As realities collapse and merge and the Ultimate Universe makes its own stand against our heroes on Earth-616, Marvel is set to go through a massive change. Gone is the standard Earth-616 ... actually, all of existence is gone. The one place left in the universe is the Battleworld, a patchwork planet assembled from bits of remnant alternate universes. A slew of titles will take place on this strange new world and many of them have direct connections to older stories. I've created the following spreadsheet to track the announced Secret Wars tie-ins and to pair them with suggested trades to read beforehand. I owe IGN and writers Jesse Schedeen and Joshua Yehl for this constantly updated article that accumulated the many series announcements.
Before you look through the Google Docs spreadsheet, I have a few things to mention. Several titles won't be ending for Secret Wars and those have been excluded from the spreadsheet. These are the newer, more experimental and artistic titles, specifically The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, Howard The Duck, Black Widow, All-New Hawkeye, Spider-Gwen, Ms. Marvel, and Punisher. (Yes, I just called a Punisher book "artistic." I'm surprised as well.) These books will have a "Last Days" arc as a tie-in to the big event instead, so the natural recommendation for all of these books will be their first trades.
The "Personal Interest Index" column is my own personal interest in a given title. These ratings are not indicative of Collected Editions as a whole, nor are they meant to be a definitive recommendation. For instance, you'll find it unsurprising that the one Rick Remender book, Hail Hydra, has a "1" rating on the PII while Siege, by the often controversial Kieron Gillen, rates a "5" from me. Feel free to leave comments about titles you're interested in or other trade recommendations, but please do so using the comment function and not by editing the spreadsheet itself.
Next week: Ultron Unlimited. I promise.
I come into this event as a huge fan of the Marvel Ultimate Universe (and by huge fan I mean I've read all of it.) So Ultimate End is obviously the number one title for me. But I'm also interested in Civil War, Years of Future Past, Spider-verse, and Deadpool's Secret Wars as they revisit storylines I have enjoyed. 1872 has also piqued my interest, and I'm looking Amazing Spider-man: Renew Your Vows because I, like so many others thought the Mephisto marriage deal thing was terrible. I'll be glad to see a Universe where Peter is still married and has a kid.
ReplyDeleteOne comment on the trade suggestions: For Deadpool's Secret Secret Wars, you recommended reading Deadpool Killustrated, but wouldn't reading the original Secret Wars be the most important thing? I could easily be wrong, as I haven't begun reading any of these series yet and I don't really follow Deadpool. Just a question.
Thanks for posting this list. Based on the descriptions, it sounds like Siege, Thors, and Journal are among the most important tie-ins to the main title, so I will probably be adding those to my list.