Secret Wars II - Atop the Fourth Wall 

This is the Intro Maker of ECM5, everybody! I need to clarify a few things. I was gonna wait until my Quarterly Update on my channel to explain things, but I say it here. It doesn't matter if this gets a highlighted post or not. Firstly, no. Lewis is not paying me since I do all this for free. I would rather get tips for the tip jar. Secondly, if you saw in the ending credits, yes I've been having a rough time since the end of June of this year. First my computer got hacked totally compromising my Discord Account. I do have another one that is a bit older. The hack happened the same day my Grandmother passed away. No job, no commissions, no paid musical requests, barely any money, my computer getting hacked, and my Grandmothers' passing, it was enough to break me down. One bad day, as the Joker would say. I thought for sure I had to get a new computer. Thankfully, it didn't come to it and I was able to thwart the hacker before he/she did any real damage to both me and my family members. So I have been pretty low as of late. I will have to get a new computer at some point, but I don't have the funds. There is some good news, I'm gonna be taking care of my Late Grandmother's house until the Spring. With that, I can concentrate on getting my projects done and start some new ones without my father breathing down my neck (He probably thinks that what I do and what I want to do is a waste of time). However, I would like to have this house permanently, but can I really do that even with my finances? Only time will tell. But seeing my work being used and people complimenting me on my work, wheather it would be AT4W or my own, it's enough to bring me back to the land of the living. So stay tuned for more Logos and Intro, and as always, the best has yet to come. Thank you all.

The crazy thing about this event isn’t the Beyonder himself…but that this event played a small part in establishing a VERY VERY IMPORTANT part of The Hulk’s mythos in a tie in. I’m not kidding, the Secret Wars 2 tie in of The Incredible Hulk delved deeply into the trauma Bruce had with his father as a kid, where he established the Savage Hulk persona. Some reading lists for Hulk as a character mark this tie in as crucial reading for the character. …adjacent to an event where the Beyond learns what food and pee is.

The Beyonder has clearly never tried to level up a Magikarp if he thinks you can't get experience from observing.

My pitch for Secret Wars II Abridged: *Beyonder:* _[Appears]_ WHAT IS THE MEANING OF EXISTENCE? *Every Single Marvel Character:* F*** if we know! *Beyonder:* THAT IS GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME! _[Disappears]_

The writer who got those superpowers was meant to mock Steve Gerber, creator of Howard the Duck who got into a heated legal battle with Marvel over the character.

Frank Beyond sounds like a comic character that investigates alien abductions and cryptid sightings

I love how rather than give the Beyonder the voice of a godlike being, His voice is of a crazy man with no volume control. Like the aliens from Galaxy Quest if they suffered a concussion

The Beyonder: "I AM NOW, MY OWN SON!" Immortus: "Been there man, ask Ms. Marvel. No wait, DON'T!"

I feel like there was a very obvious solution to save this premise: Have Doom's actions from Secret Wars be the catalyst for The Beyonder wanting to examine humanity. The whole reason Doom got the opportunity he did to take his powers stemmed from The Beyonder's curiosity as to why Doom did what he did, and you could make up some explanation that retaking his powers from Doom messed with his mental state.

The best tie in to secret wars II where the new mutants issues that came afterwards, dealing with the depression and trauma that the team suffered after having g their existence snuffed out and toyed with by the beyonder. It showed how their new headmaster was ill equipped to deal with it, forcing him to turn to Emma Frost in desperation. Even she couldn’t suppress the trauma telepathically and in the end she and magneto have to slowly help them work through it with therapy. It was a rare example of this kind of thing not being hand waved away and the first time we see Emma as anything more than a conniving villain.

So it’s basically “A Stranger in a Strange Land” then it remembers that it’s a superhero comic in the last two issues

Maybe the reason Cap wore his outfit was because he's getting a superhero discount for his flight

This events feels like a bad 1st draft of the sandman. An omnipotent being interacting with mortal beings to try and understand aspects of existence. A ruler of hell making plans to destroy the main character. The main character falling in love with mortals, and the relationships ending because they can't relate to him. The main character needing to reborn in order to reconcile with the change that they have gone through. I'm not saying the sandman is a ripoff or anything and i'm probably reading way too much into it, but i just thought these connections were weird. Great review as always.

The opening to this Event Comics month DID NOT need to go that hard!

I'm glad "Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur" didn't go this route with The Beyonder. Not even Lawrence Fishburne could make some of this dialogue work.

