What Is Avengers: Secret Wars? // Comics to Cinema

At 2022’s San Diego Comic-Con, Kevin Feige astounded the world by announcing that Disney and Marvel Comics were making more movies with plans of a Phase Six for their Marvel Cinematic Universe. Sarcasm aside, what really caught the ear of many Cinematic Universe fans was the title Avengers: Secret Wars. With a tentative release date of May 1st, 2026, and zero casting even done for the first movie in that phase, we have a long time of teases, plot reveals, and for the pair of Marvel and Disney to make up their minds on what this movie will be about.

But that hasn’t stopped the speculation train from trucking along. However, it’s become somewhat obvious to us here at You Don’t Read Comics that there may need to be a brief analysis of what comics could be drawn from to make this Secret Wars. You see, Marvel’s used the name multiple times across their 80+ years of comics, and it could well be any of them. We’ll look at the comic and the time it was published, what happened in the comic, and the general odds of if that could be adapted. There might even be a surprise or two in store, as there could be some other stories that are better suited for such a climax.

First, to the great big granddaddy of them all!

Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars
Year: 1984
Writer: Jim Shooter
Pencilers: Michael Zeck, Bob Layton
Inkers: John Beatty, Jack Abel, Mike Esposito
Colors: Christie Scheele, Nelson Yomtov
Letters: Joe Rosen

The origin of Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars is a weird one. Famously, Marvel wanted to combat DC on their own playing field. In this case, action figures. DC had begun selling action figures earlier in the 80s with Kenner, launching the Super Powers line of action figures. They were solid figures for the day and made both Marvel and toy company Mattel nervous as hell. Seeing their mutual competition team up, Marvel and Mattel joined forces to make action figures as well.

Mattel asked Marvel to make a special comic that would push a specific toy line, and any heroes showing up in the line would also make use of the toy designs. In most cases, the toy designs and Marvel’s current designs were fairly close…but a few heroes would have changed outfits for the time being. A name was needed for this shared venture, and a bunch of kids in a focus group decided they really loved the words “Secret” and “War.” And so, Marvel threw all of their action figures into a box and shook it the hell up with the name Secret Wars.

No, seriously.

Secret Wars opens up with a being from beyond, so far beyond they choose to call themselves the Beyonder. They wish to see how Good and Evil work when it comes to humans, so they kidnap a bunch of good guys and bad guys and dump them onto a hodgepodge world made of various other planets called Battleworld. Whoever won would show which was the better force and would win some kind of nebulous prize.

Also, Galactus was there.

As the 12-part story unfolds, heroes die and are reborn, new heroes rise, the Thing leaves the Fantastic Four temporarily, and Spider-Man gets a new costume by dumping some alien goop on his head. Sadly, those last two on the list are pretty much the most major aspect of the story. Secret Wars was designed to be written alongside the after-effects of Secret Wars, and the audience would need to read along to find out how our heroes and villains were changed. The Fantastic Four showed back home with Ben Grimm missing and She-Hulk in his place, leaving Ben to wander around the ruins of Battleworld and try to come to terms with his altered state after Secret Wars. Spidey’s new black costume also turned out to be an alien who just wanted love and wound up becoming half of the villainous Venom that took comics by storm over the entirety of the 1990s.

*The most dangerous fashion* faux paus ever.

But most of the story was awkward dialogue put over action figures smashing together. It’s not a bad story, and it’s something every comic fan should read at least once…but it’s no comic by Alan Moore or Grant Morrison.

There was also a 2009 comic called Spider-Man & The Secret Wars. It’s a quick summary of the same comics from Spidey’s point of view and is a pretty entertaining romp overall. It’s also only four issues compared to the original’s twelve.

Odds of it being used for the movie: 2 to 1

This is the story that launched the term Secret Wars with Marvel comics. It’s also the easiest to adapt, with heroes being kidnapped across the cosmos to punch it up for the enjoyment of a literal God, and has a bunch of actually great moments that could look fantastic on film. The new Marvel cartoon Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur has even introduced a more updated version of the Beyonder as well, so there is a precedent for him existing now.

