One of Marvel Comics most famous stories back in the eighties was the Secret Wars maxi-series which brought together some of the best of their heroes against some of the worst villains into a battle arranged by the mysterious Beyonder a powerful being from "beyond the universe". I recall reading this first time round though no longer have the issues and frankly don't remember being that impressed with it.
For Marvel however this was a big success and inevitably spawned a sequel which I managed to not read. That it was reprinted for the British market comes as no surprise. I have seen a couple of copies and these were magazine sized full colour reprints but given my lack of interest I never bothered with.
Times change and I no longer even have the original series this particular annual caught my attention as I've been collecting Marvel UK material for a while so picked so picked a copy up. This full colour volume collects the first issue or part of it at least which is "too be continued in Secret Wars Fortnightly.
Not having seen the first issue I have to assume readers had to buy this annual to get the full introductory story. Perhaps someone with a copy could let me know. Interestingly there's a bit of a spoiler as the bulk of the annual is actually taken up with a reprint of Marvel Team-Up Annual # 7 starring Spider-Man in his new outfit (and back on Earth) which he picks up during the Secret Wars saga.
The story also features Alpha-Flight the Canadian super-hero team (which I've never bothered with) and the Collector, one of the Elders of the Universe who is up to his usual tricks. It's an enjoyable read and certainly makes me think I ought to try and get a collected edition of Secret Wars and give the story another try.
This was the comic that started my love of superhero storytelling. I believe the Annual reprinted the first few issues of the story for those that missed the start of it (which I had) a few months after the fortnightly series began.
ReplyDeleteConversely, for myself this was the comic book series that finally ended my interest in Marvel. Not that it was awful but for me it was yet another in a series of bland storyline and comics that for me devoid of the wonder that earlier books and creators had - Then again I was 24 maybe that was a factor 😀
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