Writer & Designer Jonathan Hickman
Artist Esad Ribic
Color Artist Ive Svorcina
Letterer Chris Eliopoulos
Cover Chip Zdarsky
(So I typed this on May 26, 2015 – so I’m seven months behind on my reviews – I have lots of comics! I didn’t realize I had that many but I really don’t want to just do reviews every single day but I recognize that the event is nearly over and I’m just now reviewing the issues.)
I went with this variant, as I’m sure that is Kitty Pryde playfully punching Peter Quill’s arm. I posed the question to the Uncanny X-Cast Facebook group and I’m being told there that those two are Clint Barton and Kate Bishop, the Hawkeyes, which would explain the target on his shirt. Still, I had to buy this issue for one character in specific, so I took a shot with this variant.
Issue opens with Doctor Doom, Doctor Strange and Molecule Man are trying to plead with the Beyonders but Doom has a plan. This is the only pages, I feel, that one needed to read the entire Hickman Avengers opus to fully grasp. Instead, to me, it just reads like Doom is speaking to a mysterious force, which sort of still works.
The Multiverse is dying. Only two universes remain. Today, Earths collide.
Manhattan. Earth-1610. Incursion Event Imminent. Just for anyone who doesn’t know and may be reading this, for the first time – 1610 is the Ultimate Universe and 616 is the Proper Marvel Universe.
The Triskelion. Headquarters of this Earth’s SHIELD. Ultimate Fury wants Reed to explain how much time is left.
The City. Home of the Cabal and the Children of Tomorrow. Currently residing in Manhattan. Ultimate Reed has a weird helmet on his head. Reed gives Fury some hope, there is still time to fight this out. Once Reed ends the call, we see that Reed has been working with the Proper Marvel’s Cabal (the villain version of the Illuminati) – Thanos, Black Swan and Terrax. Reed reveals that the two Earths should have no hope, he lied to Fury so that Fury could feel decent about his last hours.
Once I saw that Ultimate Shadowcat was actually in this title, I knew I was in a for a good time. As I suspect that I will be jumping in and out of this series.
Another crossover and looking over the list, I feel pretty good for knowing all but a few characters.
I still don’t know who the Avengers Manifold & Pod are. I’m not sure about the X-Men’s Nation X Sentinels, I know Hickman’s Avengers 38 dealt with Cyclops and Nation X but that didn’t have Kitty at all. So I didn’t read that issue.
I’m disappointed that proper Kitty isn’t counted amongst the Guardians of the Galaxy.
I’m not sure who Inferno is of the Inhumans, but I’m sure he’s just a new Inhuman that won’t be around in a year.
Ultimate Universe, I just assume that The City and Children of Tomorrow are both related to Reed, I know that is true of the City but it sounds right with the Children of Tomorrow, as well.
The only members of the Cabal, that I don’t know are Proxima Midnight & Corvus Glaive. This is a more cosmic Cabal than Norman Osborn’s Cabal. I do like the note that they are on the Ultimate Earth but they are from the Proper Marvel Universe.
Manhattan. Earth-616. The Incursion Point between both Worlds.Though the narrative, we are informed that the this world’s populace knows that their end is soon. Unless the heroes can help.
Baxter Building. Near it, an explosion occurs. We see that the Fantastic Four have been making a Life Raft, with a bunch of brains being invited. I like Reed growing a beard. Black Panther is also on board. We get the first check in with Black Widow and Spider-Woman, who are bringing in the majority of the scientists. A few didn’t want to come, opting to spend their last hours with their families. That is an impossible choice but I can only imagine I choose to stay on Earth. Unless I can pull an Elijah Wood in Deep Impact and marry Leelee Sobieski and bring her along with me.
Manifold is trying to save the day, by following Black Panther’s instructions but it really isn’t explained how he is going to do it or what his powerset is. He isn’t successful, like, not even a tad.
Ultimate Iron Man is leading the Ultimate army (of SHIELD soldiers) against a main heroes listed on the character list, so the Ultimate side of things have no chance.
Spider-Man is about, saving civilians as is Iron Fist and Luke Cage. Representing the Guardians of the Galaxy are – Star Lord, Drax and Rocket. No mention of where the other members are. Not sure why they didn’t bring their cosmically enhanced members such as Gamora and Shadowcat. Thor (who is really Jane Foster) is fighting along with Storm.
FalCap and Iceman witness Sentinels coming to assist as Cyclops is leading them, as he is a leader of Nation X. Captain Marvel is directly fighting Ultimate Iron Man. Groot is on the scene, as well. Ultimate Iron Man inappropriately hits on Captain Marvel.
She-Hulk fights a weak spot in the Ultimate Hellicarrier and Colossus fastball specials Doc Green, in that direction. The Ultimate Universe is not putting up a decent fight, at all. Ultimate Hawkeye is on board, aiding Ultimate Nick Fury, they know they are not putting up a fight. Fury tells Reed to begin to use his doomsday worldkiller weapon.
