah Jameson. He’s not an Avenger. He patrols the streets of New York with other street-level heroes like Daredevil, the Punisher and Moon Knight. Captain America wears his old wing-tipped mask. Eddie Brock is still Venom and looks like a big, slobbering black-and-white monster.

Dan Slott’s name may be on the cover, but it sure reads like David Michelinie or J.M. DeMatteis to me. And it’s all being drawn by Adam Kubert, one of Marvel’s rock-star artists in the years after the Image exodus. For Spider-fans, this book is a warm, fuzzy blanket.

At least to start.

When a supervillain named Regent starts killing off superheroes and claiming their powers as his own, and Venom escapes from prison and threatens his family, Peter is forced to make a choice that will inform the series going forward.

“That was the day I learned what trumps great power … an even greater responsibility.”

We’ve seen alternate-future takes on Spider-spawn – “Mayday” Parker swings immediately to mind – but we’ve never seen Peter actively raise a child, at least to my recollection. “Renew Your Vows” turns back the clock on basically every Spider-Man story of the past decade, but it also sets it forward, showing us the darkness of a world where “One More Day” never happened. Is this Spider-Man’s darkest timeline (and if so, is there still paintball)? It’s too early to tell, but it’s worth sticking around to see.


...While I examine the return of the evil future Hulk and the most light-hearted of any tie-in you're likely to see.

Future Imperfect #1
Story: Peter David
Art: Greg Land

Peter David has a long history with Marvel comics, and despite famed runs on Spider-Man and X-Factor, it will be his Hulk run that he is most remembered for. And of that run, Future Imperfect, the story of the Hulk going into the future to fight an evil version of himself called the Maestro, is probably the most famous, so it makes sense that if Marvel was picking and choosing great alternate history stories to make realms of Battleworld it would be one of them, and make even more sense they'd get Peter David to write it. David jumps right into the deep end, referencing the Secret Wars status quo with Maestro as this realm's Baron. Not only do we get the Maestro and Janis, Rick Jones's granddaughter introduced in the original story and who plays a role not only there but in the back end of David's original run on the ongoing Hulk series, but Ruby Summers, the daughter of Scott Summers and Emma Frost introduced in a dystopic future X-Factor story. The issue establishes what Dystopia, the city ruled by the Maestro, is like, and we see that there's a rebellion in place against it, which includes Ruby and Janis. The desert, the city, it's all classic dark future stuff, but David works with it and keeps it feeling fresh. When Ruby stumbles across a old man in an eyepatch wandering the desert claiming to be Odin, she thinks she's struck gold for the rebellion. Unfortunately, after she brings him to their base, it's clearly not Odin. I don't think it's too much of a spoiler to reveal that "Odin" is in fact the Maestro reverted to human form, and a battle commences. Greg Land is an artist I can take or leave (I was a huge fan of his early work on Birds of Prey and Nightwing, but his excessive photo-referencing in recent years leaves me cold), and while in combat nearly all his characters have screaming their heads off expressions on their faces, his page layouts were solid for the fight between the rebels and the Maestro, and it came together well in the end. As with a lot of these Secret Wars tie-in first issues, the final page has a shock reveal, this time of a surviving hero who is leading the rebellion, and it's a nice reveal, one that should lead to a classic throw down in the next issue. With its nods to previous Peter David work, and his usual quick ear for witty dialogue, Future Imperfect looks to be a solid entry to the Secret Wars tie-ins, and since Marvel has said the Maestro is here to stay after the event, this would be a good place to get to know him.

Giant-Size Little Marvel: A Vs. X #1
Story and Art: Skottie Young

All these dark Secret Wars tie-ins got you down? Well, Giant Size Little Marvel is the cure for what ails you! The opening montage, which has musical notes bouncing around the narration and made me try to read them to the tune of the Tiny Toon Adventures theme song, lays out exactly what Secret Wars is about before before bringing us into the kingdom of Marville (not to be confused with the Bill Jemas series of the same name, possible the worst comic Marvel ever published), where at the intersection of Avengers Street and X-Men Way, the little heroes get into all kinds of mischief. The opening fight scene, which is perfectly tame and all ages, is a result of Iron Man melting one of Magik's toy ponies, and her summoning a monster to eat him. The main plot of the issue revolves around an escalating battle to build the best food stand at the corner, from lemonade, to hit dogs, to hamburgers, to Asgardian ribs, and so on, until it all breaks out in a brawl. Skottie Young is a master of drawing adorable little versions of Marvel characters, and the cameos fly fast and furious throughout the comic. While this isn't going to give you insight into the greater working of Battleworld and God King Doom, it's delightful fun and a good palette cleanser. Between this series, Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, and the new Groot ongoing from Marvel, and DC's new Bat-Mite and Bizarro series, it's a good time for all-ages superheroes from the Big 2.

