Marvel's Secret End?

Let's begin with the end of Marvel comics.  Well, maybe.  I'm not exactly sure what's happening.  I'm sure Marvel isn't closing its doors, just read on.


Yesterday (November 4, 2014), Marvel released another little idea, storyline, something, to finish off what has so far been a whole slew of older "Big Events" dealing with next year's Secret Wars (named after the first Marvel big event) which includes Planet Hulk, Armor Wars, House of M, Age of Ultron, and others.  While I'm not exactly sure what it's about, this idea given only as "Everything Ends" with a dramatic white background and fading letters seems to imply that something big is ending before this Secret Wars thing goes on and it looks multiversal.  Could this be a Marvel reboot similar to DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths, or maybe even a softer reboot in the form of DC's New 52 (or Post-Flashpoint as I've seen some call it)?  I honestly don't know.  It could be just a rehash of old stories told again, or maybe have no bearing whatsoever on the primary 616 universe.  Whatever it is, Tom Breevort has said it is the biggest thing Marvel has ever attempted.  But take that with a grain of salt as Marvel always says this about every big event they have and so go ahead and paint me as a brainless skeptic.

Also, I'm not sure how this can all be multiverse as Armor Wars, Civil War, and Planet Hulk have all taken place in the 616 unless this is some sort of Sphinx vs Sphinx gambit where they just pull people from space and time as they want in a champion's like match the original Secret Wars was like.  This very well could just be a blown up forum argument told in grand comics style.  Maybe the three are from the What If universes or something.  Like the one where Cap died and Stark took over his role, or the Annihilation wave came and the heroes resolved themselves.  Or maybe they're all brand new interpretations of these universes as suggested by "Years of Future Past."  Who knows? Is this even a good idea?

What I do know (going back to the topic) is that with Marvel sort of capping the prior events before Secret Wars with "Everything Ends," does lend to the idea that Marvel is considering something of a reboot after seeing the success DC has had with it and Marvel's struggles to create fresh new readers.  This could be an appeal and huuuuuuge jumping on point for the influx of fans the Marvel movies have but which are not flocking to comic stores despite the interest.  It's not like Marvel hasn't heavily changed characterizations and storylines to better match stories.  Just look at the awful Invincible Iron Man in the Marvel NOW! line written by the normally pleasing Kieron Gillen and given pictures by Greg Land (I'm not sure how I want to title what Greg Land does, but I don't want to say "artist" because calling him one would be like calling Taco Bell authentic Mexican fare).  In this title Tony Stark was Robert Downey Jr.'d hard to appeal to the extremely popular movie fans and it came off as this really weird hard to read character who was a lot less like Tony Stark and more like some guy trying to imagine what being Robert Downey Jr trying to be Tony Stark was like.  Where Tony Stark was definitely condescending, he was now like some guy who didn't understand why his cute and quirky charms weren't winning over anybody.  And then Stark headed to space when he realized he didn't understand what planet he was on anymore Marvel demanded him to be.  And while some good has come of this (such as Hawkeye's costume), I can't help but feel that Marvel feels like they're having a hard time making a translation of good will from the movies to their comics where they're struggling to find new readers.  Chituari were Skrulls, and now they're a subsect of Skrull.  The Guardians of the Galaxy were more or less a space horror slave team turned serious (if humorous) heroes and now they're fun little jump around heroes led by Peter Quill who previously wouldn't even entertain the name Star Lord prior to Annihilation: Conquest and now happily quips it whenever he gets the chance.  If I were a new reader and I wanted to read some prior history, I would be at a loss of the confusion.

And so...  maybe a reboot would be best.  At least a minor one.  To take off some of the old stories, beat the carbon out of them like an air filter you don't want to replace in your car, and shake up the universe just a bit.  It's not like Marvel hasn't flirted with restarts before in stories like Heroes Reborn or the Ultimate Universe being a fresh take, and which both were bleh.  But that's because Marvel never really dedicated hard to them.  Sure, you'll tell me Marvel had to push these stories as they wanted to sell books, but Marvel didn't dedicate like they do to their primary books like DC would.  Marvel is generally cowardly in this regard, but maybe they're finally ready to take the plunge and go into at least "Infinite Crisis" territory where it turns out the Sentry from another universe comes along and punches reality so hard it would explain why Ant Man and the winsome Wasp were no longer founding members of the Avengers and instead Black Widow and Hawkeye took their places.

So maybe this Everything Ends is something of a new beginning like DC has successfully done.  I sort of hope so, actually.  I'd like to see a continuity reduced Iron Man going around as the Superior Iron Man without all the weight of the Armor Wars sort of contradicting the whole idea. (Armor Wars was about Stark wanting to keep his tech out of other's hands since it was killing people, where SIM sort of wants people to have his tech despite this being way worse.)  I'd like to see a fresh take on other story lines like Civil War, where Marvel makes better writer decisions than the extremely lopsided JMS for Anti-Reg/Mark Millar for Pro-Reg. It's hard to not see benefits to a reboot for many forgotten stories and characters despite my liking for old continuity.  It does suck to think that the stories I've collected for years and years and years and years (let's call it at least a couple decades), might amount to just a little more than "nothing," but as a comic fan who loves stories I can't help but feel a little excited.

But then again, it could be Marvel hyping up some sort of big event with "EVERYTHING CHANGES FOREVER AND EVER FOR SERIOUS, GUYS!" only to return to the status quo later on.  I hope not, but you never know.