by We figure out what stories Marvel will adapt at the end of the sixth phase.
At Comic-Con 2022, Marvel announced two new Avengers movies coming out in 2025, Kang Dynasty and Secret Wars. These will be the first pictures of the team since Endgame, and the heroes will face an even larger threat than Thanos with the Infinity Gauntlet.
The films will, of course, be based on the comics of the same name. We will tell you everything you need to know about these arches.
Table of Contents
Classic “Secret Wars”
Marvel released three global stories at once under the name “Secret Wars”. The first consisted of 12 issues and came out in 1984 and 1985. According to the plot, a mysterious entity named the Otherworldly transferred a couple of dozen heroes and villains to a separate planet.
Among the positive characters were several Avengers (Captain America, Iron Man, Hulk and others), three members of the Fantastic Four (Reed Richards, Creature, Human Torch), X-Men (Charles Xavier, Magneto, Cyclops, Wolverine and others), as well as several lone heroes (Spider-Man, Spider-Woman, She-Hulk).
The roster of villains was also impressive. Besides the obscure Devourer, Molecule Man, and Enchantress, the Beyonder has chosen Doctor Doom, Octopus, Kang the Conqueror, Ultron, and even Galactus himself.
The mysterious entity wanted heroes and villains to fight each other to the death. The winner could make any wish to the Otherworld, which he would fulfill. Interestingly, the parties were provided with bases and combat vehicles for the war.
Among the villains, Doctor Doom immediately became the leader, but it was not so easy for the heroes to organize themselves. Moreover, the Avengers and the X-Men did not trust each other, so the mutant team acted independently on several issues.
For half of the story, the sides actually fought each other, as the Beyonder intended. Along the way, a couple of new villains appeared (Titania and Vulcan), and Spider-Man merged with the symbiote and received the iconic black suit. Parker, on the other hand, was unaware of the equipment’s shortcomings.
It soon became obvious to the heroes that the greatest danger was Galactus, who decided to do what he did best—”eat” the planet on which the Secret War took place. The Avengers and the X-Men managed to delay the catastrophe, but Doctor Doom took advantage of the situation, absorbing the powers of Galactus.
After that, Doom decided to challenge the Beyonder himself. To everyone’s surprise, the villain managed to cope with the cosmic entity and take possession of its abilities. Victor von Doom has become the most powerful being in the universe, capable of destroying worlds with the power of his mind.
Doom seemed to be acting sensibly. He knew what he was capable of, and he was going to restrain his power. He even offered superheroes to fulfill their wishes, but they refused. However, Captain America noticed that Doom contradicted his words.
The villain assured us that he had become a higher being who was not interested in worldly worries and new conquests. However, he was still going to save his mother’s spirit from Mephisto’s realm. Cap noted that a creature that is above human passions would not think about such a thing. As a result, the heroes decided that no one should have such power—especially a psychologically unstable villain.
The Avengers and the X-Men were about to challenge Doom, but the villain killed them all before the battle began. However, Victor did not rejoice for long: the heroes returned to life with the help of a healer who lived on the planet, and devices that healed wounds.
During the battle, Doom still could not cope with the new abilities, and then the surviving particles of the Otherworld took away its powers. After solving the problem with the villain, the heroes teleported back to Earth. The first Secret Wars were over.
Critics didn’t really appreciate Secret Wars, but readers liked the story. Moreover, the comic has become the best-selling over the past 25 years. Therefore, a couple of months after the end of the arc, Marvel began to publish the second part.
In it, the Beyonder comes to Earth in order to study people. He created a human body for himself, learned about the habits and laws of earthlings, and fell in love, but in the end, the plot still boiled down to the threat of the destruction of the multiverse and the battle of superheroes with the Otherworld.
Marvel has published nine issues of the main series and dozens of tie-ins. Secret Wars II was the best-selling comic book of 1985, but fans will remember the plot as one of the most disappointing in Marvel history. Perhaps a sequel to Secret Wars is the very definition of an optional sequel.
There have been three Secret Wars in the comics. In Fantastic Four #318–319, Doom and the Four traveled to the dimension of the Beyonder and learned that it was connected to the Cosmic Cube and Molecular Man. At the end, the villain became one with the latter.
Modern “Secret Wars”
In 2015, Marvel launched another Secret Wars, but the new plot was noticeably different from the original. First of all, it was the denouement of a long arc about the destruction of the multiverse.
The Avengers and the Illuminati were unable to prevent Earth-616 from colliding with the Ultimate World, so everything came to an end. Only a few heroes survived, thanks to Reed Richards’ high-tech Ark. The Same, by the way, was built by a version of the hero from a parallel universe.
When the Earths collided, the mysterious Battleworld (World of Battles) arose on their ruins.It turned out to be a huge planet, created from bits of different realities. As a result, there was a civil war between superheroes in one region, and zombies lived in another.
In total, more than 40 territories were formed on the new planet, each of which was ruled by its own baron. Residents could move between them, but the authorities did not recommend doing so. All regions obeyed the creator and god of the Battleworld, Victor von Doom.
