Exclusive Cover Reveal: YEARS OF FUTURE PAST #3 Mike Norton Variant

The Secret Wars tie ins continue. Next week we'll see YEARS OF FUTURE PAST #1 in stores. In this part of Battleworld, we'll see a familiar X-Men setting based around the Days of Future Past era. Marvel has given us a first look at a variant cover for the third issue by Mike Norton.

YEARS OF FUTURE PAST #3

(W) Marguerite Bennett (A/CA) Mike Norton

SECRET WARS SERIES

• Gouged up from its sanctuary, the mutants' last defender clashes with Sentinels above the ruins of New York City!

• Kate Pryde and her family take refuge in a Coney Island madhouse...and find dark revelations at last!

Rated T+

Item Code: MAY150735 In Shops: 7/1/2015 SRP: $3.99

Isn't Convergence and Secret Wars like exactly the same? They're both about universes being meshed together and features classic universes and storylines, right?

The premise is very similar, though the outcome promises to be substantially different. DC is treating Convergence like a very fanservice-driven summer event, while the company finishes the move out from New York to the West Coast. When Convergence is over, the vast majority of the current continuity will continue to be in place (although DC is dropping "The New 52" as a title). Some characters from previous continuities will continue to be published now or in the near future, according to DiDio, but you won't be seeing any kind of reboot or turn back to pre-Flashpoint DC.

Secret Wars, on the other hand, is more similar to Flashpoint in that sense: it is being used by Marvel as a "soft reboot", meaning that the continuity that comes out from it will be substantially altered (like the incorporation of Miles Morales into the "main" universe), although it will follow the same general basic lines as before. So, just like The New 52.

neat

Another difference is that Convergence is only one month long whereas Secret Wars is going until Sept/Oct. And DC isn't going to be too worried about continuity. Bruce Wayne is still Batman in Justice League and Superman still has his powers at max, whereas their respective titles have Gordon as Bats and a depowering Supes. It'll work out in the end but their focus is on good storytelling.

That's not 100% true. It's similar to New 52, but not the same. Flashpoint lead to New 52, which can be summed up as "Barry Allen Fucks Up the Universe". New 52 was essentially DC's attempt at a hard reboot, retconning everything that had happened beforehand, but keeping the meat (i.e. how Dick Grayson became Robin, Superman coming to Earth, Flash's accident, etc.), whereas Secret Wars still acknowledges that everything that has happened in the past still happened, but the continuity from thereon won't be the same. In other words, New 52 was a blank slate, tabula rasa; Secret Wars is like writing ideas on a dry erase board, erasing the board, but using the scrapped ideas to come up with better ideas.

That was a bad metaphor. To put it simply, Superman doesn't remember what happened before New 52 because New 52 Superman only knows New 52. Post-Secret Wars Spider-Man will remember everything that happened before Secret Wars, because this world that is new to us is also new to him. We know it's a different Earth, and so does he.

Days of Future Past again? It's amazing how many recycled storylines I'm seeing this year.