“Trying to Re-Imagine Memory Lane…”

Writer: Paul Tobin
Penciler: Patrick Scherberger
Inker: Terry Pallot

First – A History Lesson…

I was in junior high when the first Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars 12-issue limited series launched and back in 1984 it was a real roller coaster ride of ambition, betrayal and action.  The series gets unjustly maligned these days by many who weren’t there to experience it first-hand.  A lot of the comments you’ll see about it today bemoan that it was released to coincide with a toy line, or that Jim Shooter’s dialogue fails to stand the test of time.  Or any number of misguided critiques honed by today’s jaded sensibilities.  Such arguments are issued from a mindset lacking a basic understanding of the sole reason the first Secret Wars is popular to many: it’s just damn fun.  It wasn’t trying to be anything other than an 80′s comic equivalent to summer popcorn movies.  Lots of fighting & lots of explosions.  It wasn’t pretentious in its execution and came from those wondrous, magnificent days before Watchmen or The Dark Knight Returns.  The first Secret Wars was the product of a time getting ready to say goodbye to an older (perhaps safer) method of comics storytelling and preparing to herald in a new wave of dark blunt-force cynicism where practically everything would start trying to mimic Alan Moore or Frank Miller.

So this past summer I was glad to hear about a new project from Marvel paying homage to this fantastic storyline with a story told from Spider-Man’s point of view.  And since my Spider-Man reading has dwindled down to “basically nothing” in the wake of Joe Quesada’s Brandnewverse I was especially happy to see something coming down the line I might actually like.  Those are few & far between these days: a tale of the real, classic Spider-Man thankfully bereft of anything resembling devil-deals or drunken/non-drunken hook-ups.  But was I hoping for too much?  Spoilers below…

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