Event Battle 2015: MARVEL’s SECRET WARS vs DC’s CONVERGENCE

When I started this, I had hoped I would somehow turn this into an (almost) annual sort of thing. And now posting the third edition to this, I think I’ve done that, haven’t I?

Welcome to EVENT BATTLE 2015.

Both DC and Marvel had earth universe shattering blockbuster events this year, and frankly, on different levels, I enjoyed them both. Agreed, both events seemed similar, some would even say “recycled” (more on this later), however, they were fun comics, and you know what? Comics should fun.

Let’s take a look at Marvel’s SECRET WARS… 

Written by Jonathan Hickman, Secret Wars is the culmination of his two year run on Avengers and New Avengers. The Avengers, or more appropriately, the Illuminati, are faced with the threat of world destruction by planetary collision. I didn’t really follow Hickman’s run (I know, I know. I’m an idiot.), but from what I recall, the only way for the Illuminati to save their world seems to be the destruction of the other, and this obviously, causes friction among the group members.

To its credit, Secret Wars does not make Hickman’s New Avengers stuff a required reading. The story opens directly with the heroes of Earth 616 (regular Marvel universe) making a life raft to save a handful of people, because, well, saving seven billion turns out to be impossible. On the other hand, the Cabal (Thanos and his group) have already travelled to Earth 1060 (Ultimate Marvel universe)to influence the smartest man there: Reed Richards, aka the Master.

The Master convinces the Nick Fury of the Ultimate Marvel universe that the only way to save Earth 1060 is by the destruction of Earth 616. But the only thing war has ever led to is the ruination of both sides.

Miraculously, Earth is saved by our lord and saviour, Doctor Doom. Wielding the powers of the Beyonders, he almost single-handedly recreates our planet with patchworks from different universes, each territory a domain onto itself under the iron rule of Doom. This, however, is not Earth. This is Battleworld.

The story really kicks off when Doom’s forces discover the two life rafts that had escaped from Earth 1060 and Earth 616, respectively. Learning what Doom has done, how wrong, how broken it really is, the survivors of both earths form a temporary alliance to take down Doom and fix everything. This, however, won’t be easy. You see, if Doom has the power to create a world, doesn’t that make him a god?

I have already spoken about my admiration for Hickman’s ability to write great dialogues. In a book like this, where the antagonist is basically a god king, and territories of his realm are ruled over by royal families, Hickman really takes it to the next level. Maybe it’s the Game of Thrones-esque subplot that forms. Also, Hickman is a clever writer that respects the reader’s intelligence. He does not waste pages on flashback sequences or action scenes. Sure, there are action scenes, but anything that is not so important to main plot, which is of course, Reed Richards (the Earth 1060 one) vs Doctor Doom, is left to the reader’s imagination. Example: he does not explicitly specify exactly what does the Thor of Earth 1060 say to influence the other Thors against Doom. (Yes, you read that right. Thors.)

The story is filled with jaw-dropping, epic moments. I will not spoil them for you, but, um… Thors! Groot! Hulks! Thanos! Black Panther!

Coming to the art on the book, well, it’s gorgeous. Ive Svorcina’s colours over Esad Ribic’s pencils make a fantastic combination.They illustrate the complete nine issues saga without missing a beat.I’ve been a fan of Ribic since the God-Butcher saga he did with Jason Aaron on Thor: God of Thunder, and was saddened to learn he would leaving the book after just one more arc. I guess I didn’t knew he was gearing up to illustrate one of Marvel’s best events in years.

Now let’s take look at what DC had to offer in 2015… 

DC also did a nine issue company wide crossover event. They called it CONVERGENCE.

Brainiac, who over the last few years has been turned into DC Comics’ Galactus, creates a planet to keep his bottled cities, (Brainiac travels the multiverse to capture and collect cultures so that he can study them in their natural environment.), and for some reason, thinks it would be a good idea to make the planet sentinel. The sentinel planet calls itself Telos.

Telos decides that the best way to serve its master would be to do a survival of the fittest type tournament to determine the best of the lot. And thus, everybody… FIGHT!

If you are unfamiliar with the current happenings of Earth-2 in the DC Universe, it got destroyed. Yeah. Anyways, the heroes of that earth did manage to send a couple of spaceships filled with survivors off into the wild before the planet went kaboom. In a twist of fate, the heroes are pulled from certain death to not-so-certain-but-pretty-probable death when they are pulled in to this battle royal by Telos.

