Doom intermission: Secret War

Doctor Doom is dead… again… but there is one Latveria storyline that will be revisited later.
This is the first time Brian Michael Bendis shows up in the Doom retrospective.
Bendis is a controversial writer to say the least. In my opinion, his Marvel stories are 90% crap, 7% passable and 3% genuinely great stories.
When it comes to Doctor Doom, he will write both one of his worst stories ever AND one of my favorite runs on the character.
Nobody is more shocked about the latter than me, believe it.
But when did it all start?

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Secret War #1 (2004)
by Brian Michael Bendis & Gabriele Dell’Otto

The fact that this event is called “Secret War” admittedly makes more sense than any of the actual Secret Wars… but it’s still confusing, because now we have:
Secret Wars from 1984
Secret Wars II
Secret War from 2004
Secret Wars from 2015

Marvel… I love you, but you HAVE to learn to come up with more story titles.

Dell’Otto has a very distinctive style that works great in most of the story, but for some reason he delivers some truly ugly covers.

Despite having Spider-Man on the cover, this is basically a Nick Fury story.

And the first issue, which is MILES better than anything else in the series, does a great job highlighting the crazy shenanigans that SHIELD has to deal with.

If you’re already as tired by the Bendis style back-and-forth dialogue as I am, here’s a GORGEOUS Nick Fury drawing by Dell’Otto.

The really important thing is that Luke Cage has been attacked by a weird cyborg woman that put him in a coma.

After Fury visits Cage, we jump into a flashback following a SHIELD investigation on supervillains. That eventually leads Fury to the hideout of the Tinkerer, the Spider-Man villain who supplies technology to most low-level supervillains of the Marvel Universe.

The Tinkerer is escaping to Latveria, but Fury has Black Widow following him.
We’ll get back to her comment soon enough, because it will lead to one of the stupidest things Bendis has ever written (WHICH IS SAYING SOMETHING).

Speaking of stupid: SHIELD has been a United Nations organization for basically all of its history, and it’s specifically identified as such in this series as well… but Bendis 100% treats it as if it was a fully American organization, having Fury report directly to the President.

Remember when I said 3% of Bendis’ stuff is genuinely great? This part is under that category.

Seriously, this is a fantastic idea. Take one fact that we typically accept thanks to suspension of disbelief… supervillains spending more money on their equipment than they could possibly steal… and give it an in-universe explanation that can be used as a springboard for a story!

At this point you might be thinking: what does any of this have to do with Doom?

Well, with Doctor Doom already dead, Latveria has a new ruler: Lucia Von Bardas.
And she’s the one giving money to American supervillains, through the Tinkerer.

Apparently Reed Richards was right in being suspicious of the United States being able to successfully export democracy to Latveria.

There’s something fishy going on, since the President immediately kills Fury’s investigation.
Which he shouldn’t be able to do since FURY DOESN’T WORK FOR HIM, but that’s a tense moment.

So Nick Fury decides to take matters into his own hands…

…which will eventually lead to Luke Cage being in a coma.

Even with the wrong details about how SHIELD works, that’s a masterpiece of a first issue that sets up several fascinating questions.
Did Von Bardas really use supervillains as terrorists? What is the President hiding? What did Nick Fury do to endanger Luke Cage? What price will he pay for his actions?

Now watch Bendis throwing away the entire premise and deliver one of the worst disappointment of his Marvel career, WHICH IS SAYING SOMETHING.

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Secret War #2 (2004)
by Brian Michael Bendis & Gabriele Dell’Otto

You might have already guessed that Nick Fury doesn’t appear on any of the covers.

We are still in the flashback, and Nick Fury is going around recruiting heroes for his Latveria secret mission. Starting with Captain America but insisting on keeping the Avengers out of this.

Fury recruiting Daredevil might sound random, but the two have shared several adventures before.

He also recruits Spider-Man. I’m not entirely sure if the fact that he knows his secret identity had been established before, but it’s Fury so I’m not exactly surprised.

This results in Spider-Man, Daredevil and Luke Cage being on the same plane headed for Latveria…

…with an EXTREMELY drunk Wolverine.

So drunk, in fact, that he forgets he HAS met Spider-Man without his costume before. Several times, in fact. And how the heck does Wolverine get drunk in the first place!?

Captain America is also there…

…as well as a new character that won’t get interesting until Bendis stops writing her.

We then move to Latveria, which deserves a great Dell’Otto splash page.

Remember THE WHOLE REASON Fury recruited these guys is that he wanted to keep everything as secret as possible.

Sooo… remember when I mentioned Bendis manages to write one of the dumbest things in his career in this story? Apparently he thinks Latveria is Afghanistan.

Nick Fury is supposed to be THE best spy in the history of the planet. But apparently the idea that this group traveling together would attract SOME scrutiny is simply beyond him.

Fury explains to the heroes the entire backstory from the first issue and then he declares his intention: overthrowing the Latverian government.

Black Widow, I understand.
Wolverine, sure.
But Nick Fury seriously expected Daredevil, Spider-Man and CAPTAIN AMERICA to be okay with this mission!?!?

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Secret War #3 (2004)
Brian Michael Bendis & Gabriele Dell’Otto

Okay, one of the covers is fine. ONE.

The first issue was the setup for a secret war against supervillains.

The second issue was filler where nothing happens.

