Yesterday, Marvel teased “Civil War” #1 for Summer 2015, to various forms of confusion. The best assumption we could make was that, given the multiversal crossover that is the upcoming “Secret Wars”, we’d be seeing an alternate reality re-iteration of the event in some form or fashion (though the additional announcement of a “Civil War” film certainly complicated matters).
Well, today, Marvel is teasing “Age of Ultron” vs “Marvel Zombies” in another ominous Summer 2015 teaser. I believe the multiversal retelling of events is certainly a theory with some credentials now, isn’t it? With all the incursions occurring in the pages of Hickman’s “Avengers”/”New Avengers” that lead up to the new “Secret Wars,” it only makes sense that certain huge events would be re-visited — and even mixed and mashed together.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that it’s just alternate realities. There are other potential theories that fit, especially since so far Marvel is revisiting new-er events, which is a rather interesting factoid. Many fans fear that Hickman’s “Time Runs Out” story that leads into “Secret Wars” could be Marvel’s form of a New 52 — ie, a complete reboot of their entire publishing line from the bottom up. While I doubt Marvel would wipe the slate clean, it perhaps stands worth noting that the original “Age of Ultron” ended with multiple timelines colliding and forming the current Marvel U, the ramifications of which we’ve not fully explored or been able to understand yet. Some things are different, and supposedly aspects of time have been condensed, but how? I think the most we’ve seen explained is Angela’s role as a Marvel character now, but someone doing some sharp PR spin could certainly say, “Oh, well that’s why you never knew about Iron Man being related to the Hulk’s creation” as well.
So if “Civil War,” “Age of Ultron” and “Marvel Zombies” all getting the headline again is not just some big “What If?” revamp (especially since, well, we’ve had “What If?s” of all of these stories), we could perhaps speculate on other ideas as well beyond alternate reality iterations of the events. Is this re-visitation of certain events a chance for Marvel to show us what is different in their new history now while also getting to basically put out previously successful books again (as both “Civil War” and Marvel Zombies” represent some of Marvel’s biggest hits of the past decade)? Time will tell. Your guess is as good as mine.
We’ll let you know more as it is revealed.
