Marvel Reveals Ultimate Universe's Fate In Secret Wars #1

[Fanghawk]

Marvel Reveals Ultimate Universe's Fate In Secret Wars #1

Marvel Comics has finally cleared up what's happening with the Ultimate Comics line and all those pesky parallel dimensions within Secret Wars Battleworld.

Spoiler Warning: This article contains possible spoilers for Secret Wars #1.

Remember last year, when Marvel Comics <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/134649-Marvels-Time-Runs-Out-Event-Teases-Possible-Universal-Reboot>teased a potential reboot for its long-running universe? After months of hints, <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/138210-Marvel-Launching-Ultimate-Universe-The-End-in-2015>build-up, and <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/138097-Marvel-Announces-Spider-Gwen-for-February-2015>parallel Spider-Man universes, the big picture has officially been made clear. The short version: When Secret Wars #1 launches, the Marvel Comics and Ultimate Universe lines will merge as part of a new continuity with massive implications for future storylines.

That's a lot to unpack, so here's the long version. When Marvel first kicked off <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/118265-Marvels-Giving-The-Avengers-a-New-Beginning>its Marvel Now launch, New Avengers introduced its biggest plot hook: Due to some cosmic incident, parallel Earths were literally breaking through dimensional boundaries and smashing into each other. The only seemingly possible solution to prevent disaster was if one Earth was destroyed first, prompting Iron Man, Doctor Strange, Black Panter, Namor, and Black Bolt to consider using weapons of mass destruction to save their own world.

Skip ahead a couple of years to Secret Wars #1 and the threat of parallel planetary annihilation is still underway, but with a twist - the latest Earth threatening disaster is the Ultimate Universe, a secondary Marvel Comics canon that brought us <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/134175-Brian-Michael-Bendis-Talks-Race-Sexism-and-Ultimate-Spider-Man>Miles Morales and the Samuel Jackson Nick Fury archetype. But instead of destroying each other, the traditional Marvel canon (called Earth 616) and the Ultimate heroes decide to try working together to save both worlds. Not only do they fail, but the resulting chaos forges the remaining Marvel Earths into a single planet, the new Battleworld.

Secret Wars will tell the story of Battleworld, but once it's finished, the Marvel Earth will be permanently altered. Anything that was once part of a "What If" storyline, like Age of Apocalypse or Marvel Zombies is a potential fixture of the ongoing Marvel Universe. "Every single piece of this world is a building block for the Marvel Universe moving forward," Marvel editor-in-chief Axel Alonso confirmed. "None of these stories are Elseworlds or What Ifs or alternative reality stories. They're not set in the past or the future; they're not set in an alternative reality, they're set in the reality of the Marvel Universe, and all of them will have legs. The stories will not end and you'll go, 'well, phew, that's over' - They will import new things into the Marvel Universe moving forward."

The exact nature of these changes probably won't be fully understood until Secret Wars ends, but we can make some educated guesses. <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/138210-Marvel-Launching-Ultimate-Universe-The-End-in-2015>With the Ultimate Universe probably coming to a close, that likely means its canon will merge with Earth 616 at a minimum, including fan favorites like Miles "Ultimate Spider-Man" Morales. Otherwise there's all kinds of potential. Perhaps Magneto will keep control of his House of M territory, or Age of Apocalypse will wage war with Doctor Doom's Latveria. But considering Secret Wars #2's cover, which can be best described as <a href=http://wac.450f.edgecastcdn.net/80450F/comicsalliance.com/files/2015/01/secretwars2.jpg>"a whole lot of Mjolnir's"? The canon moving forward could take any direction Marvel wants.

Heck, maybe it'll just be <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/139541-Marvels-Dan-Buckley-Says-Comic-Books-are-Indirectly-Influenced-by-Movies>the Marvel Cinematic Universe at the end. Who knows?

Source: Comics Alliance

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[Aiddon_v1legacy]

My guess is that they'll roll over elements of the MCU into the comics now due to the MCU making blockbusters all the time. Also, anyone get the feeling they'll try to downplay Fantastic Four, X-Men, and Deadpool since those aren't a part of the MCU? Though as far as I'm concerned this merging of universes is Deadpool's doing. Somehow.

