The Phantom Stranger Joins The Secret Wars

I was a fan of the first Secret Wars series.  Sure, the plot was all over the place, but it was fun to see so many Marvel characters sharing one big epic for the first time.  So, when it was announced that the sequel would include even more characters from the Marvel Universe I was really looking forward to it.  Secret Wars II was pretty wonky though, and the Beyonder himself was tough to take seriously with his Jheri Curl and disco outfits.  I must say I did enjoy a lot of the ongoing comic series that had tie-ins to the event though.

Batman and the Outsiders Join The Secret Wars

I had some hope that an ongoing Katana series was going to lead to the introduction of The Outsiders into the New 52, but it doesn't look like that is in the cards just yet.  I really loved the original line up of the team as presented by co-creators Mike W. Barr and Jim Aparo and it would be great to see them all together again.

Marvel's Secret Wars was a cool comic to read, as we were seeing all of Marvel's biog characters in one sweeping story.  These days, Marvel has so many team books and the lines between Avenger, X-Man and solo hero have been blurred so much that seeing all their characters interacting is hardly unique any more.  It's going to be hard to recapture some of that earlier magic.

Batman and The Secret Wars

Marvel and DC have fallen into a repetitive cycle with one major  line wide event after another, complete with countless spin-off mini-series and tie-in issues and the sheer abundance of them has certainly diluted the impact for me.  When Marvel first released Secret Wars, huge crossovers were still a rare happening and I have very fond memories of devouring the issues as they came out.  Marvel's move of featuring it's characters returning from the Secret Wars on Battleworld with all of their changes (Spider-Man's new costume, She-Hulk in the FF, etc.) was a clever one, it really made me want to read the year-long series to find out what had happened.  I also loved the Mike Zeck art and wish he could have completed the full twelve issues.  Like DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths, there are some flaws to be found upon rereading, but I will always hold it in high regard due to the memories it conjures up.