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The first issue of Marvel’s brand new Secret Wars shipped in May of this year and was originally scheduled to conclude in eight issues. However, it now looks like Jonathan Hickman and Esad Ribic’s epic has been delayed into next year. According to the Diamond Distributors, Secret Wars ninth and final issue now has a January 6th street date.  

With each event in Marvel publishing ending with cliffhangers for other titles being published, will all the surprises in the last issue of Secret Wars be spoiled before readers are treated to the final issue? The All-New All-Different relaunches are already in full swing, and we’re witnessing the post-Secret Wars world before the end of the journey that was supposed to start it all.  The biggest reveal was given to readers in Invincible Iron Man #1, where a key Secret Wars antagonist was reintroduced to the Marvel Universe. Other reveals extend to titles like Silver Surfer and several Avengers titles.

The Beat has been taking a look at each Marvel title the week that series debuts, assessing quality of the various relaunches, and Secret Wars’ seeming need to go unfinished has become a running joke for the column.

To be honest, we here at The Beat don’t want to see the conclusion of Secret Wars until it is truly good and ready. Hickman’s Avengers saga has culminated into a massive crescendo with the publishing event and it’s something that deserves to be celebrated. If the celebration means letting Hickman and Ribic take their time fleshing out a weighty script and lush visuals, we say let ’em have it!

Marvel’s response to the delays of Secret Wars reflect a change in policy since Civil War, where crossover delays there saw the publisher put some of their line on hold while waiting for the event to finish. 

Is Marvel doing the right thing in letting Ribic and Hickman take their time with the Secret Wars conclusion?

5 COMMENTS

  1. Considering that the original Secret Wars debuted the same month as all of the epilogues in the regular series (Amazing Spider-Man #252, Fantastic Four #265), it doesn’t seem to be much of a concern.

    Typically, in heroic fiction, you know the hero is going to win.
    What you don’t know, is HOW the hero wins.

  2. But is there room for such a basis in a series where the villains are the heroes, and whose entire basis is founded on a premise that this time the heroes can’t win and the best they can hope for is to minimize the losses.

    Regardless of any win, the entire sum total of all life of all multiverses — sure, nameless, faceless nonhero also-rans — was reduced to two shipfuls of survivors. So, a non-win win?

    Silly But True

  3. Issue #1 was released in May, issue #9 is slated for January, and people are upset because they’re getting nine issues in… nine months? If anyone’s to blame here, it’s Marvel and their ever-ambitious shipping schedule.

  4. If Events/Crossovers are such money makers, why the heck don’t the big two spend more time prepping them and making sure the main series will be on time?

  5. Late is late and people have better things to do than wait… snarly comments such as “then don’t but/wait come”, people have to bear in mind that publishers should learn to respect the dwindling fan base and work in a professional manner… but then again, this is the comic book industry where being unprofessional is a by law and where companies can always screw the blind sheep-like fan base who really believe that a corporations like marvel/disney owe them loyalty for years of patronisation… oh well, the old books still stand better and were better read than this tripe…

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