 

[Dandres]

So that explains how they are going to get rid of the Fantastic Four. My guess is the x-men after this will down played a lot more & the inhumans will take over as the front runners. Also the writes have been saying that they are killing off Dealpool in the next few months but that might not be fore real since his demise is so close to April Fools.

 

[Soulrender95]

this actually sounds worse thought out than the new 52, fans and writers of both universes will now have to deal with characters and back story from the other universe. let's take one example, Spider-man to show why this is bad.

I mean is there now going to be Spider-man Peter Parker and Spider-man Miles Morales? is Peter Parker going to die or retire to let Miles be the new spider-man? Because recent history and distant history has shown that doesn't work and just ends up in people leaving the book in droves, so we'll get rid of Miles? that's stupid too, so rename him? make him scarlet spider? why should he have to give up the name? is Miles going to die in this or spider-verse? that'd be a waste of a good character.

it just sounds like it's going to over-convolute things and make it harder for new readers to jump onboard.

 

[ryukage_sama]

It seems like they're trying to give the MCU fans a jumping on point. It may suck for those of us who have followed characters through decades of comics, but I can see how new fans are attracted to this. I know people who only started reading DC after the new 52, so it sense for Marvel to follow suit. Since I haven't been loving the Marvel Now! storylines, this might work out better for me.

 

[faefrost]

I could swear I read this exact story 30 years ago? I think it was called Crisis on Infinite Earths?
(And lets be honest. Aside from Miles Morales and Sam Jackson Nick Fury is there anything in the Ultimate Universe that is worth or wanted to port over to the mainstream Marvel continuity? Honestly? Ultimate X-Men? Ultimates with ultra right wing fascist Cap and the incest twins? Let us never again speak of Ultimate FF. I mean they would be better off porting in the old New Universe than the Ultimate.)

 

[VoidWanderer]

You can almost hear the therapists smiling at having to treat all those poor insane comic book writers, can't you?

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

I reckon that there will be fan outcry, and the retconning will begin.

 

[shadowstriker86]

Marvel Zombies is a potential fixture of the ongoing Marvel Universe.

So everything's completely screwed cause all it took was one bite and bam! whole universe is screwed. With all those thors in #2, zombie thor is just going to wreck everything

 

[tdylan]

Maybe it's time to get back into comics, having given up after that "Brand New Day" nonsense with Spiderman...

* reads article

"Nope!"

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Whenever news like this hits I've got two thoughts that run through my head, in no particular order:

1. "Thank the Watcher I don't read comics all that much anymore"
2. "Thank Almighty Stan Lee for headcannon"

 

[Grumman]

Now this is why I don't read cape comics despite liking all the various media spinoffs adapting them. It all boils down to every flavor imaginable of reboots, rehashes, re-imaginings, and constant "world changing" events that 99% of the time end up doing jack squat a couple months later down the line. Almost no one stays dead since death is essentially a revolving door for popular heroes and any changes made to a major character amount to being temporary cash-grabs since the only thing these publishers love more than big attention grabber headlines is the status quo. Marvel in particular gets my disdain since every time a new movie comes out they change their respective comics to be more like them in order to draw in the casual crowd often in the most ham-fisted way possible (Nick Fury Jr. anyone?). This ends up making the comics a convoluted mess since you're changing the comics to be more like the movies which were adapting the comics in the first place. At this point, I just avoid anything made by the big two like the plague. I suggest most people stick to more independent publishers like Dark Horse and Image, DC and Marvel are just too bloated and senile to bring in any real quality.

