These go to 11… Fred Van Lente’s COMIC BOOK DEATH MATCH is back and better than ever! Now, as a monthly feature for 2024! See, Marvel this year is celebrating the 40th anniversary of 1984’s 12-issue Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars by re-releasing each installment as a Facsimile Edition every month. And of course, what is the DC event it’s always compared to? Why, 1985’s Crisis on Infinite Earths. And that series is also being re-released monthly. (It started in April.) It’s a great time to revisit two maxiseries that redefined comics for good and for bad. You can click here to find the previous entries, but right now the tally stands at Crisis 6, Secret Wars 4. (The Secret Wars #11 Facsimile Edition is out Wednesday, Nov. 6) Ring the bell, Fred! — By FRED VAN LENTE Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #11: “…And Dust to Dust!” I have agreed with columnist George Will exactly once, when he said the game of football combines the two worst aspects of American life: violence and committee meetings. That’s a pretty good summation of this issue of Secret Wars, too. Like its Crisis counterpart, this is a quiet, stock-taking story after 10 issues of bombast. Because he defeated the Beyonder and absorbed his powers last issue, God-Doom declares that nobody has any reason to fight anymore, and cures Molecule Man of his insecurities. Molecule Man gathers all the villains together and flies them off in the Beyonder-stolen chunk of Denver back to Earth. Though I am pretty sure that Molecule Man’s control over the basic building blocks of matter can’t do jack for faster-than-light travel, so the bad guys have a several-thousand year journey back to Earth from wherever the hell Batleworld is that nobody except maybe Ultron and the immortal Enchantress is gonna survive. Still, he seems so happy I don’t have the heart to burst his bubble. God-Doom summons the heroes to his fortress where he says he will grant them any boon they want, just as the Beyonder was going to do, but now they don’t have to kill anybody to do it. The suspicious heroes say thanks but no thanks, because, well, Doom. They all leave but Captain America, who stays behind to search for Spider-Woman, who has disappeared due to unexplained shenanigans. Along the way, Doom raps with Cap (see what I did there) about his post-Battleworld...