It later turned out that before the death of the Doom universes, with the help of Stephen Strange and the Molecular Man, he challenged the Otherworldly, a race of omnipotent space creatures. They were conducting an experiment in which they sought to destroy the entire multiverse at once. Interestingly, the organizers of the first Secret Wars were eventually made to be their descendants.
Doom managed to destroy the Beyonders and obtain their powers, with which he created Battleworld. On this planet, he made Sue Storm his wife, and her children considered the villain to be their father. Yes, he was still haunted by the life of his former friend, Reed Richards.
The legion of Thors and Stephen Strange, who received the posts of sheriff and chief judge, helped Doom keep order. He appointed as barons mainly villains-the Apocalypse, Sinister and others. Doom ruled the planet for about eight years.
But nothing lasts forever, and heroes and villains from the shattered universes end up in the Battleworld.On the first ark were Mister Fantastic, Black Panther, Captain Marvel, Star-Lord, Spider-Man, Thor (Jane Foster), and Cyclops, who has the power of the Phoenix.
The second was Reed Richards from the Ultimate Universe, Thanos with his minions, Namor, Maximus from the Inhumans, and Miles Morales. Almost all of them contributed to the victory over Doom.
For example, Jane Foster infiltrated the ranks of the Thors and lured some dissenters to her side, and Maximus organized an uprising against Doom.
The heroes were also helped by Strange, who, as it turned out, remembered the existence of the past universe. Among other things, he gave Black Panther the Gauntlet of Infinity. However, Doom killed the magician without forgiving the betrayal.
But in the end, everything ended well. Reed Richards of Earth-616 challenged Doom inside the chamber where the latter’s power was stored, and the Marvel Universe returned to its place. Surely her recovery was not without the Infinity Stones that the Black Panther had.
However, the new universe was still different from the previous one in that, for example, Peter Parker and Miles Morales now lived in the same world.
The multiverse is also back. This was done by Mister Fantastic with the help of Molecule Man and his son Franklin. Doctor Doom also survived. Moreover, now there were no scars on his face.
The Battlerealm itself has not disappeared. Later, the Elders of the universe discovered it and began to organize fights between fighters from different universes there. As a result, the planet was restored by one of the finalists in the battle-Maestro.
“The Kang Dynasty”
Kang the Conqueror was a time traveler from the XXX century who spent most of his life doing nothing but subjugating civilizations in different worlds and timelines. Of course, once his attention was attracted by the Earth at the beginning of the XXI century.
Kang arrived in the world of the Avengers along with his son, the Scarlet Centurion. First, they showed the earthlings all the options for their future; according to him, in any case, humanity was waiting for death. The villain had been everywhere, so he knew better.
Kang offered the inhabitants of the Earth to surrender to his mercy, and then he would protect the planet from all troubles. The traveler was going to rule with an iron fist, but, according to him, it was a small price for salvation.
Kang immediately announced that those who fight at his side would definitely find a place in the new world. So he hoped that people would focus on war with each other, and he could conquer the Earth without any problems.
Villains in different parts of the planet immediately began to attack earthlings, and Kang himself destroyed the UN headquarters to show the seriousness of his intentions. After that, he went to his space base, called “Damocles.” In shape, it resembled a sword, so the name of the villain was not chosen by chance
A protracted war began, in which the Avengers fought numerous villains and found new allies. The biggest consequence of the arc is that Kang was able to destroy several cities with the entire population (for example, Washington) and seriously batter many countries.
At that moment, he really could be called the ruler of the Earth.
When the Avengers attacked Kang’s spaceship, the villain completely stopped restraining himself, threatening to destroy the city in an hour until the heroes surrender. However, the planet’s defenders managed to destroy the Damocles engine, and the ship fell to Earth.
Kang, of course, survived, and in the final battle, he met with Captain America. Rogers easily overpowered the wounded and demoralized villain.
After that, Kang was imprisoned, from where he was soon rescued by the Scarlet Centurion. The villain, of course, was a little grateful for the salvation, but still killed his son. The latter was revealed to have helped Carol Danvers during the war, and this resulted in Kang’s defeat.
It immediately became clear that Kang had more than 20 sons before the Centurion, but all of them failed to live up to his expectations. At the end of the story, he ordered the computer to create another one.
As we can see, “Secret Wars” and “Kang Dynasty” are global stories that cannot be filmed verbatim. Therefore, Marvel Studios will probably seriously rethink them: this has happened more than once in the Infinity Saga.
If Kang turns out to be the main villain of the upcoming phases, then he will most certainly be at the center of both crossovers. I wonder how the writers will do this because the character has practically nothing to do with Secret Wars. Kang only appeared in the classic story, but was quickly killed by Doctor Doom for insubordination and then brought back to life.
But it is possible that Doom will also play one of the key roles in the new Avengers. By then, there will be a Fantastic Four movie that won’t be an origin story. We probably have a chance to see Doom in his prime in a couple of years.
