Secret Wars #12

MARVEL SUPER HEROES SECRET WARS #12 (1985)
by Jim Shooter & Mike Zeck

It’s been a long journey, but we have finally reached Doom’s triumph. Which is quite pink.

After Doom killed all the heroes last issue, we begin with a scene of their remains… followed by a chilling list of the deceased.

With the heroes finally dead, Doom can now contain his power because “this universe is too fragile” for the full power of the Beyonder.

Meanwhile we cut to the villains, who are fleeing the planet thanks to the power of Molecule Man.
For what it’s worth, it’s been a week since Doom stole the Beyonder’s power.

Enchantress conjures up an elemental to gather some information… while she’s in Volcana’s bathroom.

This is origin of the Beyonder, and I absolutely love the fact that we’re hearing about it while Enchantress is sitting on the toilet.

As goofy as the situation is, the Beyonder is a fascinating concept. A being absolute power in a different universe, who doesn’t understand desire because it never needed anything before.

We also have an official explanation for why Magneto ended up with the heroes: it’s because his desires are closer to being altruistic than the other villains.
And it’s also explained that he focuses on these specific characters because the Beyonder finds superheroes interesting, and who am I to say otherwise?

The infodump is interrupted by Absorbing Man needing to take a dump.

First Wasp, now Volcana… Lizard is smooth with the ladies.

Doctor Octopus, who I need to remind you is clinically insane, finally snaps as he realizes they have no hope to get back to Earth alive.

He starts a fight with Molecule Man, who insists he can get them home.
For those interested in where exactly Battleworld is supposed to be: apparently several billion light-years from Earth. Not sure how the heck Doc Ock knows THAT.

Octopus really snaps when he discovers that Molecule Man can REBUILD A GALAXY.

Understandably, a guy who can do THAT is not particularly threatened by tentacles.

Enchantress takes the opportunity to kidnap Volcana and do a ritual to absorb her life force, in an attempt to go back to Asgard and warn Odin about Doom.

Note the “bloated one” insult. Throughout the entire series Enchantress teases and straight up insults Volcana with constant references to her weight, making me think that Volcana was supposed to be overweight. That doesn’t really comes through from the artwork. At least here, she was noticeably fatter in Secret Wars II.

Enchantress gets maimed by Lizard as he rescues Volcana, and in return the reptile gets killed.

That’s the last we see of the villains.

Going back to Doom, he’s still having trouble relaxing while maintaining the power of the Beyonder.

But Klaw, who we have seen last issue has been possessed by the same thing that briefly controlled Hulk and Spider-Woman, starts to insinuate that the heroes might still be alive.

Klaw shows Doom his theory with 3D holograms made of sound (just go with it).
And that’s when the Zsaji subplot suddenly turns out to be very important!

I wonder if this is the face Doom makes every time the Fantastic Four defeat him. With his mask, you can never tell.

So according to Klaw’s tale, Colossus revived Reed Richards who in turn healed all the heroes… we’ve seen far less believable resurrections.
But in a bit of clever writing, we get another theory: what if Doom saved them?

This raises a legitimate point: Doom currently has the power to blow up half the universe, so why didn’t he choose a more efficient way to dispose of the heroes?

Even worse, Doom’s power is so great that if the story isn’t true, the slightest doubt might actually MAKE it true!

And in fact Doom starts to suspect that the heroes COULD have survived. Naturally his first thought is for Reed Richards, but interestingly the second one is for Captain America.

In a good and bold move, the comic doesn’t explicitly say who is right about what happened.
On one hand, Doom says that he risks changing reality if he unlocks his full power, which he hasn’t done at this point of the story.
On the other hand, he’s consistently shown to have less than perfect control over his power.
In my headcanon, the heroes are still alive because Doom subconsciously changed reality to make Klaw’s story true. It’s not officially official, but it makes for a better story.

Doom might be going a liiiitle overboard.

Doom might have gained less than he thought: what use is being the most powerful being in the universe, if whenever you try to actually do something you end up destroying it?

Klaw suggests to take care of the heroes himself, so Doom grants him the power “to blacken ten thousand suns” and goes to rest.

This includes the ability to resurrect Ultron, as well as create a bunch of generic monsters to keep the heroes busy.

This is mostly so that we can have our big dumb battle.

A couple of interesting things happen during the fight.
First, the Thing discovers that he can now control his transformations at will. That’s going to be important later (mostly on the Fantastic Four book, of course).

Then we have Hulk damaging Ultron, in one of the very rare in-canon occasions of him actually damaging Adamantium.

Okay I really like the Wasp as a character, but her defeating Ultron makes no sense. There’s a reason they NEVER try this in the Avengers book: his insides are a freaking nuclear reactor!!!

Captain America is the only hero with Doom on his mind, so he tackles Klaw directly to get past his army. This canonically the first time ever Cap’s shield is broken, by the way.

We have now reached the final confrontation: Captain America versus Doctor Doom.
Cap can’t do anything against him, of course… except psychologically.

It doesn’t do him much good, though, since Cap dies.

I think this is another point in favor of the idea that Doom is the one who resurrected the heroes the first time… he keeps doing it again and again.

This is all from Doom’s point of view, of course. As far as Cap is concerned, he didn’t do anything.

So… we’re basically fu##ed.

Except the Beyonder saves the day: turns out he’s the one who has been possessing people, including Klaw. And he takes his power back!