A Web-Slinger’s Dilemma: Mary Jane Watson vs. Gwen Stacy

Today marks the first issue of Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows, your friendly neighborhood web-slinger’s Secret Wars solo title. Previews of the Dan Slott/Adam Kubert book show Peter Parker happily married to Mary Jane Watson, arguing over whose turn it is to change the diaper of their daughter, Annie.

Flashback to 2007. The Internet is ablaze with the wailing and teeth-gnashing of 1,000 nerds infuriated by a J. Michael Straczynski/Joe Quesada story called “One More Day,” in which, to save the life of Aunt May, Peter and MJ agree to let Mephisto erase the memory of their marriage and the public’s knowledge that Peter is Spider-Man.

“One More Day” served as Straczynski’s exit from the Spider-titles and ushered in the era of Dan Slott, who has since then steered the character through a series of bold stories, such as Dr. Octopus spending a year and a half in Peter’s body or Spider-Men and –Women from across the multiverse teaming up to defeat a cross-dimensional brood of vampire types. One thing he hasn’t done these past eight years: Reunite the Parkers.

From the legendary time travel Deadpool (Vol.1) #11

Until now. Funny thing is, eight years is a long time to keep a major plot element out of play, and while I’m sure there are some people who heard about Renew Your Vows and said “Thank God, finally!” it feels like many Spider-fans have largely forgotten about her.

But who could do a better job of making people forget about MJ than the forces of Straczynski, Quesada and Mephisto combined?

Oh, hey Gwen!

If you’ve been to a con this year, you’ve probably seen at least one Spider-Gwen cosplayer in the sea of Harley Quinns and Deadpools and anime characters with whom you’re unfamiliar. This alternate-reality version of Gwen Stacy – from a world in which she got bit by the spider and Peter Parker became the Lizard and died – has sparked interest in Peter Parker’s other famous girlfriend like no other, to the point where Marvel spun her straight out of Spider-Verse and into her own series by Jason Latour and Robbie Rodriguez.

Quite simply, people haven’t been talking about Gwen this much since the Green Goblin threw her over the George Washington Bridge in 1973.

Which isn’t to say no one’s tried to keep Gwen in the public consciousness in the intervening 40 years. Emma Stone played Gwen in the two Amazing Spider-Man movies, and Bryce Dallas Howard played her in the third Sam Raimi film. Marvel has included Gwen in trading-card sets over the years. She was a playable character in Lego Marvel Super Heroes. She was included in the 1990s Spider-Man cartoon series.

But the grave hasn’t always been kind to Gwen. Another Straczynski story that didn’t go over well is “Sins Past,” in which it is revealed that prior to her death, Norman Osborn had raped and impregnated her. Gwen’s children, Gabriel and Sarah, grew up to be evil, which is its own hornet’s nest of commentary on rape and the fridging of women in comics.

Before “Spider-Verse,” the last time I remember Gwen Stacy being used in a way that felt powerful was House of M, the 2005 alternate-reality story by Brian Michael Bendis and Olivier Coipel in which Magneto had created a global utopia for mutants. Issue 2 opens with Peter waking up in bed next to Gwen, who in this reality is his wife and the mother of his child. When reality is restored, Peter retains his memories of the House of M world and freaks out on Dr. Strange when the Sorcerer Supreme won’t mind-wipe him, so he forgets how happy he was there. And this was a man who, at the time, was still happily married to MJ.