Every city on the planet is busy fighting off their opponent city that Telos has picked for them, the heroes of these cities are engaged in a battle for the survival of their city. Earth-2 heroes, as cruel as this sounds, have nothing to fight for. Their world is already dead.

So they decide to bring down Telos and end this madness.

Interestingly, for this event, DC Comics decided to hand over the control of their universe to someone who didn’t have much experience in writing comics. Now, that is not questioning Jeff King’s abilities as a writer. I’m sure he’s a good writer, and like I mentioned earlier, I enjoyed Convergence at its own level. All I’m saying is, if you want to bring in someone who’s not familiar with comic book writing but is pretty famous and all,you bring them in by letting them co-write or take full control of a modestly selling comic book, let them get the hang of the ropes, and then gradually move them up. That is, I suppose, the traditional way. Bold move by DC letting King write their next big crossover event. And guess what? It paid off. Convergence might not be The Omega Men in terms of writing or anything else, but it was much better than Futures End so all’s well that ends well.

Speaking of Futures End, Convergence also does not follow the monthly comic book schedule. That means a lot of artists, a lot of colourists, working round the clock to keep the book on schedule. However, unlike Futures End, the art on Convergence, as disparate as it may be, gels together to form a cohesive unit. And I really loved the colours on this book, man.

THE VERDICT

I’ve mentioned here earlier how the Big Two hype these events as something that is really going to change the course of their respective universe, but once the story is done, they kind of undo the work towards the end, and the event has little to no impact on the shared universe. For a change, both DC’s and Marvel’s event had major repercussions throughout their books. So much in fact, that the implications were solicited weeks before the actual story responsible for those implications had wrapped up.

Now coming back to what I said we’ll discuss later. Both Secret Wars andConvergence have been criticized for “recycling” plots of previously published comic books. Secret Wars, in fact, reuses the title of the very first Marvel event, and all the tie-ins reuse title and/or plotlines of past events, albeit with a twist. In Convergence, Brainiac forms a patchwork planet. These patches from different universes, although separated from each other, are under “the iron rule” of Telos. Sounds familiar? Hold on, there’s more. Telos starts a battle royal tournament on this planet to determine the strongest city, effectively forming a… Battleworld. Dun dun duhh.

This is not the first time the Big Two have been accused of borrowing from each other. Hawkeye and Green Arrow, Swamp Thing and Man-Thing. See a pattern?

And this is not accusing the creators involved of plagiarism. I have immense respect for comic book creators – they make my favourite books! These sort of things just happen. Because if it worked for them and it sells, surely it will work for us too, right?

(Did you know Batman was created because DC wanted to recreate the success of Superman by introducing a new superhero, but since they already had a superhero for the day, they went with a superhero for the night?)

If I had to pick one of the two, I would, with a doubt, go with Secret Wars. Yes, this year DC did a much better job than their past events, but Secret Wars was on a different level, man.

Contrary to what this blog might suggest, I do not read only superhero comic books. Confession: I do not enjoy superhero comic books anymore. I read these events because they give a general idea of what’s going on with both publisher’s line. But boy oh boy did I enjoy Secret Wars. It had not purpose being that good!

PS: The patchwork planet subplot in both events allowed creators to do a lot of interesting stories free from the confinement of continuity and such. So I broke my rule of never reading tie-ins for big crossover events and tried a few. If you also want to try some,here are some recommendations… 

For Convergence: Shazam! by Jeff Parker, Evan “Doc” Shaner, Jordie Bellaire;Swamp Thing by Len Wein, Kelley Jones, Michelle Madsen; Superman by Dan Jurgens, Lee Weeks, Brad Anderson; The Question by Greg Rucka, Cully Hammer, Dave McCaig

For Secret Wars: Thors by Jason Aaron, Chris Spouse, Goran Sudžuka, Karl Story, Dexter Vines, Marte Gracia; Civil War by Charles Soule, Leinil Yu, Gerry Alanguilan, Sunny Gho; Weirdworld by Jason Aaron, Mike del Mundo, Marco D'Alfonso; A-Force by G. Willow Wilson, Marguerite Bennett, Jorge Molina, Craig Yeung, Laura Martin, Matt Milla