Chapter Two: Secret Wars II
By Brett Ballard-Beach
December 8, 2011
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Retroactive continuity or retcon - definition (from Wikipedia, by way of a piece on Dr. Who): the alteration of previously established facts in a fictional work
This column and next, Chapter Two will be indulging in a year-end blowout of a different sort, as I once again step well outside of my comfort zone to examine sequels in pop cultural contexts other than cinematic ones. This week I pick up on a thread I precariously began to unravel as a side thought last time out - my youthful falling-out with the world of comic books - as I examine a 1980s comic book sequel/maxi-series that defines the decade of excess for me, as well as any bloated unnecessary big-budget sequel ever could: Secret Wars II. I hope to find time for a little reflection on my comic book reading back then contrasted with the memories stirred up by diving back into stories I read and re-read religiously 25 years ago, but hadn’t opened up in the interim.
The only required reading for this installment of the column - in all its back-breaking 1,174 page, error-ridden (more on that towards the end) glory - is the Secret Wars II Omnibus, published by Marvel Direct Edition in 2009, to the tune of a single penny under $100. Within its pages are brought together the nine issues of Secret Wars II, originally published between July 1985 and March 1986; ALMOST (for $100, almost?) all of the 32 tie-ins to those issues scattered among various Marvel comic properties, with the lion’s share of Marvel characters and titles covered; the epilogue to the series in Avengers #266; a four-issue Fantastic Four plotline from 1988 that serves as an about-face to the epilogue; and a final nail in (what was left of) the coffin two years after that, a postscript to endnotes if you will, in Quasar #8, what the cover corner of the issue promised to be “absolutely the last Secret Wars tie-in!”
What is missing from this weighty, colorful tome? An issue of Rom, an issue of Micronauts, and Deadpool Teamup #1, from 1998, which featured the Beyonder (more on him in a minute) in a cameo meant to spoof the overabundance of crossover titles and adventures that had proliferated in the decade since Secret Wars II had come and gone. Such satire is fitting since crossover mania was part of what drove me out of the world of comic books. Amazingly, I actually own the first two on that list as Secret Wars II came out right around the beginning of the three-year stretch that reading comic books was my driving force. (As an offhand thought, this era may have had its end hastened beginning in the spring/summer of 1988 as I drifted over into music and most of my money started going towards cassettes and Rolling Stone magazine subscriptions.)
My two-box collection such as it is, is narrow, encompassing those three years (and a lot of back issues) of Uncanny X-Men, The New Mutants, Power Pack, G.I. Joe, X-Factor, Classic X-Men, Marvel Age, and any number of 2, 4, or 6-issue limited series. My favorite among these is probably Magik (Storm and Illyana), the origin story of how Colossus’ little sister winds up trapped in Limbo for seven years. An image that has always stayed with me is of her being sucked out of our world - her best friend Kitty Pryde’s hand losing touch with hers for only a few seconds (measured in our time) - and then emerging back from Limbo as a mature teenager. Then, as now, it strikes me as a very visceral metaphor for the uneasy road an adolescent can travel, facing adult responsibilities at too early an age, finding childhood to be a time hard to enjoy, and even harder to find a way back to. This is most likely why Power Pack and New Mutants spoke to me the most at the time, as I was myself in between the ages of the young protagonists. And the lamest? Well, I don’t recall having the fondest memories of the X-Men & Alpha Flight two-issue get-together in 1985. Maybe I just didn’t get Canadian superhero collectives (minor foreshadowing for the next column!)
Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars was a 12-issue series from 1984-85 that gathered up most of the heavy hitters from the Marvel Universe (heroes and villains) to do battle on a cobbled-together planet in the far reaches of space at the behest of - who, exactly? About the only words uttered by it were the ones that kicked off this column and no great conclusions were ever reached in its pages. Archvillain Dr. Doom briefly usurped power from “The Beyonder” only to see his psyche crumble in the process, allowing the godlike figure to reclaim powers from Doom and banish him elsewhere. Spider-Man got his black suit for the first time, the X-Men and Magneto made uneasy allies (which made them both very, very uneasy allies with the rest of the heroes), Hulk was angry a lot (especially after having an entire mountainside dropped on him), Owen Reece (aka Molecule Man) received consciousness raising and the dissolution of mental stumbling blocks courtesy of the godlike Dr. Doom, and Captain America and Reed Richards spent most of their time keeping morale as high as possible.
Mere months after that series ended, Secret Wars II picked up the only way it could, the only way a true ‘80s sequel to a “fish out of water” tale should, with the Beyonder assuming a physical form and following the superheroes to Earth in an attempt to understand desire, mortality, loss, love, and other “base” human emotions/states of being. The tales that followed spilled over into nearly all the corners of the Marvel superhero/mutant world, and by extension, nearly all of their titles; even a minor character from the then-new Transformers series made a cameo. Excepting limited-issue series and reprints, the only ones that didn’t take part (by my admittedly brief perusal) were Conan the Barbarian, Conan the King, Indiana Jones, Star Wars, and Dr. Who.
The Catch-22 at the heart of the series and the myriad tie-ins, and one reason why it feels like it is spinning its wheels at least a good 50% of the time, is that there is a certain lack of emotional cachet involved when the protagonist of your series is capable of controlling not simply the feelings and emotions of everyone in the world, but of completely altering the physical and structural elements of our universe on a macro and micro level. Which The Beyonder does. Repeatedly. Sometimes this is good for laughs (his earliest incarnation in physical form is an amusing amalgam of traits of many of the characters he observed in Secret Wars) and sometimes it makes for shocking and senseless tragedy (in one of his many tirades, he wipes out nearly all of The New Mutants, and erases their mental footprints entirely from the consciousness of their family and friends.)
