Marvel's Teasers: A Comprehensive Look

Recently, Marvel announced a new comic event Secret Wars, named after the classic story from thirty years ago. With the creative team of Jonathan Hickman and Esad Ribic, it will essentially play as the explosive finale to Hickman’s amazing Avengers/New Avengers run. Both comics – New Avengers especially – have dealt with alternate realities being destroyed due to the impending collapse of the multiverse. While we don’t know the full details of what this event’s going to bring, we do know that it’s going to include a whole lot of alternate realities that we would have heard of.

The cover itself is a who’s who of alternate worlds, showing us the likes of Miles Morales Spider-Man, Earth X’s Black Panther, Iron Man Noir, American Dream, and many others.

This was all brought up at New York Comic Con, as it should be because that’s where you’re supposed to announce stuff like that. Then it got a little weird once the show was over. Marvel’s PR folks have been sending out their usual press release emails, but with one awkward difference: they’d just send us a cover and no context whatsoever. No write-up or even a paragraph. Just, “Here’s your news! Have fun with it!”

It started with this cover for Civil War.

Yes, Civil War, the 2006 event that may or may not be the subject of the next Captain America movie. It looks like it would be any given Civil War cover. Iron Man, Captain America, and especially Spider-Man are in their duds from that time, the theme of Cap vs. Iron Man with Spidey in the middle is apparent, it’s done by Adi Granov, and it even has the style of making the bottom half white space. So simple, yet so curious. What could it mean?

I mean, yes, Captain America and Iron Man are on the outs these days, but Steve’s an old man and Tony’s changed armor various times over. Not to mention red and gold Spider-Man. It’s not like they’d just redo the story in regular continuity. Could it be some kind of special omnibus rerelease? Are they going to do another What If story? If so, why so cryptic?

The popular theory was that it would have to do with Hickman’s Secret Wars. Perhaps, with all this multiversal destruction going on, we’ll see a world just like 616, only Civil War is going on now or simply never ended. Imagine if the whole Illuminati plot from New Avengers was going on during Civil War! God, that would be an interesting wrench in continuity. It would be like What If: Annihilation (one of my all-time favorite comic issues) where Nova shows up to see everyone slugging it out over secret identities and chewing them out because, “Do you have any idea what’s coming for us?!”

Then there’s Age of Ultron vs. Marvel Zombies, also advertised for summer of 2015. Unlike Civil War, this one’s believable as an actual new storyline that Marvel would give us. Just...not in such a mysterious way without any context. The cover shows only zombies based on supervillains, though some have notably been killed off in the main Marvel Zombies books (Red Skull and Rhino, especially). Ultron is one of the few characters who the zombie virus plot device couldn’t infect because he’s in no way organic. It’s kind of a perfect evil vs. evil setup where each side wants the other annihilated so they can in turn wipe out humanity.

In fact, when you think of it that way, it’s a wonderful contrast to the key point of Civil War where it's hero vs. hero. What if there’s an incursion between these two worlds and we’ll have to see them fight each other? Maybe I’m getting a bit too ahead of myself with the speculation.

Heh. This one’s kind of funny. From the five pieces of the image, it’s obvious that this is a faithful retelling ofDays of Future Past. As far as I can tell, there’s nothing off about it. Even has a rare appearance by Destiny of all people!

But I lied. There is something off about it. The title. Years of Future Past. All the other teasers use the names of actual Marvel event stories, even if they have nothing to do with the original. They could have called the previous one Ultron vs. Marvel Zombies, but they specifically tossed in the Age of Ultronname. So what’s the deal? Why not just call it Days of Future Past?

Most likely is that this is part of Marvel’s current editorial mandate to undermine the properties that they don’t own the movie rights to. Yes, it will be an X-Men comic. Yes, it will be based on the same story that the recent movie was. No, they do not want to remind you that that movie exists because to Hell with Fox. If changing the title gives Fox less of a spotlight, then they’ll do it.

At least, that’s the theory.

Oh my God. Oh. My. GOD.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

1) Barbarian Captain America with a badass axe!

2) Devil Dinosaur for some reason!

3) I think that’s Elektra as a Hulk?

4) The Incredible Hulk Hogan!

5) Gray Abomination really wants a piece of shirtless Cap, but damn it, Elektra, you’re getting in the way!

6) Not only is there a Hulk with muttonchops, but there are TWO – count ‘em – TWO Hulks with handlebar mustaches! And the other one doesn’t want any part of this.

Even if this doesn’t have anything to do with Secret Wars, I’m buying this one based on cover alone because goddamn!

“Tony, we need your help figuring out a way to stop the incursions.”

“Sorry, I was too busy building armor for Galactus. What’s up?”

Then again, it might be Galactus-Buster Armor. We saw the same thing in Tony’s Marvel vs. Capcom 3 ending, though probably not so tall. And not blowing up the Statue of Liberty.

It’s hard to say how symbolic this cover is or if it’s as advertised. Just a world where Stark’s inventions have gone too far and are battling it out while causing massive damage to the planet itself. Is the threat the fault of a villain or simply the Stark AI gone mad? Are there people inside the armor or is it a hollow free-for-all? Guess we'll find out in nine months or so.

Much like Civil War, this one’s pretty on the nose. All the same character designs we know and love from the old miniseries. Well, except for Magneto’s outfit. Marvel’s had to distance themselves from House of M Magneto’s duds when Spanish royalty got all snippy about it being a blatant copy of King Juan Carlos’ uniform.

Coincidentally, this wouldn’t be the first time Marvel’s revisited the House of M world. Years after the miniseries ended, they released several tie-ins that explained such events as the rise of Magneto (Civil War: House of M), the creation of Luke Cage’s team of heroes (House of M: Avengers), and a story about the Hood leading all the non-mutant supervillains into making a stand for human rights (House of M: Masters of Evil). I wouldn’t mind another trip.

Ah, now this picture says a lot. I mean, it says a lot when Star-Lord being there is the least interesting part of the image. In the foreground, we have a family of Novas. No doubt, this is the Alexander family: Jesse, Eva, Sam, and Kaelynn. Rather than Jesse being a drunken former Nova who goes missing, passing the mantle to his son, the entire family is in on the fun.

Speaking of Nova, is it just me or is Thanos’ headgear a bit of a hybrid of his classic helmet and the Nova design? Either way, the more important thing is his gauntlet. It’s incomplete. Looks like he only has the Mind and Time Gems in his possession. Perhaps the only thing keeping him from completing the collection is the Alexander family and maybe Star-Lord.

It’s tragic when you think about it. The best-case scenario would be for Thanos to get the whole set of Infinity Gems. If an incursion is coming, the Gauntlet would at least be able to stave it off at the cost of most of the Gems in one fell swoop. By keeping it out of his hands, the Novas are only dooming themselves quicker.

We’ll see how much more juice Marvel has with their little teasers and how long until they stop with the promos. Perhaps we’ll see some Secret Invasion or Fear Itself action in the near future. Summer 2015 is going to be an interesting time.

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