I can't disagree with any of that. Continuity is a great thing to have, but only if you put some effort into keeping the riffraff out. I hate that Marvel comics now revolve around coming up with new excuses for superheroes to fight other superheroes instead of doing something good or interesting. And I hate DC for deciding that marriage is off limits in what was my favourite ongoing superhero comic, but getting mindraped, raped, turned into a monster and killed is A-OK. And I hate both for allowing retcons to remain a central part of their books. Frankly, I'd be halfway inclined to say that the next time anyone retcons something, someone needs to be fired - either the guy who wrote the crap that needed to be excised from canon or the guy who insisted on making comics even more pointlessly convoluted.

 

[Coruptin]

this actually sounds worse thought out than the new 52, fans and writers of both universes will now have to deal with characters and back story from the other universe. let's take one example, Spider-man to show why this is bad.

I mean is there now going to be Spider-man Peter Parker and Spider-man Miles Morales? is Peter Parker going to die or retire to let Miles be the new spider-man? Because recent history and distant history has shown that doesn't work and just ends up in people leaving the book in droves, so we'll get rid of Miles? that's stupid too, so rename him? make him scarlet spider? why should he have to give up the name? is Miles going to die in this or spider-verse? that'd be a waste of a good character.

it just sounds like it's going to over-convolute things and make it harder for new readers to jump onboard.

They could try Spider-Man incorporated. I haven't kept up, but didn't Spider-Oc start a company and all that? Peter could take a back seat to show up for cross over/global/inter galactic events and Miles could be the east coast Spider-Man.

 

[Heartsib]

This would probably feel like a bigger deal with we didn't already have DoFP, Age of Apocalypse, Exiles, X-Treme X-Men, 2099 and other alt-universe characters running around the MU. That's just what happens when any AU iteration of a character gets any kind of popularity. So they're bringing in a bunch more all at the same time? Big whoop. Just means they're bringing in Miles Morales and a bunch of dregs and cannon fodder.

I'll see what the landscape looks like when the dust clears, but I don't see this adding any titles to my pull list, and it may mean I drop the two or three Marvel books I've got left.

 

[McMarbles]

This plot seems familiar somehow. I seem to recall a similar crisis occurring in a direct competitor's books.

 

[faefrost]

Now this is why I don't read cape comics despite liking all the various media spinoffs adapting them. It all boils down to every flavor imaginable of reboots, rehashes, re-imaginings, and constant "world changing" events that 99% of the time end up doing jack squat a couple months later down the line. Almost no one stays dead since death is essentially a revolving door for popular heroes and any changes made to a major character amount to being temporary cash-grabs since the only thing these publishers love more than big attention grabber headlines is the status quo. Marvel in particular gets my disdain since every time a new movie comes out they change their respective comics to be more like them in order to draw in the casual crowd often in the most ham-fisted way possible (Nick Fury Jr. anyone?). This ends up making the comics a convoluted mess since you're changing the comics to be more like the movies which were adapting the comics in the first place. At this point, I just avoid anything made by the big two like the plague. I suggest most people stick to more independent publishers like Dark Horse and Image, DC and Marvel are just too bloated and senile to bring in any real quality.

I can't disagree with any of that. Continuity is a great thing to have, but only if you put some effort into keeping the riffraff out. I hate that Marvel comics now revolve around coming up with new excuses for superheroes to fight other superheroes instead of doing something good or interesting. And I hate DC for deciding that marriage is off limits in what was my favourite ongoing superhero comic, but getting mindraped, raped, turned into a monster and killed is A-OK. And I hate both for allowing retcons to remain a central part of their books. Frankly, I'd be halfway inclined to say that the next time anyone retcons something, someone needs to be fired - either the guy who wrote the crap that needed to be excised from canon or the guy who insisted on making comics even more pointlessly convoluted.

To be fair there are differing degrees of Retcon. There are natural and organic retcons that happen to little outcry. Iron Man's original origin was in South East Asia circa Vietnam. Quietly modernizing that to be tribal Afghanistan without bothering with a lot of convoluted hoops and twists is fine. You can make minor tweaks to the back stories and underlying background to keep things current relevant and topical. It builds on what came before and respects it, while at the same time maintaining a sense of being current.

Whereas just throwing everything out and starting over with characters that have the same name, but nothing else in common with what you have been reading for years is quite frankly shit.