{"id":756,"date":"2016-02-20T07:21:33","date_gmt":"2016-02-20T12:21:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aboutcomics.blogwyrm.com\/?p=756"},"modified":"2016-02-20T07:21:33","modified_gmt":"2016-02-20T12:21:33","slug":"a-marvel-epic-part-1-overview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aboutcomics.blogwyrm.com\/?p=756","title":{"rendered":"A Marvel Epic: Part 1 – Overview"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well it\u2019s over.\u00a0 It\u2019s been a few months now since Marvel\u2019s company-wide, total reboot of their creative universe has drawn to a close with the last installment of Secret Wars #9<\/em>.\u00a0 I thought it was a good time to pause, survey the new landscape, and reflect on how we got here.\u00a0 Over these next four installments, I\u2019ll be analyzing just what Jonathan Hickman, the writer and creative glue, tried to do, what the high points and the lows were, and whether or not it really came off as expected.<\/p>\n

In this article, I want to set the stage for Hickman\u2019s undertaking by giving an overview of what he tried to implement and the creative and commercial tensions under which he operated.\u00a0 In a nutshell, Hickman attempted what could only be called comics first, true foray into the epic.\u00a0 This may seem a strange thing to say since ret-cons and reboots have been fairly common on the comics scene for several decades now and mega-crossover events are nearly as common.\u00a0 But I stand by this assessment since an epic is not and should not be judged solely by how large it is.\u00a0 It is true that size and scope are crucial elements, but an epic must, simultaneously, also deal with the big questions in both big and small ways.\u00a0 Hickman\u2019s work on what I will call the Everything Dies<\/em> storyline (the reason for which I give below) meets both criteria, albeit not always successfully.<\/p>\n

The question of size and scope is the easiest one to understand and support, so let\u2019s discuss this one first.\u00a0 The scope of Everything Dies<\/em> was unprecedented in the comics industry.\u00a0 To appreciate that claim, consider that the first of these continuity cleanups, DC\u2019s The Crisis on Infinite Earths<\/em>, was a 12-issue limited series with important links to the existing titles but with a storyline comprehensible and digestible as a standalone event.\u00a0 Subsequent reboots of the big two have grown even more and more complex and more cosmological with dimensions, universes, and multiverses being taken apart and put back together within most if not all of the current series, but the size and scope has always been limited to at most a year of crossover events.\u00a0 What Marvel did in the Everything Dies<\/em> storyline literally dwarfs everything that has come before combined.<\/p>\n

The core Everything Dies<\/em> storyline actually starts publication in starts in the winter of 2013 with launch of the twin Avengers publications Avengers<\/em> and New Avengers<\/em>.\u00a0 Both of these titles, which were written by Jonathan Hickman and drawn and inked by a host of artist teams, ran for almost 3 full years; spanned 78 issues (plus additional ancillary tales); played host to two separate company-wide crossover events: Infinity<\/em> and Original Sin<\/em> (each of which brought even more issues into the fold); and eventually led into the final Secret Wars<\/em> climax.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

Obviously Everything Dies<\/em> storyline was required to be more than a creative, literary success; it also needed to be a commercially lucrative, since it would set the stage for all future Marvel titles.\u00a0 In addition, although not explicitly stated, it also needed to be done in such a fashion that allowed Marvel to downplay the X-men, Spider-Man, and Fantastic Four franchises since none of these was in the stable of Marvel Studios at the time of the publication.\u00a0 As a result, the core of the tales centered on the Avengers, Inhumans, Black Panther, Doctor Strange, and the Sub-Mariner, with only bit appearances by the X-men and Spider-man.\u00a0 The Fantastic Four are almost completely absent as a \u2018brand\u2019 and only Reed and Sue Richards really play a role.<\/p>\n

Of the two of these titles, the Avengers<\/em> title is more action oriented, more classic, and more wholesome.\u00a0 The New Avengers<\/em> is a darker and, perhaps, more interesting title.\u00a0 At the core of both of them is the ethical dilemma called the Trolley Problem<\/a>, which asks when is it permissible, or even imperative, to sacrifice some life so that other life may be saved.<\/p>\n

To set the stage for this form of the dilemma, Hickman had to invent a new type of cosmology.\u00a0 The following composite image, pieced together from material taken from the New Avengers,<\/em> Hickman tries to explain the roots of the quandary.<\/p>\n

\"Hickmans<\/a><\/p>\n

The pinching together of two universes happens along the specific timelines (worldlines in the technical jargon) of their respective Earths.\u00a0 Left unchecked, such an incursion destroys both universes. However, if there were a way to destroy one of the Earths, the both universes would survive as another discussion of the multiversal fate informs us<\/p>\n

\"One<\/a><\/p>\n

On the surface this may seem to be no different than the continuity cleanups but the Trolley Problem aspect, which is now so large as to engulf the entire published output of Marvel comics, provides a nuance not in the earlier reboots.\u00a0 It is no longer a good versus evil race-against-time, but an authentic situation wherein men of good conscience can view the same set of facts from different points-of-view and take widely different actions, as a result.<\/p>\n

Of all the infinite possible universes, the reader is, of course, privy to the events surrounding those men who live on the most familiar and beloved Earth of the Marvel universe (dubbed Earth-616).\u00a0 The core characters who wrestle with this ethical conundrum are Captain America, the Sub-Mariner, the Black Panther, Doctor Strange, Hank McCoy the Beast, Reed Richards, and Tony Stark\/Iron Man.\u00a0 Their anger, fear, comradery, indecision, and bold actions link the huge with the small and turn what would have been an ordinary cosmic opera into a full-fledged epic.<\/p>\n

Next week, I\u2019ll present a careful look at the timeline of events that comprise the full story.\u00a0 In third installment, I\u2019ll be looking at the personality conflicts and revelations that make up the human element of the story.\u00a0 And in the final installment, I\u2019ll discuss what I thought worked and what didn\u2019t in both the literary and commercial fronts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well it\u2019s over.\u00a0 It\u2019s been a few months now since Marvel\u2019s company-wide, total reboot of their creative universe has drawn to a close with the last installment of Secret Wars… Read more ><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aboutcomics.blogwyrm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aboutcomics.blogwyrm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aboutcomics.blogwyrm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aboutcomics.blogwyrm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aboutcomics.blogwyrm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=756"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/aboutcomics.blogwyrm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":757,"href":"https:\/\/aboutcomics.blogwyrm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756\/revisions\/757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aboutcomics.blogwyrm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aboutcomics.blogwyrm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aboutcomics.blogwyrm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}