Best arc ever for yours truly...my Spidey-loving, mutie-hating fanboy instincts didn't know where to start. There was just too much awesomeness to go around.
^ Well, I didn't enjoy it for those specific reasons. It was mainly Jim Shooter's amazing ability to give every single hero either: 1) a drawn out inner struggle and resolution; or 2) their own personal moment. Not only that, he drew these out directly from their own comics. He even managed to do this for most of the villains as well.
Just a number of things that Shooter presented:
- Storm's conflict with Prof X over her recent leadership and Prof X snubbing her.
- Wasp going solo to infiltrate Magneto.
- Absorbing Man's first feat of sticking pieces of himself back on and falling in love with Titania.
- Mr. Fantastic struggling with letting Galactus devour the planet to save trillions of future lives, but then fighting at the end because he wanted to see his family again (one of my personal favorites).
- Cap and Wolverine being the only ones to save the trapped villains at the end.
- Iron Man (Rhodes) struggling with his identity as the new Iron Man.
- Return of Klaw.
- First appearance of Titania and Volcana actually.
- Kang and Doom battling each other for supremacy over the villains.
- Magneto being an anti-hero and being portrayed very sensitively.
- Colossus falling in love with the alien and thereafter dumping Kitty. He even proved to be the final crucial unanimous vote to battle Doom.
- Spiderman's introduction to the black symbiote.
- Thing walking away from the FF.
- She-Hulk taking on the villains solo and nearly being killed and joining the FF.
- Hulk's famous 100 billion tons of mountain feat.
- Doom's most famous feats of absorbing Galactus' energy and Beyonder's power.
I could go on and on. But 'Secret Wars' is definitely at the top of my personal list as best comic storyline ever as well.
Yeah, that's a crap-ton of cool character development and storylines to pack into 12 issues. A shame most current comics are far more minimalistic, and also less pages in issues and shorter story lengths (Crisis #1 = 12 issues, the last double-sized....Crisis #3 = 7 issues, all far less dense). The dense comics of yesteryear were delightful (any of Starlin's cosmic work, Thor's old series, a lot of Shooter's work, any classic like V for Vendetta, Watchmen, Sandman, etc.).
^ Some people didn't like it, but I thought 'Operation: Galactic Storm' was fantastic. It was the last time any comics event approached editorial perfection. The only issue that felt tacked on and out of place was Captain America #400, where the Supreme Intelligence makes Cap fight against all his foes all issue-long. Pure Cap wanking. But that had more to do with it being his centennial issue than anything else. But every other issue across Avengers, West Coast Avengers, Thor, Iron Man, Captain America, Wonderman and Quasar was important and they flowed almost perfectly. No criss-crossing and stumbling over each other, unlike, say 'Our Worlds At War.' When's the last time any multiple cross-title comics event managed that?
As for more contained events, I think everyone agrees that 'Sinestro Corps War' was great. And I also enjoyed 'Earth X.' It approached 'Secret Wars' levels of awesomeness for me in characterization. The epic individual moments in 'Secret Wars' were really great. But the epic individual moments in 'Earth X,' especially towards the conclusion, were downright emotional. Black Bolt's final scream, Iron Man in Red Ronin's armor, Galactus Richards' arrival. Damn. 'Universe X' and 'Paradise X' couldn't follow up perfectly and sort of diluted it for me, but they had their moments too.
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Jul 15th, 2008 03:15 AM