This raises a question: who was planting those doubts in Doom’s mind, Klaw or the Beyonder?
I think it was only influencing Klaw. Considering how unbelievably dumb the Beyonder is in Secret Wars II, it’s the more plausible option.

Doom is returned to his point of origin (back with his scars), as is Klaw.

We’ll cover the specifics of where exactly Doom has been sent in the rest of the retrospective.
Klaw shows up next, of all places, on Daredevil! It’s unclear how much he remembers from Secret Wars; judging from the Daredevil story, not that much.

And now we enter the final stretch of the issue, with the various epilogues.

Several heroes decide to change their costumes, including Professor X with THE WORST COSTUME EVER.

Then weird things start to happen, with multiple wishes apparently being granted.

All because of a wish-granting fallout.

Sounds legit.

And that’s when Captain America fixes his shield BY SHEER WILLPOWER.

F##K YEAH!!!

Reed Richards has found a way to send everyone back home: by using the same constructs the Beyonder used to lure the heroes to Battleworld.
Speaking of which: why the hell did the Beyonder need those things!?

All the heroes are sent back home, with the exception of the Thing: now that he can change into a human, he’s going to stay here and be replaced by She-Hulk.
(without prior consent of the other three, by the way)

The Thing believe it’s thanks to the wish-granting situation, but that doesn’t work: he began randomly turning back human BEFORE the battle with the Beyonder.
We’ll learn on the pages of Fantastic Four that it’s all psychological.

And that’s how the series end! At least the Thing kept the device to go back home… I know he can turn back human now, but what’s the use staying there if the planet is basically deserted?

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WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

Secret Wars had huge consequences for several characters. Of course we’ll follow Doom later and I’ve already talked about Klaw, but a quick summary of the others:

Spider-Man: since the costume will turn out to be alive and is now part of Venom, technically speaking the consequences of Secret Wars are still felt today

Captain America: the shield will be destroyed again in 1998’s Captain America vol3 #2, then one year later we will discover that the shield’s reconstruction from this story was ultimately responsible, since Cap’s wish didn’t fix it permanently. Ironically, the shield will be fixed in Captain America vol3 #22 because of Klaw’s interference.

Iron Man: the parts added to his armor will turn out to be a sentient alien (yes, REALLY) that will end up fighting Quasar, of all people.

Colossus: the whole Zsaji situation is the cause of him breaking up with Kitty Pride. That was pretty much an editorial mandate by Jim Shooter, who understandably enough wasn’t okay with the 14 year old girl dating the older Colossus.

Professor X: he will have to live with the shame of having worn the worst costume ever.

Doctor Octopus: the Molecule Man incident will make him go crazy for a while. Well, crazier than usual.

Titania and Absorbing Man will become a couple and even eventually get married, in a unique case of a loving supervillain marriage. Her being beaten by Spider-Man will be a subplot for a while, during which she’s absolutely terrified of him!

Ultron: his disembodied head will be found by the Thing in his series and then brought back to Earth. Since his machines built a second Ultron during his absence, it will lead to having a good version of Ultron fighting the evil one (and eventually losing).

The Thing: he returns to Earth the same year this issue was published, but he won’t rejoin the Fantastic Four until 1986. The two won’t get back together until 2018 (!!!!) and they’re currently married.

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Doom significance: 10/10
Ending the trilogy of the Beyonder’s powers.

Silver Age-ness: 6/10
Enchantress interrogating the elemental in the bathroom, plus 3D holograms made of sound.

Does it stand the test of time? 8/10
The Doom stuff is golden. It loses some point because only Captain America gets anything interesting to do in the final battle, while everyone else is fighting generic monsters.

Crazy tech
On second thought, maybe Doom needed some tech after all.

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Bonus round: did you know Deadpool was in Secret Wars?

This is a semi-canon 2015 four-part miniseries. The premise is that Deadpool was kidnapped with the rest of the heroes, and he does what you would expect from Deadpool.

I normally like Deadpool, but the series is just not funny to me. Kind of a letdown.
Mostly because:
A) much of the humor is based on you knowing Secret Wars (heck I know most of the series by heart and even I had to look up some references!)
B) the heroes very rarely react to anything Deadpool does, and when they do they tend to be out of character

He ends up falling for Zsaji after she cures him from his disfigurement.

Really the only moment of the entire series that got a laugh out of me was Deadpool pointing out the absurdity of Lizard being grateful to Wasp for bandaging his arm, when Lizard has a healing factor. (and that’s not a retcon, it’s been there since the 60s)

Deadpool infecting the symbiote with his madness is considered canon by some, but it’s extremely debatable.

I would prefer keeping it out of continuity since he also sleeps with Wasp.

At least when Zsaji dies and Deadpool returns to his disfigured self, she reacts in character: shocked at first but trying to accept it.

Just kidding: it’s only for a panel, then she gets treated like this.
As a Wasp fan, that’s just not right.

And to put the final nail in the coffin in this character assassination of Wasp, she ends up removing the memories of Deadpool’s involvement because she couldn’t deal with the idea of having slept with him. Which I could kind of understand if it was because she realized he’s a mercenary assassin, but no, it’s because he’s ugly.
Even if we assume it was a subconscious wish, that’s pretty bad.

Really the only reason I could accept in continuity, and the only redeeming part of the miniseries, is the finale where it turns out that Deadpool willingly used his wish to make sure Zsaji had a happy ending.

Since the continuity placement is questionable at best, I’m not adding Deadpool to the list of heroes who fought Doom right now.

If you’re not tired of my endless ramblings on this series, there’s also the Secret Awards.