MARVEL SUPER HEROES SECRET WARS #1 (1984)
by Jim Shooter & Mike Zeck
This is the big one. We’re going to be around here for a while, folks.
Analyzing the entire 12 issue series into detail would take WAY too long, so I’m not even going to attempt covering the long history of how this entire event came to be.
I’m going to focus MOSTLY on Doctor Doom, otherwise this would take weeks to review.
Immediately before this story, several books ended with a cliffhanger as the hero walked inside a weird alien construct. And Secret Wars begins with such construct appearing in outer space.
For the most part, the series avoids infodumps and provides new information in an organic way.
This is definitely not true for the first introduction of the heroes:
That is A LOT of text for a single panel. Like I said I’m not going into much details outside of Doom, but you do need to know a few peculiarities:
-the Fantastic Four are missing the Invisible Girl, who is still on Earth and still pregnant
-Iron Man is not Tony Stark but James Rhodes (the future War Machine)
-Professor Xavier actually can walk; we’ll have a brief mention on why he’s on a wheelchair now
-the Hulk currently has the mind of Bruce Banner; he won’t change to his human form, not even once, during the entire series
Also Magneto is among the heroes for some reason, even though he had barely started his redemption arc at the time.
There is a second construct that holds the bad guys, presented with a second infodump by Doom:
Doctor Doom had been considered dead by the Fantastic Four for almost a year at this point, and I can’t imagine heroes and villains not being informed about it.
It won’t be acknowledged until issue #8, and even then it’ll be very understated. It will be formally explained only AFTER Secret Wars has ended.
Also of note: Doom identifies Kang as “my future-Earth counterpart”, continuing the nonsense idea that he might be himself from the future.
As both heroes and villains wonder why they are here, the witness the destruction of an entire galaxy!!!
When even Thor is like “WTF just happened!?!?”, things are bad.
Also impressing: the same thing that wiped out an entire galaxy like it was nothing also builds a brand new planet by assembling pieces of other planets taken from all over the universe.
Even Doom is quite shaken. Note how expressive Mike Zeck can draw his mask!
But he has other problems now: Ultron is among the villains, and since he wants to kill all organic beings… yeah, that’s an issue.
Except… one of the “villains” is Galactus.
The bad guys find this particularly impressive because Ultron is powered by a nuclear reactor, and Galactus just absorbed all of his energy without even blinking.
Although I don’t think most of them know that he eats entire planets.
(the fact that Galactus is here won’t be explained in the series, but only with a couple of lines at the beginning of Secret Wars II)
Then a voice from “beyond” gives us the reason for why the galaxy was destroyed and the new planet was created: he wants to see them fight.
Galactus, of all people, is the one identifying this entity as the Beyonder.
Sensing that the Beyonder is powerful enough to cure his world-devouring hunger, Galactus decides to attack it directly.
And Doctor Doom immediately follows him!
It actually goes much better than you would expect: Doctor Doom survives.
Galactus, on the other hand, unquestionably loses this fight.
Yeah, this Beyonder guy is kind of a heavyweight.
Both heroes and villains are there teleported on the planet, which will soon be named Battleworld.
This being Marvel, it’s no wonder that putting so many heroes together would result in them fighting… but this time I have to side with the Avengers: Magneto WAS a wanted terrorist at the time.
Yeah… I’m not a huge fan of the X-Men, and moments like these are precisely why.
You’re not helping your case, Mags.
Captain America is elected the leader of the heroes, because come on.
“He’s the least of us, he can’t do anything”? Dude, Hawkeye is right there!
(just kidding, I’m a fan of Hawkeye, but come on)
Also: the Wasp is the one to name the situation “Secret Wars”. She was the one to come up with the name “Avengers” AND she was to name the Vision, so she’s quite good at this!!!
But what about Doctor Doom and Galactus?
Let’s take a moment to appreciate the fact that Doctor Doom’s armor has a force field that can protect him from something that knocked out GALACTUS.
He admits that he didn’t take the full blast, but that is one impressive feat!!!
Meanwhile the villains have regrouped and taken control of an alien fortress they found.
And they elect Doctor Doom to be their leader, because come on.
Remember that the Beyonder has promised to give the winners of the war anything they desire, so that’s the incentive for the villains.
Except Doctor Doom.
When the villains don’t agree to follow Doom anymore, he has a compelling argument.
Doom leaves the alien base by one of the ships he finds laying around, but then Kang shoots him out of the sky!!!
Either that cannon must be packing a heck of a punch or Doom’s armor was damaged by the Beyonder, because he sustains more damages than before.
One of the worst things you can do to Doom is offer to help him, somehow.
The heroes don’t have the chance to deal with him, because the rest of the villains decide this is the best moment for a surprise attack.
And that’s our first cliffhanger for the series!
Doom significance: 10/10
Secret Wars will include some of the Doctor Doom-iest moments in the history of Doctor Doom, and none of that would be possible without this one!
Silver Age-ness: 6/10
Possibly due to miscommunications with the writers of the regular series (which is weird for Shooter), a lot of things are just there for no explanation… Doom being alive, Xavier being in a wheelchair even if at the time he was cured, and other things. Most of it will eventually be explained, but it’s rather Silver Age having to just accept it like this.
Does it stand the test of time? 9/10
Shooter has a lot of experience handling a very large team, but he clearly has his favorites. Some of the heroes are bit off and some dialogues are a bit dated (those infodumps!!!). But the setting, the ideas, the action, the storytelling and the artwork make up for the vast majority of it.
It was a Doombot all along
I’m not using the category for this series since it’s impossible for this one to be a robot (even if there will be one instance when it’s suggested, during the Simonson run on Fantastic Four).
Crazy tech
As mentioned, that force field is really something!!!
Number of superheroes who have fought Dr. Doom: 48
The number is not changing because I only add characters that actually fight Doom, not just those he meets and he only fights the villains in this story. That’s going to change.