I was going to save this for Friday or maybe a little closer to when the movie came out, but I didn’t sleep well last night and I need the time without going through all the buffer I built up on my week off. Also, we’ll be talking about the spoilers to Avengers: Doomsday so if you want to avoid that, maybe just scroll down to the video by Linkara of Atop The Fourth Wall if you’re curious or look for the “Secret Wars” video from 2026, just last week as of this posting.
All indications are that the plot for Avengers: Doomsday and the two or three movies that will follow will be based on the 2015 version of Secret Wars, and it’s not the best showing for Marvel heroes if that’s the case. Keeping spoilers off the homepage, it’s also about the end of the multiverse and features Doctor Doom as the villain, using cosmic power to recreate reality in vision because that’s what Doctor Doom does. His ego and quest for the power to control everything has led to take advantage of godlike beings before and this was no different, though the one in the comic isn’t the same as the MCU reimagining out of necessity.
It’s not the worse comic to fall under the “Secret Wars” banner, originally meant to push a toyline but became the first case of Marvel’s Eventitis illness back when they only did it as a summer event to keep readers coming during their vacations. Now every storyline in comics is practically a mini-event. Linkara, the internet persona of Lewis Lovhaug, does “Event Comics Month” every year, or at least tries to. Like my recent issues with all the anthology comics coming my way, these take the most time to read, write, and review, which is harder on him since he has to get more than a cover. He has to get sample pages and pan them to make the video work. It just so happened that among this year’s remaining list of events the fans chose this version of Secret Wars before the MCU spoilers leaked, and the recent trailer seems to prove much of what they said. So let’s watch Linkara go over the comic event that inspired the movie event and see what they’re working with.
The spoilers tell us that instead of a Beyonder’s power, Doctor Doom will steal Loki’s power. It’s easier to use him than try to shove the Beyonder into this when he’s never been part of the MCU and this arc is going to be shoving in too many characters as it is. We’re not just getting the Marvel Studios versions of these heroes but the now Disney-owned Fox version of the X-Men and Deadpool rosters, while working with Sony to bring in the alternate universe versions of Spider-Man from their movies due to their partnership that brought the webhead to the MCU…only to give us Spider-Man in name and costume only. There’s a reason I stopped watching after Homecoming.
Kevin Feige recently came out and confirmed (if he isn’t lying to protect what little story hasn’t come out prematurely) that this will not lead to a DC “Flashpoint” style reboot of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Fair enough. Neither did this event, outside of bringing Miles Morales from the Ultimate Universe to the true 616. Given the success of the Spiderverse movies, they’re better off not doing that here, though there have been hints from I believe Tom Holland of a MCU version of Miles. Of course, Kevin did say something unbelievable according to that article, during an appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast:
“I look to the comics, as I always do, in terms of our storytelling,” Feige said. “In both the Secret Wars—but particularly the Hickman Secret Wars from 10 years ago—there’s a nice roadmap to where we can go.”
“Confused” is the right word. Marvel Studios abandoned using the comics as a guide when Disney kicked out the group responsible for that. A producer actually said he doesn’t want anyone familiar with the comics to be part of any of the movies or Disney+ streaming shows, and it certainly doesn’t follow the comics unless it’s bad ideas like Riri Williams or destroying Wanda “Scarlet Witch” Maximoff as a hero. They coopted the 616 number in violation of the multiverse gimmick used by the comics that puts the main comic universe at Earth-616 and the MCU as Earth-199999, which I bring up because it’s a fun gimmick in Marvel lore that they screwed up.
Echo is wrong, Thanos’ motivations were changed because conceptual beings like Death don’t exist in this magic-free Marvel universe that somehow still has Doctor Strange, whose Ancient One was changed for a girl power/avoid Tibet for China two-punch, Ms. Marvel’s actual powers are a victim of things the MCU abandoned like the Inhumans and live-action’s revulsion to stretchy powers (I hope they DON’T try a live-action Plastic Man at DC because they will fail like Reed Richards), and the use of the “Thunderbolts” name was barely accurate and featured none of the actual Thunderbolts as they haven’t appeared in the MCU outside of Baron Zemo, who was exposed and removed a few arcs in anyway after the “Heroes Reborn” experiment was undone. That’s just the start of the list. Proper fealty to the comics has been the last thing on their minds without virtue signaling. Even this event is based on a not very popular story, second in this title’s history to Secret Wars II, a cash grab that sent the Beyonder to learn about mortal beings and get nothing but the worst lessons.
My theory that this is going to end all other media universe still hasn’t been challenged by anything I’ve seen or heard. Even Marvel Comics being moved closer for Feige’s benefit, as I said yesterday and when the spoilers first came out, could be part of that plan. I also have no proof of that until we see what the movies and comics due in the upcoming years. Even if I’m wrong we still have heroes being unheroic, destroying universes rather than finding a way to undo the incursions, which in the comics sounded like the planets hitting like billiard balls, and I don’t even know how that works. That’s one of those things from the event that they’re trying to use here and I still find it odd. Reboot or not, it still feels like multiversal house cleaning, and I don’t see this ending with MCU Reed (Earth-828, though suspicions are that they’ll be folded Miles style into 616 along with mutants conceptually if not the actually characters from the confused Earth-10005 without having to introduce them properly) going off to restore the multiverse and thus the other movie and show continuities.
The more I hear the less I care. I couldn’t even be bothered to go over the trailer yesterday, focusing on Marvel’s move to Burbank instead. The closest I come to caring is just watching Marvel Studio’s mission of proper adaptations to push the merchandise and maybe the comics continue to collapse in the hands of the company that all but denounces it’s own legacy with live-action demakes of new and old Disney classics as well as everything they absorb into their company like Lucasfilm. Disney has become the company where legacies go to die, and reboot or not I’m expecting the continued demise of the technically still very young Marvel Cinematic Universe of movies and shows to continue to wilt on the vine. Interesting to see how such promise is squandered so easily.
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