With the traumatic effects of SECRET WARS #1 buzzing around in the back of my head, I have suddenly had the urge to check out other moments in Marvel Mythology that looked like the 616 Universe was toast.
I came across
MARVEL: THE END #1 (written and drawn by the legendary
JIM STARLIN) and was drawn in right away merely by the cover...which shows THANOS, bursting with energy around pretty much everyone of relevance in the time at MARVEL (including Snowbird of Alpha Flight, which you have to look REALLY close to see her)
The story was published in 2003 and is a loose sequel to events laid out in Starlin's INFINTY ABYSS limited series. The comic reads very much like an episode of
HOUSE OF CARDS as Thanos narrates the tale in a very Frank Underwood-like way of a pharaoh in Egypt named
Akhenaten. A self-proclaimed prophet for a God called Aten, Akhenaten was taken off into space and never seen again.
Fast forward to our time, and heroes are beginning to have visions of Akhenaten's return to Earth and the former herald of GALACTUS, the
SILVER SURFER runs into a SHI'AR armada that has been decimated by Akhenaten's forces on the trip back home.
As the X-MEN are gathering forces in preparation, a blast of cosmic energy destroys Xavier's School.
When the combined might of the FANTASTIC FOUR and the AVENGERS prepare to face Akhenaten when he arrives on Earth, they are wiped out and placed in transparent crosses, hovering throughout NEW YORK CITY.
So yeah, things look pretty grim right out of the gate in this series.
These later issues by STARLIN aren't terrible, but they don't seem to capture the magic of other cosmic tales he's spun in the past. I'm reminded of
UNITY 2000, a series that JIM SHOOTER and JIM STARLIN headlined for ACCLAIM COMICS at the turn of the 21st century that was never even completed due to Acclaim's bankruptcy. That doesn't mean it's terrible...it's just not one I think is a necessary read like
INFINITY GAUNTLET or even INFINITY WAR.
Still, the covers are interesting enough for the remaining issues that I want to see how this whole things plays out. So it's back into the Abyss (no pun intended) to check out more!
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