Comic book fans flipped their lids Tuesday as Marvel announced THE END OF THE MARVEL UNIVERSE! during their press conference. Though usually this kind of talk is just hype for Marvel, this time around their next event, Secret Wars, appears to be some next level bonkers stuff. Beginning in May with Secret Wars #1 the original Marvel 616 universe will be no more along with every variant Marvel Universe including the Ultimate Universe, Age of Apocalypse, Marvel Zombies, etc. Each will be combined into a new larger and interconnected world for the length of the event that’ll be known as BATTLEWORLD!
“Once we hit Secret Wars #1, there is no Marvel Universe, Ultimate Universe, or any other. It’s all Battleworld.”
-Tom Brevoort, Marvel’s Senior Vice-President of Publishing and Executive Editor
What Battleworld seems to be is something more along the lines of what we’ve come to expect from a DC “Insert Blank” Crisis type of story line or maybe even Convergence (which is occurring at the same time). Combining at the very least all of Marvel’s most popular alternate universe story lines and cherry-picking the most popular characters to match up with the most popular characters of other worlds for 8 issues, all to battle who I’m hoping will be “Elvis Beyonder”. The possibilities are endless! For fans who hate change though, this is likely to be a nightmare. Unlike Original Sin, AvX, or countless other events that promise, “Nothing will ever be the same again!” this definitely has the potential to change the scope of the Marvel Universe forever.
“If you ever wondered what would happen if you take the ‘Age of Ultron’ universe and perch it next to the ‘Marvel Zombies’ universe, this would be the place to do it.”
-Axel Alonso, Marvel Editor-in-Chief
What this will also allow is the return of pretty much any deceased, disappeared, or just dismissed character to return and to come back with a new costume and a new ongoing series. This also means fans will be able to return to worlds like Age of Apocalypse, Old Man Logan, or House of M for more of that nostalgia flavor that we geeks love so much. And while Marvel is saying that this isn’t a reboot, readers can’t help but feel a Flashpoint coming on. Though it’s probably unlikely that anything on that scale will occur, it’s clear that Marvel has plans for change, changes we’ll be hearing about in the following weeks as more news will be released, but probably bigger news once the solicitations come out giving us a look at what will be ending and what will be starting.
What has begun with Jonathan Hickman’s run on Avengers and the beginning of Marvel NOW! will soon end in the Secret Wars and years of careful planning will come to fruition. Other than Hickman’s Avengers and New Avengers books, which has been laying the ground work for this event, our first look of what’s to come will hit comic shops on Free Comic Book Day, May 2nd, and continue with Secret Wars #1 comes out right after.
If Spider-verse is any sign of the scope of different universes that we may see then it looks like ANYTHING is possible when the dust settles.
Stay tuned for more as we are definitely not done with this by a long shot.