However, most of the big things depend on either the Fantastic Four being a big force in Phase Six or for existing characters to still be around in 2026. It’s hard to see Mark Ruffalo wanting to come back for what amounts to a background role and a cool scene where he holds up a mountain. We’ll also have substitutes, like Sam Wilson for Steve Rogers, which usually works out fairly fine in the long run. However, we would have a distinct lack of villains unless the MCU Beyonder wanted to start resurrecting villains.

Also, the novelty of “your favorite heroes all gathered in one place” has been utterly strangled in the crib by the MCU choosing to cross everyone over constantly. While this was common in 60s Marvel, it had been mostly relegated to an occasional crossover story or guest appearance that didn’t affect the plot. You also had the Avengers book or the two team-up books Marvel had been running starring Spider-Man and the Thing…both of which had ended by this time.

Secret Wars II
Years: 1985-1986
Writer: Jim Shooter
Pencilers: Allen Milgrom, Josef Rubinstein
Inkers: Steve Leialoha
Colors: Christie “Max” Scheele, Julianna Ferriter, possibly every other Marvel artist under the moniker “Many Hands”
Letters: Joe Rosen, Rick Parker

With the success of Secret Wars, writer Jim Shooter wanted to dive into another event that would be bigger, better, and way more awesome. Luckily, the Editor-in-Chief of Marvel, Jim Shooter, agreed with him. What we got was an event that touched every single comic book Marvel Comics was publishing at the time, from Captain America to ROM Spaceknight. It did not matter what hero or villain or plot the characters of the comic were busy dealing with in their ongoing stories, either. The Beyonder was coming to New York City, and they were going to have to deal with it.

And that was Jim Shooter’s big plan: The Beyonder was going to experience the best and worst of the 80s. And since this was Jim Shooter, he would also weaponize his gripes and complaints about former co-workers, like specifically targeting Howard the Duck creator Steve Gerber, who had just recently left to go write scripts in LA for Marvel’s animated branch.

*SECRET WARS! TAKING POTSHOTS AT FORMER CO-WORKERS!*

Jim Shooter was kind of a dick. As the story evolves, the Beyonder copies Captain America’s body, and Spider-Man teaches him to poop in a perfect metaphor for Marvel Editorial and Spider-Man.

*SECRET WARS! TEACHING A GROWN MAN TO POOP!*

He then makes an entire Manhattan skyscraper into solid gold, breaking the economy for a few years. As the story goes on, the concept of the Beyonder experiencing New York begins to just break down on a fundamental level. The Beyonder who shows up in New Mutants literally slaughters the entire team to experience death, but this is somehow the same Beyonder who would brainwash Dazzler into loving him. Or try to destroy the universe because he felt like it in Uncanny X-Men. Or build a miracle machine to reincarnate himself into a mortal body to experience life.

And then get aborted by the Avengers in a metaphor for how horribly awry the whole thing had gone. Don’t worry, though. This somehow made the Beyonder explode into a new universe with life and evolving humans. This is never commented on again.

Secret Wars II lasted nearly two years, barreling through every attempt at ongoing stories in each comic, and even ended several creative relationships at Marvel, with Denny O’Neil quitting Daredevil after Jim Shooter hijacked issue 223 of his run. It’s barely been collected because the nine main books all lead into other comics, and the whole 48 comic run is just dense and convoluted. Shooter made his best stab at what he felt was a deep and meaningful commentary on life in the 80s, but all he did was piss off nearly everyone working at Marvel at the time.

Odds of it being used for the movie: 1,000 to 1

While we certainly have the Beyonder in the aforementioned Moon Girl & Devil Dinosaur, Disney and Marvel have taken a decidedly safer approach to just about everything these days. It is remarkably unlikely we’re going to see Tom Holland walk someone who looks like a white(r) Chris Evans to the toilet or see Anthony Mackie weigh in on if they should kill God as a baby.

