MARVEL SUPER HEROES SECRET WARS #2 (1984)
by Jim Shooter & Mike Zeck
I’ll bet you anything Doctor Doom is still upset that Magneto got a Secret Wars cover before him.
As a reminder, I’m mostly going to focus on Doom himself, since this is his retrospective; as a result there isn’t much about him in this issue.
The fight between the heroes and the villains that ambushed them during last issue’s cliffhanger is fine. Nothing spectacular except this panel:
This is awesome because we rarely see anyone defeat the Enchantress by punching her, but it is also hilarious thanks to She-Hulk saying “tubular to the max”.
While the heroes are busy, Doom examines Galactus who has just recovered from the beating he received from the Beyonder.
Doom tries to get Galactus to acknowledge him, with exactly zero results.
Then he goes back to the alien base abandoned by the other villains, where he discovers Ultron.
Which turns out to be useful because, once the villains return to base, they discover that Doctor Doom has reprogrammed Ultron to be his servant.
Talk about driving home the fact that he’s on top of the supervillain food chain!!!
Even Doom, however, makes it a point to stay on Molecule Man’s good side.
He may look like a wuss but Molecule Man is RIDICULOUSLY powerful, as we’ll see soon in this series.
The villains weren’t the only one to find a convenient alien base to use as headquarters.
The heroes have a truly enormous one (54.5 times the size of the Pentagon!!!)…
…while Magneto has found one shaped like a giant magnet. (!?!?)
We get some nice downtime with the heroes, with interesting character interactions. I especially like the contrast between Spider-Man (who probably considers this one his weirdest adventure so far) and the Human Torch (who does this sort of thing every other week).
The only other thing of consequence is that, after Magneto attacks the hero base and (somewhat by accident) kidnaps the Wasp, the Thing randomly turns back into his human form.
That’s not going to be explained until the very end of the series.
MARVEL SUPER HEROES SECRET WARS #3 (1984)
by Jim Shooter & Mike Zeck
Be honest, you didn’t expect to see “Crisis” mentioned on the cover of Secret Wars.
Since the series is called “Secret Wars” you wouldn’t expect the downtime issues to be the ones with the most stuff going on. But the two factions are currently stopped by a gigantic super-storm that threatens both headquarters.
Thor is there to protect the hero base, but he’s just a little bit too into this kind of thing.
Spider-Man is exploring the base, and he discovers that the X-Men have gathered in their own sector and are plotting something.
The fact that SPIDER-MAN calls them out for not being social heroes is both hilarious and correct.
Turns out the X-Men have decided they don’t belong with the rest of the heroes, and in fact have decided to leave the place and join forces with Magneto.
There’s probably an argument to be made for Spider-Man jumping to conclusions here… but seriously, what were the X-Men expecting!?
Magneto had barely started his redemption arc: at this point in history he’s still a wanted terrorist responsible for AT LEAST hundreds of murders.
If the X-Men think he’s misunderstood they could try to reason with the heroes, who up to this moment have been hostile ONLY towards Magneto and not towards the other mutants!
TL,DR: the X-Men definitely deserve the humiliation that’s coming to them.
This scene has been heavily criticize over the years. I’ll admit I might be biased because I’m far more of a Spider-Man fan than an X-Men fan, but… honestly, I don’t see any issues here for a variety of reasons.
First of all: Spider-Man is notoriously hard to hit, thanks to his reflexes and overpowered spider-sense. Second, he has a lot of experience fighting teams of villains on his own (the Sinister Six, anyone?). Third, the way he deals with each individual X-Man makes tons of sense.
Storm provides her own explanation.
Nightcrawler is not fast enough, he can’t take Spider-Man by surprise thanks to the spider-sense, and you’ll see below that the webbing takes care of his teleportation.
Rogue is VERY inexperienced here, and while she’s stronger there’s no way she’s faster.
Colossus WAY stronger, but Spider-Man regularly deals with Rhino: an invulnerable enemy orders of magnitude stronger than him is no big deal.
