With the exception of the Secret Empire: Omega epilogue, which is due September 13th, this event ended with the release this week of Secret Empire #10. I’ve been seeing a lot of bad reviews for the event as a whole, but I thought it was pretty good. As did Tom Kelly. I can understand some people’s anger/frustration at the whole “Captain America’s a Nazi” storyline. But I was fine to let that play out. C’mon, we’ve all read comics before. You knew how this was going to end. (Especially when solicits for post Secret Empire books reveal the status of the Captain America character anyway.) But a lot of people just hated the event outside of that. I don’t really get it. It had it’s good and bad points, occasional issues with pacing and other typical problems these types of events have, but it was infinitely better than Civil War II for example. It had a lot of tie-ins, but nothing compared to recent events like Civil War II or Secret Wars. And for the most part those tie-ins actually had relevance and tended to avoid the typical problem many Marvel tie-ins have of just rehashing the same event from the main series from different angles. (Though one of this weeks books falls victim to that, which we’ll get to shortly.)
As for this update, let’s get the easy stuff out of the way first and then it gets a tad messy.
First things first, Secret Empire #10 takes place immediately after Secret Empire #9. No problem placing that one.
If you scroll down you will see for the first time that I’ve included all ten Generations one-shots. I’ve been reluctant to include them in the past until we knew exactly how they tied into Secret Empire. And I’m happy to say that in previous discussions I absolutely nailed how the tie-in would be handled. That said, while I’m including them (and half of them are not out until next week), I still feel they are a completely unnecessary part of your Secret Empire experience. But since Secret Empire #10 goes out of it’s way to promote them, I felt obliged to include them.
The Mighty Captain Marvel #8 is the culprit I alluded to above that just rehashes the events in the main series. The issue is a slightly fleshed out version of what happens to Captain Marvel and crew as already shown in Secret Empire #8. (It also manages to cast another confusing layer on the placement of the Guardians of the Galaxy Annual, but I’m going to mostly chalk that up to lazy writing and leave it where it currently is.)
After the last update, reader Scott Summers (not the deceased former leader of the X-Men…I don’t think…) asked me why I had moved all of Secret Warriors near the end of the reading order. I gave a lengthy explanation in the comments section of that post if you care to read it. But the more I thought about it, the more the placement didn’t sit well with me. Especially considering this weeks Deadpool #35. Now, in general, Deadpool #35 has nothing to do with Secret Warriors, but I ended up needing to split the issue up and place it prior Secret Warriors #5. And since I was splitting up an issue, I might as well split Secret Warriors #5 as well as part of the issue takes place earlier in the event, while most of it overlaps Captain America #25.
Splitting Secret Warriors #5 also allowed me to move the other four issues closer to the beginning of the event where they feel like they belong. I haven’t moved them up as far as I had them previously, as I still wanted to keep it them somewhat close to issue #5. For the most part they are context free and can be read anywhere after Secret Empire #0. If you want to keep the issues together, just read them all right before where issue #5 is placed.
The reason I had to split up Deadpool is that the first 4/5ths of the book take place prior to Secret Empire #8, while the last few pages quite clearly take place after the conclusion of Secret Empire #10. If you want to keep this issue intact and not split it up, be sure to read it after that last issue of the main event. As part of the Deadpool #35 placement I also moved up issue #34 to lead into it.
And I think that will do it for this week. The next and final update will probably be after the release of Secret Empire: Omega, unless one of the five Generations titles from next week comes up with something mindblowing to alter the reading order, which I highly doubt.