I mean, I kind of want to see that now that it’s been brought up, but…

Secret Wars 3
Year: 1988
Writer: Steve Englehart
Pencils: Keith Pollard
Finishes: Joe Sinnott
Colors: George Roussos
Letters: Lenny B. Workman

By 1988, Jim Shooter was gone. His attempt to make a second branch of Marvel, the New Universe, basically exploded in his face, and he was ousted by new owners. As such, you would think that the Secret Wars moniker would fade away, right?

Yeah, Steve Englehart doesn’t do that. This is the man who either dredges up the ancient dark corners of continuity for new stories or does things so new and weird that his editors would get scared and ask him to back off. Sometimes both. In the middle of a run on Fantastic Four that was proudly doing the latter, the team went on an excursion into the Negative Zone to find the secret of the Beyonder…with Doctor Doom at their side. Since Reed and Sue had retired from the team during Englehart’s run, this isn’t actually as insane as it sounds.

No, the real insanity happened when they made it to the boundary of the Negative Zone and found the domain of the Beyonder.

*“Suuuuure. Just go find the Beyonder. Demand power from him. Great idea, Vic.”*

The God Beyonder does not take kindly to this interruption and shows up in his best battle armor to smack the team around. As it turns out, however, Doctor Doom only wants to regain the memories he had lost due to the shenanigans caused by being included in the first Secret Wars despite being dead at the time. However, they’re interrupted by a pair of tesseracts (or Cosmic Cubes, if you’re a comic fan) that have gained sentience, as they apparently do.

It also turns out the Beyonder and reformed villain Molecule Man are two parts of the same being that desires to become a tesseract to someday evolve into a higher being.

*This little guy is the Molecule Man, one of Jim Shooter’s favorite villains who had a major role in the last two* Secret Wars books. He is going to die. True to Secret Wars, we’re still taking potshots at creators.

So two dudes become a cube…

*No, it still doesn’t make sense reading the comic.*

…and Ben Grimm blows his chance to wish for peace throughout the cosmos.

*Yeah, the Englehart run made a lot of decisions. I really love the run, but it’s not for everyone.*

Odds of it being used for the movie: 500:1

Let’s be honest: “Two dudes become a cube because other cubes said they should” is not the grand finale Disney and Marvel will want for Phase 6.

Secret War
Year: 2004
Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Painter: Gabriele Dell’Otto
Letters: VC’s Cory Petit

Secret War came out at the time when comics were living through the American cultural panic attack of post-September 11th, 2001. As such, comic books were becoming more “realistic” and “darker” because life just somehow didn’t support the idea of heroes in spandex after the Twin Towers collapsed. Brian Michael Bendis would be the writer for this event, having made a name for himself at Marvel on the Marvel Knights and Ultimate lines of books that were both thought of as more serious takes on superheroes for the era at the time. And he felt that we needed to somehow comment on the nightmare America was becoming.

And so, supervillains have become terrorists, as Bendis has the heroes of the Marvel Universe ask who is bankrolling the supervillains of their universe. After all, super tech costs money, even though no one really bothered asking this question before 2004 in a universe where super tech can literally fall out of the skies or be invented by some Joe on the corner.

*I get the point Bendis is trying to make, but I just don’t see D-listers like Grizzly and go “Terrorist.”*

It turns out the small European nation of Latveria has actually been funding all of these supervillains and funneling funds through smaller operations like the inventor Tinkerer to destabilize America on purpose. The links are sketchy at best since the suspected person has only recently been in charge, and Doctor Doom has allegedly not been funding the supervillain terrorism market…and so the United States chooses not to intervene.

Instead, Nick Fury (the white one from the 1960s) chooses to take a bunch of loner superheroes into Latveria. This includes Spider-Man, Daredevil, Wolverine, Luke Cage, and Captain America. Why?

*“Oh, I thought this was going to be something legal. My bad.”*

I think we can stop here. Marvel isn’t going to be adapting this one.

