“Secret Wars” is back and so, reluctantly, is Secret Wars Service. Last time on “Secret Wars”, we skipped ahead in time, some dude named “The Prophet” insisted that he would be important to the plot, and Ben Grimm Attack on Titaned his way out of The Wall. This issue, I don’t even know what happened. Let’s try and figure that out in our spoiler-filled recap. below.
So this is going to be a lot.
When we left off in “Secret Wars”, a new figure arose on the political battlefield of, uh, Battleworld: The Prophet. He was rallying forces against Doom’s regime and seemed like a new wildcard ready to shake up the battle against Doom. Of course, a lot of people guessed he was Peter Quill or Maximus the Mad. But that reveal seems like something they’d save for an opportune momen-
Oh, uh okay. Maximus is The Prophet. Pretty cool. So Maximus and his Frazer Irving Screaming Face have led his forces to Doom’s castle. How’s that attack going to go?
Wonderful. I’d argue that this is a lame reveal to one of the big mysteries of “Secret Wars”, but since The Prophet got weakly introduced last issue, it makes sense for him to be weakly killed off here by Madelyne Pryor’s goblin army. Baroness Pryor, of course, is from the background of a few previous issues and an “Inferno” tie-in which had absolutely nothing to do with what’s happening here. “Secret Wars” has had like forty tie-ins and the fact that not even one of them involved what was actually going on in Battleworld is kind of messed up. It’s okay with Pryor because she’s shown up in the past, but wait until we get to the Maestro.
After some more battlefield shenanigans (Mister Sinister gets decapitated by Apocalypse’s forces, makes some puns about being sinister), the action moves over to the Thors Corps headquarters where Jane Foster (spoilers for anyone who hasn’t checked a comic book site in a while) rallies the other Thors against Doom. They’re not having it, throwing hammers at walls and making Esad Ribic faces at everything. Then Jane gives this stirring speech.
HE IS NOT GOOD! HE IS NOT EVEN ALRIGHT! HE IS NOT EVEN OKAY! HE IS NOT EVEN SO-SO! HE IS NOT EV
This scene would’ve been a million times better if Jane just screamed “DOOM AIN’T SHIT!” and all the Thors just simultaneously cheered.
Despite all his forces turning against him, Doom still doesn’t really care. He doesn’t seem to give an iota of crap as THE MAESTRO appears out of GODDAMN NOWHERE with his fleet of Planet Hulk Hulks. Remember when I mentioned The Maestro in passing earlier in this column? That was a better job of setting up The Maestro’s appearance. I know I’m only speaking for a theoretical nonexistent audience here, but if I had no idea who The Maestro was or why he has an army of screaming naked green men, I would put down the comic, stare out the window, and wonder if it’s worth the five minutes to use Wikipedia to figure this whole thing out.
Over at the Reed Richards headquarters, Reed Richards is talking with Reed Richards about how their plan to use Maximus as a distraction is working. As the picture two images above will show you, that is emphatically not true. Anyway, they call Black Panther who is on the other side of Battleworld with the true MVP of thiss story.
If you didn’t make an appearance, Namor, I might have. I really might have.
Black Panther and Namor are on a mission to explode a hole within The Shield so the Marvel Zombies can shamble through and join the fight. All this despite the fact that The Shield walked away last issue. I thought the implications of that scene were that Ben was allowing the zombies to seep through with his departure. But nope. Dude just went for a walk. Anyway, Black Panther frees the zombies who talk like a dying old man’s idea of how potheads talk.
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I’m genuinely surprised that third zombie isn’t just Cheech and or Chong, winking to the camera. Also, why does MODOK look like Stephen Gammell’s illustrations for Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark? Eesh. Anyway, here’s your monthly Twitter avatar, curated by Multiversity Comics’s Ken Godberson.
Black Panther tries to recruit the Toking Dead to his cause and absolutely fails by talking to them. Namoi, meanwhile, grows golden angelic wings and stabs Zombie MODOK which leads to this.
That panel is going to be my reaction when Hickman finally writes a solo Namor series.
And that’s it for this month. “Secret Wars” #7 was a kind of iffy issue that continued the downward spiral “Secret Wars” as it frantically tries to wrap up its plot threads. I’d probably enjoy this more thoroughly if this whole thing didn’t take forever to come out, causing me to forget if Maestro did any asides where he implied he would show up for the final battle. I don’t know. I’m not going to take the five minutes to check my comic drawer if he did that in “Futures End.” Not when we’ve already moved on with “Contest of Champions.” I should recap that series. It has Punisher 2099. You guys like Punisher 2099? I love Punisher 2099.
