Secret Wars II #9 - Part One

In 1984 Marvel published Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars, a massive toy advert limited series in which several heroes and villains are whisked away to another world to do battle with each other for the amusement of a being called The Beyonder.

A year later Secret Wars II became the first Marvel Comics Event, with not only a limited series but also an extended storyline that was woven into almost every published title of the time. Now, I could spend time going through the whole thing, but frankly that would take ages and I can't be arsed, so I'm skipping ahead to issue #9 of the main series, which I am assured is proper batshit and probably far more entertaining to write about than Daredevil #1 is proving to be.

The cover is both action-packed and a master-class in Drawing Things Slightly Wrong: thus we have Thor's weirdly deformed hand, Colossus appearing to have grown a Tom Selleck 'tache, and Reed Richards doing what nowadays* is a "I'm really fucking quirky, look how fucking quirky I am" selfie face. Over all of our slightly misshapen heroes stands the villain of the piece, unleashing power the likes of which haven't been seen before in comics history! (This is the 80s, so I'm doing 60s-style excitement for them). For some reason the corner box features David Hasselhoff looking very fetching in a blousy jump suit.

GOD IN MAN, MAN IN GOD (not a euphemism)

The comic begins in an 80s music video, in which the "One From Beyond" is contemplating "all existence" through the medium of interpretive dance. Apparently he wants to erase it, probably as revenge for contemporary fashion giving him the blousy orange jumpsuit and pixie boots he's wearing. I know I'd be pissed off about that.

Doing the manliest space walk ever know, The Beyonder strides towards a small blue-green planet as he expands on his erasure plan; he wants rid of everything including his memory of it. If he were a teenager he'd trash his bedroom and try to burn the photographs of the girl he went out with for all of two weeks over the summer holidays, but he's an all-powerful immortal so the girl becomes the universe and the photos of the girl are his memories of the universe. Frankly, he probably needs a nice cup of tea and a sit down.

Meanwhile, in a Colorado diner, Marsha Rosenberg shows us what a terrible human being she is by eating doughnuts while calling the Avengers Hotline; I've done call centre work, and people who eat while they're on the phone are literally worse than Hitler. But I digress, Marsha is calling the Avengers Hotline to warn them of The Beyonder's plan because she was in a relationship with Owen Reece, The Molecule Man, who had befriended The Beyonder, and Marsha prevented The B destroying the universe already by tricking him. As this is pre-world wide web she's had to call The Avengers but wasn't able to get through... now, of course, she'd Tweet "byndr wants 2 destroy universe. pls help. am eatin donuts lol." or something.

I couldn't find a satisfactory picture of
"Doughnut Hitler" so just opted for the
fucking worst stock photo I could find.

Anyway, Reed Richards mobilises the Fantastic Four (which now has She-Hulk instead of The Thing) and laments the lack of a Pogo Plane because that would be quicker than conventional transport, and because even without a picture of said vehicle we also need reminding that while Reed is a technical genius he's shit at design.

ROCKY MOUNTAIN HIGH

Suddenly, the FF are transported away from New York and find themselves with a large group of other Marvel heroes, plus Marsha who seems to be taking the double hit of surprise teleportation and apparently being goosed by Reed quite well. As there isn't a range of toys to tie SWII with, they have been teleported to the Colorado Rockies rather than a Battleworld^TM playset; and when I say 'teleported' I mean, according to Reed, "reduced to coherent particle beams, transmitted here and reassembled" because why pass up the opportunity to show off what a massive fucking nerd you are?

The Human Torch tries to join in by listing all the groups and individuals who are present, but, really, that ship has already sailed, Johnny... you've already been massively out-nerded before the game even started.

Suddenly, the X-Men appear, and it turns out it wasn't The Beyonder who's done this at all, as I'd assumed, but Rachel Summers. Cap magnanimously agrees to stop being mutantist for the time being so they can deal with The Beyonder, and Wolverine and Colossus respond with appropriate levels of sarcasm. Marsha, determined not to be left out and to move on from Reed Richards' light sexual assault transforms into Volcana and sets fire to the ground, to which Reed and Rachel respond by being a bit patronising because she's still a bit of a n00b, and then Rachel sends her away having used a mind probe to gain the information about The Beyonder they needed.

Fucking hell, Rachel.

THINGS TO DO IN DENVER WHEN YOU'VE BEEN TELEPORTED AGAINST YOUR WILL

And so Marsha finds herself back at her and "Owie's"** apartment, and against her better judgement decides to sneak in and see how Owen is doing... a decision that conveniently also provides a few panels of exposition in which it is explained that when The Beyonder wanted to kill Owen, Marsha pretended that she hated Owen really and Owen collapsed in a sobbing heap which, for some reason, stopped The Beyonder carrying out the murder.

Apparently the plan worked, but at no point in the intervening time has Marsha explained things to Owen and she discovers that the apartment has been completely wrecked (including Owen's beloved teddy) without, it appears, anyone else in the building noticing... and we are left with Marsha discovering her erstwhile boyfriend slumped in an armchair as we go to see what The Beyonder himself is up to.