For those who are curious, the events mentioned before are a year ago, and most of the heroes who participated were made to forget their secret actions by Nick Fury. This comes back to bite them in the rear when all the villains covertly funded by Latveria attack those same heroes at once. They’re being remote-controlled by the (now former) leader of Latveria, who was apparently almost killed by those secret warriors, and Nick Fury gave the heroes amnesia so they wouldn’t feel guilty about overthrowing a government or being an accessory to killing hundreds of innocent people.

It’s actually a really solid story and one with a good mystery hook, but I can see the Mouse getting cold feet immediately over the first twist.

Odds of it being used for the movie: 1,000 to 1

Overthrowing a nation because of terrorism concerns is just a massive red flag for the big D. The big villain brawl would be great on the big screen, however, and could be a fantastic finale for a movie.

If this was to be used at all, Secret War could be used as the base for a much better story, akin to Civil War and the movie iteration. If so, this could be used as the launching pad for Nick Fury’s final stand if Samuel L. Jackson wishes to retire the character entirely.

BEYOND!
Year: 2006
Writer: Dwayne McDuffie
Artist: Scott Kolins
Colors: Paul Mounts
Letters: Artmonkeys’ Dave Lanphear

BEYOND! is…a comic that was released in 2007. The late Dwayne McDuffie was a legend among comic fans, known for helping create some of the strongest animated works of the late 20th and early 21st century. Everyone has an off day, however, and BEYOND! looks to have been his.

Like in 1984, the Beyonder summons up a bunch of heroes and villains to Battleworld for open combat. However, this time he demands they all kill one another until only one is left, something that might have been inspired by the 2000 Japanese movie Battle Royale, but certainly predates the modern American obsession with the concept. Gathered in weird costumes, we have guys who should be familiar with the Beyonder, like Spider-Man, the Wasp, and Henry Pym in a non-insect-based costume. We have newer people like the 2000s attempt at a Spider-Man-inspired hero Gravity, the time Spider-Man villain Scorpion was also Venom, Firebird, and the villainous Hood. And people who are dead, like Kraven the Hunter in a new design that makes him look like a tech bro trying to hunt big game for the first time despite having lived in Seattle for their entire life.

*Yes. Because a tiger-printed button-up shirt and sunglasses make you a brave hunter.*

Weirdly, no one comments on the fact that the Beyonder has done this before, and no one comments on the fact that Kraven should be dead. Especially Spider-Man, who was the direct cause of Kraven’s suicide.

Some of this is explained when Venom kills Spider-Man in seconds, only for Spider-Man to become a zombie, only then to have actually been a long-running, really obscure Marvel villain named Space Phantom.

Things spiral out of control, with Venom trying to kill everyone, then Hank Pym deciding to kill everyone, only for him to have been hiding everyone by shrinking them really, really small and hoping no one noticed. It then turns out the Beyonder isn’t the Beyonder at all!

*“And how does that change things, exactly?”*

This still doesn’t actually explain anything, but it fits the M.O. of the character better. The Stranger is known for often dropping in and testing characters from time to time, but generally just does his own thing. He’s an upper cosmic power like Galactus, only really weird and sparingly used.

And it still doesn’t explain why the Wasp and Hank Pym don’t know who the Beyonder is.

The Stranger tries to kill them all but gives up when he realizes he’ll have to put in effort. Instead, he gives them a repaired transport craft and recommends they hoof it to where it originally crashed earlier in the story. Because Battleworld is falling apart, as he no longer cares to keep it together.

And then the new kid Gravity dies, despite being a popular fan-favorite character at the time, saving everyone in the process. But don’t worry, the comic itself even says he won’t be dead long.

Look, I told you this was McDuffie’s off day. Don’t blame me.

Odds of it being used for the movie: 4:1

There’s always the chance that someone will put this across Feige’s desk. It’s fairly chaotic and cluttered with a lot of weird twists that aren’t expected by anyone reading this for the first time. The reveal of the Stranger is also a great introduction for fans to the wider weird Marvel cosmos since performing weird experiments on unsuspecting people is his thing.

However, the twist of “Spider-Man is this dude who hasn’t been in comics for decades” and having a hero claim to kill everyone just doesn’t quite work in what you would see Disney approve of for the big screen.

