In the final chapter to the most-earth-shattering crossover that the 1980's had to offer,
SECRET WARS, Doom is triumphant and has just struck a fatal blow to the heroes, destroying them all with his stolen omnipotence in one swift stroke.
Star Wars reference achievement unlocked, by the way.
While the villains head back to Earth under the power of the Molecule Man, Doom is master of Battleworld. However, he finds the power he now bears almost more than he can handle. He falls asleep and accidentally unleashes the Beyonder's power...almost destroying existence. Klaw, (kind of out of his mind-ind-ind) tells Doom a tale of how the heroes could be brought back.
The beautiful healer Zsaji finds Colossus and restores him at the cost her own life. Colossus then finds the less-damaged form of Reed Richards and places him in the healing machines he created and then restores him. Reed Richards, back from the dead, then restores the remaining heroes.
No sooner does Klaw finish his tale and the hammer of THOR explodes through Doom's sanctuary. Klaw (harboring a small piece of what is left of the Beyonder in his mind) convinces Doom to give him a fraction of the all-power to help fight the heroes back. Doom holds his own until the last vestige of the BEYONDER reveals himself and rips his power back from Doom. The BEYONDER then transforms DOOM back into his original form and transports he and Klaw away from Battleworld.
The heroes are then left alone to pick up the pieces. His shield broken, CAPTAIN AMERICA gathers up all the fragments of the legendary weapon and (with the help of some of the scraps of the Beyonder's power scattered on the battlefield) puts his shield back together. Ben Grimm reveals he wants to stay on Battleworld and She-Hulk will be replacing him on the team for now. In fact, many of the heroes will be dealing with the impact of SECRET WARS for a while.
This is one of my favorite comics of all-time. I think it speaks to just how good and pure a good old fashioned hero vs villain battle can be. It didn't need a gazillion variant covers. It just needed a good story. Often this series was considered "heavy" if one considers a children's toy line associated it. (Looking back on issue #10 in particular when Beyonder dissected Doom's body to study it after a brutal battle.) There was many classic subplots that came out of SECRET WARS, such as Spider-Man's alien suit, the creation of VOLCANA and TITANIA and the Bruce Banner slowly losing his control over the HULK.
We won't talk about the MAGNETO/WASP romance.
I don't own the entire series, but I do own this individual comic and keep it as a "comfort read." I look forward to the complete SECRET WARS set coming this summer as well as the SECRET WARS summer event from MARVEL this year as well. Great way to get excited about it is going back and rereading this awesome series that started it all.
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