Giant explosions star occurring. We get a panel with Ultimate Jean, Wolverine, Cloak & Dagger and Shadowcat! Hence, why I own this issue. I’m hoping, since they are included here, that they are crucial (or at least, involved) in Ultimate End. Which I can only imagine takes place right before this issue. So the final issue has to recreate some of this.
There are these, practically, city wide domes on Earth now. They slowly open, revealing a slew of smaller ships. Seems like Ultimate City is just the Proper version of The World, of the Weapon X facility.
Ultimate Spider-Man was standing on one of the globes. Now the Ultimate Universe has brought its big guns.
Kingpin sent a massive e-mail to his fellow villains. I like their e-mails
lizard@coldblooded.com
hitthetarget@hit.com
who@whocares.com
oz@amazinghair.net
wfisk@fiskindustries.com
I wish they were more imaginative e-mail handles, Fisk’s is pretty great. Punisher arrives at the party, he can’t bring his bullets to the afterlife, and so he kills all that are present. I imagine, the villains, didn’t put up much of a fight.
Natasha calls Susan, they are not going to make it to the Baxter Building. Black Widow is the first hero (and Spider-Woman) that we see die, on panel.
Oh, Manifold’s ability is to get the second life raft (you know, the one that contains named characters), and they take off. So we have Reed, Black Panther and Susan that are safe and the other Fantastic Four family members and fellow Foundation students.
Black Panther puts out the call to get the survivors that they need.
Cyclops grabs his Phoenix Egg, which I’m still not sure about.
Apparently, it just contains the Phoenix Force. Cyclops gets the Phoenix Force aura around him but not the red thong.
We get Drax, Groot and Rocket’s deaths – and Rocket did not want to be on Earth. We see Drax and an uncosmically enhanced Gamora, so that is odd. I imagine that Hickman was told everything before he wrote this issue, so he should have been told about the end of a very well promoted crossover, Black Vortex.
Star Lord disappears, as does Thor, Captain Marvel and Spider-Man. Manifold decides not to take off in the life raft, he wants to stay and keep gathering the needed heroes. The life raft launches from the Baxter Building. Phoenix Force empowered Cyclops is also on the life raft. Instead of a black mask with red cross, Cyclops’ mask is now yellow.
Reed if flying the life raft into the heart of the Incursion, as that is their best chance at survival. A lightning blast strikes the side of their round life raft. The carrier section breaks away, Black Panther tells Reed (and us) that Susan and their children are located there. Which is odd, as two pages earlier – Susan, Franklin and Val, are strapping in right behind Reed. What happened in the ensuing page (which was the full page of the lightning blast)?
Susan places a force field around the carrier section. Reed tells T’Challa to drop the shields, he is going to reach out and grab them. T’Challa tells him he only has seconds to make the attempt. Reed has five seconds and they go by so quickly and . . . this is so heartbreaking, fails. We see the carrier burn up – so Susan, Franklin, Val and Thing are all dead.
On Reed’s section – for sure – are, Star Lord, Thor, Captain Marvel and Black Panther.
How great is that narration? I full agree with it. You find your life partner, and you can’t believe you can love anyone as much and then you go ahead and have a child. You still love your life partner, but – somehow – you love this child more than you love anything you ever loved before. Reed has lost his family and, with that middle panel, has lost an entire planet and worst, a universe. Such a devastating page!
We end the issue with Doom, who use to believe in tomorrow but now he believes in nothing. Issue two will be defining Doom’s role and the new (temporary) Marvel Earth – Battleworld.
Such a great way to end the issue with the tombstone of the two great Marvel lines. The proper one, 1961 – 2015 and the Ultimate one, 2000 – 2015. I can’t believe the Ultimate Universe was 15 years old. Marvel was a very young, 54 year old.
Other famous 53 year olds? Michael J. Fox, Melissa Etheridge, Ralph Macchio, Eddie Murphy, Boy George, Richard Hatch, Scott Baio, KD Lang, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jane Leeves, Meg Ryan, Thomas Hayden Church, Enya, George Clooney and the Great One, Wayne Gretzky. All born in 1961 – how crazy how much they al accomplished for being born the same year and how different each of their careers are, no two have the same path. All with various levels of success.
While working at Hastings, I was trying to sell slash hype this issue and this one guy started flipping through the pages. I asked him to slow down as with each quick page turn, he was quickly killing the Marvel Universe. We had a good laugh after that.
Sadly, this fantastic issue is ruined with a six page preview of Uncanny Inhumans. Which is unwanted and unnecessary.
This handy website has a more detailed commentary of the issue :
http://deadshirt.net/2015/05/21/the-secret-wars-commentary-part-one-the-end-times/
Which is a pretty interesting read, as I read none of Hickman’s Avengers and two issues of his Fantastic Four run.
