The Beginning Is The End Is The Beginning
I tend to be less than impressed with most blockbuster films. For all of its hundreds of millions of dollar fueled spectacle most seem to lose the personal, that thing that tethers an audience to the screen as it is filled with CGI rubble, in search of the fantastic. Event Comics, like Marvels latest iteration of Secret Wars, also tend to leave me less than impressed for the same reason. Cosmic spectacle and the promise of emotional pay off a month later not now.
In the lead up to this issue first issue “The End Times”, writer (also credited as designer) Jonathan Hickman weaved a two year long story “Time Runs Out” across two Avengers titles and largely achieved balance between the apocalyptic spectacle of multiversal decay and personal stakes with the thematic binding agent of failure. As Jesse Schedeen put it
“Failure is at the heart of Hickman's Avengers saga. It's a very long, complicated exploration of the old truism "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions."...
The message is clear. The Avengers failed not just their world, but all worlds. Iron Man and the Illuminati failed because they put themselves above the people they seek to protect. They made a choice no true hero ever can make -- who should live and who should die. Captain America and his Avengers failed because they couldn't see past these rivalries and betrayals. They spent the last months of Earth's existence hunting the Illuminati rather than dealing with the bigger picture. It says a lot about what the Avengers became that Doctor Doom, the most egomanical tyrant in the Marvel Universe, did more to prolong humanity's survival than they did.”
Now all that failure has led to the “End Times” as Mr. Fantastic and the Future Foundation race to finish their multiversal life raft, the Ultimate Universe comes bearing down on them with an armada of helicarriers, and Kingpin throws an end of the world party.
“The End Times” veers into destruction porn territory and how could it not? It is the end of the world Marvel Universe as the epitath proclaims at the end. Building and helicarriers topple and explode. Hundreds of thousands of lives are lost on and off panel. All in a futile fight setup by Ultimate Mr. Fantastic aka The Thinker. But in this last gasp you still see heroes being heroes. Luke Cage and Iron Fist help rescue civilians from the rubble. Spider-man swoops in and saves people. It’s heroism at its finest, putting yourself out there so that others may live in face of overwhelming odds and annihilation.
Death doesn’t mean squat in cape comics. This will all be reset in some form or another, Scott Summer says as much after unleashing the Phoenix Egg. And yet, the apparent deaths of Sue Storm and her children still hits like a ton of bricks. Hickman has gotten be to believe that death means something as this world ends.
Per usual Esad Ribic’s art is on point and greatly enhanced by the varied color scheme and textures employed colorist Ive Svorcina (who worked with Ribic on Thor: God of Thunder) create a unified but varied mise en scene for the comics as the main and Ultimate universes collide.
This is not the end. What comes next. How it comes next is still a mystery. But the Secret Wars have begun. World’s have lived. World’s have died. And I’m pretty sure Marvel will issue a press release around September touting how now nothing will ever be the same.
“You can’t kill an idea, it always comes back. Resurrected or reborn, into a different form.” – Scott Summers.
I am Michael Mazzacane. You can find me on Twitter @MaZZM and at ComicWeek and NXTDayTV