So where do you stand, dear reader? Did Tiger really hit the jackpot with Anna Watson’s model/actress niece, or do you believe in a world – that may have been destroyed in a pre-Secret Wars incursion – where Peter ends up with Capt. Stacy’s daughter? Was Gwen’s death so powerful a moment in comics history that she should have stayed in the grave, or are you rockin’ the white-and-magenta Spider-Gwen hoodie to cons? Are you happy to see a world in which “One More Day” never happened, or did you stop caring about the dissolution of the Parker marriage a long time ago?

Or, more simply: MJ or Gwen? Tweet #TeamMJ or #TeamGwen to @danielpgrote, and explain your choice.

Dan Grote’s new novel, Magic Pier, is available however you get your books online. He has been writing for The Matt Signal since 2014. He and Matt have been friends since the days when making it to issue 25 guaranteed you a foil cover.

Fit to Be Tied In: A History of Marvel Crossovers and Events- Part 8: The Leftovers

I’ve largely tried to keep the chapters of this series A) grouped thematically and B) under 1,000 words each. As in life, not everything fits into such neat little boxes. With that in mind, here are some of the events the previous chapters missed.

Acts of Vengeance (1989): It’s the old supervillain switcheroo. A group of Loki-led nasties (Dr. Doom, Magneto, the Red Skull, the Kingpin, the Mandarin, and the Wizard) decides the best way to thwart their enemies is to change dance partners. And so you have Spider-Man fighting a giant mutant-hunting Tri-Sentinel, and Rusty and Skids from the New Mutants fighting perennial Spider-baddie the Vulture. The plot, of course, fails, mostly because the villains can’t stop fighting each other, to the point where Loki ends up imprisoning the Kingpin, the Wizard, and the Mandarin. Most importantly, we get a story in Uncanny X-Men about Psylocke being transformed into an Asian, bathing-suit clad ninja programmed to serve regular Iron Man enemy the Mandarin. This version of Betsy Braddock has largely stuck ever since. “Acts of Vengeance” also gave us the first appearance of the New Warriors superhero team, who would go on to inadvertently cause the Civil War. Fun fact: Among the villains who declined the supervillain team-up was Apocalypse. (Matt's aside: A personal favorite from this event is when Holocaust survivor Magneto slaps around Red Skull's Nazi ass in Captain America #367)

Operation: Galactic Storm (1992): A big Avengers-family crossover that spanned Avengers, Avengers West Coast, Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Wonder Man and Quasar. The Avengers butt into a war between the Shi’ar and the Kree because the conflict is somehow destabilizing Earth’s sun. The story is considered a throwback to the 1970s’ Kree-Skrull War, in which the Avengers also took part, and features a uniting of the two Avengers teams – East and West Coast – and an overall beefing-up of their ranks (Hey, everybody, Gilgamesh is back!). The crossover has a bit of a bummer ending: A Nega Bomb kills billions of Kree, the mastermind of the whole conflict turns out to be the Kree’s Supreme Intelligence and the Shi’ar annex the Kree, leaving Lilandra’s mad sister Deathbird in charge of them.

Maximum Carnage (1993): AKA the crossover that got me reading comics regularly. Carnage – the figurative lovechild of Venom and the Joker – breaks out of prison and goes on a killing spree across New York with his Harley Quinn, a new supervillain called Shriek, and a gang of Spider-villains including the demonic version of the Hobgoblin, Spidey’s Doppelganger from the Infinity War, and Carrion. To stop them, Spider-Man teams up with Venom, Captain America, Iron Fist, Deathlok, Nightwatch, Cloak & Dagger, Morbius, Firestar, and the Black Cat. The villains are finally defeated with the power of love and hope – in the form of a Stark-tech device apparently powered by the Star Sapphires and Blue Lanterns. The Spidey-title crossover went on to inspire a 1994 Super Nintendo/Sega Genesis video game that came in a sweet red cartridge (And shortly after all that, there was “The Clone Saga,” but the less said about that mess the better).

World War Hulk (2007): A few years back, a secret superhero cabal called the Illuminati (Reed Richards, Tony Stark, Charles Xavier, Dr. Strange, Black Panther, Namor, and Black Bolt) decided the Hulk was too much of a threat and blasted him off into space. While away, he overthrew the rulers of the planet Sakaar, took a wife and made a nice little life for himself. Then the ship that took him there exploded and killed his pregnant wife, and Hulk. Was. Pissed. So he makes his way back to Earth with some space friends to get revenge. After all is smashed and done, Hulk is reverted to his Bruce Banner form and arrested. The Incredible Hulk is renamed The Incredible Hercules, following that hero’s adventures with Amadeus Cho. A new series, Skaar, Son of Hulk, follows the adventures of … well, I suppose it’s obvious. And another new series, Hulk, debuts featuring a Red Hulk who is later revealed to be famed Hulk-hater Gen. Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross.