The third issue starts with the actual Secret War… WHICH IS ENTIRELY SHOWN AS A CONFUSING MONTAGE.

You see, this had to happen as a flashback inside a different storyline, otherwise it might have been interesting to see.

Turns out the heroes DID participate in Fury’s mission, but some were later mindwiped.

Spider-Man and Daredevil are then attacked by a couple of random supervillains.
This series is infamous among fans of minor villains for introducing a ton of throwaway knockoffs; for example Diamondback shows up, but it’s not the Diamondback who dated Captain America… it’s a completely random woman that never shows up again.

And then a new batch of disposable supervillains attacks.

And once more nothing happens in the story. Comes with the territory with Bendis.

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Secret War #4 (2005)
by Brian Michael Bendis & Gabriele Dell’Otto

It took SEVEN MONTHS before this issue was published. Was it worth the wait?

I have two theories for why there are so many knockoffs in this story.
One is that Bendis didn’t bother to check which villain was available.
The other one is that he wanted to write the only good joke in the series.

So is THIS the Secret War of the title?

Because it doesn’t look very secret to me!

Lucia Von Bardas is the one leading this new attack on New York, and she’s had a rough year.

Von Bardas wants revenge against Fury by TURNING HERSELF INTO A BOMB.

There’s a metaphor about this miniseries somewhere in there.

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Secret War #5 (2005)
by Brian Michael Bendis & Gabriele Dell’Otto

Can you believe we’re already at the last issue?

Sooo… remember the girl introduced during the flight to Latveria? Despite the fact that SHE HAS NOT APPEARED YET, the story begins with her bio… revealing she’s the daughter of Mr. Hyde of all people!!!

This had to be revealed in a random bio after failing to show up, otherwise it might have been interesting.

The criminally underrated Agents Of SHIELD television series took THREE SEASONS (out of a total of seven) to develop Daisy Johnson into her superhero identity of Quake.
Talk about a MASSIVE improvement over the source material!!!

Bendis introduces her as a 18 year old who SOMEHOW has the highest possible SHIELD security clearance. WITH NO EXPLANATION.

Her being the daughter of Mister Hyde, by the way, HAS NO IMPACT WHATSOEVER ON HER CHARACTER. It even causes a bit of a problem: the comic treats her as having powers because her father is a supervillain, but she’s too old to be born before Calvin Zabo was transformed into Mr. Hyde.
For a while they will hint at him having experimented on her, until they settled on her mother being an Inhuman.

Daisy was the one to take over the power-crazy Von Bardas. Not, you know, the experienced superheroes on the scene. And this is shown in a quick flashback because otherwise we could’ve followed a tense battle.

The X-Men, true to form, weren’t even part of the big battle. These guys always need to do things differently, don’t they?

Fury reveals that this attack was retribution for the Secret War that overthrew the government of Latveria. You know, the event that gives the title to this series and that WE NEVER SAW.

We only get a flashback to the ending of the Secret War. Apparently Fury really DID convince the heroes to attack Castle Doom.

Fury’s solution was to have Daisy use her earthquake powers to DESTROY CASTLE DOOM.

Also: the entire idea of bringing the heroes to Latveria to work incognito? COMPLETELY WORTHLESS since they’re in costume anyway!!!

“Back in WWII people stayed dead” is pretty rich coming from the WWII guy whose friends AND foes from the 40s are still around.

And yeah, Fury brainwashed the heroes into forgetting the entire thing happened.

I think this gets pretty close as character assassination for Nick Fury.
He’s not 100% a hero and he definitely has a dark side, but he’s not fully a “the end justifies the means” kind of guy.

Wolverine ends up stabbing Fury because… well wouldn’t you?… but it’s not the real Nick Fury, just a robot copy.

And so we end with Fury losing SHIELD and going into hiding, with the control of the organization going to Maria Hill. Yet another character that won’t be worth reading until someone else other than Bendis writes her.

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Doom significance: 4/10
Lucia Von Bardas will eventually return and face Doom in a FAR better story.
Outside of Doom, this is VERY significant for Nick Fury: while he will return to work for SHIELD, this is effectively the end of his run as its director.

Silver Age-ness: 0/10
You’re joking, right?

Does it stand the test of time? 3/10
Like I said, it’s Bendis: 90% crap, 7% passable and 3% genuinely great.
None of the characters, except maybe Spider-Man here and there, sounds or act like the character we’ve known for years. Characterization and logic bends to what the current script needs: that’s the Bendis way.
While I’m not a fan of the covers, Dell’Otto does a fine job on the artwork… most of the time, when he doesn’t go wildly off-character or when the script isn’t a jumbled mess.
And obviously this has no reason to be 5 issues long: even by 2004 standards, this is ridiculously decompressed. Nothing happens for 3 entire issues and the last one has to rush the few things that don’t happen behind the scenes.

Times Latveria has been conquered: 14
The extremely brief rule of Lucia Von Bardas.

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So that was Secret War: a potentially good story that could have worked in someone else’s hands. In fact it HAS worked, because the entire thing was the direct inspiration of the fist half of the 2009 game Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2.

Which SOMEHOW gives more characterization to the heroes AND the villains than the original story!!!

And it uses this whole thing to lead into Civil War in a FAR more coherent way that the comics (not that it’s hard, but still).

Then again, it’s hardly surprising the game adaptation has more brains than the source material when at least it knows where Latveria is!!!