It is also fair to say that a lot of the tie-ins feel forced, many simply riffing off the “what if you encountered a being who could make anything happen” plotline in order to make something happen that otherwise wouldn’t be possible without major retcon and/or much expanded effort on the imagination of the writers. The Alpha Flight, ROM, Daredevil, and Cloak and Dagger crossovers all offer variations on this, with only the latter two making much of an emotional impact. The former does so via The Beyonder granting the blind protagonist the ability to briefly see for the first time in his adult life (a “gift” Daredevil gives back for compellingly moral reasons) and the latter through offering some pointed commentary on the vigilante exploits of the titular heroes who seek to wipe out drug pushers.
I’ll be the first to admit that I found myself adrift in tie-ins like Micronauts #18, which felt so dense and heavy with the arcane lingo and lore of its mythology that I couldn’t even jump on board for 24 pages. The first of the Fantastic Four counter-epilogues (FF #316) has to work itself through the most convoluted summation of previous issues that it reads like a parody of those scenes where someone has to bring the audience up to date. Other issues like the Doctor Strange and Hulk tie-ins go the opposite route providing insightful origin stories, or approximations thereof, that place the respective individuals into atypical contexts by the impressions that they make on The Beyonder.
My single favorite issue of Secret Wars II proper would have to be #3, which is both the cheesiest and the most emotionally sincere. In an amusing “omnipotent being” take on Scarface, The Beyonder (nicknamed Frank by his cohorts) aspires to become ruler of the world the old-fashioned way, by rising up through the ranks of a criminal organization. He loses the blond Adonis look he has briefly morphed into and settles for a mashup of ‘80s soap opera and pop star. He becomes a glutton for food, sex, and electronic devices:
“Will you needing more things to chop up in your Cuisinart, sir?”
“Not yet! I still have some vegetables and some Styrofoam left.”
Eventually, he exerts his will over all people and all living things only to find dissatisfaction at being so, well, powerful. And out of this dissatisfaction and various ways to alleviate or quench it come the impetus for the majority of the battles, tantrums, and occasional universe vanquishings that follow.
My favorite of the tie-ins (with a special mention set aside for the epilogue in The Avengers) is probably Amazing Spider-Man #274, in which Peter Parker finds himself in the center of a most Biblical wager between The Beyonder and the infernal Mephisto. Cursed like Job, our hero must find a way to fight through a dizzying array of illusions and ailments, all to keep one of his most loathed arch nemeses from being assassinated. Although there is little doubt that our Spider-Man will prevail physically, it is the moral and spiritual aspect of his conundrum that serve as a reminder that what makes a super hero is not simply treading in where others fear to follow, but the ability to find a morality worth fighting for, and to use that to rise above, when all hope seems lost.
It could be argued (at least, I can and will) that Secret Wars II is also the story of another all-powerful being set loose on our planet. Well, that might be an exaggeration. The Molecule Man (at least his circa mid-‘80s incarnation) appears to be quite happy eating TV dinners while watching F Troop reruns or playing Trivial Pursuit with his live-in girlfriend Volcana. Owen Reece is the first character to appear in Secret Wars II issue #1 and (almost) the last one to appear in the closing panels of The Avengers epilogue. Short, meek, unassuming, but blessed with powers almost akin to The Beyonder and far more powerful than just about any being in our universe, his struggles to maintain a balance and equilibrium between himself and the world around him serve as a signpost and a warning to The Beyonder. I can see his appeal to me when I was younger, the 98-lb weakling makes good and kicks sand back at the bullies, but there is a tremendous amount of nuance writers Jim Shooter and Roger Stern bring to the character that help him resonate even with my adult self.
A self-actualized omnipotent being working the daily grind and then vegging out in suburban Denver almost sounds like the pitch for a stellar HBO series. For all his lessons learned, Reece is caught between the worlds and labels of “hero” and “villain”, never accepted as the first but with no use anymore for the last. His emotions are still easily cut as in a devastating moment where he curls into a ball on the floor when he believes his girlfriend has betrayed him. It is these tenuous emotions that all come into play as Molecule Man must help to defeat The Beyonder and then, drained and weary almost unto death, use his powers to heal a devastated landscape before a breach of the Earth’s core leads to the planet’s destruction.
But before I can segue to a conclusion, an awkward sidebar must be addressed. There are an inordinate amount of errors in the only six pages of editorial content that preface the collection - incorrect page numbers, incorrect issue numbers listed in the Table of Contents, artists who worked on the series misidentified in their section of the T of C, and an issue that was meant to be included but then yanked (the spoofy Deadpool) still listed in the copyright box. Being sloppy is one thing, but being sloppy with a $100 price tag attached shows borderline contempt. End of rant.
I didn’t have as many vivid flashbacks to my younger emotional self during the last few weeks as I might have thought. It was good to once again be (ever so briefly) back in the clutches of characters that were, for a time, and with fervor and passion, as real for me as anyone I might bump shoulders with in the halls of junior high. Granted, it’s hard to look entirely past the bloated nature of the project that was Secret Wars II (and judging by some of the vitriol I came across in forums over the last week, a lot of long-time comic book devotees do not) but even in the throes of its excess and unwieldy structure I was able to uncover a line I had forgotten, a sketch of a face that seemed instantly recalled to my mind, or a disturbing image I had long since blocked.
Next time: Chapter Two ends 2011 with a hearty salute to our neighbors up North. Settle in with a pre-Christmas, er, pre-Boxing Day extravaganza featuring the Canadian teen drama series to end all Canadian teen drama series, and a coffee-table book sequel from an author who I am never sure if I want to hug or throttle.