“Secret Wars” #8 is here and so is Secret Wars Service. Join us as we recap the latest going ons in Marvel’s multiverse-ending extravaganza and wonder if Ben Grimm shouldn’t always be one of the monsters from Attack on Titan. We’ll try to answer that question in our spoiler-filled recap below!
Last time on “Secret Wars”, everyone decided the series should wrap up soon so everyone has mounted an assault on Doomstadt. While Doom was standing on a balcony watching Maximus get slaughtered, Thanos and Black Panther were out raising their armies. Thanos even got Ben Grimm who is now like fifty feet tall (?) to go attack Doom for him. Black Panther, meanwhile, tried to get a bunch of zombies to fight for him until Namor undermined, which is the same action has has been doing to T’Challa since 2012. Also, Thor got the Thor Corps to wage war and spill Doom’s gore. With all these players set to fight, will the final battle outside Doom’s castle be epic? Man, I hope so.
“Secret Wars” #8 kicks off with Star-Lord flying Reed Richards and Evil Reed Richards to Doomstadt while also giving us this month’s obligatory reaction image.
Thanks, Peter.
After that Hulk gremlins Star-Lord’s ship, the trio crashes into Doom’s castle where the Reeds split off and leave Star-Lord by himself.
Elsewhere, the war of a bunch of armies gets heated as Maestro gloats over how great he is when suddenly!
If you’re reading along, play this song
for the next few pages. Makes the whole thing better.
Grimm’s sudden appearance reminds Franklin Richards and Galactus that they’re not exactly meant to be background characters and they jump into action to fight Grimm. And while the Eater of World’s versus The Biggest Guy Outta Yancy Street should be one of the best fights in comics history, it just doesn’t feel like it. And this whole conflict’s just a big example of why I can’t get into this book.
I hate Civil War. I’ve made that plain in the past, but at least Civil War felt like it had stakes. When “Thor” was suddenly resurrected and killed Goliath out of nowhere, it felt like a major shock. I dislike that moment as much as I like anything else in “Civil War” but at least it helped raise the danger in everything. “Secret Wars” doesn’t really have any danger. Ben Grimm’s not really in danger when fighting Galactus because he’s the Ben Grimm of another world and we already have like four comics that have come out that take place post-“Secret Wars” that feature Grimm hanging out with the Guardians of the Galaxy.
So now you have The Thing vs. Galactus which should be this awesome sequence but is just kind of nothing. It’s not even The Thing vs. The Galactus. It’s a low stakes fight that’s happening for super vague reasons and ends with a lamer finish. Ben realizes that Franklin is Susan’s kid and tells him to “do what he’s gotta do”, allowing himself to get obliterated.
That is not what he had to do, Ben. He could have done anything else. You’re not Captain America looking on the destruction the Superhero Civil War is bringing to Manhattan and remembering that the New York Police Department are the real heroes. You just got into a random fight and gave up because of, uh, honor? You didn’t have any questions about why Franklin is riding Galactus? Nothing? Maybe Ben just wanted out of this story so he could fast forward to not being in this mess.
On a positive note, Thanos rides a giant robot worm.
I have nothing negative to say about that.
Back in Doomstadt, Black Swan confronts Star-Lord who pulls out the roll that I thought was a spliff in our first recap column. It’s somehow not. Instead, it turns out to be a suspiciously shaped fragment of Groot that bursts out and destroys the castle.
Continued below
Wow. That looks like it could’ve been useful in any moment before this. I hope Star-Lord doesn’t show up next issue so it’s made abundantly clear that he immediately died from Groot’s explosion.
With all those explosions out of the way, Valeria and Susan run from Doom’s Balcony of Watching over to Molecule Man’s hideout where Ultimate and Vanilla Reed Richards are breaking in. Vanilla turns around to greet the family he thought he lost.
I would’ve done a full review just to give this book a 10.1/10 if this resulted in Valeria not recognizing her dad and calling Reed a gross stranger who needs to shave.
Thanks decides to stop playing with his worm and confronts Doom, reminding Doom that he was a god once too and he’s the one who gets to sit around in all those sweet post-credits scenes. Doom’s just nonchalantly asks if Thanos even has an Infinity Gauntlet and Thanos just kind of blunders around until Doom straight up deaths him.
Fantastic. From now on, if Thanos doesn’t have an Infinity Gauntlet, everyone should be able to beat him. Infinity War should end with Thanos losing the Gauntlet, getting lightly slapped by Coulson, and just crumbling into dust.
With Thanos out of the picture, Doom turns around and is met by Black Panther, Namor, and their zombie army. Like The Thing, they’re a major force that’s been building for a couple issues. So I hope they too look at Franklin and just let him kill them for no reason.
And with that, another issue of “Secret Wars” comes to a close. We’re on the home stretch now, and only have one more issue before we catch up with the current Marvel universe. If you have the time, feel free to leave your thoughts on the crossover in the comments below and keep an eye out for the MC2 to have a full inventory to rank the “Secret Wars” tie-ins once we’re sure they’re all released.