Beyonder: "Spider-Man taught me an important lesson. That with great water comes a great need to pee." Also, wouldn't it be funny if the Beyonder undid the deal with Mephisto to thank Peter for teaching him how to pee? Also also, I spotted Clark Kent on a TV in Issue #7. Lastly, does the ending mean that Molecule Man created the New Universe/Kickers Incorporated?

Whoever did the intro should be paid extra. It did not need to go that hard.

This comic does remind me of Marville, in the sense that it needs to apologize to the molecules it wasted to exist.

The Iron Giant: What is death? Short Circuit: Do I have self-determination? NieR Automata: What is the point of out life? Pinoccio: How do we define what It means to be human? Secret War 2: Why is food?

I think one reason a lot of people went with Contest of Champions is because they recognized the name from the mobile game, and didn’t think much further than that. Not saying the story is bad (I haven’t read it) that’s just usually how things go

And to quote Peter himself in Mighty Avengers "Oh God why did I teach him to pee?"

I like Vinnie. Dude wasn't in the story long but I like the idea that a crime boss gets access to this unimaginable power, but he actually shows RESTRAINT and doesn't have the Beyonder try to make him king of the world or something. He instead increases his profits without crashing the market, takes care of his employees by curing any injuries or illness they have (including his wife and son), and even prevents him from cheating to win at gambling since he understands the risk of losing is what makes it engaging and the payout better. And at the end HE'S the one who sends the Beyonder off saying he doesn't have anything else he could possibly teach him. You know that if the KINGPIN had met the Beyonder he'd have abused his powers to their fullest extent for as long as possible.

Oh hey. The only time Marvel used Circuit Breaker for anything ever

Wasn't expecting Molecule Man and Volcana to be an absolute highlight this episode.

Honestly, unironically love this story with how weirdly human and chaotic Beyonder development is while playing full potential of all his abilities. Honestly, it is refreshing considering most either try to do Doctor Manhattan apathetic ass or absolute perfect bean who is innocently childish with no real agency, while Beyonder has agency and is selfish, but at the same time developed sense of morality and empathy, while entire Marvel universe is on the ride.

I swear the special event ATFW intro titles are absolutely epic and well made.

Woo! Event Comics Month is always a good time

Now, here's my question: is Spider-Man teaching the Beyonder to pee still less embarrassing than Lex Luthor's jar of Granny's Peach Tea?

The assailant that killed the Hate Monger was a Scourge of the Underworld, part of another storyline going on in the 80s Marvel comics where minor Supervillains got killed off my a disguised gunmen who'd then shout Justice is Served. The Hate Monger was the third victim (after She Hulk villain The Enforce and classic Fantastic Four villain Miracle Man) and there's a lot of evidence to suggest that it was a rogue Scourge Agent working for the Red Skull who performed the hit. Yes I literally came into the comments to say this, I'm a bit of a nerd!

Oh thank Jack, I wasn't the only one thinking "This whole plot sounds weirdly similar to Marville to me. Does this sound weirdly similar to Marville to anyone else?"

The weirdest thing is that all of the stuff involving The Beyonder wanting to discover love with Sharon, Dazzler, & Boom Boom... could have all just been done with Toots, who already came to visibly care for "Frank", thanked him for inspiring her to do something different with her life, and would have made for a perfect person for The Beyonder to experience love with. Toots could have done more or less everything that Dazzler & Boom Boom did with Beyonder, and even Sharon's whole suicide bit could have been done with Toots instead (as unneeded as it was). Just feels like Jim Shooter wanted to have Beyonder fall in love with two superheroines (& an utterly random woman) to pad out the event, instead of simply continuing with what was already an established supporting character in Toots. Could have removed a couple of issues from the length, too!

"And now... I am... my own son!" ... I still don't know how to react to that.

That little bit about Molecule Man realising that his girlfriend must love him for a reason, and thus finding his own self worth was honestly really sweet, I think that's the only bit of this whole story I actually enjoyed, the rest was a SLOG even with your witty commentary. Also, classic Marvel event comic: the title is a lie. WHAT WAR? And it certainly isn't a secret!

Secret Wars, second cousin to Star Wars, distant cousin of Civil Wars.

*Beyonder:* "Brown logs have excreted from my posterior! Why has this occurred?" *Heroes(?):* "Oh, Beyonder! Hahahaha!"

Dear Zero, WHAT THE HECK WAS THAT BADASS TITLE SEQUENCE? HOLY SHIT THAT WAS AWESOME

I'm a simple man, I see a Linkara video, I click on it.

