Mar 19, 2024

Crisis in the Marvel Universe.

by Rey Beltran | www.gogagah.com

Alternate universes coming together, merging into one, new, single timeline or universe… sounds familiar? Of course it is! It’s DC Comics’ revolutionary storyline that changed the face of DC Universe 30 years ago. Dubbed as Crisis on Infinite Earths, it was designed to clean up the DC Universe continuity and alternate earths.

What made this DC Crossover Event memorable were the deaths of Supergirl, Barry Allen (Flash II), and the devolution of Wonder Woman back to clay. There were other deaths as well, but none so memorable as these heroes. It was DC Comics’ way of rebooting the DC Universe, giving us all a clear-cut timeline that is somewhat concurrent with ours.

Flash forward to 2015. Marvel Comics is cleaning house via its Secret Wars. Not to be confused with another Marvel event that happened in 1984, this Secret Wars will merge the other alternate universes (Ultimate, Age of Apocalypse, and 2099) to form Battleworld. The resulting event will become Marvel Universe’s status quo moving forward.  Deaths of various Marvel characters are expected, although it’s not yet known if there will be major characters to be killed off during Secret Wars.

Secret Wars, like DC Comics’ Convergence, is an 8-issue miniseries that will put an end to the Ultimate Marvel imprint that has been in existence for 15 years.

Just like the classic crossovers of the 80s, tie-in miniseries and ongoing titles crossover with the main story, revisiting previous Marvel events like Civil War, Age of Apocalypse, Years of Future Past, and Armor Wars. Tie-ins will be grouped into three subtitles, namely: Battleworld, Last Days, and Warzones.

Tom Brevoort, Executive Editor of Marvel Comics, revealed in his tumblr account that Last Days will show several characters from Captain America and Ms. Marvel to Loki and Magneto in their final adventures before the Marvel Universe comes to an end in Secret Wars, whereas Warzones will focus on the individual domains, and Battleworld will be concerned with the infrastructure of the Battleworld as a whole.

Secret Wars will feature Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy, Hulk, Inhumans, Spiderman, and the X-Men as the main characters. It would be interesting to note that the current lineup of Avengers isn’t the original ones anymore, what with a female Thor in the team, a black Captain America, a new Ms. Marvel, and a new Spiderman in Miles Morales.