Wolverine? Sure, the dude is a badass, but come one… Spider-Man is significantly faster, stronger, and thanks to his spider-sense it’s nearly impossible to catch him by surprise.
Which is not to say that Wolverine CAN’T beat him; his entire deal is that you can’t put him down permanently… in a drawn-out fight, I’d put my money on the Canadian.
Spider-Man likely doesn’t have anything that can stop Wolverine from coming back for a second round. That being said, if you underestimate Spider-Man, this tends to happen:
Seriously, I get being a fan of the X-Men, but you’re telling me that any of these guys can take by surprise a dude who can dodge Cyclops’ blasts!? Come on!!!
Besides, the X-Men technically “win” because Professor X mind wipes Spider-Man’s memory.
Dick move, Charlie, dick move.
Interestingly, the X-Men are not the only ones to reach out for Magneto: even Doctor Doom proposes an alliance. You decide if that’s out of character for Doom, or if the Beyonder is such a challenge that he’s willing to admit he needs help.
And Doom really is going to get help, because he has built a device that can give superpowers to a couple of women that randomly showed up.
We’ll learn soon that the girls come from a part of Denver that has been transported to Battleworld.
The one on the left is transformed into Volcana, who can basically turn into super-hot plasma.
The one on the right is the far more popular Titania, who gets a costume she designed.
I would love to see the scene where they discuss the costume thing.
<Doom can make you muscular and super-strong.>
<Great! Can you also get me a leather dominatrix costume with a giant boob window?>
Doom introduces the ladies to the other villains, with Titania immediately trying to impress the Absorbing Man. These two are arguably the best supervillain power couple… they’ll eventually get married, and for the most part it’s been depicted as a thoroughly happy marriage.
Volcana, whose costume when she “flames off” is just a bathing suit, also begins her only known relationship. I wonder if she knows that Molecule Man is not exaggerating when he talks about ripping the planet apart… that’s totally within his capabilities.
He’s also a lovable dork.
The villains launch a surprise attack against the heroes. Volcana of all people gets the chance to really shine in her fist fight.
The heroes were taken by surprise because the Hulk (who currently has Banner’s brain) failed to sound the alarm in time, so he’s feeling a bit guilty.
Only Molecule Man would react to being attacked by an angry Hulk by exclaiming “oh goody!”.
Captain America convinces the Hulk to escape, which means that the villains have won… with the Enchantress being the only loss (she escaped to another dimension with Thor).
And that’s where we’re going to leave at the moment.
Doom significance: 4/10
Doom himself is barely in it. Even though Titania is by far the most important villain he created, they two will meet just a couple of times after this series.
Silver Age-ness: 2/10
Exclusively for Magneto’s magnet-shaped headquarters.
Does it stand the test of time? 7/10
The pacing is not exactly perfect, and unlike in the previous issue Shooter does lose track of a few heroes and villains who have nothing to do the entire time.
Still, the downtime moments are very interesting and the action scenes, while brief, have a lot of impact. Even though I have praised the Spider-Man vs X-Men scene, I think the X-Men’s “betrayal” of the heroes needed some more space.
I don’t think it’s entirely out of character, but it can come off as very abrupt.
Supervillains created by Dr. Doom: 9
Adding Volcana and Titania. The latter is only the second villain with staying power that Doom has created, although she’s indisputably FAR more popular than Dreadknight.
Number of superheroes who have fought Dr. Doom: 48
The number stays the same: Doom doesn’t fight anyone except arguably Captain America and Hulk, both of which are already in the count.
Crazy tech
It’s based on pre-existing alien tech, but Doom is able to give superpowers to Volcana and Titania with no problems whatsoever.
Your explanation of the fight is spot on. X-fans can whine all they want, this is how it would go down. And this was before Wolverine got overpowered beyond Galactus. #3 was one of my most satifying reads as a young tyke.
“Those pigstickers may scare the bar room bullies, but to me you’re a joke.” is one of the truest lines ever written.