I honestly think this and New Universe were the reasons Jim Shooter was fired from Marvel. He wasn't just writer, but editor-in-chief, so he probably overruled a lot of people who tried to improve things (and I'm saying that as someone who likes Shooter personally and loves a ton of his work).

Honestly not only do i agree theres INSANE potential for a good story/discussion around the beyonder removing death, but also Dave becoming death. A death that was formerly human and thus knows about the pain death can bring, but still carrying out the act? I feel like there's something there- maybe he could even serve as a more human element to the conceptual beings

Secret wars 2015 is probably the best marvel event of the 21st century.

Nothing happens for 8 issues and then a dude kills a baby. WOW! SECRET WARS TWO!!

3:55 Secret Wars is basically a prototype of the Shonen Tournament Arc

NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL OPENING TITLES

This comic was almost worth it for some of the Beyonder's near memetic dialogue in the first few issues and that one bit midway through where all the heroes just fucking bumrush the Beyonder and beat the shit out of him. That was hilarious.

The fact this is the only major event to include the Power Pack makes me sad as one of their 5 fans.

Beyonder: WHY ISNT THE DAZZLER MOVIE SOMETHING THAT EXSITS IN MORE THAN JUST CONCEPT FORM?!

The only thing I can remember from this series besides the one bit was a tie-in issue with Spider Man, where the government refuses to just have a gold building lying around. For whatever reason, the team they call in to dismantle the evidence is GI Joe, led by who is unmistakably Duke. And considering GI Joe was established as its own universe from Day 1, that’s just weird to have the Marvel version of Uncle Sugar call in the Joes.

“Why Is Clothing”, “Why Is Eating” I’ll Do You One Better, wHy iS GAmoRa!

15:14 In answer to this, I fully agree with this suspicion. Cadwall is apparently one big caricature of Steve Gerber. That whole bit about him getting revenge on his editors is probably in reference to Gerber's status as a writer who was also his own editor, and thus had continuous deadline issues. Plus the whole thing with him trying to get the rights to Howard the Duck that followed this. So it's an in-joke that no one reading the comic will get, at a colleague's expense.

It's hysterical that the Moon Girl animated series essentially condensed this down to four or five episodes spread across two seasons AND made the Beyonder actually sympathetic in the process while having an infintely more interesting design. It's amazing what's possible when you dont waste NINE ISSUES going in fucking circles

I feel like this event can be better if it was re-ordered. Combine Dazzler's and Boom-Boom's sections together. Have the Beyonder do the organization thing first, THEN he takes the world after it fails and AFTER the Dazzler and Boom-Boom. Thunderblade can be made as a major villain; perhaps serving as an evil side of humanity while Dave serves as a good side. You can still have the comical and philosophical side, but with Mephisto and Thunderblade working together to have some action and add more conflict.

The experience of reading this comic is a unique and possibly unprecedented combination of sensory inputs I will generously describe as "batshit insane" and "so mind-numbing I want to stick a pencil through both of my eyes just to feel something"

The real tagline for this event should be "IN A TIE-IN ISSUE!"

I was both looking forward to and simultaneously dreading this video. I was the writer in charge of all the Beyonder-related stuff for the last big run of Official Handbooks and am probably the event's biggest (only?) fan. You have to understand, while I dabbled in comics a bit, I only really started getting into buying comics when I was 9 and this series started maybe 3-4 months into that decades-lasting hobby. It and its spin-offs helped introduce me to so much of the MU at the time and I've held a deep fondness for it since. Is it good? Heaven's no. But it was magic to me during the year it was published. - - - A couple of quick notes: A romance between Beyonder and Tabitha as suggested would not have been a good idea as it's stated in the book she's thirteen. Also, regarding 'Dave Shooter' - I'm the one that gave him that name officially. With the Handbooks, it's general practice on "regular" people in the MU who haven't been seen in years and likely won't be to be given names in the HBs (a practice going back to the originals). We generally contact the writers/artists for suggestions first and if that isn't doable, we give them editorially-approved full names. One general practice was to give these minor characters the last names of their creators and I chose to do so with Dave. Seemed fitting in a few ways I don't want to go into here. BTW, in the same Handbook bio, I was given editorial approval to toss Bendis' "Inhumans" crap in the "not real" bin.

now I like the ideia that on top of all the spiderman stuff, Peter also has to deal with godly beings always trying to use his bathroom

This events comics intro is my favorite of the intros so far, absolutely gorgeous work!

