Well we made it. We survived the Secret Wars. We survived all the hackneyed, 3rd grade, dumbfuckery that is one of the weirdest comic book crossovers of all time.
Remember when I was just starting this huge fucking omnibus?
Remember when I made it half way through?
Here I am on the night I finally finished that sucker off. Look how happy I am!
And here is a big review. The decision to cover the Secret Wars came from a desire to track the core X-Men characters through every comic they appear in. For the purpose of nerd posterity. And to meticulously observe the level of continuity that the writers were able to achieve (or not achieve). Though the X-Men are not the central focus of either Secret Wars series, they are present, and these stories were the big Marvel event of the time. And the Secret Wars have always been so notorious that I’ve always wanted to read them. And god damn it why am I making excuses. I wanted to read these comics because I love Marvel even when they are at their worst.
Like seriously I could be reading Nietzsche or Ernest Cline and all I want to read is these dumb fucking comics.
Technically speaking, this reading covered Uncanny X-Men #176-#203, Secret Wars, Secret Wars II (including all crossover issues), Asgardian Wars, the Magik mini-series, the Nightcrawler mini-series, the Longshot mini-series, Kitty Pryde and Wolverine, and a bunch of issues of the New Mutants. I had no idea that these mere 23 issues of Uncanny X-Men would coincide with so much other X-Men related material, but such is the nature of the popularity explosion that the X-Men were going through at the time. And coincidentally, it was Secret Wars writer / Marvel editor-in-chief Jim Shooter who decreed the X-Men brand had to be expanded on so largely, because it was so popular, and because Marvel was leaving money on the table by only showcasing the characters in 2 on-going series. Hey remember when Marvel cared enough about the X-Men that they actually tried to exploit their popularity?? Remember when they promoted the characters and stories as if they actually wanted the brand to be successful? Ahh those were the days.
I couldn’t find a picture of it, but my first comic book t-shirt had Wolverine on it, smoking a cigar, with the text “Make Mine Marvel, and Make it a Mutie.” That was in 1988. Compare that to how Marvel regards the X-Men now when making merchandise.
Reading all of this material, and the massive amount of other random comics that are included in the Secret Wars II crossover, it’s easy to see why Chris Claremont was so well regarded at the time. The criticisms of his writing are still valid. He’s as wordy as ever, many of the characters are sexualized in an unnecessary way, and compared to more popular modern writers his material is dated, slowly paced, campy, repetitive, or just uninteresting to some people. But when you directly compare him to his contemporaries at the time, the Uncanny X-Men was like something from the future. His comics are filled with dark stories of inner personality conflicts:
feminist focused character arcs:
and social commentaries integrated into the narrative in a natural way:
You just don’t get these qualities in the issues of the Avengers, Spider-Man or Captain America that were being published at the time:
Not that this story about Captain America fighting a giant, human armadillo wasn’t engaging!! It totally was! For serious! It was no laughing matter!!
While reading the massive Secret Wars II crossover that touched nearly every Marvel comic being published, coming to an issue of Claremont’s Uncanny X-Men or New Mutants was like grabbing breath of fresh air. People talk realistically and eloquently:
characters have depth and subtlety, and they don’t always behave predictably:
and best of all, aesthetically speaking, Uncanny X-Men contains some of the coolest stories in comics:
And despite the convoluted comic book narrative crossing over into several different titles, there is continuity in Claremont’s writing that drives everything along in a believable way. For instance, after Kitty gets her hair hacked off by Ogun the demon ninja in the Kitty Pryde and Wolverine mini-series, she returns to Uncanny X-Men and you see her hair grow back slowly over time as the stories play out in chronological order, despite the publishing schedule of these different comics being completely out of order at times.
Kitty Pryde and Wolverine #2 (Published Dec 1984)
Kitty Pryde and Wolverine #4 (Published Feb 1985)
Returning from Japan in Uncanny X-Men #192 (Published April 1985)
X-Men Annual 8 (Published Dec 1985) which takes place during a 3 month gap between panels at the end of X-Men #192.
