Secret Awards – Comics Archeology

I don’t typically do a version of the Legion Awards for the Doom retrospective: I don’t think it would be fair, since the retrospective jumps from writer to writer and from series to series.
But Secret Wars is another story, with a pretty consistent creative team. Plus this gives me the chance to touch on a couple of subject I skipped since they had nothing to do with Doom.

So ladies and gentlemen, without further ado: the Secret Awards!

BEST VILLAIN WHO IS NOT DOCTOR DOOM
I mean, the category would have no meaning if Doom was allowed to compete!

Winner: Molecule Man

He’s just awesome. He can be a powerhouse or a wimp, he gets the only good romantic subplot of the series, and the best character development of the entire roster.

Runner-up: Klaw

I like his more traditional supervillain status, but I really REALLY like his madness in this series. He’s so damn entertaining!

Third place: Galactus

Not a real villain, I know, but as an antagonist he still counts. He’s the one carrying the plot of half of the series, and as usual he’s a force to be reckoned with.

Honorable mention: Ultron

He’s under mind control for the entire series except his very first scene, but damn if he’s not intimidating as hell.

WORST VILLAIN

Winner: Kang

Despite the fact that he ALMOST kills Doom, you can easily remove him from the series and hardly anyone would notice.

Runner-up: the Wrecking Crew

Look, I get it: you want a large number of villains and not of them can be interesting. The entire deal of the Wrecking Crew is that they’re strong dumb guys, which unfortunately means they don’t contribute anything.

Third place: Lizard

He’s not BAD, but he doesn’t do much. In fact he completely disappears from the action for most of the series.

MOST UNDERUSED VILLAIN

Winner: Doctor Octopus

He has a couple of interesting moments here and there, but this was a chance to see him fight heroes in new cool ways. Instead we have him losing to Magneto (understandable) and flee from Hawkeye (less understandable).

BEST HERO

Winner: Captain America

One of the best times he’s shown to be the leader of the entire superhero community, not just the Avengers. He’s a little tone deaf with the X-Men, but it’s not like the other heroes are much better.

Runner-up: Spider-Man

He doesn’t get any character development and he’s way, WAY over his head, but he’s amazingly spectacular.

Third place: Thor

Loses some points freeing Enchantress to make out with her, but he really shows what’s he’s made of by fighting the entire villain roster ALONE.

Honorable mention: Hulk

One of the very best times he shows how absurdly strong he is. And this isn’t even his strongest form!

WORST HERO

Winner: the Human Torch

You’re better than this, Johnny.

Runner-up: Colossus

Not only because I dislike the Zsaji subplot, but… yeah that’s mostly for the Zsaji subplot.

Third place: Hawkeye

He gets a couple of cool moments but he’s mostly relegated to cannon fodder. Plus he’s even more of a hothead than he typically is.

MOST UNDERUSED HERO

Winner: Nightcrawler
The X-Men get shafted throughout the series, but at least everyone else gets SOMETHING to do.
Colossus and Professor X have whole subplots, Wolverine has his interactions with Cap and a couple of cool fights; Cyclops, Rogue and Storm don’t do much but they all have SOME panels dedicated to them… Cyclops thinking about his wife, Rogue about her past as a villain, Storm about Professor X being a dick.
Name one thing Nightcrawler did without looking it up.

BEST NEW CHARACTER
No, the symbiote is not eligible since it’s not a character in this series.

Winner: Titania

I have a soft spot for the runner-up, but she’s undeniably the breakout character.

Runner-up: Volcana

She’s basically turned into a joke in Secret Wars II and has only a couple more meaningful appearances, but she’s an interesting case of a reluctant villain. If she wasn’t ruined by Secret Wars II she would’ve certainly been turned into a hero.

Third place: Spider-Woman

She doesn’t do anything interesting in this series, AT ALL, but she will turn into an interesting characters on the pages of West Coast Avengers.

Honorable mention: the Beyonder
Yes he’s absolutely atrocious in Secret Wars II, even though in some of tie-ins he’s pretty good (I’ll cover one that involves Doom). But in this series he’s an interesting enigma.

WORST NEW CHARACTER

Winner: Zsaji
She’s not entirely bad, in fact she’s not even a character: she’s a walking plot mechanic.

MOST INFLUENTIAL MOMENT

Winner: Doom steals the Beyonder’s powers
Surprise, it’s not the symbiote! Doom was already on top of the supervillain food chain before this moment, but this REALLY cemented the position.

Runner-up: the black costume

Yes it’s by far the change with the most long-lasting consequences, leading up to Venom. But there’s a reason why every single adaptation disconnects the symbiote from Battleworld.

Third place: the Thing doesn’t come back

This leads to She-Hulk joining the Fantastic Four and Johnny Storm marrying Alicia (kind of… long story), and it will be YEARS before the Thing returns to his status quo.

SPECIAL “NOT APPEARING IN THIS SERIES” AWARD
Winner: Nova (Frankie Raye)
Since she rescues Galactus it means she was RIGHT THERE, but prefers to skip the crossover. It’s not like we needed more characters, plus we already have a woman on fire.

BEST PANEL
The abstract representation of the Beyonder. The fact that he speaks for the first time since issue 1, even sounding a little afraid. Doom’s badass boast.