Fun Fact: ThunderSword recently appeared in the Captian Marvel tie-in to Civil war 2. Where he gets his ass beat because Ulysses had a vision of him becoming Thunder sword again

coming back to the show just in time to see spiderman train for fatherhood with potty training

Kind of crazy intro. One of the best so far.

It’s amazing how they took arguably one of the most exciting events of all time and followed it up with one of the dullest.

First off awesome new Event comics month intro, second. Are we sure this isn't a comedy because the Beyonder's antics combined with the artwork is just hilarious.

18:48 - “…the Champion of Lies, Injustice, and the American Decay!” - huh, who knew Captain America was actually Bizzaro… 😜

I can't deny, I'm EXACTLY the target audience for this kind of story, at least in theory. I'm always a fan of seeing the world through the eyes of a god-like being. In particular, the point about the Beyonder getting frustrated over the answer about mortality being /why/ life is valuable seems like a clever point, especially from the POV of something like him. Shame about the poor execution, though. I feel like this could have been marginally less annoying had they called it anything else besides "Secret Wars II." It gives you the wrong expectation. I never would guess in a million years this was what a sequel to Secret Wars would have been.

I have to presume the beyonder turned the desk into apples because molecule man turned something into an apple? And the beyonder is basically copying his actions and suggestions to try to gain the same level of inner peace?

My pitch for Secret Wars II is actually to take a subplot from the Infinity War comic, having the heroes fight evil versions of themselves, while the villains fight good versions of themselves. Have the plot be that the Beyonder gets curious about the idea of "good vs evil" and wants to see how the heroes and villains would do against their polar opposite sides, which means having them face off on another Battleworld again. And it wouldn't just entirely be fight sequences for the sake of it, I would dive deep into the characters and having them discuss what they could have been if they had not experienced such events in their lives that helped make them who they are. Like Matt Murdock facing an evil version of himself who had his eyesight but made the wrong decisions. Or Peter Parker facing a version of himself who never lost Uncle Ben but had misused his powers for personal gain. Or even villains who face their counterparts who lived better lives or made different choices despite the circumstances they faced, making them question their own motivations. It's a way to up the stakes and make things more personal for the characters.

Secret Crusade of the Dark Convergence is so metal, I love it. Also that intro is goddamn amazing

All the props for that opening sequence. That totally kicks ass and references all the DC and Marvel events you've reviewed.

The idea of erasing the concept of death is extremely fascinating, but also kinda horrifying- Like, for most life it's probably a good thing, but for people who are say, on a boat that capsizes in the middle of the ocean, and are unfortunate enough to go down with the ship, suddenly there's a bunch of people are the bottom of the ocean that gotta find a way back up, or are potentially just stuck under some debris and can't get out, so they'd just be sitting there until someone finds them who can get them out, if that even happens at all. Now thankfully this is the Marvel Universe, so the odds of that happening are less than they would be in ours. And it's entirely possible that the Beyonder could account for these scenarios somehow, or could adjust things when these scenarios arrive so that people wouldn't be forced to just go insane when stuck in a situation where there's no way out. Either way, I completely agree that it's something worth exploring, discussing, and not just... tossing aside and moving onto the next thing. This could've been the whole second act, and maybe it would've been if it hadn't been so rushed. Like there's a couple of good ideas here, but instead of picking a few and focusing on them, they just decided to do all of them and cut half of them out for tie-ins Maybe I'd think differently if I actually read the book myself, but I'm pretty sure I tried that before and I dropped it before finishing the first issue because ADHD and sluggish pacing do not mix

Another chapter in Jim Shooter's recurring obsession with persecuted deities. Whether they're called Korvac, the Beyonder, Solar, or Erica Pierce, the story's always the same: "trust the person with absolute power, they're really doing the best they can." . . .but this one has Spidey potty training the Almighty.

THE COSMIC CUBE CAN DO ANYTHING! Can it make a follow-up to Secret Wars that doesn't suck?

The 1987 New Universe line was what was created by the death of the Beyond at the End of Secret Wars II. There is a type of comic book buyer that has a completist mind set. Think this was Marvel's first test to see how far they could go with ty-ins to cash in on completist or deny sales to D.C. at that time.

Perfect thumbnail, exactly what i needed

90 mins, holy crap! This is a hell of a treat.