FROM BEYOND

TB is bored and is failing to alleviate this by conjuring helicopters to fly in. Then he decides to create a "little underground sanctum" (that's actually massive) to think in (and without causing a major seismic incident) which he seals up and then equips with an armchair. Just an armchair. That he sits down in for an undetermined amount of time.

Cunningly, this clip also foreshadows some later jokes.

Eventually he realises that sitting down in a massive empty room is a shit idea if you're bored so conjures up a video camera so the writers can give us two full pages of exposition he can record his thoughts, which I will briefly sum up as "I am all powerful and it's rubbish". And so he asks if ending all reality including himself the answer to his problems?

And yes, it would be the answer to all his problems, while simultaneously being the most selfishly cuntish thing he could do; kind of like the Omnipotency equivalent of breaking into your ex's house then blowing it up while you're still inside just so you don't have to see it on the way to work every day.. yes, it would definitively solve the "seeing the house" problem but ultimately is a really poor choice.

Luckily he decides to try something else first: mortality... his first idea is horrible in an Avengers #200 sort of way, so we'll gloss over that in favour of what he actually does; conjuring up a huge machine which has a design aesthetic somewhat reminiscent of Reed Richards and Annihilus collaborating on a project without having anyone to tell them "no, that looks stupid."

Of course he needs to test the device first, to see whether the whole "creating a mortal body" thing is even viable (which, really, makes him a better scientist/engineer than 99% of the Marvel roster), and he has just the thing: the residual energy left behind after he destroyed the New Mutants.

And it works, after a fashion. The New Mutants are extruded, fully clothed, from a giant bio-mechanical womb and then wander off zombie-like because the process wasn't calibrated correctly and didn't give them their minds or memories... and so, showing that maybe he's not a better scientist than the rest of Marvel after all, TB declares that the test was good enough so he creates a vessel in which to store his power and then sends his own essence into the machine.

A gestation sequence follows, that in my head is accompanied by a Sinister Synth Score, followed by the All-New All-Blond Beyonder (complete with tighty-whities) plopping out of Mecha-Uterus and quickly realising that if there is one thing that's even more shit than being omnipotent, it's being mortal when you know what omnipotence is like. Without a moment's hesitation he plunges his hands into the essence storage vessel and with a flex of the bicep and thrust of the pelvis returns to his previous state.

ELSEWHERE...

It turns out Owen was just having a nap rather than being dead amongst the destruction wrought up on his flat. It seems that at first, following Marsha's cold rejection of him, he was a bit cross and expressed this by trashing his home, so far so Entitled Male... but then he actually grew the fuck up (unlike that cunt in Bristol with the piano) and realised that being in a relationship isn't about someone else completing you, but being complete in yourself and therefore having a strong foundation to build the relationship on.

And then they snog, before Owen resolves that he has to save the world from The Beyonder, even if he has to do it all by himself!

FROM BEHIND

Speaking of whom: our antagonist has come to the stunning conclusion that mortality and omnipotence are both shit but in different ways; so he decides to have another go at the former. The scene plays out like an existential version of the person who couldn't stand a Jalfrezi when sober polishing off a Vindaloo when drunk, really enjoying it, and then discovering the hard way that shitting lava about the worst thing that can happen to you when you're also nursing a hangover. Except the lava-shit is Mephisto and a load of monsters and the hangover is being mortal.

Mephisto was a bit narked by the whole Destroy All Reality thing and so, on discovering that The Beyonder is currently mortal, decided some punishment was in order... and from a shortlist that includes being boiled in bile and used as a grow-bag for razorvines settles on covering The Beyonder in biting maggots, which he provides orally; giving a somewhat literal slant to my metaphor as the curry eater, already feeling sorry for himself as he sits in a piteous heap atop his burning, stinking excretions, then has to watch helpless from the Throne of Pain as his housemate bursts into the bathroom without warning and throws up on him.

But then TB realises something really important... Mephisto can't actually affect humans in this dimensions, merely trick them with realistic illusions. TB strides boldly forwards to once again reclaim his power from the vessel he left it in, while Mephisto conjures the illusion of flames to try and deter him... which of course it doesn't because they're not fucking real, and I can't help but see this as a lack of forward planning on Mephisto's part; he surely would know that TB was fully aware of the limits to his powers so really dropped a bollock by not, say, bringing a load of petrol and a match just in case.

Anyway, even as all of TB's mortal sensese are assailed with the sensation of being burned alive he makes it through to the vessel and regains his power while Mephisto promptly fucks off when he came. So TB rages, for he has many enemies and won't be able to hide from them if mortal, and finding himself back at square one ponders whether the destruction of everything ever is the right choice after all.

Fuck you, Mephisto.

Join me next time as I finish making my way through the pages of Secret Wars II #9, where such questions will be answered as "will The Beyonder really destroy everything?" and "does Marsha cut herself on Owen's weirdly jagged lips when they snog?"



*I'm nearly 40, so actual nowadays might have passed me by and I'm operating on what 'nowadays' was 5-10 years ago.
**Despite what Marsha might think, 'Owie' is not a suitable replacement for 'Owen' unless the recipient is under five. And even then it should be used sparingly.