10 Reasons We Still Love Marvel's Secret Wars 30 Years Later
10. The Unique Way it Connects to the Mainstream Marvel Universe
When Secret Wars was first being developed, Marvel editor-in-chief and series writer Jim Shooter said the publisher settled on the title because Mattel, the company that produced the comics action figure line, believed kids responded well to the words secret and war. Still, proving the series was more than just another toy book, Shooter and Marvel came up with some other unique ways to play up the secret elements in a way that would also be consequential to all of their flagship comic book titles. For example, in early 1984, Spider-Man just appeared in Amazing Spider-Man #252 wearing a new black costume. There was no explanation other than this was something he acquired while participating in Secret Wars. The mystery and intrigue of the new costume forced readers to check out the series for the full explanation (which wouldnt come until eight issues into the series). The same thing happened with Thing and the Fantastic Four. At the end of Secret Wars, Thing decides he wants to stay on Battleworld while She-Hulk joins Marvels first family. But in Fantastic Four comics, this new status quo is introduced in issue #265, which was published nearly a year before the Thing made his decision in Secret Wars. Rather than spoil Secret Wars, readers of Fantastic Four were urged by Marvels editors to pick up a copy of this new miniseries to find out why their lineup was so dramatically different.
Mark is a professional writer living in Brooklyn and is the founder of the Chasing Amazing Blog, which documents his quest to collect every issue of Amazing Spider-Man, and the Superior Spider-Talk podcast. He also pens the "Gimmick or Good?" column at Comics Should Be Good blog.