Shadowland (2010): Before Mark Waid could relaunch Daredevil into one of Marvel’s best books, the character had to be completely run into the ground. And how better to do that than turning him into a demon-possessed ninja lord in a sprawling crossover with the company’s other street-level heroes? In addition to the main series by Andy Diggle and Billy Tan, Shadowland sucked in Spider-Man, the Heroes for Hire, Daughters of the Dragon, Punisher, Wolverine, Moon Knight, Ghost Rider, Black Panther, the Thunderbolts, Shang-Chi, White Tiger, the Night Nurse, and Elektra. Even the Kingpin appears to team up with the heroes in an attempt to stop Matt Murdock and the Hand from destroying New York. Among the series’ repercussions, Daredevil kills Bullseye (Don’t worry, he gets better); Daredevil kills himself (he gets better AND gets a new series); a new Power Man is introduced who looks like the one from Disney XD’s Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon; and the Black Panther, who has an entire country to deal with, takes over patrolling Hell’s Kitchen.

Spider-Verse (2014): A reality-hopping, Spidey-chomping, vampirish character named Morlun and his kin, the Inheritors, seek to wipe out every Spider-Man ever, until they all team up to stop them. We’re talking Peter Parker, Miles Morales, Spider-Woman, “Mayday” Parker aka Spider-Girl, Peter Porker the Spectacular Spider-Ham, Spidey 2099, Ock-Spidey, the Scarlet Spider, Gwen Stacy (whaaaa?), Uncle Ben (whaaaaaaaaa?), et al. Many Spiders die, but many Spiders also live, and some even get their own ongoing series, such as Silk, an Asian-American woman who was bit by the same spider that bit Parker; and new fan-favorite Spider-Gwen, a Gwen Stacy from a reality where she got bit and Peter Parker became the Lizard and died.

So there you have it. It’s not every crossover ever, but hopefully this series gave you more than enough background headed into Secret Wars, which if we’ve timed these right, should be starting nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnow. Happy reading!

Dan Grote’s new novel, Magic Pier, is available however you get your books online. He has been writing for The Matt Signal since 2014. He and Matt have been friends since the days when making it to issue 25 guaranteed you a foil cover.

Reviews of Comics from Wednesday 10/16

With apologies for the month plus without an update, this week will feature a few books that I picked up this past week from previous weeks, but can't really go back all the way to when I last updated. Sorry for that, folks, but I'm in the middle of buying a house, and that has been taking up a lot of my spare time. But that's enough about me. On to the comics.

Bloodhound: Crowbar Medicine #1

Story: Dan Jolley

Art: Leonard Kirk

I was one of the people who read Bloodhound when it was being published by DC (admittedly, I first picked up issue 8, since it had a D-List Batman villain, Zeiss, in it, but I then picked up the first six and was along for the ride for the last two), so when I saw that new Bloodhound stories were coming out from Dark Horse, I was excited. And that excitement paid off with the serial in Dark Horse Presents, and now in the first issue of this mini-series. If you didn't read either the DC adventures of the serial featuring Travis Clevenger, our title character, and his partner/handler Saffron Bell, that's ok. Everything you need to know is made perfectly clear early on: Clev (as he's called) is a guy who hunts people with special powers for the FBI on a sort of work release; it's kind of like the concept of the TV show White Collar, if Matt Bomer was nearly seven feet tall and indestructible, and they were hunting rogue metahumans, not crooked bankers. The first issue let's you meet Clev, see the kind of guy he is, and then see him go on a hunt. The guy who Clev is hunting turns out to not be a bad guy, just a desperate one, and the polive pursuing him seem to be far worse than he is, which gives a nice layer to the world and to the ending of the issue. The last couple pages set up the thrust of the story, when a mystery doctor named Bradley Morgenstern hijacks all TV channels and offers to give people superpowers to protect them from the menace of rogue powered people. It's an argument made for assault rifles in the hands of everyone, and it's a great example of using superpowers as a metaphor for the concerns of the modern world. The chemistry between Clev and Saffron is great, and helps push the book beyond a simple plot driven think piece and into something that readers can get invested in. There's a nice letter page at the back, where writer Dan Jolley talks about getting the entire original creative team back together to do this book, and asks for those of us digging the book to share it, and I am more than happy to oblige. Glad to see you back, Clev.

