8 Reasons Why Secret Empire Didn't Work
6. It Lied To The Fans
Misdirection is an important tool for a good writer who can wield it well. In Secret Empire, we saw it used poorly.
Naturally, when writing a comic or story of any kind, you don't want to show all your cards up front. You hold things back and tease things out at a pace to serve the story.
Secret Empire however decided to purposefully hold back information at several points that would have been beneficial earlier, purely to help create shocking imagery month by month.
The goal seemed to be create a shock moment each and every issue, regardless of how this could be taken by the fans, or misconstrued by other parties.
For example, earlier in the series, in the events Free Comic Book Day entry, the Hydra Captain America lifted Thor's hammer effortlessly, seemingly suggesting he was considered worthy. This shocked and angered fans, as you can imagine, but what's more, many far right groups took the image of a fascist Captain America lifting Thor's hammer as an image of support for them. These organisations already try to appropriate Norse imagery and mythology, so to have the Hydra Captain America do this - regardless of Marvel's intent - seemingly emboldened these groups.
However, in the final issue, we get a blink and you'll miss it scene showing that in that battle way back towards the start of the event, Madame Hydra used a chunk of Cosmic Cube to alter the spell on Mjolnir, making it possible for Hydra Cap to lift it in the first place.
By this point, the damage was done, but it seemed that the writer and Marvel purposefully held back on this key piece of info not to aid the story, but to create a shocking image that would incite a reaction in fans.
Similarly, outside of the event itself, Spencer and Marvel and its editors routinely seemed to lie to the audience. They said the event would not see the Cosmic Cube fix things in the end (even using this comment days before the final issue in a spoilerific New York Times article), and yet the final issue saw Kobik, the living Cosmic Cube, fix things and save the day.
Telling fans to wait and see is one thing, but lying to them is quite another, and ultimately it only served to create an air of bad blood between Marvel and their many supporters.