“Trying to Re-Imagine Memory Lane…”

Writer: Paul Tobin
Penciler: Patrick Scherberger
Inker: Terry Pallot

First – A History Lesson…

I was in junior high when the first Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars 12-issue limited series launched and back in 1984 it was a real roller coaster ride of ambition, betrayal and action.  The series gets unjustly maligned these days by many who weren’t there to experience it first-hand.  A lot of the comments you’ll see about it today bemoan that it was released to coincide with a toy line, or that Jim Shooter’s dialogue fails to stand the test of time.  Or any number of misguided critiques honed by today’s jaded sensibilities.  Such arguments are issued from a mindset lacking a basic understanding of the sole reason the first Secret Wars is popular to many: it’s just damn fun.  It wasn’t trying to be anything other than an 80’s comic equivalent to summer popcorn movies.  Lots of fighting & lots of explosions.  It wasn’t pretentious in its execution and came from those wondrous, magnificent days before Watchmen or The Dark Knight Returns.  The first Secret Wars was the product of a time getting ready to say goodbye to an older (perhaps safer) method of comics storytelling and preparing to herald in a new wave of dark blunt-force cynicism where practically everything would start trying to mimic Alan Moore or Frank Miller.

So this past summer I was glad to hear about a new project from Marvel paying homage to this fantastic storyline with a story told from Spider-Man’s point of view.  And since my Spider-Man reading has dwindled down to “basically nothing” in the wake of Joe Quesada’s Brandnewverse I was especially happy to see something coming down the line I might actually like.  Those are few & far between these days: a tale of the real, classic Spider-Man thankfully bereft of anything resembling devil-deals or drunken/non-drunken hook-ups.  But was I hoping for too much?  Spoilers below…

The Good

Writer Paul Tobin seems to be a fan of the original source material.  I can’t confirm this, surely, but when he throws in bits to the story that old school Secret Wars fans are sure to recognize and love then he seems to be wearing his appreciation of the first Secret Wars on his sleeve.  And good for him.  Moments like the heroes seeing a chunk of their former base hurtling at them from afar or the tapping the heroes hear while the Hulk’s keeping the heroes alive by holding up a mountain come across like gleeful remembrances from an old school Marvel fanboy of old.  I really enjoy that.  Tobin’s sense of humor’s spot on here as well with some great stuff from both Spidey and the Hulk and he seems fairly comfortable retelling the story from Spider-Man’s shoes.

Patrick Scherberger’s art style is enjoyable and his action scenes flow well.  For some reason it reminds me of a mix of Mike Wieringo and John Romita Jr.  If Wieringo and Romita Jr.’s styles met, hit it off and had a love child it might look like this.  To me that’s a good thing since I like both of those styles.  Scherberger does justice to the action first laid down by Mike Zeck in the first four issues of Secret Wars and as a big Mike Zeck fan I give Scherberger well-earned praise.

The Bad

Unfortunately it’s not all puppies and sunshine.  The key ingredient of this story – Spider-Man’s personality – is presented here more as a rookie, upstart super-hero at best or an immature hero at worst, much like what Marvel’s currently offering in Amazing Spider-Man.  This Spider-Man comes across as inexperienced and young and is in stark contrast to the Spider-Man of the first Secret Wars.  That Spider-Man was the mid-80’s Spider-Man of the Roger Stern & Tom DeFalco mode and the way Tobin writers Spidey here during the same time frame is at odds with what originally happened.

Also, the friction Spidey builds between himself, the Hulk and Captain America doesn’t work for me here.  The Spidey of this era wasn’t a hero who was quick to continually question and second guess Captain America.  He wasn’t the badly characterized Mark Millar Spider-Man of Civil War.  He was the mid-80’s Spider-Man who would remember Cap going to bat for him against the government when the Avengers considered Spidey for a spot with the Avengers for the second time (the first having been Amazing Spider-Man Annual #3.)  The Hulk seems mildly out-of-character here as well considering, again, the time period.  During the first Secret Wars Hulk was “Banner Brained” (or whatever that was now that it’s been retconned) and pined for Betty.  I don’t remember the struggles with temper or the possibility’s of the Hulk strength and the temptations it presented having been that much for an issue with the Hulk in the original story.  Here they seem more pronounced.

And though I like things that I mentioned above (see ‘The Good’) like the chunk-of-base hurtling at the heroes from out of nowhere or the tapping they hear inside the mountain… folks who haven’t actually read the original are going to be clueless as to what in the Hell that’s all about.  In other words that it was Titania who threw a chunk of their old base at them or that the tapping they heard was Thor’s hammer as he worked trying to rescue the heroes from under the mountain.  Some more explanation of some of the things going on in the story might be helpful to readers picking this up who haven’t read the original work.

While I do really enjoy Patrick Scherberger’s art there are some missteps here.  The characters’ ages seem all over the place.  Even on the cover Nightcrawler looks about twenty years older than the Hulk.  Sometimes Hawkeye looks like a teenager.  And Spidey’s given the ultra-slim treatment which is the opposite of how he looked originally in the first Secret Wars.  So these changes are jarring and distracting at times.  That and Captain Marvel’s missing her big afro (which I loved!) and She-Hulk’s got a different costume.  I miss the leg warmers!

The Ugly

The thought of a saddle on the Hulk.  GAH!  It’s one of the jokes in this story, and it actually works – I laughed.  But the mental image of someone pony-training the Hulk brings up the possibility of long-term psychological damage.  Heh.

Bottom Line It For Me, Berryman!

Its heart is in the right place but the execution is at times flawed.  If you’ve read and enjoyed the first Secret Wars the differences will seem profound but you’ll probably like it despite that.  If old school Marvel action isn’t your bag and you prefer today’s run-of-the-mill, unnecessarily dark, melodramatic morality plays… then yeah this might not be for you.  But if you like your super-heroics big, bright, loud and fun then you might consider this worthy of your attention.

3 out of 5 Webheads

–George Berryman!