X-Men / Alpha Flight #2 (Published Jan 1986) which takes place during the same 3 month gap between panels at the end of X-Men #192.
Uncanny X-Men #193 (Published May 1985
Power Pack #12 (Published July 1985
Uncanny X-Men #194 (Published June 1985)
Uncanny X-Men #196 (Published Aug 1985)
Uncanny X-Men #201(Published Jan 1986)
It’s this sort of attention to detail that really engages an OCD kid like me and gives a feeling of life to these comics. When I was a young, naïve nerd who didn’t have a life or any friends (I have tons now I swear), it really felt like these characters were real people having amazing adventures and each comic book was a window into their living, breathing, persistent, physical, world. Successfully creating this illusion was Chris Claremont’s big talent, and it’s often overlooked when you spot check any one particular comic he’s written, or focus too tightly on the words that fill up any particular panel he’s designed.
I still have no idea what’s going on here.
I’m going to hang my rep on the line here and say something controversial. These X-Men comics and Claremont’s writing in the mid 80s—I think this has been his best work so far. I know these stories come long after the ones he is most famous for, and while it’s probably true that the conceptual narratives of the Dark Phoenix Saga and Days of Future Past are more interesting from a fantasy standpoint, his character work in these later comics is more engaging to me. There is more depth and believability, perhaps because the characters have existed for many years at this point, and there is a strong sense that they are growing, maturing, and struggling to be better people. This development takes time, and it happens over many comic books that span many years of publishing, and this may be why these comics are not as well remembered as the bigger stories. But because of the added depth I’m more invested in the little events that are happening to these characters in every issue:
So. On the other hand. I’m not going to spend too much time talking about Secret Wars since I think I pretty well conveyed my opinion of these comics while I was reading them over the last year. Again, reading Claremont’s work alongside the Secret Wars and the Secret Wars II, as well as the dozens of other Marvel comics that were part of the Secret Wars II crossover, is jarring. Because the Secret Wars are not subtle. Or eloquent. Or well written. Or averagely written. Or poorly written. They are terribly written. As I said in one of my posts, the Secret Wars are the comic book equivalent of a Michael Bay movie, in which the director (in this case editor-in-chief Jim Shooter) fancies his characters as toys, and his stories as an excuse to bash his toys together while supplying his own vocal sound effects.
And for the most part, that exciting shit only happens in the first Secret Wars. In the second, when the omnipotent Beyonder takes human form and comes to Earth to study human desire and search for contentment, we don’t even get the popcorn fun of watching our favorite comic book characters mindlessly bash each other’s brains in. We get one of the least interesting characters ever moping around trying to understand the nature of his clinical depression.
There is NOTHING interesting about the Beyonder. He’s an 80’s cliché, everything an uninspired, middle aged writer thought was envious or intimidating 30 years ago. His story takes itself way too seriously, attempting to examine the broad existential themes of happiness, contentment, and the meaning of life, but failing completely at creating any tension or… you know… any interest in anything going on. It’s really, really, really not good. As most Marvel fans know, you can’t recommend these stories to anyone. They were published at a time when the comic book medium was maturing into something more respectable with the arrival of stories such as Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns. But god damn it, as most Marvel fans know, if you are a super big geek that likes to see all your favorite characters get together to fight a super big bad, there’s still something fun about these comics. In a horrible, embarrassing, guilty pleasure sort of way. There’s nothing respectable about these stories, but I still found myself laughing out loud and excited to write about them, to parade their panels around the internet and make fun of them. Does this make me a bad person?
I can’t say I was expecting the climax of the Secret Wars II. With this man-baby squirting sphincter machine the Beyonder used to birth himself as a regular human.
So alright. That’s it. Let’s move on already. My review is: Don’t read the Secret Wars. Unless you already know you want to. There!!! I’m done with the Secret Wars!!! Forever!!! I'm going to take a break for a few days, but then it’s time to read the last leg of Chris Claremont’s run on the Uncanny X-Men. These are the first X-Men comics I’ve ever read as a kid! Let me at them!!
