For the last three weeks, Marvel Comics has been teasing us with glimpses of their Summer 2015 event. Each day I’d get an email about a new comic that was coming out in 2015. Most of these books looked to be updates of past Marvel events like Civil War, Age of Apocalypse, and Infinity Gauntlet but in an altered state. This week, we finally got an answer to what this all means. All of these comics are tied into Secret Wars: Battleworld.
In the original Secret Wars, the villain known as The Beyonder took pieces from various planets and combined them to create Battleworld where he forced the heroes and villains of Earth to fight each other. This new Secret Wars seems to be taking that basic concept but using pieces from Earths of different realities. This trailer shows that each reality has their own separate region on Battleworld. Given the name of this planet, it’s safe to assume that the heroes and villains of these worlds will have to battle one another. Why this is all happening and who is behind it all remains to be seen.
Many (myself included) speculated that this was Marvel preparing for a line-wide relaunch of all their titles. It appears as if this won’t exactly be the case. However, I think it’s safe to assume that these Secret Wars will have lasting ramifications for the Marvel Universe. We all know that the Fantastic Four book is being cancelled and this event would serve as a convenient way to kill the group off. However, we can’t say this won’t end up in a reboot given how one of the titles of this event is called “Everything Ends.” Again, we don’t have enough information to go on at this time.
We have to commend Marvel for this. Though comic book heroes are more popular than ever, the actual books that they originated from have been all but forgotten. This event, and the way it was marketed, has brought attention to comics and will hopefully bring in new readers. Who knows, perhaps this event will lead to a reboot, thus making it easier for the people who came into this event to continue reading Marvel’s books.
Secret Wars: Battleworld will launch in May of 2015.
