Jimmy Attempts To Read All Of Secret Wars Part Three (Friday Filler Edition)

So we needed content today and I’ve read a couple of Secret Wars books, so I put two and two together and came up with one.  (Column that is.  #jennymath.)

After the break, a quick spoilery look at A-Force #1 and Deadpool’s Secret Secret Wars #1.  And if you guys behave yourselves, maybe a little bonus book thrown in for your reading pleasure.

Also, if you are like me and haven’t read all of Johnathon Hickman’s Avengers run leading up to Secret Wars, be sure to take Tom’s Road To Secret Wars course at gabbinggeekuniversity.com.  The reading materials are online here: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six and Part Seven.

And that course is a prerequisite to the other parts of this series: Part One, Part Two

Deadpool’s Secret Secret Wars #1

This book was different than I expected.  I thought it would be more in line with the Star Trek Deep Space Nine episode “Trials and Tribble-ations”, which inserted the DS9 crew onto the Enterprise during the original series episode “The Trouble with Tribbles”.  As far as Kirk and company were concerned, events still happened exactly as they happened.  But we get another perspective on events from the time traveling DS9 folks and their attempts to avoid detection.

However, what we get is a retelling of the original Secret Wars as if Deadpool had been there the entire time.  He is interacting with Iron Man and Cap, kicking Kang in the jewels and trying to set up a potential threesome with She-Hulk and Enchantress.  Which is all good if this is more of a What If? story, but if this is a true retcon of the original Secret Wars I say “Boo”, and not “Boo-urns.”

In the backup story, Deadpool also shows up in one of the first true event books, Marvel’s Contest of Champions.  He confronts The Grandmaster and Death because he is pissed that he and other B-Listers like Howard The Duck and Rocket Racer weren’t chosen as combatants.  To shut Deadpool up and to get him out of the way so they can conclude the original series, the Elders of the Universe create a glorified version of capture the flag for their selected B-Lister “Champions”.

On a related note, the recently released Deadpool #45 (or #250, whatever the hell number it is) could easily be a Last Days Secret Wars tie-in.  While much of the very oversized issue has nothing to do with Secret Wars, the main story does conclude with Deadpool’s “death” during the incursion of Earth’s 616 and 1610.

There is also a story in a similar vein to the stories in this issue where Deadpool steals the Infinity Gauntlet.  It is WAY too long and mostly a superhero roast of Deadpool, but at the very least you get to see Thanos in his little helicopter.

A-Force #1

Remember back in February when we posted a rumor that the Star Wars comic universe may be entering Secret Wars? It got our highest page views ever, until a certain Daredevil infographic came along and inexplicably crushed every other post in its path, and continues to give Watson an ulcer.  As it turned out, the “forceful” announcement from Marvel was not Jedi related, but for a new all female Avengers team: A-Force.

Welcome to Arcadia, an island on Battleworld under the protection of pretty much every female hero in the Marvel Universe.  This does not appear to be Marvel’s equivalent to DC’s Themyscira, the island Wonder Woman calls home, as there are males around.  Sub-Mariner is there for some reason.  But they do have a strict “No Watson’s” policy.  Bubba Watson is there, but they’re allowed to have one.

In this issue we find Ms. America, not the pageant winner, but the super hero, taking great offense to an attack by a gigantic sea creature known as a megalodon. After its defeat by A-Force, Ms. America picks up the beast and hurls it off the island, hitting and damaging the great barrier known as The Shield, until it comes to rest in the Deadlands…home of Marvel’s Zombies.

America is immediately charged with breaking one of the key rules set down by Doom that nothing is to cross the borders of any Battleworld Kingdoms.  Team leader She-Hulk pleads with Sheriff Strange for leniency, but no quarter is given.  The Thor’s arrive and take America away to serve her sentence, spending the rest of her life in the prison of The Shield.

Something is not right with the whole situation.  Where did the megalodon come from in the first place?  She-Hulk dispatches Namor, Namorita and Namora to investigate.

Meanwhile, a new unknown female character (that we know from ad copy is named Singularity) falls from the sky unconscious and crashes on Arcadia.