A alien being of unimaginable, God-like, power coming to Earth to sample the human experience by becoming a pimp, getting a bubble perm and being taught how to urinate by Spider-Man. It can only be Secret Wars II, Marvel’s first, much-derided, line-wide crossover from the mid-80s now, stunningly, coming soon to a bookstore near you.
Apparently inspired as much by writer Jim Shooter’s pretentions as the desire to produce a sequel to toy tie-in hit Marvel Super-Heroes Secret Wars, the original nine issue series from 1985 tied into over thirty other comics, as mysterious god-like being “The Beyonder” – part deus ex machina, part McGuffin who “comes from beyond” – traveled around the Marvel Universe to try and understand this thing we call life. Trying to stretch the superhero comic outside of its usual subject matters, the Beyonder ran into abused children, hookers with hearts of gold and, yes, lots and lots of super-heroes on his quest, but apparently not enough superheroes to stop fans remembering it as “dull, pedantic, pretentious, lackwitted and just plain no fun” and “nine issues worth of mood swings and whiny bitching on an Olympic level“.
Surprisingly, if pre-order options at Amazon and Target are to be believed, almost the entire story (Issues of Rom and The Micronauts have had to be skipped because of rights issues) is being collected in a 1168 page-long celebration to the excesses of the ’80s. The seemingly-official PR for the book reads:
He rescued the Hulk and destroyed the New Mutants, he wrestled the Thing and made a deal with Mephisto, he created Kurse and Thundersword and a tower of gold! Doctor Strange tried to teach him; Dazzler tried to romance him! The Avengers wanted to recruit him, Daredevil to sue him, and Puma and Deadpool just wanted him dead! Hero, villain, force of nature and deus ex machina all in one: the Beyonder! For good or ill, he was one of the most powerful agents of change in the eighties, and now you can see all of his work all at once!
At almost $100, it’s a pricey way to relive childhood memories of a god shooting up heroin to understand what it is to be a junkie (Oh, it actually happens), but it’s also a surprisingly pursuasive one…
