Shooter’s Human Torch was a jerk, though. The formerly bad-ass Klaw was now a cowardly toady who went completely bonkers, Hawkeye was kinda off, not as feisty as he appeared in other books. But the story was solid overall, I would recommend reading the trade in one long sitting. Spidey beating up on the X-Men and Titania are priceless moments. Bob Layton’s two fill-ins where the Hulk lifts that mountain up were also sweet. Give it another try, guys…it’s been 25 years.

Secret Wars II, though? I almost quit reading comics after that came out. I could not make heads or tails outta it. It seemed like Shooter’s evil twin had written it, whatever the heck it was.

I have two memories of Secret Wars: one is that the first issue made me absolutely, positively hate the Wasp for all time (go back and read her dialog and you’ll see why), and two, I distinctly remember being in a bookstore an I ran up to a few friends of mine with issue 11 while they were trying to sneak peaks at the adult magazines. “Look,” I said, “it’s Doctor Doom’s face!” “Um, we’re looking at something more important”

…now, being actually able to afford it is a different story altogether. Maybe I can find a deal at SDCC…or maybe just find the trade there…

“And then Shooter himself went on to do the biggest piece of crap that sold through the roof: Secret Wars. And I think that in his own mind he had to justify that somehow, he had to tell himself that Secret Wars sold because it was brilliant.

And it was really Secret Wars, I think, that pushed him over the edge, because from that point on we would get make-readies back with his notes on it that would always say “See Secret Wars number whatever for how to do this right”, and that kind of stuff. I’m sorry, I wouldn’t look at Secret Wars to see how to make toilet paper right. I’m sorry, it’s just – it was crap.

What was Mike Zeck’s great line at one point…? Shooter had completely rewritten something and made Mike redraw it. And I asked him why, and Mike said, “Because it wasn’t dull enough”.”

And like Jeff said, it was meant for readers to think, “Cool! All the heroes in one story!” and it accomplished that goal. But the actual characters in the book don’t act like the characters did in their own books at that time at all.

Secret Wars II, well that did kind of suck.

Now Secret Wars II….THAT was abysmal. But, I did have a SW2 poster in my college dorm room featuring virtually the entire MU vs the Beyonder.

I didn’t realize (or had forgotten…old age, y’know) that you had that article in the SW Omnibus. Dang. Now I’m gonna have find the money and nab a copy!

I guess I was also young enough to not notice Secret War’s foibles. I just loved seeing everyone together. I remember clearly that spread in the beginning of issue #1 showing the good guys right after they were beamed to planed Beyonder. I remember just staring at that. And, yeah, I loved the figures (even though I couldn’t quite figure out why we were getting characters that didn’t appear in the story.)

Congrats on the article in the omnibus. Gotta pick that up.

Now I’m not saying it was an amazing piece of comic literature but through my kid eyes it was pretty darn cool. It did it’s job of getting me excited about Marvel Superheroes as before that I was pretty much a DC superhero fan. I read Marvel comics and knew the main characters but Secret Wars made me want to follow them afterwards. Especially the Xmen and Avengers.
Of course getting my parents to buy me the toys soon followed.

What out-of-characterization did you think happened? I’d be interested to hear what you think about it.

Thanks for the shout out to my blog, too!

Peace,

Chip