Marvel Studios has all the time identified methods to throw a Hall H occasion, and although there have been worries that the irregular nature of the first in-person San Diego Comic-Con in three years would maintain issues muted, the studio delivered. We know a lot now that we didn’t know earlier than. And glimmering on the far finish of Marvel’s new timeline is one ominous identify: Avengers: Secret Wars.
Marvel Comics has infamously printed a number of Secret War occasions, however there’s just one that’s prone to have impressed an arc that features exploring the multiverse and introducing the Illuminati. And that’s Jonathan Hickman and Esad Ribić’s Secret Wars, a cosmic pure catastrophe that led to the full destruction and inconceivable recreation of the Marvel Multiverse.
This is all to say: If the Marvel Cinematic Universe wished to make sweeping modifications to its inside continuity, Secret Wars can be certainly one of the solely actually “Marvel Comics” methods was to do it.
The Marvel Method
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Photo: Marvel Studios/Disney
That’s partially as a result of Marvel Comics traditionally doesn’t reboot its full continuity, ever. Unlike DC Comics, whose setting is constructed on an every-25-years-or-so cycle of resetting and reimagining its characters, you may hint an unbroken line from the Tony Stark of 2022 to the Tony Stark of 1963.
2015’s Secret Wars bucked that pattern — not in a approach that broke the line between 2015 Tony and 1963 Tony, however in a approach that had important editorial repercussions nonetheless. Namely, Secret Wars killed a Marvel Universe.
The Ultimate Marvel Universe
Marvel’s Ultimate line, based in 2000, was arguably the writer’s largest success of the decade, an alternate Marvel universe the place fashionable writers and artists had freedom to take the firm’s most well-known characters and begin yet again. And it’s bought a heavy hand of affect in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, maybe greatest represented in the choose of Samuel L. Jackson to play Nick Fury — Ultimate comics have been the first to depict Nick as a Black man who seemed precisely like Jackson fairly than a white man who could cross for David Hasselhoff.
But throughout Secret Wars, the Ultimate Marvel Universe died. Actually, in the lead as much as the occasion, each single universe in the Marvel multiverse died, leaving solely a few dozen surreal variant fragments glued collectively in the mashup to finish all mashups. And when the good guys received, they restored the multiverse, however left the Ultimate Marvel Universe useless.
Marvel had determined to salvage a few features of the Ultimate universe that have been nonetheless resonating with readers, and in any other case shutter the editorial line. It made sense: By the time Secret Wars rolled round, the Ultimate Marvel universe was not a recent begin. It had its personal 15 years of continuity to atone for, and it wasn’t even the essential Marvel Continuity.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe turns 15 subsequent yr. Isn’t that fascinating?
Is the Marvel Cinematic Universe headed for a reboot?
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Image: Marvel Studios
We received’t discover out for a whereas — in all probability not till late 2025, when Avengers: Secret Wars hits theaters. But you may wager your final remaining universe in a decimated multiverse that Kevin Feige and each different inventive higher-up at Marvel Studios might be dodging the reply till then. And, not less than, now you recognize why.
You can discover all of Polygon’s protection of SDCC 2022 information, trailers, and extra right here.