- Road To Secret Empire [Trade]
- Captain America: Sam Wilson #21 [Unbranded]
- Uncanny Avengers #22 [Unbranded]
- Captain America: Steve Rogers #15 [Unbranded]
- Deadpool #31
- U.S. Avengers #5 [Opening Salvo]
- Thunderbolts #12 [Opening Salvo]
- Captain America: Steve Rogers #16 [Opening Salvo]
- Secret Empire #0
- Mighty Captain Marvel #5
- Uncanny Avengers #24
- Uncanny Avengers #25
- Ultimates2 #7
- Amazing Spider-Man #29
- U.S. Avengers #6
- X-Men: Gold #7
- X-Men: Gold #8
- Secret Empire: Brave New World #3 (Daily Bugle and Starbrand stories)
- Secret Empire Free Comic Book Day 2017
- U.S.Avengers #7
- Amazing Spider-Man #30
- Amazing Spider-Man #31
- Avengers #9
- Mighty Captain Marvel #6
- Mighty Captain Marvel #7
- Secret Empire: Brave New World #1 (Giant Man and Gwenpool stories)
- Champions #10
- Occupy Avengers #8
- Occupy Avengers #9
- Secret Empire: Brave New World #4 (Misty Knight and Emma Frost stories)
- Secret Empire #1
- Secret Empire: Brave New World #2 (Patriot story)
- Champions #11
- U.S.Avengers #8
- U.S.Avengers #9
- Deadpool #32
- Deadpool #33
- Secret Empire #2
- Captain America: Sam Wilson #22
- Captain America: Steve Rogers #17
- Secret Empire #3
- All-New Guardians of the Galaxy Annual (2017)
- Avengers #10
- Secret Empire: Uprising #1
- Doctor Strange #21
- Doctor Strange #22
- Doctor Strange #23
- Doctor Strange #24
- Captain America: Sam Wilson #23
- Secret Empire #4
- Captain America: Steve Rogers #18
- X-Men: Blue #7
- X-Men: Blue #8
- X-Men: Blue #9
- Secret Empire: United #1
- Secret Empire: Underground #1
- Secret Empire: Brave New World #2 (Hydra Bob story)
- Secret Empire: Brave New World #5 (Blade and Domino stories)
- Secret Warriors #1
- Secret Warriors #2
- Secret Warriors #3
- Secret Warriors #4
- Secret Warriors #5 pages 1-2
- Secret Empire #5
- Secret Empire #6
- Secret Empire #7
- Captain America: Sam Wilson #24
- Captain America: Steve Rogers #19
- Secret Empire: Brave New World #1 (Invaders story)
- Secret Empire: Brave New World #2 (Invaders story)
- Secret Empire: Brave New World #3 (Invaders story)
- Secret Empire: Brave New World #4 (Invaders story)
- Secret Empire: Brave New World #5 (Invaders story)
- Deadpool #34
- Deadpool #35 pages 1-17
- Secret Warriors #5 pages 3-20
- Captain America #25
- Secret Empire #8
- Mighty Captain Marvel #8
- Secret Empire #9
- Secret Empire #10
- Generations The Strongest #1
- Generations: The Phoenix #1
- Generations: The Best #1
- Generations: The Thunder #1
- Generations: The Archers #1
- Generations: The Iron #1
- Generations: The Spiders #1
- Generations: The Marvels #1
- Generations: The Bravest #1
- Generations: The Americas #1
- Deadpool #35 pages 18-20
That’s it for now. If anywhere along the way you spot anything missing or incorrect or are wondering why I placed something where I did, feel free to use the comments below or message me directly.
according to this there are 6 more tie-ins http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Secret_Empire_(Event) (including secret empire omega)
Hmm…good catch. We’ll have to wait and see how significant these are. And I try to keep to books that are branded as crossovers, but that’s not a hard and fast rule. Guess I better check out last week’s Uncanny Avengers after all…
Generations one-shots are spread throughout September, not coming out all next week.
That would definitely make more sense. When I wrote the article I checked the release schedule at Marvel.com and it had the remaining 5 listed for next week. I should have know better. I don’t find that schedule very reliable. That said, I thought they might have been trying to clue them all up before Legacy came out. Thanks for the update.
YAY I’m famous!
I figured you wanted to stack them together, I also prefer the full run of the tie-in instead of pieces here and there, except when they are possible to pinpoint in the exact location where they occured in the event, which doesn’t seem to be the case with the first issues of Secret Warriors… Thanks for the in-depth explication! I’m honored 😀
Thanks for keeping me honest. It’s a juggling act with a lot of these things. Some are very obvious, some make no sense, and others like 4/5 of Secret Warriors you really have nothing to go by.
Yeah, and then you get something like the newest issue of Captain Marvel that takes place during multiple issues of the main line (Secret empire # 7 and #8)