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Jim Shooter, �Secret Wars�

Started November 7 � Finished November 7, 2003; 336 pages. Posted 16 November 2003

Not that I want to accuse Marvel Comics of pandering, but Jesus Christ, what a bunch of pandering and marketing this is! Even in the introduction, it is gleefully admitted that this came about as an excuse to market a line of toys. The toy line failed, but the series became one of the highest selling specials of all time.

Oops, I forget, there�s a slight chance that some of you reading this are among the non-dork variety, and may not have any idea of what the hell I�m talking about. I�ll start over.

The comic industries always have cheesy little schemes to try and suck in cross-readership. Most of the time these involve dedicating a page or so of having a �special appearance� by a weaker character in a more popular title, usually no more than having the guy walk past and say, �hey there Captain America, how�s it hanging?�

Occasionally however, there will be a story line that lasts for a full issue or so. I remember as a kid, one of these scams worked on me, because they had an appearance for Power Man and Iron Fist in two issues of Daredevil. I started picking up the second title, but the strategy was too little, too late, and Power Man and Iron Fist folded less than six months afterward.

I should also note that my first published writing was in the letters section of that comic.

Yeah, this whole geek thing ain�t a new thing, people.

Secret Wars, however, is the mother of all crossovers. Marvel put all their big shot superheroes in a 12 issue miniseries and whisked them away by a powerful being who is never identified, instead appearing through a void in space that looks suspiciously vagina-like.

I think I was on a financially constrained hiatus of comics when this series first came out (or perhaps it�s just that I had already discovered real life girls), but I also think I avoided it because they excluded Daredevil. The introduction even states that Marvel gathered every major marvel super hero (their emphasis).

Every? Okay, I know Daredevil was never a huge success in terms of titles like X-Men and Spider-man � that�s one of the things I liked about it. But are you telling me that She-Hulk is more popular than DD? Frankly, most of these major heroes never interested me at all, even as child. Fantastic Four were boring, the Avengers were whiny, and Thor was lame.

�Fine,� I thought, �you go and have your little miniseries. Daredevil works better as a brooding loner anyway.�

But now, at least a decade later, this collection came into the store. I decided to see what all the fuss was about.

And it�s actually pretty bad. I don�t really know author Jim Shooter�s work, but this was really sub-par in terms of other miniseries that came later such as Earth X.

About the only thing that was good about it was that it reaffirmed what I remembered about these other titles when I was a kid: The Fantastic Four ARE boring, the Avengers ARE whiny, and Thor IS lame. I may have liked some dopey things as a kid, and I may like some dopey thing now, but at least I never bought She-Hulk.

Oh wait, I guess I just did.

Goddammit.


Rating: Worth library prices.

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