8 Most Ridiculous Comic Book Gimmicks
7. Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars
Secret Wars has a unique place in history. It kicked off the idea of the massive crossover event in comics and has had lasting effects within the Marvel Universe. What makes it outlandish is how Secret Wars was conceived.
The toy company Mattel went to Marvel Comics and said they wanted to make a new line of action figures based on Marvel characters. From there a story was pieced together to fit the desired action figure line.
In any medium the story should ideally inform the merchandise and not the other way around. Not only was Secret Wars a shameless toy commercial, but the name also has a bizarre origin. Focus groups spoke to children to figure out what they thought the coolest words were at the time.
These focus groups found kids liked the words Secret and Wars, so those got mashed together to create a title that was used as recently as 2016.