New York, New York, it's a hell of a town! That the core of the Big Apple should play such a key role in Secret Wars makes sense. Marvel's offices have been located in Manhattan since the beginning, and the majority of their big characters also reside within the city. So not only does Manhattan make an appearance on the Battleworld map, but it technically appears in multiple guises: Attilan floats above it, the Monster Metropolis is buried below, but how about the city itself? Well, things are looking interesting... Manhattan is the location of the regular, 616 Marvel Universe seen in every mainstream Marvel book. It's also the location of the alternate Ultimate Universe, launched in the early noughties as a streamlined version for new readers which took off in crazy new directions, like replacing Peter Parker with black-Latino Spider-Man Miles Morales. In Secret Wars the two have been jammed together, so get ready for some brain-mushing shenanigans right there (and a chance for Miles to skip over to regular continuity from the soon-to-be-cancelled Ultimate line). Just so long as 616 Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch don't get any ideas from their Ultimate cousins...
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