YouTuber ComicsIsland had this pretty awesome hour long episode –
Which is pretty great as I rather just watched this than buy the eventful Hickman Avengers Omnibus. There were parts that almost lost my interest but then the reveal with Doom and how everything starts paying off, sounds pretty great.
ComicsIsland has plenty of similar theme episodes, which is pretty great as well as review episodes and fun top ten lists and such.
. . .
Since I bought the variant cover at Hastings, I was awarded with a giant poster of the Battleworld Map!
I do enjoy being able to hold the entire map and seeing everything larger than I can on a computer screen.
I’ve tried my hand at scanning the one I have :
That isn’t any better but maybe someone with sweet skills can make that work.
I’m trying to find an image with all of the covers revealed, as at this point, only three portions of the map are still CLASSIFIED and no further information is available on those.
Apparently, Marvel released a trailer for this event and had started connecting with portions are which titles.
Thanks to Marvel Entertainment for hosting their own video, also this next video!
This was the first video of The Watcher’s that I have seen. I’ve seen previous videos of Lorraine Cink’s advertised before but I may have to check more of them out.
I was surprised that Wikipedia had the full list and the corresponding titles, that is pretty handy!
Battleworld map
Following numerous incursions across the multiverse, the remains of various realities have been fused together to create a new Battleworld. All of these realities are known as domains and have the ability to interact with each other, except for three (consisting of the Deadlands, Perfection and New Xandar) which are separated from the rest by the Wall for the simple fact that these domains contains threats that if set loose, would destroy all the others.
The following is a list of the domains and the Marvel Comics event titles that are their basis or reimagining as revealed on Marvel Comics’ Interactive Battleworld map. Secret Wars #2 will publish a complete guide to each domain:
- 1. Greenland – Incredible Hulk: Planet Hulk
- 2. Dystopia – Incredible Hulk: Future Imperfect
- 3. Domain of Apocalypse – Age of Apocalypse
- 4. Egyptia – New Warriors: Forever Yesterday
- 5. Technopolis – Iron Man: Armor Wars
- 6. *Currently Classified Valley of Doom
- 7. Spider-Island – The Amazing Spider-Man: Spider Island
- 8. The Regency – The Amazing Spider-Man: One More Day (with elements from both the Spider-Girl series and the The Amazing Spider-Man: The Wedding! storyline)
- 9. King James’ England – Marvel 1602
- 10. Weirdworld – Weirdworld
- 11. K’un-L’un – Master of Kung Fu (Map shows Iron Fist also)
- 12. Utopolis – Squadron Sinister (based on the Squadron Supreme that was first featured in The Avengers Volume One #69-70)
- 13. New Mars – Killraven
- 14. *Currently Classified – Doomgard
- 15. Higher Avalon – Captain Britain and the Mighty Defenders
- 16. Arachnia – The Amazing Spider-Man: Spider-Verse
- 17. Marville – Avengers vs. X-Men (namely the A-Babies vs. X-Babies one-shot)
- 18. The Eye of Agamotto – Doctor Strange
- 19. *Currently Classified – Doomstadt
- 20. Manhattan – It is split into four parts:
- 20A. Attilan – Inhumans: Attilan Rising
- 20B. Manhattan: Earth-616 Universe
- 20C. Manhattan: Ultimate Marvel Universe
- 20D. Manhattan: Monster Metropolis – Legion of Monsters
- 21. The City – Avengers: The Korvac Saga
- 22. The Warzone – Civil War
- 23. New Quack City – Howard the Duck
- 24. The Far East – Where Monsters Dwell
- 25. Valley of Flame – Devil Dinosaur
- 26. The Hydra Empire – Hydra
- 27. 2099 – Marvel 2099
- 28. Hala Field – Captain Marvel
- 29. The Monarchy of M – House of M
- 30. Sentinel Territories – X-Men: Days of Future Past
- 31. The Wastelands – Wolverine: Old Man Logan
- 32. Mutopia – Grant Morrison’s New X-Men
- 33. Westchester – X-Men: The Animated Series
- 34. Killville – M.O.D.O.K. Assassin
- 35. Arcadia – A-Force
- 36. Bar Sinister – Mutant Massacre
- 37. Limbo – Inferno
- 38. The Deadlands – Marvel Zombies
- 39. Perfection – Age of Ultron
- 40. New Xandar – The Infinity Gauntlet
- 41. The Wall – S.H.I.E.L.D.
Absent from the Battleworld map
-
42. Knowhere – While not considered a domain, the severed Celestial head orbits Battleworld like a moon as seen in Guardians of Knowhere.
-
43. Timely (may or may not be one of the classified domains) – The town of Timely where all the Marvel characters exist in an 1872 Wild West setting.