For context doc, he activated Rachel Summer's full power with a boop on her forehead, then summoned a group of future sentinels, the kind that killed the X-men in her timeline, into being and forced her to face them down. Hell, just think about how many people he harmed, inconvenienced to straight up killed throughout the story because he has no real understanding of the consequences of his own actions. In every sense of the word, he's like that kid from the Twilight Zone who vanished the whole world outside of his own small town and kept sending people to the cornfield because they pissed him off.

Ok...HUGE props to the animator for that intro, it's on the level of the opening credits for the actual DC/WB made credits for the animated Crisis movies that came out this year! Excellent job!

This felt more like a origin story/prequel for the Beyonder... Look a God like entity comes to our dimension for the first time,tries to understand humanity, goes nuts and then creates the original Secret wars as a advanced experiment

"Both, if it's Taco Bell." Okay, that got a sensible chuckle!

You forgot the most recent and currently used retcon, The Beyonders are a God like species from outside the Multiverse and he's a baby Beyonder who was pulled to the Marvel Universe by Molecule Man's creation in what was essentially a premature birth.

Fun fact: in Spain, when they brought Marvel back, they published both events together along with every tie-in as its own series. This included issues from collections that would never be translated into Spanish from Marvel, like Dazzler and the Heroes for Hire. So when my parents bought me those comics, I got to know so much about the Marvel universe without ever reading anything else than spiderman and the X-Men. The collection also included the New Mutants tie-in, which was one of the most frightening and upsetting issues I've ever read in my entire life.

Oh damn, Event Month. It's an event in of itself, now.

As someone who learns the contents of these events solely through the AT4W reviews, I was quite shocked and baffled by this event. With so many perplexing decisions, I couldn't help but to think "What were they thinking?!" in the classic AVGN-style. If you didn't mention that it was the same writer who was also EiC at the time, I would've guessed this to be a rushjob forced upon a C-tier Marvel writer to make some quick cash.

I remember reading "The Unofficial History of the Marvel Universe" which covered the level of "Meta" in this story. Much like Marville was! You hit on a lot of the points without even knowing the horrible backstory they share!

Considering that according to the current Venom comic, obtaining a symbiote was the beginning of Peter's ascent to the status of one of the main gods of the cosmos, the King in Black (the path from which he was knocked down), I would say that this is a very significant prize.

For one of my birthdays, my dad got me the whole runs of Secret Wars One AND Two. Great gifts.

The Beyonder: Who should I pick as my oshi: Gawr Gura or Pekora Usada? Wolverine: You're askin' the wrong guy, bub. Go ask Deadpool. The Beyonder: OK! [Disappears] *Later...* The Beyonder: [Appears] So, who should I pick as my- Deadpool: Suisei, duh!

If Marvel can make Molecule Man somehow responsible for the existence of Kang the Conqueror they'd have turned two of their time loops into a Time Disney Logo. Which seems fitting.

Love how Volcana gets called a cow for being slightly wider than the average superlady.

I think Viga needs an award for this title card LMAO

"The experience is consumated!" is a great line out of context, imma say that any time I save my game in No More Heroes now

My birthday was yesterday, so I will accept this as a late gift~ Beyonder's lucky he didn't try any of this in the DC universe, where his difficulty in understanding desire could've led him to the Endless of the same name~

Also this comic reminds me of the conversations of what people would do with functional immortality/respawning mechanics... and the answer is basically "GTA 5 online multiplayer but in real life". Leaping off of buildings just to see if you can, using "respawning" as a shortcut, etc.

Secret Wars II is one of those comic events that made me ask Why. I legit don’t know why… any of this… even Genesis, maybe DC’s actual worst event, I understood was made. Why was Secret Wars II… THIS?!

1:26:15 OOOOF… As I watched this, I was thinking “A Marvel event comic if it was written by Tom King”, especially with its bizarre comedic tone early on, but this is a MUCH stronger comparison

Linkara: What do you think of the theory that the new universe created by The Beyonder is in fact 'The New Universe'?

I keep thinking of the Mr. Neutron episode of Monty Python. "The most dangerous man in the universe...he really is..."

I don't know how much you're paying ZeroRyoko for this, but it's clearly not enough, because this opening is a BANGER!

Title sequence is A BANGER!!!!!

also yay I am so happy event comics month is finally happening because I love Event comics month its such a fun month for me at least in my opinion. :)

... Linkara is clearly trying to resist having a Harris BomberGuy or DefunctLand length video... and succeeding...

Event comics month!!! Looking forward to seeing this, dude!!