COMIC BOOK DEATH MATCH: Secret Wars #2 vs. Crisis on Infinite Earths #2
Meandering Magneto and enter Anthro… 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 Hero 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, of course. And that series will be re-released monthly too, starting in April! It’s a great time to revisit two maxiseries that redefined comics for good and for bad. We’ve looked at the first issues already — now on to Round 2! (The Secret Wars #2 Facsimile Edition is out Feb. 28.) Ring the bell, Fred! — By FRED VAN LENTE SECRET WARS #2: “Prisoners of War!” (Released Feb. 28, 1984) Magneto’s rehabilitation from generic world-conquering baddie to complex Holocaust survivor begins in earnest circa 1981’s Uncanny X-Men #150, in which he feels bad about (apparently) murdering a teenager because she kind of reminds him of his daughter. Now, some might argue that this just proves Magneto lacks empathy for people who don’t share specific parts of his background, but hey, all recovering narcissists have to start somewhere, right? (BTW, back in the day I wrote a sequel to Uncanny X-Men #150 I’m really proud of and Scott Koblish drew the hell out of it, check it out if you get the chance.) What does this have to do with Marvel Super Hero Secret Wars #2, you ask? Not much, except that it is a comic book written by Jim Shooter, the same editor-in-chief who insisted Jean Grey get killed off for genociding an entire planet while she was possessed by an Evil Space Bird. Moral ambiguity in X-villains is not really his comfort zone, is what I’m saying, which might explain why the action of this comic is so confused. Last issue, Professor X even showed up on Battleworld in a wheelchair, when he can walk just fine in Uncanny, Marvel’s best-selling regular series. This continuity oopsie is amusingly hand waved here by Reed Richards saying that The Beyonder “fixed little things that seemed to be wrong, or missing.” Little things, Mr. Fantastic? More like Mr. Ableist, am I right?! I wonder if at one point the big reveal of this series was going...
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