Marvel is launching their big continuity shifting mega story Wednesday, so I pulled the original off the shelf to see how it holds up.
Secret Wars started as a way for Marvel to tie their comics in with an action figure line. It was fairly successful, but not great. I had a few of the figures, Wolverine, Iron Man, Kang, & Dr Doom, Falcon, Cap, and maybe Magneto and Spider-Man,
That is actually a lot of figures, compared to other toys I played with, but the Secret Wars guys weren't very posable and were an odd size, slight larger than G.I. Joe guys. Also their accessories were odd. The lenticualr shields were kind of strange, only Cap has a shield, DUH!!! Wolverine's claws were clip on, and looked cooler on Firefly, until they inevitability were lost. Also I remember the paint coming off pretty easily. Ok I seem to have gotten of track. The point is Secret Wars the comic was a shoe-horned toy line tie-in.
Jim Shooter wrote it and Mike Zeck did most the art. The story is a battle royal style rumble. A deus-ex type grabs a bunch of heroes and villians, and transports them to planet and tells them to duke it out and they'll rewarded in anyway they like. Of course they oblige.
The fighting is pretty good. Shooter does, okay establishing the broader sides of the fight, but most of the individual characters don't get fleshed out. Some striking things about the series are the strength of the female characters.
Two new female villians show up, Volcana & Titania. Titania is a strong woman, very strong actually, as strong as the Thing, and probably the strongest of the villians assembled. Stronger than Absorbing Man, and Wrecker at the time.
I believe she is listed as a 70 ton lifter in the Official Handbook, Absorbing Man is up to 100, but that depends on what he's absorbed. Wrecker I believe maxs out at 40 tons, although during this time he might be down to 10 tons. Online Titania is listed as 100 tons, but given a strength level of 6. Absorbing Man is listed as 7, again dependant on his mode at the time.
Volcana is one of the characters who gets some development, although most of it comes from her relationship with Molecule Man. What is nice is Volcana's power-set. Fire based is not unique for female characters, it is more aggressive and direct than most. Also worth noting is Volcana is a full-figured woman, no skinny legged lady here.
A new Spider-Woman Julie Carpenter, appears too, but she never would pan out. I'm not even sure if she is powered or alive anymore. She would get some good character development later. A rather strange note, Carpenter is revealed to have a daughter she cares for very much, but during this series she seems to not care at all that her daughter is on an alien world and later leaves that world without her, and in the company of many super-villains.
On the same feminist front we get She-Hulk taking a lone revenge trip into the enemy fortress after Wasp is killed. Although she fails ultimately this is the type of bullish behavior you normally get from male bricks. Actually Hercules lone assault on the Masters of Evil in Avengers 274 comes to mind.
My favorite moment of the series comes courtesy of the Wasp. In pursuit of a Magneto Wasp finds herself captive. Magneto is in his typical hero/villain flux, so no death trap, or stasis cell for Wasp, instead he tries to talk it out. Wasp realizing Mags is more powerful, and needing to bide her time, sleeps with Magneto.
The sex takes place between panels, but it's relatively clear, even to 10 yr old me. What is great about this moment is it shows a woman in command of herself sexually, and using all of her assets to defeat a foe. Like a cage fighter using kicks, grapples, punches and anything else available, Jan uses every trick she has to keep her enemy off-balance and eventually escape. Wasp uses her closeness to Mags to learn his plans and escape.
I don't know if Secret Wars made any "this changes everything" proclamations, but they certainly did change a few things for a long period of time.
Secret Wars #8 intorduced Spider Man's black costume, which would later be revealed to be a symbiote, and later still would become Venom. This introduction has had enormous impact on the Marvel Universe.
The second most significant change to come out of the series is Colossus ends his relationship with Kitty Pryde. I'm not familiar with the X-books of the time, so this might have been inevitable, but the events on Battleworld shake Piotr Rasputin's faith in his love for Pryde enough for him to break off their relationship when he returns.
The last significant impact of the series is the Thing stays on Battleworld after the rest of the heroes and villians return to Earth. About a year's worth of Thing V.1 takes place on Battleworld. I had one issue of this series. The story revolved on Thing being captured by monster hunters. I thought the concept of a mish-mash world would offer a large variety of stories. The only review I've seen say the concept drags on a bit. IDK, I would buy the trade at a con.
On the downside, Secret Wars fails to deliver on its initial premise. The Beyonder's command to, "slay your enemies," is never really carried out. There is no death-match style fighting. In fact both sides seem a little lackadaisical in combat.
The series would have been much better if those life and death stakes were made more pronounced. Having the heroes grapple with killing to succeed would have been very interesting. Making the villains more bloodthirsty would have been great, but showing their in-fighting, and inevitable backstabbing to eliminate each other would have been great storytelling. The one moment when Dr Doom kills Kang is great, and feels natural. Their later team up during Infinity Crusade is one of my favorite villain teams.
Overall the story has a good flow, there are normal superhero comic leaps, but nothing horribly off-base. Shooter did a good job plotting, and Zeck's art is clean and crisp and promotes good action. I love how the female characters are treated. You would be hard pressed to find female heroes and villains used as well in the Civil War Era.
Secret Wars of course spawned Secret Wars II, but it also inspired a few other notable imitators. Most recently Boom! Studios Deathmatch, tells a Secret Wars style story and does it very well.
I'm looking forward to picking up Battleworld, and hope thirty years from now it reads as well as Secret Wars does today.
Also if I hadn't gotten into conversation with the affable store owner, Patrick, I would have browsed around even more. Despite being in the middle of Tuesday's new comic sorting, Patrick and his partner took the time to help me find things, and entertained my sometimes odd questions about the shop and business. Good customer service is very much appreciated. As a matter of fact I got not only good customer service, I got a couple of really good favors.
There is something about the TV show though that really just looks great on the screen. The color wash makes the images pop really well. It is very crisp and makes the action look distinct. It pops out at you, kind of like Mike Allred's art.
As of right now the DC sets look fantastic, while Marvel really hasn't put anything of note out. Their Gaurdians sets have mostly disappeared from the shelves by now. They have a really cool X-men set, but it costs $50.00. The Age of Ultron/Avengers 2 stuff is leaked on the web, but nothing in there looks like it will be less than $30.00 except the little Iron Man vs Ultron bots. 
Like lots of people I grew up with Lego. I have many fond memories of my childhood Lego sets and the stories I told with them. My tastes, then as now, tended toward the sci/fi and fantasy realms. The Lego Space and Castle themes were my favs.
This year features two fantastic sets from the DC Heroes line. One is the 76025 Green Lantern Vs Sinestro. Priced at $19.99 it is damn cheap in Lego terms. It comes with a Green Lantern, Sinestro, and Space Batman, who looks pretty robotic & I would probably use as an extra villain. There is a Green Lantern spaceship, which seems superfluous since GL can just fly in space, but maybe he needs it in the theme of the set where Sinestro has stolen his power ring battery. Also you can just have Bats fly the spaceship since I don't think he could withstand all the rigors of interstellar travel in that jet-pack suit. Kidding aside this set is pretty rad. Two heroes, a villian, and a jet for 20 bucks. Worth the price. You are saddled with another Batman fig, but GL and Sinestro more than make up for it.
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