Fables #134

Story: Bill Willingham

Art: Mark Buckingham

Some of the best issues of Fables are the interlude issues that give the reader a little breather mid-arc before things invariably go completely off the rails. Bigby Wolf is dead and has found his way into an afterlife that is the apotheosis of all forests, where he hunts creatures and lives as the great beast he once was. The sound of a hunting horn calls Bigby to find Boy Blue, who is there to explain some of the ways the afterlife works before he moves on from the borderlands where Bigby's forest is to his personal reward. The two of them have a long conversation about life, death, and the choices that we make in life. Bigby comes to some realizations about his life and his fate, and Blue explains that he has no intention of ever returning to life. There are some fun labs at Stinky, the badger who started the religion around Boy Blue, and it will be interesting to see how he reacts when Bigby returns and tells him exactly what Blue said to him. It's a lovely send off to Boy Blue, and a wonderful final conversation between two of my favorite Fables characters. The final two pages are touching, so touching that they brought a tear to my eye, and brings a resolution to the quest that Bigby was on before his death. 

Kiss Me, Satan #1

Story: Victor Gischler

Art: Juan Ferreyra

I'm a sucker for horror comics, and have a strong preference for werewolves over either vampires or zombies, and when I saw the cover copy, "New Orleans is a Werewolf Town," I had to give this book a try. My only experience with writer Victor Gischler was the Spike mini-series he wrote and a couple short stories, and no familiarity with artist Juan Ferreyra, so I came in fresh. Barnabus is a fallen angel who is trying to earn his way back into the good graces of the almighty, so he's doing freelance work for heaven, all the while ducking squads of demons that want to bring him back to Hell to pay for making a runner. It's a solid core concept, but where are the werewolves? Well, it seems the packleader of the local werewolf clan, Cassian Steele, has a pregnant wife, and the witch who was summoned to test the fetus tells Steele the baby isn't a werewolf. This means that Steele will lose his standing within the pack. Steele kills the only werewolf who knew, and then sends his wolves after the witch and her apprentices. And this is where Barnabus crosses paths with the werewolves, as heaven has sent him to protect the witches. The whole series is set up to move from here, a quick, action based supernatural thriller. Gischler does a great job fleshing out the characters quickly, and Ferreyra's art is astounding. he has a dynamic style, and his werewolves are beautiful, or as beautiful as monsters can be. A perfect comic for this spooky time of year, the second issue hits this week, so grab both for a double dose of horror action on Wednesday.

Superior Spider-Man #17-19

Story: Dan Slott

Art: Ryan Stegman

Yes, these are the first Spider-Man comics I have reviewed on here. I don't have anything against Spidey, but I've never been a big fan either, and haven't had any real interest in the Superior incarnation. However, when Spider-Man 2099, a character I do love, came back for this arc, I couldn't resist it. I read all the Peter David issues of Miguel O'Hara's adventures from the 90s, and I was worried that he wouldn't ring true after all these years, but credit to Dan Slott for getting him exactly right. The story is a classic time travel yarn, with O'Hara going back in time to keep himself from being erased from the timeline by protecting his grandfather, Tiberius Stone, a sleazy scientist who has gotten on the bad side of Spidey, or Doctor Octopus in Spider-Man's body. Having not read a single issue of Superior Spider-Man, or any of Slott's Amazing Spider-Man for that matter, I was worried I would be lost, but Slott does a great job of giving the reader a good feeling of the status quo. The issues are action packed, with plenty of Spider-Man on Spider-Man action, and very cool tie-in to the history of the 2099 universe. This was a great self contained story that does have some payoff to what seem to be long running plotlines and set-ups for the future. And by stories end, there might just be two Spider-Men running around the Marvel Universe. If you remember the 2099 comics with any fondness, this is definitely an arc you'll enjoy.