Secret Wars
Year: 2015
Writer: Jonathan Hickman
Artist: Esad Ribić
Colors: Ive Svorcina
Letters: Chris Eliopoulos & Clayton Cowles

The 2015 incarnation of Secret Wars is a bit of an odd duck. It is the culmination of writer Jonathan Hickman’s multi-year story about a secret team of heroes accidentally breaking the multiverse and a whole species of Beyonders wanting to destroy reality to start over. What happened at the end, however, was that Doctor Doom took the remains of all reality and fused them together into Battleworld, with himself set as the God-King lording over all. What could go wrong?

Marvel Comics made the whole thing a massive, almost year-long event, with every comic published by Marvel replaced by either a Battleworld equivalent, or telling stories spinning out of popular storylines and events that take the angle of “what if that never ended?” These feature stories like the Civil War spiraling out of control, or an entire alternate land made of X-Men: The Animated Series going under the name of X-Men ‘92 for legal reasons.

*Seriously, it was the highlight of the event for me.*

The few remaining heroes from the original Marvel Universe who survived the detonation of all reality found themselves forced to either rebuild lives inside these Battlezones under the watchful eye of Lord Doom or resist and try to bring a better world back.

You can guess which option they chose.

The end result is a massive explosion of talent in comics and one hell of a ride. Even if you’re a casual fan of comics, one of the Battleworld or Warzone stories will have something awesome that you just can’t quite find anywhere else. Despite being the sixth title in this loosely-titled Secret Wars series, this is easily the best of the bunch, even if you didn’t read the years of build-up to the event.

Odds of it being used for the movie: 2:1

With the MCU’s current obsession with the Multiverse as a concept, and “Variants” of characters continuing to be a major factor in movies and TV shows, this is almost a done deal. The visual idea of a Battleworld filled with alternate realities, moments frozen in time, and logical extensions of a story carrying on for too long are great for cinema. The “final showdown” between Reed and Doom is also fantastic, but likely will not be converted since the Fantastic Four will only have been in two movies at most by this point.

However, this idea really only works because Marvel had almost 80 years of continuity at this point. 80 years of stories, 80 years of major events to draw from and inspire key areas, and even a ton of weird alternate universes to draw from. While the MCU has been around for 10 years, most of the focus has been on just the heroes who would become the Avengers or team up with the Avengers. Unless Feige doubles down on the idea of Variants and starts hiring anyone who’s ever worn a Marvel costume, the concept of Battleworld could wind up being a bunch of stock footage played on background TVs while the villain gloats.

So what’s likely to actually happen?

That’s where Kevin Feige actually has a chance to make a gem of a movie plot. By pulling the best ideas from each work called Secret Wars, an honest epic could be made here. We’ll be ignoring the actual odds and instead look at what could be done with Marvel’s usual history in movies.

Kang is being set up as “the villain” for the time being in the MCU, with the movie coming out just prior to Secret Wars being The Kang Dynasty. It’s remarkably unlikely that we would have a pull of the Beyonder out of nowhere, but we do have three years to build up references to and hints of such a being existing.

Instead, it’s a solid bet that we’ll see Kang as the villain who pulls off Battleworld, should one exist. The way the MCU is setting him up, we’re looking at a Kang who can manipulate time and space, who could easily create weird variations of our known heroes. This could also open up alternate timelines, creating more fan-pleasing situations like Spider-Man: No Way Home.

Using Secret War could give us a nice story theme as well. Could we see Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury taking one last ride by gathering up what heroes he can to strike against a dominant Kang? This could involve alternate actors for known heroes, familiar faces in new roles, and all with Nick Fury’s final mission being heavily advertised.

But that said, those are probably the only aspects we’ll wind up seeing of these various comics in Avengers: Secret Wars. After all, Captain America: Civil War really only took the idea of Team Tony and Team Steve from the comic event of the same name, and did all the better for it.

Either way, I’m sure it’ll make a bazillion dollars, and we’ll have another Secret War of some kind come out in comics in 2026 to push that marketing engine. See you there!