-
44. Genosha (may or may not be one of the classified domains) – The island that became the Mutant homeland and where the E is For Extinction mini-series will be set.
-
45. Holy Wood and Forest Hills (may or may not be one of the classified domains) – Though mentioned in the solicitation for the Korvac Saga, they are not shown on the Battleworld map.
Special thanks and shoutout to whomever typed all of that up and figuring it out!
I was looking for this Marvel Interaction Secret Wars 2015 Battlemap page but unfortunately it is only a hotlink on their main page for the event, so I’m not sure if it will still be an active website but it should work for a while, I imagine.
http://marvel.com/comics/events/323/secret_wars_2015
Just click the “Enter Battleworld” and see for yourself. Pretty fun!
Comics Alliance actually had what I was looking for –
http://comicsalliance.com/battleworld-theme-park-map-secret-wars-clues/
A nice brief summary of what each portion of Battleworld and which comic series that it correspondences with.
The titles and sections of the map that I’m mostly interested in, and at the very least, tracking are –
Number – Region Title – Comic Title
3 – Domain of Apocalypse – Age of Apocalypse
Which is above Limbo (which I’m also tracking) to the left of both Egyptia and Technopolis (which I’m not tracking). To the left of it is – Mutopia to the top left, Westchester (the FOX X-Men Animated series by Chris Sims) shares a small border and The Wastelands makes up the bulk of it.
11 – K’un-Lun – Master of Kung Fu
Which is to the right of Regency (the world if Peter never made a deal with THE DEVIL to undo his marriage to Mary Jane, so that his elderly aunt can live a few more years) / below King James’ England (the 1602 world) / to the right of Utopolis and above Weirdworld
17 – Marville – Giant Size Little Marvel
Which is surrounded by Utopolis above it, Arachnia to the right and New Quack City – where Howard the Duck is from, below it.
20 – Manhattan – a) Attilan (Inhumans) b) Proper Marvel New York City c) Ultimate Marvel New York City d ) Monster Metropolis
Don’t care about the Inhumans, but I’m sure b & c are going to crucial to the main series and whichever titles are not associated with a certain portion (such as Star Lord and Age of Apocalypse Kitty Pryde) and Ultimate should be where Ultimate End takes place in. Monster Metropolis is where Shiklah‘s kingdom is.
They are surrounded by several locations too! High Avalon to the left / CLASSIFIED above / CLASSIFIED to the left / The City (but not the City from The Tick, unfortunately) below. I imagine those CLASSIFIED locations are important only because of how close they are to the most important locations.
29 – Monarchy of M – House of M
I highly doubt SHIELD agent Illyana Rasputin or school teacher, Kitty Pryde, are going to be in this at all. Killville (where MODOK is important) to the top right and 2099 to the bottom right. 2099 is suppose to be a title that survives this event, somehow.
30 – Sentinel Territories – Years of Future Past
Killville to the left / 2099 to the bottom left / The Wastelands (Old Man Logan) to the bottom right / Mutopia (Morrison’s E is for Extinction) to the right
37 – Limbo – Inferno
Limbo, being so vast, covers quite some ground on Battleworld. Well, until I realize it was suppose to be a globe, so now I want a gif of the map spinning so I can get a better grasp on it. To the top of it is Domains of Apocalypse, along with 36 and 31 and below it (but separated by the SHIELD) is both The Deadlands (Marvel Zombies) & Perfection (Age of Ultron). Which makes sense as there is a comic, Age of Ultron v Marvel Zombies, which seems highly missable to me now. New Xandar (where Thanos is kept) is also separated by THE SHIELD. The SHIELD is there to prevent the horrors from escaping into the rest of Battleworld.
So this is all pretty exciting!
I was looking at the map, to make this post an my wife had a few things to add. First, that the Battleworld doesn’t look like Earth. Which brought her to ask if America was even represented. Which sort of blew my mind, as Battleworld is now like 90 percent American. There is an England, Egypt, Howard the Duck world, and maybe Mars? but the other 30 sections are American. New Xandar is Xandrian. Limbo is a different dimension. K’un -Lun is also another dimension.
http://www.bleedingcool.com/2015/05/13/the-final-three-realms-of-secret-wars-battleworld-revealed/
Once Secret Wars 2015 2 came out, we learn the previous three classified locations were –
6. Valley of Doom
14. Doomgard
19. Doomstadt
Thanks to Bleeding Cool News for having the image!
Of course, knowing that Doom had three regions for himself, would have tipped off that he was the ruler of Battleworld.
. . .
My wife also just, once again, mention how dumb alternate universes are.
. . .
I also got the Skottie Young Baby Lithograph but minus the text but I can’t seem to find an image of that, anywhere.
In my continued quest to make the Internet have what I want it to have, I’ve scanned my copy of the lithograph.
Shadow and Flame with Magik 